PROPHYLAXIS AGAINST INFECTIOUS DISEASES FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE PRACTITIONER

Investigations of recent years regarding the transmission of infectious diseases have contributed many facts of profound importance. In their bearing on the point of view that should be adopted by the practitioner they have been especially important, because they have made clearer his powers and his responsibilities. They have, indeed, made more definite and certain the fact, which was always logically evident, that practitioners as a body have more power, and therefore more responsibility, in controlling and ultimately destroying these diseases than have any other persons, even including hygienists and health officers. They have this great power chiefly because, owing to their peculiarly close relations with their patients, they are in a better position than are any other persons to educate the laity into a proper comprehension of what lay relations to infectious diseases should be; and because also practitioners are in command, and in almost all instances they alone