For countless generations the prophets and kings of humanity have
desired to see the things which men have seen, and to hear the things
which men have heard in the course of the wonderful nineteenth century.
To the call of the watchers on the towers of progress there had been
the one sad answer—the people sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death. Politically, socially, and morally the race had improved,
but for the unit, for the individual, there was little hope. Cold
philosophy shed a glimmer of light on his path, religion in its various
guises illumined his sad heart, but neither availed to lift the curse
of suffering from the sin-begotten son of Adam. In the fulness of time,
long expected, long delayed, at last Science emptied upon him from
the horn of Amalthea blessings which cannot be enumerated, blessings
which have made the century forever memorable; and which have followed
each other with a rapidity so bewildering that we know not what next
to expect. To us in the medical profession, who deal with this unit,
and measure progress by the law of the greatest happiness to the
greatest number, to us whose work is with the sick and suffering,
the great boon of this wonderful century, with which no other can be
compared, is the fact that the leaves of the tree of Science have been
for the healing of the nations. Measure as we may the progress of the
world—materially, in the advantages of steam, electricity, and other
mechanical appliances; sociologically, in the great improvement in
the conditions of life; intellectually, in the diffusion of education;
morally, in a possibly higher standard of ethics—there is no one
measure which can compare with the decrease of physical suffering in
man, woman, and child when stricken by disease or accident. This is the
one fact of supreme personal import to every one of us. This is the
Promethean gift of the century to man.