.xxii Presidents Address 



in the name of Newton and in the name of Faraday. The 

 promotion of scientific research in a regular way cannot 

 make Newtons aDd Faraday s, but it can obtain great scien- 

 tific results by systematic business-like action, carried out 

 through well-instructed and able men. It seems to me to 

 be a duty of the Government to make the national honour 

 in scientific investigation a subject of its solicitude, and an 

 occasion (with due safeguards against abuse) for spending 

 the public money." 



In this colony the claims of science are usually promptly 

 and liberally recognised ; we have scientific institutions of 

 which older countries might be proud, nevertheless there is 

 much to be done, which it is the duty of every prosperous 

 and intelligent community to set about, and amongst this 

 there is one branch which has — almost before all others — 

 strong claims for state help, I refer to Medical science. This 

 science is one which most nearly concerns the whole com- 

 munity, and yet I believe I may almost put it side by side 

 with Meteorology, as regards the unsatisfactory position it 

 now occupies among other sciences. Astronomy, Meteor- 

 ology, Mineralogy, and Botany have, in nearly all civilized 

 countries, endowed institutions : but in very few countries 

 do there exist similar institutions for researches in medicine. 

 To some extent, no doubt, hospitals might fulfil these 

 functions, but we must bear in mind that nearly all the 

 medical staff of these institutions give their gratuitous 

 services, and have to make their living in the practice of 

 their professions outside. The science of medicine as at 

 present practised is almost as exclusively as much a money- 

 getting work as law, and the practitioner has seldom the 

 time, if he has the desire, to carry on the original research 

 so necessary to advancement, and for which the science is 

 athirst. Now and then we find men of means devoting 

 some of their time and substance to scientific work and 



