The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-07-31
HELPLESS.

EVery once Hi d Wnlle meulCdl men congratulate themselves upon the progress which their science has made and the healing art finds no more jealous upholders than the doctors themselves.
 But it takes an epidemic like this of infantile paralysis to show us the strict limitations of the art of medicine and the mere fact that a physician says that the epidemic would have to burn itself out" re- minds us that it is in precisely the same way that they regarded the black plague many centuries ago.
 Learned in diagonsis, with senses acutely trained to detect symptoms, adopts in the use of the microscope. with an accumulated knowledge of bacteriology that is itself profound, the progress that medicine has made none the less depends not so much upon these things as upon the firm dependence on the old saw that prevention is better than cure. It may be admitted that many doc tors are men applying medicines of which they know little into the bodies of which they know less" as the ruthless judge in the famous Maybrick poisoning trial said In summing up, commenting upon the diserepant expert testimony, but the results of investigation in every branch at least reveal the fact these things are at best only ad- juucts, towards the essential factor of keeping the social health good, to the much greater field of pre- Ventive medicine.
 And it is in this field that medi- cine shows it's most serious limita- tions, and in these Limitations it is that the physicians, withal their high standard of ethics, show a la mentable lack of moral courage:
 Take this infantile paralysis. l. is essentially a disease that origi- mates in filthy surroundings. That has been known for years. Instead of the various health departments courageously facing the highly pro- fitable tenement evil and the enorm- ous gains of the real estate men from such disease breeding sur roundings, they merely treat the ef- fleets of such conditions, and when the final calamity comes they ad- init their helplessness. But they are powerless today because yester- day they failed with whole hearted earnestness to attack in determined fashion the causes of these diseases.
 The same thing can be brought against the physicians in their me- thods of combating tuberculosis, Now tuberculosis can be elimi- mated. It is not impossible to pre- vent it's spread and to prevent it day after day shocking and horrify- ing with the number of it's hapless victims. Fresh air, sunshine, whole some, cleanly and sufficient food, sanitary habitations, avoidance Of fatigue-these things practically prevent tuberculosis. The physicians know better than any one that in- dustrial conditions, nervous strain, dust choked air, foul environment the slum, the sweatshops are proli- fic breeders of all disease. They | know that could such conditions be eliminated tuberculosis and infan- tile paralysis and a host of other | no less scourging plaques could bs Instead however of directing all their professional force towards the elimination of these things, they do so in perfunctory 1 manner, while they direct all their energies to what may with hardly complimentary epithet be called palliative medicine.
 Nc ono knows better than do the do, tors that they are not attacking causes when they attack merely the symptoms of the patient, and tuber- cu:"sis anI iriantile paralysis and a host If other ills are merely the which society neglects because the physicians are pleased to regard it as no part of tkei, function to interfere with these things which contribute so much