MEDICAL RESEARCH. 521 



Such is frequently the mission of the true discoverer, to leap over 

 mounds of facts and figures, bring us back close to nature and show 

 us that her movements are often far simpler than we dared imagine. 



Thus far I have dealt with research as a thing by itself to be 

 furthered by endowment and prosecuted by specially fitted men for 

 the sake of its value to mankind. This is only preliminary, however, 

 to the main thesis of our remarks, the training of research workers and 

 the relation of research to the medical school. As a humble repre- 

 sentative of the school which has provided so liberally in its new 

 buildings for both research and instruction I must endeavor, amid the 

 tangle of changing conditions, to place before you the relation between 

 teaching and research as it presents itself to me. 



I am quite inclined to make a sharp distinction between the physi- 

 cian and the investigator, and I think the time has come to create as 

 it were a separate genus. What may be said of the type research 

 worker should also apply to the teacher.* 



Some enthusiasts would go so far as to urge that all students be 

 made research workers. This is clearly uneconomical, for not many 

 are fitted and the world has no use for many. There are needed 

 chiefly well educated, humane, upright and patient workers who are 

 ready to do the routine tasks of their profession. The physician must 

 keep step with the great procession as it slowly moves forward. He 

 can not deviate much to the right or to the left nor move much faster 

 than the rest. His activities are more or less defined by a consensus 

 of opinion. JSTo matter how much he may swing his pinions in the 

 laboratory, they will have but little room to move in the practical work 

 of life. It is one thing to discover, and another to apply, one thing 

 thoroughly to believe in our results, another to make others believe and 

 act accordingly. 



The research worker on the other hand deals more with the un- 

 defined boundaries of knowledge and with the frayed edges of sound 

 information. He does not march with the procession, but he must 

 do lonely outpost and scouting duties. He must seek clandestine meet- 

 ings with those of other sciences, for he learns mainly by breaking 

 through conventional barriers. He makes his discoveries unknown to 

 others, and the farther they are in advance of the times the less atten- 

 tion they will receive. 



* The time is not so distant when it will become necessary to separate the 

 functions of teaching and research. The teacher will then investigate to im- 

 prove his teaching, the investigator will teach to clarify the aims of research. 

 One merges insensibly into the other. The attempt to set apart the teacher 

 and investigator is simply another tributary of the current which is tending 

 to make all teachers independent of the practise of medicine, by urging adequate 

 compensation for their entire time. 



vol. lxvi. — 34. 



