62 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1098 



is to offer to recent graduates who have 

 enough time at their disposal, facilities for 

 such work. For its ultimate success, how- 

 ever, such a policy must have the sympathy 

 of the clinical teachers. If the latter dis- 

 courage the spirit of research, and do not 

 themselves engage in investigation, and 

 especially if they urge that the younger 

 men enter immediately, and to the full ex- 

 tent of their time, into distinctly clinical 

 work, the research department need not 

 expect many voluntary workers, and might 

 as well plan its activities on the basis of its 

 permanent full-time staff. If, on the other 

 hand, the clinical atmosphere is stimulating 

 and progressive, the research laboratory is 

 perhaps doing its greatest good in provid- 

 ing for the men who wish to combine clin- 

 ical observation with experimentation in 

 the laboratory. 



In this brief discussion of the main phases 

 of the development of the department under 

 discussion I have thus far omitted all refer- 

 ence to the questions which are frequently 

 asked concerning such a department. Is 

 not a department in the university for re- 

 search only an anomaly? Should not the 

 teacher be an investigator and the investi- 

 gator a teacher? "Would it not be better 

 instead of a department for research only, 

 to divide an endowment for research among 

 existing teaching departments? These and 

 many similar questions have often been 

 put to me during the past five years and I 

 have always answered that teaching and in- 

 vestigation, in my opinion, should go hand 

 in hand, and that if adequate endowment 

 could be procured to place teaching and 

 research in every department of the medi- 

 cal school on a basis which would ensure 

 adequate results, there would be no need 

 for a separate department of research. Un- 

 fortunately no school possesses such en- 

 dowment and probably will not for some 

 time to come. In the meantime, it is ev- 



ident that there is a tendency on the part 

 of those wishing to advance the knowledge 

 of certain diseases, or groups of disease, 

 to offer to universities funds for the study 

 of such. For the most part these funds do 

 not represent large endowments, but sums 

 which average two or three hundred thou- 

 sand dollars and are for this reason given 

 to institutions, as universities, which already 

 have the buildings in which such concrete 

 department may be housed, thus obviating 

 the necessity of spending the income or a 

 part of the principal for a new building. 

 Likewise it is usually stipulated that the 

 money is to be used for research and not 

 for teaching. The object of this provision 

 naturally is to prevent the diversion of 

 funds to purposes other than those for 

 which the gift was intended. Such gifts 

 obviously intended for the more or less con- 

 centrated study of one disease or a group of 

 disease can do little more than support a 

 chair with one or two assistants or fellows, 

 if much is to be left for diener services 

 and expenses of equipment and mainte- 

 nance. Its work at the most must be modest 

 in comparison with our larger well-endowed 

 non-university research institutions. But 

 despite these restrictions as to scope, pur- 

 pose and field no university can refuse a 

 gift which means an added effort for the 

 advancement of medicine. Gifts similar in 

 character, and, it is to be hoped, larger in 

 amount, may come to any medical school 

 prepared to take up such work, and their 

 trustees can not refuse them on the ground 

 that they do not believe in departments for 

 research only and prefer to wait for en- 

 dowment which may be used to combine re- 

 search with teaching. They will in the 

 future, as in the past, accept them, in the 

 hope that a research department will find 

 not only a field for independent work, but 

 as well many opportunities to cooperate 

 with and to aid and complement other de- 



