EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XVIII. Novkmheh, li)0(j. No. 8. 



The dedication of the new biiiklings for the Harvard Medical 

 School has attracted much attention, as marking in a high degree the 

 development of instruction and research in medicine. Some of the 

 addresses on that occasion might be applied with almost equal force 

 to agriculture, and they are of broad interest as indicating advanced 

 thought upon the relation of science to an important branch of 

 practice. 



President Eliot and Dr. W. PI. Welch both laid great stress upon 

 research as the fundamental basis for advancement in medicine and 

 the importance of the laboratory as marking the highest stage of 

 development to that end. They showed how medicine has progressed 

 step by step with the development of science, and how the great epochs 

 in its progress were attributable to new discoveries and deductions. 

 " The great lesson taught by the history of this development of medi- 

 cine through the centuries,'' Doctor Welch said, " has been the 

 unconditional reverence for facts revealed by observation, experiment, 

 and just inference, as contrasted with the sterility of mere specula- 

 tion and reliance upon transmitted authority. The great epochs of 

 this history have been characterized by some great discovery, by the 

 introduction of some new method, or hy the appearance of some man 

 of genius to push investigation and scientific inference to limits not 

 attainable by ordinary minds." 



The development of laboratories was described as at once the cause 

 and the result of such progress. '* By teaching and exemplifying 

 the only fruitful method of advancing natural knowledge labora- 

 tories have overthrown the dominance of authority and dogma and 

 speculation ; " and they have demonstrated that " the only abiding, 

 living knowledge, powerful for right action, comes from intimate, 

 personal contact with the objects of study."' They have been one of 

 the great factors in advancing research and have resulted in making 

 our knowledge more exact. The laboratory method is now the ac- 

 cepted one in research in natural science. 



Doctor PJliot pointed out the broad relations of investigation in 

 various branches of science to the progress of medicine. " The most 

 promising medical research of our day," he said, " makes use of bio- 



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