The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-12
rcoNoUEsTs OVER DISEASE,

Scientific investigation has opened the
eyes of the world in wonder during the
last half century. The progress OF
mankind has been phenomenal in the
last decade. And every year it seems
that this development, this advance
ment is making time with a constantly
increasing ratio.
In the field of medical research, some
thing in which we are all interested,
one triumph over disease has succeeded
another. until it seems that death and
disease are likely yet to be defied.
Electricity is killing germs. and there
is an application of it that rejuvenates
the tired, wasted and the aged. And.
as Investigations never end, wonders
never cease.
incubation has taken the terror from
many d contagion and the plaques are
being halted in their march of death
by the mind and energy of man. Dis
eases which have numbered their VIC
tins by unceunted millions are DOOM
ed to extinction by the newer schools
of medical investigation.
There is SC much yet to do along
these lines that people sometimes say
that very little, after all, has been ac-
comDlished. Yet with the discoveries
of recent years which nave followed
upon the !abors of Pasteur, Koch, Vir-
chow, Roux. Behring and the other less
famous investigators who have devoted
their lives to finding the ultimate
causes OF disease. there is reason to
hone cor even more than has been
promised. With the progress that has
already been made he is no dreamer
who asserts that will some day subdue
the diseases that lie in wait for him on
his journey through life, and have to
fear little more than age, war and acct
dent as causes of death.
To the empirical schools of medicine
upon which man has depended for
many years he is certainly under obi
cations he viii not, should not forget.
The amount Of misery they have al
leviated is incalculable, and if they
have not made great progress in max
ing tie people well after they get sick,
they haze done a great deal to make
dying easy. The progress in finding
drugs and methods OF administering
them 40 cure disease has been slow,
fos the number OF drugs and combina-
tions OF drugs is infinite, and only a
few OF them have a desirable effect
when taken into the body And it is
thus that medicine has sometimes been
defined as the science Of guesswork,
with life and death as the issue.
AS doctors do not believe in advertis-
ing. none win try to advertise himself
by attempting a contradiction of this
statement.
Whatever may have been OWNED
concerning the causes and cures of dis
case in the earlier centuries, it was
necessary to wait for the inventor, to
tarry until the microscope had been
completed and the science of chemistry
had been developed. 1t required all
this To locate, TO trace disease to its
original cause, to discover a counter
action.
1t has only been about forty years
since the bacterial nature of contagious
diseases was even generally suspected;
and il was not until within a quarter
Of a century that it was proved. The
discovery of the bacteria. or micro-or-
ganisms, that pervade the natural
world as the lowest form of existence,
was suspected at first to bring US to
the origin of life. But the careful in
vestigations Of Tyndall, Pasteur and
Others proved that they brought US no
nearer TO the beginning.
Empirical physicians gravely shook