The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-21
PREVENTION THE BETTER.
INTERESTING SERMON BY REV. "
 F. DICRERM.1N YESTERD4Y.

interesting sermon before large con-
 gregation yesterday morning. It was
 in the main as follows
 In religion, medicine and law, from
 time immemorial, an attempt has been
 made to destroy sin, disease and crime,
 Indeed, the philosophy of the world has been an effort to find a remedy for the ills of life.
 While the alchemists were seeking the philosophers stone that would trans
 mute base/metals into gold they were
 equally anxious to discover the 'elixir
 of life" or the universal medicine that
 would cure all ills, produce immortal
 health and perpetual youth.
 From that time to this there seems to have been but one thought-the erad- ication of disease by means of a sover- eign remedy applied mechanically to
 the full grown evil. Theories of the
 most conflicting character have been
 advanced to account for disease, and nature has been ransacked to find a
 specifies. The study of pathology and
 theraputics exhibits a world wide strug- gle to banish sickness and pain, and yet
 disease consumes it's human fuel like
 an unquenchable fire.
 But at last a new thought has come into the medical mind. It is observed
 that a vast amount of time has been 1 lost in seeking a panacea-in fighting | disease itself. It is now admitted that a 1 vigorous constitution is a greater safe- ] guard against disease than drugs. That
 to promote vital resistance will, in the l long run, do more to decrease the rav- | ages of disease than the use of medl-
 cines, The application of drugs to the
 human organism has been too much like the cleansing of a metal sieve with | strong acids, always with injury to the
 thing itself, or to change the figure, l like striking with club In the dark
 you may, perchance, hit the disease, but always with the risk of striking the
 man, and often with a blow more fatal ] than the malady.
 The old proverb that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
 has become a new thought in medicine 1 in that it is believed to be true. In
 keeping with this truth the physician,
 in China, is employed to keep the fam fly in health, and when disease comes in he is dismissed as a failure.
 Preventative medicine will be the practice of the future. The study of physiology and hygiene, rather than that of materia medical will engage the physicians attention. In those days saith the keen-eyed spirit of scientific prophecy, physicians will know more about cooking, house-building, ventila- tion, drainage, clothing, how and where to labor. He will begin to provide for a mans health before he is born. Pre- natal conditions will be considered more important than post-natal. Tn that day courtship and marriage will no longer be the monopoly of Cupid. The physi- clan will have something to say in the matter. Even the clergyman will re- quire of the candidates physicians certificate before performing the cere- mony.
 The survival of the Attest" will then be provided for by love and law instead of love and accident. Marriage will not be then, as it is too often now, a lottery and a snare-no longer foun- tain of infirmity. In those days man will almost be obliged to have a rec ommendation before he comes into the world At least something will be done to reduce the number of puny, weak and idiotic mortals that seem to have no excuse for existence but the mental and physical incompetency of their par ents, whose ignorance has swelled the volume of human misery. The growth of this preventative idea is evident dur ing epidemics of typhoid fever, in which it is considered more important to in spect the well than to look at the pa tient's tongue.
 The doctors of the law have also fol- l lowed the one idea of the ages, namely, to crush a full grown evil; to destroy | at one fell blow nlatured crime having | back of it the heredity and practice of | generations. They have formulated | code after code, affixed penalties too | horrid to contemplate, erected prisons l and constructed engines of torture to | crush out crime; and by so doing have | often committed a greater crime than | the first. The gibbet still stretches out | it's ghastly arms, and felons still lan- | guish in dingy dungeons. But here and | there may be found a, jurist, more ire l quently a prison warden, possessed of | the scientific spirit, and intent on dis | covering the predisposing circumstances | of crime. A few are asking, "how shall | we treat criminals 2nd educate the pub lie so as to reduce the moral friction of the world?" Already it has been discov- cred that unfortunate birth, poor and insufficient food, bad clothing, ignor- ance, filth, likeness and harsh treat ment have much to do with the devel- opment of crime.
 The true philosopher is asking, how shall we prevent these conditions?
 Tn the field of religion we find the same though dominant. Doctors of di- vinity have, for ages, studied sin and sought some expeditions plan of escape from it. They have invented impossi- ble beings to account for it, located an internal pest house for it's victims, to the infection, and devised a scheme to outwit the demon that per sists in spreading the moral contagion. Religion, in it's theories, has been super natural, post-mortem and other world Iy. It has been working at the far end of the problem. It has overlooked the relationship of causes in it's eager ness to provide against the effects. Thus men have vainly hoped to wipe put a life's record in a moment, and in stantly procure almost angelic char ,o+or IT hoe baap +I o,1gb+i tbo+ eo,,,o !