100 THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY. 



devote the necessary time to the details of scientific 

 research, with its ever-increasing complexity of methods. 

 I wish, therefore, to make certain suggestions for the 

 remedy of this state of matters. 



In the first place, it seems to me essential that real 

 clinical laboratories should be established to help in the 

 investigation of living patients and methods of treatment. 

 A single good room in connection with the service of 

 each visiting member of the hospital staff would prob- 

 ably suffice for this purpose. For the research work 

 to be carried out in each laboratory it would be abso- 

 lutely necessary to have the services of a competent 

 paid assistant. His duties would be, firstly, to carry 

 on research work under the general direction of the 

 physician or surgeon, and, secondly, to act as the in- 

 telligence officer connecting each clinical laboratory 

 with the main universitv or other laboratories, and 

 with other clinical laboratories. He would have to 

 see to the details of experimental methods, and get in- 

 formation as to how to work them. The apparatus and 

 chemicals would onlv be what is needed for observations 

 on normal or abnormal human beings, and this apparatus, 

 when done with for the time, could be returned to a 

 storeroom in the hospital, or to any other place from 

 which it had been temporarily borrowed. Experiments 

 requiring the use of animals or of considerable space 

 would be much better done in the main university or 

 other laboratories. 



The appointments of such assistants would be very 

 important, and would, I think, be much sought after. 

 The work of these laboratories would bring new life 

 and stimulus into the work of the wards, and would 



