Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Copy of newspaper pages from microfilm held by the State Historical Society of Missouri.

Transcription

Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11 

PAGE 9

COLUMN 1

The corner-stone of the Parker Memorial
Hospital was laid Tuesday. The occasion
Was a most notable and interesting one.
The ceremonies of the corner-stone laying
were conducted by the Masonic Grand
Lodge of Missouri. The address of the
occasion was delivered by Dr. Victor C.
Vaughn, dean of the medical department
Of the University of Michigan.
The day was bright and beautiful. A
large crowd was present. Delegates from
different towns in central Missouri, alumni
from St. Louis, Kansas City, Sedalia and
elsewhere, and other visitors were in at-
tendance. The Masonic Grand Lodge,
assembling at the hall of Twilight Lodge,
marched to the site of the building. Dr.
C. H. Briggs, of St. Louis, the Grand
Master, Campbell Wells, of Platte City,
the Deputy Grand Master, E. H. Finne-
gan, of St. Louis, Grand Senior Warden,
Dr. John D. Vincil, of St. Louis, Grand
Secretary F. D. Hubbell, of Columbia,
District Deputy Grand Master, and others
took part in the ceremonies. Thomas
Whittle acted as Grand Treasurer and Rev.
J. S. Parmer as Grand Chaplain. The
University cadet band led the procession
and the cadets, in full uniform, acted as
an escort. At the building the solemn,
appropriate and interesting ceremonies of
the laying of the stone took place. A
copper box was placed in the stone con-
taining records, a history of Mr. William
L. Parker’s manificent gift which made
the hospital possible, copies of the Colum-
bia papers and catalogues and bulletins
of the University.
Following the ceremonies the address
of Dr. Vaughn was delivered in the Uni-
versity chapel. Dr. R. H. Jesse, presided
and Dr. John D. Vincil, president of the
board of curators, introduced in his usual
graceful style, the speaker. Dr. Vaughn
is a native of Randolph county, Missouri,
a most distinguished scientist and now at
the head of the greatest school of medicine
in the Mississippi Valley. His address
was an admirable one, full of information
and helpful suggestion. It is printed in
full in The Herald.
A 6 o’clock the visiting Masons and
other guests were entertained at supper by
Twilight Lodge in the Christian church
parlors. The meal was most delightfully
prepared and was enjoyed with zeal. In
the evening Dr. C. H. Briggs, the Grand
Master, spoke at the Lodge-room on Masonry.
From 8 to 10 o’clock, Dr. R. H. Jesse
gave a reception at his home to the curat-
ors and visitors and the members of the
University Faculty.
----------------
Dr. Vaughn’s Address.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I am happy
to be with you to day and to participate
in the ceremonies connected with the
laying of the corner-stone of the Parker
Memorial Hospital. My pleasure in
this event is both personal and profes-
sional. Missouri is my native state and
I am always interested in the affiars of
this Commonwealth and especially of this
University, the advancement of which I
have watched for many years, generally
with pride, but occasionally with some de-
gree of solicitude. I am a thorough be-
liever in higher education supported by
the State. The poorest boy or girl should
have an opportunity for the highest and
best intellectual development. Taxation
for the support of a State University is a
legitimate and proper method of taking
from the rich and benefiting the poor.
It is for the public good that education
should be free. There can be but little
danger of the formation of an autocratic
class in this country so long as our State
Universities continue to develop and to

