Editorial May 23, 1914 Issue

So-called Preventive Medicine

Archibald McLellan

The aggressiveness of the demand on the part of the advocates of so-called preventive medicine, that all mankind must, willy-nilly, be brought under their control and subjected to examination, was recently rebuked by The Evening Post of New York as follows:—

Whether Dr. Goldwater, or Dr. Biggs before him, or the estimable and distinguished gentlemen who are the backers of Life Extension Institute Movement, look upon compulsory medical examination of all persons as their goal, we cannot positively state. It looks very much as though they did. Dr. Biggs has been quoted as advocating medical examination of all "citizens," which points very strongly that way. No unmistakable statement of such an object has yet been made, so far as we have observed; but we are as yet only in the first beginnings of the movement. Dr. Gold water's article closes as follows:—

"The next great task of preventive medicine is, therefore, the inauguration of universal periodic medical examinations as an indispensable means for the control of all diseases, whether arising from injurious personal habits, from congenital or constitutional weakness, or from social and vocational conditions."

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