STRATEGY 



and their pharmacological action understood. The medicinal pro- 

 perties of the herb Ma Huang, from which ephedrine is derived 

 are said to have been discovered in China, 5,000 years ago by the 

 emperor Shen Nung. The discoveries of quinine, cocaine and 

 curare by the natives in South America are lost in antiquity but 

 obviously they must have been purely empirical. Incidentally, 

 the tree from which quinine is obtained was named after the 

 Countess of Cinchona who used it to cure malaria in 1638 and 

 subsequently introduced it into Europe from Peru. Another 

 example of this type of investigation is research into age-old 

 processes such as tanning, cheese making and fermentation of 

 various kinds. Many of these processes have now been developed 

 into exact scientific procedures and thereby improved, or at least 

 made more dependable. Vaccination could perhaps also be classi- 

 fied under this heading. 



Tactics 



In order to examine and get a better understanding of a 

 complex process, it is often useful to analyse it into component 

 phases and consider each separately. This is what has been done 

 in this treatise on research. I have tried to describe the role of 

 hypothesis, reason, experimentation, observation, chance and 

 intuition in research and to indicate the special uses and defects 

 of each of these factors. However, in practice these factors 

 of course do not operate separately. Several or all are usually 

 required in any investigation, although often the actual key to 

 the solution of the problem is provided by one, as is shown in 

 many of the anecdotes cited. 



A general outline of how a straightforward problem in experi- 

 mental medicine or biology may be tackled has been given in 

 Chapters One and Two and the special role of each factor in 

 research has been discussed in subsequent chapters. The order of 

 the chapters has no special significance, nor does the space devoted 

 to each subject bear much relationship to its relative importance. 

 There remain to be discussed only some general considerations 

 about tactics. In doing this it may be useful to recapitulate and 

 bring together some of the points already made elsewhere. 



No set rules can be followed in research. The investigator has 



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