July 5, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



This instrument will differ from other large telescopes in the 

 construction of its object-glass, which will be a compound lens of 

 the form used by photographers, and known as the " portrait 

 lens." The focal length of such a lens is very small compared 

 with its diameter, and much fainter stars can be photographed in 

 consequence. The advantage is even greater in photographing 

 nebulse or other faint surfaces. Moreover, this form of lens will 

 enable each photographic plate to cover an area several times as 

 great as that which is covered by an instrument of the usual form. 

 The time required to photograph the entire sky is reduced in the 

 same proportion. A telescope of the proposed form, having an 

 aperture of eight inches, has been in constant use in Cambridge 

 for the last four years, and is now in Peru photographing the 

 southern stars. It has proved useful for a great variety of re- 

 searches. Stars have been photographed with it too faint to be 

 Visible in the fifteen-inch refractor of the observatory. Its short 

 focal length enables it to photograph as faint stars as any which 

 can be taken with an excellent photographic telescope having an 

 aperture of thirteen inches. The eight-inch telescope will photo- 

 graph stars about two magnitudes fainter than can be taken with 

 a similar instrument having an aperture of four inches. A corre- 

 sponding advantage is anticipated from the increase of the aper- 

 ture to twenty-four inches. Each photograph will be thirteen in- 

 ches on a side, and will cover a portion of the sky five degrees 

 square, on a scale of one minute to a millimetre. The dimensions 

 will be the same as those of the standard charts of Chacornac and 

 Peters. The entire sky would be depicted upon about two thou- 

 sand such charts. 



It is very important that the best possible location should be 

 found for such an instrument. In Europe and in the eastern por- 

 tions of the United States, where nine-tenths of the principal ob- 

 servatories of the world are situated, it is cloudy for a large portion 

 of the year. Great advantages are expected from a location, as on 

 some California mountain, where clouds and haze are seldom 

 seen. 



This generous gift offers an opportunity for useful work such as 

 seldom occurs. It is expected that the Bruce photographic tele- 

 scope will exert an important influence upon astronomical science 

 by the large amount of material that it will furnish. 



. CHARITY AND KNOWLEDGE. i 



Thirteen years ago, during the centennial celebrations of In- 

 dependence Day, the university founded by Johns Hopkins began 

 its work ; and now, as we commemorate a completed century of con- 

 stitutional life, the hospital, gift of the same donor, throws open its 

 doors. These buildings, on which thought, time, and wealth have 

 been freely spent, are now consecrated to the ministry of mercy 

 and the prolongation of life. Science and charity, knowledge and 

 pity, skill and sympathy, are here installed in the service of man- 

 kind. 



That large-minded citizen of Maryland, " who, by noble gifts for 

 the advancement of learning and the relief of suffering, has won 

 the gratitude of his city and his country," found two words ade- 

 quate to his great ideas. " University " and " hospital " were his 

 chosen terms, and he linked them together by this significant 

 phrase: "Bear constantly in mind that it is my wish and purpose 

 that the hospital shall ultimately form a part of the medical school 

 of that university for which I have made ample provision by my 

 will." How brief the phrase, how large the purpose ! — " apples 

 of gold in pictures of silver." 



Like James Henry Roosevelt of New York, " a man upright in 

 his aims, simple in his life, and sublime in his benefaction," " whose 

 hospital and dispensary give clinical instruction to the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons ; like James Lenox of New York, whose 

 munificence established a public library and gave birth to a hos- 

 pital, — Johns Hopkins, already honored as a patron of learning, 

 will be henceforward remembered in the annals of charity and 



1 An address by Daniel C. Gilman, delivered at the opening of the Johns Hop- 

 kins Hospital, Baltimore, Md., IVIay 7, 1S89. 



