May 28, 1896] 



NA TURE 



89 



personal character and genius of its director, and the number 

 of experimenters there trained from all parts of the civilised 

 world. 



To-day ever)' properly equipped medical school has its physio- 

 logical laboratory. This departmem is likely to continue to 

 hold its place as the best representative of e.\act experimental 

 work in any medical science. A good knowledge of physiolog)' 

 is the best corrective of pseudo-scientific, irrational theories and 

 practice in medicine. 



Physiuhigical chemistry has been an important department of 

 research for over half a century, but it is only within recent 

 years that there have been established independent laboratories 

 for physiological chemistry. A large jiart of the work in this 

 branch of science has been done hilherio in laboratories of 

 general chemistry, of physiology, of pathology, and of clinical 

 medicine. A physiological laboratory cannot well be without a 

 chemical department, and the same is true of several other 

 medical laboratories ; but it seems to me that physiological 

 chemistry has won its position as an independent science, and 

 will be most fruitfully cultivated by those who with the requisite 

 chemical and biological training devote their entire time to it. 

 The usefulness of independent laboratories for physiological 

 chemistry has been shown by the work done in Hoppe-Seyler's 

 laboratory in Strassburg since its foundation in 1872. This was 

 the first independent laboratory of physiological chemistry. 



The first pathological laboratory was established by Virchow, 

 in Berlin, in 1856. About this time he wrote: "As in the 

 seventeenth century anatomical theatres, in the eighteenth 

 clinics, in the first half of the nineteenth physiological institutes, 

 so now the time has come to call into existence pathological 

 institutes, and to make them as accessible as possible to all." 

 It cannot be doubted that the time was fully ripe for this new 

 addition to medical laboratories. Virchow secured his labora- 

 tory as a concession from the Prussian Government upon his 

 return from Wiirzburg to Berlin. Virchnw's laboratory has been 

 the model as regards general plan of organisation for nearly all 

 pathological laboratories subsequently constructed in Germany 

 and in other countries. It embraced n|)portunities for work in 

 pathological anatomy, experimental pathology, and physiological 

 and pathological chemistry. This broad conception of pathology 

 and of the scope of the pathological lalioratory as including the 

 study, not only of diseased structure, but also of disordered 

 function, and as employing the methods, not only of observation, 

 but also of experiment, should never be lost sight of 



The first to formulate distinctly the conception of pharma- 

 cology as an experimental science distinct from therapeutics and 

 closely allied by its methods of work and by many of its 

 problems to physiology, was Rudolph Buchheim. This he did 

 soon after going to Dorpat in 1846 as extraordinary professor of 

 materia medica, and it was apparently not long after he there 

 became ordinarius in 1849 that he established a pharmacological 

 Laboratory in his own house and by his private means. Later, 

 this laboratory became a department uf the University, and 

 developed most fruitful activity. Buchheim's laboratory was 

 the first pharmacological laboratory in the present acceptation 

 of this term. The conception of pharmacology advocated by 

 Buchheim has been adopted in all German universities, and in 

 not a few other universities ; but it cannot be said to have been 

 as yet generally accepted in the medical schools of this country 

 and of Great Britain, although it .seems destined to prevail. 



The medical science which was the latest to find domicile in 

 its own independent laboratory is hygiene. To Pettenkofer 

 belongs the credit of first establishing such a laboratory. Since 

 1847 he had been engaged with hygienic investigations, and in 

 1S72 he secured from the Bavarian Government the concession 

 of a hygienic institute. This admiral >ly equipped laboratory 

 was opened for .students and investigators in 1878. By this time 

 Koch had already begun those epochal researches which, added 

 to the discoveries of Pa,steur, have introduced a new era in 

 medicine. The introduction by Koch of new methods of 

 investigating infectious diseases antl many hygienic problems 

 became the greatest possible stimulus for the foundation of 

 laboratories of hygiene and bacteriology, and to some extent 

 also of laboratories of pathology. The results already achieved 

 by these new methods and discoveries in the direction of pre- 

 vention and cure of disease, and the expectation of no less 

 important results in the future, constitute to-day our strongest 

 grounds of appeal to governments and hospitals and medical 

 schools and the general public for the eslablishment and support 

 of laboratories where the nature, the causes, the prevention, and 



NO. 1387, VOL. 54I 



the cure of disease shall be investigated. You have established 

 in Philadelphia, and in connection with the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity, the first hygienic laboratory in America, housed in its own 

 building and assured, I believe, of a future of great usefulness. 



