NOVEMBEB 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



619 



cause of a diseased condition of mind or 

 body which might have been avoided if 

 they or their parents had better under- 

 stood the principles of correct living. In 

 order to promote the best interests of the 

 state and to increase the efficiency of our 

 productive classes, as well as to prevent in 

 the future a further increase in the non- 

 productive elements of our people, it is 

 desirable to establish in this state, and in 

 every state alongside of our agricultural 

 experiment stations and our engineering 

 experiment stations a great experiment 

 station of sanitary sciences and preventive 

 medicine. Such an experiment station 

 should undertake to supplement the work 

 now being done by our state and municipal 

 boards of health. The principal function 

 of these boards is to prevent by advice and 

 by process of law the spread of contagious 

 diseases and to supervise in a general way 

 the sanitary conditions under which we 

 live. This is valuable and important 

 work, but it is not sufficient. We should 

 have a body of trained investigators whose 

 sole purpose should be to study in the light 

 of biological science the data thus being 

 collected from the various communities of 

 the state and to supplement the same by 

 special investigations whenever found 

 necessary, to the end that there should be 

 brought to bear upon the cause and pre- 

 vention of unhealthful conditions all the 

 results which scientific investigation can 

 give. The long list of accomplishments of 

 such institutes as have already been men- 

 tioned furnish abundant evidence of the 

 value and importance of such research. 

 Suppose, for example, such investigation 

 should result in a discovery comparable to 

 Behring's discovery of the treatment of 

 diphtheria by antitoxic serum — a result 

 by which in the last twelve years the mor- 

 tality from this disease has been reduced 

 to one fifth of its former rate. Contem- 



plate for a moment the benefits which 

 would come to the human race from a dis- 

 covery of a means of preventing or curing 

 pneumonia, an infection from which, I am 

 told, as many die to-day as did a hundred 

 years ago in spite of all the work which 

 had been done upon it; or what a boon it 

 would be to humanity if the cancer should 

 be brought under control as have been 

 smallpox and hydrophobia. 



Such an experiment station shoidd in- 

 clude a laboratory of physiological chem- 

 istry in which questions of human nutri- 

 tion and problems growing out of it should 

 be investigated — work not unlike that now 

 being done by Professor Chittenden at New 

 Haven, or that which was done by Pro- 

 fessor Atwater at Middletown, and that 

 which is now being carried on at the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois under the direction of a 

 national commission of physiologists. It 

 should include a bacteriological laboratory, 

 fully equipped to carry on extensive in- 

 vestigation in the various branches of this 

 comparatively new science and particu- 

 larly to study its applications to the cause 

 and prevention of diseases. Such an ex- 

 periment station should be equipped with 

 a laboratory of sanitarj' science in which 

 the problems arising from water supplies, 

 sewage disposal, sanitation and the relation 

 of all of these to public health should be 

 fully investigated. And finally there 

 should be included a department of med- 

 ical research, not that it should teach this 

 or that system of medical practise, or be 

 primarily a teaching body at all, but that 

 it shoiild undertake the investigation of the 

 cause and prevention, as well as of the 

 cure, of such diseases as have as yet not 

 yielded to medical treatment. 



Equally important, and that quite apart 

 from the provision for scientific research 

 upon problems of public health, is the pro- 

 vision we should make to educate the gen- 



