500 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES. 



medical schools of this country and of Great Britain, although it seems 

 destined to prevail. 



The medical science which was the latest to find domicile in its own 

 independent laboratory is hygiene. To Pettenkofer belongs the credit 

 of first establishing such a laboratory. Since 1847 he had been engaged 

 with hygienic investigations, and in 1872 he secured from the Bavarian 

 Government the concession of a hygienic institute. This admirably 

 equipped laboratory was opened for students and investigators in 1878. 

 By this time Koch had already begun those epochal researches which, 

 added to the discoveries of Pasteur, have introduced a new era in med- 

 icine. The introduction by Koch of new methods of investigating 

 infectious diseases and many hygienic problems became the greatest 

 possible stimulus for the foundation of laboratories of hygiene and 

 bacteriology, and to some extent also of laboratories of pathology. 

 The results already achieved by these new methods and discoveries in 

 the direction of prevention and cure of disease, and the expectation of 

 no less important results in the future, constitute to-day our strongest 

 grounds of appeal to governments and hospitals and medical schools 

 and the general imblic for the establishment and support of labora- 

 tories where the nature, the causes, the prevention, and the cure of 

 disease shall be investigated. You have established here, in this city, 

 and in connection with this university, the first hygienic laboratory of 

 this country, housed in its own building and assured, I believe, of a 

 future of great usefulness. 



It is apparent, from the brief and imperfect outline which I have 

 presented of the evolution of modern scientific laboratories, that the 

 birthplace of these laboratories, regarded as places freely open for 

 instruction and research in the natural sciences, was Germany. Such 

 laboratories are t]ie glory to-day of German universities, which possess 

 over two hundred of them. By their aid Germany has secured since 

 the middle of the present century the palm for scientific education and 

 discovery. 



Great scientific investigators are not limited to any country or any 

 time. There are those of surpassing ability who will make their own 

 opportunity and will triumph over the most discouraging environment. 

 This country and every civilized country can point to such men, but 

 they are most exceptional. The great majority of those even with the 

 capacity for scientific work need encouragement and opportunity. We 

 now have sufficient knowledge of the workings of scientific laboratories 

 to be able to assert that in general where the laboratory facilities are 

 the most ample and the most freely available, there are developed the 

 largest number of trained workers, and there the discoveries are the 

 most numerous and the most important. At the i)resent day no coun- 

 try, no university, and no medical school can hold even a respectable 

 place in the march of education and progress unless it is provided with 

 suitable laboratories for scientific work. 



