SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1884. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



There is probably nothing which we can 

 recognize as so entirely characteristic of our 

 own epoch of history as co-operation, — the 

 union of a number of men for a common pur- 

 pose. Co-operation is very old ; but its present 

 frequency, and often also its form, are new, 

 and therefore it has a significance for us, the 

 extent of which is great, but still unmeasured. 

 It is, indeed, the very essence of democracy. 

 But we have not to do with the general aspects 

 of this great subject : we wish only to refer 

 to its increasing development in scientific 

 research ; and even of that development we 

 intend to direct attention only to the prevalent 

 tendency towards s}'stematic and organized 

 co-operation. 



In our recent numbers we have had occasion 

 to report the progress of several noteworthy 

 scientific undertakings which are strictly co- 

 operative. We need only remind our readers 

 of the new standard time, the electrical and 

 meridian conferences, and the reports of the 

 investigating committees of the British associa- 

 tion, as illustrations of the accomplished good 

 which science owes to co-operation. Our expe- 

 rience of the benefits to be had through the 

 efforts of competent men, united in confer- 

 ences, committees, and congresses, to settle 

 some scientific problem, is rapidly changing 

 what was formerly a sporadic effort into a con- 

 firmed habit of the civilized world. The same 

 proclivity has another manifestation in the still 

 more novel custom of what we venture to desig- 

 nate as co-operative observation. A central 

 bureau, a societ} T or committee, receives and 

 collates the data obtained hy scattered ob- 

 servers. The earliest instances we recall of 

 this method of centralized collation is of 

 meteorological observations, in this country 



No. 91. — 1884. 



conducted for many years by the Smithsonian 

 institution. Such, too, is the method adopted 

 by the English society for psychical re- 

 search, by the American ornithological union 

 for tracing the migrations of birds, by Mr. 

 Galton in his remarkable studies, by the Eng- 

 lish committee for the collective investigation 

 of disease ; and so on through a long list. 

 Again, through the energy of the Harvard 

 observatory, there is an extensive system 

 of co-operation among astronomers, and the 

 British association is endeavoring to systema- 

 tize the work of the numerous local societies 

 in Great Britain. 



One naturally stops to ask, What is to be 

 the future? Will the co-operative tendency, 

 which is already so strong, go on increasing? 

 We think the answer must be in the affirma- 

 tive ; because the more systematized scientific 

 research becomes, just so much surer and 

 steadier will discoveries ensue. At present 

 individual tastes have far too large a share in 

 deciding what is investigated, and hence fol- 

 lows the deplorable consequence that many an 

 important subject is neglected because no one 

 happens to be interested in it. Moreover, 

 there is much work to be done which can be 

 accomplished only by scattered observers who 

 obey a pre-arranged s} T stem. May we not, 

 therefore, reasonably expect a great deal for 

 science in the future from systematized co- 

 operation ? 



The medical journals are just now giving an 

 interesting illustration of the ease with which 

 the members of a busy profession may overlook 

 their own past, and occupy themselves with ex- 

 periments and investigations, only to find that 

 the same results and disappointments had been 

 reached and fully recorded long before. Not 

 many months ago a French physician, at the 

 suggestion of another from Copenhagen, tried 

 etherization by the rectum, and in a report of 



