"If I might be allowed, M. le Président, to conclude by a philosophical remark, inspired by your presence in this home of work, I should say that two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with each other at the present time; the one a law of blood and death, ever devising new means of destruction and forcing nations to be constantly ready for the battlefield--the other, a law of peace, work, and health, ever developing new means of delivering man from the scourges which beset him.
"The one seeks violent conquests, the other the relief of humanity. The latter places one human life above any victory; while the former would sacrifice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambition of one. The law of which we are the instruments seeks, even in the midst of carnage, to cure the sanguinary ills of the law of war; the treatment inspired by our antiseptic methods may preserve thousands of soldiers. Which of these two laws will ultimately prevail God alone knows. But we may assert that French science will have tried, by obeying the law of humanity, to extend the frontiers of life."
W. W. Ford, _The Life and Work of Robert Koch_, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dec. 1911, vol. 22.
C. A. Herter, _The Influence of Pasteur on Medical Science_, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dec. 1903, vol. 14.
E. O. Jordan, _General Bacteriology_ (fourth edition, 1915).
Charles C. W. Judd, _The Life and Work of Lister_, Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Oct. 1910, vol. 21.
Stephen Paget, _Pasteur and After Pasteur_.
W. T. Sedgwick, _Principles of Sanitary Science_.
SCIENCE AND INVENTION--LANGLEY'S AEROPLANE
In his laudation of the nineteenth century Alfred Russel Wallace ventured to enumerate the chief inventions of that period: (1) Railways; (2) steam navigation; (3) electric telegraphs; (4) the telephone; (5) friction matches; (6) gas-lighting; (7) electric-lighting; (8) photography; (9) the phonograph; (10) electric transmission of power; (11) Röntgen rays; (12) spectrum analysis; (13) anæsthetics; (14) antiseptic surgery. All preceding centuries--less glorious than the nineteenth--can claim but seven or eight capital inventions: (1) Alphabetic writing; (2) Arabic numerals; (3) the mariner's compass; (4) printing; (5) the telescope; (6) the barometer and thermometer; (7) the steam engine. Similarly, to the nineteenth century thirteen important theoretical discoveries are ascribed, to the eighteenth only two, and to the seventeenth five.