Abstract
TWO lectures were delivered by Prof. Simon Flexner at Oxford early in the present year, in which he traced the establishment of clinics in medicine and surgery on a university basis. He suggested that this involves three factors: (1) the provision of laboratories in the clinic for scientific research, (2) the appointment of clinical professors qualified in at least one subject of medical research, and (3) the power of these professors to command time for the patients from whom the research problems are derived. The key to the achievement of these conditions, Prof. Flexner considers, lies in laboratories attached to the clinics, where investigator and student meet and labour together, and he proceeded to review the history of the development of such laboratories. The establishment of clinical laboratories was traced back to John Hughes Bennett and Lionel Smith Beale in the middle of last century in Britain, to Frerichs and Traube in Germany, and to Bowditch and Newell Martin in America. In conclusion, a tribute was paid to Lord Nulfield who, in making his wise and munificent benefaction for medicine, recognized the need to aid the pre-clinical, as well as the clinical, laboratories. The lectures constitute a valuablo history of the subject, and have been issued in pamphlet form by the Clarendon Press, Oxford.
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Evolution of the University Clinic and its Laboratories. Nature 144, 147–148 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144147c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144147c0