Medicine is a progressive science - and art, if we judge by the statistics given of the fall in the rate of mortality. Even this, however, must be carefully analysed, because a good deal of the fall of mortality is due to the great reduction in the birthrate which has taken place in the last twenty years. Still, after this has been allowed for, there is probably a balance in the doctors' favour - something to the good of the science and art of medicine. Doubtless the science is improved and the practical advice offered by medical men is better and more effectual than it used to be.

A layman, nevertheless, may be forgiven if, with all due deference, he is tempted to believe that many of the benefits attributed to medicine have been achieved through attention to sanitation - cleanliness and ventilation. Of course this is due to the work of science, which necessarily includes the members of the medical profession, but it is not due to medical science qua medical science.

The terms 'sanitation' and 'sanitary' nearly always connote only ideas associated with cleanliness, free ventilation, etc. They scarcely connote ideas of food management, or, if they do, it is only to the extent of inferring that food shall not be adulterated or of bad quality - and perhaps that there shall be enough of it.

Such questions as what food shall we eat, and how much; what are the real reasons for taking food into the body, whether it is to give strength and heat to the body or only to supply the body's waste, as Dr Rabagliati contends - these and other relevant questions are usually left to unorthodox members of the medical profession to declare upon. They seem to be very important questions, but we do not find that they were discussed - or ever mentioned - at the thirty-fourth International Medical Congress, which completed its sittings several months ago.

Obviously, the practical questions of food supply are answered very differently, according as one believes they must be answered one way or another, as, for instance, in Dr Rabagliati's or Dr Haig's way. But that they are questions not worthy of consideration by doctors in congress may be taken as an ominous sign.

It must not be forgotten that we owe many valuable discoveries of medical science to qualified members of the profession, just as discoveries of mechanical science are made by men working at their respective trades. We have sorrowfully to admit, however, that nearly all the great achievements upon which medicine plumes herself are in the direction of increasing the doctors' power over his patient, and seldom of giving his patient power over disease. It is also true that the advocacy by unorthodox members of the profession of simple and natural remedies often involves them in a charge of charlatanism, and subjects them to persecution by medical associations.

If the medical profession were all that it is supposed to be, it might be good that the reformer should suffer in solitude while his experiments and methods were subjected to adequate tests and criticism. If the associated physicians and surgeons jealously guarded the public from quackery while they impartially investigated every fresh discovery, the true reformer would welcome the protection afforded him from the "counter-currents of senseless clamour" within the doctors' own ranks, occasioned by party and vested interests.

It may be true that "loneliness tends to save the Seer from becoming a charlatan and to make of him a true Reformer." But it is not that peculiar loneliness of the Seer that the medical trade unions afford the reforming physician. That is inevitably and sufficiently accorded him by the "unwillingness of the masses to enter into the thoughts of the Seers."[19] An ignorant and inert people will always follow a charlatan, because they like to do things which are mysterious and involve no trouble on their part.

[19] The reason "Why the Prophet should be lonely" is perfectly elaborated in a chapter under that title in Logic Taught by Love, from which I have quoted.

The Seer among doctors is boycotted by his fellow medicos after he and his co-workers have tested their experiments for themselves, weeded out what is false from what is true, and proved their methods to be right. Not only that, but too often it turns out that it is proper food selection, cleanliness, personal effort and restraint advocated by doctors as substitutes for serums and drugs, which excites the opprobrium of medical coteries. Whereas, the misguided Serum Specialist, who ought to be saved from himself, and from whom the public ought to be protected, is given full medical honours - and facilities to become that most dangerous type of charlatan, the licensed one.

There are doubtless many abstract questions of health and disease which orthodox and unorthodox doctors alike are unable satisfactorily to settle. But if that be admitted, then it is certainly not in the public interest that serum treatments should be accepted as almost the last words in medical science. More anti-social still is it to attempt to justify the compulsory orders of Parliament that expensive sanatoria shall be built to cope with disease that might be more economically and more satisfactorily treated.

Is there not too little consideration given to theoretical issues underlying practical experience of disease? Is there not too great an anxiety to force remedies at the public expense before all the bearings of the different questions and their phases have been considered? All new methods savour too much of compulsion. They all require the provision of large armies of officials to carry them out. It is interesting to note that the successors of the men who told us how grievously the Church has failed because she is established, should be so anxious to more firmly establish the medical priesthood.

Modern statecraft calls out to us: 'we will appoint officials to inquire into and decide upon what is to be done, but we will make no inquiries into the real nature of this disease and that: we will find out remedies which, in the form of serums to be injected into the blood, shall counteract the effects of disease: we will also appoint, at your expense, doctors to perform these operations: we will force the man whose family may have the misfortune to contract a disease, which the doctors have not told him how to prevent, to submit them to such treatment.' But nothing is said about the desirability of exercising government over oneself, one's body and one's mind! And nothing is said either, but it is suggested, that, if one accepts meekly coercive treatment by official doctors, one may probably be able to ignore the laws of life and health without having to pay the penalty.

No sane and properly instructed citizens would be satisfied to have State officials compel them to do what they ought to do for themselves. It is because of this and because the suggestions and compulsions of modern medicine are in keeping with the prevailing philosophy that accumulates knowledge without wisdom, that we need such counteracting influences as are afforded by journals like The Healthy Life.

Layman.