The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1903-03-27
PROPHECIES.
1903 Will Be a Year of Won
derful Progress.
GREAT PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.

h Wizard las Much Faith In Mar
conf and WIRELESS Telegraphy-Ex-
poets to See Electricity supplant
Steam as motive Power In n Few
Years-Medicine Played Out-Germ
of Old Age May De Discovered.
Thomas A. Edison, the great invent.
or, makes the following statement In
the New York World:
"The great problems of the year are
the problems of fighting bacteria, of
getting electricity direct from coal, of
getting power from the elements cheap
ly and In applying the many uses of
electricity to manufactures.
Il look for a wonderful year. There
is more activity in science than there
has ever been before, more men arc
working on big problems and great dis
coveries would be only natural.
For myself. my storage battery, on
which | have worked four years. will
be put on the market III January. Ii
solves the traction problem, and its in
PRODUCTION means that the horse will
have to go.
Il expect to. give up practical inven-
ton for two years. am going to eX-
perimGnt-goiNg to dclve in some prob
lens that ! have put by for an idle
time and fer once am going to work
without having the production Of a
commercial commodity in view. | am
going into the byways of science. !
prefer not to say what my experiments
will be-. Yes, trying to get electricity
direct from coal is one {" them.
The wireless biography | assurodly
expect TO see perfected for commercial
purposes. If not fully 50 in 1903 at least
advanced toward that end. The right
kind OF man is working ut it, a prac-
tical man, an arnGs man. and | have
confidence III him. AS to the objection
that messages may be tapped. that's as
far as the objectors can see now. That
may be true tonight; tomorrow it ma
be different.
Pm not Interested in the flying ma.
chine. l could never see any CONNER
cial use for it. | have never had time
to read much about it..
81 expect to see electricity supplan;
steam as u motive power. In fifteen
years electricity will be the railway
motive power. Nineteen hundred and
three will advance it III that direction.
.# stNinatnnn b,1y,J,II . n,J +l,,, It'll
bring great advances in surgery. in the
study of bacteria, III the knowledge of
the cause and prevention Of disease.
Medicine is played out. Every new
discovery of bacteria shows us all the
more co%nyincingly that we have been
wrong and that the million tons of stuff
we have taken was all useless. They
may even discover the germ of old age.
| don't predict it, but it might be that by
the sacrifice Of animal life human life
could be prolonged. The doctor OF the
future will give no medicine. but will
instruct his patient in the care of the
human frame. in diet and in the cause
and prevention Of diseases.
Surgery, diet. antiscptics-these three
are the vital things OF the future in the
preservation of the health of human
ity. There were never so many able.
active minds ut work on the problems
of disease as now, and all their discov-
cries are tending to the simple truth
that you can't improve on nature.
"The newspapers are among the
great agents that will grow better in
1903 and in the years 70 conc. They
are the great school. x man who does
not read the might as well
be dead. They are a powerful infiu
ence for advancement, They are get
ting better, they are printing more sci
ence ana paving more attention to tic
manity.
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