conveyed by the excrementa to the waters which we drink, as is gene-INTRODUCTORY LECTURE~~~~~~rally believed, or whether suspended in the air, anid subject to the laws INTRODUCTORY LECTURE~~o f diffusion of gases, as Poznanski maintains-we work comparatively TO A COURSE OF LECTURES ON in the dark in trying to prevent its visitations ; and the same is true of all other diseases. We must, therefore, take the facts given us by other HYGIENE AND PUBLIC HEALTH. sciences, and use them as levers with

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... hich to remove our medical difficulties, and throw light upon the obscure problems of medical science. Delivered at University College, Lonidon, May ioth, 1870." Don't think that a man is a worse physician for being a good chemist, lay or physicist, or mathematician. He who is well trained in these W. H. CO RFIELD, M.A., M.B.Oxon., M.R.C.P.Lond., branches of science has his mind prepared to study the difficult pro-Professrof Hgiene i the Cllege.blems of life and of disease; and depend upon it, he will make, in the Professrof Hgiene i the Cllege.long run, a far better practitioner than he who has neglected them. If this were not the case, the connection of schools of science with schools THE objects of our science we have described as being the especial study of medicine would be a farce, and the country would join in the retroof the causes of disease and their prevention. To this end we must grade cry of the great French clinician, Trousseau: "Gentlemen, let us have a little more art and a little less science." study all the agents of whatever kind which modify the health of man. It is on account of this need of the assistance of so many sciences, that We must study man himself as regards his constitution, age, sex, habits, most of the systematic works on hygiene are chiefly filled with explana. professions, etc. And again, we must study all the modifications of the tions of scientific facts and methods which do not belong to hygiene, conditions in which man is placed, all alterations of the medium in properly so called, at all,. and which ought not to have found their way whih h lies,alltheefect ofvaroussois,of the proximity of seas, ito works on the subject, where they can only be cursorily treated: they which e livs,allthe efects f varous sols, ishould be left to their proper places, and the hygienist should take of the state of the water-supply, the action of the various kinds of food them as data. and drink, and of the narcotico-stimulants used so much all over the On the other hand, as we have already seen, hygiene assists very maworld; of exercise, mental and bodily; and, in fact, all the agencies by terially the most practical part of medicine; viz., therapeutics. Need which the health of man may he impaired and'his life shortened. We I quote Donn6 to convince you that most of the diseases of infancy are all tephyical nd nauralbest treated by regimen? Is not the same true of old age? How are must, therefor, call in the id of sciences such chronic diseases as glycosuria, phthisis, gravel, gout, obesity, and and, taking their data for axioms, proceed to the solution of the alla host of others, best combated, and even prevented, if taken in hand important and difficult problems which the study of the science of health as soon as their first indications present themselves? Is it not by regu-