It is apparent, from the brief and imperfect outline which I 

 have presented of the evolution of modern scientific laboratories, 

 that the birthplace of these laboratories, regarded as places 

 freely open for instruction and research in the natural sciences, 

 was Germany. Such laboratories are the glory to-day of 

 German universities, which possess over two hundred of them. 

 By their aid Germany has secured since the middle of the 

 present century the palm for scientific education and discovery. 



Great scientific investigators are not limited to any country 

 or any time. There are those of surpassing ability who will 

 make their own opportunity and will triumph over the most 

 discouraging environment. This country and every civilised 

 country can point to such men, but they are most exceptional. 

 The great majority of those even with the capacity for scientific 

 work need encouiagement and opportunity. We now have 

 sufficient knowledge of the workings of scientific laboratories to 

 be able to assert that in general where the laboratory facilities 

 are the most ample and the most freely available, there are 

 developed the largest number of trained workers, and there the 

 discoveries are the most numerous and the most important. At 

 the present day no country, no university, and no medical school 

 can hold even a respectable place in the march of education and 

 progress unless it is provided with suitable laboratories for 

 scientific work. 



A properly equipped and properly conducted scientific 

 laboratory is a far more expensive institution than is usually 

 conceived. It must be suitably domiciled either in a separate 

 building or in rooms commodious and well-lighted. The out- 

 side architectural features are of secondary importance. The 

 instruments and appliances necessary for exact observation and 

 experiment, even in those sciences which apparently require the 

 least, are numerous and costly. A working library, containing 

 the books and sets of journals most frequently consulted, is 

 most desirable, if not absolutely indispensable. The director 

 of the laboratory should be a man of ability and experience, 

 who is a master in his department of science. He must have 

 at least one assistant, who is preferably a young man aiming to 

 follow a scientific career. A person of no small value in the 

 successful working of the laboratory is the intelligent janitor or 

 "diener," who can be trained to do the work of a subsidiary 

 assistant and can be entrusted with the care and manipulation 

 of instruments. There must be funds for the purchase of fresh 

 supplies and new instruments when needed. The running 

 expenses of a first-class laboratory are not small. 



But, costly as may seem the establishment and support of 

 a good laboratory, the amount of money expended for labora- 

 tories would seem to us ridiculously insignificant if we could 

 estimate the benefits to mankind derived from the work which 

 has been done in them. Wurtz has truly said of the money 

 required for laboratories, " It is a capital placed at a high rate 

 of interest, and the comparatively slight sacrifice imposed upon 

 one generation will bring to following generations increase of 

 well-being and knowledge." 



The educational value of the laboratory cannot well be over- 

 estimated. For the general student this is to be found primarily 

 in the development of the scientific habit of thought. He learns 

 that to really know about things it is necessary to come into 

 direct contact with them and study them. He finds that only 

 this knowledge is real and living, and not that which comes 

 from mere observation of external appearances, or from reading 

 or being told about things, or, still less, merely thinking about 

 them. 



The problem of securing for the student of medicine the full 

 benefits of laboratory instruction in the various medical sciences 

 is a difficult one, and cannot, I believe, be solved without con- 

 siderable readjustment of existing schemes of medical teaching ; 

 but this subject is one which I cannot attempt to consider here. 

 The whole face of medicine has been changed during the last 

 half-century by the work of the various laboratories devoted to 

 the medical sciences. Anatomy, physiology and pathology now 

 rank among the most important of the sciences of nature. 

 They have been enriched with discoveries of the highest sig- 

 nificance and value not only for medicine, but also for general 

 biology. Although we have not penetrated, and perhaps may 

 never penetrate, the mystery of life, we are coming closer and 

 closer to an understanding of the intimate structure and the 



