The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1925. MEDICAL RESEARCH.

Evening Star, Issue 18999, 22 July 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1925. MEDICAL RESEARCH.

Tin', University Council had a pleasant task yesterday afternoon in receiving donations from live separate sources, to an aggregate amount of several thousand pounds, for scholarships, for the now Dental School, and for scientific research. They are all good causes. Scholarships are not so much prises as they are incentives and aids to the brightest minds, whether of the secondary schools or of the University itself, to pursue their studies to that superior point which would often be unattainable without them. It has been a great struggle to get the new Dental School, and when it is ready for occupation the fulfilment of that first need will inevitably bo the parent of others. That has been pointed out by Dr I’ickerill in his statement, made before the University Commission which is now sitting in Dunedin, that if tho school grows as it may be expected to do more extensions will bo needed for it in the not distant future, and that before those are required there will be an additional cost of maintenance and upkeep. The trustees of the Dunedin Savings Bank, whom this community has cause to thank for many previous benefactions to deserving causes, have shown wise discrimination in including this particular institution in the next allocation from their profits. The financial needs of education are almost endless. Every year the Government’s expenditure upon it increases, but that expenditure docs not nearly cover all the requirements that are needed, and the spirit which promises best for education is that which is shown directly by a community in making its own gifts and bequests to educational institutions, causing their usefulness to expand with expanding needs, and ensuring the best reason for its pride in them. That spirit has been well shown in the past in Otago, making the sole reason for those advantages, in respect of certain facilities for tho higher education, which this city enjoys over Auckland, for example, and which have not failed to make a grievance for tho northern centre. It is good to see that Otago University, whoso Medical and Dental Schools have cause to progress for the benefit of tho whole dominion, now that they have been acknowledged as national institutions, is still receiving benefactions. Of tho latest gifts to bo acknowledged special interest will no doubt attach at this time to tho bequest of £IOO for cancer research from a Wellington worker, one of tho victims of that fell disease, and the memorial gift by Mrs H. A. Massey of £I,OOO for a similar purpose. Both amounts will be subsidised by the Government. Mrs Massey’s generosity is in keeping with her late husband’s, and admiration muse bo felt for the Wellington worker, concerned with his last thoughts to save others from the fate which science in his own case had no power to avert. They are not the first donations which have been made for the purposes of scientific research to Otago University, hut they are the first which have been made for cancer research. The radium fund which was raised here was not so much for research as for the treatment of cancer in its earlier stages, and it is a question whether, now that like funds have been raised in other parts of the dominion, too much money is not being spent by the country generally on the purchase of radium. A centralised system, with Dunedin for its headquarters, might have been approved with the saving of expense, and more money devoted to research. The Otago Medical School has been cramped hitherto for purposes of research work by the exiguousness of its funds, but a special domain of usefulness was opened up for it a few months ago by the Government’s granting of an amount of £2,000 for the investigation of infantile paralysis, and the now benefactions will have value for the study of a still more dreaded complaint, one of which tho ravages are not intermittent at long intervals, but constant. New hope has been given of a cure being found for cancer by the discoveries just reported of Dr Gye and Mr Barnard. There seems small doubt that the cause of the disease has been established, at the same time that improved means have been made available for its investigation. The discovery of the cause means that scientists will no longer he work-

ing in tho dark in future in their search for a euro of tin's, most fatal disease as they have hitherto had to do. It is the first great forward step. When we remember, however, that the germ of tuberculosis was discovered in 1883, and that of infantile paralysis sixteen years ago, it becomes evident that a long process may bo needed yet before cancer can bo robbed of its terrors for mankind by tho discovery of a cure. Too much research can never bo given to tho matter till it is discovered. But research has its own value for a medical school, quite apart_ from the direct results obtained from. it. It has been said that foreign missions, though their influence may seem small in particular fields, are the life of those churches which maintain them through the ardor which they inspire and preserve. Research work has a like value for a university.