Editorial February 6, 1915 Issue

"Chance and change"

Archibald McLellan

"Chance and change are busy ever," an old hymn tells us, and the constantly changing beliefs about diseases and their origin which are features of so-called preventive medicine, are well illustrated in a recent editorial in the New York Herald under the title "The Vanishing of the 'Heredity' Specter." We quote from this editorial as follows:—

It has been well said that ghosts and haunted houses decrease in frequency in a definite inverse ratio to the increase in our means of lighting. No self-respecting ghost will live in a house lighted with electricity, in which the person who should receive the ghostly visitant with due awe can just lean quietly out of bed, touch a button, and flash the whole room full of light. The candle-lighted dwelling was the favorite ghostly haunt. The same is true of the specter of the heredity of disease. The more light is thrown on the subject, the less significance heredity has.

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