440 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1426 



not explain, nerve impulses, sensations, mem- 

 ory, 01- thouglit. Chemistrj' may teach us the 

 rates of protein, earhohydrate, and fat meta- 

 bolism in health and disease; it may help us to 

 know more of the precious vitamines and hor- 

 mones but it does not tell us why one child 

 resembles the father or mother physically and 

 mentally, while another child does not. Biology 

 may aid us in solving this problem but she, too, 

 is extremely jealous of her secrets. She read- 

 ily acknowledges that the process of fertiliza- 

 tion is essentially the same throughout the 

 animal kingdom, but she teaches us that the 

 processes of regeneration are entirely different 

 in different forms, and cautions us not to infer 

 that a new leg will grow out from the stump 

 of an old one in man as it does in some of 

 the lower animals. She teaches that the organs 

 of seeing, of hearing, of smelling, of tasting, 

 of feeling, are the organs through which these 

 sensations habitually are received. But she 

 warns us not to infer that the loss of one of 

 these special sense organs means an entire loss 

 of that special sense. Our senses overlap to 

 a degree which we little realize; light percep- 

 tion through the skin; sound perception 

 through all parts of the body ; color perception 

 through both sound and smell; are a few of 

 the many possibilities as revealed in the lives 

 of Laura Bridgeman, Helen Kellar, Willetta 

 Huggins and others. Deductions from the phe- 

 nomena presented in these various fields are 

 extremely hazardous and emphasize the neces- 

 sity of working through the avenues of multiple 

 hypotheses in the interpretation of disease. 

 AVhen this has been said, let us also recall that 

 the names of diseases, of their coui-ses, and of 

 their processes are broad, generic terms, which 

 signify physical, chemical, and biological com- 

 plexes. Aeuteness in observation; precision 

 in experimentation and caution and judgment 

 in deduction are the essentials for the inter- 

 jiretation of disease. They are the A.B.C. of 

 the practitioner of the future. 



One of the greatest needs in our medical 

 schools of to-day is the encouragement of stu- 

 dents to devote their lives to the study of the 

 causation and prevention of disease. It be- 

 comes more and more apparent, as set forth 

 last year by the committee on graduate work. 



that the medical schools must give opportunity 

 and encouragement for men to develop as re- 

 search workers. We need no longer argue that 

 reproductive scholarship must he supplemented 

 by productive scholarship. We accept the 

 established fact that the investigative spirit 

 must pervade the atmosphere of the medical 

 school. Frequently a student stands where the 

 roads fork and, as William James puts it, 

 "one branch leads to material comfort, tie 

 flesh pots, but it seems a kind of selling of 

 one's soul; the other to mental dignity and 

 independence, combined, however, with physical 

 penury. On one side is business, on the other 

 science." It is not enough for the student to 

 stand in deep perplexity outside the private 

 door of his teacher and whisper that research 

 work is going on inside. He must be invited 

 in, and given time to accept the invitation. It 

 is therefore necessary that some provision bie 

 made whereby any student may come more 

 intimately in contact with i-eseareh methods 

 and ideals than is possible in our medical 

 course of to-day. How far we can organize 

 research is a question. There is no doubt but 

 what to some extent we can create the inves- 

 tigative spirit. At any rate, we can help the 

 young man who evinces this spirit ; we can give 

 him time; furnish him with apparatus and 

 books; point the way to fields of investigation; 

 discuss his problems and help him in kis ex- 

 periments. We can not dominate him nor 

 restrain him. We can not force him to work 

 independently or in cooperation; this must de- 

 pend upon his bent, his personality, his indi- 

 viduality, — genius can not be organized nor 

 can it go to school. 



In every medical school there are those who 

 are deeply interested in presenting summaries 

 of the progress made in certain fields of medi- 

 cine, or in the entire province of medicine. 

 Their object is to sift out and correlate well 

 established procedures. They maj' be neither 

 practitioners nor investigators in the sense pre- 

 viously mentioned. They are so to speak the 

 editors of medical facts and theories; the com- 

 pilers; the writers of textbooks; the historians. 

 This group we may designate as teachers or 

 medical journalists. I am fully aware that this 

 group is one created by American institutions 



