962 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 495. 



was a revelation to those who did not know 

 how much of this work was being done. The 

 symposium on Wednesday evening, on the re- 

 lation of the medical services of the Govern- 

 ment to the profession, was also most inter- 

 esting and instructive. Such a symposium 

 tends to bring the profession and the services 

 together as nothing else can. We all realize, 

 to a certain extent at least, what the U. S. 

 Public Health and Marine Hospital Service 

 and the Medical Department of the Army have 

 done and are doing, but we have been very un- 

 familiar with the work of the Medical Depart- 

 ment of the Navy. Surgeon Stokes, in his 

 part of the symposium, showed that the med- 

 ical officer of the Navy has a wider field of 

 usefulness than is usually supposed. The last 

 symposium, that of Thursday evening, was 

 also valuable and instructive, and brought to 

 the attention of the profession other work 

 that is being done by the government that is 

 of special interest to medical men. While the 

 building in which these meetings were held 

 was a large one, standing room was at a pre- 

 mium on each occasion. President Musser de- 

 serves the thanks of the profession for having 

 arranged for these symposia, and those who 

 took part in them are also entitled to thanks 

 for what they did to make them so successful. — 

 Journal of the American Medical Association. 



DEDICATION OF THE MEDICAL LABORATORIES OP 

 THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



The dedication of the new medical labora- 

 tories of the University of Pennsylvania, 

 which took place on Friday, June 10, consti- 

 tutes an epoch in medical education in Amer- 

 ica. The ceremonies were dignified and 

 simple, and were attended by a large number 

 of physicians, principally members of the 

 American Medical Association that -had ac- 

 cepted the courteous invitation extended to 

 them by the university to be its guests. A 

 special train brought the visitors from At- 

 lantic City and took them back at night. To 

 those that had not previously visited Philadel- 

 phia, as well as to the old graduates of Phila- 

 delphia's medical schools, their visit to the 

 university must have been a revelation. Dr. 

 Horatio Wood, in his eloquent address at the 

 dedication of the new laboratories, alluded to 



the magnificent material progress that the 

 university has made in the last generation — 

 a progress, one may add, in which Dr. Wood 

 has been an important factor. The new labo- 

 ratories are intended for the departments of 

 pathology, physiology and pharmacology, and 

 everything has been done to give these impor- 

 tant departments an ideal home. The build- 

 ing is architecturally attractive, and is in 

 harmony with the general plan of the newer 

 buildings, especially the dormitories. Mr. J. 

 Vaughn Merrick, in the absence of Dr. S. 

 Weir Mitchell, the chairman of the medical 

 committee, delivered the presentation address, 

 to which Provost Harrison responded. Dr. H. 

 P. Bowditch, professor of physiology at Har- 

 vard University, spoke for physiology, and em- 

 phasized the importance of the physiologic 

 laboratory in medical instruction, although he 

 did not fail to say a good word for didactic 

 teaching, which must still have a place in the 

 medical curriculum. It should be borne in 

 mind, he said, that it is quite as possible to 

 abuse the laboratory as the didactic method 

 of instruction; and that in all schemes of 

 education a good teacher with a bad method 

 is more effective than a bad teacher with a 

 good method. Professor R. H. Chittenden, 

 director of the Sheffield Scientific School of 

 Tale University, dwelt upon the importance 

 of physiologic chemistry to medicine, and il- 

 lustrated it by describing the epoch-making 

 work of Hoppe-Seyler and his school. Dr. 

 George Dock, professor of medicine at the 

 University of Michigan, decried the tendency 

 to magnify the place of the laboratory, and to 

 encourage students to do advanced original 

 work before the foundation is laid. He also 

 spoke of the neglect into which pathologic 

 anatomy has fallen, and urged the importance 

 of performing autopsies whenever possible. 

 The difficulty in regard to autopsies does not 

 depend upon public sentiment alone, but upon 

 a certain neglect upon our own part. He 

 thought that as pathology gets everywhere out 

 of cellars and back rooms and has a local 

 habitation like the new laboratories, its culti- 

 vation would assume a broader and more in- 

 dependent character. The laboratory building 

 is quadrangular in shape, two stories in height 



