The claims of scientific research on the public were never more forcibly urged than in Professor Ray Lankester's recent Romanes Lecture before the University of Oxford. Man is here eloquently pictured as Nature's rebel, who, under conditions where his great superior commands "Thou shalt die," replies "I will live." In pursuance of this determination, civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference with the regular course of Nature that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to be inflicted on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. This rebel by every step forward renders himself liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in one single step. One of Nature's most powerful agencies in thwarting his determination to live is found in disease-producing parasites. "Where there is one man of first-rate intelligence now employed in gaining knowledge of this agency, there should be a thousand. It should be as much the purpose of civilized nations to protect their citizens in this respect as it is to provide defence against human aggression." It was no part of the function of the lecturer to devise a plan for carrying on the great war he proposes to wage. The object of the present article is to contribute some suggestions in this direction; with especial reference to conditions in our own country; and no better text can be found for a discourse on the subject than the preceding quotation. In saying that there should be a thousand investigators of disease where there is now one, I believe that Professor Lankester would be the first to admit that this statement was that of an ideal to be aimed at, rather than of an end to be practically reached. Every careful thinker will agree that to gather a body of men, young or old, supply them with laboratories and microscopes, and tell them to investigate disease, would be much like sending out an army without trained leaders to invade an enemy's country. There is at least one condition of success in this line which is better fulfilled in our own country than in any other; and that is liberality of support on the part of munificent citizens desirous of so employing their wealth as to promote the public good. Combining this instrumentality with the general public spirit of our people, it must be admitted that, with all the disadvantages under which scientific research among us has hitherto labored, there is still no country to which we can look more hopefully than to our own as the field in which the ideal set forth by Professor Lankester is to be pursued. Some thoughts on the question how scientific research may be most effectively promoted in our own country through organized effort may therefore be of interest. Our first step will be to inquire what general lessons are to be learned from the experience of the past.