NOTES 285 



Awards for Medical Discovery (R. B.) 



I have nothing much further to report on this matter since our last issue. 

 At the deputation to the Lord President of the Council on March 2, he raised 

 various difficulties as to the scheme which we had proposed ; and when we 

 asked him for a final decision, he rephed that he could not adopt the scheme 

 owing to the said difficulties. Personally, as I have said, I cannot attach 

 much weight to them. It is difficult to see why pensions cannot be given for 

 medical discoveries in consequence of trouble which may occur in selecting the 

 men who have actually made them. The same trouble occurs whenever any 

 awards are made ; but Fellows of the Royal Society continue to be elected, 

 and prizes are given, and numbers of persons are honoured in various ways 

 by Governments and learned bodies. Why cannot more solid rewards be 

 allotted in the same way ? We also wrote again to the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer asking him why exactly he had refused to allow petitions on the 

 precedent of Jenner to proceed to the House of Commons, and he has replied 

 simply with the old formula that this is no longer ^he custom. Personally, 

 I cannot see that this is any definite reason for his refusal. We have, how- 

 ever, loyally accepted the objections both by Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, 

 and have now asked the Prime Minister whether he will be so good as to allow 

 some other means by which medical men can receive remuneration, or at 

 least compensation, for their discoveries and inventions, just as inventors and 

 those who serve the State in other lines receive them. The mills of Govern- 

 ment grind slowly, but I hope that they will finally produce a little flour ! 



A Word of Appreciation 



It is always agreeable to be appreciated, and we are glad to quote the 

 following passage from the Japan Advertiser, Tokio : "Science Progress, 

 the remarkable and unique review of scientific work, thought, and affairs, 

 which Sir Ronald Ross edits, needs no introduction. No periodical publica- 

 tion covers so wide a field or serves so useful a purpose in its own field. It 

 is not ' popular ' as the word is used, yet one is glad to think that there 

 is a widening circle of readers, not all of them scientists, who find its pages 

 invaluable as an essay and chronicle of scientific progress. At this time, 

 when the language problem of Japan is arousing interest in Esperanto, a 

 contribution in the current number of Science Progress on Ido as a 

 universal scientific language, ' the highest common factor of the modem 

 languages of Europe,' is of special interest." Scientific publications, hke 

 prophets, seem to be appreciated anywhere except in their own country. 



Learned Societies— A Plea for Reform (0. A. C.) 



Temples and monasteries played a distinguished part in the early history 

 of civilisation, for the familiar reason that in the old times they formed islands 

 of culture in the midst of a sea of barbarism. The temples of ancient Egypt 

 and Greece seem to have been hospitals, and even universities, as well as 

 fanes for the worship of the gods ; and Buddhist monasteries perform somewhat 

 the same function to-day. But as civilisation spread outwards from them, 

 they tended to lose their influence for good, and indeed ultimately to become 

 negative foci of bigotry and corruption in the middle of a more enUghtened 

 populace — especially when they were divorced from the pursuit of the sciences 

 and arts. The abolition of the monasteries by the virile Enghsh people of the 

 sixteenth century was evidently due to recognition of this fact. 



In latter days, learned societies have played a precisely similar part. 

 Originally they were certainly invaluable. Thus when it was founded, the 

 Royal Society must have been indispensable for the discussion of themes 

 which could not easily be dealt with on paper when printing was difficult 

 and when articles were written in Latin. And learned societies have always 



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