Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/195

Rh branches of the work where serial sections and other difficult preparations are to be made.

With an equipment for anatomical work equal to any in the country, with an endowment equal to the sum total expended by the three great anatomical schools in the states, with no energies expended in teaching undergraduate students, the Wistar Institute, organized as an independent research institution, stands unique in this country for the substantial support and encouragement of anatomy. How can it be made of greatest use to the science? This problem, coupled with the fact that there is no central institute for anatomy in America devoted solely to the one purpose, where research materials may be collected together, properly prepared and sent freely to interpreters who can not come to the institute, was the reason for calling together ten leaders in the science. They discussed it from their various standpoints and were unanimous in their opinion as to the work which might be accomplished. It was fully agreed at the first session that the development of a museum and the pursuit of research are inseparably united. A committee was then appointed to formulate certain suggestions to be discussed at the second session of the conference; this committee presented the following propositions:

Notes taken at the meeting of the committee yesterday are presented in the following order: (1) The principal object of the institute to be research and under these headings; (a) a chief of investigation, (b) research assistants or assistantships and men who shall divide their services between the museum proper and research, (c) technical assistants. (2) Research and materials: (a) research shall be in the field of neurology, (b) comparative anatomy and embryology. (3) Relations: (a) committee recommends that the subvention to the Journal of Anatomy be granted, (b) committee be appointed to consider relations of the Wistar Institute to American anatomists, (c) the Wistar Institute to apply to the Association of American Anatomists for cooperation. (4) That an advisory board of ten be appointed for general purposes: (a) to form a sub-committee on neurology as well as other sub-committees that may be needed, (b) to establish relations with the committee of the International Association of Academies for Brain Investigation and with other committees for collective investigation, (c) the committee recommends that the board bear in mind that while the general trend of work above outlined is recommended there is no intention to advise limitation of the functions of the institute to it exclusively.

This report was briefly discussed on the following day and presented to the Wistar Institute as the finished work of the conference. The institute accepted it and suggested that the advisory