TRIUMPHS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 46, 23 February 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRIUMPHS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.

In connection with a series of articles in the "Daily Mnil"'on the century's progress, Sir James Crichton Browne makes \he following' interestingl remarks on the strides achieved by medical science: —

We must pet some distance away from the century, the confine of which we are about to cross, before we can justly estimate the relative heights 'of the many peaks in its great range of achievements. Even now, however, we know that the upheaval of the whole range has been due to certain great forces which have been steadily at work during the last hundred years, to wit, the exact observation of facts and the critical investigation of causes. Even now we are able to recognise certain crests that tower hugely above the range and that must ever remain conspicuous. These are on the. philosophical side of the theories of the conservation of energy and of natural selection, anil on the physical side the locomotion of matter by steampower, and the transference of i thought by electricity. In my own medical spur of this groat range of nineteenth century achievement there are two pinnacles which stand forth prominent—the discovery of anaesthetics and antiseptic 'surgery. But around these cluster many subsidiary elevations, by no means insignificant and promising to conduct to still higher triumphs. Such, are practical hygiene in all its branches, which has secured an enormous reduction in the death rale: the idenlifieation of the bacilli that are resuonsible for tuberculosis and many other diseases, and the consequent discovery of new measures of prevention and cure: the demonstrations of the functions of THE THYTCOTD GLAND, and of the localisation of sensory and motor functions in the brain, guiding to the effectual treatment of myxoedema and cretinism, and of certain cases of cerebral tumour; the improvement of our instruments of clinical research, "which have made the human body diaphanous, and enabled us to detect and remedy hidden iniuries and morbid processes; and the addition to our resources of many new grouns of drua-s—bromides, nitrites, salicvlates—which hnve greatly increased our control over various grievous pathological conditions. Tn mental medicine the great performance of the century has been the substitution of the humane for the coercive and cruel treatment of the insane. So multifarious have been the achievements of med'eal and surgical thought and action during the < expiring- century, and especially during the latter half of it. that, it is impossible to sum them up in a few words. I can only point to a few salient examnles. The new century is veiled in mist which orlv "the n'roeess of the suns" can roll back, and into which we can only peer a little way. Imagination may flash far into it and proclaim wonders and chimeras, but he who is led by the kindly ligh+ of science must be content, like the Christian pilgrim, to say: "I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me." Hut that one step is full of intense interest. In medicine we anticipate that almost at once new powers of healing will be given to us. The ravages of. pestiferous fungi nnd insects will assuredly be circumscribed, the deadly venom of serpents will in all likelihood be rendered harmless, and it may be, unless a sickly seniiniputalism be allowed to interfere with experimental research, . that' cancer will be traced to its source and extirpated. Physiology is daily adding to our intimate knowledge cf the human mechanism, and as physiology is ethical in the tendency of all its teachings, it may be that the new century will be

AN ERA OF MORAL XttGUENE jnst as the past cfentury has been an crn of material sanitation. A. purification of the moral atmosphere will greatly conduce to good health of body and mind, and do much'to abolish disease. If we can strengthen the E-ineWs of self-control, weakened by luxurious or brutal indulgence, bani&h the degrading fetishism of wealth worship, assuage the ignoble thirst for notoriety, return to greater simplicity of life, and exchange the euit of materialism for the more generous and humanising visions of the last generation, we shall hare done much to stay the inroads of disease. A revival of faith and reverence seems to mp ahovp all npppcßnry +<■> ward off these mental troubles which ar,e accumulating at so alarming a rate.