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MARINE  BIOLOGICAL  LABORATORY. 

Received     ...Sept....  12...     1939 
Accession  No.      51=2.7.9 

Given  by D.r>... .H.«...  MeE*    Kn.ower 

Place,  To  ad  s    Hole  ,  .  M.a  s  s  • 

*^*flo  book  op  pamphlet  is  to  be  removed   from   the  lab- 
oratory ulithout  the  permission  of  the  Trustees. 


This  is  number  ij&    of 
five  hundred  specially 
printed  copies  of 

WILLIAM  B  WHERRY 
BACTERIOLOGIST 

by 

Martin  Fischer 

who,  in  evidence, 
signs  his  name 


Men  write  their  own  biographies 


p 


WILLIAM  B  WHERRY 

Bacteriologist 


by 

MARTIN  FISCHER 


CHARLES  C  THOMAS 

SPRINGFIELD    ■    ILLINOIS  BALTIMORE    •    MARYLAND 

1938 


COPYRIGHT  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  THIRTY-EIGHT  BY   MARTIN   FISCHER 
AH  rights  reserved  including  the  right  to  reproduce  this  book  or  parts   thereof  in   any   form 


THE  SCIENCE  PRESS  PRINTING  COMPANY,  LANCASTER,  PENNSYLVANIA,  USA 


WILLIAM  B  WHERRY 

Bacteriologist 


PREFACE 


WHEN  William  Buchanan  Wherry  died,  a  colleague 
declared  that  frthe  last  and  the  greatest  of  the  bacteri- 
ologists of  our  period"  had  gone.  Those  who  share  this  opin- 
ion find  the  evidence  in  his  scientific  papers.  But  Wherry 
had  a  hold  upon  the  men  of  his  circle  {those  of  Cincinnati, 
especially)  not  explained  by  the  listing  of  his  publications. 
The  fact  has  called  forth  this  Nachruf .  Seven  hundred  stood 
at  his  funeral.  They  were  not  his  relatives  alone,  but  those 
who  made  his  city,  his  university,  his  hospital,  his  health  board; 
and  a  bereft  conglomerate  which  could  not  otherwise  declare 
affection.  It  is  for  these  that  the  incidents  of  the  following 
pages  have  been  gathered  together. 

Martin  Fischer 


fc  (L19RAR 


University  of  Cincinnati,  193  8 

In  the  Joseph  Eichberg  Laboratory  for  Physiology 


He  died  here  Sunday , 

unknown  to  the 

general  public.     But 

that  is  as  he  wanted  it. 

His  scientific  work 

was  for  use,  not 

for  the  spotlight.      {Cincinnati  Post  editorial) 


CONTENTS 


I  1874-1897 

II  1897-1902 

III  1902-1905 

IV  1905-1906 
V  1906-1907 

VI  1907-1909 

VII  1909-1912 

VIII  1912-1915 

IX  1915-1917 

X  1917-1920 

XI  1920-1925 

XII  1925-1930 

XIII  1930-1936 

Bibliography 


78 


BIRTHPLACE,  LUDHIANA. 

THE  MISSION  HOUSE  OF  THE 

REVEREND  ELWOOD  MORRIS  WHERRY 


1874-1897 


I 


THE  frail  body  of  Clara  Maria  Buchanan  went  into  labor 
for  the  fourth  time  in  her  life  on  the  twenty- third  of 
December  in  1 874.  Of  previous  issues  the  son  had  died,  leaving 
two  daughters.  This  time  it  was  again  a  son;  and  one  destined 
to  live — William  Buchanan  Wherry.  For  six  years  now  she  had 
been  living  in  the  missionary  compound  maintained  in  Lud- 
hiana  of  the  Pan  jab  by  the  Presbyterian  board  of  missions,  as 
the  wife  of  El  wood  Morris  Wherry,  who  at  twenty- four,  had 
pledged  himself  to  this  work  of  the  Lord.  The  density  of  popu- 
lation here  was  great,  the  density  of  Christianity,  low.  The 
vineyard — so  barren — needed  working;  and  Wherry  had  vol- 
unteered. Thus  the  two,  both  out  of  Pennsylvania  and  of 
sound  farmer  stock  had  set  forth  in  1867  on  the  five  months 
long  sail  into  India. 

Before  venturing  afar  the  missionary  had  equipped  himself 
well.  Born  in  1843  (in  South  Bend,  Indiana  county,  Pennsyl- 
vania) ,  he  was  of  sturdy  frame,  virile — as  proclaimed  by  a 
flowing  beard — and  spiritually  sure.  What  he  possessed  men- 
tally, was  clearly  evidenced  by  a  bachelor's  degree  wrested 
from  Jefferson  college  (Presbyterian)  in  Washington,  Penn- 
sylvania, when  but  nineteen.  Thereafter  he  had  taught  school 
for  two  years  in  the  alma  mater.  With  another  three  added 
for  sojourn  in  Princeton's  theological  seminary  (Presbyte- 
rian) ,  he  felt  himself  ready  for  any  place  to  which  God  might 
call.  This  proved  to  be  Ludhiana  where  at  the  moment  under 
discussion  he  was  thirty-one. 

The  confusion  surrounding  the  new  son's  arrival  was  con- 
siderable. The  Christmas  holidays  were  on,  even  though  the 
right  merry  Christmas  of  the  British  could  be  extended  to  but 
few — the  members  of  the  Wherry  household,  some  stray 
servants  of  Her  Royal  Highness's  Kingdom  at  large  in  the 
domains  beyond  the  sea,  and  such  East  Indians  as  had  forsworn 
their  own  mysticism  for  that  out  of  Palestine.  But  more  than 


this  must  have  been  active  seriously  to  upset  the  compound, 
for  his  birthday,  correctly  noted  above,  was  to  go  through  his 
life  of  sixty-odd  years  as  of  December  24,  1875!  Nor  was  he 
baptized  until  May  23,  1875  (by  the  Rev  A  Rudolph)  in  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Ludhiana — an  unconscionable 
delay  after  birth  by  parents  even  remotely  of  the  belief  that 
sin  may  be  inborn. 

The  missionary  compound  embraced  a  number  of  acres 
surrounded  by  hedge  or  fence.  In  earlier  days  it  had  belonged 
to  British  officialdom  but  now  it  was  ceded  to  the  holier  cause. 
There  stood  a  church,  a  school  for  the  children  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, store  houses,  and  quarters  of  various  kinds  for  the 
missionaries  themselves  and  their  families.  Also  present,  a 
printing  press. 

The  language  of  the  country  about,  was  Hindoostani.  In 
this  the  elder  Wherry  had  long  issued  tracts  to  the  natives.  For 
three  years  past  he  had  added  a  visiting  weekly,  gently  called 
the  Light  Disseminator.  It  is  not  strange  that  out  of  this  atmos- 
phere the  subject  of  this  biography  was  shortly  to  emerge  more 
adept  in  the  local  tongue  than  in  his  inherited  English.  More- 
over, the  Indian  children  who  frequented  the  compound  seem 
to  have  interested  him  in  deeper  fashion  than  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Christ's  followers.  Thus  it  was  foreordained  that 
he  should  retain  throughout  life  a  hidden  reactivity  to  their 
silences;  and  to  the  gospels  of  cunning  of  the  Orient.  For  the 
rest  he  rode  a  pony  or  played  with  zest  upon  a  violin;  and  when 
he  disappeared  for  worrisome  hours  from  the  compound,  it 
was  to  watch  butterflies  and  birds  wing  their  ways  about  or 
to  fly  a  kite.  But  not  in  quiet  western  fashion  but  with  glass 
knives  attached  to  tail,  to  swish  across  the  holding  line  of 
another's  starry  hope.  This  wickedness  of  a  Sunday  secured 
him  a  beating — also  a  scar  to  his  memory,  and  a  break  to  his 
faith  in  paternal  infallibility. 

His  precocity  received  a  set-back  at  ten.  Someway,  he 
caught  the  scarlet  fever.  When  in  the  third  week  of  It,  and 
the  family  had  committed  his  soul  to  God,  the  missionary, 
Dr  Sarah  Seward  stepped  in.  Dumping  the  comatose  form 
into  hot  water,  she  brought  consciousness,  sweat  and  a  series 
of  life-long  scars  to  the  unfeeling  body.  (Thirty  years  later 
in  Cincinnati,  Wherry  was  to  make  payment  for  this  in  kind — 


but  without  the  scars — by  saving  the  lives  of  some  kindred  % 
missionaries  of  Dr  Seward  returned  out  of  the  East! ) 

Family  opinion  held  the  mental  effects  of  his  scarlet  fever 
to  be  rather  enduring.  Sister  Lillian  used  them  to  explain  his 
weakness  in  arithmetic — a  weakness  scarcely  evident  in  the 
close  figuring  he  was  to  be  called  upon  to  do  for  thirty  years. 
"He  forgot  all  he  had  learned  earlier,"  she  once  said.  Well,  as  the 
evidence  was  to  show,  he  had  not  forgotten  how  to  read;  and 
as  to  writing,  here  was  matter  for  debate  unless  it  was  granted 
that  in  the  submission  of  the  sounds  of  the  two  languages 
which  he  knew  to  paper,  the  boy  had  anticipated  the  modern 
and  phonetic  method  of  spelling  by  some  fifty  years.  (What 
might  any  sensible  boy  be  expected  to  do  with  an  English  in 
which  ite,  ight,  eit  and  aet  all  sound  alike;  or  a  Hindoostani  in 
which  the  a  comes  out  so  short  that  it  is  written  u})  At  thir- 
teen he  wrote  from  the  country  into  which  he  had  been  sent 
to  recover  from  an  illness,  as  follows : 

Agra  Fort 

My  dear  Mama  &  Papa,  ' 

I  am  enjoying  myself  very  much.  Agre  is  a  very  nice  place. 
We  went  to  see  the  tage  yesterday  &  I  think  it  is  the  most 
beautiful  sight  I  ever  saw.  We  went  this  morning  to  see 
Sukndra,  which  is  6  miles  from  here.  I  hardly  ever  cough  now 
and  am  keeping  quite  well.  I  got  a  penknife  this  morning  and 

a  pencil,  the  penknife  cost 

1  —  o  — 0 

I  have  a  very  bad  cold  but  no  cough.  I  hope  you  are  all  quite 

well,  tell  Jonnie  that  I  am  going  to  bring  him  a  horse  if  I  can 

get  one,  and  Some  braclets.  now  I  must  end  with  love  to  all. 

Your  aff'  Son 

„       f  ,     ,       .  Willie  Wherry 

P  s  please  excuse  bad  writeng. 

This  letter,  like  the  rest,  went  back  to  the  boy  in  due  season 
properly  "scratched  up.  At  the  moment  this  was  the  father's 
educational  method  with  him. 

IN  1 889  the  elder  Wherry  had  completed  twenty- two  years 
of  missionary  toil.  The  number  of  his  children,  also,  had 
increased — to  seven.  Besides  the  older  girls,  Clara  Eleanor 


A  ("Nellie,"  her  father's  own  child,  never  married,  bread- 
winner and  War- worker)  and  Grace  (Grace  Elizabeth,  de- 
clared the  business  head  of  the  menage) ,  there  were  now  the 
younger,  Lillian  (beauty,  wit  and  musician  of  the  family,  to 
become  a  missionary  and  a  missionary's  wife) ,  Sarah  Almena 
(generally  known  as  "Minnie"  and  hating  it)  and  Annie 
Griffith  (the  family  thorn;  marrying  early  she  had  gone  west 
and  written  on  stationery  crested  from  one  devil  to  another, 
"The  newspapers  say  that  at  Chgo  Uni  they  sang  the  college 
song  the  other  day  instead  of  the  doxology.  It  wasn't  true,  I 
suppose,  but  it  probably  did  just  as  much  good.") .  And  then 
there  was  a  brother,  John  Llewellyn  (to  become  a  rancher). 
Because  of  the  need  for  their  more  formalized  education  and 
the  importance,  too,  of  getting  each  to  rest  more  democrati- 
cally upon  his  own  feet  (many  a  missionary  has  stressed  the 
"ruination"  of  his  offspring  wrought  by  the  attentions  of  too 
many  "native"  servants),  the  father  brought  the  brood  to 
America. 

To  make  the  hegira  possible,  he  had  obtained  for  himself 
promise  of  a  place  with  the  American  tract  society.  For  a 
year  the  family  fortunes  centred  in  Leroy,  New  York,  where 
all  the  children  went  to  a  public  school.  From  here  the  now 
fourteen-year-old  William  was  permitted  to  search  out  the 
relatives  who  had  remained  in  Pennsylvania.  This  episode  vis- 
ited upon  him  a  disillusionment  which  he  never  forgot.  Back 
in  the  compound  in  India,  he  had  been  told  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary sword  that  his  grandfather  had  carried,  and  how,  when 
he  himself  went  to  the  United  States,  it  would  be  his.  Demand- 
ing what  was  his  patrimony,  he  discovered  that  the  good 
burghers  had  converted  its  steel  into  three  pig-sticking  knives. 
Perhaps  it  was  this  desecration  of  the  ancient  that  subsequently 
made  him  hate  all  antiques.  When  grandfather's  clock  and 
other  bits  of  old  Pennsylvania  became  his,  he  stored  them  in  a 
leaking  barn. 

After  the  father  had  been  made  the  district  secretary  of  the 
Society,  he  moved  his  band  to  Chicago,  more  specifically  to  a 
suburb  thereof  known  as  River  Forest.  Here  the  elder  Wherry 
built  a  house  (278  Ashland  Avenue)  which  was  for  many 
years  to  function  as  one  of  the  permanent  post-office  addresses 
of  the  always  widely  scattered  family.  It  was  from  here  that 


iETATIS  SILE  iiii 


young  Wherry  was  started  into  Henrietta  Starrett's  school 
(the  Kenwood  institute)  in  preparation  for  college.  Between 
her  fears  that  he  would  never  make  the  Latin,  and  his  own  that 
he  was  too  old  for  the  place  anyway,  he  quit.  Wherefore,  a 
certain  Doctor  Bray  entered  his  educational  picture.  What  was 
his  Christian  name  nobody  knows;  nor  the  origin  of  his  doc- 
torate. Some  thought  him  an  M  D,  more  a  Ph  D,  the  most  a 
D  D,  the  weight  of  hearsay  evidence  lying  heaviest  with  the 
last  named.  Whatever  had  been  the  designation,  he  was  now 
busted.  The  elder  Wherry  had  definite  misgivings.  He  believed 
him,  in  plain  English,  an  "atheist,"  which  charge  the  doctor 
parried  by  attesting  to  the  fact  that  a  blue  angel  in  India  stood 
guard  over  him.  The  situation  made  for  frequent  calls  by  the 
father  upon  the  tutor  and  admonishment  that  he  leave  the 
boy's  religious  propensities  and  their  training  alone.  In  sisterly 
mind — in  fatherly,  too — the  boy's  "dullness"  at  the  "insti- 
tute" and  at  home  was  still  being  debited  to  his  scarlet  fever. 
Such  things  are  not  impossible,  of  course.  Yet,  what  in  the 
boy's  instance  passed  for  dullness  was  nothing  but  a  silence. 
There  was  germinating  in  his  own  mind  a  vine  which  was  to 
strangle  what  had  flowered  so  fully  in  his  father's. 

What  the  boy  did  beyond  his  lessons  has  never  been  dis- 
closed. Attendance  upon  church  and  Sunday  school  could  not 
be  avoided,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  less  intense  in  these 
matters  than  the  rest  of  the  children.  More  nebulous  appear 
certain  organization  activities  which  involved  the  bad  boys  of 
the  neighborhood.  The  type,  perhaps,  stood  closer  to  what  he 
remembered  out  of  India,  so  it  was  not  long  before  he  had  them 
corralled  into  a  "gang."  Later  in  life  he  used  to  boast  of  his 
crowd's  victories  over  the  weaker  tribes;  besides  which  no 
more  vicious  attacks  upon  society  seem  to  have  been  executed 
than  the  filching  of  tithes  from  ice  cream  freezers  too  care- 
lessly delivered  upon  the  back  porches  of  a  social  class  better 
off.  But,  as  his  college  years  approached,  these  romantic  ven- 
tures gave  way  before  a  less  material  one. 

Doctor  Bray  succeeded  quickly  and  well  with  the  prepara- 
tion of  his  charge  for  college.  It  delighted  the  father.  But  his 
delight  might  have  suffered  setback  had  he  known  the  content 
of  discussions  between  tutor  and  pupil.  The  elder  Wherry  was 
case-hardened  in  fundamentalism;  Doctor  Bray — as  we  shall 


WESTSIDE  DAYS  IN  TINTYPE.     FROM  LEFT  TO  RIGHT, 
SIDNEY  PINNEY   (METHODIST  DIVINE),  ROBERT  WHITE   (INDUSTRIALIST), 

WHERRY  (AT  THIS  TIME  ATHLETE) 


Q  see — soft  with  agnosticism.  To  his  indoors  instruction,  Bray 
had  added  the  outdoors — not  difficult  in  young  Wherry's  in- 
stance, who  had  brought  the  taste  for  it  from  India.  Thus  he 
came  to  make  long  excursions  into  what  was  still  a  deserted 
Westside.  What  he  did  on  these  tramps  was  look. 

Testimony  of  what  he  saw  appears  in  an  old  ledger  of  whicfr 
he  had  possessed  himself.  Ominously  marked  "Private!"  in 
huge  letters,  it  opens  at  once,  both  front  and  back.  The  back 
carries  a  date:  "River  Forest,  111  June  14,  1893."  (Wherry 
had  just  passed  his  eighteenth  birthday!)  There  follow  many 
carefully  written  paragraphs  marginally  noted  as  "No  1," 
"No  2,"  etc.  Their  content?  They  concern  "Ampelis  cedro- 
rum,  Coccygus  americanus,  Vireo  olivaceous,  Dolichonyx 
oryzivorous  juv  <?,"  etc.  Really,  they  are  the  titles  of  expedi- 
tions started  at  the  above  date  but  continued,  as  we  shall  see, 
into  1 894, 1895,  1896.  This  is  an  excerpt  from  under  the  Coc- 
cygus title: 

Upper  part  of  body  and  head  olive  gray  with  bronze  reflec- 
tions, below  pure  white.  The  primary  remiges  and  the  primary 
coverts,  cinnamon  colored  except  at  tips  which  are  like  the 
back  .  .  .  bill  black  above,  the  lower  edge  of  upper  mandible 
and  lower  mandible  yellow,  eyes  brown;  feet  lead  colored;  tar- 
sus scutellate  and  feathered  like  a  hawks.  11.75  X  16.  length 
of  wing  7.  length  of  tail  5.50.  shot  it  out  of  a  flock  of  three, 
which  were  feeding  in  some  oak  trees  on  the  bank  of  the  Des- 
plaines  River. 

On  another  day  he  noted: 

I  went  to  the  woods  this  morning  at  5  A  M  and  wandered 
around  all  morning  without  getting  a  decent  shot,  partly 
because  the  weather  was  cloudy  and  partly  because  a  calf  fol- 
lowed me  around  making  a  great  noise  in  the  underbrush.  I 
shot  and  spoiled,  a  young  male  Black  and  White  creeping 
warbler  (Mniotilta  varia)  and  a  Wood  Thrush  (Turdus  mus- 
tilenus) .  Spoiled  them  by  having  too  large  shot. 

July  21,  1894,  he  recorded: 

Went  out  at  5  A  M  and  walked  north  through  the  wheat  fields 
which  were  nearly  ripe  and  noticed  that  the  bob-o'-links  were 
flocking  in  the  fields.  These  were  large  flocks  of  females  with 


one  or  two  males  leading,  and  some  dident  have  any  males.  Q 
I  shot  a  young  female  without  any  greater  coverts  developed. 
I  at  first  thought  that  they  were  pulled  out  by  accident  but 
since  both  sides  were  without  them,  I  hardly  think  that  prob- 
able. I  never  saw  a  bird  before  without  the  wing  coverts.  I 
came  home  and  drew  the  bird. 

THE  last  paragraph  was  written  by  young  Wherry  in  the 
first  vacation  after  his  entrance  into  the  father's  old 
school.  Through  amalgamation  with  its  erstwhile  rival,  the  in- 
stitution had  now  lengthened  its  title  to  Washington  and 
Jefferson  college.  (The  bloody  shirt  is  still  waved  by  the  old- 
timers!)  Softened  somewhat  in  its  sectarianism,  it  was  still 
manfully  "Christian;"  and  in  its  curriculum,  stoutly  "classi- 
cal"— two  qualifications  of  higher  education  for  which  the 
elder  Wherry  was  strong  proponent.  In  the  junior's  time  the 
school  already  boasted  a  graduate  list  of  four  thousand.  These, 
however,  were  no  ordinary  men.  The  lot  numbered  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  congressmen,  legislators  and  judges,  twenty 
governors  and  senators,  four  cabinet  secretaries,  along  with  an 
assorted  list  of  thirty-two  moderators,  seventy-five  college 
presidents  and  one  hundred  and  seventy  professors! 

Wherry's  academic  record  is  still  available  in  some  carefully 
preserved  dispatches  made  every  three  months  by  college 
authority  to  the  father  direct.  School  experts  and  others  com- 
mitted to  the  enterprise  of  forecasting  the  future  of  their 
wards  on  the  basis  of  reports  sent  a  dean,  may  toy  with  the 
following  items.  Of  the  five  subjects  of  his  freshman  year, 
Wherry  came  out  "meritoriously"  (with  a  "1")  in  but  two — 
physical  culture  and  assigned  reading.  In  Latin  he  made  "2;" 
in  Greek,  "3 ;"  in  pure  mathematics,  "4."  The  "barely  passed" 
of  the  last  named  subject  then  went  into  the  chronic  dead  horse 
class  as  the  on-coming  years  tripped  him  successively  in  solid 
geometry,  trigonometry,  radicals,  quadratics,  the  ellipse  and 
the  parabola  (the  latter  got  him  foul,  twice) .  The  market  on 
physical  culture  rapidly  softened  to  "2" — and  clung  there. 
His  Greek  never  got  out  of  the  "3"  class;  nor  his  Latin  out  of 
the  "2."  He  scored  "1"  on  the  Bible,  when  he  started  upon  it 
in  his  sophomore  year,  but  (for  shame! )  only  "2"  in  the  junior 
and  "3"  in  the  senior  sessions.  There  appeared  also  a  crescendo 


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A  PAGE  FROM  THE  PRIVATE  ZOOLOGICAL  JOURNAL 


of  unexplained  absences  from  chapel.  Political  science  seems  1 1 
to  have  caught  his  fancy,  for  he  was  "1"  throughout — and, 
of  course,  in  the  natural  sciences.  Physics  he  knocked  down 
with  a  "2"  but  chemistry,  geology,  biology,  and  anatomy  were 
all  bagged  with  a"l." 

But  more  significant  of  the  mind  of  the  boy  than  this  col- 
legiate satisfaction  of  requirements  for  graduation  were  some 
activities  self-imposed  of  which  none  knew.  They  are  evi- 
denced in  the  notes  added  to  his  journal  of  exploration  as  his 
college  years  brought  him  a  Saturday  or  Sunday  off.  To  Chi- 
cago's dark  Westside,  he  added  the  hills  about  Washington. 
There  began,  also,  the  insertion  of  clippings  into  the  ledger. 
All  concerned  either  the  themes  or  the  men  of  natural  philoso- 
phy. Their  subject  matter  lacked  no  catholicity.  "Bits"  ap- 
peared on  general  biology — bits  on  fact,  or  behavior,  or 
taxidermy — but  they  were  followed  quickly  by  essays  on  the 
eagles  of  England,  the  quadrupeds  of  the  Rockies  (at  once  con- 
temporary and  prehistoric)  and  the  woodland  caribou  of 
eastern  Canada.  Here  and  there  were  articles  on  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  newly  discovered  temples  of  Mexico,  the  pygmies 
of  India,  and  the  life  of  the  lost  Livingstone  in  Africa;  also  a 
lot  about  the  currents  of  the  ocean,  the  storms  above  it  and  the 
winds  that  blow  out  of  forests  on  shore.  There  followed  dis- 
quisitions on  the  clouds,  the  comets  and  the  meteors;  and  moon 
maps.  Along  with  these,  precious  notes  on  the  newly  develop- 
ing science  of  bacteriology  and  its  human  significance. 

When  Wherry  entered  college  he  was  nineteen;  but  he  knew 
already  that  matters  such  as  these  were  the  sweat  of  men's 
souls.  Wherefore  a  third  of  his  field  book  ended  in  biographies. 
The  list  of  his  idols  is  too  long  to  quote  but  if  a  catalogue  of  the 
explorers,  inventors  and  scientists  that  the  nineteenth  century 
brought  forth  is  handy,  it  may  be  set  down  as  the  equivalent 
of  Wherry's  collection. 

The  sources  of  the  literary  materials  for  this  so  private 
library  of  his  were  various.  Its  most  "expensive"  acquisitions 
were  magazine  articles  but  the  major  portion  of  his  store  had 
been  clipped  from  Indian  or  English  newspapers — perquisites 
of  the  office,  no  doubt,  which  the  father  had  held  in  India. 

As  time  went  forward  the  field  notes  matured;  and  to  his 
animal  notes  he  now  added  the  botanical.  Of  these  a  drawing 


2  book  remains.  His  expertness  as  a  draughtsman  is  revealed  on 
every  page.  No  wonder  that  his  sisters  were  wont  to  write  to 
him  for  "drawings,"  "portraits"  and  "caricatures."  It  was 
an  ability  that  he  was  to  use  many  times  in  his  future  work. 
When  praised  for  it,  he  would  smile  and  blush  and  then  when 
speaking  to  an  intimate  add:  "You  know  I  once  dreamed  of 
becoming  America's  second  Audubon."  Such  ambition  did 
not  lie  beyond  his  reach;  but  "duty"  (upon  which  he  once 
wrote  a  story  and  an  essay)  always  laid  a  prior  claim  upon 
him.  This  was  the  task  at  hand.  Thus  time  and  circumstance 
were  to  yield  him  but  small  opportunity  to  continue  his  forays 
into  the  macroscopic  aspects  of  either  zoology  or  botany; 
they  drove  him  to  consideration  of  life's  microscopic  forms, 
but  even  here  always  to  those  aspects  that  were  living  and 
dynamic. 

