The Other Side of Medicine

THIS address is an endeavour to deal with a vast, intriguing, and mainly abstract subject which has interested men, and particularly medical men, for thousands of years, which interests us just as much today, and which will concern those who follow us even more. In the course of the progress of civilisation man has been creating sets of circumstances which produce hitherto unknown factors influencing our minds and bodies, many of them unforeseen and very real, and often harmful in their effects as producing immediate, or remote pathological effects. This fact demands that we must discover means to prevent these effects being harmful, and also to find means to cure them when they have actually harmed us. While we have vanquished many diseases at an increasing speed, it would appear that we are discovering new ones to take their place at an even greater rate. So it seems that in the foreseeable future mankind will still have many diseases to afflict hiim, and ample opportunity to study their cure, if he has not by some slight mistake caused mass suicide, or slow genetic extinction, in the name of scientific progress. However, we hope that wisdom and good sense will make us stop short of this rather gloomy prognostication. This address concerns us as individuals and our reactions upon one another, more particularly as doctors. It is that side of medicine which is not so much taught as acquired by precept, observation, and experience. If we dip into the dicta and writings of the ancient fathers of medicine we find that these are just as true now as when they were first spoken, and written thousands of years ago, and I hope they will continue to be true into the far future-their statements usually had to do with their fellow-men and women, particularly those who suffered from some disability of mind or body, and much of what follows will be on the same theme.