COLUMN 2

furnish equal opportunities in the pursuit
and acquisition of knowledge to the sons
and daughters of the poor and rich alike.
True democracy has no better exemplifica-
tion than in these schools. The honor
and respect shown a student by his fellows
is not measured by the wealth of his
father, but is determined by his own in-
dustry and intelligence. Student com-
munities are quick to detect shams and
ridicule with which a student inclined
to wrong doing is punished is probably
the most potent weapon ever utilized by
society in the chastisement of an offend-
ing member. I do not deny that Univers-
ity life has its pitfalls, but on the whole
I believe that determination to deal fairly
with all and to see that others do the
same is the fuiding principle amount stu-
dents. Each one is willing to do his own
share of work and his possibly somewhat
more ready to see that his comrade does
not shirk. Certainly, we must admit
that there are black sheep even among uni-
versity students, but as a rule, the colelge
graduate or student is a man possessed of
both physical and moral courage.
In the Santiage Campaign of last year,
I saw many things which increased my
pride in my country, but that which gave
me the greatest personal satisfaction was
the behavior of college men. These did
not shirk their duty, whether they wore
shoulder straps or were assigned the most
menial tasks along with men who had
been day laborers all their lives. The
garduates of our National Military School
furnished our regular commands with most
intelligent and cultured officers, who ex-
emplified their heroism not only at El
Caney and San Juan, but in the fortitude
with which they submitted to the knife of
the surgeon. The college men among our
volunteer troops were not less deserving
of praise. One of my own students fell
by the side of COlonel Roosevelt near the
summit of San Juan Hill. Another while
drawing the last breath of life said, “I
only wish that I had another life to give
my country.” Others, some of whom
had never known severe physical toil, dug
pits, laundred clothes, and policed camps
without a word of complaint. I would not
have it understood that the Americans at
Santiage, who had never been blessed
with a liberal education, failed in their
duty, but it must be admitted that intelli-
gence combined with courage makes the
best soldier. It is said, and I doubt not
its truth, that when the struggle between
Germany and France came in 1870, the
superiority of the former was largely due
to the great univerities which the German
States had so wisely endowed and so lib-
erally supported.
I hope that the legislature of this State
will continue its liberal policy towards
this University, and it certainly would be
a misfortune to have any party cripple its
usefulness by failing to grant its adequate
appropriations. The great wealth with
which nature has endowed Missouri places
upon those who direct its affiars grace re-
sponsibilities, none of which are of more
importance than the provision of ample
facilities for the higher education of its
sons and daughters. To the Curators of
this University I wish to say, continue in
your good work and do not hesitate to ask
for liberal support from your legislature.
You have done much and of this we
are proud, but there is much more that
you may do. Make this University as
good as the best and better, if possible.
Provide a means for the prosecution of
liberal courses of study in Literature, the
Arts, the Sciences, Law and Medicine.
Make this the intellectual center of the State.
To the men who have accumulated great
wealth, let me make a plea for the endow-

COLUMN 3

ment in this University of Chairs, for the
building and equipment of laboratories in
which instruction and research in the
Sciences may be carried on, for the erec-
tion of hositals and the provision of
means for the best treatment of the un-
fortunate sick. The man who thus dis-
poses of a portion of his wealth will not
bury his five talents, but will receive from
coming generations the cmmendation of
well done.
The Sciences should recive especial
encouragement in a state university, and
support for the prosecution of work in
these should be witheld because the
benefits are not always apparent and im-
mediate. Discoveries in Science are the
gems dug from the earth by one genera-
tion ; cut and polished by the next, and
used to adorn the third. Had the re-
searches of Faraday in pure Science never
been made, the telegraph and the telephone
would not to-day serve us in the transmis-
sion of messages. To change the metaphor,
Science is the hardy mariner that sails
over unbroken seas and discovers new
lands. The application of Science comes
later and by this means the forests are
cleared, homes are built, commerce flour-
ishes and new nations come into exist-
ence. Pure Science must always lead the
way. Had it not been for the patient la-
bors of men, many of whom remain un-
known, who devoted their lives to pure
Science, the civilization of to-day would
be impossible.
I have stated that my interest in to-day's
celebration is personal, because the rec-
tion of this hospital will extend the use-
fullness of the University of my native
State. It is also professional, because it
pertains to the Science of Medicine, to
which I have given the energies of my
life.
The man who builds a hospital in which
the sick may recive the administration is
of scientific medicine is a practical chris-
tian, whatever his creed may be. If he
who makes two blades of grass to grow
where only one had grown before is a
benefactor of his race, how much more
deserving of this title is he who mitigates
the sufferings of his fellowmen. The
wisdom of a Solomon may not solve the
mystery of life. It is not given to us to
understand why sickness and suffering are
common heritages of mankind. We are
pilgrams journeying along a road; of
many things we are densely ignorant; we
can not even tell from whence we came,
nor can we name the land for which we
are bound; but we do know that the bur-
dens placed upon the shoulders of men
are unevenly distributed and the highest
duty one can perform in this earthly pil-
grimage is to lend a helping hand to a
brother who bears a heavier burden. He
who serves his fellowman, be he Chris-
tain or be he Pagan, honor his creator.
The idea of building hospitals had its
first origin in man’s philanthropic desire
to succor the sick. The first hospitals of
which we have any knowledge were built
in Egpyt from four to six thousand years
before our era. As early as this, there
were medical schools in connections with
the Temples of Saturn. The learned
Egyptologist, Ebers, states that a medical
clinic was held at Heliopolis in a build-
ing designated as the Great Hall. The
Paprus of Ebers might be called a hand-
book of hospitals and it contains a collec-
tion of prescriptions for the most vari-
ous maladies. The Chief Priest at Helio-
polis was called the Urme and was the
President or Dean od the Medical Faculty.
Medical Schools, for which clinics were
provided, were connected with many of
the Temples of Ancient Egypt.
In the Literature of the far East, there
are found legends concerning the origin
of hospitals. A Hindoo story relates that
a nobleman, Suaruta by name, and six of
his devoted companions, touched by the
sufferings of men, sought Brahma, who
advised them to build a hospital and gave
them instruction in the treatment of dis-
ease.
The Indian Kind, Asoka, who resigned
on the third century before Christ issued
an edict in which his people were in-
structed to rect and equip hospitals
throughout his dominions. As was the
custom at that time, this edict was en-

