Dr. Yen, opening his address with a few words of welcome to the members present and expressing gratification that the attendance was sufficiently large to ensure the success of this the first annual conference of the Association, went into considerable detail of matters connected with the work of the Association. He said that although the conference aims at promoting better acquaintance and to cultivate more cordial relationship among members, yet they were gathered for © more serious cause. That is, to work as a united body for the best interests and welfare of the medical profession and to discuss methods whereby the association may serve its country and her people. He discussed the problem of membership, which must be increased while at the same time maintaining a high standard of qualification. He suggested the advisability of inviting foreign doctors to become members, as a medical association should have no national limitations. The China Medical Missionary Association, be said, was organized primarily for missionary doctors but many of its members have long expressed willingness to join s national sociation so soon as one is formed, and to exclude this large body of medical workers, who have done 80 much for the progress of Western medicine in Ohina, would be to}
373 handicap the usefulness of the National Association. The cooperation of the missionary body is needed, as well as that of the association composed of students returned from Japan.
Teaching or Research?
Dr. Yen advised the opening of a permanent central office at Shanghai or Peking, and that the Association's "Journal" should be hereafter published hi-monthly and in Chinese only with, possibly, an English edition once or twice a year. As for the duties of the members of the Association, he advised that their efforts be concentrated on a few undertakings which can best be done by Chinese, or work which foreigners were prevented from doing. Their time could be better spent in spreading medical knowledge than in research. It is more important to translate medical books, he said, than to write articles for foreign medical journals. The entire force of medical workers in China me adequate to cover the field, members should try to supplement, rather than duplicate, the work so successfully done by foreigners. There is a great deal of work to be done in the standardization and unification of Chinese medical terms and such members as are acquainted with both English and Chinese are best fitted to mi necessary contribution to the profession. Public health and preventive medicine are two great fields to which the workers could devote too much attention.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.