LEADING SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE 337 



THE LEADING SCHOOL OF TKOPICAL MEDICINE 



By EDWARD NELSON TOBEY, A.M., M.D. 



~~VT~0 plan for improving American medical education has been more 

 -L-N widely advocated the past year than the establishment of a 

 department of tropical medicine in our medical schools. Although 

 we now have such possessions in the tropics as Porto Kico, the Canal 

 Zone, the Philippines, the Hawaiian and other islands of the Pacific, 

 not to mention our semi-tropical southern states, instruction in tropical 

 diseases and conditions has not kept pace with the increased need. 

 The founding of a school of tropical medicine in the United States 

 was first suggested by the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 

 the same year that two schools of tropical medicine were planned for 

 England. Since England was the first to establish such a school, let 

 us look toward that country. 



Up from the Jewish quarter of the city, on the crest of Brownlow 

 Hill, stands Liverpool University, famous, as some one has said, for 

 its zoologist, its physiologist and its professor of tropical medicine. 

 Entering beneath the tall Victoria Jubilee Tower with its clock and 

 Latin inscription, and crossing the yard, one comes to the row of 

 buildings containing the Thompson-Yates and Johnston laboratories, 

 the former and present homes of the Liverpool School of Tropical 

 Medicine. It was the work of this institution which caused a New 

 York physician, when describing the advantages a medical student can 

 get abroad, to write, " Liverpool leads in tropical medicine." 



Although the school was founded a few months after the plans for 

 its rival in London had been published, it was, nevertheless, the first 

 to begin work. Its opening days were not darkened by any unfortunate 

 incident, yet they were clouded by the lack of those favorable circum- 

 stances which have made the London school what it is to-da} r . The 

 institution at Liverpool was not founded by the government, it had 

 no grant nor assured income, nor even government recognition, hence 

 it could not expect to get as many students as its rival. Some of 

 these obstacles were removed later, yet they were important in deter- 

 mining the lines along which the school must work. A school which 

 could not hope for much through excellence in teaching must look for 

 recognition through research. 



The necessity for conducting successful research was met by the 

 appointment of Major Eonald Eoss as professor of tropical medicine. 

 The researches of Major Eoss prior to his appointment at Liverpool 



