Man's Redemption of Man: A Lay Sermon — John Shaqi
Man's Redemption of Man: A Lay SermonOsler, William, Sir
Philosophy
Man's Redemption of Man: A Lay Sermon
Osler, William, Sir
Medicine
believe, than any city in the United States. It has been brought about
in great part by researches into the life history of the parasite which
produces malaria, and by the effectual measures taken for its
destruction. Here again is a chapter in human achievement for which it
would be hard to find a parallel. But let us not forget that these are
but illustrations of wide-spread possibilities of organization on
modern lines. These are sanitary blessings. To make them available in
the Tropics is the heaviest burden of the white man; how heavy you may
know from the startling figures which have just been issued from
British India. Exclusive of the native states for the year 1908, the
total deaths from fever and cholera exceeded 5,000,000, out of a
population of 226,000,000. The bright spot in the picture is the
diminution of the mortality from plague--not fewer than a million fatal
cases as compared with 1907.
These are brief indications of the lines along which effective progress
is being made in man's redemption by man. And all this has a direct
bearing upon the disease, the fight against which brings us together.
Tuberculosis is one of the great infections of the world, and it has
been one of the triumphs of our generation to determine its cause.
With the improvement of sanitation there has been a reduction in its
mortality, amounting since 1850 to above 40 per cent. But it still
remains the most formidable single foe, killing a larger number of
people than any other disease--some 60,000 in Great Britain and Ireland
in 1908, and 589 of this city. Practically between 10 and 11 per cent.
of all deaths are due to it. A plain proposition is before the people.
We know the disease--how it is caused, how it is spread, how it should
be prevented, how in suitable cases it may be cured. How to make this
knowledge effective is the prime reason of this conference. It is a
campaign for the public; past history shows that it is a campaign of
hope. The measures for its stamping out, though simple on paper,
present difficulties interwoven with the very fabric of society, but
they are not insuperable, and are gradually disappearing. It is for
this reason we urge you to join with enthusiasm in the crusade;
remembering, however, that only the prolonged and united efforts,
carried through several generations, can place the disease in the same
category with typhus fever, typhoid and small-pox.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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