“Life is short, experience treacherous, judgment difficult,” said Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Two thousand years ago, no less than now, judgment was difficult, life short; the barber was the surgeon and major operations were equivalent to death warrants! The physician, when he did not refer to the ancients, was still looking to chance experience for his knowledge; while ‘Asiatic cholera’ stalked the land.

Then it was that experience that began to be supplemented by experiment. Vesalius introduces dissection; Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood; Jenner banished the terrors of small-pox; Pasteur, experimental-chemist, turning to the study of micro-organisms, laid the foundation of Modern Medicine. Listen, applying the new knowledge to his work with the scalpel, founded modern aseptic surgery -- all in three hundred years and simply because men began to observe closely and with open minds, while they caused things to happen, instead of observing casually, with closed minds and when things chanced to happen.

What of the method by which men are thus creating or helping nature to create a better physical environment for us all? If the desire is for something intrinsically new, whether alloy steel, a synthetic dyestuff, a radio tube, or a spineless cactus, it must be obtained, if at all, in nature’s prescribed way. It must be created, and nobody who is in a hurry to get something has ever been very successful in learning what way nature prescribes. On the other hand, certain intellectually honest, enthusiastically persevering individuals, endowed with insatiable curiosity, keen power of observation, ingenuity, originality, patience, commonsense and the urge to take infinite pains, have been notably successful in inducing nature to reveal her secret ways of working.

So, when ‘Curiosity’ began to learn from nature, he began to observe her closely and to record faithfully what he observed. As an experimenter, he is like any good general, man must have a well-thought-out plan of attack, but must also be an opportunist and change his plan to meet unexpected situations as they arise. He must be open-minded, must seek facts regardless of whether they may lead him. If he is not open-minded, is not intellectually honest, he will be inclined to explain away an unexpected result; he may even refrain from recording it. In such a case, he is not playing the game, but he overlooks the fact that some of the greatest discoveries have come out of irregular results which were not rejected but were further investigated. it was only a slight irregularity found in the orbit of Uranus that led Adams and Le Verrier, independently to discover Neptune.

In has been truly said that the great events of history are its great scientific discoveries. “In our century, science is the soul of the prosperity of nations and the living source of all progress. Undoubtedly, the tiring daily discussions of politics seem to be our guide. Employ appearances! -- What really lead us forward a few scientific discoveries and their applications” - says Pasteur!

Salute to the scientists from the depth of my heart.

M.IRFAN,

Hub.