AESCULAPIADS

There has appeared the growth of a serious tendency for young men whose professional education in medicine is not now completed or not begun to cease their preparation for national service in their chosen field, and to go into some other work where their abilities could be more easily available.

Such eagerness is honorable, but it is not wise, if we believe this war may last over an increasingly serious term of years. Men are destroyed easily by the iron tools of destruction which the modern army possesses. But they are healed slowly and only at great cost of skill, of time, and patience, by those who know their profession thoroughly. Our inventors have passed beyond the bounds of the imaginable in contriving ways whereby men may be in great quantities and instantaneously blotted from existence. They have not yet found a way whereby men may be restored mechanically or by the gross. The mystery and the conservation of life is always far greater than the mystery and accomplishment of death.

The belligerent powers have found their supply of trained doctors far too inadequate for their needs. Yet Germany and France have been noted since decades for the completeness of their curative science and the ability of their practitioners. The demands of war have been undreamed of for men who could restore effectives to the firing-line. We have sent of our very best, yet that has not proved enough to stay the growing dearth.

There are, it has been roughly estimated, about three thousand doctors graduated yearly from our recognized schools. That is a pitifully small number to alleviate the suffering and heal the wounds of millions of war-beaten men. Our armies can afford no diminution of the far-too-small number of doctors who are now available.

The medical staff needs brave men. Where the foremost men in the charge go, there the doctor follows, bringing what succor he may to the wounded. In the trenches, out in the wastes of No Man's Land, on ships of the line, on hospital boats, the doctors of all nations are present with the bearers of arms, meeting, if need be, death with equal fortitude. The mortality among those who do not strive to inflict wounds, but to heal them, has been notably great. There is chance here for our young men of spirit to accomplish at once a brave and a noble work. The medical staff has no room for cowards, moral or physical. However, medical students are not cowards, either moral or physical, or they would not undertake the work they have.

If this war lasts two years more, we shall need the increased skill which men not yet qualified in their profession will have gained. If this war does not last two years, we shall be fortunate.