August 6, 3 91.5] 



SCIENCE 



177 



are in flux and flow, the investigator must 

 associate himself with those who have 

 labored in fields where molecules and atoms, 

 rather than multicellular tissues or even 

 unicellular organisms, are the units of study. 

 To-day investigators in biology and medi- 

 cine are reaching out with eager hands into 

 the more exact branches of science. The 

 great progress in biology and in medicine 

 that has been made during the past century 

 proves that advantages hardly to be imag- 

 ined must follow upon the further applica- 

 tion of physics and chemistry to these sci- 

 ences. A striking example of the debt which 

 medicine owes to that newer branch of 

 chemistry called physical chemistry is seen 

 in our better understanding in the last 

 twenty years of certain dynamic equilibria 

 of the body, such as the relationship be- 

 tween the hydrogen and the hydroxyl ions 

 of the blood and tissues, of surface tension, 

 osmotic pressure and the colloidal state. 



I also recognize that all the various as- 

 pects of any one problem in our field are 

 intimately bound together, and that prog- 

 ress along the chemical side, for instance, 

 of a question may have to wait on the clear- 

 ing up of the morphological side. "When 

 I have the honor of being consulted by a 

 young man who has not yet found himself 

 intellectually but who is filled with the 

 desire to devote his life to some branch of 

 medicine, be it clinical medicine, pathol- 

 ogy, hygiene, bacteriology, physiology or 

 pharmacology, my advice always is, ' ' Study 

 chemistry for at least three years. Try 

 with all your power to master enough of 

 this great science to start you in your 

 career." Why not make this attempt at 

 a time of life when one still takes kindly to 

 a rigid discipline*^ such as this science ex- 



«3 The professor of physics in McGill University, 

 Dr. A. S. Eve, has recently expressed himself as fol- 

 lows in a paper describing modern discoveries on 

 the constitution of the atom (Jour. Franklin Insti- 



acts? To this preparation must be added 

 the special medical training of another four 

 or more years. A long road to travel? 

 But I find that many young men have 

 entered upon it with great enthusiasm. 



I do not mean that this long tutelage is 

 to be a cramming process. I have in mind 

 conditions where these students shall be 

 constantly under the influence of teachers 

 who are themselves investigators and daily 

 engaged in the search for new truths. 

 Under the stimulus of such examples our 

 young man is saved from the sterile life of 

 the mere crammer, because he sees the rela- 

 tion of what he learns to living questions. 

 During this period of study and growth 

 he will himself make occasional attempts 

 at the solution of problems. Even with the 

 best preparation, workers in our fields have 

 always to return again and again to the 

 fundamental sciences for assistance. 



But to what end is all this preparation 

 for our young man? Is it solely that he 

 may solve problems whose solution is of 

 practical value to mankind ? Is his mind to 

 shape itself only to the insistent demands of 

 utility? Even then our method of train- 

 ing will yield the largest profit. But it 

 does vastly more than that. Thus trained 

 our young scholar will be able to see be- 

 yond the immediately practical problem, 

 even though it be as great a thing as the 

 discovery of the cause and cure of the 

 plague that decimates a people. Greater 

 even than the greatest discovery is it to keep 

 open the way to futicre discoveries. This 

 can only be done when the investigator 

 freely dares, moved as by an inner propul- 

 sion, to attack problems not because they 

 give promise of immediate value to the 



tute, 1915, p. 269): "It may be noted that the 

 discoveries set forth in this brief summary have 

 been achieved by savants in the western half of 

 Europe, and it may be asked if the education in 

 the New World is at the present time suflieiently 

 thorough, imaginative and philosophical. ' ' 



