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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1266 



notion of the ether familiar to most of you 

 in the Eontgen rays, or the sudden widening 

 of the chemical horizon by the discovery of 

 radium and the analysis of the atom into its 

 constituent electrons. These new ideas make 

 the older men to think, a painful process, and, 

 because painful, avoided if possible. 



Now, even in medicine, there are difficulties 

 of this sort which create a somewhat trying 

 situation. 



I have been appalled by the apathy of some 

 of my medical friends towards the experi- 

 mental work which goes on in the laboratory. 

 We need encouragement and protection in the 

 laboratories, especially for such work as in- 

 volves the study of the living animal. Vivi- 

 section this is called by those who oppose the 

 study of the living animal — but as there is no 

 essential difference between this work and 

 either surgery or medicine — ^by the same token 

 both surgery and medicine are vivisection. 

 So we may compromise, and speak of this 

 operative work as animal surgery or medicine. 

 Many studies require to be made on the living 

 animal but here in this community, and those 

 communities in which my lot has been cast, 

 such study is often strenuously opposed by 

 some who will not see its value. I had sup- 

 posed that my clinical friends, representing 

 as they do the most influential group of pro- 

 fessional men at the present day, would rise 

 in a body and say this work is necessary for 

 our progress and the advancement of our pro- 

 fession — ^but they did not. I tried to find 

 out why. 



Various reasons appeared — some of which 

 may occur to you without my mention of 

 them — but the one which arrested my at- 

 tention was a sort of mental inertia, a dislike 

 of change and of the labor of rearranging old 

 ideas to meet the new conditions consequent 

 on new advances. It was argued too that the 

 laboratories were often misleading and that 

 discoveries were put forward for general use 

 long before they had been tested and retested 

 with the caution that the ease demanded. 

 Reference was made to the famous instance of 

 tuberculin, for which Koch appears to have 

 been really less responsible than those who at 



the time dictated his utterances. The criti- 

 cism is, however, in a measiwe just. I am 

 painfully aware that in the laboratory a re- 

 moteness from real life sometimes weakens the 

 sense of responsibility for results which are 

 put forth, but these last decades, and espe- 

 cially the very last, have shown a vast im- 

 provement in this relation and the cooperation 

 between the clinic and the laboratory has be- 

 come most happily intimate. 



I have spoken of the laboratory because it 

 is an important source of knowledge for the 

 clinician, though most naturally farthest re- 

 moved from his daily experience. I ask you 

 to remember that one may help medicine and 

 yet do it as a chemist, a botanist or a zoologist 

 — quite detached from the clinical applica- 

 tions of what is found. To grow pathologic 

 organisms is a biological problem; to follow 

 insect borne diseases takes one into ento- 

 mology. The applications to medicine are in- 

 cidental, but often of the greatest import 

 Remote then may be the sources of facts im- 

 portant for the practitioner, but, although 

 they are remote, these sources should be 

 neither forgotten nor neglected. 



Though your knowledge is the best at the 

 moment, yet to-morrow may see a change for 

 the better by the introduction of some advance 

 based on what is now an incidental laboratory 

 test or clinical observation — yet to be applied. 

 For the protection of this laboratory work not 

 only your interest but your moral and pro- 

 fessional support is needed. 



I have dwelt on the fact that the patient is 

 a different individual at different ages, and 

 that your laiowledge and ideas must change 

 and grow with the continued pondering of 

 experience. In that connection there is just 

 one word to add. It touches growth in the 

 physician himself — a very vital matter. 



The intelligence tests about which mjich 

 controversy has been waged during the past 

 ten years have come to stay. They sometimes 

 are disquieting. It is said that an intelligence 

 of nine years suffices to rear and bring up a 

 child. I do not know just what mental age 

 admits one to the laboratory. Though further 

 applications to the problems before you are 



