NOTES 



The Finances of Tropical Medicine 



Whether Britain has taken as leading a place in the great 

 world-movements of recent years as she did in those of last 

 century may perhaps be doubted ; but she has certainly done so 

 in the line of tropical medicine. Summed up, the recent work in 

 this branch of science has resulted in the finding of the cause and 

 mode of propagation of many of the most important tropical 

 diseases — a discovery which is obviously of fundamental value 

 as regards the development of more than half the world. It will 

 therefore be of interest to all scientific men to learn some facts 

 regarding the finances of the movement. 



Putting aside the large work done by the public medical 

 services and by foreigners, we shall touch only the work of the 

 two schools of Liverpool and London, which were founded in 

 1899, and have consequently been in existence for fourteen years. 

 From figures which are probably as accurate as can be obtained, 

 we gather that the Liverpool School has collected from the 

 beginning a sum of about £130,000, entirely from private sources, 

 including bequests, special subscriptions, annual subscriptions, 

 donations for the founding of Chairs, students' fees, etc. In 

 addition to this it has received over £8,000 from Government. 

 The London School appears to have received about £133,000 

 from such private sources as those mentioned above, and also 

 about £22,000 from various Government sources. Thus the 

 contributions by Governments amount to about £30,000 during 

 the fourteen years, against a sum of about £264,000 contributed 

 from private sources and students' fees ; so that the Government 

 contribution comes to a little over 10 per cent, of the total 

 receipts of the two schools (£294,000). For this, our tropical 

 possessions have received very great benefits, including the 

 carrying out of many expeditions and of innumerable researches 

 on tropical medicine, the permanent establishment of two Schools 

 of Tropical Medicine with buildings and two endowed Chairs, the 



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