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Show SCIENCE VS. DISEASE. The president of the American Association Asso-ciation of Clinical Hesearch is authority author-ity for the statement that ''within ten years medical scipnee probably t will have succeeded in all but eliminating deatli from tuberculosis from vital statistics. sta-tistics. ' The learned physician further fur-ther declared that "Tecent discoveries, by which the presence of tubercular tendencies ten-dencies can be detected even before the germs appear in the sputum, together with a later and higher development of the X-ray, will, in a short time, remove tuberculosis ' from the list of necessarily necessar-ily fatal diseases. ' 1 We sincerely hope that some means has been discovered to arrest the onward on-ward march of the great white plague, one of the chief lieutenants of death. For years and years the most celebrated celebrat-ed scientists of the .world have battled bat-tled with the disease' only to retire discomfited. dis-comfited. Much has been done in a preventive way. Workshops have been made sanitary and thousands of people have been taught how to properly care for themselves at critical periods of their lives in order that they may not be struck down by the most insidious of all diseases. Physicians have been able also to prolong the lives of many who have become infected. There medical science stops. Tt is probably true that many men and women who have developed tuberculosis tuber-culosis in iucipieut form have succeeded in throwing it off by change of climate or have been aided in escaping the clutches, of the grim monster by some unknown agency. But despite the fact that countless thousands of .' 'cures" for consumption have been advertised, not one of them fills the bill. "Turtle "Tur-tle serums ' J come and go, but the disease goes on. Yet there is hope that medical science, will finally succeed suc-ceed in slaying he dragon' and we do not despair. All the reputable physicians physi-cians of the world are battling against consumption and its twin destroyer, cancer, and they must conquer in the ,end. One of the countless thousands of victims vic-tims of the last-named disease left a great fortune to be used in scientific research, re-search, the purpose being to find a remedy rem-edy that -would save the lives of others oth-ers similarly afflicted, but so far little or no progress has been made in that direction and a great army of men and women go down to death each year after suffering untold agonies. There are ' cancer cures ' ' w ithout number, but in many cases their use only spreads the, poison over the system and hastens death. While the knife has been used with success in some cases it cannot be said to be a very formidable weapon in the fight against cancer, even when in the hands of the most skillful surgeon. sur-geon. The scientists are waging war against another disease, the hook worm malady, which ravages all the tropical countries and reaches up into the temperate zones. The magnitude of the work undertaken by the Rockefeller Foundation in this direction can be at least partially understood un-derstood wheu it is stated in the annual report of the international health commission com-mission that the "infection belts the globe in a zone on both sides of the equator fib" degrees wide and with a population pop-ulation of 90n,0UO,000 souls." The commission is extending its . work and the battle agaiust the hookworm has lately been inaugurated in several j of the Central American countries, where the in fee tion is general among all classes of people. It is a cheering thought that while so many other nations of the earth are dealing out death and. destruction the wealth and science of the United States are being employed in a war on diseases which have never been conquered in the history of the world and which have been regarded as invincible in all ages of which we have any account. Devoted Devot-ed American medical scientists succeeded succeed-ed in stantping out yellow fever in the' United States and Cuba, and, owing to their skill and knowledge, bubonic plague and Asiatic cholera are no longer long-er feared in this country. May we not hope they will be successful in the other battles in which they are now engaged? |