6 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



What is true of war time must not be allowed 

 to fall into disuse in the period of reconstruction 

 into which we are entering. Let us rather hope 

 that the various committees and enterprises set on 

 foot during the last few years will continue to exist 

 and continue to act with even increased vigour. 

 That frankly means, that in place of spending 

 millions per day on war, the Government must be 

 prepared to spend a few thousands a year in the 

 endowment of research. For the first time in the 

 history of our country, biologists in general and 

 physiologists in particular have been called upon 

 to do national work with more or less official 

 recognition. Hitherto their work has been of 

 national importance, but it has shared the general 

 neglect meted out to scientific endeavour. We 

 have to-day in the present Cabinet a striking sign 

 of grace, for if it contains no physiologists, it has 

 got at the head of two important departments two 

 statesmen who formerly worked at the sister science 

 of anatomy, and so we have the best augury for 

 the future that science is coming into its own. 



Among the organisations to which I refer, one 

 must specially mention the Medical Eesearch Com- 

 mittee, which has organised and controlled numer- 

 ous researches on the new diseases which the war 

 has revealed. A side issue of their work has been 

 the publishing of a medical supplement to the 

 *' Keview of the Daily Press " issued by the Govern- 



