December 23, 1915] 



NATURE 



453 



(Elizabethan playwright. Hakluyt, in the dedica- 



[tion to Sir Robert Cecil of the third volume of 



»is "Voyages," refers to this tract, and says that 



le showed it to Dr. William Gilbert, Queen Eliza- 



jth's physician, who found it "very defective 



md imperfect." 



The tract is but twenty pages, on the nature, 



iiagnosis, and treatment of some of the in- 



jctions which most heavily scourged seafaring 



'm in the tropics in Elizabeth's time — yellow 



:er, dysentery, erysipelas ; something also on 



;at-stroke, prickly heat, and scurvy. We must 



lot despise it for its brevity ; it is just a tract for 



len in the tropics ; just the beginning of 



['tropical medicine"; a childish thing, but com- 



lendably free from superstition and magic. The 



iccount of scurvy is vivid and practical, and the 



short introduction and notes by Dr. Charles 



Jinger are admirably written and full of 



luthority. 



It is a strange feeling to have in one's hands, 

 In facsimile, the first English treatise on tropical 

 medicine. So many things have been discovered 

 since 1598. It was published two years after 

 Drake's death, at Porto Bello, of dysentery. 

 Whetstone, in his dedication of the treatise to 

 the Queen, says that he is writing from experi- 

 ence. " In my injust imprisonment in Spayne, it 

 pleased God to afflict me with the Tabardilla 

 Pestilence : whereof being in cure, by an especiall 

 Physition of that King, I observed his methode 

 for the same, and such other Diseases, as have 

 perished your Malestie's people in the Southerne 

 parts." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Organisation of Science. 



I WONDER whether other readers of Nature besides 

 myself caught the interference fringes from three 

 facets of this glittering subject in the issue of Decem- 

 ber 2? The first was the Royal Society's advertisement 

 for applications for grants for scientific investigations 

 from the Government fund; the second, the editorial 

 contrast between the rates of pay for legal and for 

 scientific services ; and the third, the anniversary 

 address of the president of the Royal Society, contain- 

 ing the suggestion that science does not take its place 

 in the national organisation because the general public 

 looks upon scientific investigation as a hobby, 



What else can the general public do while men of 

 science, in dealing with one another, generallv art 

 upon the principle that scientific investigation is a 

 hobby for which facilities are required, not payment? 

 The demonstration afforded by the Government Grant 

 Committee and the Committee of Recommendations 

 of the British Association is conclusive. The normal 

 practice is for these committees to be asked to supply 

 a portion— rarely the whole — of the expenses of some 

 scientific investigation. The applicants in reply to the 

 advertisement will think it meritorious to offer their I 

 brains and the time required to use them without i 



NO. 2408, VOL. 96] 



asking for any payment. That is the true criterion 

 of a hobby. So great is the power of science to trans- 

 form ^erious occupations into hobbies that even lawyers 

 sometimes find themselves astride and ambling with 

 the rest. 



In justification of the scientific societies, it may fairly 

 be said that they were intended for the riding of 

 hobbies, and everything in their constitution and prac- 

 tice conforms with that eminently useful ideal. Scien- 

 tific societies rely very largely upon unpaid work, and 

 long may they continue to do so. One of their chief 

 attractions is that within their precincts there is a 

 respite from the wearing obligations of debit and 

 credit. One cannot find the like about a law court or 

 a house of business, where as a rule those who are 

 paid most are treated with the highest respect. 



It is the difference between hobby and business that 

 brings us to the parting of the ways. If the national 

 scientific effort is organised through the agency of 

 societies where all the best work, even by the officers, 

 is done without any regard to payment, we cannot 

 expect the public to look upon science as a business 

 into which pecuniary considerations enter. It is, and 

 must remain, a hobby. If, on the other hand, there 

 should be created a Privy Council for Science, as Sir 

 William Crookes suggests, there would be at least a 

 permanent staff to whom the idea of paying for brains 

 and time would not be fundamentally repugnant as it 

 must be to the officers of a society. 



The idea of scientific investigation as a hobby does 

 not necessarily originate with the general public; it is 

 indigenous in the older universities, where there are 

 a large number of college officials intellectually com- 

 petent to undertake researches, some of whom do and 

 some do not. At Cambridge in my time scientific 

 investigation was the occupation of the leisure of men 

 whose maintenance was provided by the fees and 

 emoluments of teaching. It was as much a hobby as 

 chess or photography. There was no sense of collec- 

 tive responsibility for providing the nation with 

 answers to its scientific questions. Scientific researches 

 had become an element of competition for rewards of 

 various kinds, and some " research students " were 

 paid ; but the idea of " making a living " by scientific 

 investigation never reached the surface, though the 

 merit acquired by research might weigh in the appoint- 

 ment to a post for teaching or administration. On the 

 contrary, the early agitation for the endowment of 

 research was regarded as finally disposed of by calling 

 it the research of endowment, as though the wish to 

 be paid were conclusive evidence of insincerity. 



The suggested council will have some difficulty in 

 organising adequately paid research. The endowed 

 researcher in the national interest must expect an 

 occasional audit of an imperious character, and his 

 employers must see their way to act upon it. With 

 teaching the ditTiculty is less. If the students of one 

 year do not respond, the next year may be more suc- 

 cessful. It takes just about a lifetime to satisfy our- 

 selves about our own weaknesses. The responsibility 

 is nicely divided; it is just as much the duty of the 

 students to learn as of the lecturer to teach, and neither 

 student nor teacher has the material for a considered 

 judgment upon the matter. That is why the "hobby" 

 system, with occasional rewards for exceptional suc- 

 cess, is so popular. It can be worked best by letting 

 things go their own way. 



The present state of things, which all agree in 

 deploring, can be altered by drawing a clear distinction 

 between a society's hobbies and the nation's purposes, 

 and entrusting them to separate administrative 

 management. Mr. Carnegie has made it clear that 

 the financial detachment of a voluntary society is not 

 essential to the successful organisation o^ scientific 

 research. F.R.S. 



