TEE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



319 



■with Euroiiean countries the duties of 

 organized medical research. There are 

 institutions, such as Mr. Rockefeller 

 has now founded, in Paris, Berlin, St. 

 Petersburg and elsewhere, and last 

 year Lord Iveagh established a similar 

 laboratory in London. It is somewhat 

 remarkable that great sums should 

 have been spent annually on research in 

 astronomy, geology and in other direc- 

 tions, whereas the advancement of 

 medical science and its applications 

 should have been left chiefly to in- 

 di^vidual effort. The first duty of the 

 practising physician is to his patient, 

 and the teacher in a medical school is 

 doubly burdened, as he usually prac- 

 tises medicine, and at the same time 

 instructs large classes. It is not sur- 

 prising that the four hundred medical 

 journals published in the United States 

 are mostly somewhat dreary and 

 barren, but, rather, that so much has 

 been accomplished without state or 

 private endowment. 



THE CAUSES OF YELLOW FEVER 

 AND OF CANCER. 



What can be accomplished by prop- 

 erly directed medical research is proved 

 by two advances of extraordinary im- 

 portance made recently by American 

 students. These are the discovery of 

 the probable causes of yellow fever and 

 of cancer. In the present number of 

 this journal, Surgeon-General Stern- 

 berg describes the experiments made 

 under his direction by a board of army 

 surgeons in Havana. In heroic self- 

 sacrifice and triumphant achievement 

 these experiments have surely an 

 absorbing interest, surpassing any 

 fiction. Although the yellow fever 

 parasite has not been seen, its existence 

 seems as certain as that of the malaria 

 parasite. We now know that yellow 

 fever is not directly contagious, but is 

 transmitted by a special kind of mos- 

 quito, and, probably, only in this way. 

 If we exterminate certain kinds of mos- 

 quitoes, or prevent them from bit- 

 ing those diseased, or from biting 



those who are well, two of the most 

 dreadful diseases — yellow fever and 

 malaria — will be exterminated. The 

 cost in money and life of the Spanish- 

 American War has been more than re- 

 paid to society by the services of the 

 medical army officers. 



Science is often said to be cosmopoli- 

 tan, but men of science owe allegiance 

 to their country, and there is every 

 reason to rejoice that it is also to an 

 American that we owe the discovery of 

 the probable cause of cancer. Dr. 

 Harvey R. Gaylord, working in New 

 York State Pathological Laboratory at 

 Buffalo, has been able to cultivate the 

 organisms that cause cancer, and to 

 produce cancer by injecting them into 

 healthy animals. These organisms are 

 not bacteria or yeast cells, but protozoa. 

 There has long been a difference of 

 opinion as to whether cancer is due to 

 alterations in nutrition, or to a para- 

 site. Now that the latter has been 

 proved, cancer must be regarded as a 

 preventable disease, and it remains to 

 discover the method of its propagation. 

 It must, of course, be remembered that 

 Dr. Gaylord's discovery, like all others, 

 rests on a long line of careful re- 

 searches carried on in many countries. 

 There are innumerable names connected 

 with the development of the germ 

 theory of disease, but the forerunners 

 of Gaylord, who especially deserve 

 mention in connection with cancer, are 

 Scheuerlin, Kubasoff, Russell, Sanfelice 

 and Plimmer. 



THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC 

 EXPEDITION. 



The resignation of Professor J. W. 

 Gregory from the scientific staff of the 

 British Antarctic Expedition is unfor- 

 tunate, both because he possessed pecu- 

 liar qualifications for his post, and 

 because it has brought to light dissen- 

 sions among those interested in the 

 success of the expedition. The question 

 at issue between the Royal Geographical 

 Society, on the one hand, and the Royal 

 Society, or some of its members, on the 



