THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3317, 22 October 1919, Page 5

THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE.

Sir Jamcs I\’!ac]<cnzie’s position in the medical world is so exeeipticlial that his views on the future of the profession are ceitain to «be widely canvassed. He has recently published a book on “The Future of Medicine,” which. is really a. plea. for the practical and the immediate, as opposed to the

academic. It is ihe,de.mand of one of the greatest of general practitioners that the fundamental shall be placed before the merely occasional, and that the object of all practice, the treatment of the patient, shall be made once again the cornerstone of the edifice. Sir James sees in modern specialism a great danger——thc' spirit is lost in a mass of-‘small enterprises. "All the modern laboratory me‘tho.ls, all the elaborate instrumental helps to diagnosis, are, in the last resort’, but extensions of the special senses.of the trained observer. Yet because -the teacher has ‘become academic and dissociated from life, he has too often allowed the laboratory" and the instrument to become ends in themselves and, in his delight in more ‘‘tricks,’‘ has overlooked‘ the great necessities of his practice The student is bewildered. Hc has the idea that medicine, in its vast -complication, is beyond his powers of apprehension. He sees the trees, but cannot visualise the forest. He loses heart or becomes a mere hack ready tcypander to popular prejudices. Sir James /pleads, therefore, for revaluation. We must get back to essentials, he declares. We must not be stampeded by the “mir-acl-es” of «a science that would unseat our purpose. Medical education must begin with the paticllt’s symptoms as soon as these declare themselves; it must comprehend the meaning of these symptoms, how they are ‘produced, why they are produced, what they signify_ It must follow the history Of, these symptoms and relate them to other symptoms. lt must look below the symptoms to their deeper causesIn this way the fil‘St signs of disease will be known and prevention and cure be facilitated. The student will possess rather than he possessed of his medical education. He will learn, as it were within sound of the guns. The general practitioner will take his ‘P1309 as a research worker, and the Vast fields of knowledge in general practice. be brought at last under cultivation-

A LINER ON FIRE. I, ICAPETOWN, Oct. 20. The Union Castle liner Berwield Castle reached Mombassa on Wednesday, with her coal bunkers on fire. The vessel was beached. The fore part is completely gltt’t'ed”, and as the fire has spread aft, operations have been abandoned temporarily. The passengexfs were landed, and_llo‘ casualties are re-. ported. Y ‘ M