It takes no telescope to show you the conditions in every town or city in our land, where the seed have grown that furnished the foci of so many of the epidemics that have closed the doors of our cities, on account of an epidemic that ought not to have been had we done our duty as a true family physician. I lay particular stress on the new order of medicine so that by your enthusiasm in protecting your city against the results of neglected duty our legislative committee can have some argument to offer in the presentation of laws we are trying to pass, by showing the effects of your efforts in your city. Too many hide behind that impenetrable forest called "heredity" in the eugenic fight for life-just give a sigh for the sins of a forefather, and float down the river without a friendly hand to stop the journey to the grave. For shame. Heredity often with tendencies alone hereditarily, surrounding the sick, are often a God's blessing. It is a lighthouse on the rock shores of life that tells us of the hidden danger so we can guard against it. 'Tis a life buoy in the harbor of health that enables us to know of the sunken snags that are beneath the apparent smooth water all around. With the knowledge of these transmitted tendencies, we ought to preserve the lives of many that otherwise would be sacrificed. There never has been a more promising sign of a general uprising of public sentiment along these lines than at present, demanding education in preventive and sanitary lines. So much so that wherever I have spoken to the public on these issues, I can see with what eagerness they grasp any measure that will save them from sickness or suffering. It is the duty of each county society to try at least to enlighten the public by educational lectures with positive demonstrations of the good a knowledge of the subject lectured on would do. This is not a new thought at all. But we must present it again if we wish to prevent vetoes of bills passed by the legislature for the benefit of the lives and homes of our commonwealth. We must present it to our people and through them to the legislators if we wish our committee to succeed in passing any bill that will aid our profession in its fight against commercialism and fraud. I wish to raise my voice against the so-called quarantine laws as they apply to the rural districts. Strong enough on the face of them, yet the duty of no one to compel the length of time required for each disease. No positive agreement among the physicians of the county in which it is necessary for a quarantine to exist on this most important part. So the disease runs its course, in many instances, and often a life is sacrificed on this account, or a body maimed for life. Whose duty is it? Unless to you physicians, guardians of our hearths and homes, who can we go to in this dire necessity? Yet I know of dozens of public places that are never fumigated; never cleaned after weeks of crowded audiences, and we flaunt the flag of preventive medicine and sanitary teaching, but never demand that some one be ordered to carry it out. Our state university has a new professor to teach the theory of preventing disease; but you as family physicians are the ones to point out the danger fearlessly in each individual case and community - asking for some one with positive authority to demand the isolation of any one who can scatter disease in the community in which he lives. I will not give you any history of the sad cases I have known of blighted childhood due to this carelessness and wilful abuse, for I am sure you all have had the same experience in your rural homes; but I do think that we as physicians should demand something better than we have to aid us in giving proper advice to our officers. You ask the school boards to close the school in which some loathsome disease appeared and turn the children loose on a community, compelling them to attend Sunday school or church, that have never been fumigated since they were built; or you give the same children means to attend a picture show where they are herded together with these same students, the rich as well as the scum of creation. Rather a queer consistency and a good argument against any medical measure we try to ask to become a law. To stand idly by and not raise your voice as a citizen and a physician bars you, in my opinion, from membership in the great army just starting on the march against the common enemy-sickness and death. As a member of our school board, I oppose the closing of my school because we make our school-houses cleaner and purer than most of our homes, and offer them as a refuge against the disease we are fighting. Send the children to such school-houses to prevent epidemics, instead of letting them drift, uncared for, in the streets or places of public worship. You will observe that I am picturing the surroundings of our rural towns and school-houses, since I administer to that neglected class, and I ask you as family physicians in the rural homes, "How often do you visit your school-houses or churches or places of amusement," and after taking in the surroundings "how often do you raise the danger signal or ask for better sanitary conditions ?" I want to show you some of the inconsistencies of our acts and ask you how you can wonder that our advice when given is never considered. We have individual communion cups in most of our churches and a general glass, dipper or tin-cup for general drinking at the well or cistern in the rear of the building. We furnish no glass or cup for general service on the railroad trains; yet we land you hot and thirsty at some watering place or public gathering, and offer you a cup used by hundreds before you, to quench your thirst from a common basin. Do you ever raise a warning against it as physicians in your community? If not, you are a poor recruit for the army now just starting out. I leave this subject, having just hinted at its benefits. This is a day of patriotism and it stirs our very souls for vengeance when our flag is insulted and the nation's honor sneered at. Quite a noble spirit, and as citizens of our country we demand apology. Let's see about the spirit flags, when we as physicians are called on to defend the hearth and homes, where we alone are the sentinels, guarding the doors against a far worse enemy than foreign insults or invasions. Some time ago one of our most noted universities offered a handsome monetary prize with an appropriate medal for the artist who could paint a