Page:Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, volume 1.djvu/34

10 go abroad to practise or to investigate, shall be thoroughly abreast of what has been done and of what is being done, and be in the best position to do full justice to tropical patients and to tropical communities, and to lend a hand at advancing our subject.

That the Society will work, and work successfully, in this direction, I have no doubt. It has, however, other functions to fulfil. As regards one or two of these, I would say a few words. Their consideration influenced me, as I have no doubt it did others, in co-operating with my colleagues in the formation of the Society. Thirty odd years ago and after eight years of experience of medical work in the Tropics, during which 1 succeeded in learning this much, namely, that I knew nothing about tropical disease, I came home on furlough. After a month or two with my people, I came to London principally with the view to rub myself up in recent medicine and surgery, more especially in their bearing on tropical subjects. But it was like fishing in a big lake for the two or three fish the big lake might or might not hold. I did not know where the particular fish I wanted lay, and I found no one to tell me where they lay or how to set about hooking them. I finally landed at the Reading Room of the British Museum. Dreary enough and profitless enough was the fishing there, as you may imagine.

Nowadays things have improved vastly in this respect. There are post-graduate classes of all sorts; but I am not quite sure that a visitor from abroad with only a few months—it may be only a few days—to spare could put his hand at once on the special information he might be in search of, or on the person or persons who could or would guide him to that information. Nor—and this is an important consideration from the standpoint of a bashful man—would he feel quite certain that he was heartily welcomed by those who might be able to supply his wants*