SOLDIERS OF SCIENCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16370, 1 March 1924, Page 7

SOLDIERS OF SCIENCE.

THE COUNTRY DOCTOR.

BATTLE AGAINST DISEASI

(l’er Dress Association.) AUCKLAND, last night

The stimulus given by association and discussion was emphasised by Mr Carrick Robertson in his presidential address to delegates to the Medical Conference. It should he remembered., be said, that in spite of the undoubted value of team work as demonstrated by medical units in the latter part of the war, the medical man had still to be numbered amongst the world’s most pronounced individualists. More especially was this so in a country like New Zealand, where so many doctors had to carry on their practice entirely by themselves. In isolated 1 and sparsely populated districts each ploughed bis lonely furrow. Ho had his own special territory, where he pursued the healing art alone. He was .rarely in partnership.

as were so many lawyers. His deliberations were not given to the public as were those of barristers. He was not bound by the ever visible and palpable ties like officers and men of an army. Normally ho was alone. Tbo country doctor was indeed a soldier, a soldier of science, in the forefront of the great battle waged against disease. 1 He fought invariably as a detached unit, but he “listened in” so that lie was able to pick up musages which told him of the tactics learned’ in warfare against the physical infirmities of humanity. The position of the city doctor was not quite Hie same, hut in spite of the good line of communications he, too, worked mainly as a detached unit, with an inevitable tendency towards pronounced individualism. It was in the highest degree essential, therefore, that there should be occasions such as the present, when the solitary watchers withdrew from their isolated posts to refresh their minds and 1 to enlarge their ideas. But the advantage of conferences was not merely for the members of the profession. ’ Indeed, it chiefly concerned the public, as tlie medical profession existed for tin* conquest of disease and physical pain. Everything that consolidated the phalanx of healers was a new benefit to humanity. Moreover the opinions . expressed by experts at. these meetings j and published 1 in Hie press had an edueative value for those outside the profession.