picture representing the best view of the United States' most prominent spirit. Twenty-seven artists contended for this prize and many and varied views were offered. The judges were the most prominent figures in our national institutions and legislative halls. These, after a careful study of each picture, viewing them from every standpoint, gave the prize to him who painted a beautiful landscape with our most beautiful mountains and valleys, which had as a most prominent figure in its makeup, the three things that go to make up our national progress more than any or all things else combined-a church where everyone could worship freely according to the dic tates of his own conscience; a newsboy selling newspapers, in which every one could spread to the world the thoughts of his life's labor and study, and, nestling on the crossroad of every section of our land, a school-house, where every child is compelled to learn to read and to write and absorb the principles that will make them bread earners and good citizens of a noble country. I will not dwell on the beauties of this painting, or offer a word of praise to the artist, but I ask you what your contribution is toward the building of a nation's future on this foundation? I leave the church in better hands to protect its portals and ask you how you feel toward the protection of our rural or small city and village school-the bulwark of our nation's future greatness. Did it ever appeal to you what becomes of all our infant and child prodigies that fill our communities and are looked on as wonders in the school days to come-the idols of their homes and the praise of their community? They enter school, grow up and the scene changes. Many of them, no longer prodigies admired and praised by all, become laggards in their classes, are dull and stupid in their work, fail to pass in their examinations and finally drift out into the world, ignorant and incapable of entering into any competition in the business struggle for main tenance. We wonder at such results, condemn the teacher and assault the common educators of our schools. Truly some one is to blame. As a thoughtful and conscientious physician, can't you locate the cause? With 10 per cent. of our schoolchildren defective in their vision, 16 per cent. with breathing organs obstructed by growths or injuries not looked after-as if it was no one's business to do so, with 12 per cent. unable to hear without the greatest care and attention, with a school-house insanitary in almost every particular, can't you see how one-half of these abnormal students' time is taken up by trying to overcome these obstacles to progress? So they faint by the wayside. Someone is to blame for this condition of affairs in the start of life in our country schools, and we physicians ought to know that these defects exist and, as advisers, lessen the dangers ahead for these children, which they are not responsible for. Miss Helen Keller, known and admired so much by everyone-she who has passed through all the terrors of these defects, and her rendition of her feelings when she was living in utter darkness-makes us shudder at the storms and sufferings she has endured. In an address to the world, especially to her beloved country, to prevent these horrid defects especially blindness from crushing the life out of so many of our children, she seems to have touched the heart-cords of the American press until the echo of their editorials have aroused the whole nation to a realization of our neglect in the past. These echoes have aroused the medical world until we are beginning to wonder at our failure as family advisers, to raise the danger signal long ago, and we beg and implore every member of our great profession to enlist for the war against this evil in the lives of our neglected little ones. Why was the newsboy so prominent a figure in this prize painting? The American press is truly the educator of our citizens, breathing daily the spirit of our country's foundation and condemning anyone who dares to assail our constitution and the principles it stands for. How long would you support a paper whose editor would attack our laws or freedom? The spirit of patriotism inherent in every breast would rise in its might and banish it from the land. How long would our church members support a periodical or journal that scorned the Being that stands at the head of all religion, that sneered at the teaching of our Master, or who scoffed at the beauties and benefits of religion? At once, you would hold up your hands in horror and condemn such a paper as unfit to enter the door of any home. How long would you support The Journal of the American Medical Association if it allowed to be published on its pages any editorial or advertising matter that had been proved detrimental to the welfare of its readers? How long would you continue your membership in the Missouri Medical Association if its mouthpiece-THE JOURNAL of the Missouri State Medical Association-were to scatter through its contributors any insanitary measure that had been proved detrimental to the health and life of the inmates of our homes? Not long, I think. How long ought the members of our State Medical Association to contribute in any way toward the support of any periodical or journal that heralds to the world as good and beneficial any drug or proprietary medicine that has been shown by the National Analytical Department or the department employed by the American Medical Association to detect the worthy proprietary remedies and the frauds that are so often the cause of death among our patrons, and thus warn us of the danger of using such frauds? How long shall we submit to such outrageous publications and sanction their acts by our contribution to such journals? I hint at these evils and leave the remedy in your hands. Be just to yourselves as members of a profession battling to prevent rather than cause disease. Be just to the homes so often stricken by these advertisements and condemn them by leaving such periodicals sadly alone. The fight is on, from the head of our profession to all of its integral parts, and you must take your stand for good or for evil. May I call your attention to two proposed amendments to our constitution, suggested by your committee on constitution and by-laws. The first looks to the election of a president, five vice-presidents, a secretary, a treasurer and twenty-nine councilors, more or less, as shall be determined by the House of Delegates