502 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC LABORATORIES. 



we are coming closer and closer to an understanding of the intimate 

 structure and the fundamental properties of living" matter. We 

 already know that living matter is not that homogeneous, formless 

 substance which not many years ago it was believed to be, but that 

 it possesses a complex organization. 



Practical medicine has been profoundly influenced by the unparal- 

 leled development of the medical sciences during the last fifty years, 

 and especially during more recent years. Scientific methods have 

 passed from the laboratory to the hospital. Cases of disease are now 

 studied with the aid of physical and chemical and microscopical and 

 bacteriological methods. The diagnosis of disease has thereby been 

 greatly advanced in precision, and if Boerhaave's motto, " qui bene diag- 

 noscit, bene medebitur," be true, there should be a corresponding 

 advance in the results of the treatment of disease, Whether or not 

 this dictum of the old master be true — and I have serious doubts as to 

 its entire truth — it can not be doubted that great progress has been 

 made in medical, and especially in surgical, treatment as a result of 

 scientific discoveries, although the treatment of disease still rests, and 

 will doubtless long continue to rest, largely upon empirical foundations. 



We are assembled here to-day to assist at the opening of a laboratory 

 which gives the fittest and strongest possible expression to the influence 

 of scientific work upon practical medicine. The generous founder has 

 marked with characteristic insight the direction in which the current 

 is setting. 



The conception of a thoroughly equipped laboratory as an integral 

 part of a hospital and intended for the study and investigation of dis- 

 ease is of recent origin. The germs of this idea, however, may be 

 traced back to such men as Hughes Bennett and Beale in Great Britain, 

 and to Frerichs and Traube in Germany, who in their hospital work 

 made fruitful application of microscopical, chemical, and experimental 

 methods. A little over ten years ago, Von Ziemssen, in Munich, estab- 

 lished a well-conceived clinical laboratory, containing a chemical, a 

 physical, and a bacteriological department, a working library, and 

 rooms for practical courses and the examination of patients. A similar 

 laboratory was secured by Curschmann in Leipzig in 1892. 



The growing recognition of the need of such laboratories is the result 

 of the great progress in scientific medicine during recent years. The 

 thorough clinical examination of many cases of disease now requires 

 familiarity with numerous technical procedures, physical, chemical, 

 microscopical, and bacteriological. The laboratory outfit required 

 simply for routine clinical examinations is considerable. A microscope 

 and a few test tubes and chemical reagents for simple tests of the 

 urine no longer suffice. As illustrations of this, I call attention to the 

 clinical value of examinations of the blood, of the contents of the 

 stomach, of fluids withdrawn from the serous cavities, of the sputum and 

 various secretions, of fragments of tissue removed for diagnosis. Such 



