en and futile. Masks of a
texture calculated to baffle the most determined attempts of the minute
invisible homicide were made compulsory, and in the great cities
masquerading millions became a constant feature of the streets, until an
idea of the danger of masks, _as microbe preservers and carriers_,
dawned upon the official mind. Thus, beyond fostering fear and
depression amongst the citizens nothing was achieved in the direction
desired, but rather the reverse; since it is now very generally
recognized that such mental conditions with their consequently lowered
vitality are a common prelude to disease.

At the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in
Chicago, following a two days' discussion of preventive measures against
Influenza and Pneumonia, Dr. Chas. J. Hastings, president of the
organization said: "A tremendous amount of damage is done by interfering
with nature, when nature would have done better had she been left alone.
We have very little power over pneumonia. I am convinced that as many
patients have been _killed_ by physicians as have been _cured_."

The talented "Health" editor of the Los Angeles Times, commenting upon
these matters, writes: "The handling of this epidemic by 'health boards'
and doctors who have been running around like wet chickens--their eyes,
however, fastened on the feed box--has furnished another striking
evidence of the futility of what is misnamed 'Medical Science.'"

All this carries one back 50 years to the memory of Sir John Forbes,
Court Physician to the late Queen Victoria of England, and the eminent
Editor of the British and Foreign Medical Review, who thus tersely
recorded the scientific conclusions arrived at in the course of his
long, professional experience, in connection with drugs, drug medication
and allopathy, under the title of "Why we should not be poisoned because
we are sick:" "Firstly,--that in a large proportion of cases treated by
allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by them.
Secondly,--that in not a small proportion, the disease is cured by
nature in spite of them. Thirdly,--that consequently, in a considerable
proportion of diseases it would fare as well or better with patients if
all remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned;" and he emphatically
adds: "Things have come to such a pass that they must either mend or
end." This, be it remembered, was in 1868,--50 years ago--and such
frankness would not have been to