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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1109 



number of publications from all sources, 

 which appeared annually during the seven- 

 ties was small, and even in 1884 when I 

 began to interest myself in the subject it 

 did not, all told, exceed more than three 

 hundred a year. It was possible for a bio- 

 chemist then and for a few years thereafter 

 to keep in touch with all advances in his 

 subject, but eventually the number grew 

 and in 1905 the year's output of biochem- 

 ical publications of all kinds was estimated 

 to be about three thousand five hundred 

 papers. It did not cease to grow and the 

 output of 1913 was more than six thousand. 

 The task of the scientific spirit in 1870, 

 so far as the exercise of relentless criticism 

 was concerned, was easy, for the dozen or 

 more biochemists could supervise the whole 

 field of production and pronounce judg- 

 ment. That function was carefully and 

 deliberately performed. It is on record 

 that when Miescher, who had been for some 

 time a student in Hoppe-Seyler's laboratory 

 in Tiibingen, offered his paper, now clas- 

 sical, on nuclein, for publication in the 

 ' ' Medicinische-Chemisehe Untersuchung- 

 en," Hoppe-Seyler would not publish it 

 till he himself had worked over the whole 

 subject and verified all the observations of 

 Miescher. The publication of the paper 

 was, in consequence, delayed two years. 



What could be done in 1870 can not be 

 done now, when the mass of literature being 

 poured out in every department of bio- 

 chemistry is so overwhelming. It is still 

 possible for the head of a laboratory to 

 censor its productions and a number of the 

 leaders exercise that function, but what 

 they do in this subject ameliorates the 

 situation only to a slight extent. There is 

 still, as any one can see, too little criticism 

 of value in the annual output. One gets 

 the impression, in reviewing the literature 

 on a subject, that the contributors to it re- 

 gard criticism as not within their province. 



and that they are anxious to get their own 

 views on record without going through the 

 labor of preparing a critical review of that 

 literature. There is in consequence an ever 

 increasing dependence on Jahresberichte, 

 Centralblatter and Ergebnisse. Even when 

 the function of criticism is exercised the 

 situation is not always thereby bettered, 

 for the criticism not infrequently is slip- 

 shod or specious, and the result is only 

 polemics, or it is completely ignored. 



It may be urged that the criticism to be 

 efi'ective would increase the length of each 

 contribution, which on the average is suffi- 

 ciently long already. The answer to this 

 is that effective criticism would in the end 

 not only shorten the length of the papers, 

 but also lessen their numbers. 



The haste to publish and the tendency to 

 multiply unnecessarily the number of 

 papers are vices which should be curbed. 

 The fact that they are so prevalent is due 

 to the absence of effective criticism. 



In claiming that criticism is the essence 

 of the scientific spirit, I must not be under- 

 stood as justifying criticism of the undis- 

 criminating or reckless type. That is 

 utterly senseless and is a graver fault than 

 the absence of all criticism. Criticism, to 

 be effective, must be judicial, honest and, 

 above all, courteous to the object of it. 

 Criticism of that type no man can refuse 

 or reject and it is extremely valuable to the 

 individual who is subjected to it, as he 

 win admit sooner or later if he is of the 

 right sort. It is the only means of deter- 

 mining whether what he offers as a con- 

 tribution is going to work. 



To inculcate right standards of criticism 

 there should be given in every university a 

 course of lectures on ethics for all those 

 who propose to devote themselves to a scien- 

 tific career. There might even be, I would 

 suggest, a brotherhood like the ancient 

 Brotherhood of Hippocrates, the members 



