340       Development  of  the  Medical  Laboratories.     { Am  jJu°£ri£&arxu- 
the  underlying  medical  sciences,  and  the  building  in  which  we 
now  are  has  been  erected  chiefly  to  meet  in  the  University  the  needs 
of  the  new  method  of  instruction.  There  is  in  some  quarters  a  ten- 
dency to  question  the  value  of  this  laboratory  teaching.  Without 
practical  study,  however,  the  student  never  can  apprehend  the 
foundationjprinciples  and  methods  of  the  sciences,  so  that  if  phy- 
siology and  pathology~are  to  the  medical  student  worth  studying 
at  all,  they  are  worth  studying  by  the  only  method  that  can  bring 
real  knowledge  and  apprehension.  Moreover,  day  by  day  in  the 
ordinary  practice  of  medicine  the  use  of  instruments  of  precision 
becomes  j~more  and  more  important,  and,  perhaps,  as  beneficial  a 
result  as  is  achieved  by  the  laboratory  is  the  acquiring  by  the 
student  of  the  power  of  using  delicate  scientific  apparatus  and  of 
correctly  observing  and  recording  the  results  reached.  If  nothing 
further  were  reached  than  to  teach  the  student  the  proper  use  of  his 
especial  senses,  much;  would  be  gained.  To  be  able  to  hear,  t©  see, 
to  apprehend — thatjs  knowledge  above  price  to  the  naturally  pur- 
blind and  purdeaf  children  of  men. 
The  growth  of  science,  the  multiplication  of  instruments,  the 
refinement  of  technique,  make  the  well- equipped  laboratory  to-day 
essential,  but  to  the  end  the  Man  will  survive  as  the  dominant  fac- 
tor. I  remember  years  ago  in  Philadelphia  a  group  of  physicians 
who  were  marvelously  acquainted  with  the  microscope,  who  spent 
their  time  in  testing  lenses,  working  with  polariscopes,  and  study- 
ing eyepieces  and  adjustments ;  vain  labor  was  it,  yielding  but  bar- 
ren fruitage.  Of  such  as  these  Professor  Leidy  said  to  me  one  day : 
"  It  is  not  the  object  glass  but  that  which  is  above  the  eye-piece 
that  brings  the  result."  Leidy  knew  comparatively  little  about  the 
construction  of  the  microscope,  but  using  it,  not  as  an  object  of 
study,  but  as  an  instrument,  his  master  mind  laid  much  of  the  foun- 
dation of  our  present  knowledge  of  the  lower  forms  of  animal  life. 
If,  now,  these  great  laboratories  are  to  be  used  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  their  possibilities,  it  is  essential  that  they  be  employed  as 
instruments,  and  that  the  men  should  be  found  who  shall  use  them, 
not  only  for  the  purposes  of  teaching^  but  also  for  the  purposes  of 
advancing  the  boundaries  of  medical  science. 
The  man  having  been  found,  it  is  essential  that  he  be  properly 
handled,  if  you  will  pardon  the  borrowing  of  an  athletic  term.  For- 
merly our  professors  of  physiology  and  pathology  were  medical 
