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About 4.5 million Americans are alive today who would be dead If the mortality rate of 25 years ago still prevailed. For the first time in history the life expectancy of Americans has exceeded the i Bible's three-score-and-ten j —it is now 70.2 years. Eighty per cent of the drugs commonly now used were unknown a mere 10 years decades the United States has been responsible for more important drug discoveries than all the other nations of the world combined. Last year the prescription drug industry spent a record $245 million in research—triple that of the average industry. There is now a record number of , hospital beds in this country, and the average hospi- , tal stay is the lowest in history. A record number of new physicians—7,168-graduated from medical schools in 1962.In that year, infant mortality rates declined to a new—25.3 deaths per 1,000 births. A record number of Americans— 1 about 136 million are covered by voluntary health insurance and prepayment plans. So the story goes. Dr. Fister does not think that our medical system is anywhere | near perfect. He knows better than most of us how much more needs to be done. But he is convinced, as are legions of other authorities, that it can best be done, and done most surely and effectively, under a free system. So, he urges that the principles involved in the fight be stressed to the limit and that every legitimate means be used to acquaint the American people with the record of achievement of American medicine in all its varied phases. For, he believes, "The people will respond to the truth....”
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