A sketch of the development of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research

LE Holt - Science, 1906 - science.org
LE Holt
Science, 1906science.org
To this group of five, two others were added a few weeks later, and on June 14, 1901, the
institution was formally incorporated as The Rockefeller Institute for. Medical Research, with
the seven mien re-ferred to as its board of directors. They were William H. Welch, T. MIitchell
Prudden, Christian A. Herter, Theobald Smith, Hermann M. Biggs, Simon Flexner and L.
Emmett Holt. The same board has been continued up to the present time. At this first meeting
a pledge of $200,000 was made to the board to bedrawn upon at their dis-cretion during a …
To this group of five, two others were added a few weeks later, and on June 14, 1901, the institution was formally incorporated as The Rockefeller Institute for. Medical Research, with the seven mien re-ferred to as its board of directors. They were William H. Welch, T. MIitchell Prudden, Christian A. Herter, Theobald Smith, Hermann M. Biggs, Simon Flexner and L. Emmett Holt. The same board has been continued up to the present time. At this first meeting a pledge of $200,000 was made to the board to bedrawn upon at their dis-cretion during a period of ten vears, it being understood that this was forpreliminary work.
In considering what use should be made of the funds placed at its disposal to make them immediately productiveof some sci-entific results, and at the same time to get a general viewof the field, the board decided not to centralize work in a single place, but to create a number of scholarships or fellowships to bedistributed in existing laboratories throughout the country. In this way it was hoped several ends might be attained: first, to enlist the cooperation of various investigrators in different places; secondly, to aid some pronmising lines of research which could not be continued for lack of funds; and, finially, to discover who and where were the persons who desired to undertake research work and what were their qualifications. From a large number of applications received, twenty-three grants were made to eighteen different laboratories in this couin-try, and three men were sent abroad to pursue special investigations, two in Ehrlich's laboratory in Frankfurt and one in Koch's Institute in Berlin.
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