Since my arrival in America, about nine years ago, I have been impressed with the extent to which focal infection, as the cause of many varied diseases, has become an obsession to the medical profession in this country. The removal of tonsils, teeth, appendixes and gallbladders, all kinds of nasal operations, operations on sinuses and pelvic organs, etc., in order to cure all kinds of human troubles have become a rule. The prevalent opinion that these operations are necessary has influenced the medical profession to such an extent that a physician who would not advise some kind of surgical procedure could be afraid of being accused of lagging behind the modern progress of science and could be sure that some other colleague with "better knowledge" would advise it and thus put the timid physician in a precarious position.
I deem it proper for a physician who has been in