DOCTORS IN AMERICA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1912, Page 4

DOCTORS IN AMERICA.

POPULAR DISTRUST. Americans in recent years, have shown an increasing tendency to distrust the regular medical practitioners, partly because of the" dissatisfaction created by the alleged disparity in many cases between the fee paid and tho actual results rucorded, and also, possibly, because the avernge Yankee is v, .'sportsman at heart, and likes to give other schools of healing outside the allopathic and --homeopathic* ranks — the osteopaths, naturopaths, electropaths, and faith-healers, for ' example — a chance of proving their claims. This attitude was referred tp recently (writes a New York correspondent) at a notable gathering of physicians and surgeons, eld in New York, under the auspices of the Academy of Medicine. Dr. Ewing, Professor of Pathology at Cornell University Medical College, took up the cudgels on behalf of his brethren, and denounced the attitude of the public as decidedly unfair. He regretted that old mediaeval ignorance and superstition regarding tho "medicine man" often prevailed, even, in most circles which ara usually considered as enlightened. Dr. Ewing admitted the incompetence of modern medicine to control the great ma. jority of -diseases, but contended that thd fmbho had no right to ignore the brifiant modern conquests of preventive medicine, and tho rapid advances in. the general knowledge ,of biology, physiolgy, .arid- pathology. ' , , , ' Simultaneously" with, the meeting of doctors' soVeril ' niee'tlriga* '6£ tho "riVal schools" are- 1 taking j?lace. ' On the qu'es tion of the oauso of disease, the general opinion was expressed by pile deliberative* assembly that half , pur ' ills are du6 to over-eating-, and a great many to food adulteration. On thtj latter question there ie the authority of Mrs. Codley, of New York, who estimates that the avorago woman, in a life-time of seventy years, eats 30 oxen, 100' cowe, 200 sheep, ! 50 fcig«, '20;000 -oydtors; 24,000 ogtfa, arid 4i tons of brand. A tnau eats etui mor» j

prodigiously. Kesolutions were passed j by the Federated Women's Clubs of New York protesting against tood coloured with coal tar dyes and preserved with chemicals and poisons, and aleo urging the application of sanitary laws to all bakeries.