The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1908-09-03

homes and lives. We have reason
to feel encouraged as to the public
sentiment and legislation which will
make all of this possible. For a long
time here it looked as if medical men
would be forced to- enter public
life, as Vinchow, Paget, Playfair and
others of our great leaders did abroad,
but the passage of the national pure
food law, and the insertion of the
plank We asked in the democratic
platform, and favorable mention of
the work by the republicans, in their
national conventions this year., a full
endorsement of it by both presidential
candidates, and a marked better SEN
timent in nearly all of the state legis-
latures and particularly in the public
press, for the past three or four years,
leads us to hope that this will not be
necessary. Because always exercised
with absolute un~selfishness, quietly
and as n man, the power of 400
doctors of Kentucky in public affairs
is practically unlimited and, as soon
as the profession and he people can
be brought to see the insignificance
of just mere party and political
questions as compared with what is
involved in this reform, real construc-
tive ~life-saving, craftsmanship can
be substituted for the prevailing time
serving political methods in our pub
lie affairs, county and municipal, state
and national. In the course of this
work it is proposed to make the phySi-
clan of each community a moral as
well as a health leader for his people,
urging the same standard of morality
for men and women, n securing the
cooperation of the druggists, clergy
teachers and others in warning the
people and especially the young,
against habit producing liquors, patent
medicines, immortality and all other
things at enmity with pure and healthy
living. 1t will be readily seen that
what is here proposed means a COM
plete revolution in the practice of
medicine, such as has taken place i'll
the practice of law within the present
generation. For centuries lawyers
were employed to control litigation
in the courts. Now corporations and
wise men employ lawyers almost en-
tirely to keep them out of the courts.
Just so it is only a question OF time
and popular intelligence when we are
to be employed largely as medica
and sanitary advisers, to prevent what
is so difficult and expensive TO cure.
All sickness cannot be prevented with
present knowledge, but most of the
COMMON diseases, which give a large
part Of our most important sick rate,
especially among children and young
people and those resulting from
vicious living can, and with the aid
of generously supported national,
state, county and municipal labora-
tories and research workers, this list
could and would be constantly eX-
tended. 1t will involve years of CON
secrated, self-sacrificing labor for my
profession, which has the knowledge
which not only fits but imposes the
duty OF leadership. How they are to
be compensated, or as many will be
needed, under this new order of things
we have not stopped to inquire. We
know that it will enlarge the useful
ness of the profession a "thousand-fold,
that it will make the doctor a far
more important man in the commun-
ity than he has ever been, that it puts
a bow of hope and promise in the
sky for mankind seen before,
and we only plead for such instruc-
ton in the schools everywhere, and
for such legislation and intelligent CO.
operation in every locality, in every
state, and in the nation, as will bring
it TO pass.