EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES. 501 



A properly equipped aud properly conducted scientific laboratory is 

 a far more expensive institution than is usually conceived. It must be 

 suitably domiciled either in a separate building or in rooms commo- 

 dious and well lighted. The outside architectural features are of sec- 

 ondary importance. The instruments and appliances necessary for 

 exact observation and experiment, even in those sciences which appar- 

 ently require the least, are numerous and costly. A working library, 

 containing the books and sets of journals most frequently consulted, 

 is most desirable, if not absolutely indispensable. The director of the 

 laboratory should be a man of ability and experience, who is a master 

 in his department of science. He must have at least one assistant, 

 who is preferably a young man aiming to follow a scientific career. A 

 person of no small value in the successful working of the laboratory is 

 the intelligent janitor or "diener," who can be trained to do the work 

 of a subsidiary assistant and can be intrusted with the care and 

 manipulation of instruments. There must be funds for the purchase 

 of fresh supplies and new instruments when needed. The running 

 expenses of a first-class laboratory are not small. 



But costly as may seem the establishment and support of a good 

 laboratory, the amount of money expended for laboratories would seem 

 to us ridiculously insignificant if we could estimate the benefits to 

 mankind derived from the work which has been done in them. Wurtz 

 has truly said of the money required for laboratories, " It is a capital 

 placed at a high rate of interest, and the comparatively slight sacri- 

 fice imposed upon one generation will bring to following generations 

 increase of well-being and knowledge." 



The educational value of the laboratory can not well be overesti- 

 mated. For the general student this is to be found primarily in the 

 development of the scientific habit of thought. He learns that to 

 really know about things it is necessary to come into direct contact 

 with them and study them. He finds that only this knowledge is real 

 and living, and not that which comes from mere observation of external 

 appearances, or from reading or being told about things, or, still less, 

 merely thinking about them. 



The problem of securing for the student of medicine the full bene- 

 fits of laboratory instruction in the various medical sciences is a 

 difficult one, and can not, I believe, be solved without considerable 

 readjustment of existing schemes of medical teaching; but this subject 

 is one which I can not attempt to consider here. 



The whole face of medicine has been changed during the last half 

 century by the work of the various laboratories devoted to the med- 

 ical sciences. Anatomy, physiology, and pathology now rank among 

 the most important of the sciences of nature. They have been 

 enriched with discoveries of the highest significance and value not 

 only for medicine, but also for general biology. Although we have 

 not penetrated, and perhaps may never penetrate, the mystery of life, 



