Editorial May 1, 1915 Issue

The "more excellent way"

John B. Willis

Much is deservedly said these days of the heroism and faithfulness of those who in the crowded field hospitals are working day and night to do what they can to relieve the ever increasing army of brave men shot down in the tragic stupidity of war. The devotion of army surgeons has always been noted, and the betterment they bring to the sufferers ofttimes seems quite wonderful. A helper in a Paris hospital writes of an instance in which a dreadfully mangled man, having been operated upon, recovered to the astonishment of all who knew the nature of his hurt. He adds, however, that after his recovery the soldier indulged an appetite for drink, and had just died of delirium tremens!

This case well illustrates two facts,—the seemingly unlimited possibilities pertaining to material belief, and their utter failure to reach the seat of the trouble. Here was a man who might be said to have been marvelously healed, and yet nothing whatever was accomplished for his save that he was given the opportunity to die an ignoble death. When one thinks of the tremendous size and persistence of these tragic human issues, that the patient may be said to be the population of a planet, that the varieties of ailments are innumerable, and that at their best all material means can do absolutely nothing to make immune from sickness or to remove the fundamental reasons for their wretchedness,—when one remembers all this, it seems unbelievable that the question of causation should have received so little attention at the hands of those who are striving so earnestly to help the race.

It is doubtless true that selfish considerations, the desire for gain and for the eminence of distinguished reputation, may have impelled the many. Some may even recognize appreciatively that in the nature of the case materia medica fattens upon its failures. The continuous appearance of new diseases, and the equally constant flux of the panaceas used, two facts enlarge and keep up its practice since, if the claim that it is a science, that there is an unchangeable law and relation governing drug therapeutics, were true, the discovery of unfailing remedies would inevitably react to the financial disadvantage of the profession.

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The "more excellent way"

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