RESEARCH IN MEDICINE 503 



EESEAECH IN MEDICINE^ 



BY Professor RICHARD M. PEARCE 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



I. Antiquity to 1800; The Efforts of Isolated Investigators 



THE phrase " Eesearch in Medicine " will naturally arouse different 

 thoughts and associations in the minds of different groups of 

 men. 



The bacteriologist will be reminded of Pasteur, Koch, Behring and 

 riexner and the trimnphs of bacteriology and serum-therapy; the sur- 

 geon, of Lister and antisepsis, of anesthesia, and of the X-ray; the 

 physician of new means of cure and of diagnosis, of specific sera and 

 vaccines, of the electrocardiograph, the polygraph and other compli- 

 cated instruments of precision; and the average layman of a confused 

 and confusing welter of catchwords and slogans for popular agitations 

 vaguely associated with antitoxins, mosquitoes, good water supply, sew- 

 age disposal, lowered infant mortality and the modern treatment of 

 tuberculosis. But in the last analysis the impressions of all would be of 

 progress in a period representing a little more than half of the past cen- 

 tury. This period is indeed the golden age of medical progress and one 

 to which the historian or philosopher must give his best attention if he 

 is to interpret, properly, the impulses which actuate medical research 

 at the present time. That the earlier history of medicine is over-, 

 shadowed by the rapid progress of modern discovery as represented in 

 bacteriology is in the nature of things. But it should not, for that 

 reason, be forgotten that the art of medicine existed before this period 

 and with it much science. The pathologist, on second thought, reminds 

 us of Morgagni and Eokitansky and the beginnings of pathological 

 anatomy ; the physiologist recalls Harvey and Haller ; the surgeon men- 

 tions Ambroise Pare ; the anatomist, after recalling many worthies, takes 

 us back to Vesalius, to Galen and finally leaves us as does the internist, 

 with Hippocrates, 400 years before Christ. 



With this stretch of time and with these widely varying aspects of 

 endeavor one must deal in attempting to present the story of research 

 in medicine. It would be comparatively simple to chronicle the ad- 

 vance in any one field, as, for example, surgery, pathology or therapy; 

 but this would, I fear, be less interesting and certainly not enlighten- 



^ These lectures were given as the annual Hitchcock lectures at the Univer- 

 sity of California. The foundation was created by Mr. Charles M. Hitchcock, 

 who bequeathed to the University of California an endovraient, the income of 

 which was to be devoted to "free lectures upon scientific and practical subjects, 

 but not for the advantage of any religious sect nor upon political subjects. ' ' 



