542 



NATURE 



[October 13, 1923 



are gettini.' on. Tfuw ? lU- |)atirnt. dlistinatc and 

 inelurtahlc Im i li miImii n.il in tin- li'-liK m! rnnliMiif 

 (ml\-. !>iii :(1 ,,) ill ' iid 



/iHili, \. iMiialU', 1: r'-d 



i';ii reatest vict(ir\ . i our own stupidit . . W > . 



ur ill us say the piiMi' i',:; kIc these walls, aic ai la i 

 beginning to leain tlial in\i -,ti;;aliun r(all\ iiianri-; 

 we are discovering' discovery I 



It was not always so, even anion; do. t m ,. I re- 

 mrmhrr a mcdiral administrahn- a\inL', " 1 cMnnot 

 keep a niiinluT nl men iillini,' aiiiiiit lien- v.itli niii ro- 

 scopes, " and a High ("ommissioner exclaiming, " Vou 

 say you do not know how to manage this out- 

 break ! Surely vou nudirul men ought to know." 

 He seemed to think that all we had to do was to consult 

 the Ilippocratic Jiooks. The idea that investigation 

 is an essential part of practice has been of very slow 

 growth. In India, when a European doctor was asked 

 to cure a lady of the zenana, he was at one time not 

 allowed to see her, and she was not permitted to do 

 more than put out her tongue at him from behind a 

 curtain. A distinguished i'aiulish pli\>i( iaii. who was, 

 I believe, connected with my own family, is said to have 

 deprecated all clinical examinations : we should know 

 how to cure by instinct. To the public mind the 

 physician loses caste by " wanting to know." He must 

 practice, he may teach, but he should not require to 

 investigate anything ! 



It has taken us centuries to free ourselves from the 

 serpentine coils of this prejudice and to reach our 

 present position — where investigation is the key- 

 industry of all industries. The evolution of this 

 revolution is interesting. The ancient Greeks certainly 

 valued, not only practice and teaching, but also dis- 

 coveries when made ; yet we are not aware that they 

 ever explicitly organised or encouraged research. 

 Readers of the history of science often wonder how the 

 old philosophers and geometers managed to live at all 

 — probably by teaching and possibly on patronage 

 or charity. They were private enthusiasts, and their 

 fundamental discoveries do not appear to have been 

 rewarded in any way, I am told that it is not known 

 whether Plato demanded fees, as well as a knowledge 

 of mathematics, for admission into his Academy ; and 

 the same may be said, I understand, regarding Aris- 

 totle's Lyceum. Several of the mathematicians, such 

 as Eudoxus of Cnidos, appear also to have been practis- 

 ing physicians. It is to be presumed that the Museum 

 at Alexandria was in essential particulars like a modern 

 university, where teaching is the official duty of the 

 staff, but where research and practice may be con- 

 ducted at option between the lectures and classes, often 

 with the assistance of students. We are told that after 

 the collapse of the ancient empires and about the time 

 of William the Conqueror, when Europe was plunged 

 in darkness, the Arabs in Spain possessed a library of 

 600,000 volumes, an academy, and a fund for the 

 endowment of learned men, probably employed for 

 teaching. 



Europe did not advance so far as this for centuries, 

 but the monasteries maintained many learned monks, 

 such as Roger Bacon, with whom the new dawn of 

 science commenced. The great Italian anatomists of 

 the sixteenth century were either practising physicians 

 or members of universities. I think that the first real 



" riMari )i institute." siil)sidi>ed by publii artd pri' 

 tuiid-. lor pnrt- in\ titi;.'ali((ii <)m1v. wa.s the fa ^ 

 Uranilior- o| jyt ho Hrahc, founded in Denmark 

 1576. 1 1 \M 11 >,uii>erved the proper purjKjse of 

 in 1 lich is the collection of numerous 

 t • I ' tions and measurements that are bey 

 the |)owcr ot |)ii'.atr in\ « ^t i-.. aior- . 'I'vcho Br 

 bruii'l'i 00 o, v, intc..Tatioii into a.-.lronumy, and e\ ■ -: 

 oppo luiidaint ntal theory of Copernicus; 1 at 

 his r ' •' •■:• • ' - ' ^'^ • - ■• ' '■ 



the 



'vnnifSl 



liiniMii \\A 

 adair.->, and a j 

 years the polite ,. :, 

 as Mr. Alfred .\o., 



pmale enllii 

 ; and also tha: 

 ■ l)ped their subsidy lor Li 

 las desrrihf'd «o path* 



his fine epic of science, " 

 those days the greatest men 



up a li\inL: a^ lic>t tlu\- lould cxcn h\- ttie ii>r -; 

 alcheni\- and astrology. KepUr >aid ^ari a-ti^ ;dl\- ti . • 

 "Mothir .\-lronomy would >urcK- ^tar\r hut l(*r r. 

 earninL:^ o| lier dautrhter A>lroloti\-. " \.\k\\ in i- 

 obser\ atorii ^ and nu!>rinns wliidi hcLian to he fouiv:'': 

 after Urani!)orL;, otiirial duties must have great i 

 interrupted in\v>ti,-alion. 



Thus we see that at all times, as often to-dav. srjin, , 

 has been compelled to get her livini: hy more hurati. < 

 but less important pursuits, espe( iallv leaching a' ■; 

 professional practice. Last centurv. however, the irit a 

 of spe( ial rtscar. h institutes was taken up again with 

 vigour, and the I'asteur Institute in l';iri^ the Jenner 

 Institute in London, and a score similar 



foundations were established in mosi .u ,) , world's 

 great cities, sometimes by private lienefarijons or 

 bequests, sometimes by State subsidies, and often by 

 both. Here we find a new ])rin< iple at work — that of 

 maintaining skilled investigators for research only, 

 apart from teaching and practice. Allied to those, we 

 now possess numbers of industrial research laboratories 

 employed by commercial companies on the improve- 

 ment of agriculture or of manufactures — and we know 

 what America and German}- have done in this line. 

 Then, again, our hospitals now possess laboratories 

 both for clinical pathology and for research ; while 

 the professorial laboratorir> in all departments of 

 science at our universities lia\e been greatly enlarged 

 and improved, though teaching is still, and quite 

 properly, a part of their duties. Vet another advance 

 is that of research scholarships, by which numbers of 

 promising students are now employed for a few }cars 

 on such investigations as attract them. 



Lastly — and at very long last — the State itself has 

 now joined in the pursuit of truth by means of large 

 annual subsidies, such as those which are distributed 

 in Great Britain by the Department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research and the Medical Research Council. 

 It would be a difficult task to form even a rough estimate 

 of the world's present expenditure on subsidised re- 

 search. I think it must reach quite a million pounds 

 a year. This is a small sum compared with the world's 

 expenditure on armaments or education ; but it is an 

 improvement on the time when Socrates was obliged 

 to argue in the market-place or Diogenes to fulminate 

 psychoanalysis from a tub. 



The improvement has been greatest in connexion 

 with medical investigation. It was not so manv rears 



NO. 2815, VOL. 112] 



