The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1913-05-29
FIFTY YEARS
OF PROGRESS"
Paper given by Mrs. E. D.
Wasflburn on Woman's
Club Program

Wnat an. age to the child of ten, with
20 many things to do and the implicit
faith of childhood, that all tasks are
easy-as he knows of nothing yet
that he couldn't do if he only had
one half a chance; and to the person
past the half century mark the ret
respect is not so much days and
years as the fulness thereof; for to
them it mean youth, maturity and
middle age and is the balance sheet
OF many of their plans, hopes, m
D1t1ons, successes and failures, and
no dreams of the future should be too
bold to be dreamed by inhabitants of
q world who have passed through the
marvels of the last fifty years. The
declaration of Ex-President Eliot of
Harvard. that the world has been
practically remade in the last half
century is a moderate and truthful
statement. The external ppearance
OF humanity still continues the same
as when the Creator in His infinite
wisdom placed the first of the species
n the Garden Of Eden, viewed his
h%andiwork, and pronounced it good:
but what changes people of the last
fifty years have seen in the nourish-
ment of these bodies.
Whoever heard of Grandmother
serving so much protein, so much fat.
SO much starch and sugar, for Grand
father and the boys. Not she-she
cooked a good big kettle of pork and
beans and they rounded out the meal
with a generous apple dumping and
chopped wood all day.
But conditions are changed-there
tSnSf m1oh r0o1 Lea - ha -
with these changed conditions comes
changed modes of living.
The pleasure of waiting, cup in
hand for a drink of buttermilk, fresh
from the stone churn, after the dash
has been removed and the butter
lifted, is quite obsolete, as the cream
Is sent to the butter or cheese factory
and he who would like a drink of the
old fashioned fluid buys a Duttermilk
tablet. The latter may not have so
many little particles of butter float
Ing around on the top, but is probab-
~ more sterile. Then there are the
God tablets, soup tablets, condensed
soups, condensed milk and condensed
this and that and the numberless pre-
pared breakfast foods until we won
der If 1t is a hand-me-down or a
readymade. 1t may be these machine
chewed and pre-digested articles have
their share in the high cost of living.
But when meat is soaring out of
reach, our Domestic Science experts
tell us of various things that supply
the same properties.
In fact one of our leading periodi-
calls furnished the picture and direc-
lions for making a goose for the 1912
Christmas dinner. While this author
might have been called by some "a
nature fakir," is was quite a pleasing
picture.
This particular goose had never
quacked, raised feathers or produced
an ounce of meat, but it would prob
ably be a perfect substitute were it
not for our epicurean eyesight.
We will however, learn to supply
food units in our cooking as required
by the labor performed.
In no department of science has
the advancement been so rapid as In
medicine and surgery, and if those in
this profession cease their vigilence
for but a short period of time, they
fall behind.
Today there are practically no dis
putting schools of medicine or at least
In any of the essential facts, and the
methods and medicines used by one
are used by all to a greater or less
extent. In the not far distant past ii
was the accepted theory to give heroic
doses of nauseous drugs and the ever
present cupping machine for free
bleeding. Anyone could administer
these, as one might very easily break
into the profession without much
medical knowledge other than being
handy and brave. But now years OF
hard study and eternal vigilance is
the price of M. D. attached to the
name.
Experimental research is showing
new facts and making the science OF
medicine more accurate. With the
advent of the microscope, a minute
study of the human body became pos.
sible.
1t has brought about the discovery
OF germs as the cause of many di.
seases and in no department has the
germ theory been of more importance
than In surgery.
This, together with the discover,
OF anaesthetics and the X-ray, which
has made simple many sorts of dag
nosis, that were formerly impossible
has made surgery the most ~scientifi,
and certain department of medicine
Operations are now performed tina
seem but little less than miracles
and the limit has not yet been reach
ed. Well may n ask, after a highl,
successful operation. "What have
left! o, Doctor! What have I left?'
The prevention and cure of man,
diseases is made by vaccines, anti-tox
ines, serums and the use of the diff
ferent rays, and the work of sucl
eminent men as Pasteur, Flexner an,
Roentgen have been of inestimabl
value in the preservation Of human
life, and the Institutes for Medica
Research In the different parts of tn
world are a means of producing thi
efficiency and when some eminen
scientist passes to the great beyond
the loss Is worldwide, but the paus
10 momentary, for so thorough an,
practical is the training that there l
some n to step in and take up tn
threads where they were laid dowr
Never In the history of the worl
has the spread of the spirit of altru
ism been eQualled by that Of toda
and 10 lending a higher and ne,
value to education and philanthrop,
The various scientific organization
nfe making their valuable contribu