Volume X1

E. J. GOODWIN, M.D., EDITOR

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

PREVENTION RATHER THAN CURE* President's Annual Address

E. H. MILLER, M.D. LIBERTY, MO.

It is difficult to write a message to this association that would not be full of oft-told tales and would tell a story not handed down to us by our preceptors and the medical heroes of the past. I would hardly be expected to give my views as to the pathology and therapy of some death-dealing disease; yet from the résumé of each of these topics and the conclusions that have been forced on me by forty years of practical experience in the practice of medicine in Missouri, that will form the basis of my address to-night.

From the fog of varied opinions among the leaders of our profession there has at last come a revolution that seems to me to have united the medical world under one banner, and from every land comes the triumphant shout emanating from the hearts of our profession, "strike at the cause of so much sickness and death in our homes rather than administer to relieve sickness after it has fastened its talons in our bodies."

We used to build paper monuments to the medical heroes who met the ravishing diseases of the past that decimated our pioneer colonies, and cured many of the victims by timely medication. We loudly eulogized those who found a cure for cholera and yellow fever, small-pox or diphtheria. "The God bless you" was echoed from the homes in the valleys as well as in the mansions on the mountainside or seashore, and we, as toilers along the road lined by sickness, admired their courage and lauded them for the results of their labors.

Delivered at the Annual Session, Missouri State Medical Association, Joplin, May 12-14, 1914.

But we stand to-day on the threshold of a new era-united to a man, battling for humanity's good and happiness. We build a monument to-day in memory's hall-a monument far above those for the heroes of hard fought battles and brilliant victories, for to-day the heroes we worship have made the results of their battles and victories permanent and full of good to our nation.

We praise, in this new era in our civilization, the physician who by his untiring labors and untold suffering stands on the shores of our seas and lakes and rivers as well as in the heart of our inland cities, and tells the germs of almost all our devastating diseases, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." We no longer tax our minds so much with the cure of disease, but strive to aid in its prevention.

I wish to ask you, What do you think of it, and where do you stand in the fight? Rather a queer question, but I wish to impress on this body the danger of failure in appreciating the true meaning of the movement. I have often heard the family physician of some prominent citizen, who had risen to some high office in his community, say that he had cured this man of some very bad attacks of sickness, and had it not been for him that citizen would be dead. Under the past order of things he told the truth, but he should not have to say it, for, as his medical adviser, the cause of so much sickness in this man's life should have been removed, barring some incurable malady. I mean by this, that when we officiate at the birth of a child we smile at the parents' happiness and praise the perfect physical condition of the little fellow, take our departure and leave it to battle with all the perils that follow its birthleave it to make a fight against all the ignorance of poverty and superstition, coupled with friendly advice from the neighbors, until, if it lives, some day you are summoned to relieve it of some malady it should not have had had we done our duty as a follower of the new light in medicine-prevent rather than cure.