The man v. the microbe, being five presidential addresses to the Sanitary Inspectors' Association / by Sir William Job Collins.

  • Collins, William J. (William Job), 1859-1946
Date:
1929
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The man v. the microbe, being five presidential addresses to the Sanitary Inspectors' Association / by Sir William Job Collins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from representing themselves as the former. Provided that the profession is open to receive new knowledge from any quarter, and is not prone to favour any particular doctrine or dogma, there would seem to be nothing in this to take exception to. Neither Pasteur nor Chadwick qualified as medical practitioners, but their teaching pro- foundly affected the practice of medicine. It has been said that a profession never reforms itself, and there is need alike for receptivity to new ideas as well as for correc- tive contact with outside public opinion. It is not unreason- able to ask that a body statutorily set up for the benefit of the public, with disciplinary powers over a profession, should include representatives of the public whom it claims to serve, as well as of the profession which it seeks to con- trol and protect, or, alternatively, that some form of appeal should lie against a purely professional judgment. These principles are not less applicable in other professions than they are in the case of medicine, and it would be entertain- ing to watch the progress of legislation for that purpose in the case of the Law, a profession which is so richly repre- sented in both Houses of Parliament. The Times, in a caustic leader on the General Medical Council and its President’s apologia in regard to a recent notorious case, welcomed, as a salutary innovation, the announcement that, for the first time in its long history, a layman is to sit as a member of that body. Lay criticism of the profession, though resented in some quarters, can, nevertheless, be helpful, even if sometimes ill-informed or unjust, and need not either disturb equanimity nor excite bitter recrimination. A statutory professional body, whose raison d’etre is the public welfare, should not be intolerant of public opinion or unduly sensitive to comments in the public Press. Those who really desire to educate the com- munity on questions of public health and sanitary reform would do well to make to themselves friends of the Mammon of Journalism, lest, failing to do so, they become a by-word in the mocker’s mouth. A recent leading article in The Times, I noticed, concluded with the wholesome generalisa- tion that “ the prevention of ill-health is even more impor- tant than its cure, and that, for the establishment of a healthy community, the sanitary side may be more efficacious than the medical side of medical science.” When one reads in the last report of the Registrar-General that the standardised death-rate for England and Wales was