COLUMN 4

graved on a stone and it may be seen and
read to-day near Gujurat. Asoka not only
caused many hospitals to be built, but he
provided for their support by a tax of one-
anna on each rupee of the net gain of mer-
chants in all their transactions.
Fi—Han, a Chinese Monk, who traveled
through INdia in the fourh century A. D.
describes the hospitals at Patna, which had
been on the capital of the Kingdom of
Asoka, as follows: “On the eighth day
of the moon there was a great festival,
when people from all the provinces as-
sembled at Patna. here a delegate from
each kingdom had established a medicine
house of happiness and virtue. The poor,
the orphans, the lame, in short, all the
sick repair to these houses, where they re-
ceive all that is necessary for their wants.
Physicians examine their complaints, they
are supplied with meat and drink accord-
ing toe xperience, and medicines are ad-
ministered to them. Everything contrib-
utes to soothe them. Those that are cured
go away of themselves.”
Other instances might be given to show
that even among heathen people the provi-
sion of hospitals for the treatment of the
sick has been regarded as one of the no-
blest deeds that man can perform. He
who does this serivce has always been re-
garded as one who loves his fellowman.
It will be most appropriate at this time
to speak of hospitals connected with state
and national schools of medicine. One
of the most renowed of these is that con-
nected with the National University at
Christians. Patients from all parts of Nor-
way are sent to this ospital and are util-
ized by the professors in the medical school
in giving clinical instruction to their stu-
dents. Each patients who enters this hos-
pital pays a fee and in case he is not able
individually to do this, the province from
which he is sent pays for him.
The patients received are divided into
three classes according to the accomoda-
tions and meals furnished them. Those
of the first class are charged about seventy-
five cents a day. They occupy wards con-
taining from four to ten beds and their
diet is simply, but nutritious. those of
the second class are charged about ninety
cents a day. These occupy wards of at
most three beds, and receive a more va-
ried diet. Those of the third class have
each a room and special nurse. They
have more delicacies supplied them and
are charged about $1.50 per day. This
hospital contains two hundred and forty
beds, is self-supporting and is one of the
best conducted hospitals in the world.
The conditions affecting you here are

