CORRESPONDENCE 457 



fortunes to individuals. To take an instance in point : when the Panama 

 Canal was about to be undertaken by America, with the full knowledge 

 that the French had incurred a gruesome failure owing to mortality from 

 malaria, had the work of Ross not been made public property, an inter- 

 view at Washington by a business agent to the effect that he could supply 

 information by which this deadly malaria could be overcome would have 

 elicited instant attention. The agent could have struck a bargain that, 

 were his method employed by an intelligent man (such as subsequent history 

 showed Gorgas eminently was) , he would guarantee malaria would be practi- 

 cally extirpated, at a cost for sanitation of one cent per head of the population 

 per day. It is tolerably certain the American Government would not have 

 objected to promising him one cent per day extra per head — free of super- 

 tax—if he proved his case in practice. The bargain would have left the Ameri- 

 can Government the gainer on completion of the Canal, according to Gorgas, 

 in consequence of sanitary work effected on the Isthmus during the ten years 

 of construction, of a sum which " will not be considered an exaggerated esti- 

 mate, of eighty million dollars." 



This would have left a bonus from which an award might have been given 

 to the remnants of the gallant Reed Commission of the United States Army, 

 which, at the cost of two lives of its members, had placed at disposal the 

 method of yellow fever prevention, and thus contributed to their country's 

 success. Comparing the work under the French, who had not the advantage 

 of knowledge gained by Ross as to malaria or by the Reed Commission as 

 to yellow fever, Gorgas has further claimed that there resulted during the 

 ten years a saving of 71,370 human lives. Similar measures conducted 

 less strenuously have placed West Africa in a position to refute the stigma of 

 being the "white man's grave." 



That research workers in other sciences are not thus restrained from 

 obtaining patents to cover their discoveries is self-evident from a ruling which 

 appears in Notes on the Conditions under which Grants are made to Individuals 

 and Research Workers and Students in Training, issued by the Committee of 

 the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in 1920. ^ 



Irrespective of the fact that there is no bashfulness exhibited as to securing 

 " any benefits and profits arising " from protection by patent, this ruling 

 , shows how Mr. Balfour's " overwhelming difficulty " might well have been 

 solved by referring any question of disputed merits for award to a committee 

 of medical experts. Indeed, it would be well, in view of Mr. Balfour's 

 dictum — if that be final — that the medical profession should free itself 

 of the ethical burden as to patents by giving permission in special cases 

 to members to secure patents, on the approval of a sub-committee of the 

 Medical Council appointed permanently for that purpose. 



It is possible Mr. Balfour was influenced in arriving at his decision by his 

 placing an undue value on another of the peculiarities of the medical profession. 

 In days when bacteriology and microscopy were not empirical remedies and 

 hypotheses as to disease causation received universal attention if a theory were 

 the offspring of a leading member of the profession it was received with due 

 reverence ; when a lucky hit was made the man concerned was exalted in 

 professional estimation. Remnants of this appreciation are still evident. 

 Hypotheses, however, in the present day, count for little when balanced 



1 Para. 20 (ii). — The Committee of Council reserve the right to deter- 

 mine, after consultation with the bodies and persons who have co-operated 

 in the conduct and maintenance of the investigation, whether, and, it so, 

 to what extent and in what proportions the Committee of Council and 

 those bodies and persons (including the worker) shall secure to themselves 

 by patent, designs, or otherwise, the ownership of the results of the investi- 

 gation, and any benefits and profits arising therefrom." 



30 



