Morning journal and courier., 1886-06-24
1s Medicine a Progressive ssienees

From the Eortnlghtly R6VleW.I
 There is still doubt vast amount of suffering and disease among us, but it would
 be folly to deny that the difference between
 the past and the present is immense. The stethoscope has made it as easy to detect a damaged heart or an inefficient lung as
 broken leg. The ophthalmoscope enables us
 to explore the innermost recesses of the eye,
 while with the laryngoscope we can have oc-
 ular proof of the condition of the windpipe.
 The microscope enlightens us to the true na-
 ture of growths, and such timely informa-
 tion often makes it possible to check their
 development. Anesthetics have robbed surgery of all it's cruelty and half it's danger; they have moreover extended it's sphere of action, for operations are now frequently
 performed which formerly could not have
 been attempted. The introduction of the antiseptic method has largely increased the proportion of recoveries after severe wounds and mutilations, and has also done much to insure the safety of the lying-in chamber. The necessity of cutting for stone is now ob- viated by measures which involve neither pain nor serious risk, and there can be little doubt that the operation will in the course of the next fifty years become obsolete in civilized countries. Smallpox is no longer OAAOS was while it is scarcely taken into account as possible danger of life by ordinary peo- ple Typhoid fever still claims many vio- tims, though it is being gradually driven off the field by enlightened hygiene; typhus is almost unknown except in the lowest and most squalid haunts of poverty Madness is now treated as bodily disease, not as a curse of God or spite of the devil, the result being large proportion of recoveries, and infinitely less suffering among the incurable. A like imp1 ovement Is seen in other branch es of the medical art. The loathsome con- pounds-invented, one might suppose, by a council of gheuls and scavengers- which
 used to be ordered, no longer vex the palates
 or upheave the stomaehs of unfortunate pa tients; the active principle of the most i'm portant remedies has been separated, so that the agent can be administered in purer and
 more efficient form, while the physiological action of the drug is determined by expert
 ment and is taken as the index of it's thera-
 peutic value. Less physic is given, but it is prescribed with clearer purpose. Better still, more attention is paid te diet and the hygienic surroundings of the patient, and above all nature is less incumbered with the officious help of blind ally who insists on aiding her with zeal that is not according to knowledge. The truth has at last been
 borne in on the medical mind that many dis eases run certain definite course which
 no medicine has an effect for good, though it may have for evil and that accordingly @ policy of masterly inactivity is the wisest in snch cases. The physical changes wrought
 by disease and the morbid processes which give rise to them are now to certain extent accurately known, and this field of inquiry
 promises to be increasingly fruitful of solid
 result. Some scattered rays of light too ale
 beginning to pierce the shroud of darkness
 which formerly made the origin of disease
 more impenetrable mystery than the source of the Nile This marks one of the greatest
 advances in the history of medicine, and it's
 practical importance is obviously inealcula-
 ble The cause clearly known, the effect can often be removed, or better still prevent ed. Specific fevers may possibly be banished from among men, and even those fell scourges, consumption aud cancer, may in course of time be stamped out. One disease after another is traced to the action of or ganisns infnitesimal in size, but having an
 almost ineonceivable power of self multipi-
 cation. From leprosy to @ cold in the head
 the tconqueror worm" is credited with the
 generation of almost every form of disorder;
 where it has not yet been found it is sus-
 pected. In word the sign Bacillus is in the ascendant in the medical Armament.