PAGE 10

COLUMN 1

so similar to those prevalent with us at
Ann Arbor that a brief mention of our
hospitals arrangments may not be alto-
gether without interest to you. We have a
University Hospital of eighty beds which
will be increased to one hundred and fifty
beds during the coming year. Each pa-
tient who comes to the hospital is fully
utilised in giving cinical instruction. All
operations are witnessed by the third and
fourth year students. Patients are assigned
to students, who take histories, make diag-
noses, suggest treatment, apply dressing
etc.--all under the guidance of the profes-
sors and their assistants. Students visit
the wards each day in sections accompanied
by the porfessor in charge. Each patient
occupying a bed in the general ward pays
$5 per week and those who have separate
rooms pay $9 per week. When a special
nurse is needed there is an additional
charge of $15 per week. With the present
accomodations, we have been able to re-
ceive less than sixty per cent of those who
have applied for admission. The number
treated yearly has averaged about 1,700
and this number will be increased to about
3,000 with the extension of accomodations
to be completed during the coming year.
For the most part, these patients are peo-
ple who can pay the small charges made
at a University Hospital, but would not be
able to secure and pay for expert medical
service. They are the respectable, hard
working poor of the state. Besides these
who make up the bulk of our patients, the
Superintendents of the Poor in the coun-
ties are authorize of send to this Hospital
at the expense of the county any one who
may be benefitted by treatement and who is
not able to pay the charges. Furthermore,
the superintendents of various state insti-
tutions, such as the Public School for
boys, the Industrial School for girls, The
Asylums for the Deaf, Blind and feeble
minded, etc., may send those under their
charge to this Hospital at the expense of
the State. In addition to these provisions,
a statute provides that every physician who
recognizes a deformity in a newly born
child of poor parents shall, if he thinks
such deformity can be relieved by opera-
tion, cause such child to be sent to this
hospital. The State pays for these cases.
Clinical progessors in the Medical De-
partment render hospital service without
compensation other than their salaries.
The gross annual receipts of this hospital
ammount to nealy $35,000 and cover a lit-
tle more than the current expense, includ-
ing the salary of the Superintendent, pro-
vision for twenty nurses and other help
about the Hospital, but not including the
salaries of professors nor the heating and
lighting of the building. In this way the
hospital has come to be recognized as one
of the greatest and most practical charities
of the State. Many men and women on
the verge of papuerism are restored to health
and return to their homes capable of earn-
ing their living. Sickness is a weight
that drags many an individual into the
poor-house. By means of the help provided
by the State hospital many a man is en-
abled to cast off the burden which is sink-
ing him into pauperism. he retains his
self-respect and the community in which
he lives is relieved from the necessity of
supporting him. We feel that our hospital
enables us to do much good, but we real-
ise that our facilities are still inadequate
and that the good accomplished is small
compared with that which might be done.
The Hospital, the corner-stone of which
you have to-day placed in position, will
be of great service to the Medicial Depart-
ment of this University and a blessing
to many of the people of the State. There
are many diseases that can be treated satis-
factorily only in hospitals. Until a few y
ears ago, there was some prejudice against
hospitals, the inamtes of which are util-
ized in giving clinical instruction to medi-
cal students. This prejudice was due to
mistaken ideas on the part of the public.
It was supposed that the treatment was
left largely to students who made their
first experiments upon the unfortunate
sick. This was never true of any reput-
able hospital in any part of the civil-
ized world. In teaching hospitals as well
as in others, the operations are per-
formed and treatment is nprescribed by
trained physicians. Experience has dem-
onstrated that patients receive better care
in teaching hospitals than in others. Un-
der the keen eyes of bright students the
clinical professor does his best work. He
is more careful in his preliminary study