from time to time. Amend Article 8, Section 3, to read as follows: "The president, vice-president, councilors and orator shall be elected by the House of Delegates, but no delegate shall be eligible to any office named in the preceding section except that of councilor, and no person shall be elected to any office who is not in attendance at the annual session and who has not been a member of the association for the past two years." The wisdom of these amendments, I am sure, will appeal to your best judgment, for it places the election of our officers in the hands of delegates chosen from the county societies all over the state and prevents any interference with the scientific program, and expedites the business of the association greatly. I have purposely avoided any praise for the members of our association who, by their untiring work, have made for themselves national reputations, and through them our association has become more prominent in our national medical progress, for that would be useless, since each of you have observed with much pride this advancement. I wish to thank the members all over the state for the many kind acts shown me wherever I have visited, and by their kind advice and aid the term of my office has been made far more pleasant and its duties much lighter. I have noticed in the twelve or thirteen county societies that I have visited such a spirit of advancement of interest that I much more appreciated the honor you conferred on me by electing me president of such a grand associa tion. Pardon me, in closing, if I quote you a few verses of a poem, so applicable in connection with this message, which I am sorry to say deals mostly with our shortcomings rather than praise for our labors. Yet this is such a picture of our professional life, both at home and among our patrons, I ask your indulgence while I read it. It isn't the things you do, dear, The stone you might have lifted, The loving touch of the hand, dear, Which you had no time or thought for, It isn't the things you do, dear, PROFESSIONAL REMINISCENCES AND A PLEA FOR MEDICAL UNITY* Oration on Medicine T. F. LOCKWOOD, M.D. BUTLER, MO. It affords me much pleasure to address you on this splendid occasion. It has been my ambition since a mere student of medicine to some day be able to meet and to mingle with the dignitaries of the profession. When it was officially announced at the last meeting in St. Louis that I was to deliver the oration on medicine at this meeting I became selfconscious of my inability to acquit myself in a manner to do honor to this association and with credit to myself. But when the name of Dr. Potter followed in quick succession to fill a like position in the surgical section I felt greatly inspired at having such a man to follow and to foster me in this undertaking. It is indeed a happy coincident which I am proud to relate that Dr. T. E. Potter was one of my first and best teachers in medicine. He was the first to instill into my youthful brain the principles of the profession which I have endeavored to practice throughout my medical career. It was the coalescence of teacher and student and the culmination of certain events that prompted me to present the message which I bring to you to-night. For teacher and pupil to meet again after years of separation is like the happy meeting of father and son who have long been parted. Not the prodigal son, I trust, who wasted his time and opportunities, but the meeting of a good old-fashioned father and the obedient son whose mutual love for each other has no bounds. So if there be any good in me whatever, let it be ever so little, I wish to dedicate it all to Dr. Potter's own honor and glory. Young man in the profession, though you may be high up the ladder in medical and literary learning, let me gently admonish you to take your hat off politely and reverently to the old man in medicine. He may be old, tottery and stooped with years of labor and professional hardships, he may smell of aloes, rhubarb and boneset, he may not dress in the latest fads and fashions, yet he possesses a knowledge gained by years of practical experience that your library does not contain and that you cannot ever hope to obtain other than by long schooling of like experience. So my dear child of Esculapius do not allow yourself to be inclined to ridicule the faithful fathers of medicine, for could you but know the trials and sleepless hours through which these conservative and resourceful men have passed who * Delivered at the Annual Session Missouri State Medical Association, Joplin, May 12-14, 1914. practiced the healing art long before pharmaceutical manufacturers made your medicine, telling you for what it was intended, how and when to give it and so on, you would have unlimited respect for these men of the pill-tile, mortar and pestle age. It is much easier to practice medicine to-day than it was thirty or forty years ago. Physicians of the primitive age spent many happy hours in the woods gathering drugs from Nature's own laboratory. They learned by sight, taste and smell many of the potent remedies now used in the cure of diseases, and many of them would not exchange the rare bit of knowledge thus gained for any flamingly written statement of properties and therapeutic usages of drugs printed on labels of proprietary and pharmaceutical remedies on the market to-day. Public respect is lacking in a measure with the commonalty for the doctor who writes prescriptions for his patient instead of compounding and dispensing his own medicine. Commercialism and proprietary medication have robbed the physician of much of his former prestige and professional and social dignity. We no longer have the family doctor of old, whose advice was sought and freely given in all things of vital interest. For our old family physician to enter the sick-room when I was a boy was like a visit from an angel of peace, so soothing and consoling was his presence. How pleasant it would be could we again redeem ourselves and command the true respect and fellowship of those whom we serve, but we must humbly submit to the inevitable passing of the old and conform to the new. My subject is slightly tangent from the orthodox subjects usually presented on like occasions, therefore, a mild diversion from the routine and professional stringencies, I trust, may be relished by those present. It is the contrast in material things of this age that makes life worth living. If medical men were all alike in every