But  his  hunger  for  more  "literature"  also  grew.  In  1896 
he  begged  his  father  to  send  him  what  he  could  of  "the  new 
discoveries  in  science,  especially  in  medicine."  Never  buried 
by  the  chaff  of  officialdom  the  elder  Wherry  wrote  directly  to 
the  representative  from  the  first  district  of  Pennsylvania. 
Addressing  his  old  college  chum,  the  Honorable  (and  General) 
Henry  H  Bingham  (out  of  Jefferson  College  in  1862),  as 
"Harry,"  he  wrote: 

My  son,  William  B  Wherry,  is  a  student  at  W  and  J  College. 
He  belongs  to  the  Junior  class  and  seems  to  be  following  the 
natural  bent  of  his  mind  by  making  a  specialty  of  natural 
science.  Some  time  since  he  expressed  an  anxiety  to  secure  cer- 
tain publications  of  the  National  Museum  .  .  .  and  said  he 
thought  they  could  be  had  from  Government  provided  he 
could  get  the  interest  of  some  member  of  Congress  who  would 
aid  in  the  matter.  Naturally  my  mind  turned  to  you  &  I  ad- 
vised his  writing  to  you.  This  note  is  intended  to  introduce 
him  to  you.  From  childhood,  when  he  caught  beetles  and  but- 
terflies in  the  Himalaya  Mountains,  my  son  has  exhibited  un- 
usual talent  in  the  direction  of  natural  science  &  comparative 
anatomy.  As  a  boy  of  twelve  he  would  pore  over  Cuvier.  I 
mention  this  to  show  that  his  request  is  not  based  upon  a  mere 
curiosity  to  see  and  to  possess  a  rare  book  .   .   . 


FIRST  DAYS  IN  W  AND  /.     THE  SEATED  FRIEND  IS 
CHARLES  WHITE  (VICTIM  IN  THE  IROQUOIS  DISASTER) 


\lL       Needless  to  add,  young  Wherry  got  much  government  pub- 
lication in  the  next  weeks. 

But  this  paucity  of  the  printed  page  was  but  a  portion  of  a 
general  need  for  the  material  that  was  to  be  chronic  for  all  the 
Wherrys.  How  to  keep  mere  life  in  the  body  was  a  problem 
over  which  not  only  the  parents,  but  the  children  were  long 
to  puzzle.  A  missionary's  salary  could  scarce  cover  a  wife's 
needs  and  here  were  seven  children  to  boot,  with  five  of  them 
girls.  Their  anxiety  would  find  expression  in  almost  every  let- 
ter. The  subject  of  a  hat's  retrim  to  a  different  style,  or  the 
revamping  of  a  sister's  party  dress  for  a  younger,  would  be  the 
substance  of  more  than  one  epistle.  In  his  second  year  at  college 
the  father  could  send  this  praise  to  his  boy: 

Your  letter  with  its  clear  statement  of  accounts  came  to  hand. 
I  congratulate  you  upon  your  economy — not  only  because  it 
shows  your  sympathy  with  me  in  my  endeavor  to  give  you  all 
an  education  on  my  very  slender  income  but  more  because  the 
practice  of  economy  now  will  be  worth  thousands  to  you  in 
after-life. 

I  have  not  found  the  money  rolling  in  here  as  I  had  hoped 
&  sol  do  not  know  if  I  can  send  all  of  the  $20.00  .  .   . 

To  increase  the  family  income  young  Wherry  was  going  to 
work  through  the  coming  vacation.  The  father  wrote: 

If  you  go  canvassing,  you  will  need  not  only  an  outfit  but  some 
money  for  travelling  expenses.  I  will  try  to  supply  you.  The 
experience  is  worth  more  than  the  money.  You  may  not  suc- 
ceed financially  but  I  hope  you  will.  If  you  do  not,  you  need 
not  take  it  to  heart.  It  will  only  show  you  that  that  is  not  in 
your  line.  It  is  worth  while  finding  out  what  we  can't  do  as 
well  as  what  we  can.  Teaching  or  tutoring  would  be  pleasanter 
for  a  long  vacation  but  such  positions  do  not  turn  up  every 
day. 

When  you  travel  avoid  two  or  three  things:  (a)  avoid  going 
out  at  night  with  any  fellows  however  fine  looking — they  are 
usually  bad  fellows  who  think  entirely  too  much  of  both  wine 
&  women,  (b)  avoid  displaying  any  money  you  may  have 
about  you,  &  (c)  avoid  accidents  in  travel. 

The  "canvassing"  to  which  the  boy  turned  was  of  the 


"book-agent"  variety — a  somewhat  feared  designation  in  the  IS 
last  decade  of  the  last  century.  But  because  his  line  was  good, 
his  success  was  greater  than  expected.  He  made  his  way  into 
a  goodly  number  of  homes  where  the  Christian  education  of 
the  children  was  still  insisted  upon  and  thus  managed  to  sell 
a  colossal  lot  of  maps  of  the  Holy  Land,  done  in  seven  clean 
colors  and  clearly  portraying  the  travels  of  Christ  and  all  the 
Apostles,  the  set  mounted  on  a  self-catching  roller  which  per- 
mitted unrolling  and  rolling  with  the  greatest  of  ease. 

The  financial  triumph  of  one  member  of  the  family  could 
not,  however,  mean  much  where  nine  cried  for  food.  Where- 
fore September  of  1 89 5  found  sister  Nellie  writing  her  brother 
as  follows: 

.  .  .  Minnie's  [Almena's]  school  opened  last  Wednesday,  so 
Mamma  and  Grace  have  most  of  the  work  to  do.  I  wish  we 
could  afford  to  keep  a  girl  but  it  is  no  use  to  think  of  it  at 
present.  I'll  be  glad  when  I'm  through  here  [an  adept  in  ap- 
plied art  instruction,  she  was  studying  stenography  and  "busi- 
ness" as  quicker  means  to  more  lucrative  practice]  and  can 
get  a  position.  Some  women  have  commenced  taking  lessons 
from  me  in  china  painting.  ...  I  wish  I  could  get  up  a  small 
class,  enough  to  get  myself  some  clothes  if  nothing  else.  .  .  . 
What  do  you  think  of  the  Americans  beating  the  English  so 
thoroughly  in  athletics?  I  think  that  what  Mr.  Houser  said  this 
morning  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  When  an  American  is 
training  he  does  not  use  tobacco  or  drink  but  most  Englishmen 
think  they  can't  live  without  their  whiskey  and  soda  or  brandy. 
One  of  the  girls  in  our  class  was  cheating  this  morning  so  the 
man  who  had  charge  of  the  examinations  tore  up  her  papers 
and  she  will  have  to  drop  into  a  lower  class.  It  is  too  bad  but  it 
serves  her  right  and  will  be  a  lesson  to  some  of  the  others. 

Such  direct  or  indirect  instruction  went  to  the  feared-for 
one  at  college  in  almost  every  letter.  How  to  get  along  on  little 
was  the  common  theme,  but  moral  or  spiritual  precept  was  still 
commoner.  The  father's  convictions  in  such  matters  were,  of 
course,  never  items  of  debate.  Nor  were  they  in  the  instance 
of  the  elder  sister,  who  in  the  stress  of  India  and  now  of  Chi- 
cago was,  of  all  the  children,  most  obviously  her  father's 


1  A  counterpart.  Mother  was  a  bit  more  tender  but  in  nowise  less 
definite,  as  will  be  seen. 

When,  as  sophomore,  the  boy  had  made  the  college  paper, 
the  father  advised:  "Keep  it  clean  &  refined  &  elegant  for  the 
sake  of  W  &  J."  To  which  he  added:  "By  the  way  look  to 
your  spelling — wheather  and  wasent  should  be  whether  and 
wasn't." 

October  of  1895  brought  this  news: 

I  am  sending  you  herewith  ten  dollars — money  is  rather  hard 
to  get  but  this  will  keep  you  going  till  I  can  send  more  .  .  . 
I  am  glad  to  note  that  you  have  awakened  to  the  necessity  of 
learning  how  to  read.  Nothing  is  more  important  except  to 
learn  how  to  hear,  so  that  whether  you  listen  or  read  you  may 
grasp  what  is  good  &  hold  it  at  your  disposal.  The  practice  of 
reproducing  in  writing  the  substance  of  lectures  &  books  is 
very  important.  The  term  Khuda  Karta  means  God  works;  & 
Khuda  J'dnta,  God  knows. 

The  family  worry  about  William's  sustenance  and  his  be- 
havior was  trifling,  however,  compared  with  its  worry  over 
his  soul.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  embryo  naturalist  was  in  a 
hot  spot,  for  the  father  tended  the  fires  of  Revelation  on  the 
one  side  even  as  the  flames  of  science's  new  religion  were 
scorching  him  on  the  other.  The  father  had  seen  him  study 
Cuvier;  but  from  that  hidden  journal,  which  was  his  own,  he 
had  learned  more  dangerous  doctrine.  Here  he  had  been  in  dia- 
logue with  Wallace,  Darwin  and  Agassiz;  with  Huxley, 
Tyndall  and  Lyell.  Subjects  like  spontaneous  generation  and 
special  creation  had  been  given  a  jolt;  and  the  boy  needed  to 
find  bed  for  them  again.  The  business  was  upsetting.  It  made 
him  propound  some  straightout  questions  to  Doctor  Bray  who 
in  the  new  year  of  1896  sent  answer.  Excerpts  from  a  tightly 
typewritten  four-page  essay  read  as  follows : 

Your  letter  contains  no  surprise  for  me.  You  have  heard 
enough  from  my  own  lips  to  awaken  in  you  just  such  thoughts 
.  .  .  That  Jesus  was  born  of  a  virgin,  .  .  .  that  his  body 
arose  from  the  dead  .  .  .  that  he  is  of  one  substance  with  the 
Deity  himself  .  .  .  Now  nothing  of  this  do  I  or  can  I  believe 
.  .   .  The  universal  principles  of  religion  are  true  because  in 


A  PAGE  FROM  THE  BOTANICAL  JOURNAL. 
THE  VIOLET  IS  BEAUTIFULLY  COLORED 


I  Q  agreement  with  nature;  the  special  are  false  because  they  vio- 
late nature.  .  .  .  There  is  no  local  heaven,  there  is  no  local 
hell;  nor  are  there  beings  apart  from  nature  itself,  presiding 
over  such  places  .  .  .  These  things  are  priestly  dogmas  .  .  . 
Everything  in  nature  is  but  in  some  form  or  other,  force  .  .  . 
You  are;  but  you  are  that  form  of  it  that  partakes  so  fully  of 
the  nature  of  God  as  properly  enough  to  be  called  an  immortal 
being  .  .  .  The  whole  awful  universe,  the  Grand  Whole  is  a 
thinking  Monon  ...  As  for  praying  to  Him,  prayer  is  only 
of  use  subjectively  .  .  .  We  should  pray  because  it  makes  us 
better;  but  you  should  never  expect  an  answer  when  the 
answer  would  be  in  violation  of  the  known  laws  of  nature. 
Such  an  answer  would  be  God  contradicting  himself;  for  God 
and  nature  are  one  and  the  same.  Hoping  you  will  continue 
searching  after  truth  .  .  . 

Your  affectionate  friend  and  old  teacher 

The  junior  at  Washington  and  Jefferson  could  lay  this  com- 
munication beside  such  as  the  following  from  his  father: 

I  hope  you  got  my  letter  from  Detroit  enclosing  money  order 
for  $10.00.  Did  you  ever  get  back  the  ten  you  loaned  to 

G ?  We  are  having  very  hard  times  here  and  money  is  so 

hard  to  collect  I  sometimes  hardly  know  what  to  do.  I  shall 
try  to  send  you  ten  more  before  I  go  east. 

We  have  been  having  a  series  of  Entertainments  in  Chicago 
quite  recently.  First  of  all  came  Bob  Ingersoll  with  his  annual 
tirade  against  Christianity,  the  Sonship  &  Divinity  of  Christ, 
the  Miracles  &  the  stupid  preachers  and  doctors  of  divinity 
who  believe  such  things.  .  .  .  But  then  it  pays  to  lecture  at 
$500.00  a  night.  He  told  us  this  last  time  about  the  loveliness 
of  home — he  really  had  a  Christian  home  in  mind — and  then 
went  on  to  say  that  a  woman  should  not  be  obliged  to  live  with 
a  man  as  wife  if  she  did  not  wish  to,  and  so  of  the  man.  He  did 
not  tell  us  how  that  arrangement  could  result  in  beautiful  & 
lovely  homes.  He  presented  once  more  the  exploded  theories 
of  infidels  and  agnostics  as  to  miracles  .  .  .  and  so  on  ad 
nauseam. 

Such  men,  however,  do  immense  harm  by  unsettling  un- 
stable and  uneducated  minds  in  the  fundamentals  of  Faith  and 
Morals.  In  a  materialistic  age  like  this,  when  many  men  are 


rushing  on  madly  to  Atheism  or  to  Pantheism,  which  is  twin  1  Q 
brother  to  Atheism,  it  is  important  that  Christian  men  exam- 
ine anew  the  ground  upon  which  they  stand.  .  .  .  The  study 
of  physical  science  has  led  many  men  to  doubt  the  possibility 
of  the  supernatural.  But  on  the  other  hand  this  study  has  been 
the  revelation  of  God  to  others,  as  indeed  it  ought  to  be.  The 
profoundest  thinkers  of  the  day  see  in  nature  the  most  stu- 
pendous miracle;  the  fiat  "Be"  is  everywhere  present  and  the 
mysteries  of  science  are  as  numerous  as  those  of  revelation.  The 
truth  is,  there  is  no  contradiction  between  the  word  of  God 
and  the  works  of  God.  I  send  you  a  booklet  which  I  am  sure 
you  will  read  with  interest  and  profit.  Now,  as  you  have  come 
to  the  time  when  you  must  have  begun  to  think  and  perhaps 
to  find  points  about  which  you  may  have  difficulty,  I  want  to 
say  that  nothing  would  fill  your  father's  heart  with  so  much 
pleasure  as  to  have  your  confidence  and  to  be  permitted  to  do 
what  I  can  to  help  you.  I  have  helped  many  young  men  and 
whom  should  I  delight  to  help  so  much  as  my  son?  A  word  of 
counsel  here:  Choose  good  Christian  men  as  your  advisers  and 
helpers  in  these  matters  .  .  .  Hold  to  the  man  who  stands 
for  something  positive  &  avoid  the  man  who  pulls  down  & 
destroys  the  faith  of  men  &  then  leaves  them  to  grope  in  hope- 
less darkness.  The  gospel  of  the  Agnostic  is  a  gospel  of  Despair. 

After  Ingersoll  we  had  the  Theosophists — both  branches. 
It  is  astonishing  that  rational  men  can  find  anything  in  that 
whimsical  system  of  heathenism  and  fraud.  Men  who  reject  a 
whole  mountain  of  evidence  for  the  Resurrection,  will  gravely 
tell  you  of  letters  written  by  the  Mahatmas  in  the  mountains 
of  Thibet.  Lastly  we  have  the  Salvation  Army  &  the  Volun- 
teers. .   .  . 

P.S. — If  you  write  me  of  matters  you  don't  wish  all  to  see, 
address  me  here. 

The  postscript  referred  to  his  business  address  in  Chicago, 
at  167  Wabash  Avenue;  and  the  pamphlet  that  had  been  in- 
closed was  from  the  publication  rooms  of  the  American  tract 
society  in  New  York.  It  was  that  of  the  Rev  W  G  Blaikie, 
D  D,  a  Letter  to  a  Young  Man  of  Science,  entitled  The  Miracle 
of  Miracles.  Father  had  noted  upon  it:  "Read  carefully  &  you 
will  have  an  unanswerable  proof  of  the  Christian  faith  which 
will  help  you  to  help  others  who  may  be  in  doubt." 


2Q       To  father's  dialectics,  mother  could  add  only  her  more 
direct  statements  of  fact.  On  a  Sunday  in  April  she  wrote: 

.  .  .  We  have  just  got  home  from  church.  Dr  Frothingham 
gave  us  a  splendid  sermon  on  the  life  eternal.  I  wish  you  could 
have  heard  it.  How  any  one  can  doubt  that  God  is  a  living  God, 
and  think  that  when  life  here  is  ended,  all  is  over,  I  don't  know. 
That  is  Ingersoll's  doctrine.  He  preached  in  the  city  not  long 
ago,  at  Dr  Rusk's  invitation,  to  the  horror  of  Presbyterians. 
We  have  only  to  look  at  such  people  to  see  how  unlike  Chris- 
tians they  are,  queer — sort  of  crazy  it  seems  to  me.  May  the 
Lord  keep  us  all  in  the  path  which  has  led  so  many  great  and 
good  men  into  the  light  of  life  eternal  in  Heaven.  A  native 
Alaskan  is  to  be  at  the  Y  P  S  C  E  tonight.   .   .   . 

At  times,  naturally,  the  course  of  her  Christian  life  (even 
in  Chicago)  was  less  satisfying.  In  fact  mother's  efforts  at 
getting  the  hang  of  that  town  never  did  work  out  completely. 
Within  these  weeks  she  had  visited  Garfield  Park  "to  see  if  they 
would  give  me  some  flowers — but  they  would  not."  Equally 
disappointing  proved  to  be  her  trips  to  Chicago's  great  stores. 
Why  would  Marshall  Field  and  Company  not  accept  the  half 
of  the  asked  price?  So  they  did  in  India.  The  routine  of  Chris- 
tian service,  even,  was  not  always  up  to  expectation.  "This 
was  communion  day  and  only  one  joined  church." 

As  summer  approached,  young  Wherry  once  more  turned 
salesman.  It  was  another  three  months  with  the  maps.  At  this 
time,  too,  he  apprised  his  family  of  his  desire  to  become  a  phy- 
sician. It  had  long  been  a  dormant  ambition  with  him;  but  it 
had  been  fanned  into  flame  by  what  he  had  come  to  know  of 
his  Pasteur,  his  Koch,  and  his  von  Behring. 

His  father  wrote: 

.  .  .  Like  a  good  correspondent  you  forgot  to  give  me  the 
information  I  asked  for.  How  much  money  do  you  want  to 
let  you  out  and  get  home?  I  would  advise  you  to  read  your 
letters  just  before  you  answer  them  and  note  the  points  of 
special  importance.  You  will  find  this  habit  useful  to  you  all 
your  lifetime.  I  will  however  enclose  a  check  for  $30.00. 
Money  is  rather  scarce  now  and  I  have  to  figure  on  the  actual 
needs  to  make  ends  meet.  .  .  .  By  all  means  be  the  Class 


Artist  if  they  want  you.  Take  any  honors  lying  around.  See  21 
all  the  Artist  does  this  year  and  then  improve  on  it  next. 

I  am  glad  you  did  not  tackle  that  snake  in  the  dark.  You 
will  do  well  to  keep  clear  of  water  moccasins.  They  are  deadly 
poisonous.  Rattle  snakes,  vipers  &  copperheads  are  by  no  means 
uncommon  in  this  country.  It  is  not  very  safe  swimming 
around  after  frogs — by  lamplight — but  science  has  its  martyrs! 

Your  proposal  to  graduate  at  the  top  in  the  medical  college 
is  a  good  one  and  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not.  Don't 
underestimate  your  own  ability.  Genius  is  after  all  a  capacity 
for  hard  work  &  close  application.  If  you  study  a  language 
next  year  you  will  do  well  to  study  German. 

The  medical  colleges  will  no  doubt  raise  the  standard  of 
scholarship  everywhere.  It  will  be  some  time  before  they  carry 
out  their  rules.  There  are  too  many  "wild  cat"  concerns  yet 
in  the  country  to  make  it  feasible  to  reject  all  students  below 
college  grade.  I  wish  you  could  be  in  a  class  where  there  would 
be  only  college  graduates  because  the  lower  grade  fellows 
degrade  the  lectures,  professors  having  to  lecture  to  their 
capacity.  .  .  .  With  prayers  for  your  success.  .  .  . 

SEPTEMBER  of  1896  found  Wherry  happily  started  upon 
his  final  year  in  college.  He  had  discovered  a  better  place 
in  which  to  live  and  had  so  written  the  father.  Not  altogether 
pleased  with  the  form  of  his  enthusiasm  the  father  had  an- 
swered: "Your  room  no  doubt  is  dandy!"  Yet,  to  aid  in  its 
equipment  and  to  tell  of  the  family,  he  continued: 

I  am  afraid  you  will  begin  to  think  you  will  never  receive  the 
box  of  bedding.  Well  I  got  it  off  on  the  Wisconsin  Central  yes- 
terday &  hope  it  will  get  started  by  B  &  O  freight  on  Monday. 
The  box  contains  a  pair  of  red  blankets  (sewed  together)  a 
coverlet,  two  sheets,  two  pillow  cases,  a  pillow  &  a  cake  which 
I  hope  will  not  be  too  dry  to  eat.  I  shall  have  to  send  the  testa- 
ment by  mail.  .  .  .  The  girls  are  busy  with  a  proposed  enter- 
tainment— "The  Mouse  Trap."  Like  all  actors  and  actresses 
they  quarrel  like  cats  behind  the  scenes.  I  am  doubtful  as  to 
the  whole  business.  .  .  .  Keep  in  mind  the  idea  of  teaching 
for  a  couple  of  years  as  it  is  altogether  likely  that  that  is  what 
you  will  have  to  do.  I  am  likely  to  hear  very  soon  that  my  sal- 


2  9  ary  nas  been  cut  down  again.  Everything  looks  in  that  direc- 
tion. Fortunately  Nellie  can  help  this  year.  ...  I  have  not 
yet  received  my  money  from  New  York  but  as  soon  as  I  get 
it  I  will  send  you  some.  .  .  .  With  love  from  the  whole  fam- 
ily who  unitedly  pray  for  you  every  day.  .  .  . 

Before  the  month  was  out  the  heavy  clouds  forever  upon 
the  elder  Wherry's  financial  horizon  thickened.  The  Chicago 
branch  of  the  American  tract  society  had  just  ended  the 
"celebration"  of  a  seventh  annual  meeting.  It  had  brightly 
"illustrated  the  varied  character  of  the  society's  missionary 
work" — thousands  of  Christian  books  and  tracts  had  been 
given  away  and  "in  1 1,987  homes  the  colporters  had  been  per- 
mitted to  speak  to  the  inmates  on  the  subject  of  personal 
religion  or  to  pray  with  them  for  God's  blessing  upon  them." 
The  treasurer's  report,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  so  bright. 
In  fact  receipts  for  the  year  had  totalled  but  $1,113.77.  As  a 
consequence  the  father  had  to  write  his  son: 

...  I  am  sorry  to  have  to  tell  you  a  piece  of  bad  news  but 
please  do  not  mention  it  to  anyone  and  do  not  write  of  it  to 
the  other  children.  Owing  to  the  falling  off  of  our  income,  the 
Society  has  been  obliged  to  discontinue  a  large  part  of  its  work 
and  with  it  my  term  of  office  expires  January  first  with  pos- 
sible extension  until  April  first.  It  will  be  necessary  [for  you] 
to  practice  economy  and  to  figure  on  doing  some  work  to  help 
yourself.  I  think  it  possible  to  set  an  arrangement  whereby  you 
could  aid  some  good  physician  in  his  office  and  at  the  same  time 
attend  lectures,  but  of  that  later.  Just  now  I  am  greatly  per- 
plexed what  to  do.  You  know  I  have  always  felt  I  ought  to  be 
in  India.  I  cannot  take  time  to  tell  you  all  the  reasons  for  my 
thinking  in  this  direction  now.  Enough  to  say  that  ( 1 )  God 
seems  to  be  pointing  me  there,  ( 2 )  Providence  looks  the  same 
way,  (3)1  can  thus  best  provide  for  the  education  of  all.  I  am 
sure  God  will  lead  me  aright  as  He  always  has,  but  just  now  I 
feel  troubled  lest  I  should  make  a  misstep.  Do  not  worry  over 
this  but  use  your  opportunities  so  as  to  get  along  well  in  study 
so  that  when  you  graduate  you  may  help  us  along  a  bit. 

The  ever-thoughtful  youth  was  for  quitting  at  once  and 
proceeding  into  something  lucrative;  but  the  father  thus 
arrested  the  plan: 


Your  letter,  written  under  some  very  natural  excitement,  0  ^ 
came  to  hand.  There  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  go  on 
until  you  graduate.  There  is  every  reason  why  you  should. 
You  will  then  be  in  a  position  to  care  for  yourself  and  by  and 
by  care  for  others  as  well.  You  will  then  be  where  I  was  as  a 
young  man,  only  you  will  have  a  much  more  thorough  train- 
ing. I  believe  you  should  undertake  to  teach — if  it  were  only 
in  a  public  school. 

As  the  younger  children  were  still  in  need  of  college  train- 
ing and  minimum  maintenance  rates  here  or  there  were  crucial 
items,  a  debate  upon  the  setup  at  different  schools  followed: 

As  to  the  merits  of  Beloit  I  have  no  question  &  yet  I  do 
not  think  it  is  in  advance  of  Wooster.  The  advantages  [of 
Wooster]  to  me  are  ( 1 )  the  tuition  is  free  all  around,  (2)  liv- 
ing is  cheaper,  (3)  it  is  nearer  Mamma's  home  &  relatives, 
(4)  other  missionaries'  wives  live  there,  (5)  the  town  is  not 
only  beautiful  but  very  healthful,  and  (6)  I  hope  that  by 
and  by  Mamma  can  go  out  to  India  to  be  with  me.  If  so,  the 
younger  children  would  have  better  care  at  the  Livingstone 
&  Westminster  Homes  than  anywhere  else  while  getting  their 
education  for  a  sum  of  money  less  than  is  possible  elsewhere. 
I  have  thought  the  thing  over  well  and  while  it  is  not  impos- 
sible we  may  modify  the  plan,  still  I  cannot  now  see  anything 
so  good  as  this. 

I  hope  I  can  arrange  with  some  doctor  to  take  you  in  &  put 
you  through  for  about  what  you  could  do  for  him.  If  not,  I 
hope  you  can  get  some  kind  of  service  whereby  you  can  work 
your  way.  I  have  not  yet  had  any  reply  to  my  application  to 
be  sent  to  India.  The  time  when  I  must  depart  will  depend 
upon  that.  Do  not  fail  to  understand  that  my  reasons  for 
going  back  to  India  are  not  a  question  of  money.  It  is  with 
me  a  question  of  duty.  I  did  not  expect  to  be  at  home  so 
long  when  I  brought  you  all  from  India,  but  my  way  seemed 
hedged  about  &  I  stayed  under  a  sense  of  duty  to  my  children. 
Now  the  way  seems  open  &  I  hope  to  spend  a  good  part,  if  not 
all  my  life  in  India.  I  should  be  glad  if  the  Lord  would  lead 
some  of  my  children  in  the  same  direction  but  this  is  with  Him. 
There  is  a  grand  work  in  India  for  any  one  competent  to  do 
it.  Let  us  all  pray  to  God  for  His  guidance  that  we  may  make 


24  no  mistakes  in  life.  For  your  own  part,  keep  right  on  but  study 
with  a  purpose  &  God  bless  you. 

