80 HEMOGLOBIN 



A few lines back I referred to the precision with which Adair 

 controls the texture of his membranes. I should like to elaborate 

 this point and, if I could, help the reader to the attainment of a like 

 skill; but I doubt whether such knowledge is susceptible of com- 

 munication through the channel of the "written word." The alter- 

 native to acquiring it by a few years of practice, without Adair, is a 

 few months of practice with him, and here we have at once the justifica- 

 tion and the condemnation of research schools. Before the days of 

 printing scholars went from university to university to learn by 

 personal contact what the great teachers had to teach ; the distribu- 

 tion of knowledge by the vehicle of printed books has reduced the 

 necessity of personal contact to a minimum. In science, however, 

 there is to be considered not merely what the teacher can say in 

 his lecture — which can be printed — but the way he works with his 

 own two hands or, if you like, the expression of his personality in 

 his technique: that can only be acquired by observation. That is 

 largely the justification of a research school, but once the school 

 becomes so large that the teacher ceases himself to work, the school 

 must surely be living to a large extent on its past. I will not 

 put it more strongly than this: when the head of a school finds 

 himself so engrossed in organising the researches of his pupils 

 as to do none himself it is worth his while to take an occasional 

 glance at the wall to see whether, from under the whitewash, he 

 cannot discern the words commencing to appear, "Mene, mene, tekel, 

 Eupharsin." 



It was, I think, "the Quaker" in Adair which enabled him to 

 overcome the technical difficulties of a problem which had proved 

 too difficult for many a previous worker. The desire for finality 

 and truth excluded such processes as extrapolation, whilst aversion 

 to "creaturely activity^" demanded that to the process of osmosis 

 should be accorded as much time as was necessary for its completion. 

 The solution of the problem — as a technical one — lay in carrying out 

 the whole experiment in cold storage. Where others at room tempera- 

 ture thought and worked in terms of days, Adair was prepared to 

 take months at 0° C. He was fortunate in having the facilities of the 

 Cambridge Low Temperature Station for his purpose. In it time is 

 no particular object, the haemoglobin neither becomes infected nor 

 deteriorates and an ultimate equilibrium can be obtained. 



^ A term used by the early Quakers to signify the use of artificial pressure in order 

 to accelerate the natural process of spiritual development. 



