Has the World Progressed ?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 21 May 1913, Page 3

Has the World Progressed ?

Dr. Flexner has discovered the germ of infantile paralysis, and of course th-.! feeble-minded people are screaming with delight at “one more step toward tho hygienic millennium.’’ The discovery does not mean that paralysis can be cured. Not at all, since lots of grems have been discovered without cures and lots of cures have been discovered without germs. And now comes Dr. Cabinet, the celebrated French physician, who says that the, ancient seem to have known as much about medicine- as ourselVcis. Castor oil, massage, and other forms of medicine and exercise were known in ancient Babylon. In Egypt, 3500 yearn before Christ, “that doctors had very much the same knowledge as we hare ourselves.*’ Dr. Cabines finishes his article in Le Journal with the following statement: “One is really obliged to ask one’s self whether the world has progressed since the days of Sesostris to those of Pasteur, or if humanity goes back a pace in one direction when she advances in another.’’ And for this sign of scientific humility let us be duly grateful. Perhaps human progress is an infinitely slower thing than we have any conception of, and it may be that with the right time perspective we should have to transfer a good many.of our movements—perhaps most- of them —from the progressive to the rctrogres sive side of the ledger.