Because  of  the  father's  urging,  young  Wherry  continued 
his  college.  To  this  end  sister  Nellie's  letters  helped.  In  Novem- 
ber of  1896  she  wrote  out  of  Knoxville,  Illinois,  where  she  was 
teaching  at  St  Mary's: 

.  .  .  What  do  you  think  of  Papa's  plans?  .  .  .  His  going  to 
India  will  make  great  changes  in  our  family.  I  am  so  sorry 
Lillie  will  have  to  stop  going  to  college.  Poor  child,  it  will 
break  her  heart  but  I  can't  help  more  than  one  of  you  at  a  time. 
I  was  never  so  badly  off  for  clothes  as  I  am  now.  .  .  .  Write 
to  Papa  for  money  just  the  same  for  I  will  send  it  to  him  and 
if  there  is  any  left  over,  they  can  use  it.  How  much  are  your 
expenses  this  year  a  month?  I  hate  to  think  of  Papa's  leaving 
us  but  I  suppose  it  is  for  the  best. 

Some  days  later  there  followed: 

.  .  .  You  need  not  feel  so  much  indebted  to  me.  It  is  only 
right  that  we  should  help  each  other  .  .  .  Mamma  wrote 
the  other  day  that  if  Papa  decided  to  go  to  India  she  would 
probably  go  to  Beloit  to  live  instead  of  Wooster  so  that  Lillie 
could  go  on  and  Minnie  enter  next  year.  Personally  I  should 
prefer  Beloit  greatly  to  Wooster.  The  people  in  the  latter  place 
are  a  little  beyond  me.  .  .  .  About  your  going  to  India — 
it  would  be  a  fine  thing  for  you  if  you  are  not  going  to  begin 
studying  medicine  at  once.  You  would  be  sure  of  a  place  and 
salary  for  a  few  years  at  least  and  you  could  save  money  better. 
...  If  Papa  goes  it  would  be  nice  to  go  with  him.  I  would  be 
almost  willing  to  turn  missionary  to  do  that ! ! 

The  call  back  to  India,  because  of  debate  in  the  Board  of 
Missions  in  New  York  was  not,  however,  to  come  for  several 
years.  Only  later  was  it  known  why.  The  grand  old  man  had 
been  deemed  guilty  of  dereliction  of  duty  when  he  left  India 
to  bring  his  children  to  the  United  States  for  their  better  edu- 
cation. The  Board  saw  no  good  sense  in  the  move — and  would 
not  forgive.  Thus  it  was  that  the  father  needed  to  write : 

I  hope  you  have  received  the  $15.00  all  right  .  .  .  You  will 
be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  Board  of  Missions  does  not  seem 


disposed  to  send  me  out  to  India.   ...  At  present  I  am  per-  0  S 
plexed  what  to  do  ...  if  I  can  lease  or  sell  our  house  here. 
...  I  hope  you  may  have  a  good  time  geologizing.  Only 
today  did  I  carefully  look  over  your  Pandora   [the  college 
paper].  It  is  very  good. 

I  will  keep  my  eye  open  for  books  or  magazines  with  articles 
on  Progress  of  Medical  Science.  I  interviewed  President  Harper 
the  other  day  on  the  chances  of  your  getting  a  fellowship  .  .  . 
Should  you  teach  Biology  or  Natural  Science  somewhere  for 
a  year,  you  might  secure  one.  Or  you  might  spend  a  year  at 
Chicago  University  in  special  postgraduate  study,  and  work 
into  it.  If  you  were  "a  good  fellow"  you  might  after  three 
months  get  money  from  the  students'  aid  fund.  It  would  cost 
300  a  year  and  you  could  probably  make  one  half  of  that  by 
rendering  some  kind  of  service.   .   .   . 

Though  importuned  of  the  sisters  to  spend  his  Christmas 
holidays,  "perhaps  for  the  last  time  together"  with  the  family 
in  Chicago,  young  Wherry  decided  not — in  order  to  save 
the  railroad  fare.  The  father  answered : 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  letter  saying  you  think  you  will  stay 
over  at  W  &  J  for  vacation.  I  appreciate  your  plan  &  your 
motive  and  while  we  should  like  to  have  you  here,  I  believe 
you  are  wise.  We  do  need  to  practice  economy  &  if  you  can 
save  money  this  way,  you  had  better  do  it.  Could  you  not  get 
a  little  tutoring  to  do  to  help  along? 

Nellie  says  she  sent  you  a  check  for  $25.00,  so  you  will  be 
set  up.  Let  me  know  what  fees  have  to  be  paid  &  when,  and 
wishing  you  prosperity  in  study  &  a  happy  Xmas  &  New 
Year  .  .  . 

To  this  letter  was  appended  a  rather  terrifying  postscript: 

Dr  A — 's  son  W —  disappeared  two  weeks  ago  and  he  has 
not  a  single  clue  as  to  his  whereabouts.  The  chances  are,  if 
he  is  alive,  he  is  in  a  troupe  of  actors  or  has  gone  to  Cuba. 
He  has  well-nigh  killed  his  mother  &  his  father  will  be  grayer 
for  it. 

Things  had  not  brightened  much  as  the  first  month  of  1 897 
waned.  Young  Wherry,  now  in  the  home  stretch  for  his  degree, 
received  the  following  from  his  father : 


Oq  •  •  •  I  enclose  you  a  check  for  $15.00  which  will  put  you 
straight  until  Nellie  is  ready  to  send  you  money  ...  I  am 
on  a  half  salary  now  &  hardly  know  how  things  are  going  to 
turn  out.  No  news  yet  from  New  York.  I  think  Nellie  can 
carry  you  through  &  I  have  relegated  you  to  her  for  the  pres- 
ent. I  intended  sending  you  your  report  which  is  excellent. 
You  scored  a  "1"  all  around.  If  you  could  win  a  prize  of  $  5  0.00 
you  could  enter  Chicago  university  &  work  your  way  through 
a  postgraduate  course.  I  had  a  talk  with  Dr  Harper  on  the 
subject.  He  says  there  are  many  ways  a  young  man  can  get 
through  there.  A  special  course  in  Biology  &  Chemistry  would 
be  splendid  if  it  can  be  managed. 

Nellie  &  Grace  have  gone  back  to  work.  .  .  . 

Yesterday  Ray  Henry,  Willie  Worf  &  young  Pixley  ran 
away  taking  money  from  their  parents.  They  are  going  to 
Texas  &  thence  to  Cuba.  If  they  can  be  of  any  use  there,  they 
had  better  go.  We  will  hardly  miss  them  here,  unless  that  the 
mischief  they  have  been  doing  will  cease  to  exist.  .  .  . 

Against  the  general  depression,  there  always  stood  Grace's 
buoyancy.  This  is  an  example: 

...  I  hope  for  Papa's  sake  that  the  Board  will  send  him,  as  I 
don't  think  he  will  be  content  anywhere  else.  I  don't  think 
we  need  worry  though;  as  long  as  we  can  buy  a  barrel  of  flour 
we  won't  starve.  If  Papa  does  not  get  anything  to  do  we  can 
all  pitch  in  &  do  a  little  anyway.  I  think  we  ought  all  to  try  & 
work  this  summer  don't  you?  Don't  tell  Papa  this,  but  if  he 
has  nothing  better  to  do  by  June,  Alf  &  I  will  get  married 
&  instead  of  going  to  housekeeping  will  pay  them  $40.00  a 
month  for  board  &  that  will  help  out  quite  a  little.  .  .  .  Oh, 
we  will  get  along  all  right  so  don't  worry;  we  can  dig  in  a 
sewer  if  we  can't  do  anything  better!!!  So  tra  la  &  good- 
bye. .  .  . 

In  March,  the  father  sent  this  wise  advice  to  his  son.  The 
instance  needs  recording,  for  whatever  the  mentally  atrophy- 
ing effects  of  father's  religious  dogmatisms,  they  were  offset 
by  such  stimulants  as  this.  Ignorant  of  the  self-disciplines  con- 
tained in  the  boy's  reclaimed  ledger,  the  father  wrote: 

I  am  forwarding  some  pamphlets  from  Washington.   ...  I 


hope  you  will  study  the  form  of  these  on  various  classes  of  2"7 
insects,  and  then  that  you  will  get  a  book  and  practice  writing 
up  carefully,  in  your  best  style,  theses  on  every  insect  or  bird 
you  observe.  Write  as  if  nobody  else  had  written  and  be  sure 
to  be  original >  i.e.  that  the  presentation  of  your  facts  be  as 
from  yourself.  Of  course  you  will  get  your  knowledge  from 
others  &  yet  I  would  practice  original  investigation.  Study 
first  for  yourself  &  write  it  out  &  then  compare  with  what 
others  have  found.  The  habit  of  original  investigation  is  of 
infinite  value. 

Uninfluenced  as  he  was  throughout  life  by  the  boards,  com- 
mittees, and  organizations  slowly  supplanting  the  power,  judg- 
ment and  decision  of  the  individual  in  higher  education,  he 
continued : 

I  was  talking  with  Judge  Hibbard  [Hon  Homer  N  Hibbard, 
LL  D  and  president  of  the  Chicago  tract  society  according 
to  that  association's  letterhead]  a  few  days  since  and  asked 
him  if  he  could  not  aid  you  in  connection  with  the  University 
of  Chicago.  He  is  on  its  Board,  I  believe.  He  would  gladly  do 
all  he  could  and  he  thought  that  if  you  showed  any  special 
talent  for  natural  science,  biology,  zoology,  etc.,  he  could  get 
you  a  fellowship.  This  would  give  you  a  chance  to  pursue  some 
special  line  of  study  under  the  best  instructors,  and  would 
pave  the  way  to  a  professorship.  If  you  want  to  study  medi- 
cine, that  would  be  the  best  sort  of  preparation — indeed  it 
would  be  possible  to  carry  on  most  of  your  studies  in  medicine 
at  the  same  time.  Keep  this  to  yourself  &  let  me  know  what 
you  think  of  it.  To  get  it,  you  must  study  to  write  out  your 
views  on  all  the  subjects  you  study.  This  ought  to  be  required 
in  college  if  it  is  not. — I  will  send  you  ten  dollars  soon.  Let  me 
know  how  you  stand  &  what  you  will  need  to  put  you  through 
to  Easter. 

As  commencement  days  neared,  the  father  wrote  again: 

Only  six  weeks  and  you  will  be  out  .  .  .  When  you  leave  col- 
lege the  struggle  begins,  only  to  end  with  life  itself.  I  received 
a  telegram  yesterday  announcing  the  decision  of  the  Board  of 
Missions.  It  is  "not  to  reappoint"  ...  I  have  an  agreement 
with  the  Tract  Society  by  which  I  remain  here  for  at  least  one 


2  Q  more  year.  This  will  give  us  time  to  get  fixed  for  the  future, 
whatever  that  may  be. — You  spoke  of  a  new  suit  of  clothes 
&  hat — those  you  must  have.  Let  me  know  by  return  probable 
cost  &  I  will  send  the  money  soon. 

A  week  later  the  father  could  forward  to  his  son  "your 
report,  which  you  will  see  is  very  good."  But  the  problem  of 
the  suit  had  not  been  settled  when  the  mother  wrote  on  April 
twenty- fourth: 

...  I  don't  know  whether  I  told  you  that  they  paid  Minnie 
$45.00  for  teaching.  She  has  bought  material  for  her  gradu- 
ating dress  &  has  still  enough  to  pay  for  a  dressmaker  to  make 
it,  after  paying  Mrs  Starrett  $15.00.  She  got  a  class  pin,  too, 
for  $5.00.  Mrs  S  was  so  pleased  that  M  paid  her  from  money 
she  earned  that  she  gave  her  a  receipt  to  end  of  term,  &  said 
she  needn't  pay  for  her  diploma  or  the  elocution  teacher 
who  trains  them  to  read  their  essays,  or  for  the  invitations 
to  com.  which  the  pupils  usually  pay  for.  So,  see!  .  .  .  The 
concert  [at  Beloit]  was  fine  &  Lillie  is  spoken  of,  in  the  paper, 
as  being  the  most  popular  &  most  beautiful  girl  in  college, 
etc.  I  hope  she  won't  be  spoilt  by  flattery.  I  must  try  to  get 
that  paper. 

What  about  your  new  suit  of  clothes?  Be  sure  &  tell  us 
how  much  money  you  want  for  it,  when  you  write  next.  Do 
you  want  any  stockings,  or  collars  which  we  can  get  here? 
There  are  sales  often  &  we  can  get  collars  cheap.  Tell  us  the 
number  &  whether  stand  up  or  lay  down  collars,  &  what 
color  of  socks.  Do  you  need  hand'fs?  Be  sure  &  tell  me.  .  .  . 
The  latest  news  is  that  Minnie  Tomlinson  is  engaged  to  that 
blacksmith  here. 

In  the  later  months  of  his  college  career,  young  Wherry  had 
brought  better  conviction  to  his  teachers  which  fact  put  him 
in  the  honors  group  of  those  graduating.  Mother  was  pleased ; 
and  so  said  (May  30,  1897): 

I  am  proud  of  you,  yes  proud  of  you!  I'm  so  glad  you  got 
through  "a  flying"  and  that  you  are  an  oration  man.  Just 
think  of  it!!!  I  daresay  you  are  glad  that  you  don't  have  to 
deliver  an  oration.  You  must  have  had  grand  times  at  your 
Serenade — to  be  feasted  &  taken  into  houses  must  have 
been  fine. 


I  have  been  having  a  little  holiday.  I  went  Tues  evn'g  to  OQ 
Winona  to  Gen  Assem.  Your  papa  was  there.  I  met  the 
Everetts  &  many  old  friends.  Mr  Everett  said  that  Elise  was 
engaged  to  some  young  man  who  is  in  his  first  year  in  the 
Sem  at  Allegheny.  He  put  his  foot  on  the  affair  &  told  them 
they  were  not  to  have  any  correspondence  for  a  year — then 
if  they  both  felt  the  same,  all  right.  He  thinks  she  is  too  young 
to  be  engaged  yet.  She  has  very  poor  health,  too.  Prof  Wilson 
of  Allegheny  told  me  that  Jamie  was  to  be  his  assistant  next 
year.  He  says  Jamie  is  a  scholar  but  no  preacher.  Mr  Pollock 
was  at  the  Assem,  also  Mr  Alexander  &  Mr  Gohun. 

Winona  is  a  bluff  on  Eagle  Lake,  near  Warsaw,  Indiana. 
There  are  a  large  hotel  &  a  good  many  private  cottages  &  a 
woman's  building.  All  were  nearly  full  during  the  Assem. 
There  must  have  been  3000  people  there,  though  there  were 
only  about  700  delegates.  Many  of  their  wives  came  along  & 
others  were  visitors.  It  cost  us  1.00  per  day  for  room  &  board. 
The  lake  is  2  ms.  long  &  1  broad.  A  steam  tug  takes  people  out. 
There  are  row  boats  too,  but  they  were  not  in  demand — it  was 
so  cold.  Your  papa  is  at  Hyde  Park  church  today  on  Tract 
Soc  business.  He  is  to  go  someplace  this  evn'g  &  is  to  hear  Dr 
Barrows  speak  at  the  University. 

The  relatives  could  not  stand  by  when  William  Buchanan 
Wherry  was  declared  a  bachelor  of  arts  in  June  of  1 897 — that 
would  have  cost  too  much. 


AB,  W  AND  /,  1897 


1897-1902 


II 


THE  summer  of  1 897  marked  Wherry  a  new  and  different 
kind  of  salesman — this  time  it  was  men's  suits  at  Brown- 
ing King  and  Company.  The  problem  of  their  design  never 
made  great  imprint  upon  him;  but  the  quality  of  their  wool- 
ens, yes.  Financial  background  at  home  had  not  changed,  but 
between  what  it  could  calculate  and  he  had  saved,  entrance 
into  Rush  medical  college  was  deemed  possible. 

In  1897,  though  situated  in  Chicago  (the  "plague  spot  for 
medical  education  of  the  United  States") ,  Rush  was  a  ranking 
school.  Like  the  majority  of  western  colleges,  it,  too,  had 
started  as  a  "private"  enterprise  but,  early  conscious  of  the 
weakness  of  such  status,  had  "affiliated"  itself  with  Lake  Forest 
university.  At  the  moment,  this  first  university  connection 
was  being  shifted  to  a  similar  tie-up  with  Chicago.  (Gold 
letters  announcing  the  event  were  painted  into  the  panelled 
windows  over  the  entrance  to  the  college  at  Christmas.) 

Rush  towered  from  the  middle  of  Chicago's  medical  Quar- 
tier  latin — with  the  substrate  and  the  possibility  for  great 
education  therein  exactly  those  which  the  imagination  of  a 
world  has  always  associated  with  the  French.  Here  art  and 
arson,  abject  poverty  and  riches,  priests  and  panderers  were 
next  door  neighbors;  filth  and  hygiene  kissed  in  the  alleys; 
Chicago's  intellectual  and  social  cream  warmed  their  feet  in 
the  same  hay  that  strewed  the  floors  of  the  street  cars  in  which 
the  dregs  from  the  glue  factory  rode.  Men  who  saw  medicine 
as  a  discipline  that  involved  all  society  could  ask  for  nothing 
more.  From  Rush,  the  observant  might  see  everything. 

The  school  commanded  two  brick  buildings.  The  first  of 
these,  minareted  and  a  glowing  example  of  bastard-gothic, 
had  risen  on  the  northeast  corner  of  Harrison  and  Wood  streets 
after  Chicago's  fire;  the  second  (celebrative  of  Chicago's 
World's  fair  of  '93 ) ,  lay  across  the  street,  and,  flatter  of  front, 
housed  the  "laboratories"  of  the  college.  Chief  content  of  the 
former  were  two  great  amphitheatres;  while  in  the  latter, 


%  2  pathology,  histology,  chemistry  and  anatomy  occupied  succes- 
sive floors.  Less  tangible  but  vastly  more  significant  were  some 
other  details.  The  lecture  building  housed  an  ambulatory 
clinic;  and  students  passed  quickly  from  talks  about  disease 
to  the  sight  of  it.  Yet  more  important  was  a  connection  direct, 
with  the  bedridden  of  the  Presbyterian  hospital.  A  second  more 
indirect  was  with  the  sick  or  dead  who  lay  kitty-corner  across 
the  street.  Here  stood  the  Cook  county  hospital  of  which  the 
half  of  the  attending  staff  had  been,  since  time  began,  the  men 
of  Rush. 

When  Wherry  entered  the  school  the  requirement  for 
graduation  in  medicine  had  just  been  lifted  to  four  years. 
Admittance  to  Rush,  however,  was  still  to  any  possessed  of 
high  school  knowledge  only.  Here  the  father's  ambition  was 
technically  disappointed,  though,  as  we  shall  see,  not  too 
heavily.  Rush  was  still  a  spring  from  which  clear  waters 
flowed.  At  the  turn  of  the  century  it  assuaged  the  thirst  of  a 
student  body  of  more  than  a  thousand  not  counting  several 
hundred  "practitioners"  who  via  five-dollar  visitors'  cards 
gave  themselves  postgraduate  clinical  instruction.  Teaching 
the  lot  was  a  faculty  numbering  four  hundred.  Neither  group 
lends  itself  to  quick  description.  Among  the  students  were 
Syrians,  Armenians  and  a  Turk;  several  Blacks,  Nipponese  and 
a  Chinaman;  Canadians  were  common  and  South  Americans 
appeared  as  stragglers.  Every  state  of  the  Union  could  answer, 
here.  The  vast  majority  were  the  sons  of  ministers,  school 
teachers,  farmers  or  fresh-water  college  professors  of  one  sort 
or  another;  and  they  came  from  the  country,  expecting  to 
return  there.  The  faculty  was  equally  cosmopolitan  in  com- 
plexion, a  third  of  it,  if  not  foreign  born,  of  foreign  parentage 
and  speaking  the  American  language  with  foreign  intonation. 
Thus,  even  though  not  yet  so  scheduled,  the  atmosphere  about 
Rush  was  distinctly  of  "university"  type,  for  here  met  men 
of  widely  differing  mind,  language  and  philosophy  brought 
together  by  a  common  purpose — that  of  being  of  service  to 
mankind.  It  produced  a  human  alloy  at  once  resistant  and 
malleable. 

If  the  school  had  a  policy,  it  was  the  production  of  capable 
doctors — men  able  to  meet  a  medical  situation,  whatever  its 
nature,  wherever  found.  This  had  been  the  tradition  of  Rush 


for  sixty  years.  To  uphold  it,  her  doors  spoke  a  special  wel-  ^^ 
come  to  youths  with  the  will  for  medicine ;  and  every  entrant 
was  supposed  to  have  such.  Once  in,  it  was  then  up  to  him  as 
to  how  much  he  would  take  unto  himself  of  the  educational 
repast  set  before  him,  for  Rush's  tables  carried  large  and  varied 
assortment.  Police  supervision  was  largely  absent — men  did 
their  best  because  they  wished  to,  not  because  they  had  to.  The 
lock  step  and  standardization  still  lay  some  years  in  the  future. 

In  Wherry's  student  years  a  remarkable  (and  numerically 
large)  number  of  teachers  maintained  Rush's  common  pur- 
pose. In  medicine,  James  B  Herrick,  Norman  Bridge,  Frank 
Billings  and  Bertram  Sippy  were  simultaneously  active  in 
bringing  into  hospital  teaching  a  learning  gatherable  only 
from  years  of  practical  experience  with  sickness  in  the  field; 
while  D  W  Graham,  Christian  Fenger  and  Nicholas  Senn 
(with  J  B  Murphy  soon  to  help  them)  were  doing  the  same 
for  surgery.  J  Clarence  Webster  (import  from  Canada) 
preached  the  doctrine  that  surgical  gynecology  was  so  glori- 
ously triumphant  because  physiological  obstetrics  was  so  badly 
defeated.  But  the  general  idea  that  a  sick  man  is  forever  the 
centre  of  interest  in  the  medical  picture  and  that  the  doctor 
must  see  the  picture  as  a  whole,  was  stressed  even  by  those  who 
made  up  the  specialties.  Ophthalmologists,  dermatologists  and 
neurologists  were  not  afraid  to  treat  constitutional  syphilis  or 
kidney  disease;  even  as  the  surgeons  were  not  afraid  to  limit 
their  therapeutic  ventures  to  straightout  medicine;  nor  the 
internists  to  make  final  diagnoses  in  the  fields  of  the  specialties, 
and  without  consultation. 

This  wide-angled  view  was  characteristic  even  of  the  men 
who  composed  what  have  since  become  known  as  the  preclini- 
cal, academic  or  scientific  years  of  the  medical  curriculum. 
Walter  Stanley  Haines's  chemistry  embraced  not  only  its 
fundamentals,  but  everything  that  to-day  goes  as  biochemis- 
try, diagnosis  by  laboratory  methods,  pharmacology,  toxicol- 
ogy, pharmacy,  drug  therapy  and  forensic  medicine,  not  to 
mention  much  medical  history;  Arthur  Dean  Bevan  and  Dean 
Lewis  made  dead-house  anatomy  live  once  more  in  surgical 
terms,  while  John  M  Dodson  stressed  for  physiology  (unhap- 
pily to  minds  too  often  too  young  to  understand)  that  there 
was  "greater  interest  in  a  live  issue  than  in  a  dead  tissue." 


34 


It  could  be  said  with  truth  that  Rush's  educational  program 
was  not  yet  in  rigor  mortis.  There  was  still  free  movement 
between  the  departmental  joints;  and  the  students  had  so 
many  open  hours  that  the  newly  added  fourth  year  could 
not  be  filled  with  "requirements"  except  as  much  of  a  third 
was  repeated.  Each,  therefore,  still  had  ruminant  periods 
left;  and  those  who  chose  could,  by  judicious  "cutting,"  in- 
crease them  indefinitely.  To  skip  one  instructor's  classes  for 
those  of  another  was  just  good  sense — the  registrar  did  not 
care  and  it  was  up  to  the  students  to  decide  from  whom  they 
might  learn  most.  How  they  employed  their  "leisure"  was, 
of  course,  something  different  with  different  men.  Some  just 
loafed;  others  engaged  in  extra-curricular,  money-yielding 
jobs;  to  the  few,  here  was  opportunity  for  self -assignment. 
The  astute  sought  out  the  men  of  better  capacity  to  teach;  the 
still  more  astute  apprenticed  themselves  to  division  heads  most 
capable  of  pointing  a  way  through  the  jungle  of  that  day's 
medical  thought.  To  this  group  belonged  Wherry.  As  college 
man  he  had  come  with  a  record  that  was  unusual.  Francis 
Bacon,  Thomas  Browne  and  John  Bunyan  were  not  mere 
names.  The  English  ballads  he  had  diluted  with  the  poetry  of 
the  East.  But,  as  his  hidden  history  showed,  he  possessed  more. 
It  was  this  that  again  made  him  stand  out.  He  could  draw,  he 
could  observe  on  his  own,  he  had  quantitative  judgment,  and 
he  could  come  to  conclusions  other  than  those  of  the  printed 
page. 

Wherry  stepped  through  the  paces  required  to  make  him 
an  M  D  quickly  and  easily.  He  did  not  however  top  his  class 
as  he  had  written  his  father  was  his  intention.  He  had  learned 
better;  and  so  had  become  more  than  good  catch  basin  of  the 
temporarily  acceptable  facts  of  medicine  presented  by  section 
masters. 


