DR. J. C. WARREN ON MEDICINE

Dr. J. Collins Warren '63 delivered the second lecture of the series upon the professions last evening in the Union. His subject was "Medicine."

Dr. Warren began by tracing the evolution of medicine from its origin in Egypt about 3500 B.C. through its development under the Arabs to its introduction to Christian Europe at about the time of the discovery of America. There was little progress in medical knowledge during the middle ages, and only within the last fifty years were anaesthetics and antiseptics discovered.

At the time of the Revolution there were no medical schools in this country and young men entered the offices of prominent physicians as apprentices. The Harvard Medical School was begun in 1785 in Holden Chapel with three lecturers. The School is now one of the finest in this country and, in a few years, when the new buildings are occupied and the proposed hospitals built near them, it should offer the best opportunities of any institution of its kind.

A medical education is of value, said Dr. Warren, not only to prospective practitioners, but also to army officers, provincial governors, engineers in the tropics, and men in all walks of life. For men who enter the medical profession the following different spheres of practice are open: original research, which has until recently received little attention in England and the United States; state and insurance medicine, calling for bureau duties; tropical medicine, involving interesting scientific studies; army surgery and medicine, the importance of which has been shown by the enormous decrease in mortality from infectious diseases during recent wars.