DOI Artikel:
Cole, Rufus: The Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute, New York
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57254#0509
THE HOSPITAL
OF THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK
ßy
RUFUS COLE
Director of the Hospital of the Rockefeiler Institute, New York
THE hospital was established to “extend the field of its (the Institute’s) research
so as to include the study of disease in its clinical aspects, under conditions as near
as possible to Standards of laboratory exactness and efficiency”. Up to this time few
institutions for medical research existed and hospitals in which the investigation of
disease was a major function were practically unknown. In 1908 Rufus Cole, of
the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, was invited to become the Director, and
Christian A. Herter of New York was made a physician to the hospital.
The hospital began to receive patients on October 10, 1910. It had been decided
to limit the number of diseases studied at any one time, and only patients suffering
from one or another of the diseases under investigation were accepted. All the
scientific staff was to devote its entire time to the duties of the hospital, and no pay
was to be exacted or received from the patients for Services rendered. Possibly the
most far reaching decision was that the work of the hospital staff should consist
not merely in observational studies, but in experimental studies equally. This im-
plied that the scientific stafT of the hospital would be composed of persons not only
with clinical but also with fundamental scientific training, and that the laboratories
in the hospital should be more extensive and better equipped than were the clinical
laboratories of the period.
Laboratories in connection with medical clinics, even university medical clinics,
are of quite recent introduction. Düring the middle of the last Century the growth
of pathological anatomy led physicians primarily to the study of the lesions result-
ing from disease, and their attention was directed chiefly to detecting these changes
during the life of patients. The great triumphs consisted in predicting accurately
those changes which would be discovered at autopsy. The failure of many remedial
measures, often adopted on empirical grounds, led physicians to the attitude termed
therapeutic nihilism. Students in medicine became interested in diagnosis rather
than in therapy. Except in unusual instances, functional abnormalities interested
them little. With the discovery of the role of bacteria in disease, students became
interested in detecting their presence during life, for the purpose mainly of assisting
diagnosis.
While it is conceded that much can be learned of the nature of disease by accurate
Observation, the application of gross means of diagnosis, such as auscultation and
percussion, and by the detection of pathological changes present in the body after
death, thoughtful physicians came to realize that in Order really to understand
disease and to perfect rational measures of treatment, more refmed methods of in-
vestigation were required. Laboratories of a primitive character began to be estab-
lished in the clinics, in Munich in 1886, in Leipzig in 1892, and in the United States,
in the Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889. The chief object of these labora-
tories, however, was the improvement of diagnosis.
491
OF THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK
ßy
RUFUS COLE
Director of the Hospital of the Rockefeiler Institute, New York
THE hospital was established to “extend the field of its (the Institute’s) research
so as to include the study of disease in its clinical aspects, under conditions as near
as possible to Standards of laboratory exactness and efficiency”. Up to this time few
institutions for medical research existed and hospitals in which the investigation of
disease was a major function were practically unknown. In 1908 Rufus Cole, of
the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, was invited to become the Director, and
Christian A. Herter of New York was made a physician to the hospital.
The hospital began to receive patients on October 10, 1910. It had been decided
to limit the number of diseases studied at any one time, and only patients suffering
from one or another of the diseases under investigation were accepted. All the
scientific staff was to devote its entire time to the duties of the hospital, and no pay
was to be exacted or received from the patients for Services rendered. Possibly the
most far reaching decision was that the work of the hospital staff should consist
not merely in observational studies, but in experimental studies equally. This im-
plied that the scientific stafT of the hospital would be composed of persons not only
with clinical but also with fundamental scientific training, and that the laboratories
in the hospital should be more extensive and better equipped than were the clinical
laboratories of the period.
Laboratories in connection with medical clinics, even university medical clinics,
are of quite recent introduction. Düring the middle of the last Century the growth
of pathological anatomy led physicians primarily to the study of the lesions result-
ing from disease, and their attention was directed chiefly to detecting these changes
during the life of patients. The great triumphs consisted in predicting accurately
those changes which would be discovered at autopsy. The failure of many remedial
measures, often adopted on empirical grounds, led physicians to the attitude termed
therapeutic nihilism. Students in medicine became interested in diagnosis rather
than in therapy. Except in unusual instances, functional abnormalities interested
them little. With the discovery of the role of bacteria in disease, students became
interested in detecting their presence during life, for the purpose mainly of assisting
diagnosis.
While it is conceded that much can be learned of the nature of disease by accurate
Observation, the application of gross means of diagnosis, such as auscultation and
percussion, and by the detection of pathological changes present in the body after
death, thoughtful physicians came to realize that in Order really to understand
disease and to perfect rational measures of treatment, more refmed methods of in-
vestigation were required. Laboratories of a primitive character began to be estab-
lished in the clinics, in Munich in 1886, in Leipzig in 1892, and in the United States,
in the Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889. The chief object of these labora-
tories, however, was the improvement of diagnosis.
491