COLUMN 2

of each case; he must be sure of his di-
agnosis and he can not afford to make any
errors in treatment. These facts are now
generally recognized and is admitted by
all that patients receive the best care and
the most skillful treamtent when they serve
for clinical instruction.
Your Medical Department will be greatly
benefitted by the facilities furnished in
this Hospital. The best text-books and
the most apt lecturers on clinical medicine
can give the student only imperfect pictures
of disease. The student of medicine es-
pecially must see as well as hear. By see-
ing cases he acquires a readiness in diag-
nosis which no amount of reading could
possibly give him. Beside instruction is
necessary in order to illustrate and exem-
plify lectures and texts. A comparatively
small hospital to which students have ac-
cess under the care of instructors furnishes
much more valuable material so far as the
medical student is concerned than do
larger hospital which students can not en-
ter and which serve as center of instruction
only by furnishing pateints that are taken
into the clinical amphitheater.
Some of our large medical schools that
boast of the number of patients at their
disposal can not carry their students into
the hoispitals. Clinical amphitheater teach-
ing is a poor substitute for bedside instruc-
tion, and a small hospital in which the
latter can be carried on is much more
valuable to a medical school than a much
larger hospital in which oatients can be
utilized only in the amphitheater. It is
of but little beenfit to a student to witness
from a distant seat a difficult surgical
operation performed in the pit, and this
little benefit vanishes into nothing if he
can not follow the patient into the ward
and see something of the subsequent treat-
ment. Students can not acquire a practi-
cal knowledge of clinical medicine by
witnessing operations in an amphitheater
any better than chemistry can be learned
by watching from a distance the manipu-
lation of professor of this subject. In
order to be a microscopist it is not suffi-
cient to look at a microscope, you must
look through the instrument. In order to
acquire skill in the treatment of disease
it is not sufficient to see the patient from
a distance ; but you must feel the pulse,
auscultate the chest, palpate the abdomen,
look in upon the retina, examine the vocal
chords, apply the various tests to the blood,
know how to dress a wound, etc. One
never knows how to do a thing until he
has once done it, or as someone else
states: “The best preparation for doing
a thing is the consciousness of having
done it before.”
This Hospital, properly managed, will
be of service not only to the student, but
it will furnish opportunities for the ad-
vancement of scientific medicine. In
teaching hosptials, records must be kept
and well kept records of cases are always
of value. Again, it is true that there is
not always advantage in numbers. A dozen
cases of any disease carefully and
thoroughly studied are of more value to
a studen than scores of patients, with the
same disease, hurriedly passed by. In-
deed, if I may be permitted, I will say
confidentially to the medical student that
thoroughness in the application of scien-
tific methods to the study of cases in hand
will be worth more to him in increased
knowledge and advancement in his profes-
sion than any number of carelessly ob-
served cases can be. Medicine grows
less and less empiris and more and more
scientific every day, and the physician
who fials to utilize scientific methods in
the treatment of disease will not establish
for himself a reputation, neither will he be
of much service to his patients. The day
has passed when the physician who fails to
examine the blood in suspected malaria
and consequently makes a wrong dianosis
is entitled to the respect of his professional
brethren, nor can failure to recognize
tuberculosis, when the soutum is latent
with the specific bacilli of this disease, be
condoned. I wish to emphasize the fact
that without the application of scientific
methods of diagnosis and treatment the
largest hospital in this world can to-day
be of but little service to the science of
medicine ; while on the other hand, with
the application of scinetific methods, the
thorough study and close observation of a
limited number of cases may furnish most
valuable information. Many of the great-
est contributions yet made to medicine
have resulted from the labors of men who

