SCIENCE AND SERVICE.

At a time when all Europe is concerned chiefly with discovering and putting to use new methods of blowing to pieces and patching up the human body, a greater interest than ever before attaches to the medical profession. Every day the invention of some new fiendish device of slaughter brings with it the counter-discovery of a new remedy. Day by day the problems of the physician become more intricate; and the field of medical science is broadened by leaps and bounds.

While the value of medicine and surgery to mankind, and the adventure and romance in them, have been emphasized in the present war, the field presents points of discouragement as well as attraction to the student who is undecided about his future vocation. Four undergraduate years, as many more in the professional school, and a subsequent period of hospital service, frighten away the man who requires quick material results. The field is left for those who seek in it life-long service, a keen and wide knowledge of human nature, and opportunity for gratifying scientific interest.

The growth of this interest, too, has greatly, altered the physician's relation to society. He is no longer concerned with individuals alone; his action must be determined by their effect upon the whole community. And so though the more conservative element of the country was shocked by the recent action of a Chicago surgeon, who decided to allow a baby to die rather than perform an operation that would have given it a life of helpless misery, the incident but illustrates one of the big problems that physicians everywhere are being called upon to face in a new light. Their successful solution must depend upon the good judgment and ability of the medical profession. It is just these bigger problems,--the question of race improvement, the elimination of the unfit and the degenerate, the tasks of preventive medicine, and the control of public health, the possibilities for research work in surgery and the causes of disease,--that attract the college man and offer him the greatest opportunities for achieving success by rendering a service to mankind.