The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-04-03
ADVANCE IN MEDICINE.
REMARKABLE PROGRESS MADE TO
PREVENT DISEASES.

The improvement in Medical Science Has
Been in Three Distinct Directions-Ne-
cessity of Cleanliness Is the Greatest
Factor in Modern Treatment.
Emancipation from the thraldom Of
authority in which it was fast bound for
centuries" said DIR. Osler. medicine has
progressed with extraordinary rapidity.
and even within the present generation
has undergone complete revolution.
The advance has been in three directions.
First, in the prevention Of disease. \
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.
In this department certainly medi-
cine has achieved its greatest victories.
1t is q thought full of encouragement
TO know that such diseases as typhoid
fever and diphtheria 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 posi- bilities 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 new art, and hundreds now recover
after operations from which hundreds
we now have on these subjects has been
slowly and painfully acquired, here
little and there 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 alb
sence OF contamination mean in great
part freedom from infection.
80 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 be
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 as 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 10 obtain materials which,
when injected into an animal. act "a a
sort Of vaccine against the disease itself.
The hope Of obtaining in some Of the
most important diseases vaccines which
VIII bear the same relation 20 them as
ordinary vaccine 10 smallpox is very
Re Asouable and likely ere long TO be real
lied. In another direction, too, the
studies Of Koch have shown that in the
growth Of these bacilh 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 tubercls baciIli upon tuberculous
tissue ranks as one Of the most remark
able Of late years.
CHANCES OF LIVING ARE BETTER.
But hear the householder say: All
that Is very well, but Tommy gets the
measles aud Mary has the numps and
SUSIE gets the whsoping cough inst as
my grandrother tells me her children
mad fifty years ago. by doctors bills
are possibly q little larger than were
fathers, and know his drug bill could
lot have been a. heavy as mine for the
last quarter This may De perfectly
true. for the uzilleni ur k2s not yes come,
but IL Is perfectly true that today Mrz
Eousbolder's rlsks have been reduced %
q minimum IN the reoessAry domestic