59 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



instruction of about two thousand medical men, including officers 

 of the Services ; the maintenance of experts to advise on official 

 committees and on sanitary matters, the establishment of special 

 museums, and the publication of scientific journals. In most 

 other countries, all these expenses would have been met out of 

 Government funds ; and it must be admitted that British adminis- 

 tration is fortunate in that it can persuade private persons to 

 help it in such matters on such a large scale. 



The total sum of money appears to be large, although it is 

 less than the fortune of hundreds of private citizens in Britain. 

 As a matter of fact, the work could not have been done so cheaply 

 but for the circumstance that most of the workers have been 

 content to sacrifice their time and themselves for the public 

 benefit by accepting extremely small payment. The highest 

 salary given at either of the Schools has reached only to ^800 a 

 year, and that was continued only for three years. The most 

 serious aspect of the business is that no attempt has yet been 

 made to lay down pensions for any of the workers except small 

 ones in connection with the two Chairs. To put it briefly, this 

 great imperial work has really been carried out, not only by the 

 genius of the workers, but very largely at their own pecuniary 

 expense — a thing which can only be described as being rather 

 dishonourable for a country which is so wealthy as Great 

 Britain. The fact is that this country has come to believe 

 that it will receive almost all its "medical benefit" for nothing. 

 The poor have become accustomed to receiving treatment in 

 hospitals for nothing ; the well-to-do frequently escape paying 

 their doctors' fees ; and it is scarcely proper that the great 

 British Empire itself should be under the impression that it 

 may adopt the same attitude towards those who have benefited 

 it in the line of tropical medical science. 



The result is as may be imagined — that good workers are 

 becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, for the simple reason 

 that the work does not pay. Though Britain probably has 

 greater opportunities for such researches than all the other 

 nations put together, her output of labour in this line is falling 

 below such a standard. Thus, out of two hundred articles con- 

 sidered in Numbers 9 and 10 of the Tropical Diseases Bulletin 

 (October and November 191 3), only 47 were by British workers ; 

 and what work is done is too often of the nature of hasty observa- 

 tion or immature hypothesis. Unless a remedy can be found. 



