DOCTOR FREER AND THE BUREAU OF SCIENCE. xix 



being compelled to plan the future buildings, equipment, and 

 personnel of the Bureau of Government Laboratories, and at the 

 same time immediately to provide for the carrying on of ur- 

 gently necessary routine examinations and original researches. 



The new bureau had had small beginnings in a little building, 

 which might without serious inaccuracy be called a shack, sit- 

 uated to the rear of the private residence in which the Civil 

 Hospital had been established. In the cramped, inadequate, and 

 unbearably hot quarters which it afforded, there were inaugu- 

 rated and carried out scientific investigations of far-reach- 

 ing practical importance in connection with amoebic dysentery, 

 Asiatic cholera, and bubonic plague. More than one compara- 

 tively unknown worker here laid the foundation of an inter- 

 national reputation. 



The preparation of plans and estimates for the permanent 

 laboratory building, the completion of lists of necessary scien- 

 tific books, apparatus, and supplies, and the figuring out of an 

 adequate laboratory staff occupied much of Doctor Freer's time 

 during a period of two years. I speak whereof I know when I 

 say that plans and estimates so complete and accurate as those 

 which he ultimately furnished were never before nor since 

 presented to the legislative body of these Islands. 



The aggregate sum of money involved was so large as to make 

 its appropriation at one time inexpedient if not impracticable. 

 Furthermore, it would have been worse than useless to have 

 books and apparatus arriving without a proper place in which 

 to house them, or to employ scientific workers prior to the pro- 

 vision of adequate laboratory accommodations for them. Doctor 

 Freer was, therefore, compelled to give most careful considera- 

 tion to a scheme for spreading the necessary expenditures over 

 a period of years. 



His elaborate plans and estimates proved adequate and final. 

 They were never departed from in any essential particular, 

 so far at least as concerns the work then under contemplation. 

 The only changes which have proved necessary were incident to 

 providing for a large amount of additional scientific work when 

 the scope of the original Bureau of Government Laboratories 



