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medicine in the United States is to be congratulated on the establishment of a laboratory for research that may be compared with those of the great European capitals. There are in this country more than a hundred thousand practising physicians, somewhat over two hundred medical journals and a large number of medical schools, and many important advances in technical medicine are due to American practise. Opportunity for systematic research has, however, been hitherto lacking. This will be supplied by the laboratory to be built in New York City on the foundation of Mr. John D. Rockefeller. It will be remembered that two years ago Mr. Rockefeller gave $200,000 for the establishment of an institute for medical research and placed the endowment in the hands of a strong and compact board of directors, consisting of Dr. William H. Welch, Baltimore; Dr. T. Mitchell Prudden, New York; Dr. Theobald Smith, Boston; Dr. Simon Flexner, Philadelphia; Dr. Hermann M. Biggs, New York; Dr. C. A. Herter, New York; Dr. L. Emmett Holt, New York.

The fund could be used for current expenses, and with it grants have been made, varying in amount from $200 to $1,500, to over twenty investigators who have carried forward their work at American and foreign universities. The directors, however, believed that, in addition to such individual studies, there was needed a central institution for certain lines of research with an adequate equipment and permanent endowment. Towards this purpose Mr. Rockefeller has given $1,000,000, which will be used for the purchase of land, the erection of buildings and the organization of the work, and it is understood that Mr. Rockefeller is prepared to give an additional endowment when needed. A site has been secured in New York City overlooking the East river, and it is hoped that the laboratory will be completed and ready for the commencement of work in the autumn of 1904. The buildings will include a small hospital which will be maintained in close association with the experimental work. The institute has assumed the publication of The Journal of Experimental Medicine, which will remain under the editorial supervision of Dr. W. H. Welch, professor of pathology in the Johns Hopkins University and president of the board of directors of the institute. The directors will also undertake the diffusion of knowledge by the means of lectures, publications and hygienic museums that will tend to the prevention and cure of disease. Dr. Simon Flexner, professor of pathology in the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed scientific director of the laboratories, and there will be associated with him the heads of the different departments that will be established.

board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution held an adjourned meeting on March 12, at which matters of much importance for the institution and for the progress of science in America were discussed. It was decided that in addition to the annual meeting in January for the transaction of routine business, there shall hereafter be held two additional meetings, one in December and one in March,