AMERICA'S INTELLECTUAL PRODUCT 205 



great practical utilities, the telegraph and the telephone, the applica- 

 tion of steam and electricity in the production and transmission of 

 power, the conquests of biological science in its applications to medi- 

 cine and the preservation of the public health, are matters of common 

 knowledge. The disappearance of the plagues with which the cities 

 of Europe were so frequently scourged, of the ravages of smallpox 

 so prevalent one hundred and fifty years ago that one person in every 

 three or four was marked with it, and finally the control of yellow 

 fever and malaria, speak volumes in favor of medical research. Who 

 is doing the medical research of the world ? In this country the state- 

 ment is made that out of about one hundred thousand physicians not 

 over five hundred are engaged in research. Fortunately the Germans 

 are at this too, so that every physician has the ambition to study at 

 some period in Germany, and find out all he can of the newest methods 

 of practise and discovery. 



The effect of research on the industries of a country is well known. 

 One of the most celebrated applications of chemistry was the creation 

 of the aniline dyes. This discovery, made in England, bore its greatest 

 fruits in Germany, and at the recent celebration in London of the 

 jubilee of the discovery of the aniline colors in honor of Sir William 

 Perkin, one of the speakers said that it was a painful fact that although 

 the English had the discoverer the Germans had the factories. In fact, 

 the Germans not only make the dyes, but the greater part of all the fine 

 chemicals for the world. Every one of these great German factories 

 employs scores of chemists, each with a doctor's degree from a univer- 

 sity, not only for the purpose of superintending the manufacture, but 

 for the prosecution of research and the development of new processes 

 and products. 



In the commercial race of to-day, England has lost that preemi- 

 nence that she once had, and is extremely nervous with regard to the 

 competition of the United States and Germany. If we compare the 

 methods of the latter two countries, I believe we shall find a decided 

 difference. In this country success has been achieved by the applica- 

 tion of business acumen, in finding out how to save cost by the con- 

 centration of huge amounts of business under one management, and 

 by production on a large scale. When it comes to improving the 

 quality of the product, we are not so successful. As a familiar ex- 

 ample take the steel manufacture, where we have passed England in 

 the quantity of the steel we manufacture, but if steel is wanted of the 

 finest sort for razors the greatest part of it still comes from England 

 or Germany. The principles of the manufacture of steel are still 

 largely a mystery, and the development of the method that seems to 

 give us the most information on this subject, that of metallography, 

 or the study of metallic alloys under the microscope, has been devel- 