respect, in characteristics, in educational attainments, in personplane professionally, we would have no standalities, in other words, if we were all on one ard by which to measure our medical efficiency. We must necessarily have an opposite by which to contrast the difference between good physicians and better physicians. Nature in forming the universe established an opposite in everything. We have for instance, heat and cold, wet and dry, sickness and health, life and death, heaven and hell, God and the devil and so on, each of which is either better appreciated or greatly augmented by the presence of the other. If we were never sick we could not enjoy health to its fullest extent. If there was no death life would be void of its sweetness. The following will further illustrate the contrast in material things. As we travel west ward across the broad prairies of Kansas and eastern Colorado, and just as our eyes are becoming weary from viewing the vast plains of so much sameness, Nature comes to our relief and hoists before our tired vision the range of rocky mountains with all the grandeur in keeping with Her majestic powers. As the great crags stand out in bold relief, silhouetting fantastic figures against the horizon, we stand and admire amazingly the perfect handwork of Him who created all, and are thus changed from a subdued spirit of exhausted energy to a happy realization of renewed interest in things, giving us a stronger and better appreciation of this life and the one yet to come. Between extreme opposites we have myriads of varieties of everything composing the universe. All forms, fashions, colors and conditions in existence incline toward one extreme or the other, and we are thus enabled to classify and to judge the merit of each one by comparison with the other. A survival of the strongest takes place in matters prevailing thus. In politics there will always be two opposing parties. One party stands as a challenge to the other, ever ready to step in and control the reins of government at the slightest political indiscretion. A survival of the strongest in politics may be slow in coming about, so insidiously does corruption develop in the ranks of the incumbent party, but just as soon as the unbecoming conduct and misdemeanor can no longer be tolerated by the public, then the opposing party comes into power, prevailing for a cycle when it, sooner or later, meets a similar fate for a like cause. There is but one true religion; all forms, creeds, cults and denominations come through a misunderstanding or misinterpreta tion of the Scriptures. If our comprehension If our comprehension of the Scriptures was uniformly the same, there would be but one form of worship. We do not see and understand alike, hence the many churches of different faith. The opposite of Christianity is infidelity. The former is accentuated by the existence of the latter, and seemingly essential to emphasize that which results in the most good to the greatest number, as there are but few educated infidels compared with the multitude of intelligent believers in a Supreme Being. Universal harmony is the key to professional progression, happiness and congeniality. Nature beautified the world by harmonizing sound, size, shape, color and conditions, using the different contrasts of each to intensify the elegance or inelegance of the other as the case may be. The most favored of all the essential attributes of Nature are color and sound. Varied tints and hues of most exquisite taste are to be found in the beautiful flowers of the land, and by harmonizing the colors we are able to satisfy the mind, through the eye, with pleasing pictures and magnificent paintings by the great artists of the world. Without color we would be unable to see anything; we would have no use for eyes. Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that if everything in existence was of the same color and same texture, we could not distinguish objects about us. If you were to fly a kite high in the air of the same blue as that of the sky you could not see it. If you draw a line across a blackboard with a piece of carbon of the same blackness as that of the board, you would be unable to see it, but if you use a piece of white chalk instead, the contrast is plainly visible. We must have a background of something different to bring out the object sought. So the regular system of medicine is unconsciously using the various fads and isms of all other systems as a background to accentuate its own prevailing steadfastness. We are a shining light in the midst of darkness, a solar system, if you please, with all other lesser planets revolving about us and we will ever maintain matters in this fashion so long as God and man combine forces in promoting and upholding the one science and the one system of medicine. We have accepted the wide and rational means of combating human ills; all others are mere substitutes for the real and cannot hope to do more than plunder our premises or be contented with the slag and left-over residue from the regular medical mills. There should be but one system of medicine founded on scientific principles, for all the good found in any creed or cult, possessing any virtue whatever, rightly belong to the one system-the regular system of medicine. Our field is unlimited and unrestrained. The old, tried and true assemblage of medicine has more and greater discoveries to its credit than all other systems combined. It has been the greatest boon to suffering humanity and in promoting and maintaining public health. We are not a selfish clan of malefactors or an aggrandizing aggregate of benefactors running off to one side as soon as we discover something new and useful in the treatment of diseases, starting up a new cult that we may gain fame and fortune, but we believe in giving everything found in the field to the profession and to the world at large free of charge. I do not think much of a man who holds the means of saving life or even prolonging it for a ransom, whether he be in the profession or out of it. We should not be human ghouls preying on the sick and unfortunate, but a body of scientific, philanthropic men striving to uphold the dignity of the profession first, last and at all times. Public opinion should demand of every educated physician a knowledge of all the resources of the healing art, and a readiness to employ any and all means required to save life. If such a requisition is made by an enlightened public, |