The Dickinson press., 1891-10-31
ADVANCE IN MEDICINE
REMARKABLE PROGRESS MADE TO
PREVENT DISEASES.
Tho Improvement in Medical Science Has
Been In Three Distinct Dircctions-Nc-
eessity of Cleanliness Is the Greatest

centuries" said DR.. Osler, "medicine has
progressed with extraordinary rapidity,
and even within the present generation
has undergone a complete revolution.
The advance has been in three directions.
First, in the prevention of disease. A
study of the conditions under which cpl
denies develop has led to the important
work of sanitary science. For fifty
years the watchword of the profession
in this matter has been 'cleanliness;' and
clean streets, good drains and pure wa
ter have in many towns reduced the
mortality from certain diseases so per
cent.
"ln this department certainly medi-
cine has achieved its greatest victories.
1t is a thought full of encouragement
to know that such diseases as typhoid
fever and d%iphtheria may ultimately be
stamped out and be as rare among us as
leprosy and smallpox. In this work the
profession requires and can often obtain
the intelligent cooperation of city au
thorities and the public. People scarce
ly understand how much has already
been done, nor do they yet appreciate
the possibilities of preventive medicine.
PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.
THE second great advance which
medicine has made relates to the knowl-
edge which has been gained of the agents
producing diseases. Dating from the
studies on fermentation by Pasteur, and
the early work of Lister, we have gradu-
ally learned to recognize the importance
of the structures known as bacteria,
which has revolutionized the practice of
surgery and gynecology. Today surgery
is a new art, and hundreds now recover
after operations from which hundreds
previously died. The information which
we now have on these subjects has been
slowly and painfully acquired, here a
little and there a little; but the outcome
of it all is that as clean streets and good
drains and pure water mean municipal
health, so absolute cleanliness and abb
sence of contamination mean in great
part freedom from infection.
$50 universally present are the infect
i've agents, particularly Of suppuration,
that it is only by the most scrupulous
care that the infection of wounds can he
prevented, and it is now generally ac-
knowledged that the highest type of this
antisepticism is obtained, not by the
use Of various solutions which destroy
the germs, but by such measures of clean
illness us effectually prevent the possibil-
ity of their presence.
The researches showing the relation
of special microscopic organisms to spec
ial diseases are likely to lead to the most
important results. The cultivation of
the germs of disease outside of the body
has enabled us to study the products of
their growth and in several instances
from them to obtain materials which,
when injected into an animal, act as a
sort of vaccine against the disease itself.
The hope of obtaining in some of the
most important diseases vaccines which,
will bear the same relation to them as
ordinary vaccine to smallpox is very
reasonable and likely ere long to be real
lied. In another direction, too, the
studies Of Koch have shown that in the
| growth of these bacilli materials are OBJ
tanned which may act most powerfully
upon the body and attack the elements
of the disease itself. His discovery of
the action of the product of the growth
of the tubercle bacilli upon t%uberculous
tissue ranks as one of the most remark
able of late years.
CHANCES OF LIVING ARE BETTER.
But hear the householder say: AL
that is very we'll, but Tommy gets the
measles and Mary has the mumps and
Susie gets the whooping cough just as
my grandmother tells me her children
had fifty years ago. My doctors bills
are possibly a little larger than were
fathers, and know his drug bill could
not have been as heavy as mine for the
last quarter This may be perfectly
true, for the millennium has not yet come,
but it is perfectly true that today Mrs.
H~ouseholder's risks have been reduced to
a minimum in the necessary domestic
emergencies, and her children's chances
of reaching maturity have been enor-
mously enhanced.
THE third great advance has been the
diffusion in the profession and among
the public of more rational ideas upon
the treatment of disease. Dieting and
nursing have supplanted in great part
bleeding and physicking. We know now
that a majority of febrile affections run
a definite course u~ninfluenced by drugs.
We recognize daily the great fact that
disease is only a modification of the nor
NAL processes of health, and that there
is a natural tendency to recover. We
cannot claim in the medicinal treatment
of disease to have made great positive
advances, still we have learned not to
do what we did is for the poor patients
a great gain. The past half century
has placed only a half dozen absolutely
indis pensable drugs which must be used
by all Unfortunately who practice the
healing art.
ga desire to take medicine is perhaps
the great feature which distinguishes
man from other animals. Why this ap-
petite should have developed. how it
could have grown to its present dimen-
sions, what it will ultimately reach, are
interesting problems too deep for me.
Some of the brightest hopes of hui
manity are with the medical profession.
Disease will always be with us, but we
may look forward confidently to the
time when cpidemics shall be no more,
when typhoid shall be as rare as typhus
and tuberculosis as leptosy. Man, nat
urally Il transgressor daily, both in ig-
! nOrance and deliberately breaking the
laws of health. will always need doc
tors, but the great get up of preventable
diseases will disappear. The progress
will be gradual. What has been done
is but an earnest Of the things that shall
ba done. Amid many disappointments
". must not be impatient. Science
moves but slowly. slowly creeping from
point to point.'-Baltimore Sun.