National Medical Association and surgeon-in-chief 2f the Hunan-Yale Hospital at Changsha lectured at 5.30 o'clock last evening on "The Duties of the Medical Profession.
The audience was not s> large as it might have been, but those who were so fortunate to be present enjoyed an instructive hour. It is hoped that the other lectures to be given each day this week, except Saturday, will be more largely attended.
Dr. Yen divided subject in two parts, the duties of the profession to the public, and the duties to the profession itself. Medicine itself was being used less and less each year and the tendency now is to Preach and practice prevention rather than cure. The important thing is to preserve health and ill health is either hereditary or acquired. Hereditary diseases prevailed in plant as well as in animal as illustrated by the fact that years ago Shanghai was celebrated for its luscious and large peaches. Through disease the local peach has deteriorated until to-day it is a poor specimen indeed, whereas in Japan peach cultivation has reached a high degree of perfection, but the original stock was imported from Shanghai. Crime, and intellectual ability, are both inherited in the same manner, said the lecturer, who impressed on his hearers the importance of spreading knowledge of hereditary laws which were so much neglected in China. Much of the disastrous effects of marriage of diseased persons could be avoided and it is the duty of the physician and of the Government to spread health-knowledge.
In China public health work was in its primitive stage, yet in no country was the study of social hygiene more necessary. Dr. Yen referred to the appalling consumption of alcohol and tobacco, the use of common towels and eating utinsils etc., and the tremendous death-roll of consumption, so much of which was due to unsanitary conditions. Ignorance was the commonest cause of disease in China, and the lecturer cited a case of parents spending $2,000 in two months for a worthless Chinese medicine for an infant, whose life would have been saved had a phy-simian been called. Teach the gospel of preventive medicine," Dr. Yen's advice.
The lecturer devoted considerable time to an exposure of the worth lessness and harmfulness of the being shipped to China by the ton, illustrating his remarks wi showing the analysis of these alleged cures, many of which he mentioned by name and discussed in fullest detail. Chinese dispensaries all over China are largely stocked with these imported articles, and even Chinese drug dealers themselves, instead of devoting their energies to manufacturing pure drugs, are from year to year increasing their outputs of Chinese-made patent medicines. Some of the large shops in Shanghai handle scores of these "medicines," one even claiming to grow a new foot to replace one that had been bound in infancy. The Chinese firm offering this fraud claimed to have medals from expositions etc., and an endorsement from the Shanghai Municipal Council, which remark caused many of the audience to laugh, including Dr. Stanley who followed the lecturer with the keenest interest.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.