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THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION : A NEW CHARTER
181 should be which is
a
doubt about its purity, an injunction to be unobserved just where the
Annotations.
sure
necessity is greatest. Compared with many rivers of the Continent of Europe, to say nothing of such streams as the Nile or the Amazon, the Thames may be an inconsiderable stream, but Sir Alexander Houstonl tells us that in its course from Staines to Hampton the Metropolitan Water Board abstracts 152 million gallons of water a day, or, to put it in pictorial form, more than enough water to supply at 35 gallons per head daily the needs of Bradford, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. River water, unfortunately, has to be filtered and disinfected, but it is gratifying to know that the two million people who have been supplied with chlorinated Thames water since May, 1916, have not complained about the taste of it Treatment with liquid chlorine of the water on its way from the Staines reservoirs to Sunbury, instead of the old plan of adding bleaching powder at Staines itself, has not only been effective in eliminating the colon bacillus, but has been economical in practice, since it increases the volume of water which can be passed through a filter before it has to be cleaned out. It may be remarked in passing that it costs 240 to clean an acre of filter-bed. But although chlorine has thus come to be accepted by the London water z’ drinker, there have been flavours and colours in the water which have troubled the Water Board. Several years ago the water from the Barnes works acquired a taste euphoniously described in the laboratories as " geranium-like," but more pointedly by the conThis sumers as resembling rotten fish or castor oil. taste was completely removed by the addition of 2t to 5 pounds of potassium permanganate to every million gallons of water, the faintly pink tinge of the water soon disappearing, leaving behind only a slight brownish discoloration. The malefactor in this case was the troublesome but harmless tabellaria. A few years previously another harmless growth, oscillaria, developed to such an extent in the filter-beds that they looked as though they had been fouled with green paint; in this case a small dose of copper sulphate proved sufficient to eliminate the mischief. Chlorination has not, it appears, been such a success in the other sources of London water. In the New River the colon bacillus, after its apparent removal at Crouch End, has reappeared by the time the water leaves the Stoke Newington reservoir and the cause of its reappearance is not yet clear. Of bacterial contamination the presence or absence of the typhoid bacillus is of the first importance, and it is reassuring to find from a long series of experiments with the glucose-bismuth-sulphite-iron medium described by Wilson and Blair, and later by Prof. Wilson at the Public Health Congress in 1928, that Sir Alexander Houston is convinced not only of the value of the medium, but of the practical absence of this organism in 100 c.cm. of raw river water, and by inference in one thousand times that amount of purified water. *
THE KING. IT is
satisfactory to learn that during the week
following his operation on July 15th the King has made steady progress. The fact that purulent discharge from the abscess has already ceased shows that the
taken to promote drainage were and have achieved speedy success. The inconvenience and discomfort of the first few days following any operation are not negligible, but the fact that the King was allowed to sit up for a short period as early as last Monday, and for some hours on Tuesday, shows how little his general health has been disturbed. We are entitled to hope that his complete recovery is now only a, matter of time, and that’no further interference will be required. measures
fully justified
"Ne quid nimis."
THE
ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION : A NEW CHARTER
IN 1909 the Rockefeller
Sanitary
Commission
was
established for the control of hookworm disease in United States, and in 1913 the Rockefeller Foundation came into existence, taking over the Sanitary Commission. After 16 years of intense activity entailing the total expenditure of over 144 million dollars the Foundation has opened a new chapter by certain steps of extension and
the
reorganisation. These changes
are recorded in a review for 1928 by the President of the Foundation, George E. Vincent. He describes how during 1928 a conference committee of four Rockefeller boards-the General Education Board, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the International Education Board-sought ways of bringing the work of these organisations into close and more definitely cooperative relations. In the autumn the committee made a report embodying recommendations which were approved by all the groups, with the understanding that the new regime would take effect at the beginning of 1929. Among the essential features of the reorganisation is the merging of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial into the Rockefeller Foundation, which will begin as a new corporation. This new Foundation will extend its activities to include not only public health, but the advancement of knowledge in the medical sciences, in the natural sciences (taking over the foreign programme of the International Education Board), in the social sciences (previously administered by the Memorial), and in the humanities. The public health activities will be administered in future through an International Health Division with a group of seven scientific directors and a China Medical Board is to be incorporated, with independent trustees, to which the lands and buildings in Pekin, together with endowment funds and annual appropriations, will be given. The details of this vast amalgamation and reorganisation of resources appear to be fully worked out, and if it is possible to imagine a further extension of the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation such an extension should now take place. To by the anyone unacquainted with the work done Foundation under the glorious motto of " The wellbeing of mankind throughout the world " a study of In one the review for 1928 will be illuminating. almost breathless sentence in which a full-stop does not occur for nearly two pages, it is announced quite bluntly that the Foundation in 1928 expended over 21 million dollars on some 20 different forms of activity. Each of the 20 headings covers large areas of country and large pieces of work. A sample of the methods and policy adopted is given in a description of the Lyon Medical Centre. At Lyon the municipal authorities have under construction a large new hospital; the Foundation was asked to cooperate in providing an adequate medical centre for education and research. The first step was to invite the dean with two of his staff and the university architect to visit medical centres in various countries as guests of the Foundation. The commission returned to Lyon, worked out a plan, and as a result of this a medical school building is being erected immediately across the street from the new hospital, while the project also includes an increase in the annual budget to improve teaching facilities and the provision in the hospital of laboratories for the clinical subjects. Towards the cost of this project, to which the Government, the municipality, the university, and private citizens contribute, the Rockefeller Foundation has appropriated or pledged 43 million francs.
