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Show j CURING THE WORLD. ; We who arc witnessing daily the ad- j j T3DC9 of medical science are startled j by such reports as that which the : ; Jiockefcllcr commission in Pckin has ; I i just issued. To be told that a country ; : with more than 400,000,000 inhabitants i ' is practically without competent doctors I : 1 is amazing, and yet a moment's thought j . will convince us that even irf the civi-! civi-! lized world the greatest triumphs of ' i j medical science have been achieved in f the last one hundred years. For more ' than S00 years, however, Europe has , 1 , possessed doctors who were able by a i knowledge of medicines, of diagnosis, of ; ; anatomy and of surgery to give truly , ! scientific and effective treatment. And j yet this only emphasizes the fact that ' the greater portion of mankind have :- 1 ' beeu wholly without medical science ; since. the dawn of time. As in ChiDa, S. so in ancient Borne and Greece and the J countries of Asia Minor there were doc- ! ; tors capable of coping: with well known i ' diseases, but their treatment was based on tradition or guesswork, and usually t I . on both. The Rockefeller commission informs '' the world that in China the doctors ap- parently never have Btudiect anatomy ' and know little or nothing of the i reasons for actions or counter actions, i ', "Much if not most of their work is j, quackery. To them surgical operations j :, are impossible. The average Chinese '; doctor cannot set a bone, and men ; whose broken limbs could be mended . ; speedily in Europe or America become , .' permanent cripples in China. ! In spite of the ignorauce which has prevailed all over the world for cen-ttiHo-i regarding medicine aud surgery, i the human race has survived by its superabundant vitality. In the middle '. agis tremendous plagues swept through Europe am threatened to wipe out the entire population. The doctors were helpless to combat the black death. The principles of hygiene were not understood aud the germ theory was i still in the remote future. As a result ! : entire countries lost large percentages of their populations by such plagues as medical science is now able to stamp i ' out in a few days or weeks. 1 ; Already the span of human life has i been lengthened. We ,do not remember ' ' the exact figures, but we recall reading that 500 years ago the average of hu-' hu-' j, man life was twenty-eight years, and ; ' that now it is teu or fifteen years more. And this is aseribable to the progress or' medical science, departments of public pub-lic health and sanitation and to . a general enlightenment ou the sub ject of health. The marvels which every year are accomplished by . .; ' medical investigators arc but an ' ' t earnest of what will be achieved ; ) ,in the next few centuries, and the bene- i j fits will be distributed not only in j Europe and America, but to all the na- ! ; tions. |