similar to those of the religious psychopaths that have been mentioned in this short paper. At the end of the third century Manichaeism was one of the three principal contestants for the favor of the civilization that has descended to us and it was over a thousand years before it became extinct. It will very probably be a couple of centuries before the Mormon church itself becomes entirely extinct. So long as general enlightenment remains what it now is upon these and correlated subjects, such religions as Mormonism, Eddyism, and Dowieism are bound to appear: but little by little, and very cautiously, for even the careless feel intuitively the necessity for certain props to civilization, supernaturalism is being withdrawn. In time, these tragic and harmful perversions of religion will become impossible. On the other hand, criticism of supernaturalism must not be permitted to run to mere scoffing at religion; for criticism, much more readily than religion, may also degenerate into nothing more than an appeal to man's lowest nature. The history of religion is not only that of the conquest of reason over superstition, but of belief over carnality That, in fact, has been the great battle-the long struggle of religion to make man something better than a brute. Criticism that does not recognize the fact that the real struggle is not between religion and enlightenment but between religion and man's own rude nature misses the aim of all culture and fails of all useful purpose. There have been many religions worse than Mormonism. It is a religion that makes a stranger among strangers safe to lie down to rest, though his pockets were filled with gold. The Mormons are a mild and lovable people. The world is filled with worse. They are honest, industrious, kind and considerate, and they are devoted to a faith that reflects not so much upon the goodness of the Mormon's heart upon the quality of his mentality. But, while that faith seems to strain credulity to the breaking point, who could wish to take away the cherished beliefs, the sustaining hopes, the religious consolations of any man? as If the basis for these things is destroyed, then some other must be substituted, for it is neither good for the individual nor for society that he should be without them. With the passing of the slow centuries this basis becomes more intellectual. With the expansion of understanding, less is required as foundation for those beliefs, those hopes, those consolations that are man's inalienable necessity; but it is not possible to make religion altogether rational, for man cannot yet rest upon what he knows. In that most distant, but possible, day when science and religion shall have become identical, that perfected knowledge, that religion, will bear but the faintest resemblance to either the science or the religion of this day. There is, however, abundant biological ground for a belief in the unlimited progression of human understanding. The meanest creature that lives does so by virtue of an intelligence that is inherent in living matter and without which the material co-ordinations that constitute life are, apparently, impossible. The marvelof the higher organisms alone reveal an ous constructive phenomena of reproduction indispensable intelligence, resident within the living tissue, that is as vast as the heavens and as infinite as space. The first requisite of life is appropriation of food, rejection of waste. Instincts, functions, all of life's activities, are but manifestations of the one cause. Without intelligence life is not conceivable: and the living matter that is man reveals wells of intelligence without bottom and without limit. It is more than faith. It is highly reasonable to infer that, as an essential function of life, the human intellect shall continue in unlimited growth. The naturalistic view of Life and man's relationship to it is more satisfying than the orthodox views to the mind that is ac quainted, even superficially, with the great mass of biological knowledge. It foreshadows for man a destiny solidly founded in stable universal facts and removed from the caprices of supernatural agencies that he could never hope to see, understand or control. It assures him that he is not the sport of the gods. It gives him heart to refuse to be the creature of lesser beings. To be sure, this is placing other legs under the religious feeling with which the thinking organism reacts to the mysteries that surround it. It affords other concep tions than the ones that arose before the advent of modern knowledge as to man's position and how his earthly salvation is to be accomplished. It simply means that, in time, the hand of Science is to fashion other Urims and Thummims, is to create other galvanometers and test tubes, microscopes and spectroscopes, with which to reveal the eternal truths that lie buried in the wasting hills