The benefits to the public of modern progress in medicine have been greatly enlarged by the establishment of many small hospitals, and by the steady increase in the employment of specially trained nurses in private practice, even in rural districts. The results of a case of typhoid or of pneumonia often depend as much upon the nurse as upon the doctor; and affection cannot take the place of skill in either. For the great mass of the people, cases of severe illness or injury, or those requiring major surgical operations, can be treated more successfully in well-appointed hospitals than in private houses, and as this is becoming generally understood the old feeling against entering a hospital for treatment is rapidly disappearing. Improvement in hospital construction and management has kept pace with progress in medical knowledge; and in future such institutions seem destined to play an increasingly important part in municipal and village life. All progress in civilization is attended with injury to some individuals. Trained nurses have deprived some unskilled labour of employment; hospitals have injured the business of some physicians; pure-water supplies, good sewers, food inspection, vaccination,--in short, all effective measures in public hygiene,--interfere with the trade side of medical practice; but upon the whole the public at large benefits by all these things. In one sense they seem opposed to the general law of evolution, in that they prolong the life of the unfit; but in a broader sense they work in accordance with this law by increasing the power of the strong to protect and care for the weak. All told, the most important feature in the progress of medicine during the century has been the discovery of new methods of scientific investigation, more especially in the fields of bacteriology and pathology. These methods have been as yet only partially applied, and great results are to be hoped from their extension in the near future. They will not lead to the discovery of an elixir of life, and the increasing feebleness of old age will continue to be the certain result of living a long time, for the tissues and organs of each man have a definitely limited term of duration peculiar to himself; but many of the disorders which make life a burden in advancing years can now be palliated, or so dealt with as to secure comparative comfort to the patient, so that "if by reason of strength" life can be prolonged beyond threescore years and ten it no longer necessarily involves labour and sorrow. Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation and hyphenated and accented words have been standardized. All else remains as in the original. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Masterpieces of Science: Health and Healing, by Various