SCIENCE. 



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



were found in this country with evident 

 capacity, yet few possessed necessary train- 

 ing which should fit them to work inde- 

 pendently. With each year's experience 

 the conviction has steadily grown that the 

 institute must in large measure train its 

 own staff, selecting from the promising 

 young applicants such as gave evidence of 

 a special fitness and giving them subse- 

 quently such training both here and abroad 

 as would fit them for their special work. 



To get in close touch with such a class, 

 a number of resident scholarships and fel- 

 lowships have been created. For these 

 thirty-one applications were received dur- 

 ing the present year and five have been 

 awarded. This plan, if successful, will be 

 continued and from this corps, from time 

 to time, will be recruited the future work- 

 ers of the institute. 



The present organization provides for 

 the following departments: pathology, bac- 

 teriology, physiological and pathological 

 chemistry, physiology, comparative zool- 

 ogy. To these it is expected that a depart- 

 ment of pharmacology and experimental 

 therapeutics will soon be added. 



The fully organized staff will consist of 

 a chief director and a head for each of the 

 different departments. Each head will 

 have his associate and corps of assistants. 

 The heads of departments, associates and 

 first assistants, it is expected, will constitute 

 the permanent staff of the institute. The 

 other workers will be less closely attached. 

 Besides, there are contemplated scholar- 

 ships and fellowships for workers who may 

 come for a limited period; and finally, it 

 is expected to provide for a limited number 

 of voluntary workers who will be given the 

 facilities of the institute for working out, 

 under supervision, their own problems. 



While the purpose of the institute will 

 be research, not instruction, it can not fail 

 to exert a considerable influence in medical 

 education, since many of those who will 



receive their training within its walls will, 

 doubtless, go elsewhere to assume positions 

 of responsibility in teaching institutions. 



The present scientific staff consists of 

 fourteen persons; the laboratory building, 

 when fully equipped, will furnish facili- 

 ties for about fifty workers. 



Much work must always be done in the 

 fundamental subjects of chemistry, biology, 

 physiology and pathology, for upon these 

 basic sciences future discoveries in medical 

 science must largely rest. While fully 

 realizing the importance of these and lib- 

 erally providing for them in its laboratory, 

 the institute aims at the same time to keep 

 close to the practical side, and will en- 

 deavor to apply the latest discoveries in 

 science to problems connected with the pre- 

 vention and cure of disease. In order that 

 the greatest good can be accomplished 

 along these lines, the board realizes that a 

 hospital closely affiliated with the institute 

 is indispensable. Only in this way is it 

 possible for those who work in the labora- 

 tory to appreciate the relation of their re- 

 sults to the problems of practical medicine. 

 The hospital need not be large, but should 

 be fully equipped. Such a hospital it is 

 hoped may soon be added to the institute, 

 in which the closest kind of scientific study 

 may be given to obscure diseased condi- 

 tions. 



From the very beginning, the institute 

 has sought not to monopolize the field, but 

 to cooperate in all possible ways with exist- 

 ing agencies for medical research in this 

 country. It has cooperated with the Health 

 Department of New York in the study of 

 the conditions surrounding the production 

 and distribution of the milk supply of the 

 city, and the effects of milk upon the health 

 of the children in the tenements ; also with 

 the commission appointed by the city in 

 1904, to study the prevalence of the acute 

 respiratory diseases, and with that appoint- 

 ed in 1905 to investigate cerebro-spinal 