and that hang in the night. Incorporating The Kansas City Medical Index-Lancet An Independent Monthly Magazine Under the editorial direction of CHARLES WOOD FASSETT and S. GROVER BURNETT ASSOCIATE EDITORS P. I. LEONARD, St. Joseph CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ST. CLOUD COOPER, Fort Smith, Ark. S. S. GLASSCOCK, Kansas City, Kan. JOHN PUNTON, Kansas City PAUL V. WOOLEY, Kansas City W. T. WOOTTON, Hot Springs, Ark. HUGH H. YOUNG, Baltimore DEPARTMENT EDITORS KANSAS CITY P. T. BOHAN, Therapeutics J. E. HUNT, Pediatrics JOS. LICHTENBERG, Ophthalmology EDW. H. THRAILKILL, Rectal Diseases ST. JOSEPH J. M. BELL, Stomach C. A. GOOD, Medicine A. L. GRAY, Obstetrics J. W. MCGILL, Rectal Diseases L. A. TODD, Surgery F. H. SPENCER, Surgery OMAHA H. M. McCLANAHAN, Pediatrics H. S. MUNRO, Psychotherapy DES MOINES WALTER L. BIERRING, Medicine Address all communications to Chas. Wood Fassett, Managing Editor, St. Joseph, Missouri. Vol. XXXIII No. 9 SEPTEMBER, 1914 Editorial MEDICAL SOCIETY OF THE MISSOURI lenges the admiration of all who inspect it. Cól. Donahue, the proprietor, with characteristic liberality, has made special rates for our meeting-in fact no charge will be made for rooms without attached baths, aud only a nominal charge for rooms having baths and toilets. HOTEL RATES. During the meeting the following special rates will be in effect for physicians and their families: For the use of regular rooms, with hot and cold running water, there will be no charge, provided two occupy the room. Single room, 50 cents per day. For rooms with private toilets, a charge of 50 cents each person, per day, will be made, two persons in room. docarditis with specimens, Robert H. Babcock. Chronic Backache, L. W. Littig. The X-Ray an Aid to Diagnosis in the Right Upper Quadrant of the Abdomen, A. F. Tyler. The Treatment of Disease and Injuries of the Sacro-iliac Articulation, H. W. Orr. Surgery of the Lung, A. C. Stokes. Functional Testing of the Kidneys and the Newer Phases of Nephritis, A. Sachs. Acute Perforating Ulcer of the Stomach Symptoms and Treatment, A. I. McKinnon. Diagnosis of Syphilis, Julius S. Weingart. The Present Status of the Serological Paper, H. D. Kelly. Paper, J. P. Sedgewick. The Diagnosis of Mediastinal Tumors, The charges for meals will be as follows: Campbell P. Howard. Breakfast.. Lunch.. Dinner. ...50 cts. ..75 cts. 75 cts. (Regular price for meals at the Colfax, $1.00.) On account of the very large attendance expected, the assignment of rooms with bath and toilets may be limited, and will be assigned only in the order of reservation, and only reservations made directly to James P. Donahue, Proprietor, Hotel Colfax, will be considered. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM. In the program will be found much of interest to the surgeon, internist or specialist, while the announcement that Dr. Chas. Lyman Green, of St. Paul, and Dr. Robert H. Babcock of Chicago, will be present, is sufficient to arouse the interest of all our members. PRELIMINARY PROGRAM. Minor Cardiac Insufficiencies; Importance of Their Recognition, Chas. Lyman Green. The Prevention and Operative Relief of Deformity, John Prentiss Lord. The Treatment of Pernicious Anemia, Walter L. Bierring. The Relation Between Radium and Surgery, D. T. Quigley. Report of Operated Pituitary Tumor, J. B. Potts. Gastro-intestinal Symptoms Resulting from Disease of Other Organs, J. C. Water man. The Physiological Basis of Surgical Practice, Daniel Morton. The Rational Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, John W. Flinn. Practical Management of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, John W. Peck.. The Various Forms of Streptococcus En CLINICAL DAY. Saturday, September 19, will be devoted to clinics in the hospitals of Des Moines, when all those in attendance will be guests of the Polk County Medical Society. A committee, of which Dr. Granville N. Ryan is chairman, has the clinical program in charge, and it promises to be most interesting. On Saturday evening, at Hotel Colfax, the society will be entertained by a complimentary ball and concert. Sunday will be spent as the members desire, churches of all denominations are numerous both in Colfax and Des Moines. The auto roads are excellent. Members should arrange to spend Sunday at the Springs and get better acquainted with one another, besides affording their families a pleasant outing. The weather at this time of the year is ideal at Colfax Springs, and no doubt many of our members will yield to the temptation to remain a week or two at this beautiful resort. As an inducement to tarry, we would mention that the Tri-State Medical Society (of Illinois, Missouri and Iowa) will hold its annual meeting in Des Moines on September 29 and 30, and an attractive program is being prepared. At the annual meeting of the Clinical Congress of Surgeons of North America, held in London, the following officers were elected on July 31: President, Dr. Charles H. Mayo, Rochester, Minn.; vice-presidents, Drs. Herbert A. Bruce, Toronto, and Robert L. Dickinson, Brooklyn; secretary, Dr. Franklin H. Martin, Chicago (re-elected), and treasurer, Dr. Allan B. Kanavel, Chicago (re-elected). 