New-York tribune., 1906-06-30
SCIENTISTS In SESSION.
Rockefeller Hall Dedicated at ithaca
Health Department Urged.

Ithaca, n. 7, June 2s.-The American Association
Tor the Advancement OF Science opened its meet
ings In Ithaca to-day President schurrnan OF Cor
nell University and Mayor Bradford Almy OF
Ithaca. made addresses of welcome in Barnes Hall
PROFESSOR w. H. Welch, OF Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity rs president OF the association responded.
ne SAID the aim Of the association TO estab-
hsh consensus OF scientific opinion and to avoid
the dangers Of too minute specialization in scien-
ti1c activity. He declared however specialization
to be the great instrument of progress
The Rockefeller Hall Of Physics was dedicated In
the afternoon The total cost of the structure,
which is the largest physical laboratory the con-
uhent, was S2S5,eo The dedication exercises
opened with invocation by Professor Charles
Melen Tyler. Professor F. L. Nichols head OF the
Cornell physics department delivered an address,
In which he announced that he expected that two
thousand students would receive instruction in
physics In the new building next fall Professor
Nichols declared that Professor Anthony first head
OF une cornell physics department. had used the
nrst practical dynamo constructed in America-the
ola Gramme machne-for the first time for prac-
ucal purposes. He said that yeats before London.
Paris, Berlin or New York could show an electric
Nsht thls hilltop cleaned with arc lamps to the
amazement Of country people for twenty miles
around and there uninterrupted nightly
service from that time on These lamps were sun
pHed oy the Gramme machine, and the wires were
Underground Some Of the lines. he said. after
having been buried some twenty years were tested
DR.. Elihu Thompson, of the General Electric
company, spoke Physics and the Industrial
Arts" DR.. WEIGH spoke on The Relation Of
Physics to Medicine. DIR. r. s. woodward, presi-
dent Of the Carnegie Institute spoke on The Place
of Physics in Scientific Research
j Pease Norton, assistant professor of economics,
Yale University read paper on The Economic
Advisablity Of a National Department of Health.
in which ne said:
There are four great wastes to-day the more
preventable death preventabIe Sickness preventabe
conditions Of low physical and mental efficiency and
wastes is testified to by experts competent to judge
They play their part in a cruel Devastating de
struction that is almost Incredible to the human
mind. The facts cold and bare. One million
ntad ye 5uHSgsd sntas must die in the
Equivalent to 4.2O0og0 persons will be constantly
persons will be made more less wretched by
mortality and morbdity.
The national government exrends annually 5000
600 on plant health and animal health through the
Department of Agriculture but not one cent is ex-
pended directly the health Of infants for
the splendid work of Drs. Wiley. Atwater. Benedict,
etc Thousands have been expended in stamping
out cholera among swine, but. not one cent has
been appropriated for eradicating pneumonia
among human beings Thousands have been spent
warning farmers against blights affecting potato
plants. in importing Sician bugs TO fertilize big
eI MT1GS IN ou IN ne sr.sio % eroybe t%n Te @ ON
@ the PapaEc crowns W rSL prey e
expended during the last ten years over Si6cOO;0e
The states rights doctrine be applied against
the Department of Agriculture as effectively as
against a national department of health. 1t is not.
then, question of constutionality, but rather of
whether such department is needed by the ma
ton.
In America physicians connected with the Aneri-
can Medical Association have for a number of
years advocated that the executive Cabinet in
clude a Secretary of Health The necessity for
such a department has also arisen in connection
with the Panama Canal.
II seems desirable that United States national
department of health should be esta blished having
a
the executive Cabinet. The purpose of the depart
should be take all measures calculated in
the judgment of experts TO decrease deaths to de
crease sicknesses and to increase the physical and
mental efficiency of citizens. 1t is probable that
national department of health could be advanta-
geously made consist of the following national
bureaus: Infant hygiene education and schools.
sanitation pure food. registration of physicians and
surgeons. registration of drugs, druggists and drug
manufacturers, registration of institutions of pub
lie and private relief. correction detention and resi-
dence organic diseases quarantine health informa-
ton, immigration, labor conditions, research re-
Quiring statistics and research requiring labora-
tories and equipment.