Popular Science Monthly/Volume 85/July 1914/The Progress of Science
The great English philosopher and pioneer in science, the seven hundredth anniversary of whose birth was celebrated at Oxford on June 10. An article describing Roger Bacon's life and work by the late Dr. Edward S. Holden will be found in The Popular Science Monthly for January, 1902.
THE WORK OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD
The General Education Board, the foundation endowed by Mr. John I). Rockefeller, at a recent meeting nude large appropriations for educational work. Following the gifts of $1,500,000 to the Johns Hopkins University and $750,000 to Washington University for their medical schools on condition that the professors of medicine and surgery shall devote their entire time to the work of the school and not engage in private practise, a gift of $500,000 has been made to the medical school of Yale University under similar conditions and the further stipulation that the school obtain control of the New Haven Hospital. Other conditional appropriations amounting to $700,000 were made to Stevens Institute of Technology, Elmira College, Hendrix College, Washington and Lee University, Wells College and Wofford College.
Increased appropriations were made to develop the work in secondary education which the board has been carrying on in the south for ten years. The board has maintained professors of secondary education in southern universities and inspectors of secondary schools who have devoted their time to the creation and development of high schools in their several spheres.
The sum of $36,500 was appropriated for the maintenance of rural school supervisors in each of the southern states. These supervisors are concerned with the improvement of country schools and with the introduction into them of industrial training and domestic science. The annual subscription of $10,000 toward the current expenses of Hampton Institute was increased to $25,000, an annual subscription of $10,000 was made to Tuskegee Institute, and one of $15,000 to Spelman Seminary, Atlanta.
Farm demonstration work on an educational basis was originated by the General Education Board. The plan was conceived by the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp. So far as the southern states are concerned, congress now assumes the work heretofore supported by the General Education Board, objection having been made to the payment of the officers of the Department of Agriculture by a private contribution. The board will, however, continue its cooperation with agricultural colleges in the work. For this purpoose, $20,000 was appropriated for farm demonstration in six counties in Maine and for boys' and girls' clubs in that state. A further appropriation of $10,000 was made for similar work in New Hampshire.
To improve education in the rural districts the board has resolved to offer to support in connection with state departments of education, rural school agents. An appropriation of $50,000 was made for the work in fifteen states. A general agent will be appointed to keep the several state movements in touch with one another. The board resolved to authorize a study of training for public health service and of the organization of public health service in England, Germany, Denmark and other foreign countries. When the facts have been ascertained a conference will be held and a concrete scheme formulated for schools of public health.
THE CINCINNATI NEW GENERAL HOSPITAL
Large as are the gifts for hospitals and medical schools from private philanthropy, they are likely to be surpassed by public provision for the suppression of disease and the improvement of health. Of special interest is the New General Hospital at Cincinnati, for we have there the only instance in the country of a municipal university and hospital, conducted by and for the city. A medical school and hospital, cooperating in their common work and directly controlled and supported by the city, is an example which we may expect to see followed elsewhere. One may therefore note with satisfaction the admirable plans of the Cincinnati Hospital indicated in the accompanying bird's-eye view, kindly given us with some description by Dr. Christian R. Holmes, dean of the medical school and president of the new hospital commission.
The hospital will be opened in October, 1914, with 850 beds, but all administrative buildings have been built large enough to care for 1,500 patients. The buildings are located on a plot of 27 acres; adjoining this on the west and north are 38 additional acres, also belonging to the hospital, for future expansion and to be used for day camps for children or adults needing sunshine and outdoor life under medical supervision, also night camps for men with incipient or arrested tuberculosis, who are still bread winners, for, while located on high land in one of the suburbs, the grounds are easy of access.
The admitting department and outdoor clinic, surgical pavilion, kitchen and service building are located on the long axis of the group, to be easy of access from all the pavilions, and being low structures do not interfere with light and air. All the buildings (except the contagious group) are united by large well-lighted basement and first-story corridors. A patient can be taken on a wheeled stretcher all over the twenty-seven acres through the basement corridors without the use of inclines, steps or elevators.
The administration building (No. 1) contains an extensive working and reference library for the staff and students and a lecture hall suitable for meetings of various kinds, but especially for medical societies. The City thus shows its appreciation of the free service that the medical profession renders to the city's poor, by furnishing a meeting place, where not alone the staff, but every physician in the city can come and have the advantages that only a well equipped teaching hospital can furnish. They need not confine their meetings to this hall alone; use can be made of the large amphitheater where will be placed powerful projecting lanterns and every facility for demonstrations. Ox they may meet in the amphitheater of the spacious pathological building where the professors of pathology and bacteriology can give demonstrations of specimens saved specially for such meetings. Thus the hospital may be made the city's center for medical education, not limited to the staff, the students and internes.
