AMERICA'S INFERIOR POSITION 



picked the instances merely as they have occurred 

 to me not for the purposes of an indictment. 

 Take an instance or two more. 



Within the last quarter of a century that is, 

 within a period during which the United States 

 have been easily abreast of the other nations and 

 tribes an immense work has been done in trying 

 to unravel the mechanism of the brain. We may 

 never solve the mystery of thinking, conscious 

 matter. But we are certainly in sight of a working 

 theory as to how the substances in the myriad cells 

 of the brain perform their work. The possibility 

 of attaining to such an intimate knowledge of the 

 mind dawned with the discovery by the Italian, 

 Golgi, of new staining reactions. Fascinating to 

 the last degree are the pictures of the brain revealed 

 by the microscope in the hands of a multitude of 

 workers. The cosmopolitan character of science 

 was never more admirably illustrated. The Span- 

 ish neurologist, Ramon y Cajal, vies with Bethe of 

 Germany, Van Gehuchten of Belgium, Forel of 

 Switzerland, Waldeyer of Austria. A whole library 

 could be filled with monographs, memoirs, journals, 

 and great books on this single subject. Scarce any 

 land beneath the sun is unrepresented, save Amer- 

 ica. In all this wealth of literature you search 

 in vain for a reference to one American's work. 



Another illustration takes us farther afield. 

 339 



