Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/369

Rh date argued at length as to whether tubercles were to be classed as "adenomata" or were something sui generis.

There is a gleam of sunlight for the future in this retrospect at the ignorance of the past, for, if men were as ignorant regarding tuberculosis thirty-eight years ago as to-day they are about cancer, then it may be argued that a generation hence as much may be known about cancer as is known now about tuberculosis.

It is particularly important at the present moment, when so much interest is being taken in national health, to point out the urgent necessity of allowing as little lagging behind as possible to ensue between the making of discoveries and the practical application of the results by organized national effort for the well-being of the whole community.

It must sadly be admitted that it is craftsmanship in imaginary danger fighting hard for the old methods unchanged which were in vogue fifty years ago, that stands most prominently in the way of advance. As great a harvest as that which followed the application of the principle of antisepsis in surgery awaits the application of the self-same principle in national sanitation to-day, but the very profession which ought to be urging forward the new era apparently stands in dread of it, and seems to prefer to reap its harvest from disease rather than to seize the noble heritage won for it by the research of pioneers and so stand forth to the world as the ministry of health. Fortunately it can not be, the bourne has been passed, and there is no going backward. The advances that have already been made have awakened statesmen and people alike to the needs of the situation, and all have resolved to be disease-ridden no longer. The laws of health must be made known to the people at large, and schemes laid before them for a national organization for the elimination of disease. Disease is no longer an affair of the medical profession, it is a national concern of vital importance. The problem is not a class question, all humanity stands face to face with it now in the light of modern research as it never has faced it before. It has been realized that disease never can be conquered by private bargains for fees between individual patient and individual doctor. Research into diseases of unknown causation can not be subsidized upon such individualistic lines, and in the case of diseases of known etiology and modes of propagation the passage of disease from individual to individual can not be controlled by such private methods as that of the afflicted individual subsidizing the doctor for his own protection. Cost what it may, a healthy environment must be produced for the whole mass of the population, and the laws of physiology and hygiene must be taught not only to medical students, but to every child in every school in the country. People can not live healthy lives in ignorance of the fundamental laws of health merely by paying casual visits to physicians, and no one class in the community can be healthy until all classes are healthy.