Adjoining the administration building is the admitting department and Outdoor Clinic where students can see every variety of emergency, medical, obstetric and surgical cases. They can also follow up and see final results in those who have recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital, but return as out-patients for treatment until entirely cured. The basement of the admitting department is well lighted by wide areaways. Every patient's clothing passes through the large sterilizer located here, and then goes to the tailor-shop to be cleaned, mended and pressed before being stored away; there is also a large sunstroke and poison room here with every modern facility for treating such cases. On the main floor of the admitting department and the Outdoor Clinic in addition to the examination and treatment rooms, we have two wards—one for each sex, where patients who arrive after 9:00 p. m. are kept till the next morning, in order not to disturb the ward patients. The social service department will have its office in this building. The ambulance or any public conveyance will bring the ordinary cases to the front of the building, 
but emergency eases are brought to the rear and taken directly into the special operating room.
The colonnaded corridor shown unites all the ward buildings on their north end. The basement of this corridor is well lighted and ventilated by windows varying from two to six feet in height according to the slope of the ground. The first floor and roof of this colonnade is fourteen feet wide, paved with red quarry tiles, and will be used for the open-air treatment of both bedridden and convalescent patients. The northern end of the building or "head house" is four-storied. In the first three stories of the "head house" are located the administrative department of the "ward unit" and four small isolation wards. The fourth floor of the "head house" is a roof ward, the balance of the floor is open, surrounded by a nine-foot parapet pierced by numerous windows, permitting an extensive view of the surrounding country, and acting as a wind break when closed or permitting a free circulation of air when opened. The first 50 feet next to the "head house" is covered with awnings where patients can receive outdoor treatment and yet be protected from rain or snow. The arrangement of the wards and the other buildings of the great group shown in the illustration in all its details is the result of a great deal of study and the help of many hospital workers. A full description will be found in Dr. Holmes's pamphlet: "The Planning of a Modern Hospital."
DARWINISM, ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND THE CHURCHES
In the June Forum is an article by Mr. Elmer J. Kneale entitled "Darwin, Science and Evolution," which contains answers from prominent people to the questions: "(1) Do you believe the teachings of Darwin in their general outline remain to-day as a contribution to science? (2) Do you believe that a majority of intellectual leaders are today inclined to accept these teachings?" The answers to such questions, unless they are from experts, have of course no value in reference to the truth of Darwin's teachings, but they have a certain interest in revealing public sentiment. As a matter of fact, of the large number who reply, only three are decidedly adverse—prelates in the Catholic and Greek churches—though several protestant clergymen write guardedly. The identification of Darwinism with the doctrine of organic evolution in the public mind is unfortunate, for when a scientific man argues that Darwin's theory of natural selection is not an adequate causal explanation of the origin of species, this is distorted to be a "confession" that there has been no organic evolution.
Sentiment among the churches against the doctrine of evolution, especially in the south, is widespread. A curious exhibition is given in a statement recently made by a committee on behalf of the Galveston (Texas) Ministerial Association, which reads as follows:
We wish to say to the public in general, but to the fathers and mothers of the children of Galveston in particular, that we, the committee appointed last week by the Ministerial Association to confer with the state superintendent of public instruction, with reference to the expurgation of certain statements in Tarr's New Physical Geography plainly teaching the Darwinian and atheistic theory of man's origin, have done so, and with most gratifying results.
Referring to our letter to him, Mr. Doughty says: "In reply thereto, permit me to say that the copy of the book to which you refer is of the unrevised edition" (the one now in use in the schools—Committee). "Soon after assuming the duties of this office on September 1, 1913, an objection to this paragraph was referred to me as chairman of the revision committee on the adopted text, and I immediately took up the matter with the publishers and succeeded in securing a satisfactory revision of the objectionable paragraph. . . . It is my desire to do everything within my power to give the children of this state wholesome instruction, and permit me here to say that I am in hearty accord with the ideas and purposes of the Christian faith."
These are noble words on the part of our state superintendent, and in them we have the pleasing assurance that the new edition to be placed in the hands of our children next fall will not contain the Darwinian theory of evolution—and this is all we have been contending for.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
Dr. Alfred E. Barlow, of Montreal, distinguished for his work in Archean and mining geology, with Mrs. Barlow, was drowned in the wreck of the Empress of Ireland. We regret also to record the deaths of Jesse J. Myers, assistant professor of physiology and zoology at the Michigan Agricultural College; of Dr. Paul von Mauser, inventor of the Mauser rifle; of Mr. Robert Kaye Gray, an electrical engineer, active in the promotion of scientific research in England, and of M. Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult, known for his work with aluminum and the electric furnace.
A committee has been formed in France, under the patronage of M. Poincaré, president of the Republic, for the erection of a monument in honor of J. H. Fabre, the famous entomologist. The idea is, not only to erect a monument at Serignan, but to preserve and to convert into a museum the estate of Harmas, the dwelling of the great naturalist. Subscriptions are asked from naturalists all over the world, and may be sent to the president of the committee, M. Henri de la Paillonne, mayor of Serignan (Vaucluse), France.
Dr. Thomas H. MacBride, professor of botany, has been appointed president of the Iowa State University by the State Board of Education.—Dr. S. J. Meltzer, head of the department of physiology and pharmacology of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, has been elected president of the Association of American Physicians in succession to Dr. Simon Flexner.—The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, on May 20, presented its Elliott Cresson medals to Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith and Dr. Orville Wright.
An additional endowment has been provided for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, for the establishment of a department of animal pathology. It is to be organized and conducted by Professor Theobald Smith, of Harvard University.