Muristek
To the Editor:—The present era is witnessing an intensification of the ideas of preventive medicine. Always greater in idealism than their contemporaries, physicians have felt their responsibility—not only that personal responsibility to fellow members felt by the craftsman or the merchant to his particular association, but also a sense of responsibility and obligation to the community at large. Every medical discovery of possible practical value to humanity made by a physician has been made available to both the public and the medical profession gratis. The technic of this transfer has usually been by means of the “board of health.” When the typhoid bacillus was sufficiently correlated to typhoid fever, the state established methods of milk, food and water inspection. A study of the tubercle bacillus has led to the establishment of municipal and state dispensaries and sanatoriums. Elaboration of our knowledge of contagious disease leads to constantly changing laws of quarantine….It would seem that as soon as the medical profession has so perfected a study as to make feasible its application on a broad scale, this function has been assumed by the state.
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