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.