Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-07

A NOTABLE address by the distin-
n guished English physician and schol-
- ar, Sir James Barr, was delivered re-
Gently before the congress of the Royal
Institute of Public Health of which he
is president. He took for his text Pre-
ventive Medicine the Medicine of the Flu
ture," and preached crusading sermon
against the attitude with which too many
people are content to contemplate vast
amount of preventable disease and self
inflicted national degeneracy, and he did
not spare that curious preversion of re
ligion" that attributes to the will of God
the results of our hygienic and genetical
shortcomings.
The London Lancet reports him as say
ing that in interesting himself in preven-
tive medicine he was not opposing his
professional interests, for las long as
people are alive there is chance of maxi
ing something out of them, but once they
are dead the interest of the medical man
ceases, except from a pathological stand
point, or in the aggregate, for statistical
information" He then proceeded to un-
fold his main contention that the reason
why the successes of sanitarians have
been limited is because they have devoted
SO much attention to the prevention of
zymotic disease and the preservation or
life rather than the Improvement OF
health If medical men would deal with
physiological conditions as wei as patho-
logical and tell patients how to keep well
and not merely how to get well, they
would get more patients.
This is very pretty theory but we are
not able to indorse it fully, declares the
Lancet If there were a real demand for
information as to the rules of health on
the part of large number of people, we
may be sure that our profession would
be only too pleased to supply them; the
trouble is to get even those who are i'll
to follow the dictates of reasonable au-
thority as to their mode of life, unless
they be actually suffering some pain or
some other subjective reminder of their
condition. If, however, the profession as
whole would more firmly impress the
vital Importance of prophylactic per-
sonal hygiene upon all /and sundry as
readily as it has, since the decline of
Greek medicine, dealt out drugs to them,
the public demand for ADVICE on the best
manner of living. in order to prevent dis
ease, might become as general as has the
clamor for physic to cure it.
Sir James Barr devoted some attention
to political matters, especially urging that
before granting pensions to old people II
is the duty of the nation to provide for
the adequate nutrition and hygiene of it's
nursing mothers and young children, and
to see that it's school children are prop
erly fed before any attempt is made to
teach, them, while it might well leave to
individuals the care of their own old
people. He quoted Lord Beaconsfield to
the effect that "the public health is the
on which repose the happi- |
ness of the people and the power of the
The care of the public health is |
the first duty of a statesman" He con-
sidered that if the nation will only do it's
duty in this matter, there will speedily |
follow a check to the diminution of the |
birth rate, and, what is of more import !
ance, a marked decline in the infantile |
death rate.
We need not enter into his discussion of
the latter subject, as it has been so often |
before our readers, although it cannot be
too often restated to the public with such |
force as Sir James Barr knows how to
nfuse into his utterances. He paid
handsome tribute to the personnel of the
navy and the army as the flower of Eng |
lish manhood and the hope of salvation |
Of the country, and extolled the military |
as the best means of insuring |
national health and physique.
Passing to the question of physical de-
he favorably regarded DIR. |
RentouTs drastic proposals to prevent
the propagation of the race by the un-
fit, and he expresses his view that hered- |
ity has much more to do with the well |
fare of the nation than those who so
strongly proclaim the all-important in |
huence of environment are disposed to |
allow. He agrees, in fact, with the trans