2 2o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



under the control of the university. Many of these have heen made 

 with definite specifications as to the problems to be studied, which is 

 encouraging evidence of a special study on the part of the donors and 

 of a keen appreciation on their part of the limitations of medical 

 knowledge and of the need of enlarging its boundaries. Of depart- 

 ments thus founded, some of the best examples are those at Harvard, 3 

 Cornell 4 and Columbia 5 for the study of cancer, the Henry Phipps Insti- 

 tute and Hospital, now a part of the University of Pennsylvania, for 

 the study and treatment of tuberculosis; the department of experi- 

 mental medicine at Western Eeserve; the department of research medi- 

 cine at Pennsylvania for the study of chronic diseases, the recently 

 founded Sprague Memorial Institute affiliated with the University of 

 Chicago for the study of the general problems of medicine and that 

 recently announced by Northwestern University for the study of tuber- 

 culosis and other infectious diseases. Here also should be included the 

 Wistar Institute of Anatomy at Pennsylvania, the work of which at 

 present is devoted largely to research in problems of the nervous system. 

 Of special interest in connection with many of these foundations is 

 the provision for investigation in the hospital in connection with labo- 

 ratory work. Thus the foundation for the investigation of cancer at 

 Harvard has its own hospital, the Phipps Institute at Philadelphia 

 provides for the laboratory and clinical study of tuberculosis, the new 

 Sprague Institute of Chicago has a hospital affiliation, the pians for 

 the Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases include a hospital for 

 the study of such diseases, and some of the smaller foundations have 

 been established with the understanding that the university shall en- 

 sure access to the wards of the hospital under its control. Surely the 

 universities through the endowment of medical research will have opened 

 to them invaluable opportunities for service not only in the investiga- 

 tion of special diseases, but in the broader field of the relation of social 

 conditions to disease. In connection with the latter Dr. Eichard C. 

 Cabot has called the attention of the profession and hospital authori- 

 ties most forcibly to their duty and to the opportunity for special re- 

 search which this field offers. Already the Eockefeller Commission 

 for the Study of Hook-worm Disease has undertaken the study of social 

 conditions determining the occurrence of hook-worm disease and the 

 University of Pennsylvania, by establishing, in connection with the 

 Phipps Institute, a department for the sociologic study of tuberculosis, 

 offers the first instance of a university uniting laboratory, clinical and 

 sociologic methods in an effort to elucidate the problems of a single 

 disease. The experiment is an important one in that union of effort 

 in the study of a single disease, if based on the principle of social serv- 



3 Caroline Brewer Croft Fund Cancer Commission. 



4 Collis P. Huntington Fund for Cancer Research. 

 ' George Crocker Special Research Fund. 



