Armstrong – Table of Contents

(Other examples not quoted by Armstrong included Semmelweis’ concept about the
contagion of post-partum sepsis spread by the dirty hands of obstetricians and medical
students that was rejected totally by the contemporary medical profession, and Pasteur’s
experimental demonstration of the germ nature of infection accepted only eventually in
the latter half of the 19th century. Peyton Rous in the 20th century had to wait more than
50 years before receiving the Nobel Prize for his discovery that viruses could cause
cancer.)
Armstrong continued, “Knowledge has been likened to a sphere; the more it
grows the larger its surface becomes, and, therefore, the more it comes in contact with the
unknown. Consequently, the very acquisition of new truth engenders new problems to be
solved. The search for truth must go on. Just as primitive man in the ice age learned to
protect himself with artificial covering or by seeking refuge in caves, so too, must man
look to education and research if we are to adapt ourselves to the changing condition of
our times.”
He also illustrated by example new advances giving rise to problems with which
science has to contend. As examples, he pointed out the destructive forces of modern war
and the annual slaughter on the highways by automobiles that exceeded the total loss in
actual combat in any comparable period in the recent World War (I). He also suggested
that the abundance, ready availability of food and the decreased demand on physical
energy because of various labor saving mechanical machines were contributing to
diabetes, lack of physical fitness, and “other ailments of obscure etiology.” In conformity
with his previous theories of the pathogenesis of postvaccinal encephalitis, he proposed
that decreased exposure to hardships and common communicable infectious diseases was