636 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



lucratively for themselves in professional practice, and therefore desert 

 their investigations before completing them. 



Now, nearly all the greatest medical discoveries were made on quite 

 another basis. The investigations were not subsidised in any way ; they 

 were not originated or directed by committees ; they were not limited to 

 a year or two ; they were often entirely changed in course and objective by 

 some chance observation ; and they sometimes lasted for half a lifetime 

 before success was achieved. In fact, most of the greatest medical discoverers 

 were practising medical men who conducted their researches during their 

 own leisure and at their own expense — for example, Kiichenmeister, Jenner, 

 Simpson, Lister, Koch, Laveran, Bancroft, Manson, Bruce, Mackenzie, and 

 a score of others. Much of the best work has been due to mere clinical 

 observation, and more to hard thinking ; both of which require neither 

 laboratories nor subsidies. I submit, then, that it would be wise for my 

 country to encourage this great kind of work also ; by paying, not only 

 for prospective benefits, but for benefits actually received. 



Look at it from another point of view. We have some 40,000 medical 

 men, many of whom possess the brains, knowledge, time, and opportunity 

 for research. Some of them already make such clinical observations as 

 tend to improve practice and to enhance clinical reputation. But the 

 more difficult medical investigations usually require an immense expendi- 

 ture of time, energy, and thought, which, if bestowed upon clinical practice, 

 would harvest considerable pecuniary reward, but which, even if they 

 result in capital discoveries, may notoriously bring in no professional 

 remuneration whatever. For example, Jenner's researches on vaccination 

 lost him his practice, and would have ruined him, but for the fact that 

 Parliament was in those days (1802 and 1807) wise enough to pay him com- 

 pensation. Similar cases exist to-day — without the compensation. I have 

 often heard it asked, What would not the world give to him who should 

 discover the cure of consumption or cancer ? My answer is — Nothing. 

 Honours perhaps ; but similar or greater honours are given for professional 

 eminence of a much less important class ; and people usually enter the 

 medical profession in order to make a living. Is it to be wondered at, then, 

 that medical men hesitate before plunging into abstruse life-long labours 

 which may never succeed at all, and which may ruin them even if they do 

 succeed ? And I may add, is it a wonder that people still continue to die 

 of consumption and cancer ? 



My suggestion is that Parliament would now be wise to give (in addition 

 to its grant to the Medical Research Committee) the comparatively small 

 sum of, say, ^15,000 a year to be divided into life-pensions for distinguished 

 medical discoveries already made, or which may be made in future. This 

 sum would provide ten pensions of £500 a year each, and ten of ^1,000 a 

 year — sufficient to confer, not wealth, but independence and provision for 

 old age ; and would help to bring the whole profession (as well as other 

 biological workers) into a national scheme of research, which has as yet been 

 only partly created by the grant to the Medical Research Committee. The 

 awards would also discharge a moral obligation which the public owes to pro- 

 fessional men who confer benefits upon it without other professional payment. 

 I do not enter into details here because I am placing them before a Conjoint 

 Committee of the British Science Guild and the British Medical Association 

 which has been formed to consider the subject, and of which I am a member ; 

 but I should like to call public attention to the scheme in general outline. 



I think, also, that the precedent of Jenner ought to be resuscitated, so as 

 to allow of compensation by Parliament for direct pecuniary loss incurred 

 by a worker during the progress of successful but unremunerative investiga- 

 tions ; and have indeed made efforts in this direction myself, but hitherto 

 without result. 



