Januaby 9, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



33 



Six months ago, when we landed on this island, 

 absolutely nothing was known concerning the prop- 

 agation and spread of yellow fever — ^it was all an 

 unfathomable mystery — ^but to-day the curtain has 

 been drawn. 



And later on N^ew Year's Eve, lie wrote: 



Only ten minutes of the old century remain. 

 Here have I been sitting, reading that most won- 

 derful book, "La Boche on Yellow Fever," 

 vmtten in 1853. Forty-seven years later it has 

 been permitted to me and my assistants to lift the 

 impenetrable veil that has surrounded the causa- 

 tion of this most wonderful, dreadful pest of hu- 

 manity and to put it on a rational and scientific 

 basis. I thank God that this has been accom- 

 plished during the latter days of the old century. 

 May its cure be brought out in the early days of 

 the new. 



Tet we need not wait for any of the great 

 discoveries of the future to make the public 

 health campaign of the present day hear fruit. 

 We want sanitary statesmen as much as in- 

 vestigators. We need organizers and propa- 

 gandists for the cause of health, capable of 

 building wisely the great scheme of health 

 protection of the future and of enlisting in its 

 support the enthusiastic cooperation of the 

 peoples of the earth To the administrator, as 

 much as to the investigator comes the con- 

 sciousness of a reward for his labors, fuller 

 and more immediate than that which can be 

 earned in many walks of life, for he can know 

 that in a given city in a given year so many 

 hundreds or thousands of men and women and 

 children are alive and well who would have 

 been in their graves except for him. What 

 old Sir John Simon said of industrial diseases 

 is true of every kind of preventable malady 

 which afflicts mankind. 



The canker of . . . disease gnaws at the very root 

 of our national strength. The sufferers are not few 

 or insignificant. They are the bread winners for at 

 least a third part of our population. . . . That 

 they have causes of disease indolently left to 

 blight them amid their toil ... is surely an in- 

 tolerable wrong. And to be able to redress that 

 wrong OS perhaps among the greatest opportunities 

 for good which human institutions can afford. 

 C.-E. A. WiNSLOW 



Tale School of Medicine 



THE ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH^ 



This is an age of organization. Almost 

 within the lifetime of some of us the in- 

 dustries, with the exception of agriculture, 

 have passed in large degree from the individ- 

 ualistic to the corporate form. Combinations 

 not merely of national but of international 

 scope exercise a large measure of control 

 over manufacturing and commercial activities, 

 while associations of the greatest variety — 

 comm.ercial, charitable, reformatory, labor — 

 have multiplied until their name is "legion." 

 Almost every conceivable calling, from the 

 midwife's to the undertaker's, is organized. 



Since science is a product of human 

 activity its methods must necessarily be in- 

 fluenced by the spirit of the time. In partic- 

 ular, the successes of groups of scientiiic men 

 in making important contributions to the solu- 

 tion of the technical problems raised by the 

 entry of the United States into the world war 

 has led to an emphasis upon the advantages 

 of organization and cooperation in research 

 which was very much in evidence at the last 

 meeting of this association. This was partic- 

 ularly evident, perhaps among the biologists 

 where it was, in the words of another, " the 

 dominant note," but the same note has been 

 sounded by various prominent writers both 

 before and since that meeting. It seems 

 desirable, therefore, in view of this apparently 

 strong trend of both public and scientific 

 opinion, to inquire somewhat carefully into 

 the extent to which it is justified and as to 

 the probability that a more complete organi- 

 zation of research will enable it to render 

 more efficient public service. In attempting 

 to do so I shall, of course, have reference 

 particularly to agricultural research — im- 

 plicitly if not explicitly. 



In the early history of science, research was 

 necessarily upon an almost purely individual- 

 istic basis. Men of genius here and there 

 were laying the foundations of the present 

 amazing superstructure not only without 



1 Address of the viee-ipresident and chairman of 

 Section M — Agriculture, American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, December, 

 1919. 



