SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 601. 



Never was a suggestion more warmly 

 welcomed nor an offer more heartily appre- 

 ciated by the profession and the medical 

 press from one end of the country to the 

 other. 



To this group of five, two others were 

 added a few weeks later, and on June 14, 

 1901, the institution was formally incor- 

 porated as The Rockefeller Institute for 

 Medical Research, with the seven men re- 

 ferred to as its board of directors. They 

 were William H. "Welch, T. Mitchell Prud- 

 den. Christian A. Herter, Theobald Smith, 

 Hermann M. Biggs, Simon Flexner and L. 

 Emmett Holt. The same board has been 

 continued up to the present time. At this 

 first meeting a pledge of $200,000 was made 

 to the board to be drawn upon at their dis- 

 cretion during a period of ten years, it 

 being understood that this was for prelim- 

 inary work. 



In considering what use should be made 

 of the funds placed at its disposal to make 

 them immediately productive of some sci- 

 entific results, and at the same time to get 

 a general view of the field, the board de- 

 cided not to centralize work in a single 

 place, but to create a number of scholar- 

 ships or fellowships to be distributed in 

 existing laboratories throughout the coun- 

 try. In this way it was hoped several ends 

 might be attained : first, to enlist the coop- 

 eration of various investigators in different 

 places; secondly, to aid some promising 

 lines of research which could not be con- 

 tinued for lack of funds; and, finally, to 

 discover who and where were the persons 

 who desired to undertake research work 

 and what were their qualifications. 



From a large number of applications re- 

 ceived, twenty-three grants were made to 

 eighteen different laboratories in this coun- 

 try, and three men were sent abroad to 

 pursue special investigations, two in Ehr- 

 lich's laboratory in Frankfurt and one in 

 Koch's Institute in Berlin. 



At the end of the first year's work, it 

 was evident to the directors that while 

 much could be accomplished by individual 

 workers carrying on their investigations in 

 separate laboratories, widely scattered, the 

 highest results in research could not be 

 secured in this manner. Existing institu- 

 tions did not afford adequate facilities for 

 many phases of investigation which were 

 of the greatest importance. Again, the 

 heads of these institutions, although in 

 many instances men of great ability, were 

 so taken up with their duties as teachers as 

 to leave comparatively little of either time 

 or energy to devote to research work. It 

 was gratifying to find that there were a 

 large number of earnest men and women 

 in America anxious to devote themselves 

 to this branch of science; but it was quite 

 clear that very few possessed the breadth 

 of education combined with the technical 

 training requisite for independent work. 

 The directors, therefore, were united in the 

 conviction that, although many important 

 investigations might be fostered by contin- 

 uing the plan of foreign grants, great prog- 

 ress was not possible in this way, and that 

 this could be secured only by centralizing 

 the most important lines of work in a fixed 

 place, under a competent head or series of 

 heads, and with special equipment. In 

 other words, the institute must have a lab- 

 oratory of its own with its own staff of 

 workers who should devote their entire time 

 to research. 



These conclusions and the considerations 

 upon which they were based were, there- 

 fore, placed before the founder, who at the 

 second annual meeting, in June, 1902, made 

 another and larger gift to the institute, to 

 enable the board of directors to acquire 

 land and erect a laboratory building in 

 which to begin the work of organization 

 along the broader lines contemplated. 



The first question to be decided was 

 where such an institute should be located. 



