54.S 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 773 



your development with the greatest in- 

 terest, expecting to learn much from the 

 way you meet the educational problems of 

 a developing medical science. 



To the authorities of Stanford University 

 I can only say, cherish well this new off- 

 spring of your university, nourish it care- 

 fiilly, expend on it richly of your resources, 

 that an institution may grow here, a pride 

 to the university, to the state and to the 

 country. In its proper development you 

 will richly reap from your investment, even 

 though the investment be very great. May 

 the medical department of Leland Stanford 

 Junior University have a long and useful 

 career, may its faculty and students con- 

 tribute richly to the widening of the ho- 

 rizon of medicine, and may its future grad- 

 uates carry comfort and healing to thou- 

 sands of suffering humanity. 



Henry A. Christian 



Habvakd Medical School 



SUGGESTIONS FOB THE CONSTRUCTION OF 

 GEE MIC AL LABORATORIES^ 



General Construction.^-Yor a chemical 

 laboratory there is probably nothing better 

 than the so-called slow burning or mill con- 

 struction. While lath and plaster may be 

 more handsome from an artistic point of 

 view, yet it suffers from the serious disad- 

 vantage that the ceiling becomes disinte- 

 grated from the acid fumes, with the in- 

 evitable result that it drops into the 

 quantitative determinations, to their ruin, 

 or hangs in festoons or fragments that are 

 anything but artistic. 



WaZZs.— The walls should, if possible, be 

 faced with white glazed brick; if this be 

 prohibitive on account of cost, at least 

 where they are exposed to view. In place 

 of this, possibly pressed yellow brick, white 

 "silica" brick, or ordinary red brick 



' This paper was practically in its present form 

 in November, 1907,- nearly a year before the 

 articles lately published in Science. 



painted white may be employed. The 

 paint employed should contain no "white 

 lead," but may be sublimed lead (PbSOJ, 

 barytes or zinc white, or preferably a mix- 

 ture of these in about equal proportions 

 or lithopone. Some of the so-called cold 

 water paints have been used with fairly 

 good success. They may turn black in 

 damp weather, but usually return to their 

 white color when dry. 



Floors.— li care be taken to keep the 

 joints tight between the walls and floors 

 there is probably nothing better for a lab- 

 oratory floor than asphalt. The writer 

 knows of some laid twenty-five years ago 

 that have required no outlay for repairs 

 and are apparently good for another quar- 

 ter century. Laboratory desks and heavy 

 apparatus should be supported on a broad 

 framework to prevent them from sinking 

 too deeply into it. The asphalt, as wood 

 floors, should be laid upon a heavy grooved 

 and tongued wooden floor with paper be- 

 tween. These floors can be supported upon 

 double wooden beams or upon iron beams 

 kept well painted with a metal varnish 

 coating. Rift hard pine, birch or maple, 

 when carefully selected and laid, makes a 

 good floor, particularly if kept well oiled. 

 This has the disadvantage of making it 

 slippery. It is of course not as tight as an 

 asphalt floor. 



Ceilings.— Too much attention can not 

 be paid to their construction, as the writer 

 knows of three large new laboratory build- 

 ings in which a more or less constant pre- 

 cipitation of sawdust, paint and plaster is 

 taking place upon the floor below, because 

 of an oversight in this particular. This, in 

 one case, is due to the application of a cold- 

 water paint, which is scaling off from the 

 ceiling when the floor above is walked upon. 

 In the other two eases sufficient care was 

 not taken to sweep clean the first layer of 

 floor boards before laying the second. All 



