426 



NATURE 



[December i, 1921 



cannot honestly feel satisfied with the contribution 

 made by this country, especially when regard is 

 had to our outstanding position as an industrial 

 nation and to the immensity of our Empire and 

 of our resources. 



The disastrous indifference which we have 

 for so long shown to the claims of scientific 

 research appears now to be giving way to a fever- 

 ish atternpt to make up the leeway we have lost. 

 It was in the hope that industrial micro-biology 

 might participate in this new expenditure of 

 energy that I was induced to make a special 

 appeal for the foundation of a national institute 

 in a paper read before the Society of Chemical 

 Industry at the annual general meeting of the 

 Society in July, 1919. At present the provision 

 made for systematic instruction in industrial 

 micro-biology, and for the study of the innumer- 

 able important problems on which it bears, is 

 very inadequate, and there is not in this country 

 nor, so far as I am aware, in the British 

 Dominions, any institution devoted to a subject 

 which is admittedly of such great technological 

 importance. In connection with brewing and dis- 

 tilling, an immense amount of work has been, and 

 is still being, done, but other industries in which 

 micro-organisms play an important and even a 

 predominant part have been left largely to take 

 their chances, with — in some cases — the result 

 that might easily have been predicted. 



It is impossible, in the course of a short article 

 such as this, to deal at any length with these 

 various industries, or even to enumerate them all. 

 I may, however, instance the manufacture of lactic 

 and butyric acids, the wine, vinegar, and dairying 

 industries, agriculture, baking, tanning, and the 

 treatment of sewage, as among the more pro- 

 minent. In addition to this the manufacture of 

 enzyme preparations for many purposes is be- 

 coming daily of greater importance, and finally 

 there is the question of the production of what 

 may be termed synthetic food. 



Assuming a national institute such as I have 

 advocated to come into existence, it may be well 

 to summarise very briefly the functions which it 

 might usefully perform and the ground its activi- 

 ties might cover. The first and perhaps the most 

 important object of a national institute would be 

 to provide for the systematic prosecution of 

 original research in connection with the above 

 industries, and, in fact, with any industry in 

 which micro-organisms or enzymes play an im- 

 portant part. That a great deal of very valuable 

 work of this kind has been done and is now being 

 NO 2718, VOL. 108] 



done in this country is well known to all who are 

 familiar with the subject, but the institutions in 

 which this work is being carried out are scattered, 

 and there can be no doubt that far better results 

 could be obtained if the many closely related 

 problems connected with the activity of organisms 

 and of enzymes could be studied in a single in- 

 stitution adequately provided with all the neces- 

 sary appliances and specimens, where the various 

 workers in closely associated fields would have 

 an opportunity of discussing their problems with 

 one another. 



In the next place the institute would serve as 

 a centre for the specialised training of men in- 

 tending to devote themselves to the teaching of 

 micro-biology and biochemistry in our universities 

 and technical schools, and also for the practical 

 instruction of factory managers and other tech- 

 nical employes engaged in the various biological 

 industries. 



A further function which the proposed institute 

 might fulfil would be that of providing breweries, 

 distilleries, and other factories with any required 

 organisms in pure culture and in sufficiently large 

 quantities for industrial purposes. Facilities of 

 this kind exist to some extent in France, and, I 

 believe, to an even greater extent in Germany, 

 but they are practically non-existent in this 

 country. 



Then again the institute would serve to 

 house as complete a collection of industrial 

 micro-organisms in pure culture as could be got 

 together. Recently something in this direction 

 has been done in the formation, by the Medical 

 Research Council, of the national collection of 

 type cultures at the Lister Institute, under the 

 directorship of Dr. Ledingham, but although this 

 and other similar collections will certainly be of 

 considerable use, they cannot take the place of 

 the much more exhaustive and complete collec- 

 tion which it would be one of the main functions 

 of a national institute to accumulate. 



I am aware that the labour involved in main- 

 taining such a collection as I am indicating would 

 be considerable, but it is of the routine kind, 

 necessitating the employment merely of a few 

 carefully trained laboratory attendants working 

 under the supervision of the curator of the col- 

 lection. 



The institute would further serve as a central 



biochemical library. At the present time steps 



are being taken to form one large library devoted 



to chemical literature, and there is a very general 



I feeling that all overlapping and unnecessary multi- 