NOT  long  after  his  entrance  into  Rush  (it  was  in  his  second 
year,  to  be  specific) ,  Wherry  knocked,  to  gain  admit- 
tance to  its  laboratory  of  pathology,  presided  over  by  Ludvig 
Hektoen,  professor.  Born  of  Norwegian  parents  in  Wisconsin 
and  a  graduate  of  Luther  college,  Hektoen  was  now  just 
thirty-five.  Nevertheless  he  was  commonly  referred  to  as  "the 


old  man."  Playmate  in  the  years  gone  by,  of  Fenger,  Billings  2>^ 
and  Herrick  (the  stars  of  Chicago's  medical  madhouse,  the 
Cook  county  hospital),  he  had  spent  his  last  two  in  Europe. 
Most  time  had  gone  into  Prag  where  Chiari  was  then  active — 
he  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  carried  a  microscope  in  his  eye. 
Here  he  had  been  taught  the  ultimate  in  morphological  pathol- 
ogy. The  fact  is  remarkable,  because  what  Hektoen  taught  his 
pupils  was  something  quite  contrary.  "Pathology  has  given  all 
the  descriptions  and  made  all  the  pictures  it  needs  to,"  he  said. 
Morphology,  in  other  words,  was  dead.  Progress,  he  insisted, 
lay  in  bacteriology,  in  immunology,  in  experimental  medicine 
and  in  dynamic  concepts  of  disease. 

Hektoen's  personal  accomplishments  in  scientific  medicine 
bulk  large  (descriptive  essays  on  myocardial  change,  neuro- 
fibrosis,  and  vascular  disease;  critical  essays  on  the  ray  fungi; 
early  evidence  for  the  invasion  of  the  blood  stream  by  micro- 
organisms as  opposed  to  the  "toxic"  origin  of  the  peripheral 
manifestations  of  disease;  early  application  of  physico- 
chemical  methods  to  immunological  problems;  transmission 
of  measles  from  man  to  man) .  Yet  some  would  say  that  what 
he  accomplished  through  his  induction  of  productive  workers 
into  the  field  made  him  a  still  greater  figure.  Most  were  too 
young  to  recognize  the  fact  that  all  their  subsequent  work 
was  but  the  ripening  of  one  of  Hektoen's  brain  shoots.  Gen- 
erous in  his  bestowal  of  "ideas"  upon  those  who  sought  him 
out,  he  was  equally  generous  in  aiding  those  who  came  to  him 
with  notions  of  their  own. 

When  the  men  who  were  simultaneously  active  in  Hektoen's 
laboratory  in  the  years  of  Wherry's  residence  there  are  merely 
listed,  they  stand  forth  as  an  unbelievable  bit  of  American 
medical  history.  Here  were  E  R  Le  Count  (the  second  pro- 
fessor of  pathology  in  Rush,  authority  on  the  tumors  and  sharp 
critic  of  pathological  theory) ;  George  H  Weaver  (an  assistant 
professor,  ditto,  the  discoverer  of  a  liver  cirrhosis-producing 
microorganism  and  the  first  of  the  scientific  makers  of  anti- 
toxine  in  U  S  A) ;  H  G  Wells  (soon  to  revise  pathology  in 
"chemical"  terms  and  to  become  its  professor  in  the  University 
of  Chicago) ;  E  C  Rosenow  (veritable  Holstein  for  scientific 
productivity,  and  later  the  professor  of  experimental  bacteri- 
ology with  the  Mayos) ;  Thomas  Reid  Crowder  (handicapped 


%(\  by  deafness,  shortly  to  emerge  the  medical  director  and  hy- 
gienist  of  the  Pullman  company) ;  David  John  Davis  (to 
make  universal  the  peripheral  distribution  of  the  typhoid 
bacillus  in  typhus  abdominalis  and  to  become  the  professor  of 
pathology  and  bacteriology  in  Illinois's  College  of  medicine) ; 
Peter  Bassoe  (hesitant  in  speech  but  smooth  in  mental  flow  and 
headed  for  a  clinical  professorship  in  nervous  diseases  in  Rush) ; 
Brown  Pusey  (gentleman  in  practice  and  scholar  in  thought, 
even  though  the  undertakers  have  stolen  this  phraseology, 
headed  for  the  professorship  of  ophthalmology  in  North- 
western University's  medical  school) ;  Howard  T  Ricketts 
(inoculating  himself  with  yeasts  to  prove  their  infectiousness, 
discoverer  of  the  mode  of  transmission  of  Rocky  Mountain 
spotted  fever,  and  shortly  to  die  of  typhus  in  Mexico) ;  Arthur 
D  Dunn  (equally  at  home  in  German  or  French,  impresario 
of  Voltaire,  Flaubert,  Anatole  France  and  for  his  life-span 
professor  of  medicine  in  Omaha's  two  medical  schools) ;  Noble 
Wiley  Jones  ( also  of  college  breed,  first  worker  in  the  arsenic 
intoxication  hazards  of  western  mining,  the  professor  of  medi- 
cine ever  afterwards  in  Oregon's  school) ;  Joseph  C  Ohlmacher 
(farm  lad  out  of  Illinois,  for  sixteen  years  the  director  of  an 
Iowa  state  institution,  then  the  pathologist,  bacteriologist  and 
health  chief  of  South  Dakota  and  its  medical  school) ;  Rollin 
T  Woody att  (a  son  of  Chicago,  imaginative  roamer  in  chem- 
istry's empyrean,  to  become  the  professor  of  medicine  in  his 
alma  mater) ;  F  F  Tucker  (shortly  chief  medical  missionary 
in  China's  province  of  Shensi) ;  Willoughby  Hemingway 
(ditto,  but  in  the  province  of  Shansi) ;  and  Alice  Hamilton 
(already  the  pathologist  to  Chicago's  Woman's  medical  col- 
lege and  soon,  America's  strident  voice  against  the  slow  poison- 
ings of  modern  employment) ;  also,  myself. 

With  the  exception  of  Le  Count  and  Weaver — who  busied 
themselves  on  a  floor  above  the  rest — these  men  (including 
Hektoen)  worked  in  a  warren  that  was  Rush  Medical's 
pathological  "research"  laboratory.  The  space  comprised  a  re- 
vamped janitor's  flat — of  which  three  rooms  lay  on  a  first  floor 
and  two,  in  the  basement.  Of  the  three  upper  rooms  Hektoen 
had  kept  but  one — the  smallest — for  himself.  As  to  the  equip- 
ment, each  of  the  older  workers  had  a  kitchen  table  upon 
which  to  lay  out  his  scientific  belongings;  the  younger,  half 


a  table.  What  the  men  lacked  most  was  daylight.  With  Chicago  ^"7 
herself  ungenerous  in  the  matter,  such  light  as  there  was,  got 
into  the  basement  rooms  only  through  four  slit  transoms.  Two 
of  the  upper  rooms  were  more  fortunate.  In  the  third,  Wherry 
alternated  space  with  Rosenow,  since  both  had  to  manoeuvre 
for  light  from  the  only — and  laterally  placed — window. 

The  men  managed  well,  nevertheless. 

Hektoen  began  their  training  in  the  sound  school  of  tech- 
nique. In  this  direction  opportunity  was  large.  Autopsies  in 
the  "County"  or  the  "Pres"  were  everyday  affairs  and  major 
portions  of  the  cadavers  found  their  way  into  Hektoen's  labo- 
ratory for  more  detailed  study.  To  these  were  then  added  all 
the  amputations,  tumors,  and  infected  glands  that  a  half  dozen 
surgeons,  working  steadily,  could  deliver.  But  to  the  anatomi- 
cal study  of  such  human  remains  was  always  added  a  bacterio- 
logical (in  fact,  it  was  through  Hektoen  and  his  workers  that 
Rush  was  of  the  first  of  America's  schools  enabled  to  boast  an 
equipment  for  bacteriological  instruction  open  to  all  the  stu- 
dents). Weak  men  and  the  preternaturally  bright  died  on 
Hektoen's  treadmill.  It  left  men  like  Wherry  to  be  put  upon 
"problems."  Thus  it  was  that  he  was  soon  engaged  upon  a 
statistical  inquiry  into  the  segmentation  and  fragmentation  of 
heart  muscle. 

What  was  unearthed  in  these  more  private  quarters  became 
the  subject  of  essay  or  demonstration  at  a  "conference"  that 
Hektoen  was  wont  to  call  each  month.  It  was  further  good 
training,  for  here  the  men  learned  to  be  brief,  speedy  in  making 
a  point,  critical.  A  story  or  two  of  his  method  bears  repeating. 
"Are  you  sure  of  your  opinion?"  he  would  ask  after  argument. 
Answered,  yes,  he  would  advise:  "Then  publish  it."  Toward 
this  end,  too,  he  helped  them.  How  many  minutes  would  be 
allowed  a  venturer  upon  the  floor?  "Twenty,"  would  come 
the  cold  answer.  When  the  aspirant  would  then  submit  his 
paper  for  revision,  Hektoen  was  likely  not  to  look  at  it.  "You 
are  certain  that  it  will  take  but  twenty  minutes?"  "Yes,  Sir, 
because  I  read  it  out  loud  against  the  clock."  Whereafter  he 
would  order:  "Then  take  it  back;  and  do  it  in  ten."  This  was 
another  of  his  literary  criticisms :  "You  are  sure  that  you  have 
framed  a  good  introduction  and  a  good  close?  A  decent  article 
requires  both."  Told  that  the  two  demands  had  been  met,  he 


*ZQ  would  advise:  "Then  cut  them  both  out  and  get  right  into  the 

JU  middle  of  it." 

Wherry's  own  ability  in  literary  line  was  not  mean  and  yet 
such  instruction  did  not  fail  to  influence  him.  In  his  fairly  long 
list  of  "publications,"  closeness  of  diction  and  accuracy  of 
statement  are  characteristic.  One  of  his  most  important  con- 
tributions to  medical  science  (his  discovery  of  plague  in  the 
ground  squirrels  of  California)  is  but  twenty  pages  long,  with 
much  of  this  space  devoted  to  illustration;  and  another  (his 
discovery  of  "tularemia"  in  man)  is  definitively  set  forth  in  a 
ten-page  account;  his  description  of  the  blood  coagulating 
factor  extractable  from  normal  lung,  occupies  eight;  and 
numerous  others  do  not  take  in  four. 

As  the  quality  of  a  pupil's  output  improved,  Hektoen 
entered  it  upon  the  programs  of  the  Chicago  pathological 
society.  By  1 898  this  had  become  peculiarly  "his."  He  had  just 
been  made  its  president  and  in  this  capacity  he  was  to  continue 
four  years.  In  its  arena  the  public  was  first  to  know  that  a  new 
figure  had  been  born  into  medical  observation  and  opinion.  At 
various  times  there,  a  man  named  Wherry  had  demonstrated 
some  "specimens."  But  in  the  third  year  of  his  medical  course 
he  brought  an  article  [  1  ]  to  print.  It  was  an  elaboration 
merely  of  some  of  Hektoen 's  earlier  observations  on  histo- 
logical change  in  heart  muscle  and  important  only  because 
his  first.  In  the  absolute  it  did  not  amount  to  much.  Even  as 
it  was  being  set  in  type  Wherry  was  shifting  the  point  of 
emphasis  in  his  pathological  philosophy — from  main  interest 
in  the  tissue  reaction  to  that  of  its  causative  agencies.  His 
reports  of  "autopsy"  findings  out  of  the  laboratory  were  to 
bring  the  first  indications  of  this  change  as  they  accented 
increasingly  their  bacteriology. 

THE  stress  of  living  eased  somewhat  in  the  Wherry  house- 
hold in  the  summer  months  of  1900  and  the  medical 
student  did  not  have  to  sell  any  more  clothes  to  keep  going. 
The  father  had  been  called  back  to  India,  taking  mother  and 
Nellie  with  him;  and  the  other  girls  had  married.  It  gave 
Wherry  opportunity  to  consort  for  a  season  with  America's 
greatest  figure  in  parasitology — Theobald  Smith — then  active 


in  Harvard.  Forty-one  at  the  time,  Wherry  knew  him  as  the  ^Q 
man  who  at  twenty-seven  was  the  first  to  prove  the  transmis- 
sion of  a  disease  (Texas  fever)  by  an  insect  carrier.  In  a  later 
decade  he  had  insisted  upon  the  difference  between  human  and 
other  strains  of  the  tubercle  bacillus  and  then  described  the 
sudden  death  consequent  at  times  in  diphtheria  upon  a  second 
injection  of  "antitoxine,"  correctly  ascribing  the  disaster  to  a 
"sensitization"  of  the  patient  by  the  first  injection  of  foreign 
protein  (horse  serum) .  (The  "Theobald  Smith  reaction"  con- 
stitutes the  opening  paragraph  of  that  long  chapter  in  "immu- 
nology" headed  "anaphylaxis.")  Under  this  master  Wherry 
broadened  greatly  his  philosophy  of  biology  and  parasitism,  of 
action  and  reaction,  of  life  and  death.  What  he  learned  he 
added  to  what  he  had  received  from  Hektoen,  and  many  of  the 
teaching  hours  toward  which  Wherry  was  heading  were  to 
be  made  glorious  for  the  students  by  his  recitation  of  what 
he  knew  of  the  accomplishments  and  the  thoughts  of  these 
men. 

Upon  his  return  to  Chicago  for  his  senior  year  in  medicine, 
Wherry  reentered  Hektoen's  laboratory.  His  bacteriological 
findings  in  the  instance  of  an  acute  death  again  reached  the 
floor  of  the  Pathological  society,  were  printed  [2]  and  repub- 
lished in  extenso  a  year  later  [  3  ] .  They  concerned  carbuncle. 
A  barber  had  developed  a  pimple  on  his  upper  lip,  gone  feverish, 
and  to  the  hospital.  Twenty- four  hours  later  he  had  died,  with 
Hektoen  making  an  autopsy.  Clinically  there  had  been  the 
signs  of  a  septico-pyemia  with  dead-house  findings  confirming 
the  fact.  Wherry  had  isolated  a  pure  culture  of  the  staphylo- 
coccus aureus  not  only  from  the  lip  but  from  all  the  internally 
situated  organs. 

By  title,  and  superficially  viewed,  these  second  and  third 
papers  covered  a  case  report.  Usually  such  are  mere  numbers 
added  to  medicine's  curio  catalogue.  In  Wherry's  contribution, 
however,  there  was  something  more.  It  evidenced,  first,  what 
was  to  prove  his  way  of  work  and  thought.  His  subject  was 
just  a  slice  from  any  day's  routine — but,  as  the  future  was  to 
prove,  it  was  always  out  of  the  commonplace  that  he  was  to 
extract  his  rounded  pearls.  Second,  he  was  presenting  a  bac- 
teriological account;  but  it  was  preceded  by  a  clinical  and  an 
anatomical  report  which  clearly  exhibited  his  expertness  in  all 


Af\  these  fields.  (His  skill  in  the  succinct  delineation  of  a  medical 
picture  may  be  compared  only  with  H  Curschmann's  powers. ) 
The  longer  story  ended  in  some  (large  print)  Considerations. 
Philosophizing  from  the  fact  to  the  abstract  principle,  he 
wrote:  "Suppurative  phlebitis  soon  results  in  infected  thrombi, 
detached  portions  of  which  travel  through  the  venous  circula- 
tion as  mycotic  emboli.  .  .  .  They  lodge  in  the  capillaries  of 
the  lungs  .  .  .  eventually  in  any  of  the  organs,  skin,  or  long 
bones.  .  .  .  With  proper  bacteriologic  diagnosis  established, 
antistaphylococcus  serum  .  .  .  might  prove  a  valuable  aid  to 
surgical  inter vention.,, 

1901  saw  Wherry  at  work  upon  items  well  beyond  the 
isolation  stage  merely  of  pathogenic  microorganisms.  Sir 
Almroth  Wright  had  given  propulsion  in  England  to  Pasteur's 
"vaccine"  studies  (the  development  of  immunity  to  a  disease 
by  the  injection  of  the  killed  organisms  responsible) ,  had 
fished  up  again  the  Metchnikoff  concept  of  immunity  (that 
the  white  cells  of  the  blood  engulf  and  kill  off  the  offenders) 
and  had  brought  forward  his  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
materials — the  opsonins — able  to  further  phagocytosis  (the 
engulfing  half  of  the  problem) .  Wherry  became  an  enthusias- 
tic laborer  in  each  of  these  fields,  though  what  he  found  and 
believed  at  the  moment  was  not  to  receive  public  mention  for 
several  years. 

In  June  of  1901  Wherry  was  declared  an  M  D  by  Rush 
medical  college  authority. 

For  a  season  he  continued  in  Hektoen's  laboratory.  What  he 
wished  was  a  place  there  as  teacher  and  the  chance  to  continue 
his  studies;  but  the  queue  of  good  men  was  long.  When 
autumn  came,  Wherry  therefore  seized  the  opportunity  to 
become  an  assistant  (at  a  thousand  for  the  annum)  to  Edwin 
Oakes  Jordan,  whose  habitation  was  in  the  gorgeous  buildings 
of  the  Midway  that  were  the  University  of  Chicago.  Jordan 
was  thirty-five,  in  charge  of  bacteriology,  though  only  an  asso- 
ciate professor.  With  him  Wherry  was  busy  a  year  and  a  half. 
Most  of  this  time  went  into  the  better  equipment  and  man- 
agement of  the  students'  laboratory;  the  rest  into  didactic 
instruction.  His  ability  in  these  lines  increased  the  enrollment. 
But  even  better  was  the  realization  on  the  part  of  some  of  the 
students  that  here  was  a  teacher  of  peculiar  gifts.  Though  his 


MD,  RUSH,  1901 


AO  delivery  was  never  spectacular  and  his  voice  low,  those  who 
moved  up  close  were  strangely  fired.  Here  were  terseness,  fine 
English,  a  humor  which  permitted  him  to  laugh  even  at  him- 
self; above  all,  an  ability  to  make  an  auditor  reactive  to  the 
eternally  romantic  hidden  in  the  drama  of  all  living  things. 

Besides  which  Wherry  brought  forth  a  paper.  It  concerned 
the  permeability  of  bacteriological  filters  [4] ,  a  labor  begun  in 
Theobald  Smith's  laboratory.  In  it  he  stated  with  finality  what 
later  observers  were  to  rehash  for  a  decade — that  porcelain 
filters  differ  from  each  other  and  are  unreliable  among  them- 
selves; that  their  pore  size  determines  whether  an  organism 
can  or  cannot  be  separated  from  its  medium;  that  filterable 
organisms  are  probably  not  ultramicroscopic ;  that  certain 
organisms,  in  time,  actually  grow  through  the  filter  walls. 

Jordan's  laboratory,  however,  was  the  locale  of  another 
adventure.  Marie  Eleanor  Nast  of  Cincinnati  (the  daughter 
of  Albert  J  Nast  and  the  granddaughter  of  William  Nast, 
successively  the  editors  of  German-American  Methodism's 
greatest  voice,  Der  Chris  Hie  he  Apologete) ,  as  honor  student 
out  of  Goucher  college  and  scholar  in  biology  at  Woods  Hole, 
had  chosen  to  spend  the  second  year  of  her  traveling  fellow- 
ship in  a  western  university;  and  had  picked  Chicago.  Intent 
upon  becoming  an  M  D,  she  had  heard  of  Wherry's  qualifica- 
tions and  registered  with  him.  Wherry  shortly  found  himself 
impressed  of  her  scientific  sense — also  of  her  black  hair  and 
the  red  rose  she  always  wore. 


1902-1905 


III 


THINGS  moved  fast  for  Wherry  when  the  autumn  quar- 
ter of  1902  opened  in  the  university.  There  was  his 
teaching,  of  course;  and  those  more  personal  labors  that  go 
by  the  name  of  research.  Hidden  deeper  in  his  heart  was  the 
continuing  need  to  be  of  material  help  to  his  family;  where- 
fore a  look  about  for  prospects. 

U  S  had  completed  its  conquest  of  the  Spaniard,  had  bought 
and  paid  for  a  brand-new  set  of  islands  in  the  western  ocean, 
and  had  "pacified"  them.  At  the  moment  it  was  broadening 
this  spiritualizing  influence  via  the  establishment  of  govern- 
ment laboratories  in  Manila,  to  cost  millions.  To  order  them, 
men  were  needed.  Specifically,  a  pathologist  and  a  bacteriolo- 
gist were  being  sought  at  $1800  each;  and  the  Civil  service 
commission  out  of  Washington  had  been  deputized  to  broad- 
cast the  call.  In  September,  Wherry  entered  the  lists.  I  had 
myself  migrated  to  California  by  this  time  where  he  wrote 
me  (December  19,  1902) : 

I  haven't  gone  into  politics  but  I  am  making  money  fast.  Two 
weeks  ago  I  spent  5  plunks  and  thereby  saved  9  5 .  Last  Satur- 
day I  again  invested  5  dirty  dollars  and  if  I  hadn't  dropped  a 
20  dollar  bill  in  a  hasty  movement,  I  would  again  have  saved 
that  amount.  As  it  was,  I  only  made  75.  Two  weeks  ago, 
dressed  in  my  only  black  suit,  I  invaded  the  clean  but  bare  par- 
lor of  Beecher  Hall  and  had  a  lovely  hour  with  Her  ...  I  see 
my  finish  next  quarter  .   .   . 

But  before  this  quarter  was  to  start — on  December  27 — 
telegraphic  and  official  word  informed  him  that  he  had  passed 
the  government  examination,  had  gained  his  coveted  appoint- 
ment and  that  under  U  S  army  orders  he  would  report,  ready 
to  sail,  at  San  Francisco  on  January  first. 

His  appointment  to  the  pathological  division  of  the  biologi- 
cal laboratory  of  the  Bureau  of  government  laboratories  in 
Manila  had  been  made  on  the  basis  of  grades  in  a  competitive 


A  A  examination.  For  the  open  posts  any  qualified  citizen  was 
eligible  and  some  eight  candidates  had  come  forward.  Though 
trained  of  Hektoen,  Smith  and  Jordan,  Wherry  was  given 
a  low  mark  for  "experience."  Nevertheless,  when  the  final 
averages  came  in,  he  had  made  top  score.  Second  in  line,  stood 
Paul  G  Woolley  (then  twenty-seven,  the  son  also  of  a  clergy- 
man, with  special  bringing-up  in  pathology  under  Welch  and 
Adami) .  The  outcome  of  the  examination  started  the  two 
upon  an  enduring  friendship  (previously  they  had  merely  met 
when  Woolley  had  spent  a  summer  in  Hektoen's  laboratory) . 
They  reached  San  Francisco  shortly  before  the  day  of  embarka- 
tion on  the  transport  Sheridan.  Of  what  happened  on  the  ship, 
Wherry  wrote  thus  to  his  mother  (January  24,  1903) : 

Pacific  Ocean  about  400  miles 
east  of  Guam,  Ladrone  Islands 
Dr  Woolley  &  I  arrived  in  San  Francisco  just  in  time  for  the 
New  Year's  Eve  celebration.  We  put  up  at  the  Palace  Hotel 
in  style.  Martin  Fischer  and  Hoyt  Barbour  who  is  asst  Chinese 
inspector,  were  very  good  to  us — we  had  dinner  with  Martin 
and  in  the  evening,  Hoyt  showed  us  through  Chinatown.  .  .  . 
This  transport  is  a  fair  sized  boat  and  the  accommodations  are 
good  though  not  sumptuous.  It  was  pretty  rough  .  .  .  The 
transport,  as  you  may  surmise,  contains  a  funny  mixture  of 
humanity.  There  are  a  company  of  soldiers,  about  20  officers, 
officers'  families,  young  ladies  going  out  to  be  married,  etc. 
Some  are  very  nice,  some  are  "so-so,"  some  are  n  g. 

Most  of  us  have  nicknames — Dr  Woolley  is  called  "the  typi- 
cal college  student."  I  have  been  styled  "the  ecclesiastic" — 
probably  because  I  am  dressed  in  black  &  look  upon  life  too 
seriously.  A  friend  of  ours — Capt  Hutchins,  a  soldier  of  For- 
tune in  S  America  &  the  Philippines,  tall  with  black  hair  & 
fierce  mustache — goes  as  "the  brigand" — etc,  etc! 

Day  before  yesterday  we  spent  at  Guam.  We  have  a  naval 
station  &  penal  colony  there.  The  island  is  of  typical  volcanic 
origin,  surrounded  by  barrier  reefs  of  coral  and  covered  with 
cocoanut  &  banana  groves.  Capt  Hutchins  &  I  took  a  native 
cart  (without  springs)  and  rode  4  54  miles  to  the  naval  station 
at  Agana.  The  officers  gave  us  a  hearty  welcome  &  dined  us  at 
their  club.  We  were  beautifully  sunburned  and  look  like  boiled 


r»rn  Ne.  12S7. 
March.  1902, 


REPORT  OF  A  VERA 


'Mifi^dljjL^ASiviATIOTf. 


6 


©titled  States 

GHrjtt  jSertrtce  (Earamissttra, 

"ffi&aslitnetira,  §.  <$. 


taken  by  yon  are  indicated  in  the  table  below. 


Averages. 


!  First— Microscopic  technique (Sheet  1)._L.T|.^L._. 

Second — Bacteriologic  technique (Sheet  2) | zj.Sf. . 

j  Third— Pathogenic  bacteria (Sheet  3)—'....yf-C..... 

!  Fourth— Hematology  ._ _ (Sheet  4)— )....$.]).... 

Fifth — General  and  special  pathology (Sheet  5)— — -^f  -T-— 

j  Sixth — Training  and  experience >   .$.&.... 

'  Last  Sheet — Personal  Questions  (not  rated). 

Total 

Average  percentage . 


Relative 
weights. 


20 


Products  of 

averages 

multiplied  by 

weights. 


I 


3A.L 


THE  REPORT  THAT  MADE  WHERRY  PATHOLOGIST 
TO  THE  GOVERNMENT  LABORATORIES  IN  MANILA 


A£\  lobsters.  While  at  Guam,  Capt  Hutchins  &  I  visited  Mabini — 
Aguinaldo's  secretary  of  war.  He  is  kept  on  the  island  because 
he  refuses  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  U  S.  He  is  para- 
lyzed from  the  waist  down  and  appears  quite  emaciated.  I 
don't  believe  he  will  live  long.  He  has  good  quarters  with  Gen 
Recarte,  one  of  Aguinaldo's  generals  who  also  refuses  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance.  We  had  to  wait  until  he  was  through 
his  "siesta" — so  the  officers  evidently  treat  him  well. 

I  have  never  felt  better  in  my  life  and  am  only  anxious  to 
reach  Manila  and  get  to  work.  .  .  .  The  Pacific  Ocean  is  cer- 
tainly a  great  desert — we  didn't  see  a  sign  of  life,  barring  a  few 
birds  &  flying  fish,  between  the  Golden  Gate  and  Guam — a 
distance  of  over  5000  miles,  a  three  weeks'  trip. 

