TRIUMPHS OF SURGERY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5393, 27 February 1929, Page 3

TRIUMPHS OF SURGERY.

FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE. making terms with death. "It would be comparatively easy to enumerate the salient points of recent knowledge in .a branch, elf the practice of medicine. The difficulty would rest with the audience in trying to maintain a sustained, if languid, interest in that theme,” said Dr. J. s. Elliott, in his, presidential address to the conference of 'the British

Medical Association at Wellington on

Tuesday night. “The most perfect % camera,” he said 1 , “is the eye; the f most perfect telephone is the e?x; the most perfect musjcal instrument is the larynx ; the most perfect chemi? cal laboratory, the intestinal ti-act; the most perfect ball and. socket A joint, the; human shoulder; the most > perfect thatch, the human hair for such as are blessed with a sufficient Quantity when youth ha.s faded. Above all, the most perfect farm of government is the grayc.ellulaj - system of the human brain. “The number of cells in every individual probably varies little, and, .except for the genius, 01, the idiot, the , quality of the cells appear to be fairly uniform, so that the difference in the mental power of people depended mainly oh force of application and mode of use. The government of the gray cellular system of the human fbr.ain was of a ip.ilita.nt order rathei than pacific, and the main body of this cerebral army, its infantry, so to speak, must be trained to high technical efficiency, but that alone is not sufficient. There must be other special branches, and mapy, cerebral cells must be trained for the exercise of foresight, tact, judgment, and the faculty of sympathy. Some potentialities should be conserved for the days of retirement in the evening of the battle of life, but during the fight the good c.itlzen used the greater part of his c.erebral a.rmy in acting, withholding, like a good general, a reasonable reserve to throw into the fight when hard' pressed in the momentous “ struggle.” Dr. Elliott went on to say that as a medical man, although recognising that all science subserved his art, yet it was the personal sciences to which he turned familiarly and with greater ease. Thera was no* scientist or phil- ' osopher in moder,n times who had done more to mould the thought, of educated and intelligent people than Charles Darwin, whose work, and, that of Wallace, had marked an epoch in . the world’s history. His researches did not attempt, tot er,veal the ’origin of life, but had given a stereoscopic, view of the origin of spejpies and the distribution of life on this earth, the solid crust of which took a thousand years to form. Although the results of Darwin’s search after, truth were h not admired in Tennessee, yet the F scientifically trained mind could not} fail to sec in Darwinism a goldqn _ nugget perhaps scarcely yet cleansed * from its clay. ’ For centuries the germs of disease attacked mankind, and man knew not how to set up a defence against an unknown and invisible foe, but during i the last half-century medical scientI ists had unmasked the germ armies and shown how to defeat them. That victory was the greatest, for humanity, above all the war since the World began. Epidemic disease had been controlled, and the control of putrefaction had led to the great triumphs of modern surgery. Having traversed tine sacrifices and martyrdom suffered: by many of the world’s greatest medica scilentists,

the spejakor proceeded to deal with what was expec.ted of the medical ' man. In all time of flood, fire, , famine, plague, pestilence, battle,

murder, and sudden death, said Kip-

ling, it would: be required! of the f medical profusion that they report for duty at once and go and stay on duty until strength failed o<r con-

science relieved them. There was no

legislation to limit output or shorten /.the working hours, for they were a f privileged, class, having to make the best terms thqy could with death on their patients’ behalf. It was a commonplace that matter was indestructible but may change its forffi. The picture of the universe that science revealed conveyed thrqe outstanding impressions, sublimity, order, and. purpose ; and behind evolution an unchanging background neat itself evolving, but to the believer a holy and eternal temple not rnadq with hands in which was raised the thrpne of the Most High. History showed that any great truth which I could not find a home within the sacred fold of the church was not therefore lost to mankind, but found a lodgment outside her pale, and was sooner or later used as a weapon against her. There was a time when theology held natural science in thraldom, and scienc.e had not always been content with its own freedom, but had attempted to extend its dominion into, territory not its own. With regard to religion science was necessarily neutral.