NOTES 637 



Lastly, we should, I think, plead for similar awards for great work in 

 literature, exploration, and indeed all branches of Science and Art ; that is, 

 for work which has been of value to the general public without being remunera- 

 tive to the worker himself. The nation allows patents, and rewards soldiers, 

 sailors, and inventors. If this principle be sound, it should be extended 

 to other classes of work ; and' if genius be one of the greatest assets of a 

 people, then something should be done, more than is done at present, to 

 direct it towards the noblest objects. 



I am, sir, yours faithfully, 



Ronald Ross. 



December 8, 191 9. 



From " The Times," December 24, 1919 



Sir, — My scheme for the encouragement of medical discovery by State 

 awards has received considerable attention since you were so good as to 

 publish my letter on the subject in The Times of December 10. Many of 

 your readers will therefore, I believe, be glad to learn that the scheme has 

 been approved by the Conjoint Committee to which I referred ; and is 

 being submitted to the proper authority for action ; and you will doubtless 

 receive the Committee's report in due course. 



A contemporary of yours, while it gives welcome support to my sugges- 

 tion, doubts whether the present time is appropriate for asking Government 

 for grants. But surely this is supposed to be the great period of reconstruc- 

 tion, and matters of life and health should, I think, head the programme. 

 I asked for ^15,000 a year to be distributed in life-pensions among men who 

 have actually benefited the Empire by important medical discoveries : one- 

 thousandth part the sum proposed to be allotted for aeronautics ; one- 

 twentieth that which Parliament grants to its own members, or provides for 

 political and legal work ; one-quarter what it gives as a subsidy for 

 current medical investigations ; and less than the income of many wealthy 

 individuals. 



But I argue that there is also a point of honour involved. Is it right 

 for a great empire to accept the wide benefits of medical discovery from 

 private professional men without making the smallest attempt to give them 

 professional payment in return ? If a patient owes a fee to his doctor, 

 surely the nation owes similar remuneration to men whose investigations 

 improve medical or surgical practice on a large scale. Yet since the time of 

 Jenner this nation has given nothing whatever for such work. Like the man 

 in the parable, the world has often fallen among thieves ; but after that Good 

 Samaritan, the medical investigator, has bound up its wounds, the world 

 forgets all about him, and does not even trouble to pay him back the two 

 pence he advanced to the innkeeper ! My whole plea is that the world 

 would be wiser to pay that little debt in future — as a premier obligation. 



I am, sir, yours faithfully, 



Ronald Ross. 



December 22, 1919. 



A Report on Rewards for Medical Discovery 



Presented by request to the Conjoint Committee of the British Medica 

 Association and the British Science Guild on Awards for Medical Discovery, 

 by Colonel Sir Ronald Ross, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S. (Dated December 1, 

 1919). 



/. Definitions 



Medical Discovery may here be defined as being : 



(1) The ascertainment of new facts or theorems bearing on the human 



