178 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



of a number of the elements have been analyzed ^vithin a 

 few years. 



In chemistry, the simple laboratories used for analytical 

 work and for the early research in organic chemistry are no 

 longer sufficient for progress in many fields. Work on gas 

 reactions requires very complex equipment. Much chemical 

 work is done at high pressures and much at very high tem- 

 peratures, and more and more these methods of producing 

 and studying chemical reactions are of importance. Silicate 

 chemistry has involved a complex technology of furnace work. 



In certain fields of work, a whole laboratory may be con- 

 sidered a tool. In the advancement of physiology, for in- 

 stance, a requisite is a synthetic organic laboratory that can 

 prepare the many compounds required. And now it seems 

 likely that physiological research will require a supply of 

 chemicals made with isotopes of the elements or with radio- 

 active isotopes prepared synthetically in the laboratories of 

 nuclear physics. 



During a recent discussion of the co-operation that might 

 be effected between industrial research laboratories and the 

 investigators who were studying medicine, it ^vas suggested 

 that what was really required by the medical men ^vas not co- 

 operation but a supply of synthetic chemicals for which they 

 did not have to pay. Experimenters in medicine, as in physi- 

 ology, require a very large number of synthetic chemicals, the 

 cost of which is far greater than can be met from the usual 

 scanty budget of the investigator. What is needed is a philan- 

 thropic organic chemist to make the chemicals that are re- 

 quired; and if progress is to be made in medicine and physi- 

 ology, this demand must be met. Perhaps one of the most 

 useful things that a philanthropist could do at the present 

 time would be to endow a synthetic organic laboratory to 

 prepare chemicals for use in the medical sciences. 



Another tool absolutely necessary in physiological chem- 

 istry is the animal colony, and for this to be really effective it 

 will be distinctly expensive both in first cost and in opera- 

 tion. Colonies of selected animals kept under very uniform 



