494 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES. 



of the physical and natural sciences which characterizes the era in 

 which we are living. 



The evolution of the modern laboratory still awaits its historian. 

 It is not difficult to find incidental references to historical facts bear- 

 ing upon this subject. The development of the chemical laboratory 

 has been traced with some fullness. But it is curious that there is no 

 satisfactory monographic treatment of the general subject of the his- 

 torical development of scientific laboratories. The subject seems to 

 me an attractive one. It would surely be interesting to trace the 

 development of the teachiug and the investigating laboratory back to 

 its beginnings, to learn about the material circumstances under which 

 the physicists, the chemists, the morphologists, and physiologists of 

 former generations worked. What share iu the development of labora- 

 tories had the learned academies of the Renaissance and of the subse- 

 quent centuries ? What share had public aud private museums and 

 collections of instruments of precision? What share had the work 

 of the exact experimentalists, beginning with Galileo, of physicians, of 

 the alchemists, and of the apothecaries? What individuals, universi- 

 ties, corporations, and governments were the pioneers in the establish- 

 ment of laboratories for the various physical and natural sciences? 

 The detailed consideration of these and many other questions perti- 

 nent to the subject would make an interesting and valuable historical 

 contribution. 



There is evidence that in Alexandria, under the early Ptolemies in 

 the third century before Christ, there existed State- supported insti- 

 tutes, in which students of man and of nature could come into direct 

 personal contact with the objects of study, and by the aid of such 

 appliances as were then available could carry on scientific investiga- 

 tions. The practical study of anatomy, physiology, pathology, and 

 other natural sciences was here cultivated. We are very imperfectly 

 informed as to the results and the material circumstances of this 

 remarkable period in the history of science. We know that after about 

 a century of healthy activity the Alexandrian school gradually sank 

 into a place for metaphysical discussions. 



Fifteen hundred years elapsed before we next find any record of the 

 practical study of a natural science. In 1231, the great Hohenstaufen, 

 Frederick the Second, who has been called the most remarkable historic 

 figure of the Middle Ages, commanded the teachers at Salernum dili- 

 gently to cultivate the practical study of anatomy. After the passage 

 of this edict occasional dissections of the human body were made, but 

 it can not be said that there was any diligent cultivation of anatomy 

 on the part either of teachers or of students during the following two 

 centuries. 



In the latter half of the fifteenth century there developed that active 

 interest in the practical study of human anatomy Avhich culminated in 

 the immortal work of Vesalius, published in 1543. After this the study 



