234 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 608. 



has become suddenly and urgently of the 

 highest practical value. 



I have not time to do more than mention 

 here the effort that is being made by com- 

 bined international research and coopera- 

 tion to push further our knowledge of 

 phthisis and of cancer, with a view to their 

 destruction. It is only since our last meet- 

 ing at York that the parasite of phthisis or 

 tubercle has been made known; we may 

 hope that it will not be long before we have 

 similar knowledge as to cancer. Only 

 eighteen months have elapsed since Fritz 

 Schaudinn discovered the long-sought para- 

 sitic germ of syphilis, the Spirochceta pal- 

 lida. As I write these words the sad news 

 of Schaudinn 's death at the age of thirty- 

 five comes to me from his family at Ham- 

 burg — an irreparable loss. 



Let me finally state, in relation to this 

 study of disease, what is the simple fact — 

 namely, that if the people of Britain wish 

 to make an end of infective and other dis- 

 eases they must take every possible means 

 to discover capable investigators, and em- 

 ploy them for this purpose. To do this, 

 far more money is required than is at pres- 

 ent spent in that direction. It is neces- 

 sary, if we are to do our utmost, to spend 

 a thousand pounds of public money on this 

 task where we now spend one pound. It 

 would be reasonable and wise to expend 

 ten million pounds a year of our revenues 

 on the investigation and attempt to destroy 

 disease. Actually, what is so spent is a 

 mere nothing, a few thousands a year. 

 Meanwhile our people are dying by thou- 

 sands of preventable disease. 



Whilst I have been able, though in a very 

 fragmentary and incomplete way, to indi- 

 cate the satisfactory and, indeed, the won- 

 derful progress of science since this asso- 

 ciation last met in York, so far as the 

 making of new knowledge is concerned, I 

 am sorry to say that there is by no means 



a corresponding 'advancement' of science 

 in that signification of the word which im- 

 plies the increase of the influence of science 

 in the life of the community, the increase 

 of the support given to it, and of the desire 

 to aid in its progress, to discover and then 

 to encourage and reward those who are 

 specially fitted to increase scientific knowl- 

 edge, and to bring it to bear so as to pro- 

 mote the welfare of the community. I am 

 speaking on a privileged occasion to a body 

 of men who are met together for the ad- 

 vancement of science, and I claim the right 

 to say to them, without offence to the rep- 

 resentatives of institutions which I criti- 

 cize, what is in my mind. 



It is, unfortunately, true that the succes- 

 sive political administrators of the affairs 

 of this country, as well as the permanent 

 officials, are altogether unaware to-day, as 

 they were twenty-five years ago, of the vital 

 importance of that knowledge which we 

 call science, and of the urgent need for 

 making use of it in a variety of public 

 affairs. Whole departments of government 

 in which scientific knowledge is the one 

 thing needful are carried on by ministers, 

 permanent secretaries, assistant secretaries 

 and clerks who are wholly ignorant of sci- 

 ence, and naturally enough dislike it since 

 it can not be used by them, and is in many 

 instances the condemnation of their official 

 employment. Such officials are, of course, 

 not to be blamed, but rather the general 

 indifference of the public to the unreason- 

 able way in which its interests are neg- 

 lected. 



A difficult feature in treating of this sub- 

 ject is that when one mentions the fact that 

 ministers of state and the officials of the 

 public service are not acquainted with sci- 

 ence, and do not even profess to understand 

 its results or their importance, one's state- 

 ment of this very obvious and notorious 

 fact is apt to be regarded as a personal 

 offence. It is difficult to see wherein the 



