66 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 864 



Such subjects as zoology, botany and phys- 

 ics, for example, taught in the colleges, 

 recruit their investigators from students 

 who, in undergraduate days, before their 

 life-purposes are definitely fixed, find the 

 pure interest of the science a motive which 

 determines their whole future. The med- 

 ical sciences, on the other hand, are usu- 

 ally presented to students only after they 

 have decided to fit themselves for practise 

 in a highly attractive profession — that of 

 mitigating the physical sufferings of their 

 fellowmen. The medical sciences become 

 thereby merely a means to a particular and 

 predetermined end. And not infrequently 

 the laboratory courses, because they defer 

 the time of coming into direct and helpful 

 contact with human beings in need, are 

 regarded by medical students with impa- 

 tience. To men who take that attitude, 

 scientific investigation, because of its re- 

 moteness from the distress and the critical 

 struggles of sick men and women, is apt to 

 seem trifling. Perhaps they look upon the 

 investigator with benevolent interest, or as 

 a teacher they may like him, but they will, 

 with fair certainty, remain indifferent to 

 his scholarly occupation. 



Because the attention of medical stu- 

 dents is fised so definitely on the practise 

 of their calling they may entirely fail to 

 understand the nature of scientific re- 

 search, the sort of value which it possesses, 

 or the incentives which impel men to its 

 pursuit — in short, they may remain quite 

 unaware of what productive scholarship 

 in the i^edieal sciences really implies. Yet 

 the work of investigation is of prime im- 

 portance to medicine, and it yields some of 

 life's profoundest satisfactions to the man 

 who pursues it. Among the multiplying 

 opportunities open to persons with medical 

 training, should not the career in research 

 be better known and appreciated? It 

 offers such important possibilities of serv- 



ing not only one's own generation but all 

 future generations as well, and it grants 

 rewards so generously to those who em- 

 brace it that I propose to discuss with you 

 some of its characteristics, and some of the 

 qualities of those who pursue it success- 

 fully. 



In a medical school as in other institu- 

 tions of technical education the emphasis 

 must be placed on what has been confirmed 

 by experience, on what is well known and 

 established. To point out repeatedly what 

 is not known, or where lie the boundaries 

 between our knowledge and our ignorance 

 may be an interesting intellectual exercise, 

 but it does not alleviate the sufferings of 

 the sick or help to meet any immediate 

 practical emergency. Nevertheless, it is 

 our ignorance of disease and its conditions 

 that limits absolutely our effective grap- 

 pling with many of the most distressing 

 afflictions of mankind. 



The investigator is first of all one who 

 thinks as much of what we are ignorant of 

 as he does of what has already been made 

 clear. His chief interest is in the territory 

 which has not yet been traversed. Indeed 

 he is to be classed with explorers and 

 pioneers. For such men the complacent 

 contemplation of things accomplished is 

 intolerable — they chafe under the routine 

 of established ways, and find the satisfac- 

 tions of life in adventures beyond the 

 frontiers. Harvey, among the first of 

 modern discoverers, expressed the spirit of 

 research when he wrote : 



It were disgraceful, with this most spacious and 

 admirable realm of nature before us, and where 

 the reward ever exceeds the promise, did we take 

 the reports of others upon trust, and go on coin- 

 ing crude problems out of these, and on them 

 hanging knotty and captious and petty disputa- 

 tions. Nature is herself to be addressed; the 

 paths she shows us are to be boldly trodden; for 

 thus, and whilst we consult our proper senses, 

 from inferior advancing to superior levels, shall 