a
doubt about its purity, an injunction to be unobserved just where the
Annotations.
sure
necessity is greatest. Compared with many rivers of the Continent of Europe, to say nothing of such streams as the Nile or the Amazon, the Thames may be an inconsiderable stream, but Sir Alexander Houstonl tells us that in its course from Staines to Hampton the Metropolitan Water Board abstracts 152 million gallons of water a day, or, to put it in pictorial form, more than enough water to supply at 35 gallons per head daily the needs of Bradford, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. River water, unfortunately, has to be filtered and disinfected, but it is gratifying to know that the two million people who have been supplied with chlorinated Thames water since May, 1916, have not complained about the taste of it Treatment with liquid chlorine of the water on its way from the Staines reservoirs to Sunbury, instead of the old plan of adding bleaching powder at Staines itself, has not only been effective in eliminating the colon bacillus, but has been economical in practice, since it increases the volume of water which can be passed through a filter before it has to be cleaned out. It may be remarked in passing that it costs 240 to clean an acre of filter-bed. But although chlorine has thus come to be accepted by the London water z’ drinker, there have been flavours and colours in the water which have troubled the Water Board. Several years ago the water from the Barnes works acquired a taste euphoniously described in the laboratories as " geranium-like," but more pointedly by the conThis sumers as resembling rotten fish or castor oil. taste was completely removed by the addition of 2t to 5 pounds of potassium permanganate to every million gallons of water, the faintly pink tinge of the water soon disappearing, leaving behind only a slight brownish discoloration. The malefactor in this case was the troublesome but harmless tabellaria. A few years previously another harmless growth, oscillaria, developed to such an extent in the filter-beds that they looked as though they had been fouled with green paint; in this case a small dose of copper sulphate proved sufficient to eliminate the mischief. Chlorination has not, it appears, been such a success in the other sources of London water. In the New River the colon bacillus, after its apparent removal at Crouch End, has reappeared by the time the water leaves the Stoke Newington reservoir and the cause of its reappearance is not yet clear. Of bacterial contamination the presence or absence of the typhoid bacillus is of the first importance, and it is reassuring to find from a long series of experiments with the glucose-bismuth-sulphite-iron medium described by Wilson and Blair, and later by Prof. Wilson at the Public Health Congress in 1928, that Sir Alexander Houston is convinced not only of the value of the medium, but of the practical absence of this organism in 100 c.cm. of raw river water, and by inference in one thousand times that amount of purified water. *
THE KING. IT is
satisfactory to learn that during the week
following his operation on July 15th the King has made steady progress. The fact that purulent discharge from the abscess has already ceased shows that the
taken to promote drainage were and have achieved speedy success. The inconvenience and discomfort of the first few days following any operation are not negligible, but the fact that the King was allowed to sit up for a short period as early as last Monday, and for some hours on Tuesday, shows how little his general health has been disturbed. We are entitled to hope that his complete recovery is now only a, matter of time, and that’no further interference will be required. measures
fully justified
"Ne quid nimis."
THE
ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION : A NEW CHARTER
IN 1909 the Rockefeller
Sanitary
Commission
was
established for the control of hookworm disease in United States, and in 1913 the Rockefeller Foundation came into existence, taking over the Sanitary Commission. After 16 years of intense activity entailing the total expenditure of over 144 million dollars the Foundation has opened a new chapter by certain steps of extension and
the
reorganisation. These changes
are recorded in a review for 1928 by the President of the Foundation, George E. Vincent. He describes how during 1928 a conference committee of four Rockefeller boards-the General Education Board, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the International Education Board-sought ways of bringing the work of these organisations into close and more definitely cooperative relations. In the autumn the committee made a report embodying recommendations which were approved by all the groups, with the understanding that the new regime would take effect at the beginning of 1929. Among the essential features of the reorganisation is the merging of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial into the Rockefeller Foundation, which will begin as a new corporation. This new Foundation will extend its activities to include not only public health, but the advancement of knowledge in the medical sciences, in the natural sciences (taking over the foreign programme of the International Education Board), in the social sciences (previously administered by the Memorial), and in the humanities. The public health activities will be administered in future through an International Health Division with a group of seven scientific directors and a China Medical Board is to be incorporated, with independent trustees, to which the lands and buildings in Pekin, together with endowment funds and annual appropriations, will be given. The details of this vast amalgamation and reorganisation of resources appear to be fully worked out, and if it is possible to imagine a further extension of the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation such an extension should now take place. To by the anyone unacquainted with the work done Foundation under the glorious motto of " The wellbeing of mankind throughout the world " a study of In one the review for 1928 will be illuminating. almost breathless sentence in which a full-stop does not occur for nearly two pages, it is announced quite bluntly that the Foundation in 1928 expended over 21 million dollars on some 20 different forms of activity. Each of the 20 headings covers large areas of country and large pieces of work. A sample of the methods and policy adopted is given in a description of the Lyon Medical Centre. At Lyon the municipal authorities have under construction a large new hospital; the Foundation was asked to cooperate in providing an adequate medical centre for education and research. The first step was to invite the dean with two of his staff and the university architect to visit medical centres in various countries as guests of the Foundation. The commission returned to Lyon, worked out a plan, and as a result of this a medical school building is being erected immediately across the street from the new hospital, while the project also includes an increase in the annual budget to improve teaching facilities and the provision in the hospital of laboratories for the clinical subjects. Towards the cost of this project, to which the Government, the municipality, the university, and private citizens contribute, the Rockefeller Foundation has appropriated or pledged 43 million francs.