Manila,  January  27,  1903 

Arrived  O  K  and  am  putting  up  at  the  Oriente  until  further 
orders. 

Thus  the  trip  over  for  the  two  men  had  proved  uneventful 
except  for  a  discussion.  The  rules  of  their  competitive  exami- 
nation had  declared  the  high  man  the  pathologist,  and  the  next 
high,  the  bacteriologist  to  the  Islands.  Woolley  pointed  out  to 
Wherry  that  his  larger  interest  lay  in  parasitology.  What  more 
natural  than  that  Wherry  should,  in  the  face  of  such  argu- 
ment, trade  his  primary  title  to  Woolley,  for  the  latter's 
secondary! 

On  the  day  after  landing,  really  to  make  instant  return  of 
some  money  he  had  borrowed  for  the  extra  costs  of  his  passage, 
he  penned  me  a  brief  note;  whereafter  "she"  became  the 
recipient  of  most  of  his  letters.  One  dated  February  2,  1903, 
said: 

Well,  here  we  are  located  in  Manila,  a  very  interesting  and 
expensive  place.  We  have  a  nice  corner  room  completely  open 
on  two  sides  in  a  large  Spanish-style  house  with  four  blue 
columns  in  front  and  a  tropical  garden  behind.  Our  windows 
overlook  the  garden.  The  house  is  in  a  section  of  the  new  city, 
San  Sebastian,  north  of  the  Pasig  river  which  separates  the  old 
walled  town  from  the  new.  Our  number  is  183  Calle  San 
Sebastian.  We  consider  ourselves  remarkably  lucky  .  .  .  The 
laboratory  is  within  easy  walking  distance  which  is  a  point  of 
vital  importance,  for  transportation  facilities  could  not  be 


worse.  When  we  grow  wealthy  we  will  own  a  horse  and  car-  A"J 
romata.  As  it  is,  we  either  walk  (no  one,  but  natives  and  low 
white  trash,  walks  in  Manila)  or  loaf  along  until  we  can  hail 
an  empty  one.  I  certainly  had  a  good  attack  of  the  blues  shortly 
after  arrival  but  as  I  am  endowed  with  a  submissive  spirit,  I 
succumb  to  the  inevitable.  Things  have  turned  out  just  as  I 
expected  but  not  as  I  hoped.  The  Government  Laboratories 
consist  of  a  small  building  back  of  the  city  hospital.  The 
equipment  is  fair.  But  what  discouraged  me  was  to  be  informed 
that  routine  work  would  be  my  chief  occupation.  So  I  am 
engaged  as  I  was  during  my  senior  year  at  Rush.  However,  I 
intend  to  put  in  extra  time.  So  far  as  I  can  see  now,  if  emer- 
gencies in  the  way  of  epidemics  arise,  Dr  Woolley  and  I  will 
do  the  routine  work  while  someone  else  will  get  the  credit. 
Well,  here  I  am  writing  down  my  troubles  instead  of  hunting 
up  a  policeman.  At  any  rate  we  will  see  and  learn  many  new 
things.  Dr  Hektoen's  suggestion  that  on  my  return  I  give  a 
course  in  tropical  diseases,  has  keyed  me  up  to  making  the  most 
of  two  years.  This  morning  Dr  C  F  De  Mey,  a  big,  jolly,  good- 
looking  Frenchman,  who  has  charge  of  the  lepers  at  San  Lazaro 
Hospital,  took  us  out  there  and  showed  us  many  interesting 
and  horrible  cases.  He  also  lives  at  1 8  3  but  soon  leaves  to  estab- 
lish a  colony  for  the  Islands.  He  is  very  enthusiastic  about  a 
method  of  treatment  he  has  discovered.  There  has  been  no 
cholera  in  the  city  since  January  fifteenth  though  many  cases 
occur  daily  in  the  provinces;  and  bubonic  plague  has  almost 
died  out.  The  health  department  here  is  excellent. 

By  February  twelfth  he  was  again  on  the  eternal  theme  of 
his  finances: 

I  am  enclosing  a  postal  money  order,  Martin,  which  you  will 
no  doubt  be  glad  to  receive.  .  .  .  Manila  is  a  great  place.  .  .  . 
We  have  fallen  into  more  or  less  routine  which  will  last  for  a 
month  or  two  when  Freer  promises  us  plenty  of  opportunity 
for  research.   .   .   . 

The  reference  was  to  the  altogether  remarkable  Paul  C 
Freer.  He  had,  in  1903,  when  just  forty,  been  appointed  the 
"superintendent"  of  the  Government  laboratories.  An  M  D 
out  of  Rush  at  twenty,  he  had  made  himself  a  Ph  D  out  of 
Munich  at  twenty-five.  After  a  season  with  the  great  Perkin 


AQ  in  Manchester  and  some  itinerant  teaching  in  the  U  S,  he  had 
concluded  fourteen  years  as  professor  of  general  chemistry  in 
Michigan  before  starting  to  Manila.  Wherry's  letter  continued: 

There  is  a  6  J4  million  dollar  appropriation  for  the  labora- 
tories which  are  to  be  a  central  institution  where  scientific 
work  for  the  group  of  islands  will  be  done.  The  new  building 
will  be  completed  within  the  year.  .  .  .  Great  Scientists  from 
the  U  S  will  be  invited  to  come  and  investigate  any  old  thing 
they  want  .  .  .  How  would  you  like  me  to  get  you  a  bolt  of 
Chinese  silk  mucho  fina?  ...  I  had  a  nice  letter  from  Miss 
Nast  yesterday,  so  am  feeling  fine  to-day.  .  .  .  Nearly  every- 
one working  in  this  lab  gets  something — mostly  amoebic 
dysentery.  I  expect  to  have  beri-beri  .  .  . 

Another  day  he  wrote: 

.  .  .  Woolley  expects  to  study  rinderpest.  I  am  going  to 
study  beri-beri  partly  because  Hektoen  suggested  it  and  partly 
because  there  is  an  excellent  opportunity  here,  for  it  is  practi- 
cally endemic  in  Bilibid  Prison  and  epidemic  in  Manila  during 
certain  seasons  of  the  year.Though  when  I  look  at  the  bibliog- 
raphy and  see  what  an  immense  amount  of  work  has  been  done 
on  it  and  by  good  men,  too,  it  nearly  paralyzes  me. 

February  21,  1903,  he  made  this  report: 

We  have  plenty  to  do  now,  for  plague  is  starting  up.  There 
were  six  fatal  cases  during  the  week.  I  had  three  plague  autop- 
sies in  one  day  on  primary  bubonic  followed  by  septicemia. 
The  board  of  health  has  been  lax  but  the  laboratory  is  stirring 
them  up,  for  we  get  plague  rats  among  those  caught  and  sent 
in.  It  is  a  horrible  disease,  just  like  anthrax.  I  will  send  you  some 
slides,  for  they  will  interest  you. 

On  March  22,  1903,  in  a  letter  headed  "Hot  Season,"  he 
added: 

The  climate  here  is  productive  of  the  most  delightfully  lazy 
feelings.  If  we  weren't  so  busy,  I  would  be  a  victim  of  Fili- 
pinitis.  But  with  plague  and  cholera  on  the  rise,  we  have  plenty 
to  do.  .  .  .  Cholera  is  really  a  most  frightful  disease.  I  am 
trying  to  do  a  little  work  on  it  but  cannot  accomplish  much, 
for  we  have  not  been  relieved  of  our  routine.  I  can  get  in  some 
time  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays  though.  It  took  me  almost 


U        -^                 SM8i?,',,"*;>£ fa**'  "* 

~    4&,  ''Safe 

it.  t  ■  ^f  i           f-:<k         SB  k' 
.,      ?»»'w:*j^.  | .         .^JpOk:     *#«B1  •-  •..  •*», 

M 

'  ^BbI 

MANILA'S  FIRST  U  S  GOVERNMENT  LABORATORY 


^  Q  three  weeks  to  make  up  my  media.  Though  I  am  using  methods 
of  which  Martin  would  highly  disapprove,  I  find  it  interesting 
to  make  comparison  of  the  different  strains  of  organisms  iso- 
lated from  plague  and  cholera.  I  am  about  to  carry  out  some 
work  on  toxine  production  by  the  cholera  spirillum. 
April  7,  1903,  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

.  .  .  Thank  you  for  the  extract  from  the  Civil  &  Military 
Gazette  on  "oysters."  It  particularly  interests  me  for  I  had 
some  work  to  do  on  oysters  a  few  weeks  ago  for  the  board  of 
health.  These  Philippine  oysters  are  all  more  or  less  dangerous 
and  the  Board  of  Health  forbade  their  sale;  strange  to  say, 
since  then,  there  has  been  none  of  the  cholera-like  infections 
which  were  quite  frequent.  Yes,  we  are  very  comfortably 
located  and  have  good  food.  Still,  we  find  $45.00  a  month 
rather  steep  and  if  we  get  a  chance,  Woolley  &  I  will  keep 
house.  A  couple  of  friends  of  ours  do  so  and  quite  reasonably, 
too. — I  don't  go  out  anywhere  in  the  evenings  excepting  that 
Woolley  &  I  drive  to  the  Luneta  &  hear  the  music  two  or  three 
times  a  week,  and  then  we  go  to  Medical  Soc'y  once  a  month. 
Our  work  requires  pretty  steady  reading  &  we  usually  spend 
our  evenings  that  way.  We  bought  some  interesting  photo- 
graphs the  other  day  from  the  Government  photographer. 
They  represent  various  peoples  in  the  Island  of  Luzon,  their 
dress,  homes,  etc.  We  cannot  send  them  away  though,  or  the 
photographer  would  get  into  trouble.  One  of  our  chemists 
here,  a  Mr  Stangle,  is  quite  an  anthropologist  &  philologist, 
knowing  many  languages  well.  He  is  studying  the  origin  of 
the  Philippine  tribes  and  has  much  evidence  to  show  that  the 
aborigines  here — Igorrotes — are  quite  like  the  aborigines  of 
India — the  Bhils,  etc.  He  is  anxious  to  get  a  vocabulary  of 
Indian  words  to  compare  with  the  Philippine,  and  asked  me 
if  I  could  in  any  way  get  hold  of  such  a  vocabulary.  I  told 
him  that  I  would  see  if  Papa  could  do  anything.  So  I  enclose 
a  list  of  words. 

His  laboratory  chum  out  of  the  Chicago  days,  Joseph  C 
Ohlmacher,  cheered  him  from  the  Independence  state  hos- 
pital in  Iowa  (April  8,  1903) : 

Even  your  routine,  at  first  anyway,  must  be  exceptionally 
interesting,  and  I  envy  you  your  opportunity  of  doing  autop- 


sies  on  plague  and  cholera,  though  not  your  work  in  tents  as  S 1 
morgue  ...  I  have  notes  on  interesting  cases  here  but  have 
lacked  the  nerve  to  publish  them.  So  many  fool  articles,  half 
dressed  and  rachitic  are  flooding  the  journals.  ...  I  wish  I 
were  with  you  ...  if  only  to  hear  you  say  "By  George,  Ole, 
I'm  putting  up  an  awful  bluff." 

At  the  same  time  his  sister  transmitted,  with  a  letter  out  of 
Chicago,  the  following  signed  statement: 

Received  April  4th  $50.00  from  W  B  Wherry 

Spent  life  insurance  $12.91  Ap  15 

For  John's  clothes  $20.00 

$32.91 
In  Northern  Trust  Co  Bank       $  1 7.09 

The  reference  to  John  covered  a  new  financial  item  that 
Wherry  had  assumed — he  would  see  his  younger  brother  (the 
last  of  the  children)  through  college.  Much  inter  familial  cor- 
respondence was  to  debate  not  the  fact  but  the  nature  of  this 
collegiate  training.  The  father  stood  out  for  the  classical  in 
the  established  "W  and  J;"  the  boy  himself,  for  the  agricul- 
tural. For  a  year  the  father  won;  whereafter  the  son  managed 
his  own  future  in  the  University  of  Illinois  in  Champaign- 
Urbana.  Commenting  on  the  situation  in  April,  the  mother 
had  informed  Wherry:  "John  is  back  in  Chicago.  He  has  had 
enough  of  mines  but  seems  to  have  saved  a  good  deal  of  money, 
$100,  but  some  of  that  will  have  to  go  to  clothes  &  travel." 

Descriptive  of  Wherry's  own  activities  was  a  letter  sent 
Miss  Nast  on  May  11,1903: 

.  .  .  There  is  a  great  deal  of  sickness  in  the  city  and  the  Civil 
Hospital  is  overflowing.  Our  laboratory  force  has  also  suffered 
and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  poor  Woolley  is  in  bad  shape.  I  am 
afraid  that  he  is  of  too  nervous  a  temperament  to  stand  the 
tropics  well.  He  had  some  trouble  following  an  injection  of 
20  cc  of  plague  antitoxine,  after  which  one  of  those  irregular 
fevers  followed.  Now  he  has  an  inflammation  of  the  shoulder 
and  knee  joints.  He  has  lost  about  twenty  pounds  and  I  am 
afraid  that  he  has,  or  may  develop,  tuberculosis.  We  made 
him  go  to  the  Civil  Hospital  but  he  would  only  stay  there 
three  days.  We  are  going  to  make  him  get  out  of  this  place 


^  9  f°r  a  couple  of  weeks.  Then,  Dr  Freer  is  ill.  Mr  Clegg,  another 
of  our  men,  was  ill.  The  hospital  staff  are  nearly  all  laid  out 
with  something.  So  you  may  be  sure  that  those  of  us  who 
were  born  to  be  shot,  hanged  or  drowned  have  plenty  to  do. 
This  interferes  seriously  with  research,  but  to  tell  you  the 
truth  I  rather  like  it,  for  one  feels  as  if  his  labours  were  not 
altogether  lost — as  they  are  when  research  is  without  results. 
I  am  beginning  to  think  that  I  must  be  fitted  for  a  tropical 
life.  One  continually  sees  interesting  fevers  and  pathological 
conditions  of  which  no  one  seems  to  have  definite  knowledge. 
Soon,  we  are  to  start  a  Journal  here.  The  Manila  Medical  Soc'y 
is  sponsor.  It  will  probably  be  entitled  "The  Journal  of  Trop- 
ical Medicine  and  Allied  Sciences."  The  delay  is  now  great 
when  one  wishes  to  publish  anything. — The  mail  leaves  to- 
morrow. I  hope  that  you  have  decided  not  to  study  during 
the  summer.  It  will  be  much  nicer  to  dance,  fish,  row  and 
swim — for  Martin  once  told  me  that  you  were  a  famous  swim- 
mer. I  helped  disinfect  a  ship  on  the  bay  the  other  day  ( Sun- 
day!) and  the  water  looked  so  inviting.  If  it  hadn't  been  for 
the  numerous  stinging  jelly  fish  and  a  couple  of  sharks,  I  would 
certainly  have  fallen  overboard  accidentally,  on  purpose. 

He  continued  this  recital  May  25,  1903 : 

I  am  growing  weary  of  "expecting' '  the  Sumner  (already 
overdue  10  days).  There  are  a  thousand  sacks  of  mail  due 
and  if  they  have  all  gone  to  the  bottom  I  am  going  to  do  some 
swearing.  It  seems  an  age  since  I  received  one  of  your  cheery 
letters. — Dr.  Woolley  is  at  Baguio,  Benguet — at  the  north  of 
Luzon — where  they  have  a  temperate  climate.  It  seems  hardly 
possible  that  there  should  be  such  a  place  in  the  Islands.  We 
expect  him  back  next  week.  I  will  be  glad  to  see  him  for  I 
am  tired  of  this  bachelor  life.  Then,  we  need  him  at  the  lab- 
oratory where  there  is  too  much  to  do.  I  have  had  to  lay  aside 
most  of  my  own  work  and  am  now  up  to  the  ears  in  water, 
soda,  and  lemonade  analyses — not  to  mention  the  regular  rou- 
tine and  post  mortem  work.  Dr  McCoy,  of  the  Marine  Hos- 
pital Service,  who  is  staying  at  183  San  Sebastian,  is  much 
interested  in  pathology  and  as  he  is  a  good  clinician  we  fre- 
quently go  out  in  the  afternoons  to  San  Lazaro  Hospital  to 
look  over  the  plague,  cholera  and  smallpox  patients.  Last  week 


we  happened  to  be  there  when  a  fire  started  in  the  Trozo  dis-  ^  *X 
trict.  Its  Philippine  population  lives  in  nipa  palm  and  bamboo 
shacks.  A  strong  wind  was  blowing  and  in  less  than  an  hour 
about  a  square  mile  of  them  along  the  cholera  detention 
camps  was  destroyed.  We  happened  to  be  the  first  white  men 
on  the  scene,  for  we  ran  down  into  the  district  as  soon  as  the 
fire  started,  and  it  kept  us  busy  hustling  the  natives  along. 
During  the  excitement  we  managed  to  cut  a  good  many 
horses  loose,  carried  a  paralytic  to  a  safe  distance,  helped  carry 
trunks,  etc.  until  I  thought  I  was  dead,  though  Dr  McCoy 
kept  it  up  beautifully.  The  most  precious  possessions  of  the 
average  Filipino  are  his  fighting  cocks  and  we  ran  across  many 
an  hombre  carefully  tying  his  roosters  together  by  the  feet 
while  his  wife  struggled  with  the  wooden  chest  in  which  the 
family  valuables  are  kept.  San  Lazaro  Hospital  was  almost 
burned  but  a  fortunate  change  in  the  wind  saved  it. 

As  recreation,  and  partly  for  the  excitement,  I  have  visited 
several  seditious  Philippine  Teatros  with  Mr  Harvey,  the 
attorney  general  to  the  Constabulary  (with  whom  we  live). 
The  plays  are  in  Tagalog  but  are  not  hard  to  understand.  The 
Catapman  Society,  organized  against  the  Spanish  Govern- 
ment is  still  active  against  the  Americans  whom  they  consider 
traitors  (perhaps  not  altogether  wrongly).  It  is  continually 
engaged  in  stirring  up  the  ignorant  natives  against  the  Insular 
Government;  and  Manila  is  its  headquarters.  In  one  play 
entitled,  Let  the  Traitor  be  Buried  Alive,  the  events  were 
supposedly  enacted  between  the  Filipinos  and  Spaniards  but 
they  introduced  an  Americano  who  was  the  most  ridiculous 
character  imaginable.  In  the  end  the  ladron  with  the  national 
red  trousers  buried  the  Americano  alive,  head  first,  and 
stamped  the  ground  down  hard — just  as  the  Sun  of  Philip- 
pine independence  rose  in  its  glory  from  behind  the  three 
sacred  mountains  and  the  Aguinaldo  march  was  played.  A 
ban  has  been  placed  on  such  plays  by  order  of  Gov  Taft. — I 
enclose  the  program  of  another  play  we  visited  the  next  night. 
This  was  a  strictly  first-class  performance.  The  better  natives 
prefer  American  protection  but  the  ladron  element  is  still 
strong  and  it  requires  constant  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the 
authorities  to  head  off  conspiracies,  etc.  A  general  massacre 
was  planned  for  the  1 5  th  of  this  month  but  nothing  came  of 


^  A  it.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  "scare." 
Still,  these  things  help  to  make  life  exciting. — I  am  going  out 
on  the  bay  with  Dr  McCoy  some  afternoons  this  week  for 
my  health, — the  sea  breezes  are  so  healthful,  and  then  I  don't 
care  whether  the  water  from  Aparri,  or  the  "lemonade"  & 
soda  sold  in  the  Tonds  market  contains  the  cholera  bacillus 
or  not. 

Please  remember  me  to  your  father  whom,  you  will  recall, 
I  met  in  the  laboratory  last  winter.  Have  you  had  any  new 
photographs  taken?  If  you  have,  I  would  be  pleased  to  think 
of  one  coming  in  this  direction — even  though  it  has  to  make 
an  uncertain  journey. 

To  his  mother  he  reported  (June  17,  1903) : 

.  .  .  We  had  a  typical  Philippine  rain  this  morning.  Water 
came  down  in  sheets  and  ran  off  the  ground  in  rivers.  We  had 
to  stop  work  at  the  laboratory  for  about  an  hour  because  of 
it.  Our  biological  department  is  to  move  in  a  few  days  to  a 
new  building  on  Calle  Alex,  where  we  will  have  more  room. 
— We  like  our  new  living  quarters  at  Dr  Fale's  very  much. 
It  is  nearer  the  Luneta  on  the  bay  front  (about  a  mile) ,  and 
so  I  walk  there  S^back  every  evening.  Woolley  still  prefers  to 
ride. — I  heard  good  news  the  other  day.  We  are  to  be  relieved 
of  much  routine  "soon"  and  our  salaries  will  be  raised — prob- 
ably next  October.  I  believe  I  am  to  get  $2000,  in  which  case 
I  can  easily  carry  all  of  John's  college  expenses. 

Better  details  regarding  the  new  laboratory  quarters  were 
sent  June  28,  1903: 

Moving  to-day,  and  every  member,  beginning  with  Jo- Jo, 
the  monkey  with  the  95%  alcohol  habit,  to  the  American 
Senorita  who  guards  the  books  of  learning,  is  happy.  Our 
new,  temporary,  quarters  are  a  vast  improvement.  My  window 
overlooks,  or  more  truly  overhangs,  the  street  and  when  I  am 
feeling  particularly  listless  I  can  watch  the  tailoresses  in  the 
sastreria,  across  the  street,  or  gaze  with  wonder  at  the  two 
skinny  nags  that  haul  a  bouncing  car  loaded  with  "googoos" 
— a  part  of  our  wonderful  street  car  system.  Or  I  can  look 
down  the  street  and  watch  the  natives  paddling  about  in  an 
estero  or,  when  the  tide  is  high,  see  them  wading  knee-deep 


in  slimy  ooze  in  search  of  crabs.  The  new  position  has  many  S  S 
advantages. 


TO  these  accounts  of  his  more  private  doings,  Hektoen,  in 
Chicago,  added  reference  to  a  more  public  one.  June  22, 
1903,  he  informed  Wherry  that  his  "paper  concerning  the 
diplococcus  from  the  skin  was  presented  in  abstract  at  the  last 
meeting  of  the  Pathological  society."  Reporting  of  the  men 
left  in  Rush  he  added:  "Dr  Ricketts  is  busily  engaged  .  .  . 
Dr  Rosenow  has  succeeded  in  cultivating  the  pneumococcus 
from  the  blood  in  nearly  all  of  a  very  large  number  of  cases. 
.   .   .  Yours  very  sincerely." 

Then  there  followed  a  P  S,  written  in  by  hand  as  mute  evi- 
dence of  what  the  other  men  of  Hektoen's  laboratory  had 
always  felt — that  here,  after  all,  was  the  favorite  son! 

We  shall  always  be  glad  to  present  your  work  to  the  Path  Soc 
if  you  choose  to  send  it  on. — Dr  Jordan  and  I  are  to  edit  a 
new  journal,  the  Journ  of  Infectious  Diseases,  which  begins 
next  January.  It  is  an  endowed  journal  and  I  hope  you  will 
favor  it  with  Philip  material. — Dear  Wherry — we  often  speak 
of  you  and  you  know  you  have  the  best  wishes  of  a  large  circle 
of  friends  here.  Ever  yours. 

The  abstract  referred  to,  was  published  shortly  as  an 
article  [  5  ]  in  the  United  States.  It  described  an  inflammation 
of  the  skin  in  a  Chinaman  which  Wherry  had  found  due  to  a 
new  brand  of  diplococcus.  He  followed  this  quickly  with 
another  paper  [6],  on  the  effectiveness  of  a  chemical  method 
of  sterilizing  drinking  water.  Acetozone  proved  not  to  be  very 
good.  As  these  things  were  under  way  he  wrote  me: 

.  .  .  The  opportunities  are  good  here,  will  be  better,  and  the 
salary  will  probably  be  higher  than  I  can  hope  for  at  home. 
But,  then,  it's  no  place  for  an  unmarried  man.  ...  By  the 
way,  I  am  going  to  enclose  a  P  O  money  order  in  this  letter 
for  $80.00.  Will  you  please  pay  off  the  $75.00  I  borrowed. 
The  interest,  $2.2  5,  was  due  June  10th,  1903,  so  I  send  it  and 
also  the  next.  Did  you  receive  the  $53.00  I  sent  on  May  21st? 
This  squares  me  with  the  world.  .  .  .  Have  you  started  any 
research  in  the  Pacific  Ocean?  .   .   . 


Sq       To  Miss  Nast  he  sent  a  more  interesting  account  of  his 
activities  (July  23,  1903) : 

My  letter-writing  is  most  difficult.  I  have  to  write  to  four 
different  places  in  the  United  States  and  four  different  places 
in  India.  Still,  I  am  always  anxious  for  the  incoming  mail. 
I  hope  you  remember  the  good  old  text — "it  is  far  better 
to  give,  than  to  git."  Martin  wrote  from  Southern  Cali- 
fornia to-day.  ...  he  is  my  best  friend — even  if  I  am  a 
"morphologist." 

Thus  he  liked  always  to  twit  himself;  or  to  sponsor  an  oppo- 
site point  of  view.  Interested  in  every  new  antiseptic,  he  was 
himself,  all  for  the  employment  of  aluminium  acetate  or  zinc 
sulphate;  the  best  intestinal  astringent  he  declared  to  be  the 
second  steeping  of  tea  leaves;  and  cognizant  of  the  virtues  of 
old-fashioned  remedies  in  general,  he  rather  liked  to  be  called 
a  therapeutic  nihilist. 

He  continued: 

What  do  you  think  I  am  working  at  now?  I  have  been  requested 
to  probe  the  "locust  problem!"  The  locusts  are  a  great  pest 
in  these  islands  often  leaving  great  tracts  of  land  as  bare  as  a 
desert.  They  enter  even  the  suburbs  of  Manila  in  great  swarms. 
I  have  seen  four  such  swarms  since  we  came  here.  They  appear 
literally  in  clouds.  It  is  a  great  sight  to  be  near  and  to  watch 
the  millions  as  each  flies  close  behind  the  other,  the  whole  cloud 
circling  and  streaming  along.  It  reminds  one  of  eddies  in  a 
river. 

