Mat 16, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



737 



ogists to devote their time chiefly to the 

 inquiries now pursued in the university 

 laboratories of physics and chemistry to 

 the neglect of their own physiological 

 studies, the science of physiology would 

 undoubtedly suffer. Now, none the less 

 will scientific clinical work suffer loss if the 

 men who are presumably cultivating the 

 clinical sciences of diagnosis and therapy 

 overlook their own legitimate problems, 

 neglecting their clinical material to dissi- 

 pate their time, and their energies, in the 

 general or special non-clinical inquiries 

 which properly belong to the more funda- 

 mental laboratories. The Wassermann re- 

 action may be primarily worked out in a 

 non-clinical laboratory, but the determina- 

 tion of its real significance for the diag- 

 nosis and treatment of disease demands, 

 subsequently, long years of clinical re- 

 search. Salvarsan may be made, and its 

 spirillocidal power tested, in experimental 

 non-clinical laboratories, but its applica- 

 tion and value in the treatment of the dif- 

 ferent forms of syphilis are problems upon 

 which the clinics have only begun to work 

 ■ — problems the full solution of which may 

 be slow in following upon the initial non- 

 clinical investigations. 



And this brings me again to our member- 

 ship and the programs of our meetings. 

 The mingling of clinicians (who study pa- 

 tients and who do experimental work in 

 laboratories on clinical problems) with 

 non-clinical experimental workers is stim- 

 ulating, I believe, to both and I trust that 

 this association will always contain both. 

 Certainly, our non-clinical members have 

 been and now are the very flower of our 

 association. It must be remembered, how- 

 ever, that the anatomists, the physiologists, 

 the biological chemists and the pathologists 

 and bacteriologists now have their special 

 societies, but that practitioners, teachers and 

 investigators of internal medicine have 



their principal repx*esentation in this as- 

 sociation, and it has always been taken for 

 granted that this association is mainly, 

 though not exclusively, a society for work- 

 ers in internal medicine (in the broad 

 sense). In selecting new members, ought 

 we not always to keep this main function 

 of the association in mind? 



Again, may we not do well to pay close 

 attention to this main function in making 

 up the programs for our annual meetings? 

 There is a wide-spread and growing feeling 

 among our members that the farther re- 

 moved a paper is from the examination and 

 treatment of patients, the more acceptable 

 it is for the program. Able clinical men 

 have told me that they find some of the 

 papers presented at the meetings too far 

 removed from the fields of diagnosis and 

 therapy to be interesting or even intellig- 

 ible to them. "Those who read these 

 papers speak to us as in a foreign lan- 

 gaiage" is a complaint I have more than 

 once heard. Such a difficulty can not, of 

 course, with a mixed membership, be 

 wholly overcome. But something could, it 

 seems to me, be done to remedy what care- 

 ful consideration indicates is a real detri- 

 ment to the fullest success of our meetings. 

 Better suggestions than mine will, I hope, 

 come from other members, but two possi- 

 bilities occur to me. First, might we not, 

 while accepting some papers in general 

 physiology and general pathology, urge 

 that they be of a character likely to enlist 

 the interest of clinicians and that they be 

 presented in a form easy to understand by 

 men who have not worked upon the special 

 subjects with which they deal; papers in 

 general pathology and physiology of dif- 

 ferent content might better be presented 

 in the societies of the physiologists and 

 pathologists. Secondly, may it not be help- 

 ful to arrange the papers on the program 

 in groups in some such way as that adopted 



