August 29, 1889] 



NATURE 



411 



In taking leave of these important volumes, we cannot 

 but feel that scant justice has been done to them in this 

 brief article. It is only a very small proportion of the 

 subjects on which Siemens thought and wrote to which 

 we have been able even to allude. Very many subjects 

 occupied his active mind, and it is most remarkable how 

 thoroughly and completely each one of them was worked 

 out and brought down to a definite conclusion. Much 

 he attempted ; and pre-eminently he acted on the prin- 

 ciple that " whatever is worth doing is worth doing 

 well." 



THE ADVANCEMENT OF MEDICINE. 



Reports from the Laboratory of the Royal College of 

 Physicians, Edinburgh. Edited by J. Batty Tuke, 

 M.D., and G. Sims Woodhead, M.D. Vol. I. (Edin- 

 burgh and London : Young J. Pentland, 1889.) 

 IT is a healthy and most welcome sign of the increased 

 interest taken in pathological research that, at the 

 conclusion of what is but the first year of its existence, the 

 laboratory instituted by the Royal College of Physicians 

 of Edinburgh has been able to issue a volume of Reports 

 of such importance as the one lying before us. W^hen, 

 further, it is noted that this is, if we mistake not, the first 

 volume of its kind published in the United Kingdom— the 

 first collection of papers emanating from a single labora- 

 tory, and treating of pathology alone — then the energy 

 that is being displayed north of the Tweed in the advance- 

 ment of medicine by research should gain the cordial 

 appreciation it well deserves. 



Willing as our own Royal Colleges of Medicine have of 

 late shown themselves to encourage investigation, they 

 have,from a variety of causes, been unable to bring forward 

 their schemes to a practical issue with the rapidity and 

 thoroughness displayed by their Edinburgh cofifrere, and 

 although the idea of instituting a research laboratory has 

 for long engaged the attention of the authorities in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields, we are still very far from seeing that 

 laboratory in complete working order. 



It must be admitted that, to devise the details of a new 

 departure such as this is far from being an easy task. 

 Many and opposing interests have to be taken into 

 account, and, as may be gathered from Dr. Sims Wood- 

 head's introductory article, at Edinburgh, despite the 

 ardour of Dr. Batty Tuke and his Committee, nearly two 

 years elapsed before plans could be developed to the stage 

 at which they were at the same time feasible and accept- 

 able to the College of Physicians. But, this stage once 

 passed, no time was lost. A commodious house was 

 taken and adapted to the required] purposes, a scientific 

 superintendent appointed in the person of Dr. Woodhead, 

 and in the course of a very few weeks the laboratory was 

 ready. 



_The regulations laid down by the College are con- 

 ceived upon a broad and generous basis. The labora- 

 tory is open without fee to Fellows and Members of the 

 College, and, with the sanction of the Committee and 

 Curator (Dr. Batty Tuke), to any Licentiate, and " to any 

 medical man or investigator who shall obtain the sanction 

 of the Council of the College, as well as of the Curator 

 and Committee, t > use the laboratory for the purposes of 



scientific research." The scientific superintendent, while 

 himielf undertaking the prosecution of original research, 

 shall be prepared to assist, if required so to do, in the 

 work of the investigators, and it would appear that leave 

 having once been given to work in the laboratory, little or 

 no restriction is placed upon the investigators with regard 

 to the nature of their work beyond the broad control 

 exercised by the superintendent. All these points are 

 worthy of attention at the present time when a similar 

 institution is in the process of development in London. 

 This volume, coupled with the fact that during the first 

 year two-and-twenty investigators in one or other depart- 

 ment of medicine have made u-e of the laboratory, yields 

 full evidence of the success of the scheme. 



We note with some curiosity what is apparently an 

 effort to reconcile opposing views as to the functions of 

 the new laboratory, in the regulation requiring the super- 

 intendent to furnish the Fellows of the College " with 

 reports. . . upon the histology of morbid specim.ens and 

 of the chemical and microscopic characters of urines." 

 Certainly, by undertaking work of this kind the laboratory 

 becomes of very definite service to the Fellows, and could 

 our English Colleges, for example, see their way to the 

 institution of departments to which members might send 

 any morbid material as to whose nature they desired 

 advice, they would, by adding largely to the possibilities 

 of a correct diagnosis, confer no little benefit upon the 

 public, apart from the benefit they would bestow upon 

 their members. It is, however, questionable whether this 

 form of work falls within the province of medical cor- 

 porations ; it is still more questionable whether such work 

 can wisely be required of one whose time and energies, 

 as director of a research laboratory, are liable to be 

 wholly utilized in a very different direction. 



Coming now to the consideration of the papers whiLli 

 form the volume before us, we may say that they well 

 exemplify the tendencies and traditions of the Edinburgh 

 medical school. Bacteriology is represented by the details 

 of an investigation into the air of coal-mines ; by Dr. 

 Woodhead's very able "' Notes upon the Use of Mercuric 

 Salts in Solution as Antiseptic Lotions " ; by the report of 

 an inquiry undertaken in Japan as to the causation of 

 cholera, the work of Dr. N. Macleod and Mr. W. J. 

 Miller (tending to confirm Kooh's views) ; and also by 

 the condensed report of Dr. Woodhead's lectures before 

 the Grocers' Company upon tabes mesenterica and 

 pulmonary tuberculosis. This last, and Dr. Bruce's 

 article upon a case of absence of the corpus callosum 

 in the human brain, are both of very general scientific 

 interest, and represent the accurate and thoughtful work 

 done at Edinburgh in the domain of pathological histo- 

 logy ; while the large proportion of four papers out of 

 the eleven of which the volume is composed, reflects 

 the prominent position long held by Edinburgh in the 

 department of gynaecology. 



With scarce an e.\ception, the reports bear upon practical 

 matters, and have more than an academic value. But at 

 the same time they e.xhibit the one especial weakness of 

 the school. Pathology, embracing as it does the whole 

 of medicine save the treatment of disease, is capable of 

 being advanced by two equally valuable methods, the 

 synthetic and the analytic, as they may be termed : on 

 the one hand by studying the part played by individual 