The  South  African  locust  fungus  has  been  tried  here  with 
variable  success.  I  am  to  determine  whether  it  is  of  any  use  at 
all  or  if  its  efficacy  can  be  increased,  or  if  some  other  way  of 
destroying  the  locusts  can  be  found.  I  am  not  encouraged  by 
the  prospects,  for  so  many  good  workers  have  spent  years  at 
this  problem  and  without  success.  Locusts  make  such  uninter- 
esting patients  too.   .   .   . 

The  month  had  brought  him  good  family  news.  Not  only 
those  in  India  but  the  rest,  domiciled  in  the  United  States 
between  the  Missouri  and  Allegheny  rivers,  reported  them- 
selves well.  To  which  his  stanch  and  favorite  sister  Lillian, 
now  married  to  the  Reverend  Frank  McCuskey  (her  playmate 


out  of  Beloit  and  now  a  part  of  the  missionary  cause  in  India)    S  "7 
in  a  letter  dated  July  29,   1903,  and  carefully  marked  by 
Wherry,  "Keep — about  Margaret  Mc,"  in  early  evidence  of 
his  lifetime  devotion  to  children,  could  add: 

I  suppose  since  you  heard  that  you  are  uncle  to  a  new  niece 
you  are  nearly  as  proud  as  we  are.  Really  she  is  very  pretty 
.  .  .  Such  a  lot  of  hair.  This  will  rub  off,  of  course,  &  then 
it  may  come  in  light,  but  I  think  her  hair  will  eventually  be 
black  .  .  .  Margaret  Elizabeth.  Mrs  Allison  very  irrever- 
ently calls  her  "Maggie-Liz"  and  sometimes  "Meg-Liz!" 
Others  call  her  "Columbia,"  because  she  came  so  near  being 
a  4th  of  July  baby.  She  sends  her  Uncle  Will  a  tiny  little  kiss. 

Not  so  good  were  a  series  of  medical  disasters  that  had 
befallen  him.  First,  he  had  suffered  a  hand  infection,  which 
event  he  was  to  convert  into  a  scientific  report.  Of  his  trop- 
ical fears,  the  beri-beri  had  not  been  realized;  but  the  amoebic 
dysentery  had.  Making  light  of  the  matter  he  wrote  (August 
14,1903): 

I  have  been  staying  home  for  a  few  days.  Some  of  the  festive 
amcebse  took  me  for  an  easy  mark  and  Dr  Musgrave  has  been 
treating  me.  I  am  all  right  now  and  will  return  to  the  lab 
next  week.  One  always  expects  this  after  a  couple  of  years 
but  I  am  quite  chagrined  at  falling  down  in  my  technique 
after  only  six  months.  I  am  having  a  lovely  time  of  it  watch- 
ing the  boatmen  on  the  Pasig  River  or  sitting  on  our  beautiful 
veranda.  It  is  shaded  by  beautiful  betel  nut  palms  and  enor- 
mous fire  trees.  The  latter  were  in  full  bloom  last  month  and 
the  view  up  and  down  the  street  was  truly  gorgeous — a  mass 
of  flame-red  flowers  resembling  our  nasturtiums.  In  the  even- 
ing the  damedenoche  (lady  of  the  night)  emits  the  most 
delicious  perfume.  Why  at  night  only  would  be  an  interest- 
ing problem  to  investigate.  No  doubt  there  is  some  pretty 
legend  connected  with  it. — Sometimes  we  amuse  ourselves  by 
teasing  our  monkey.  We  call  him  Uncinaria  duodenalis  Dooley. 
Woolley  (the  son  of  the  great  temperance  man)  fed  him  on 
40%  alcohol  in  sugar  solution  until  he  became  a  chronic 
drunk.  He  would  become  shockingly  inebriated  and  next 
day  hold  his  head  in  both  hands  in  pitifully  realistic  manner! 
Woolley  must  have  felt  pangs  of  remorse  for  he  brought  him 


AT  HOME,  MANILA.     THE  HALF-HIDDEN  FIGURE  IS  WOOLLEY 


over  for  a  house  pet.  We  have  a  bamboo  pole  rigged  up,  run-  S  Q 
ning  out  from  the  porch  to  one  of  the  betel  nut  palms.  Dooley 
is  attached  to  a  sliding  chain  and  feels  quite  proud  of  his 
kingdom.  He  is  a  gastronomical  pig  though.  Yesterday  he 
had  two  bananas  and  a  ball  of  rice.  He  grabbed  one  banana 
in  each  hand,  the  rice  ball  in  one  foot  and  started  for  the 
other  end  of  the  pole  with  the  sole  remaining  foot.  Only  his 
great  presence  of  mind  saved  him  from  inevitable  catastrophe. 
Who  says  there  are  no  mistakes  in  nature! 

How  really  serious  were  his  medical  difficulties  was  set  forth 
in  a  letter  to  me  (October  4,  1903)  : 

...  I  have  sent  her  several  pretty  presents  and  she  has  always 
been  delighted  with  my  "exquisite  taste."  (I  got  a  lady  to  pick 
them  for  me)  ...  I  have  done  little  or  no  work  for  about 
two  months.  I  had  appendicitis,  then  amoebic  dysentery  and 
now  I  am  having  my  eyes  fixed.  I  guess  I'll  have  to  wear  glasses 
permanently.  I  think  I  am  over  the  dysentery  O  K  and  am 
going  to  take  a  week's  trip  to  Hongkong.  The  cooler  weather 
there  will  put  more  energy  into  me.  I  had  a  falling  out  with  our 
"director."  I  resigned,  but  as  they  cannot  do  without  me 
(big-head)  and  did  not  press  the  matter,  I  dropped  it  and 
have  decided  to  stay  my  time  out.  I  think  I  told  you  they 
raised  me  to  $2000.  I  am  not  saving  much  though,  for  it  is 
expensive  living  here  and,  of  course,  I  have  "family"  expenses 
which  I  must  meet.  ...  I  gather  that  I  may  get  something 
to  do  in  the  U  S  when  I  return.  But  then  I  must  do  some- 
thing, as  so  far  I  have  done  nothing  ...PS  Don't  forget  to 
burn  this  letter. 

This  criticism  of  himself  was,  of  course,  sheer  nonsense. 
Actually,  two  articles  were  already  in  print  and  before  his 
Manila  experience  was  to  close,  ten  more  were  to  come  from 
his  pen — and  of  content. 

Turning  everything  to  account,  he  used  his  own  accident 
as  the  basis  of  a  report  of  Two  cases  of  a  peculiar  form  of  hand 
infection  due  to  an  organism  resembling  the  Koch-Weeks 
bacillus  [7] .  He  had  been  treating  some  twenty  victims  of  con- 
junctivitis and  one  of  osteomyelitis  with  septicemia  when  this 
personal  disaster  overcame  him.  The  other  "case"  was  that  of 
his  nurse  who  had  pricked  herself  in  the  finger  while  operating 


oO  uPon  h"11'  Both  had  suffered  a  gangrenous  inflammation  of  the 
fingers  (she  with  the  loss  of  one)  and  the  severest  of  constitu- 
tional symptoms  for  weeks.  Though  primarily  a  bacteriologi- 
cal report,  Wherry  sank  it  in  a  fine  essay  on  surgery.  "How 
much  can  be  preserved  by  care  and  skill,  and  how  much  lost 
of  the  capital  of  existence  by  neglect?"  he  queried;  and  sure 
in  instruction,  he  proposed:  "Let  the  cuts  be  made  too  soon 
and  too  deep  and  long,  rather  than  too  late."  No  wonder  that 
the  surgeon  Senn,  after  sitting  up  with  him  through  a  night 
when  as  medical  student  he  suffered  a  similar  infection,  had 
tried  to  entice  him  into  the  path  of  surgery!  In  his  clinical  notes 
Wherry  stated  in  typical  fashion  that  his  (personally  con- 
ducted) scheme  for  treatment  had  been  "haphazard." 

Apprised  of  his  illness  and  commenting  humorously  upon 
the  state  of  medicine  in  the  world  in  general  (October  28, 
1903 )  H  G  Wells  wrote  Wherry:  "It's  a  toss  up:  stay  here  and 
get  pneumonia,  phthisis,  typhoid  and  sore;  go  there  and  get 
cholera,  plague,  dysentery  and  blue." 

Wherry  found  time  to  send  all  kinds  of  tropical  disease 
specimens  to  his  friends  back  home.  Himself  an  ardent  "col- 
lector," he  knew  what  joy  these  could  bring;  and  so  all  kinds 
of  microorganisms,  microscopic  and  gross  specimens  and  pho- 
tographs. Jordan,  Wells,  Hektoen,  Smith,  Barker  acknowl- 
edged their  receipt  with  enthusiasm.  To  his  family  he  sent  less 
precious  pieces  of  silk,  cotton,  linen,  wood,  ivory  or  tobacco; 
and  of  course,  to  his  friends.  Not  a  letter  from  any  member 
of  the  family  but  a  thank-you  for  something.  When  Manila 
did  not  hold  what  he  wanted,  Wherry  was  wont  to  order  father 
or  sister  in  India  to  send  rugs  or  brasses.  To  Miss  Nast  he  sent  a 
bolt  of  white  silk — which  three  years  later  she  was  to  convert 
into  a  wedding  dress.  (In  1913  Wherry  stood  before  a  tray  in 
Woolley's  house,  when  the  two  had  come  to  Cincinnati.  "That 
is  an  unequalled  brass  out  of  India's  Ambala  district,"  Wherry 
declared;  "there  are  no  more,  and  won't  be,  because  its  work- 
men have  been  decimated  by  the  plague."  "Yes,"  Woolley  an- 
swered, "you  gave  that  to  Helen  and  me  when  we  were  mar- 
ried.") 

Instead  of  going  to  Hongkong  to  recuperate,  Wherry  went 
to  Japan.  From  here  he  wrote  to  Miss  Nast  (now  a  medical 
student  in  Johns  Hopkins)  as  follows  (October  20,  1903) : 


Don't  you  wish  you  didn't  have  to  go  to  school  and  could  Al 
travel  about  "for  your  health?"  It's  lots  of  fun,  and  much 
more  interesting  than  hunting  bacteria  in  sewage.  I  was  going 
to  Hongkong  for  a  week.  But  Dr  Freer  would  not  sign  a  leave 
of  absence  for  less  than  thirty  days,  just  as  Major  Appell  (who 
came  over  on  the  Sheridan  when  Woolley  and  I  did)  came 
along  and  offered  to  give  me  transportation  to  Nagasaki.  I  owe 
much  of  the  good  time  I  am  having  to  him. — The  railway  trip 
from  Nagasaki  to  Kobe  runs  along  the  famous  Inland  Sea.  The 
country  is  ideal,  with  everything — people,  houses,  trees  & 
mountains — on  a  miniature  scale.  Yesterday  I  visited  Prof 
Kitasato  who  is  stout  and  serious  looking.  He  did  not  realize 
the  honor  of  my  visit  so  I  was  turned  over  to  an  assistant  who 
showed  me  the  buildings.  .  .  .  This  morning  I  spent  at  the 
great  University  of  Tokyo.  I  was  much  pleased  with  the  Medi- 
cal Dept.  Prof  Aoyama,  pathologist,  was  most  pleasant  and 
courteous.  ...  I  have  seen  the  geisha  dance  and  have  spent 
all  my  spare  money  on  curios  but  as  I  cannot  get  a  boat  until 
the  10  th  of  Nov  I  am  going  to  Kyoto  and  try  living  in  Japa- 
nese inns  as  they  are  cheaper  and  I  wish  the  experience.  There 
are  such  beautiful  things  to  be  bought  in  Japan.  "Curio  hunt- 
ers" are  as  thick  as  flies  and  the  Japanese  are  making  the  curios 
faster  than  they  can  sell  them.  I  saw  an  old  sinner  the  other 
day  making  an  image  of  Buddha  "200  years  old."  .   .   . 

Before  Christmas,  Wherry  was  back  in  Manila.  "It  cost  you 
a  good  deal,"  his  father  wrote,  "but  many  things  are  worth 
more  than  money."  In  better  sympathy  with  some  other  of  his 
financial  outlays,  he  continued:  "I  hope  your  effort  to  pay 
John's  way  will  not  embarrass  you."  He,  too,  had  gifts  to 
acknowledge.  Further,  he  could  report  out  of  the  medical 
experiences  in  which  he  was  so  skilled:  "Just  to-day  I  heard 
of  one  of  our  native  teachers  being  poisoned  by  iodoform  caus- 
ing a  serious  eruption."  Reverting  to  that  earlier  request  of 
Wherry,  he  asked  (December  16,  1903) :  "Did  you  ever  see 
the  Bhili  words  I  sent  you  for  your  anthropologist  friend?  I 
sent  two  sets,  one  in  Bhili  &  the  other  in  Gondi.  I  should  like 
to  hear  from  your  friend  as  to  whether  the  work  was  of  any 
use." 

At  the  same  time  he  added: 


(y)  I  have  sent  to  press  the  MSS  of  a  book  on  the  Mohammedan 
Controversy,  comprising  a  review  &  an  outline  of  argument 
of  all  who  have  written  in  Urdu  on  the  subject.  I  wonder  what 
language  the  Philippine  Moslems  use?  Whether  they  read 
Arabic  &  how  many  do  so?  Are  there  any  missionaries  among 
them?  You  may  find  it  difficult  to  get  this  information  but  if 
you  have  in  reach  any  government  blue  book  on  the  census  or 
ethnology  of  the  Philippines,  it  may  be  that  something  is  said 
on  that  subject.  By  the  way,  do  you  ever  visit  any  of  the  Ameri- 
can missionaries? 

Continuing  on  this  more  churchly  theme,  he  informed 
Wherry  of  the  "great  meeting  in  Allahabad  when  we  hope  to 
have  a  united  [Presbyterian]  Church  for  India."  In  more 
scientific  and  sociologic  vein  he  reported: 

The  plague  has  left  our  district  but  it  is  gradually  on  the  in- 
crease throughout  India.  By  February  next  it  will  be  rampant 
as  ever.  It  is  a  horrid  scourge  but  it  is  a  civilizer.  It  obliges 
cleanliness  on  the  pain  of  death.  ...  It  looks  as  if  we  should 
have  no  more  rain  this  year.  There  has  been  up  to  date  a  fall 
of  93  inches  since  January  1st — most  of  this  fell  in  July  & 
August.  And  yet  in  Western  India  we  shall  have  a  famine! 
Relief  works  are  now  being  opened  to  provide  work  &  food 
for  the  poor. 

Cognizant  of  Wherry's  plans  to  return  to  the  United  States 
he  introduced  this  note  of  warning:  "You  will  have  to  be  care- 
ful after  being  away  so  long  lest  you  get  in  for  something  evil 
from  the  bad  climate  of  Chicago." 

A  bit  homesick,  Wherry  sent  this  letter  to  Miss  Nast  on 
December  20,  1903: 

In  spite  of  "strained  relations"  I  have  decided  to  stick  it  out 
here.  I  am  not  diplomatic  enough  to  get  along  well  in  Gov  Ser- 
vice, so  there  is  no  telling  how  long  I  will  be  allowed  to  remain. 
But  nothing  worries  me  any  more;  and  taking  it  all  in  all, 
everything  is  lovely. — You  must  be  thinking  of  going  home 
for  Christmas — I  hope  you  will  have  a  very  merry  one.  I  have 
been  very  thoughtless  this  year  for  as  yet  I  haven't  written  a 
single  Xmas  letter.  I  always  think  of  these  things  when  it  is  too 
late. 

Did  I  ever  speak  to  you  of  Priscilla  Marsh — my  little  blind 


girl?  She  lives  at  the  Chicago  Foundlings'  Home  with  Mrs  foX 
Shipman,  the  dearest  of  old  ladies.  I  used  to  take  her  home  to 
River  Forest  every  Christmas  Eve.  We  always  had  a  Christmas 
tree  for  my  little  niece;  and  my  brother-in-law  dressed  up  as 
Santa  Claus  for  Priscilla's  special  benefit.  You  should  have  seen 
the  light  that  came  into  her  face  when  Santa  Claus  took  her 
upon  his  knee  and  allowed  her  to  feel  his  long  beard !  That  is  a 
treat  I  shall  miss  this  year;  but  my  sister  tells  me  that  she  has 
arranged  to  have  Priscilla  out  as  usual. 

Dr  Woolley,  Mr  Clegg  and  I  take  turns  doing  routine  clini- 
cal work  on  holidays.  They  think  they  have  a  great  joke  on  me 
because  my  turn  falls  on  Xmas  and  New  Year's  Day!  They 
tell  me,  that  that  is  what  I  get  for  going  to  Japan — but  of 
course  I  don't  care. 

We  have  been  having  wet  weather  and,  following  it,  a 
plague  of  insects.  Just  now  there  are  more  than  a  million  mos- 
quitoes, small  flies  and  beetles  around  my  electric  light.  I  am 
working  up  the  fleas  that  occur  on  rats,  mice,  etc  in  Manila  in 
connection  with  the  plague.  Woolley  says  I  go  bug-house  when 
the  brigade  marches  into  the  lab  with  the  dead  rats.  Then,  I 
have  been  working  on  some  glandered  horses  just  to  keep  my 
hand  in.  We  have  no  guinea  pigs  so  I  had  to  drop  the  work  on 
cholera.  The  weather  is  perfectly  delightful.  I  don't  see  how 
you  can  stand  the  dreadful  cold  you  must  be  having.  I  believe 
I  can  never  learn  to  bear  it  again. 

Yes,  my  recollections  of  Japan  are  already  becoming  hazy 
and  sometimes  I  wonder  whether  I  really  went  to  that  country 
or  if  I  just  dreamed  of  that  visit  to  fairyland.  I  want  to  go  back 
someday,  not  to  see  the  wonderful  temples  at  Nikko  or  Nara 
nor  the  great  Daibutsu  at  Kamakura  nor  even  to  worship  at 
the  base  of  Fujiyama,  the  sacred  mountain;  but  to  see  the 
babies.  If  I  were  a  girl,  I  would  play  with  a  Japanese  doll  for 
it  represents  the  best  child  in  the  world. 

Thank  you  very  very  much  for  the  Life  of  Pasteur  by 
Vallery-Radot.  I  had  been  wishing  for  it  ever  since  it  came 
out. 

IN  Manila  a  new  serum  laboratory  was  being  opened.  There 
was  no  question,  of  course,  of  who  by  priority,  training  and 
experience  should  be  its  "director."  The  place,  besides,  carried 


r\A  a  better  salary  and  that  was  important;  yet  what  he  did  in  the 
matter  was  again  the  eternally  Wherryesque.  There  would  be 
too  much  bookkeeping  in  the  job  and  his  scientific  work  would 
suffer,  he  said;  and,  anyway,  Woolley  had  tired  of  his  patholo- 
gist berth  and  craved  this  novelty.  So  he  got  it. 

W  E  Musgrave  was  moved  into  Woolley's  place.  This  figure 
had  entered  the  Manila  picture  from  the  United  States  some 
six  months  earlier.  He  had  come  out  of  George  Washington 
university  with  a  medical  degree  only  the  year  before  but  had 
had  long  experience  earlier  as  a  technician  in  the  old  Hygienic 
laboratory  in  Washington.  In  fact  it  was  via  the  aid  given  him 
by  his  medical  superiors  here,  that  he  had  been  freed  from  his 
routine  and  sent  into  medical  school.  At  the  time  of  his  ap- 
pointment to  Manila,  Musgrave  was  thirty-three,  and  unheard 
of.  His  subsequent  distinctions  were  to  be  many,  but  he  used 
to  blame  their  start  upon  Wherry,  whose  "discovery"  of  Mus- 
grave was  to  be  publicized  within  the  year  though  the  story 
of  it  is  here  delayed.  At  the  moment  the  two  with  Woolley  had 
pooled  their  house-keeping  interests  and  moved  into  a  common 
domicile. 

January  23,  1904,  Wherry  gave  this  account  of  himself: 

I  refused  the  directorship  of  the  serum  institute  at  three  thou- 
sand last  month,  for  all  one's  time  is  taken  up  with  red  tape  in 
such  a  position.  .  .  .  For  several  weeks  I  have  done  nothing 
but  work  on  my  cholera  cultures. 

A  week  later  he  added : 

I  must  thank  you  again  for  the  Life  of  Pasteur.  I  have  not  read 
the  last  chapter,  for  I  wish  to  read  the  story  over  again  before 
I  come  to  his  death.  I  like  to  think  of  him  as  still  living. 

Hektoen  inspirited  him  with  a  letter  (February  7,  1904) 
not  without  historic  interest  in  its  reference  to  matters  medical 
in  Chicago : 

.  .  .  We  hope  you  will  like  the  Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases; 
also  that  the  express  bill  for  the  reprints  will  not  throw  you 
into  involuntary  insolvency.  The  second  number  is  now  under 
way.  We  have  in  it  an  article  by  Rosenow  (on  pneumonia) 
that  I  think  you  will  find  interesting.  Articles  from  Manila 
will  always  be  acceptable,  of  course,  and  we  hope  that  as  you 


and  others  out  there  make  startling  discoveries  our  journal  AS 
may  prove  an  acceptable  medium.  .  .  .  By  this  time  Dr 
Herzog  has  probably  reached  Manila  and  I  hope  you  will  find 
him  an  agreeable  and  valuable  addition  to  your  circle  of  inves- 
tigators. A  suggestion  now  and  then  that  he  confine  himself 
to  the  lower  strata  of  the  atmosphere  will  surely  prove  helpful 
on  account  of  his  tendency  to  soar  in  the  upper  heights  where 
it  is  only  by  means  of  imagination  that  one  feels  solid  ground 
below.  Indeed,  I  often  think  that  in  a  certain  way  the  reputa- 
tion of  Chicago  pathology  in  Manila  now  rests  upon  you  and 
the  others  that  have  gone  there  from  here.  You  may  be  pleased 
to  know  that  all  your  friends  have  the  utmost  confidence  in 
you  and  that  you  would  have  to  do  something  quite  peculiar 
in  order  to  shake  that  faith  in  your  scientific  rectitude  and 
high  purpose.   .   .   . 

As  Wherry's  months  in  Manila  had  multiplied,  his  accounts 
of  them  to  Miss  Nast  did  also.  In  addition,  his  letters  became 
more  personal.  February  8,  1904,  he  wrote: 

If  I  could  only  make  you  see  my  dear  mother  and  father  pinch- 
ing themselves  in  order  to  educate  our  large  family!  You 
would  then  see  why  I  must  stay  out  here  where  I  can  get  better 
pay  than  at  home.  I  have  decided  to  give  my  brother  John  a 
start  into  agricultural  college,  for  he  is  determined  to  be  a 
rancher. 

Such  confidences  led  to  an  understanding  between  them.  At 
any  rate,  in  response  to  a  letter  from  me  of  purely  scientific 
content,  Wherry  wrote  (February  20,  1904) :  "What  do  I 
care  about  sodium  or  calcium  ions;  toxines  or  antitoxines! 
She  blames  you  for  it  all.  I  hope  that  you  will  be  rewarded 
in  Heaven ! " 

To  Miss  Nast's  request  that  he  tell  her  something  of  his  fam- 
ily, he  responded  at  length.  Its  main  points  have  been  disclosed, 
wherefore  only  the  following  excerpt  from  his  answer  is 
quoted  (May  3,  1904): 

If  I  am  to  tell  you  about  my  family  I  should  have  started  last 
week,  for  we  are  nine  in  number.  .  .  .  The  natives  worship 
my  father.  When  he  returned  this  last  time,  he  visited  some 
villages  near  Ludhiana  and  was  shocked  to  find  one  of  his  pho- 


r\(\  tos,  presented  ten  years  before,  stuck  up  in  a  niche  among  their 
gods.  .  .  .  How  can  one  describe  the  virtues  of  a  mother? 
My  blackhaired  sister,  Grace,  is  a  musician  and  the  business 
head  of  the  family,  living  in  our  home  at  River  Forest.  Next 
comes  my  sister  Lillian,  who  is  the  beauty,  the  songstress  and 
the  favorite.  She  fell  in  love  with  a  Mr  McCuskey,  who  took 
her  to  India  as  a  missionary.  I  haven't  forgiven  him  for 
that.   .   .   . 

On  the  John  situation,  this  sister  Grace  had  just  reported: 
"Yes,  you  have  sent  money  enough.  I  have  some  of  papa's  too, 
but  as  he  was  in  debt  &  the  house  just  had  to  be  fixed  &  painted 
&  interest  &  taxes  &  all  &  John's  clothes,  everything  .  .  .  this 
year  has  been  a  fright.  .  .  ."A  letter  from  the  father  (July 
11,  1904)  brought  evidence  that  he  had  gone  through  the 
catalogues  of  various  American  agricultural  colleges  and  had 
softened  somewhat  in  his  insistence  upon  the  purely  classical 
in  higher  education : 

The  course  is  almost  equivalent  to  that  of  the  ordinary  college. 
It  is  scientific  rather  than  classical,  though  modern  languages 
are  included.  I  think  he  had  better  be  allowed  what  he  has  set 
his  heart  upon.  Tell  me  how  you  will  be  fixed  financially  when 
you  go  home.  We  are  about  $300/  in  debt  on  account  of 
numerous  weddings,  etc !  but  we  shall  be  clear  by  April  next. 

The  happy  outcome  of  John's  serio-comic  was  thus  heralded 
by  him  (August  4,  1904)  after  a  year  in  Washington  and 
Jefferson  college: 

It's  the  University  of  Illinois  that  I'll  go  to,  Bill,  and  I  hope 
that  one  year  there  will  be  sufficient  as  I  not  only  want  to  get 
started  farming  but  this  school  business  is  a  great  expense  and 
a  whole  lot  of  it,  waste  time.  ...  I  want  to  quit  monkeying 
with  algebra,  geometry  and  library  science  and  take  agron- 
omy, animal  husbandry,  some  parts  of  horticulture,  a  little 
veterinary  science,  soil  culture  and  irrigation.  Also,  I'll  try  to 
make  it  less  at  Champaign  than  at  W  and  J  and  I'm  sure  it 
will  be. 

With  warm  thanks  to  Wherry  for  what  he  was  doing,  he 
added  a  postscript:  "Your  fame  has  reached  this  country,  Bill. 
A  doctor  here  reported  that  Wherry  of  Manila  had  discovered 


a  new  germ.  I  also  heard  it.  Good  boy!  Keep  it  up  and  good  A  "7 
luck  to  you!" 

