October 12, In^J.] 



SCIENCE. 



505 



scientific pursuils from exjJOSiKg to the public the 

 pecuniary destitution, and the consequent crippling 

 and languor, of scieiilific research in this countrj'. 

 Those Englishmen who take an interest in the i>rog- 

 ress of science are apt to suppow, that, in some way 

 which ihi-y have never clearly understood, the pur- 

 suit of scientitic truth is not only its own reward, but 

 also a suflicient source of food, drink, and clothing. 

 Whilst they are interested and amused by the re- 

 markable discoveries of scientitic men, they an- 

 astonished whenever a proposal is mentioned to 

 assign salaries to a few such persons, sufficient U> 

 -enable them to live decently whilst devoting their 

 time and strength to investigation. The public are 

 becoming more and more anxious to have the opinion 

 or report of scientilic men upon matters of commer- 

 cial importance, or in relation to the public health: 

 and yet, in ninty-nine ca.*es out of a hundred, they 

 expect to have that oi)inion for the asking, although 

 accustomed to pay other professional men handsoniely 

 for similar service. There is, it appears, in the pub- 

 lic mind, a vague belief that men wlio occupy their 

 time with the endeavor to add to knowledge in this 

 or tliat branch of science are mysteriously sup|)orted 

 by tlie state exchequer, and are thus fair game for 

 attacking with all sorts of demands for gratuitous 

 service: or, on the other hand, the notion at work 

 appears sometimes to be, that the making of new 

 knowledge — in fact, scientitic discovery — is an 

 agreeable pastime, in which some ingenious gentle- 

 men, whose business in other directions takes up 

 their best hours, find relaxation after dinner or on 

 the spare hours of Sunday. Such mistaken views 

 ought to be dispelled with all possilile celerity and 

 determination. It is in part owing to the fact that 

 the real state of the case is not widely and persist- 

 ently m.ide known to the public, that no attempt is 

 made in this country to raise scientific research, and 

 especially biological research, from the condition of 

 destitution and neglect under wliicli it suffers, — a 

 condition which is far below that of these same inter- 

 ests in France and Germany, and even in Holland, 

 Belgium, Italy, and Russia, and is discreditable to 

 England in proportion as she is richer than other 

 states. 



It appears to me, that, in placing this matter before 

 yon, I may remove myself from any suggestion of 

 self-interest by at once stating that the great defect 

 to which I shall draw your attention is, not that the 

 few existing public ))Ositions which are open in tliis 

 country to men who intend to devote their chief en- 

 ergies to biological research are endowed with iiisufli- 

 cient salaries, but that there is not any thing like a 

 tufficienth/ larr/e number of those posts, and that tliere 

 is in that respect, fiom a national point of view, a 

 pecuniary starvation of biology, a withholding of 

 money, which (to use another metaphor) is no less 

 the sinews of the war of science against ignorance 

 than of other less glorious campaigns. Surely, men 

 engaged in the scientific profession may advocate the 

 claim of science to maintenance and needful pecun- 

 iary provision. It seems to me that we should, if 

 necessary, swallow, rather than be controlled by, that 



pride which tempts us to paint the scientific career as 

 one far above and independent of pecuniary consid- 

 erations; whereas all the while we know that knowl- 

 edge is languishing, that able men are drawn off from 

 scientific research into other careers, that impori.Tnt 

 discoveries are approached and their final grasp relin- 

 quished, that great men depart, and leave no disciples 

 or successors, simply for want of tliat which is largely 

 given in other countries, — of that which is most 

 abundant in this counliy, and is so lavislily expended 

 on amiies and navies, on the development of commer- 

 cial resources, on a hundred injuiious or meaningless 

 charities, — viz., money. 



I have no doubt tliat I have the sympathy of all 

 my hearers in wishing for more extensive provision 

 in this country for the prosecution of scientific re- 

 search, and especially of biological research. I need 

 hardly remind this audience of the almost romantic 

 history of some of the great discoveries which have 

 been made in reference to tlie nature and history of 

 living things during the past century. The micro- 

 scope, which was a drawing-room toy a hundred years 

 ago, has, in the hands of devoted and gifted students 

 of nature, been the jneans of giving us knowledge 

 which, on the one hand, has saved thousands of 

 surgical patients from terrible pain and death, and, 

 on the other hand, has laid the foundation of that 

 new philosophy with which the name of Darwin will 

 forever be associated. When Ehrenbcrg, and, later, 

 Dujardin, described and figured the various forms 

 of Monas, Vibrio, Spirillum, and Bacterium, which 

 their microscopes revealed to them, no one could 

 predict that fifty years later these organisms would 

 be recognized as the cause of that dangerous suppu- 

 ration of wounds which so often defeated the benefi- 

 cent efforts of the surgeon, and made an operation 

 in a hospital-ward as dangerous to the patient as 

 residence in a plague-stricken city. Yet this is the 

 result which the assiduous studies of the biologists, 

 provided with laboratories and maintenance by con- 

 tinental states, have in due time brought to light. 

 Theodore Schwann, professor at Li^ge, first showed 

 that these bacteria are the cause of the putrefaction 

 of organic substances; and subsequently, the French 

 chemist Pasteur, professor in the I-!eole norniale of 

 Paris, confirmed and extended Schwann's discovery, 

 so as to establish the belief that all putrefactive 

 ch.anges are due to sucli minute organisms, and that, 

 if these organisms can be kept at bay, no putrefaction 

 can occur in any given substance. 



It was reserved for our countryman, Joseph Lister, 

 to apply this result to the treatment of wounds, and, 

 by his famous antiseptic method, to destroy by means 

 of special poisons the i>utrefactive organisms which 

 necessarily find their way into the noighborhood of 

 a wound, or of the surgeon's knife and dressings, 

 and to ward off by similar means the access of such 

 organisms toMie wounded surface. The amount of 

 death, not to speak of the suffering short of death, 

 which the knowledge of bacteria gained by the mi- 

 croscope has thus averted, is incalculable. 



Yet, further, the discoveries of Ehrenherg. Schwann, 

 and Pasteur, are bearing fruit of a similar kind in 



