Excerpt from The Future of Medicine in the United States But there is a still more cogent reason why we should accept this responsibility, namely, because we are now ready and able to take the place we should hold in medicine. The war has brought about far-reaching changes in the country. It has, as Lord F rench says, made a nation of us. Under the great leadership of President Wilson the whole essence of our destiny has been crystallized, and we move forward unified by a national consciousness, no longer North or South, or East or West, but one people irresistible in the resolve to accomplish our purpose. The war has brought about far-reaching changes in medicine because we have gained a national consciousness. The country no longer regards medicine merely as a learned profession, but is coming to consider it one of the essential indus tries. Sound public health is a necessary element in the will to Victory. The civil population unduly enfeebled by disease or discouraged by neglect cannot be expected to support a winning army. A11 signs give assurance that the government in its wisdom will provide adequate medical attention for the people, prevent relaxation in the safeguards against epidemics, and restrict the spread of disease to the limits normal in peace-time. In another critical relation the efforts of the medical profession have become indispensable to final success. The vast detail of the health of an army is in the hands of its medical corps. F ailure here is almost as serious as defeat by the enemy. The selection of the fit and rejection of the unfit, the supervision of sanitation, the prevention of disease, the stamping out of epidemics, the early detection of the physically and mentally unstable, to say nothing of adequate care and reconstruction of the sick and wounded, are matters of vital importance to troops in the field. The war has shown us the possibilities of medicine carried out intensively in all its branches. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.