= This phrase (like that above, referring to Johns Hopkins) is taken from a me- 

 morial tablet. 



medicine. May we not almost say of him, as Pindar said of The- 

 ron (Olympic II., Gary's version), — 



" And I will svi^ear 

 That city none — though she unroll, 

 A century past, her radiant scroll — 

 Hath brought a morlal man lo light 

 Whose hand with larger bounty flows. 

 The blessings to that man we owe. 

 Say, who shall hope to count ? " 



We may form an idea of what this hospital may become by the 

 study of a like institution in London. About a century and a half 

 before Johns Hopkins died, the days of Thomas Guy were ended. 

 Like our benefactor, he had lived unmarried to the age of eighty 

 years, and from humble beginnings had acquired a fortune, with 

 which he provided for the establishment of a hospital. The 

 amount of his gift was more than a million dollars (/238,292). 

 The beneficent influences of Guy's Hospital are now known in 

 every part of the globe. It is doubtless safe to say that every one 

 of us has shared, indirectly, in its benefits. The name of the great 

 surgeon. Sir Astley Cooper, would alone give renown to the hos- 

 pital to which he was attached, — Sir Astley Cooper, of whom it 

 was said that from the period of his appointment to Guy's, until 

 the moment of his latest breath, he was every thing and all to the 

 suffering and afflicted ; his name was a host ; but his presence 

 brought confidence and comfort.' Addison and Hodgkins, whose 

 names are familiar to the historians of medicine, were physicians 

 in that hospital : so was Richard Bright, whose discoveries have 

 been pronounced the most important contribution to medical sci- 

 ence made in the first half of the nineteenth century. The obser- 

 vations and studies made in Guy's Hospital since 1836 fill fifty 

 volumes. Thousands of medical students have been trained within 

 its walls. "Their presence," says a competent observer, "has 

 made the hospital." Hundreds of thousands of patients have re- 

 ceived relief from the treatment there afforded. In a single year, 

 five thousand in-door patients have been cared for, and more than 

 thirty thousand out-door patients have sought advice. 



But we are planning for a future much longer than a century 

 and a half ; for a history as long as that of St. Bartholomew's or 

 St. Thomas's, which now, after many centuries, are more useful 

 than ever. 



By a curious coincidence, as I had reached this point in the prep- 

 aration of my address, I received a volume from Dr. Norman 

 Moore, the warden of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, bear- 

 ing an inscription so welcome and so apposite, that I will read it : 

 " To the library of the newest of hospitals, this account of the 

 progress of medicine in one of the most ancient is given by Norman 

 Moore — with the earnest hope that the Johns Hopkins Hospital 

 may flourish at least as long as the Royal Hospital of St. Barthol- 

 omew in Smithfield, and prove no less useful to mankind — on 

 the opening day of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1889." 



This little book is full of suggestions for us. First, as to the 

 longevity of a hospital. " For more than seven hundred and fifty 

 years the hospital has flourished upon its present site; and its 

 Smithfield gateway, through which passed men of the generation 

 whose fathers saw William the Conqueror enter London, has ever 

 since been open to the sick poor." 



Then as to the progress of medical science. Here you may see 

 " how the physician grew from a schoolman into a scientific ob- 

 server, and how the surgeon, who appeared on the scene in livery 

 and without learning, grew from a handicraftsman to be a man of 

 science." 



Next as to the training of illustrious men. Here you will find a 

 record of the names and services of Caius, Bernard, Pott, Aber- 

 nethy, Lawrence, and Paget ; you may learn that Dr. Thomas 

 Young, the originator of the undulatory theory of light, was here 

 a student ; and you will come upon the story of one more famous 

 than any person I have named, — the discoverer of the circulation 

 of the blood, the illustrious Harvey.- 



J Letter of Dr. Roots in the Memoir of Sir A. Cooper. 



- Dr. Moore cills attention to the fact that it was a fund given by Dr. Caius to 

 encourage the study of anatomy, which was the immediate means of leading Harvey 

 to his discovery and also to a remark in one of Harvey's lectures that it was a pas- 

 sage of Aristotle which first suggested to him the idea. 