COLUMN 3

lived remote from crowded centers of popu-
lation. Was not Jenner, who by his dis-
covery of vaccination practically freed
man front hat most loathsome disease,
small-pox, a provinvial Doctor who had
time to observe closely what came under
his eye? Was not Robert Koch a village
physician when he mad ehis first contribut-
ions to bateriology? Was not Ephriam
McDowell a backwoods practicioner in
Kentucky when he performed for the first
time that great operation which has added
thousands of years in the aggregate to the
life of woman? Was not Marion Sims a
young man without honor and advantages
when in the then village of Montgomery,
Alabama he kept a number of poor suffer-
ing women at his own expense until he
solved the technique of an operation which
he was subsequently called to perform in
the capital cities of Europe? Was not
William Beaumont an army surgeon,l sta-
tioned at his isolated post on the island of
Mackinaw, when under difficulties appar-
ently insurmountable, and with a perse=
verance almost without a parallel, he carried
on the now classical studies on digestion
at the very time when the Prfoessor of
Physiology in the University of Berlin
pronounced all ideas concerning the gass-
tric-jusice to be vain theories? Take from
medicine the contributions that have been
made by the village physician and you rob
it of more than half its power and glory.
Careful observation of apparently trivial
things often leads to great results. In the
year 1849, a practitioner in a small town
in Germany described small rod-like
bodies which he had observed in the
blood of animals sick with anthrax. Of
what possibly utility could such an obser-
vation as this be? Yet, upon it the sci-
ence of bacteriology in its application to
the causation of disease is founded. This
apparently useless discovery has grown un-
til to-day voluminous handbooks failed
to exhaust the subject, and of such practi-
cal utility has it proved to be that it con-
stitutes the most important factor in the
saving of human life. Knowledge
founded upon this apparently trivial ob-
servation has classed puerperal septicemis,
once the deadliest foe to parurient women,
among the rare disease, has enabled the
surgeon to explore any part of the human
body, and forms the basis of the greatest
and most human science known, that of
the prevention of disease. Before this
discovery and until its value was appreci-
ated, the announcement that Asiatic chol-
era was spreading over Europe always
caused a panic in this country and when
it came to our shores, men stood agahst;
they were in the presence of an unknown
foe; they say those about them stricken
down. but they could not tell from whence
the blow came. Commerce was paralyzed ;
communities were thrown into panic and
man often lost sympathy with his fellow-
men, and even faith in God was shattered
by dreadful affliction. Now that the cause
of disease is known, we are not fright-
ened, when even the black death sails
into New York Harbor. We know that
neither the Plague nor cholera can become
epidemic in this country except as a result
of the greatest carelssness on the part of
those appointed to supervise our quarantine
system. For this deliverance from the
Plague and cholera, the more than 70,000,-
000 of people in this country may thank
the lowly German Doctor who first observed
bacteria in blood, and the profession
which has developed the science of which
he was a pioneer.
The new Hospital will improve your in-
struction, advance scientific medicine, and
prove a blessing to many of the sick. In
this State, with its more than 3,000,000
of inhabitants, at least one hundred people
each year grow blind from the formation
of cataract. Many of these unfortunates
are not able to pay for the services of a
skilled opthalmologist. these can be
brought even from the remotest parts of
the State to your Hospital at Ann
Arbor more than four hundred cataracts
have been removed and sight restored dur-
ing the past five years. If the sight of an
eye is worth $500, this operation alone
has within the period mentioned paid for
the entire building and equipment of the
hospital. Moreover, removal of cataracts
is only one of the many operations done
int eh Opthalmological Department, and
during the time mentioned above more
than 4,000 other operations have been per-
formed upon the eyes of the poor. The

COLUMN 4

good that can be done to the derserving
poor fo this State by the proper treatment
of diseases of the eye alone will more than
justify the existence of this new Hospital.
In your sugical clinic many major op-
erations will be performed. Club foot,
cleft palate and many other mal-forma-
tions amoung the children of the poor may
be remedied. many who are incapacitated
by the ecistence of grace hernias may be
cured by radical operation, after which
they will be able to return to the produc-
tive classes. Tubercular joints may be
cured; tamors removed; fissures healed,
and many operations in minor surgery may
transform a life of pain and dependence
into one of joy and productiveness. If to
heal the sick and to return the deformed
to the image of God are worthy deeds there
is enough in the erection, equipment and
management of his Hospital to interest
every person in the State.
You will doubtlessly find that this Hos
pital will soon by outgrown by your in-
creasing needs. Moreover, you will de-

