Simon Flexner

Simon Flexner. [Born] 1863. Physician. A Centurion for forty-two years.

This is the already legendary figure who created the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. That Institute was his lengthened shadow as it is his monument—a towering monument; for he fashioned it into an instrument for good to humanity, the like of which had not been seen before. That was in 1902 and to see his achievement in perspective it is necessary to see that the following forty years mark an advancement in science comparable to that which occurred in all the years preceding them.

In the 17th century the academies had arisen to compensate for the conservatism of the universities which were failing to foster the then young scientific movement. Through their agency the universities were awakened and in due course they expanded to meet the needs up to our own time. Then again the demand for new knowledge became so urgent that it not be satisfied within the now again conservative university structure. In such an atmosphere the Rockefeller Institute was founded.

That it succeeded uncounted thousands now alive who otherwise would not be alive, uncounted millions in health, are witness—though they know it not—to the worth of the scientist and organizer and visionary wise-man that was Simon Flexner.

He was governed by a faith that all truth is worth discovering and by a driving urge to serve that faith; and he never, amid the pressures of administration, ceased to be himself a discoverer.

He was interested, interesting, understanding and sympathetic with the mellow interest, understanding and sympathy of a man whose view is all around the horizon and beyond. And he was the embodiment of the conviction that not the least part of science is its humanities.

Source: Henry Allen Moe Papers, Mss.B.M722. Reproduced by permission of American Philosophical Society Library & Museum, Philadelphia

Henry Allen Moe
Henry Allen Moe Papers, 1946 Memorials