396 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 427. 



work of careful study of .the situation, it be- 

 came clear to the directors that existing insti- 

 tutions in this country, while in many in- 

 stances carrying on most valuable researches 

 in medicine, do not afford adequate facilities 

 for many phases of investigation which are 

 of the utmost importance and urgency. This 

 is in part due to the lack of sufficient en- 

 dowment, in part to the large demands made 

 upon the time and energy of the workers by 

 their duties as teachers. It was further evi- 

 dent that such assistance as the institute had 

 thus far been enabled to extend to selected 

 investigators in various parts of the country 

 had fostered work of great actual value, as 

 well as of high promise, and should be per- 

 petuated along similar lines. 



The directors, however, were united in the 

 conviction that the highest aims of the insti- 

 tute could not be secured in this way alone. 

 Useful as such individual studies are and im- 

 portant as it is to enlist and to maintain the 

 interest of research workers in established in- 

 stitutions of learning, it is not possible in this 

 .way to secure the unity of aim and the co- 

 ordination and mutual stimulus and support 

 which are essential to the highest achieve- 

 ments in research. These are to be secured, 

 it was believed, only by the centralization of 

 certain lines at least of the work of the insti- 

 tute under a competent head or series of 

 heads of departments, in a fixed place, with 

 adequate equipment and permanent endow- 

 ment. 



There is no lack of men of sufficient train- 

 ing and experience ready to devote their lives 

 to the solution of medical problems which bear 

 directly or indirectly upon the welfare of man- 

 kind. The widely open fields of research are 

 many. Some of these relate to the applica- 

 tion of existing knowledge to the prevention 

 and cure of disease; others to the develop- 

 ment of new knowledge along various lines of 

 science which more than ever before give 

 promise of great significance in the problems 

 of physical life. 



In a broad sense, the directions and meth- 

 ods for the study of disease may be classified 

 as morphological, physiological and chemical; 

 and the institute, it was thought, should in- 



clude departments providing for these divi- 

 sions of the subject. For the morphological 

 study of disease there should be a complete 

 equipment for pathological-anatomical re- 

 search. For the physiological study of disease 

 provision should be made for experimental 

 pathology, for pharmacology and therapeutics, 

 for the study of bacteria and other micro- 

 organisms with especial reference to their re- 

 lation to the infectious diseases, and for other 

 investigations in personal and public hygiene, 

 including preventive medicine. Here belong 

 especially the problems of infection and im- 

 munity, and here also, in large part, such 

 studies as require access to patients in hos- 

 pitals. There should be a laboratory, well 

 equipped for investigations in physiological 

 and pathological chemistry. 



It was the conviction of the directors that 

 such an institute might wisely add to its aims 

 in the direct increase of the knowledge of dis- 

 ease and its prevention and cure, a phase of 

 activity which should look toward the educa- 

 tion of the people in the ways of healthful 

 living, by popular lectures, by hygienic mu- 

 seums, by the diffusion of suitable literature, 

 etc. For, in fact, the existing agencies for 

 medical research for the most part stop short 

 of those direct and widely diffused applica- 

 tions of newly won knowledge upon which the 

 immediate practical fruitage of their work 

 so largely depends. 



In order that the causes and treatment of 

 human disease may be studied to the best ad- 

 vantage, it was the opinion of the directors 

 that there should be attached to the institute 

 a hospital for the investigation of special 

 groups of cases of disease. This hospital 

 should be modern and fully equipped, but it 

 need not be large. It should attempt to pro- 

 vide only for selected cases of disease, and the 

 patients would thus secure the advantages of 

 special and skilled attendance and such cura- 

 tive agencies as the institute might develop 

 or foster. 



It was thought that an institute for medical 

 research of the largest promise would require 

 a central institution, fully equipped and en- 

 dowed, and with capacity for growth, in which 

 the more comprehensive studies demanding 