Wherry's  own  letter  of  June  8,  1904,  was  franker  than 
usual  in  tone: 

Thank  you  for  the  abstract.  I  have  not  kept  up  with  the  litera- 
ture on  Ehrlich's  theory.  In  fact,  I  don't  believe  it  worth  while. 
If  his  theory  should  stand,  which  I  don't  believe,  then  I  will 
have  to  get  down  to  work. — You  will  be  surprised  when  I  tell 
you  that  I  have  dropped  cholera.  A  good  many  of  the  guinea 
pigs  I  was  using  had  been  immunized  against  cholera  in  Japan 
and  as  it  is  like  pulling  teeth  to  get  animals  through  my  "direc- 
tor" (and  he  has  ruled  that  all  animals  shall  be  ordered  thus) , 
I  decided  to  quit  until  we  moved  and  our  own  animals  were 
old  enough  for  use. — I  have  an  interesting  little  Japanese  girl 
under  observation,  a  case  of  Dr  McDill.  O'Saya  has  an  infec- 
tion of  the  bladder.  I  am  trying  to  determine  whether  it  is  a 
chyluria  due  to  ordinary  filariasis  or  not,  and  am  inclined  to 
think  that  we  have  a  new  species  in  hand.  The  director  is  very 
sore — no  other  word  can  express  the  feeling  which  he  shows — 
because  Dr  McDill  did  not  see  him  about  the  patient  in  the  first 
place,  and  more  sore  because  I  did  not  hunt  him  up  on  his 
return  from  Benguet  and  show  him  the  parasite.  He's  such  a 
baby.  Well,  here  I  am  talking  about  my  superiors  again! — 
Woolley  and  I  are  working  up  some  cases  of  contagious  pem- 
phigus, so  you  see  we  have  our  hands  full. 

This  reaction  to  his  "superiors"  was  to  exhibit  itself  as  the 
continuing  irk  of  his  life  whenever  men  and  things  stood  in  the 
way  of  the  rapid  accomplishment  of  what  Wherry  deemed  the 
day's  labor.  The  "interesting  little  Japanese  girl"  was  to 
become  the  subject  of  two  important  scientific  papers.  The 
conjunction  of  Woolley 's  name  with  his  own  in  the  work  on 
contagious  pemphigus  (also  to  yield  a  scientific  report)  while 
never  realized  was  early  example,  nevertheless,  of  his  eternal 
generosity.  It  was  Wherry's  habit  always  to  drag  the  name  of 
anyone  standing  about  the  laboratory  upon  the  title  page  of 
the  scientific  article  he  was  producing  at  the  time;  except,  of 
course,  in  those  instances  in  which  he  handed  his  "collabora- 
tor" the  whole  business. 

June  14,  1904,  he  noted  that  he  had  so  much  work  on  hand 


AQ  that  he  knew  not  what  to  do.  "The  latest  is  a  bacteriological 
examination  of  soil  from  the  Island  of  Mindanao.  They  want 
to  know  whether  nitrifying  organisms  are  present.  So  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  I  don't  care."  But  July  24,  1904,  he  was  in 
better  mood: 

I  finished  up  an  article  on  the  biology  of  cholera  but  am  hold- 
ing it,  because  of  some  experiments  which  I  want  to  repeat.  It 
may  amuse  you  to  hear  that  Dr  Freer  told  me  confidentially 
that  he  considered  it  the  most  important  article  put  out  from 
(he  should  have  said  of)  the  Bureau,  because  I  have  attempted 
to  explain  some  things  from  a  semichemical  standpoint.  If  you 
knew  the  limits  of  my  chemical  knowledge,  you  would  appre- 
ciate the  joke  as  much  as  I  do  myself.  But  Dr  Freer  is  an  awful 
flatterer. 

In  fact,  Freer  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  His  compliment 
referred  to  observations  made  by  Wherry  on  the  growth  char- 
acteristics of  the  cholera  spirillum  which  though  dated  August 
1904  in  the  director's  letter  of  transmittal,  and  October  1904 
in  the  bureau's  bulletin  file,  were  not  to  come  out  in  printed 
form  until  1905  [9]. 

To  recognize  the  importance  of  this  paper  one  must  recede 
to  the  bacteriological  gospel  of  the  day.  It  was  still  the  time 
when  microorganisms  were  considered  fixed  entities — that  is 
to  say,  life  forms  which  in  shape,  size,  manner  of  growth  and 
chemical  reactivity  did  not  vary.  In  this  paper  Wherry 
brought  proof  that  for  the  germ  of  cholera  none  of  these 
things  was  true.  Thus  in  the  descendants  bred  from  a  single 
microorganism  he  noted  wide  and  "spontaneous"  variations  in 
size  and  shape  even  when  cultivated  by  "standard"  laboratory 
methods.  The  "cause"  for  this  needed  to  be  hunted  out.  In  this 
quest  he  found  that  the  stiffness  of  the  culture  ground,  its 
degree  of  acidity  or  alkalinity,  its  content  of  salts,  etc  had 
everything  to  do  with  what  finally  emerged.  The  envi- 
ronment, in  other  words,  exerted  a  marked  and  modifying 
influence  upon  the  "biology"  of  the  organism.  Hereafter  the 
conditions  surrounding  its  development  had  to  be  considered 
along  with  the  heritage. 

In  the  terms  of  scientific  philosophy  Wherry  had  arrived! 


BUT  even  as  Freer  was  thus  manifesting  in  his  own  person  qQ 
the  benefit  of  sound  college  training — the  ability  "to 
know  the  first-rate  man  when  he  saw  him"  (to  quote  William 
James) — Wherry  was  at  identical  business.  "The  most  inter- 
esting and  valuable  article  of  the  year  will  be  by  Dr  Mus- 
grave,"  he  had  written  to  Hektoen  and  Miss  Nast.  To  the 
latter  he  had  divulged:  "By  the  way,  I  found  filar ia  last  night 
in  the  blood  of  my  little  Japanese  girl.  I  was  glad  to  find  them 
but  I  am  awfully  sorry  for  her,  for  it  increases  the  gravity  of 
the  prognosis.  Poor  little  O'Saya!  If  I  can  only  locate  the  adult 
worms,  maybe  Dr  McDill  can  help  her  by  an  operation." 
August  4,  1904,  he  wrote: 

I  am  still  interested  in  my  filariasis  case  and  last  Saturday 
stayed  up  all  night  and  took  blood  specimens  every  two  hours 
in  order  to  estimate  the  relative  number  of  filaria  present  dur- 
ing the  day  and  night.  (Of  course,  this  has  all  been  done  before 
but  I  wanted  to  see  for  myself. )  It  is  a  case  of  filaria  nocturna. 
We  are  trying  to  stop  the  hematochyluria  with  rest,  diet  and 
suprarenin  but,  so  far,  without  much  success. — Manila  would 
be  an  unbearable  place  to  me  if  there  were  not  so  many  inter- 
esting diseases  here.  Since  coming  I  have  seen  dengue,  plague, 
cholera,  beri-beri,  leprosy,  glanders,  filariasis,  trypanosomiasis, 
malaria,  yaws,  amoebic  and  bacillary  dysentery,  a  number  of 
skin  diseases  and  various  animal  parasites.  Of  course,  I  don't 
know  much  about  some  of  these  states  but  I  have  had  autop- 
sies on  many  and  have  worked  up  some  of  them  bacteriologi- 
cally  and  pathologically.  However,  as  Jimmie  McFadden  says : 
"What's  the  use?"  All  this  can  lead  to  is  a  professorship  some- 
place, where  it  is  colder  than  ice.  But  Dr  Freer,  who  has  taken 
an  interest  in  my  work,  says  that  I  may  come  back  here  and 
that  he  will  see  to  it  that  I  have  a  better  position  than  the  one 
I  now  occupy. 

This  letter  makes  casual  mention  of  another  capacity  in 
medicine  of  which  Wherry  had  supreme  command — that  of 
macroscopic  and  microscopic  autopsy.  September  1,  1904,  he 
wrote  as  follows  regarding  his  filariasis  patient,  another  of  the 
day's  experiences  shortly  to  find  its  way  into  print : 

I  have  been  very  busy  following  up  my  cases.  Little  O'Saya  is 
in  fine  physical  condition  but  we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 


"7Q  stopping  her  chyluria.  I  am  now  hunting  for  a  dog  with  filaria- 
sis.  We  intend  to  saturate  him  with  quinine  and  then  expose 
him  to  x-rays.  I  got  the  idea  from  Musgrave  and  it  seems  as 
though  we  might  have  some  success  by  such  procedure.  But, 
of  course,  we  must  test  it  upon  some  lower  animal  first.  Then 
I  have  been  working  nights  trying  for  a  photo  of  the  filaria. 
A  good  picture  has  never  been  published.  After  many  attempts 
the  government  photographer,  Mr  Martin,  succeeded  in  get- 
ting one  for  me  of  about  390  diameters.  This  has  taken  much 
time,  as  it  is  over  two  miles  to  the  hospital.  Just  now  our  work 
is  greatly  interfered  with,  for  we  have  moved  into  the  new 
building  which  is  in  a  very  unfinished  condition  and  it  is 
impossible  to  do  anything  with  carpenters,  plumbers,  etc 
working  about. 

An  earlier  letter  to  me  (August  6,  1904)  was  devoted 
entirely  to  W  E  Musgrave's  discoveries.  In  May  he  had  sent  a 
similar  epistle  to  Hektoen  and  in  July  (as  we  have  seen)  to 
Miss  Nast.  Here  he  was  again  dinning  into  a  receptive  ear  the 
importance  of  another  fellow's  accomplishment: 

I  have  had  something  on  my  mind  that  has  been  worrying  me. 
The  most  important  work  that  has  been  done  out  here  has  been 
carried  on  by  Dr  Musgrave  who  has  succeeded  in  cultivating 
a  single  species  of  amoeba  in  pure  culture  with  one  species  of 
bacterium.  A  number  of  pathogenic  and  nonpathogenic  bac- 
teria serve  as  food  supply  for  the  amoebae,  and  with  such  "pure 
mixed  cultures"  Musgrave  has  established  the  etiological  role 
played  by  these  protozoa  in  amoebic  dysentery.  His  work  will 
be  published  before  long.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  Musgrave's 
work  opens  up  the  way  to  important  investigations  in  physi- 
ology. A  sufficient  and  constant  supply  of  such  unicellular 
organisms  has  never  before  been  available  and  now  all  you  have 
to  do  is  to  cultivate  them  as  you  would  so  many  bacteria.  .  .  . 
I  thought  of  working  on  the  factors  influencing  their  stream- 
ing or  their  movement  but  I  simply  cannot  find  the  time.  .  .  . 
With  Musgrave's  consent  I  am  sending  you  three  cultures  on 
agar  slants.   .   .   .  The  agar  medium  is  made  as  follows  .   .   . 

After  four  pages  of  instruction  and  suggestion,  Wherry 
ended: 


Whatever  you  do,  don't  infect  yourself!  In  young  cultures  "71 
you  will  find  the  amoebae  motile;  in  old  ones,  most  of  them  are 
in  various  stages  of  encystment.  These  keep  their  vitality  for 
months  without  transplantation. 

When  the  cultures  arrived,  I  had  resigned  my  university 
place  and  entered  private  practice,  on  which  account  Wherry's 
enthralling  suggestions  to  me  came  to  naught.  Later  (1914) 
he  himself  returned  to  the  subject.  October  1,  1904,  Wherry 
wrote  as  follows: 

I  returned  [from  Culion]  last  week.  We  had  a  nice  ten-day 
trip  on  the  Balabac,  a  coast  guard  steamer.  Our  party  con- 
sisted of  Mr  Wooster,  secretary  of  the  interior  or  the  czar  of 
the  Philippines,  Major  Carter,  commissioner  of  Public  Health, 
Mr  McCaskey,  chief  of  the  Mining  Bureau,  Mr  Miller,  a  U 
of  California  man  and  one  of  Fischer's  friends  who  is  acting 
chief  of  the  Ethnological  survey,  and  myself.  Major  Carter  was 
sick  with  malaria.  The  rest  of  us  had  a  good  time.  The  Cala- 
mianes  Islands  are  beautiful.  Culion,  Coron,  and  Busuanga  are 
the  larger  ones  and  these  are  surrounded  by  thousands  of 
smaller  ones  and  by  rocks  and  coral  reefs.  We  spent  most  of 
the  time  at  Culion.  There  was  nothing  doing  in  the  line  of 
cattle  diseases  so  I  had  little  to  do.  I  examined  quite  a  number 
of  people  for  malaria  with  negative  results  but  found  amoebae 
in  the  drinking  water.  The  leper  colony  is  to  be  on  a  point 
which  runs  into  the  Bay,  a  beautiful  spot.  Dr  De  Mey,  the 
superintendent,  has  done  much  to  improve  the  place.  The 
Government  has  bought  up  all  titled  land  and  removed  the 
inhabitants  except  for  some  aborigines,  Tagbanua,  whom  they 
can't  catch.  Game  abounds  on  the  island — wild  carabao,  deer, 
hogs  and  birds.  I  would  like  to  spend  a  vacation  there.  I  had 
to  go  around  the  island  to  the  stock  farm  at  Halsey  Harbor. 
A  typhoon  was  blowing  and  we  had  to  run  in  the  trough  of 
the  waves;  and  I  got  sick!  [Wherry  was  a  born  sailor.]  On  the 
way  home  we  harbored  on  the  northeast  coast  of  Busuanga. 
We  found  a  nice  coral  beach  and  I  went  swimming  with  the 
intention  of  getting  some  coral.  One  dive  was  enough!  I  was 
alone,  and  when  I  got  down  among  the  slime,  polyps  and 
hydromedusae,  I  couldn't  get  back  to  the  surface  soon  enough. 
So  I  went  ashore  and  tried  to  buy  a  baby  from  one  of  the 


"7 0  aboriginal  women  for  a  peseta  [ten  cents]  but  was  unsuccess- 
ful. Altogether  it  was  a  nice  little  vacation. 

We  are  getting  settled  in  our  new  building  and  if  the  earth- 
quakes let  us  alone,  the  quarters  will  be  very  favorable.  Of 
course,  some  of  us  think  that  the  plans  are  not  what  they 
should  be,  but  that  is  always  the  case.  Dr  Freer  is  a  great  man 
and  if  it  were  not  for  his  influence,  I  am  afraid  that  science 
would  fare  sadly  out  here.  He  was  badly  burned  the  other  day 
by  the  explosion  of  a  bottle  of  formic  acid  but  he  hustles  about 
the  same  as  ever,  hurrying  up  the  workmen  and  seeing  that  we 
get  settled  before  he  leaves  for  his  vacation  in  the  States.  As 
Musgrave  says,  "He's  as  full  of  ideas  as  a  tick." — Last  night 
we  tried  the  x-rays  on  O'Saya  who  had  received  about  eighty 
grains  of  quinine  during  the  last  few  days.  The  x-rays  alone 
were  a  failure.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  she  is  getting  quite  blue 
over  our  inability  to  cure  her.  She  always  says  "my"  for  "I." 
A  lady  missionary  has  been  calling  on  her  and  giving  her  lec- 
tures on  things  she  cannot  understand.  The  other  day  O'Saya 
got  tired  of  it  and  said:  "My  no  guess  Jesus  gentle  shepherd. 
My  want  to  make  a  die  quick."  I  am  afraid  she  will  commit 
suicide  sooner  or  later,  as  so  many  of  these  patients  do.  If  we 
fail  on  the  quinine  and  x-rays,  we  will  let  her  go  back  to  Japan, 
for  her  relatives  are  getting  tired  of  paying  her  hospital  bills. 
There  really  ought  to  be  some  place  out  here  where  such 
patients  could  be  cared  for,  free  of  charge. 

October  14,  1904,  Wherry  could  report: 

.  .  .  Forty-eight  hours  after  our  x-ray  and  quinine  treat- 
ment, the  little  girl  developed  a  high  temperature  and  pains 
inside.  Pleurisy  set  in  and  Dr  McDill  aspirated  her  left  chest. 
She  is  still  peculiarly  feverish  but  her  temperature  is  not  much 
above  102°  when  up,  and  she  appears  quite  well.  What  tickles 
O'Saya  is  that  about  the  time  of  the  pleurisy,  her  chyluria  dis- 
appeared and  so  far  has  not  returned.  What  I  hope  is  that  the 
pleurisy  was  the  result  of  the  death  and  disintegration  of  the 
adult  parasites  but  I  cannot  tell  yet,  for  the  embryos  are  still 
alive  in  her  circulation.  Dr  McDill  and  I  have  been  having  a 
fight  over  O'Saya's  stay  in  the  hospital  with  the  authorities 
and  the  secretary  of  the  interior.  I  will  let  you  know  how  we 
come  out. 


HIS  observations  on  "little  O'Saya''  (stripped  of  their  spiri-  "7^ 
tual  backgrounds)  went  to  press  under  the  title  of  Notes 
on  a  case  of  hcematochyliiria  [10].  As  clinical  report,  it  added 
merely  to  the  knowledge  of  the  geographic  distribution  of 
filariasis.  Charles  Martin's  pictures  (photographer  of  the 
Manila  laboratory)  gave  the  scientific  public  a  better  view 
of  the  matter.  More  important  for  the  philosophy  of  parasitol- 
ogy were  Wherry's  comments.  O'Saya  had  lived  for  several 
years  in  immediate  contact  with  three  Japanese  women  in  an 
atmosphere  perpetually  infested  with  culex  mosquitoes.  It  was 
general  opinion  that  the  disease  was  transmitted  of  their  bite, 
yet  O'Saya  had  sickened  none  of  her  neighbors.  In  the  face  of 
this  evidence  might  we  not  have  to  revert  to  Manson's  original 
view,  Wherry  asked,  and  think  of  the  worms  escaping  from 
their  mosquito  homes  to  some  watery  medium,  later  consumed 
by  man  with  his  food?  Again,  no  filaria-struck  patient  had 
ever  been  cured.  Wherry  and  McDill  had  tried  to  accomplish 
it  by  repeated  exposure  to  the  x-ray  after  sensitization  of  the 
filaria  to  its  light  by  large  doses  of  quinine.  In  this  report  and 
in  its  American  reprint  [10],  the  patient's  symptoms  were 
described  as  so  improved  that  from  being  bedfast,  she  was 
walking  again.  But  living  embryos  were  still  present  in  the 
blood.  Wherefore  Wherry  wrote:  "It  is  altogether  likely  that 
the  treatment  had  no  effect  upon  the  adult  parasites."  But 
it  had.  January  29,  1907,  McDill  confided  to  Wherry  in  a 
letter:  "I  have  had  O'Saya's  blood  examined  on  two  occasions, 
the  last,  one  month  ago,  &  she  seems  free  of  parasites."  As  pub- 
lished supplement  [29]  this  fact  closed  the  story. 

As  1904  neared  its  end,  the  elder  Wherry  reported  out  of 
India  on  young  Wherry's  mounting  scientific  recognition: 
...  I  gave  our  Civil  Surgeon,  Capt  R  Heard,  brother  of  Dr 
Lyon  Heard  of  Dublin,  a  reading  of  your  pamphlets.  He  was 
so  much  interested  that  he  asked  the  privilege  of  keeping  them. 
Your  investigations  as  to  the  Pasteur  filters  are  very  practical 
here  &  he  wishes  to  investigate  somewhat  on  his  own  account. 
Dr  Heard  has  a  very  high  esteem  for  American  study  in  medi- 
cal science — indeed  he  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  we  are  far 
in  advance  of  Britain  &  Europe. — As  to  your  plan  to  visit  us 
on  your  way  home,  if  that  means  that  you  forfeit  a  free 
passage,  I  am  doubtful  as  to  the  wisdom  of  it.   .   .   . 


"74  More  satisfying  to  his  soul  were  perhaps  the  more  distinctly 
family  reports.  John  was  doing  well  in  Illinois.  From  Lud- 
hiana,  his  mother  wrote  (December  7,  1904) : 

Those  collars  and  cuffs  you  sent  me  are  lovely.  Nellie's,  too, 
have  come  and  she  is  delighted.  She  will  let  Aunt  Sarah  have 
the  handkerchiefs.  ...  I  went  into  camp  [meaning  a  camp- 
meeting  trip]  with  Miss  Morris  and  your  Aunt  Sarah  [over 
sixty].  We  were  out  2  weeks  and  visited  17  villages.  Miss  M 
spoke  in  one  4  times,  in  others  3  times  &  so  on.  I  don't  know 
Panjabi  so  she  had  to  do  all  the  talking.  I  could  help  her  sing, 
as  I  can  read  it  from  the  book.  I  just  went  as  a  companion 
as  she  could  not  go  alone.  Your  aunt  &  Miss  Jenks  had  gone 
in  another  direction.  Of  course  curiosity  was  at  the  bottom  of 
it.  .  .  .  We  gave  away  a  good  many  tracts  &  portions  of  the 
Scriptures.  We  didn't  see  one  woman  who  could  read  &  very 
few  men.  We  gave  to  everyone  who  could  show  that  he  could 
read.  .  .  . 

Your  papa  came  out  to  Jagroon  one  day  in  a  dak  gari  24 
ms,  got  some  chhota  hozari  &  then  took  another  dak  gari  & 
drove  1 8  ms,  then  in  an  oxcart  1 0  ms  over  kaeha  roads — all 
in  one  day  to  Dharmkote  where  a  Christian  Pandit  lives  who 
was  anxious  to  have  your  papa  visit  him.  He  stayed  there  one 
day,  slept  2  nights  or  parts  of  nights  in  a  Hindu  house  and 
ate  native  food  that  the  Pandit  fed  him.  He  got  up  at  3  o'ck 
one  morning,  drove  in  an  oxcart  11  ms  to  a  place  where  he 
got  an  ekka  in  which  he  rode  11  ms  to  Jagroon.  After  eating 
breakfast  we  drove  to  Ludhiana  24  ms  in  a  dak  gari.  The 
consequence  was  that  your  papa  was  very  ill  all  night  with 
diarrhoea.  .  .  . 

Hektoen  wrote  him  by  hand — it  was  his  custom  whenever 
really  interested  in  the  content  of  one  of  his  letters  or  its 
recipient — December  17,  1904:  "Your  photograph  of  filaria 
in  blood  looks  like  a  bird's-eye  view  of  a  winding  river  sur- 
rounded by  clumps  of  trees."  After  some  general  advice  to  the 
Manila  workers  that  they  shorten  their  contributions  to  his 
newly  established  Journal  of  infectious  diseases,  he  continued: 

I  hope  that  our  editing  will  not  make  any  of  these  gentlemen 
our  enemies  for  life.  Let  them  lay  stress  upon  our  intentions 


more  than  on  our  actual  performance.  Right  here  let  me  "7S 
suggest  that  I  shall  always  be  glad  to  have  interesting  things 
like  the  amoeba  cultures  presented  (by  some  of  your  friends 
here)  to  the  Chicago  Pathological  Society  which  still  flour- 
ishes as  of  yore.   .   .   .  Dr  Ricketts  is  gaining  heavily  in  impor- 
tance since  his  good  qualities  have  become  known.   .   .   .  We 
seem  all  to  be  "sawing  wood"  which  in  many  cases  may  mean 
merely  this,  that  there  is  no  very  great  activity  of  any  kind. 
Money,  money,  money  is  the  great,  crying,  everlasting  need 
it  seems.  Yet  much  could  be  said  on  other  phases  of  the  require- 
ments for  progress.  Perhaps  great  progress  is  going  on  right 
under  our  noses  [it  was!]  without  being  perceived  on  account 
of  its  relative  slowness.  Well,  now  I  have  chatted  with  you 
without  restraint  about  things  of  various  kind.  The  main 
burden  of  my  song,  however,  is  this,  that  I  wish  you  to  know 
you  have  good  friends  here  who  are  watching  closely  for  all 
developments  in  the  "far  east"  in  which  it  is  likely  that  you 
may  have  a  hand.  .  .  .  Also,  remember  me  to  Dr  McDill 
whose  reputation  for  good  work  and  heavy  charges  is  rapidly 
spreading  over  the  civilized  parts  of  the  globe.   .   .  .  Did  I 
tell  you  that  we  have  a  youngster  who  arrived  about  a  month 
ago  and  to-day  weighs  10  lbs  and  5  ounces  (of  course  you 
do  not  know  what  that  means  to  fond  parents  for  whom  every 
unwonted  wrinkle  in  the  skin  means  general  marasmus  and 
inanition) ! 

A  letter  from  his  aunt  Sarah  (December  27,  1904)  thanked 
Wherry  for  Christmas  gifts  and  reported  a  visit  to  Allahabad 
where  she  had  gone  "to  see  the  General  Assembly  organized 
and  especially  the  union  of  several  Presbyterian  denomina- 
tions. It  was  a  grand  meeting.  Your  father  was  a  happy  man  as 
he  has  been  working  for  this  for  years."  Reverting  to  her  own 
interests,  she  wrote:  "I  have  wanted  monthly  meetings  for 
the  strengthening  of  the  village  workers  for  a  long  time.  I 
do  hope  that  they  will  be  greatly  helped  and  many  more  souls 
brought  out  of  darkness  into  light  in  consequence." 

The  father  confirmed  the  aunt's  news  (December  28, 
1904)  of  the  union  of  eight  Presbyterian  churches,  with 
another  due  the  next  year,  into  "the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
India."  "This  is  a  real  Indian  Church,"  he  continued,  "having 


"7  A  no  connection  with  the  churches  in  Europe  or  America  except 
that  missionaries  may  belong  to  either  or  to  both."  Express- 
ing his  pleasure  over  the  meeting  of  Wherry  with  several  of 
the  missionaries  of  the  Philippines,  he  advised:  "The  only 
regenerate  Philippine  Government  will  be  a  Protestant  Gov- 
ernment. Romanism  has  failed  everywhere  as  a  civilizer." 
For  the  rest,  there  was  still  some  fatherly  advice  to  be  given 
the  son: 

You  are  quite  right  to  devote  yourself  solely  to  your  profes- 
sional duties.  Social  life  can  be  relegated  to  a  time  when 
circumstances  will  justify  the  luxury.  You  are  also  right 
in  denying  yourself  the  ephemeral  notoriety  which  affected 
brilliance  of  research  brings  to  some  young  men.  It  is  better 
to  do  one  thing  well  than  a  hundred  indifferently.  The  former 
will  endure. 