PAGE 11

COLUMN 1

sire special buildings for the treamtents of
certain diseases. I will refer to one dis-
ease which is becoming of the greatest
importance to us and against the spread
of which it is desirable that state action
should be taken. Of the 70,000,000
people living in the United States to-day,
10,000,000 or more will, unless something
be done to prevent it, die of tuberculosis.
In the census year of 1890, 102,199
deaths are reported as due to pulmonary
tuberculousis or consumption. To the re-
proted, not less than thirty per cent should
be added in order to arrive at the actual
number. When this computation is made,
it will be found that the annual number of
deaths in this country from pulmonary tu-
berculosis alone am ounts to nearly 133,-
000. I know of no reliable date from
which we can ascertain the number of
deaths from tuberculosis of other organs
than the lungs. However, knowing, as
we do that every part of the body—the
skin, the muscles, the bones, the nerv-
ous system, the abdominal and pelvic vis-
cera—are all occasionally, and some of
them frequent sufferers from the invasion
of tubercle bacilli, we will hardly be ac-
cused of exaggeration when we state that
in all probability this microganism is di-
rectly or indirectly the cause of not less
than 150,000 deaths in this country each
year. The number of persons infected
with tuberculosis is probably not less than
1,200,000. These figures are probably too
small. Germany hasa a population equal to
about three-fourths that of this country
and the number of consumptives in the
German Empire is not less than 1,200,000
and the any=nual deaths from this disease
in the same country ranges from 170,000
to 180,000. However, the estimates which
I have givens are sufficiently larges to ren-
der the subject of the restriction of tuber-
culosis worthy of the consideration of
every one who is interseted in the welfare
of the human race. Moreover, it should
be borne in mind that unless some effort
is made to prevent it, the mortality from
tuberculosis will increase with improved
facilities of trravel and the greater ease
with which the consumptives invalid,
even in the advanced stages of the disease,
mingles with and infects the healthy.
When the consumptive knows how, and
properly attends to the thorough descrution
of the germs thrown off from his body,
there is no longer any danger of his be-
coming a center of infection. Residence
in a properly conducted hospital arranged
especially for the care and treatment of
tuberculosis patients, would be perfectly
safe. The danger of ingection in such
a house would be much less than that to
which the traveler subjects himself every
time he passes a night in a hotel. In the
latter instance, one is assigned to a room,
the condition of the previous occupant of
which is wholly unknown to him. The
bed may have been occupied by a careless
consumptive who has scattered the seeds
of the disease about him. Wherever we
gom we are in danger of being infected,
but if certain well known rules should be
followed in detail, the infected and the
uninfected might mingle without danger.
The bravest man may hesitate to walk
through a jungle which conceals a single
savage beast, but even the timid do not
hesitate to approach a whole menagerie of
caged lions. Every state should establish
one or more hospitals for the education
and treatment of it consumptives. These
hospitals would have a two-fold use. The
training of its inmates in methods of re-
stricting the disease would be of untold
benefit, and it is now generally conceded
that the insitutional treatment of this dis-
ease is more successful than any other.
Only in such insitutions can the dietic
and hygientic treatment be carried out sat-
isfactorily, and all agree that this is of
more importance than the use of medicinal
agents. In hospitals for conumptives
the cures amount to about twenty-five per
cent. This can not be done in private
practice even when aided by specially
favorable climate ; but says one, the treat-
ment which you propose would be, if
carried out, an expensive one. This is
true, but is it not also true that we are
paying heavy tribute to this disease? How
much loss in money do the 150,000 annual
deaths from this diease entail? How

COLUMN 2

great a financial less alone will it be to
this country when one-seventh of those,
now living beocme its victims, many of
them after years of sickness during a large
part of which time they will be unable to
earn their daily bread? I will not at-
tempt to name [?] money value of these
lives, the question is above any financial
consideration. It is one of the welfare
of the human race. Has anything of this
kind ever been? Yea, fortunately, we
have a parallel in the method by which
leprosy was eradicated from Europe.
Hirsch tells us that after the wars of the
Crusaders, leprosy became fearfully pre-
valent all over Europe. Our ancestors re-
cognized the fact that there was only one
way of ridding themselves of this plague.
At one time, according to the same au-
thority, there were no less than 1900
leper hospitals or retreats in Europe. The
leaper must live in one of these. He could
go from one to another ; but if he traveled
by day he was compled to wear a dis-
tinctive garb by which he could be recog-
nised and shunned ; and if by night, he
must carry a bell, the tingle of this would
warn those whom he should meet. Now,
by a much more humane method, we and
our descendants can stamp our tuberco-
losis. In the proposed plan, it would be
unnecessary for every consumptive to go
to such a hospital, nor would it be neces-
sary for even the incurable to remain in
this place indefinitely. The intelligent
tubercle patient after having received
proper instruction as to the methods of
disinfecting his sputum may live in in-
timate relation with his family. There
is nothing of cruelty in this proposition.
On the other hand, it has everything to
recommed it from a humane and even
a sentimental standpoint. Massachusetts
has begun this good work, by building and
equipping a hospital for the care and in-
struction of its consumptives.
In conclusion let me say that there are
two things in which I believe with all my
soul. The State should make it possible
for the poorest boy or girl to receive the
highest education. The State should not
permit any suffering which human skill
can relieve to go unrelieved.
May this Commonweath be one of the
leaders in both of these good works. The
founders of this State selected for its
motto, Salus populi suprema lex est.
When the people perfect this University
and surround its Medical Department
with hospitals in which those who are
unfortunate enough to suffer from both
poverty and disease may find relief, they
will demonstrate that the welfare of the
people is the higest duty of a state.

TOP OF PAGE