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<p>BY MAJOR W. W. KEEN, M.D.<br>Medical Corps, U. S. A.; Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Jefferson<br>Medical College, Philadelphia.<br><br>Reprinted from The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, Novembcr, 1918. Publication No. 1234.<br><br>"The fundamental difference between the surgical conditions during the Civil War (1861-65) and the present World War (1914-18) is our ignorance in 1861 and the enormous increase in our knowledge since that date. Between these two dates is a veritable chasm of ignorance which we can only appreciate when we peer over its edge and discover how broad and deep it is. Doubtless in another half century our knowledge will have again outstripped our present knowledge as far as our present knowledge exceeds that of fifty years ago. <br><br>What has filled up and finally obliterated this chasm? Clinical observation has done much but research, and chiefly experimental research, has done far more. In chemistry and in physics the chief advances in fifty years have been made by experimental research. In biology and its subdivision- medicine-the same is equally true."
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<br>Subjects: military medicine; World War 1; World War I; Civil War; bacteriology; tetanus; sanitation; surgery</div>
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W.W. Keen</div>
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