SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION AND PROGRESS. 297 



Another way by which the food supply of the world can be increased 

 is by relieving tracts of land that are now used for other purposes than 

 the cultivation of foodstuffs. The most interesting example of this 

 kind is that presented by the cultivation of indigo. There is a large 

 demand for this substance, which is plainly founded upon esthetic 

 desires of a somewhat rudimentary kind. Whatever the cause may be, 

 the demand exists, and immense tracts of land have been and are still, 

 devoted to the cultivation of the indigo plant. Within the past few 

 years scientific investigation has shown that indigo can be made in the 

 factory from substances, the production of which does not for the most 

 part involve the cultivation of the soil. In 1900, according to the 

 report of Dr. Brunck, Managing Director of the Badische Anilin- and 

 Soda-Fabrik, the quantity of indigo produced annually in the factory 

 'would require the cultivation of an area of more than a quarter of a 

 million acres of land (390 square miles) in the home of the indigo 

 plant.' Dr. Brunck adds: "The first impression which this fact may 

 be likely to produce, is that the manufacture of indigo will cause a 

 terrible calamity to arise in that country; but, perhaps not. If one 

 recalls to mind that India is periodically afflicted with famine, one 

 ought not, without further consideration, to cast aside the hope that 

 it might be good fortune for that country if the immense areas now 

 devoted to a crop which is subject to many vicissitudes and to violent 

 market changes were at last to be given over to the raising of bread- 

 stuffs and other food products." "For myself," says Dr. Brunck, 

 "I do not assume to be an impartial adviser in this matter, but, never- 

 theless, I venture to express my conviction that the government of 

 India will be rendering a very great service if it should support and 

 aid the progress, which will in any case be irresistible, of this impend- 

 ing change in the cultivation of that country, and would support and 

 direct its methodical and rational execution." 



The connection between scientific investigation and health is so 

 frequently the subject of discussion that I need not dwell upon it here. 

 The discovery that many diseases are due primarily to the action of 

 microscopic organisms that find their way into the body and produce 

 the changes that reveal themselves in definite symptoms is a direct 

 consequence of the study of the phenomenon of alcoholic fermentation 

 by Pasteur. Everything that throws light upon the nature of the ac- 

 tion of these microscopic organisms is of value in dealing with the great 

 problem of combating disease. It has been established in a number of 

 eases that they cause the formation of products that act as poisons and 

 that the diseases are due to the action of these poisons. So also, as is 

 well known, investigation has shown that antidotes to some of these 

 poisons can be produced, and that by means of these antidotes the dis- 

 eases can be controlled. But more important than this is the discovery 



