The Social Implications of Medical Science

In 1924 under the auspices of the Heretics, a society at Cam-bridge, were published two small booklets. One, Daedalus or Science and the Future, by J. B. S. Haldane, pictured, perhaps too optimistically, and certainly too vividly, the vast beneficent potentialities of science and the blessed world it might create. The other, Icarus, or the Future of Science, by Bertrand Russell, pointed out the hatred towards science that might develop, despite its potentialities for good, if means were not found to make its benefactions available to the great mass of the population and if its powers were diverted to the enslavement and destruction of man. The challenge to scientists expressed in these brief essays was never more relevant than it is today. The problems of medicine differ from those of other pursuits only in that they are more "sicklied o'er" with sentiment. There is no doubt that science is daily increasing the potential benefactions of medicine, but that no way has been found to extend these benefits to the great mass of the people in this country. It is equally true that food is being strangled unborn or thrown to waste while people go hungry; Iowa burns corn while Pennsylvania starves from inability to eat coal. Why then, ask physicians, should there be so much greater clamor for provision of medical care than for provision of other more urgent necessities: food, clothing, and shelter? Even from the standpoint of health these latter are quite as essential as is actual medical care. The answer must be sought on the emotional plane. That a considerable proportion of the population should be continually suffering from want of the necessities of life is accepted with equanimity with the benediction, "the poor we have always, with us"; but let an epidemic of moderate proportions threaten a far smaller fraction of the people and all the resources of the community are mustered to combat the menace. Our hospitals and clinics are signal evidence that the public places medicine in a unique position on a plane near education. It builds no institutions to provide other necessities for all who may demand them. By mutual agreement between physicians and the public, medicine has been ethically set apart from other pursuits. It has been the proudest