93(1 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Mr. TiiOMrsoN. 1 hnxo hut throo minutes and havo not tinio to 

 yield. 



Furthennore, we have now in process of construction in this city 

 what is known as the new Pension building, which covers acres of 

 ground, and we are not told why these records, which relate indirectly 

 to the Pension Office, can not l)e well taken care of in that enormous 

 building which we are now constructing. 



As far as the Medical Museum is concerned, I think we have ample 

 means of accommodating everything which relates to that museum in 

 the Smithsonian Institution. 



We have further pending before this House a bill which has passed 

 the Senate to construct a library building which will hold all the books 

 the Government has. It seems to me one building is enough. We 

 should deal with this matter not in detail for each separate depart- 

 ment of the Government, but we should deal with it as a single ques- 

 tion and construct one building sufficient to hold all the libraries and 

 museums we need. Therefore I am opposed to the expenditure of 

 this sum of money, because I believe it absolutely unnecessary. 



The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. R. Q. Mills). The time allowed in 

 opposition to the bill has expired. 



Mr. Stockslager. I yield two minutes to the gentleman from 

 Massachusetts [Mr. Lyman]. 



Mr. Theodore Lyman. Medicine and surgery have done something 

 to cure disease and to lengthen human life. They have done more to 

 lessen suffering. They have done most of all to prevent disease. 

 Most of the progress in these arts has been made during the last half 

 century, and the next fifty years promises a great advance. All over 

 the civilized world there are great establishments where men of talent 

 devote their lives to the study of disease. These men have grappled 

 with the general plagues that decimate our race — -consumption, small- 

 pox, diphtheria, cholera, and the typhoid, scarlet, and yellow fevers. 

 They seek to know their intimate nature and to provide prevention 

 and cure. There is no subject more baffling, and yet it is yielding to 

 study. Already they have rendered it highly probable that these 

 plagues are caused by the fertilization of miscroscopic germs within 

 the body; so that these diseases are a death struggle between man and 

 a parasitic fungus. But already we discern a hope that these germs 

 may be used for inoculation, and may protect us from such diseases, 

 just as vaccination protects against smallpox. 



These profound studies, so essential to the welfare of our people, 

 are carried on under the fostering care of our National Medical 

 Museum, whose library, now the first in the world, and whose not less 

 admirable collection of military pathology are placed at the disposal 

 of all investigators. If our Fish Commission, Signal Service, and our 



