ABSTRACT
There is an occupation to be considered which comes to most people at times, and to a few always. It is illness. For some of us, to bear courageously pain, weakness and disablement is life’s task. For others there are long periods of illness relieved by the joy of convalescence. But no consideration of the conduct of life can leave out of account this sombre aspect. Whether disease and decay are always to dog human life we cannot tell. There are many suggestions and hopes that some day man may master all the ills of the body and the mind, and mens sana in corpore sano may be the universal boon. But the immediate prospect is not bright. When influenza in a few months swept off more than the ghastly four years’ war had killed, we had a sharp reminder of the limits of human skill in averting disease. And this was all the more impressive because the war itself had revealed an unparalleled triumph of the healing art. Never had a conception been formed of what doctors could do ; no war was ever waged in which death from disease was so restricted. The ghastly horrors of the trenches at Sebastopol, even the ravages of enteric in the South African War, seemed incredible in face of the masterly and Christlike prevention of disease in Flanders and France. There was a legitimate sense of triumph. Here, at least, was something gained : while the world went mad, and by all conceivable methods of destruction was destroying ten millions of its manhood, there was medicine winning its bloodless victory, saving lives, healing and restoring the wounded ; there was surgery almost remaking the shattered bodies. It was a spectacle never to be forgotten, a victory with which no regrets were mingled. 113And yet, as soon as war was over, that mysterious disease, which bore still the hardly dreaded name of influenza, swept like a wave of death right round the world. Medicine was helpless ; doctors could do nothing ; nurses could only soothe the dying and swiftly die themselves. It was a strangely solemn warning, not without divine intention, that man may not presume. Strive as we may to avert and mitigate disease, there is no promise yet that it shall cease to be.
