NATIONAL 'HEALTH.
[To rat Enrroa -or SHE SPECTLTOE."1 .S111,—Whilst agreeing with Sir James 'Mackenzie that the :study of symptoms is perhaps -the most important methodof arriving at a correct diagnosis in many diseases, especially if the diagnosis is to be made early enough to be of .benefit-to the patient, and having for years advocated that this method -should be applied to the diagnosis of pulmonary taberoulesis, nevertheless I do not think there need be any antagonism between this method and laboratory methods. The real danger lies in using any method in exclusion to another so long as both are really useful. The great danger of those who are so anxious to rely on laboratory methods is that they refuse to utilize clinical methods which are staring them in the face often when they themselves have nothing reliable to take their place, -and -in some cases allow patients to be -denied treatment until some late change in the tissues of The patient allow of an unequivocal verdict to be-given. Thus some physicians still go, on the principle that pulmonary tuberculosis. cannot be dial-- nosed until tubercle bacilliare found in the sputum, although! this is a disease which ean often be diagnosed „from asymptoms long before the bacilli atre. discoverable :in the laboratory. The plain duty of medicine -here is largely to discredit this ms a- method of useful diagnosis, and the duty of .the laboratory researcher is to cast about .for some earlier method of aliag- .nosis; meanwhile the treatment and diagnosis mustgo on with the already well-proved methods'. One thing seems .clear, and ; that is for the Health Ministry to remember that cure and prevention of disease are the only matters they are concerned
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