THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1896.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10048, 7 February 1896, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1896.

From the comparatively brief intimations we have had of the proceedings of wo see ample justification of the the Medical Congress at Dunedin, system of periodically bringing together a largo body of medical practitioners from all parts of the colony for the interchange of ideas on everything pertaining to the sanitary welfare of the community, This method of conference of representatives of different interests lias played an important part in bringing the colonies into fraternal co-operation, and paved the way for federation. But probably in nothing else can. more benefit arise than in the science and the art of healing, a department of knowledge that has been making enormous strides in our time, and one that more perhaps than any other needs the help of multitudes of skilled observers putting to the test under ever-varying conditions, the discoveries that are being made every day in therapeutics. It must be admitted that in days now happily gone, we trust for ever, the practice of medicine was mere empiricism, and the saying that "doctors differ" arose from the general belief that every doctor was very much a law unto himself, and was accustomed to attack disease in a fashion formed, to a considerable extent, on his own fancies. It is one of the features of our age that medical enquirers have been seeking to hunt disease in every case to its secret sources, and. that with a success that has in many cases been amazing, and which lias in the aggregate produced a body of sound basal knowledge, on which is being built up a system of therapeutics that promises ere many years have passed to grapple effectually with nearly all the ills that human flesh is heir to.

The establishment of the theory of disease germs and the developments that have been made in bacteriology, have been enough to cover the latter years of the nineteenth century with

glory, even if there had been nothL , else distinguishing that' remarkaU, ] epoch in the world's history, Ami 1 though neither the discovery of specific■' microgerms, nor that of their several ! anti-toxins, is yet complete, enough lias been found to make it oertain that the true basis of therapeutics has been laid, and that it only requires close inquiry and persistent observations to find the remedy which Nature in every case has stored up in her great laboratory to destroy one by one the enemies of human life, Pasteur's researches may not have achieved all that he desired; Koch may have been baffled in finding the destructor for the deadly microbe discovered by him ; but thousands of keen eyes and thousands of deft fingers are now busily hunting on the lines laid down, and from the most unexpected quarters, announcements are being heard from day to day confirming the fact that [the bacilli of death coursing through the veins are borno along in a fluid containing the elements of their own destruction. Serotherapy is in its veriest infancy, but already it has its goodly record of diseases baffled, Maladies like diphtheria. whose name was a horror'once hare been deprived of most of'their terrors, and the indications are that ere long all diseases will be fought in the veins and arteries; and the devilish little entities that work us woe, will be poisoned in their own juice and be driven from the body by the liquor they have themselves distilled. All this in present and prospective we owe to a discovery of yesterday, the application of which in Lister's antiseptic treatment has enabled the surgeon also to penetrate the innermost recesses of the human body and freely operate on organs to touch or to look upon which, but a few years ago, was certain death. Never before has the medical world been armed with appliances for scientific research as now, and never before has it been resting on such an assured common basis of ascertained knowledge of the source and development of disease ; and never consequently has there been such a necessity for the interchange of experiences and of data personally ascertained. Medical practitioners everywhere have now facilities for studying disease under new conditions and by new lights, and as, stimulated by recent discoveries, the spirit of inquiry is abroad, any practitioner may at any time drop upon an experience of disease aud its treatment that may throw a flood of light on some obscure point still baffling the experts, To have such an experience withheld might be a loss to humanity, and in no way can the benefits of such a discovery be rendered so generally available as by its being openly discussed in Conference of those whose minds are habitually directed to the same class of inquiry. It is more particularly so in new countries like our own, where entirely new conditions and environment may influence the genesis, the nature, and the developments of disease. We know that some diseases have been so affected. Cancer lias for some reason attained an exceptional prevalence in the colonies; tetanus in some places, seemingly the hotter portions of Australia, is peculiarly liable to supervene on simple wounds; hydatids have their habitat in some parts to a striking degree, while they are nearly unknown in others; some diseases are more innocuous, others more virulent, as compared with their incidents elsewhere. These circumstances afford additional reason for congressional meetings of medical practitioners, such as that now holding session at Dunedin, and if, as proposed, the meetings do not end with mere discussion but in formal conclusions based on the interchange and consensus of opinions on the several hygienic questions specifically affecting the colonies, incalculable benefit may accrue to the community. There is a breezy vigour in the way these assembled medicos, viewing humanity from the serene heights of a perfect hygiene, deal with fads and cranks of a heterodox kind—such as the anti-vaccinationists, the anti-vivisectionists, the opponents of remedial measures for contagious disease, and others who believe disease to be the result of the Divine will and not to be interfered with by presumptuous men— is invigorating and refreshing; and the public will be all the better for being called to order by the demand that the possession of the " corpus sanum" should bo esteemed the first virtue in the body politic.