52o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fore no need of hurrying to put discoveries to use. Many are dis- 

 credited because of such ill-advised attempts and the investigator him- 

 self becomes discouraged in the futile effort to apply principles which 

 fit only in part the practical condition to be influenced. 



The tendency to make research directly prove pet theories, find 

 short cuts to health, and cure diseases hitherto unsuccessfully treated 

 will continue to give the investigator trouble for some time to come. 

 What is needed is that at least a small number of scientists work at 

 these problems of disease as we would at the other phenomena of the 

 world around us. They should look them over from all sides calmly 

 and objectively to get at the lessons expressed in them. They should 

 look upon pathological manifestations as the normal sequences of 

 causes operating under special conditions and for certain periods of 

 time. They should endeavor to analyze phenomena rather than at- 

 tempt to suppress or crush them. That function should belong to 

 the health officer and the practising physician. 



In order to take this calm attitude toward disease as a natural 

 phenomenon and attempt to explain it, it may be necessary to move 

 backward toward simpler problems from man to the higher animals, 

 from these to lower types, from the complex processes of the human 

 machine to the physical and chemical phenomena of the inorganic 

 world. This has not always been the attitude of medicine, for stand- 

 ing as it does under the too near and impending shadow of suffering 

 and death, it was but natural to attack the most difficult and complex 

 problems first. 



It is needless to say that the position of the research worker of the 

 immediate future will not be an easy one. The strain to produce some- 

 thing is far more wearing than teaching. The mental play of the 

 teacher's mind to produce something is relaxation compared with that 

 of the investigator to carry out a contract for the delivery of new 

 knowledge. The gap of years and even generations may yawn between 

 the problem in hand and actual solution. It may indeed prove to be 

 wholly impregnable from the point of attack. It may be solved by 

 some obscure genius with slight facilities who happens to hit the 

 combination which unlocks the secret. 



We have all experienced the burden and complexity of growing 

 information which has not reached the stage of actual knowledge. 

 Extensive tables of figures are laboriously built up around it and the 

 worker himself becomes encrusted and almost asphyxiated with 

 methods and technicalities. We find the laboratory growing hot and 

 stifling as we painfully add one more fact to the heavy burden. Sud- 

 denly and quite unexpectedly the true discoverer comes with a simple 

 explanation. At his approach the air is cleared and freshened. Tables 

 and figures are shoved to one side, and we begin our work once more 

 with improved vision along another road. 



