The recent advances of sanitary science : The relation of micro-organisms to disease.

  • Henry O. Marcy
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The recent advances of sanitary science : The relation of micro-organisms to disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    THE RELATIONS OF MICRO-ORGANISMS TO DISEASE. The unexpected honor which one year ago your kind suffrages conferred upon me in electing me to preside over your councils, I hold to be equally shared by a thoughtful discharge of the duties of the office. The profession at large may be congratulated that the American Academy of Medicine owes its origin and existence to a wide-spread spontaneity of feeling that the times were ripe for and demanded some organized effort to aid as a controlling power in elevating the standard of medicine in our country. How well thus far we have succeeded must be left, not to our own prejudiced views, but rather to the unsparing criticisms of all interested in a higher medical education. Since, by our position, we have invited it, let it arouse each one of us to yet better endeavors in the discharge of our self-imposed task. He who studies the history of medicine in a broad philosophic spirit will learn much of both interest and profit. Viewed from this standpoint, its evolution in the present generation in common with its sister sciences, marks an era in civilization. Differences of opinion, even on the fundamental factors of our polity, have and very likely will continue to exist. Other things being equal, the better trained and armed soldiery win and hold the field. Whatsoever the diversity of gifts, the profession should be actuated by one spirit. Under its guidance, moved by a generous rivalry, the divine decree of the golden rule should be its only code. In the clear light of science rationalistic medicine can have no rivals, and the isms and pathies, which smack of ignorance and superstition, will cease to exist. New fields of investigation, yet more attractive, because nearer to the great source of truth, will open, and there will arise a more noble emulation for the still greater advancement of a united and harmonious profession. A few weeks since, as I stood on the rock-bound coast of the Bay of Fundy, and beheld its insurging tides, rising more than half a hundred feet, converting empty gorges into deep rivers, and wide- spreading meadows into broad bays, I read in this mighty unseen