66 DEGENERACY AND WAR. The object of the medical profesison is the opposite of the results of war from a biological standpoint. Jordan says: A race of men or a herd of cattle are governed by the same laws of selection. Those who survive inherit the traits of their own actual ancestry. In the herd of cattle, to destroy the strongest bulls, the fairest cows, the most promising calves, is to allow those not strong nor fair nor promising to become Under the parents of the coming herd. this influence the herd will deteriorate, although the individuals of the inferior herd are no worse than their own actual parents. Such a process is called race degeneration, and is the only race degeneration known in the history of cattle or men. The scrawny, lean, infertile is the natural offspring of the same type of parents." Eugenics is to produce and conserve human lives that are worth while. The conservation of human life as national resources is the aim of the medical profession. War destroys the best of every race and every battle leaves both sides the poorer. In writing of the fall of Rome, Leech says: "Marius and Cinna slew the aristocrats by hundreds and thousands. Sulla destroyed no less thoroughly the democrats, and whatever of noble blood survived fell as an offering to the proscription of the triumvirate... He who was bold enough to rise politically was almost without exception thrown to the ground. Only cowards remained, and from their brood came forward the new generations. Cowardice showed itself in lack of originality and slavish following of masters and traditions. "Greece died because the men who made her glory had all passed away and left none of their kin and, therefore, none of their kind." In ancient Greece and Rome they fought a war of conquest or defense of territory, or to satisfy the ambition of a military dictator. In modern times wars are fought to extend commerce. Modern Europe, which should be the censor of the remainder of the world, is in a death struggle apparently for the possession of the trade of the world. A desperate, murderous and protracted war leaves the nations in a degraded state. The history of various nations in Europe during the centuries shows that when a nation has shed its best blood in a war of conquest she has immediately started on the down grade and was soon relegated to the junk pile. If every nation wanted only that which is right there would be no war. Intelligent men, no matter what the disagree ments, if honest, are willing to submit their cause to arbitration. War is unnecessary and a crime. Would that those who make war were forced to the front ranks, as Jeannette sings: "Oh! if I were King of France, Each nation with blood on their hands calls upon that God who said, "Thou shalt not kill," and prays for victory in the slaughter of their fellow-men. Our vaunted civilization and the influence of Christianity have not changed the savage in man-under the stupenduous conflict which is breaking loose in Europe, our vision of the real brotherhood of man is vanishing. If this teaches anything it teaches the old story: "In time of peace prepare for war." Our various professional movements and efforts for mankind seem to count for naught, for a single war and its later. It is an unpleasant thought that all ravages is felt fifty or a hundred years the nations of the earth are forced to enter into a militarism which ultimately spells degeneracy for mankind. Dr. Henry Maudsley, an Englishman now living in London, along evolutionary lines spoke thirty years ago: "Men have risen to a national existence, but they have not yet risen to an international existence. With moral principles that have not changed within historical times, nations still laud patriotism, which is actually a mark of moral incompleteness, as the highest virtue; and statesmen think it a fine thing to sneer at cosmopolitanism. But it cannot be doubted that the time will come, though it may be yet afar off, when nations shall know and feel their interest to be one, when moral feeling shall be developed between them, and when they shall not learn war any more; it will come as a step in evolution and as a condition of universal brotherhood, not otherwise than as coming between tribes, it bound them into nations, and made patriotism the high virtue. which it is believed to be." P.I.L. The Iowa State Board of Health through its its secretary. Dr. W. L. Bierring, Des Moines has started a campaign against rats and other rodents, in order to reduce to the minimum the risk of bubonic plague. |