PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE. On this Professor

point we Gairdner,

Association at "

As

a

a

late

take leave to quote from a letter from which was read before the Social Science

meeting.

health officer of

certain amount of

a

has also held other offices and like to submit some, to my

against

experience, who professional positions, I should mind, very cogent arguments

what I suppose to be the drift of much that lias been lately 011 this subject. It seems to me that

said and written

advantages of the combination practice, or with other medical offices, they are as nothing compared with the evil of splitting up, deliberately and by a preconcerted plan, the medical profession and the art of healing into two separate halves?a preventive and a curative portion?which would be the inevitable result of a logical adherence to the formula of separation' of duties. The medical profession generally requires sanitary knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the causes and prevention of disease, to complete the cycle of its means towards cure of disease; and the sanitary officer requires equally, in my opinion, to be kept in close relations of acquaintance with the facts and generalisations of medical practice, otherwise he is sure to become a man of red tape and officialism?a doctrinaire, It has been to me a great source of strength in short. all along, and also a source of intellectual satisfaction, to think that I was not a mere official person ; and, on the other hand, one, not the least powerful, among the reasons that induced me to accept a sanitary office, was the belief that I could bring the teachings of preventive science to bear on the actual practice, and still more on the teaching, of medicine a? a healing art." whatever may be the occasional of sanitary duties with private

'

...

The Medical

weighty words,

Times and Gazette remarks that and deserve full consideration.

numbers of medical

men

should be divorced

of

"

these

are

That from

large practice

keeping alive their pathological necessity therefore, and, thoroughly official and dependent knowledge, is a condition of things of which we have Government, upon It may lead to a stereotyped Chinese as yet 110 experience. system, or may not; but we hold it better that medical men, and from the

THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.

190 as

a

rule, should keep

pathology heartily ?with

in this

concur

the

fast the tie that connects them with

and preserves the

more

independence of practice." We expression of opinion, and we do so

confidence, because in this country

we

have

practical experience of the mischief arising from a separation of the medical practitioner from the sanitary officer. Some of our best men are engaged in the latter service under the Indian Government, and we are convinced that their power for good is vastly curtailed in consequence of the isolated position

they hold with respect to the practising members of the profession. In India, the line between the medical practitioner and the sanitary officer is becoming, day by day, broader and deeper, to the great regret of those who sincerely wish well to

the progress of medicine in all its branches.

such mistake

We trust

no

England. With men like Mr. Simon to take the lead, such is hardly likely to be the case, for he must know full well what a great advantage it has been to him to hare been able to hold his position as one of the leading pathologists and surgeons in London, while directing the sanitary department of the country. We as

this will be committed in

have been less fortunate in

our

leader in this country.

Miss

Nightingale and Sir J. Strachey were doubtless unable to comprehend the advantages to be derived from a union between the practice of medicine and sanitation, and so the divorce between the two was effected, to the great detriment of both branches of There is no truer saying than that our profession. union is strength and the Indian Medical Service, whatever its destiny may be, will never regain its former position and influence until the medical department and sanitary service are again "

united.

[August 1,

1872.

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