One of them was our greatest pathologist, the other a great teacher of clinical medicine, who came into medicine through chemistry and therefore had a right to opinions with regard to the chemical side of medicine. We had been discussing the question of how much serious medical {355} education there was in the Middle Ages and how, in spite of the magnificent work done, so many superstitions in medicine continued to maintain themselves. I remarked that it seemed impossible to teach truths to large bodies of men without having them accept certain doctrines which they thought truths but which were only theories and which they insisted on holding after the reasons for them had passed away. I even ventured to say that I thought that there were as many superstitions now, and such as there were, were of as great significance as those that maintained themselves in the Middle Ages. My chemical clinician brother on the right side said, "Let us not forget in this regard the hold the uric acid diathesis has on the English-speaking medical profession." And the brother pathologist on the left side: "Well, and what shall we say of intestinal auto-intoxication?" Perhaps you will not realize all the force of these expressions at the present time, but after you have been five years in the practice of medicine and have been flooded by the literature of the advertising manufacturing pharmacist and by the samples of the detail man and his advice and suggestion of principles of practice, if you will listen to them, perhaps you will appreciate how much such frank expressions mean as portraying the medical superstitions of our time.