DOCTORE ON DOCTORS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 116, 23 November 1928, Page 3

DOCTORE ON DOCTORS

WHAT THEY DO NOT KNOW

lll.the course of an entertaining address to members of the Rotary Club in Melbourne, Professor F. E. Fraser, of the famous Bart's Hospital, London, made some shrewd observations about the medical profession and the state of present-day medical knowledge, states "The Age." In commencing, the professor warned his hearers that he was going to tell thorn some homo truths about medical men. The general public had no idea how utterly ignorant medical men were of their own subject. He was not practising himself, so lie could say what he liked about them. (Laughter.) A. doctor could give our complaints impressive names, and he also knew how to treat those complaints and make his patients well; but very often he did not know what were the fundamental causes of our ills. There were few actually proved' facts about medicine, though thero were mauy hypotheses which masqueraded as facts. Medical research was of a very arduous nature. There was a tremendous amount '■ of spade work to be done before anything very much was actually accomplished. The public themselves were very largely responsible for the ignorance of the doctors. Even when certain facts had been discovered, thero was still the difficulty of applying it to the public. Wo could experiment with a guinea pig and make valuable discoveries, but tho troubls was that man was not a guinea pig. (Laughter.) Man was a very difficult experimental subject, and an. extremely difficult animal to control. Besides, they were not allowed to experiment with man as they were with the guinea pig. There lay the tremendous gap between the research worker and the general public. Tho result was they had to work on statistics, taken over a long period of time and embracing a large number of cases. The application of research knowledge to the subject of prevention of disease was another tremendous gap to be bridged, the professor said, for hero there was the same difficulty of getting the people themselves to realise the importance of the matter. Medical research, concluded the professor, was not merely a matter for the medical schools, but for the whole community of the Empire, since it ultimately concorned them. England, with her rather C 3 physical development, must look tr» her Dominions to keep up the. physical ! standard of the xace. ■ . ,'