DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13852#0090
THE SCIENTIFIC CENTRE.
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rapid progress in all human activities. We move in an atmosphere of effort
and attainment. The ever increasing demand for scientific facts needs a
world-centre of communication and comparison. Even the sciences of medi-
cine and electricity, which have already done so much, are admitted to be
still in their infancy, and their possibilities are as yet but imperfectly
understood.
An international Congress Building for Medicine and Surgery as well as
Pharmaceutics, would undoubtedly meet one of the most urgent needs of
humanity. Certainly nothing is more international than disease and the
search for its cure. The multiplication of humanity and the speed of transmis-
sion increase the dangers of contagion. Science reveals the causes of, and
supplies the remedies for so many diseases, that through a synthesis of general
experience, such knowledge would undoubtedly be gathered as would quicklv
lessen the ills that ravage mankind. Hygiene is the surest means of prevent-
ing and checking disease and being closely connected with all therapeutic
treatment, a Central Bureau of Hygiene could hardly be more advantageously
placed than in immediate connection with a world Medical and Surgical
Centre. Combined action could furnish the adequate means, methods and
experiments for combating not only such epidemics as cholera, plague, small-
pox, etc., which, imperilling and destroying life, interrupt commerce, industry
and transport trade, but would combat deep-rooted maladies like tuberculosis,
cancer, etc., the fight against which so greatly needs vigorous and concerted
measures. Moreover, by cooperation with the necessary legal authorities,
likewise centralised, means would soon be found and enforced for the exter-
mination of the many fraudulent patent medecines, which are another source
of danger to the health and energies of man. International support of such
an institution as is here suggested for the convenience of all workers in the
great cause of human health, would soon go far in reducing the amount of
physical and consequent mental suffering in the world.
Agriculture, commerce and industry depend more and more for their
progress upon science. In a world-centre, the best methods might be studied
not only for increasing the fertility of the soil, but also for establishing the
most rapid and economical system of distribution of its products. In this
way those regions of the earth, now lying out of reach of the more thickly
populated centres, might be brought into direct communication by land or
sea. Plans of railroads could be studied for connecting various fertile districts
which have not yet been brought within the radius of industrial activity,
and where the inhabitants through want of encouragement, still lack all ini-
tiative. It is true that an International Institute of Agriculture, which owes
much to the munificence of the King of Italv, has already been established in
Rome. But the representation of this institution as of the other important
national and international organisations that already do so much towards
harmonising the relations and the knowledge of the world, in a centre common
0
47
rapid progress in all human activities. We move in an atmosphere of effort
and attainment. The ever increasing demand for scientific facts needs a
world-centre of communication and comparison. Even the sciences of medi-
cine and electricity, which have already done so much, are admitted to be
still in their infancy, and their possibilities are as yet but imperfectly
understood.
An international Congress Building for Medicine and Surgery as well as
Pharmaceutics, would undoubtedly meet one of the most urgent needs of
humanity. Certainly nothing is more international than disease and the
search for its cure. The multiplication of humanity and the speed of transmis-
sion increase the dangers of contagion. Science reveals the causes of, and
supplies the remedies for so many diseases, that through a synthesis of general
experience, such knowledge would undoubtedly be gathered as would quicklv
lessen the ills that ravage mankind. Hygiene is the surest means of prevent-
ing and checking disease and being closely connected with all therapeutic
treatment, a Central Bureau of Hygiene could hardly be more advantageously
placed than in immediate connection with a world Medical and Surgical
Centre. Combined action could furnish the adequate means, methods and
experiments for combating not only such epidemics as cholera, plague, small-
pox, etc., which, imperilling and destroying life, interrupt commerce, industry
and transport trade, but would combat deep-rooted maladies like tuberculosis,
cancer, etc., the fight against which so greatly needs vigorous and concerted
measures. Moreover, by cooperation with the necessary legal authorities,
likewise centralised, means would soon be found and enforced for the exter-
mination of the many fraudulent patent medecines, which are another source
of danger to the health and energies of man. International support of such
an institution as is here suggested for the convenience of all workers in the
great cause of human health, would soon go far in reducing the amount of
physical and consequent mental suffering in the world.
Agriculture, commerce and industry depend more and more for their
progress upon science. In a world-centre, the best methods might be studied
not only for increasing the fertility of the soil, but also for establishing the
most rapid and economical system of distribution of its products. In this
way those regions of the earth, now lying out of reach of the more thickly
populated centres, might be brought into direct communication by land or
sea. Plans of railroads could be studied for connecting various fertile districts
which have not yet been brought within the radius of industrial activity,
and where the inhabitants through want of encouragement, still lack all ini-
tiative. It is true that an International Institute of Agriculture, which owes
much to the munificence of the King of Italv, has already been established in
Rome. But the representation of this institution as of the other important
national and international organisations that already do so much towards
harmonising the relations and the knowledge of the world, in a centre common
0