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