October 12, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



461 



indeed in comparison with what remains 

 to be accomplished. Only a corner of the 

 veil has been lifted. On every hand there 

 are still unsolved problems of disease of 

 overshadowing importance. The ultimate 

 problems relate to the nature and funda- 

 mental properties of living matter, and the 

 power to modify these properties in de- 

 sired directions. Here we are far from the 

 satisfactory pou sto. But knowledge 

 breeds new knowledge, and we can not 

 doubt that research will be even more pro- 

 ductive in the future than it has been in 

 the past. Jt would be hazardous in the 

 extreme to attempt to predict the partic- 

 ular direction of future discovery. How 

 unpredictable even to the most far-sighted 

 of a past generation would have been such 

 discoveries as the principles of antiseptic 

 surgery, antitoxins, bacterial vaccines, 

 opsonins, the extermination of yellow fever 

 or malaria by destruction of a particular 

 species of mosquito and many other re- 

 cent contributions to medical knowledge. 



The activities within the new buildings 

 of the Harvard Medical School begin at a 

 period of medical development full of pres- 

 ent interest and full of hope for the fu- 

 ture, and it may be confidently predicted 

 that they will have an important share in 

 the onward movement, educational and 

 scientific, of medicine. 



One side of these activities will be de- 

 voted, under conditions most admirable as 

 regards teachers, methods and opportun- 

 ities, to the training of medical students 

 and to advanced instruction. Supple- 

 mented by similar opportunities for under- 

 graduate and advanced training in the hos- 

 pital wards and dispensary these condi- 

 tions will be ideal. 



The inspection of these noble new build- 

 ings, however, shows clearly that those who 

 have planned them with such care, fore- 



sight and sagacity, while recognizing fully 

 their important educational uses, have had 

 also another and a main thought in their 

 arrangements, namely, their adaptation to 

 the purposes of original research. It is 

 this dual function of imparting and of ad- 

 vancing knowledge which justifies the ex- 

 penditure of money and which insures a 

 return of the capital invested in buildings, 

 equipment and operation with a high rate 

 of interest in the form of benefits to man- 

 kind. 



The most ample and freely available 

 facilities are an important condition for 

 productive research, but on this creative 

 side of university work men count for 

 more than stately edifice and all the pride 

 and pomp of outward life. Kesearch is 

 not to be bought in the market place, nor 

 does it follow the commercial law of supply 

 and demand. The multitude can acquire 

 knowledge; many there are who can im- 

 part it skilfully; smaller, but still consid- 

 erable is the number of those who can add 

 new facts to the store of knowledge, but 

 rare indeed are the thinkers, born with 

 the genius for discovery and with the gift 

 of the scientific imagination to interpret in 

 broad generalizations and laws the phe- 

 nomena of nature. These last are the 

 glory of a university. Search for them far 

 and wide beyond college gate and city wall, 

 and when found cherish them as a posses- 

 sion beyond all price. 



By the possession of investigators such 

 as these, by the character and work of 

 teachers and taught, by the advancement 

 of knowledge and improvement of practise, 

 may this new home of the Harvard Med- 

 ical School, be a center for the diffusion of 

 truth in medicine, the abode of productive 

 research, a fortress in the warfare against 

 disease, and thereby dedicated to the serv- 

 ice of humanity. 



William H. Welch. 