WHEN  1905  opened,  though  committed  to  the  design 
for  early  departure  from  Manila,  Wherry  was  still  in 
doubt  as  to  whether  finances  would  permit  him  to  travel  west- 
ward; and  still  at  work  scientifically.  January  17,  1905,  he 
wrote: 

I  have  been  working  on  a  case  of  fever  which  did  not  resemble 
typhoid  clinically  and  yet  would  have  been  diagnosed  such 
by  ordinary  laboratory  methods.  Thirteen  cultures  of  the 
patient's  blood  yielded  bacilli  which  resembled  typhoid 
excepting  that  they  produced  indol.  The  work  is  not  com- 
pleted but  I  think  this  organism  will  form  a  connecting  link 
between  the  typhoids  and  the  paratyphoids.  In  connection 
with  this  study  and  in  confirmation  of  some  work  I  did  with 
the  cholera  spirillum,  I  am  investigating  the  influence  which 
nitrates  exert  on  indol  production.  The  bulletin  on  the  cholera 
spirillum  was  finished  last  August  but  I  don't  think  you  will 
see  it  for  some  time,  as  my  chief  is  getting  even  with  me  by 
delaying  its  issue. 

The  last  item  has  been  referred  to.  The  Bureau  had  been 
better  pleased  to  bring  out  a  more  typical  kind  of  government 
report,  entitled,  Glanders:  its  diagnosis  and  prevention  [#]. 


Nothing  but  its  good  exposition  could  have  saved  this  paper  "7  "7 
from  the  fate  of  all  such  stock  issues.  A  subtitle  under  the 
main  heading  and  some  excursive  pages  helped  further.  In 
these  Wherry  reported  "on  two  cases  of  human  glanders 
occurring  in  Manila  and  some  notes  on  the  bacteriology  and 
polymorphism  of  Bacterium  mallei."  The  facts  brought  forth 
under  the  first  half  of  the  subtitle  made  surer  the  ground  upon 
which  epidemiologists  walked;  those  under  the  second,  less 
sure  the  foundations  of  species  fixity.  Again,  as  in  the  instance 
of  the  cholera  spirillum,  it  depended  upon  the  nature  of  the 
environment  as  to  what  form  the  glanders  microorganism 
would  assume.  As  the  culture  medium  was  made  more  acid, 
or  contained  a  lower  or  higher  concentration  of  common 
salt,  the  "regular,  very  minute  rods"  ordinarily  character- 
istic, became  "irregular,  curved  and  sinuous"  or  "irregular, 
branched,  clubbed  and  vacuolated." 

January  brought  Wherry  an  invitation  to  head  the  serum 
institute  newly  established  in  Siam.  In  February  he  had  not 
yet  declined,  believing  that  he  might  use  it  as  a  stepping  stone 
in  his  return  to  the  United  States  via  India.  Wherefore  he 
wrote  as  follows: 

The  physician-in-chief  to  the  King  of  Siam,  visited  this  place 
some  time  ago  and  looked  into  our  vaccine  and  serum  work. 
He  has  started  such  work  in  Bangkok,  but  has  met  with 
unexpected  difficulties.  He  begged  Dr  Freer  to  send  him  some- 
one who  could  help  him  out.  There  is  no  one  here  who  can 
go,  so  I  told  Dr  Strong  that  I  would  be  willing  to  stop  off 
(on  my  way  home)  for  a  month  or  six  weeks  if  they  would 
pay  my  way  to  Bangkok.  I  had  just  about  given  up  the  idea 
of  returning  via  India  but  if  this  scheme  works  out,  I  can 
make  it. 

By  the  end  of  the  month  the  scheme  had  not  worked  out 
but  he  had  determined  upon  the  India  tour  nevertheless. 
He  wrote: 

What  I  have  decided  to  do  is  to  stay  here  a  month  longer, 
catch  a  Norddeutscher  Lloyd  liner  at  Hongkong,  get  off  at 
Colombo,  go  over  to  Madras,  and  thence  by  Bombay  to 
Karachi  and  up  along  the  Indus  River  to  Lahore  and  Ludhiana; 
then  back  to  Colombo,  a  round  trip  of  about  5000  miles  in 


"7Q  the  hottest  season  in  India.  As  I  know  from  experience,  it 
will  be  one  perpetual  Turkish  bath  but  I  feel  as  though  I  ought 
to  undergo  the  treatment.  I  hope  you  will  be  prepared  to 
see  some  changes  in  me.  Woolley  says  he  has  never  seen  any- 
one change  so  much  in  two  years  and  insists  that  it  is  for  the 
worse.  I  admit  it;  and  tell  him  that  it  is  because  I  have  lived 
so  long  with  him.   .   .   . 

On  the  rumor  that  I  was  about  to  become  a  member  of  the 
Manila  enterprise,  Wherry  commented:  "...  It  would  be 
very  provoking  to  have  Martin  come  out  here  just  as  I  return, 
for  someday  we  are  going  to  work  together  in  the  same 
laboratory."  He  wrote  me  directly: 

...  I  would  be  glad  to  figure  on  returning  here  if  it  were 
not  for  some  of  the  officials  whom  I  cannot  or  will  not  stand. 
I  wish  that  I  could  get  back  to  the  University  of  Chicago, 
although  I  don't  believe  I  can  stand  that  climate  any  more. 
My  mitral  stenosis  has  been  bothering  me  lately  and  my 
peripheral  circulation  is  a  peach.  I  mailed  you  one  of  my 
bulletins  a  couple  of  days  ago  and  trust  that  it  won't  make 
you  sick.  I  will  be  gone  from  here  in  a  few  weeks. 

In  the  last  notes  that  he  wrote  from  the  Philippines  (March 
12  and  April  1,  1905)  he  stated: 

This  is  the  slowest  month  I  ever  spent  in  Manila.  I  am  ready 
to  leave  but  cannot  until  the  sixth  of  April. — Dr  Lewis,  our 
physical  chemist,  and  I  bought  a  python,  about  ten  feet  long, 
the  other  day.  He  was  to  have  the  skin  and  I,  whatever  I 
could  find  inside  of  it.  It  was  a  profitable  investment,  for  I 
extracted  a  large  bunch  of  intestinal  parasites.  The  authori- 
ties are  pumping  sand  from  the  bay  into  the  old  city  moat 
and  so  have  driven  several  interesting  serpents  from  their 
haunts.  Don't  you  wish  you  lived  in  such  a  stirring  locality! — 
On  the  fifteenth  of  March  a  rat  full  of  polar  staining  bacilli 
was  turned  over  to  me  and  as  no  one  has  really  proved  the 
existence  of  plague  in  rats  in  Manila,  I  got  busy  with  the 
examination.  It  was  really  a  plague  rat  but  I  am  not  quite 
through  with  the  work,  for  during  the  study  of  five  cultures, 
I  stumbled  onto  an  easy  method  of  staining  the  defensive 
capsules  of  some  bacteria.  Prolonged  staining  with  Wright's 


modification  of  the  Romano vsky,  colors  the  bacterial  cell  "7Q 
nucleus  blue,  while  the  capsular  substance  found  on  agar 
cultures  of  B-pestis  and  B-bovisepticus  takes  the  eosin.   I 
have  had  some  photomicrographs  taken  showing  the  stained 
capsules  which  you  will  like  to  see. 

The  story  of  this  rat  made  an  article  [12]  entitled  The 
bacteriological  examination  of  a  plague  rat  the  following 
November.  Here  he  said  that  he  was  out  of  patience  with 
the  "rough  and  ready"  methods  generally  employed  for  the 
diagnosis  of  the  disease  and  wished  to  prove  scientifically 
that  Manila  plague  was  really  plague.  "One  grows  tired  of 
reading  of  the  occurrence  of  plague  in  pigs,  dogs,  jackals, 
snakes,  etc,  without  the  presentation  of  sufficient  evidence." 
Whereafter  his  account  brought  the  proof  in  anatomical  and 
bacteriological  form — in  excellent  example  to  less  experienced 
workers  of  how  to  do  such  things.  But  Wherry  got  quickly 
from  this  to  a  discussion  of  more  abstract  notions  of  infection. 
He  had  found  a  new  method  for  staining  the  capsules  about 
bacteria,  and  noted  that  his  pest  organism  showed  none  as 
taken  from  the  body,  but  developed  them  soon  after  it  had 
been  made  to  grow  on  artificial  media.  This  raised  anew  a 
question  of  Theobald  Smith:  Is  capsule  production  a  method 
of  defense  against  an  unfriendly  surrounding?  Smith  had 
written:  "The  formation  of  protective  or  defensive  cover- 
ings .  .  .  would  account  for  certain  phenomena,  which  are 
familiar  to  bacteriologists,  much  better  than  the  current 
theory  which  bases  parasitism  exclusively  upon  toxine  pro- 
duction, active  or  passive.  In  cultures  we  should  expect  a  loss 
of  power  to  form  protective  substances  .  .  .  "  In  the  specific 
instance  of  plague,  Wherry's  findings  said  the  contrary. 
Whereafter  he  gave  evidence  of  the  broad  fashion  in  which 
he  always  looked  upon  disease  from  a  natural  history  point 
of  view.  The  capsule  formation  had  to  do  with  the  universal 
battle  in  all  infection  between  host  and  attacker.  And  now 
he  asked  about  the  rats  which  harbored  the  fleas  that  trans- 
mitted the  plague.  He  wanted  to  know  what  kinds  of  rats 
were  chiefly  to  blame.  On  this  subject  he  reported  some  three 
years  later.  At  the  moment  he  displayed  for  view  a  dramatic 
biological   set-up.    "Bruce   Skinner   has   presented   evidence 


Q()  which  seems  to  point  to  the  complete  or  partial  immunity 
of  the  Norway  rat  (M  decumanus)  to  naturally  acquired 
plague,  and  has  suggested  that  through  its  successful  antag- 
onism to  the  long- tailed  rat  (M  rattus),  it  has  played  an 
important  part  in  preventing  the  spread  of  plague  in  Europe 
and  elsewhere." 


1905-1906 


IV 


WHERRY'S  days  in  Manila,  thus  protracted  into  April, 
allowed  him  to  receive  some  home  mail.  Sister  Grace, 
out  of  Chicago,  informed  him:  "I  have  kept  account  of  all 
the  money  you  have  sent."  Whereafter  she  admonished: 
"Don't  bring  me  anything  .  .  .  we  have  to  save."  John  asked 
from  Champaign:  "Have  you  some  fond  heart  in  Manila,  or 
among  the  heathen,  or  in  Chicago?"  Wherry  might  have 
answered  that  his  hopes  lay  in  Baltimore  and  Cincinnati;  but 
did  not.  His  father  wrote  him  about  a  diphtheria-like  disease 
that  had  broken  out  in  Ludhiana  and  transmitted  articles  on 
sleeping  sickness  in  the  Congo  and  East  India's  work  against 
rabies.  Late  in  January,  Wherry's  mother  could  still  write: 
"I  often  think  how  nice  it  would  be  if  we  should  hear  that  you 
were  coming  to  India.  Yet,  again,  I  think  what  a  lot  of  money 
it  would  cost."  Reporting  on  things  present,  she  continued: 

Nellie,  Lillie  &  Margaret  are  invited  to  the  Rajah's  to  a  birth- 
day party.  They  are  to  be  his  guests  for  four  days  in  the  palace. 
The  party  is  on  the  occasion  of  their  baby's  first  birthday. 
He  is  a  young  man  with  2  Hindu  wives  and  one  English.  She 
is  the  daughter  of  a  barber  and  her  mother  was  a  rope  walker. 
It  is  her  baby's  birthday.  They  poisoned  her  first  child,  though 
it  never  could  have  been  the  heir  according  to  English  law. 
It  is  feared  this  one  will  meet  with  the  same  fate.  I  am  rather 
afraid  for  the  girls  to  go  but  they  are  anxious  to  see  the  sights. 

To  a  letter  of  the  father  (February  1,  1905)  she  added  a 
postscript  of  many  admonitions  as  to  how  to  avoid  the  plague. 
Also,  he  was  not  to  travel  3d  class  in  India,  to  stand  in  the 
sun,  or  to  tip  unreasonably,  above  all,  not  before  his  baggage 
had  been  placed  where  he  wanted  it. 

Thus  forewarned,  he  set  sail  westward  on  the  Siberia  on 
April  8 ,  having  left  unpaid  the  annual  assessment  of  one  dollar 
(US  gold)  for  membership  in  the  Society  of  American  Bac- 


QO  teriologists  (the  only  national  scientific  society  which  was  to 
honor  him  by  election,  or  to  which  he  was  to  remain  attached 
afterwards) .  From  "somewhere  in  the  China  Sea"  he  wrote: 

We  left  Manila  Bay  yesterday  morning  and  reach  Hongkong 
to-morrow.  On  the  twelfth  I  take  the  Prinz  Heinrich.  I'll  be 
very  glad  to  reach  Colombo,  where  I  can  telegraph  my  mother 
and  father,  for  I  feel  anxious  lest  they  should  have  been  injured 
in  the  severe  earthquakes  they  had  in  nothern  India  last  week. 
— I  have  been  a  chronic  kicker  in  the  laboratory  as  you  have 
no  doubt  surmised  from  my  letters.  And  to  be  consistent,  I 
have  always  refused  to  attend  any  social  functions  given  by  it. 
But  on  the  fifth,  the  surprise  of  my  life  was  sprung.  It  had 
been  announced  that  Wooster  wished  the  laboratory  staff  to 
assemble  in  the  library  to  hear  something  important.  I  don't 
love  The  Honorable,  but  deciding  to  be  decent  for  once,  I 
assembled  myself  upstairs  where  the  crowd  was  waiting  for 
The  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  sat  down  and  crossed 
my  legs  and  looked  bored.  Then  Dr  Strong  announced  that 
Wooster  had  been  called  away  unexpectedly  and  proceeded 
to  say  a  lot  of  embarrassing  things  about  me  and  presented 
me  with  a  gold  watch  from  my  fellow  workers.  I  was  so 
overwhelmed  I  could  only  say  a  few  disconnected  sentences 
in  reply.  You  can  imagine  how  proud  I  am  of  that  watch! 

He  next  wrote  from  aboard  the  Prinz  Heinrich  in  its  ten- 
day  journey  to  Colombo.  The  following  are  excerpts  from 
his  journal-like  letter: 

April  13 ,  1905 :  I  can  sympathize  with  that  Evil  One  when  he 
rose  dazed  after  his  fall  from  the  Realms  of  Bliss.  I  had  such  a 
good  time  in  Hongkong;  and  third  class  on  the  North  German 
Lloyd  is  so  extremely  rotten.  In  Hongkong,  Dr  Koch  kept 
me  on  the  go.  He  is  municipal  physician  and  I  accompanied 
him  on  his  rounds  to  the  Jail,  the  Civil  hospital,  and  the  Small- 
pox isolation  hospital  which  is  on  a  houseboat  in  the  harbor 
off  Kennidy  town.  There  is  little  research  going  on  but  their 
routine  board  of  health  work  is  well  systematized — as  it  is 
bound  to  be  in  a  Service  like  the  Colonial  in  which  the  appoint- 
ments are  ad  vitam  aut  culpam.  Plague  has  apparently  died 
out  though  they  occasionally  get  an  imported  case.  All  their 
smallpox  cases  were  imported. — Dr  Koch  showed  me  slides 


from  three  cases  of  relapsing  fever  and  of  infection  with  Q'X 
Distomum  ringeri.  Scheube  says  that  relapsing  fever  is  prob- 
ably endemic  in  Hongkong  but  there  it  is  considered  a  rare 
affection  and  the  physicians  were  greatly  interested  in  these 
cases  which  were  imported  from  North  China.  Seven  days 
after  the  recovery  of  the  last  case,  one  of  their  office  boys 
developed  the  disease. — Hongkong  is  the  only  really  European 
city  I  have  seen  in  the  Orient.  The  English  make  it  a  point 
to  enjoy  life.  Dr  Koch  has  a  beautiful  home,  part  way  up 
the  "peak,"  and  his  wife  and  step-daughter,  who  are  French- 
English  from  Louisiana,  put  themselves  out  to  entertain  me. 
His  stepdaughter,  Miss  Blair,  took  part  in  a  play,  "One 
Summer's  Day,"  given  by  their  Amateur  Dramatic  Club,  so 
we  went  to  the  last  performance.  It  was  very  good  and  I 
enjoyed  myself  immensely  even  if  I  did  go  in  borrowed  clothes. 
— We  are  moving  along  at  fifteen  knots  an  hour  towards 
Singapore.  There  are  a  lot  of  Russian  emigrants  and  Port 
Arthur  refugees  aboard  and  they  are  the  original  human 
pigs.  I  sleep  on  deck  hereafter.  My  cabin  mates  are  two  bushy 
Russians  and  a  lanky  Dutchman  who  has  T  B.  Of  course  I  pity 
the  poor  fellow  but  draw  the  line  at  sleeping  in  a  6  x  5  cabin 
with  him. 

April  14,  1905:  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  a  sign  of  the 
great  ease  with  which  we  revert  to  a  lower  type,  but  somehow 
my  surroundings  do  not  seem  so  bad  to-day. 

April  22,  1905,  Bay  of  Bengal:  I  intended  to  write  every 
day  but  have  not  felt  up  to  it  in  these  surroundings.  Some  of 
the  people  are  interesting  "specimens,"  and  I  often  wish  I  had 
brought  a  roll  of  films  for  my  camera.  There  is  one  old  Russian 
refugee  on  board  whom  I  wish  you  could  see.  He  is  big,  fat  & 
dirty,  with  a  large  and  straggly  bunch  of  Ivanovich  whiskers; 
and  night  or  day  he  is  to  be  seen  clothed  in  the  simplicity  of  a 
pink  Japanese  kimono  with  large  blue  floral  decorations! 
Even  the  sailors  smile  when  he  passes  by.   .   .   . 

We  stopped  for  about  eighteen  hours  at  Singapore  which  is 
really  beautiful.  The  Government  Botanical  Gardens,  the 
tropical  residences  and  one's  first  experience  with  the  real 
Malay  are  all  worthwhile. — I  called  on  Dr  Dindlayson,  the 
Govt  bacteriologist,  but  made  a  very  short  stay  as  he  was  away 
until  almost  time  for  the  boat  to  leave.     He  proved  delightful. 


QA.  The  Government  has  started  a  research  institute  eight  miles 
out  but  I  had  no  time  to  visit  it.  Then  we  stopped  at  Penang 
— farther  up  the  Coast.  It  is  a  dirty  hole  and  sleeping  on  deck 
while  tin  and  tobacco  are  being  loaded  does  not  add  to  the 
pleasure  of  a  stop.  .  .  . 

April  23,  1905,  Colombo:  I  telegraphed  north  this  morn- 
ing but  will  not  receive  an  answer  until  to-morrow.  I  felt 
quite  blue  to-day  although  I  know  it  is  unphilosophical  to 
worry.  My  father  said  that  there  would  be  mail  for  me  here 
but  as  there  was  none,  I  am  afraid  that  something  may  have 
happened.  I  don't  like  Colombo  and  will  be  glad  to  get 
away. 

The  overland  trip  to  Madras  was  described  in  a  letter  dated 
April  26,  1905: 

I  left  Colombo  on  the  evening  of  the  twenty- fourth  as  no 
reply  to  my  telegram  had  come  and  I  did  not  feel  like  waiting 
any  longer.  I  have  found  out  since  that  it  is  not  hard  to  beat 
a  telegram  by  rail  in  India.  I  am  going  to  telegraph  again 
from  here  and  have  the  answer  sent  to  Bombay.  From  all  I 
can  learn  though,  it  is  probable  that  my  anxiety  is  groundless 
as  very  few  Europeans  in  the  Panjab  were  injured.  The  night 
trip  from  Colombo  to  Kola  was  quite  pleasant.  Then  the  rail 
trip  of  a  day  and  a  night  brought  me  to  Madras.  The  heat, 
the  thousand  begging  natives  who  wish  to  assist  one  at  every 
turn,  and  the  numerous  maimed  and  blind  whom  one  wishes 
to  help  but  must  pass  by  for  financial  reasons,  all  conspire  to 
make  the  trip  unpleasant  and  never  to  be  forgotten.  Frankly, 
I  don't  like  southern  India.  There  is  not  much  to  be  seen  at 
Madras  and  I  am  getting  out  as  soon  as  possible — at  6:45  this 
afternoon.  Two  and  a  half  days  and  I  will  be  in  Bombay.  I 
look  at  every  drink  of  "soda"  with  suspicion.  One  can  travel 
so  much  more  comfortably  if  not  a  bacteriologist. 

His  letter  of  April  29, 1905,  said: 

Here  I  am  on  one  of  the  coast  steamers,  the  British  India  S  S 
Dumra,  on  the  way  from  Bombay  to  Karachi.  We  arrive 
there  to-morrow  morning  and  in  another  forty-eight  hours  I 
should  be  at  Ludhiana.  I  just  made  the  connection  at  Bom- 
bay. One  of  the  medical  inspectors  at  the  dock — Dr  Graham- 
Stewart — said  that  they  were  having  about  10,000  deaths 


from  plague  per  week.  I  didn't  stop  as  I  expect  to  spend  a  QS 
week  in  Bombay  on  the  way  back  and  am  anxious  to  reach 
Ludhiana.  The  trip  from  Madras  to  Bombay  was  a  hot  one. 
The  journey  is  across  the  barren  plain  of  the  Decca  plateau 
and  the  winds  scorch.  It  was  102—104  in  the  shade.  I 
bought  a  sola- tope  (sun  hat)  in  Madras  and  packed  my  Manila 
hat.  With  this  and  the  judicious  use  of  a  few  Hindoostani 
sentences,  travelling  has  been  more  comfortable.  I  am  not 
bothered  so  much  by  guides  and  beggars  as  I  was.  One  would 
like  to  give  them  something — blind,  maimed  and  lepers,  old 
men,  women,  and  children  in  scores — but  it  would  take  a  for- 
tune. Happily  the  natives  themselves  are  charitable. — I  have 
stopped  planning  for  I  find  I  am  no  good  at  it.  I  telegraphed 
to  Ludhiana  from  Madras  and  asked  them  to  answer  to  Bom- 
bay. When  I  reached  Bombay  I  had  to  choose  between  wait- 
ing two  days  for  the  answer  and  another  boat;  or  taking  this 
one. 

He  described  his  meeting  with  the  Indian  division  of  his 
family — he  had  not  seen  them  in  more  than  ten  years — in  a 
letter  out  of  Ludhiana  (May  4,  1905) : 

How  can  I  express  the  concentrated  joy  of  the  last  two  days? 
My  father  and  mother  were  so  glad  to  see  me;  and  I  was  so  glad 
to  see  them!  Then  my  sister  Lillian  with  Mr  McCuskey  and 
my  little  niece  Margaret  came  up  on  the  first  train  from  Um- 
balla.  Unfortunately,  Nellie  is  up  at  Woodstock  School  at 
Landour. — Just  like  me — I  find  that  I  chose  the  longest, 
hottest,  and  costliest  route  to  the  Pan  jab  but  I  did  it  on  the 
advice  of  a  friend  who  said  he  knew.  Mamma  was  expecting 
me  two  days  before  I  could  possibly  have  arrived  and  insisted 
on  meeting  every  train.  Then  on  the  way  up  from  Karachi 
(may  the  gods  protect  me  from  another  trip  through  the  Sind 
deserts!)  I  made  a  botch  of  everything  by  telegraphing  that 
I  would  arrive  Wednesday  when  actually  I  arrived  Tuesday. 
It  was  just  as  well  though,  for  I  surprised  them  and  saved  them 
a  trip  to  the  station  in  the  burning  heat. 

The  family  had  plans  for  keeping  me  here  five  or  six 
months!  It  was  hard  to  have  to  disappoint  them  but  I  think 
they  understand  now  why  I  cannot  stay  more  than  four  or 
six  weeks.   .   .   .  My  mother  just  remarked  that  she  was  "very 


QA  lazy  these  days."  It  is  HOT.  She  is  one  of  those  persons 
(and  so  is  my  father)  who  is  used  to  working  steadily,  from 
early  till  late,  and  if  she  happens  to  sit  around  for  a  while,  she 
considers  it  a  sign  of  laziness. 

I  hope  you  won't  feel  anxious  about  the  plague  out  here  for 
I  will  take  all  proper  precautions.  No  Europeans  acquire  the 
disease  unless  you  count  the  few  nurses  and  inspectors  who 
have  foolishly  spent  nights  in  plague-infested  villages.  The 
mortality  is  higher  than  in  any  year  since  1896.  Week  before 
last  there  were  over  2000  deaths  in  Ludhiana  district  (1617 
sq  miles).  In  Ludhiana  proper,  there  are  40—50  deaths  per 
day.  Funerals  pass  the  house  frequently.  A  great  many 
natives  have  left  the  infested  city  quarters  and  have  put  up 
temporarily  in  the  country.   .   .   . 

May  13,  1905,  Ludhiana:  ...  I  had  a  little  attack,  some- 
thing like  pleurisy,  a  few  days  ago  and  put  on  a  mustard  plas- 
ter. I  succeeded  in  warding  off  the  pleuritic  attack  and  am 
now  recovering  from  the  plaster.  My  mother  has  been  wor- 
rying and  worrying  because  she  has  always  prided  herself  that 
her  mustard  plasters  never  blistered.  It  is  nice  to  have  some- 
thing like  this  happen  though,  just  for  the  sake  of  the  parental 
attention  it  creates.  My  father  and  I  took  a  trip  to  Lahore. 
I  didn't  enjoy  it  as  much  as  I  might,  for  the  mustard  plaster 
had  a  delayed  action.     However,  ice  bags  did  wonders. 

This  afternoon  I  have  to  speak  to  the  native  girl  medical 
students  at  the  Ludhiana  Mission  Medical  School  on  bubonic 
plague.  Please  hold  your  little  finger  for  me.  I  have 
half-way  succeeded  in  bluffing  the  Anglo-Saxon  so  I  feel  more 
confident  about  the  Asiatic.  Fortunately  they  have  a  micro- 
scope so  I  can  show  a  few  slides ;  and  then  I  have  some  photo- 
micrographs with  me. 

Our  thermometer  is  broken  but  it  is  about  as  hot  here  as  in 
Lahore — 112  in  the  shade.  One  place  in  central  India  re- 
ported 120  yesterday.  We  sleep  on  the  roof  every  night  and 
it  is  comfortably  cool  in  the  evenings  and  mornings. 

The  statistics  of  plague  for  the  whole  of  India  show  that  the 
number  is  gradually  diminishing.  But  this  fact  is  not  yet 
noticeable  in  the  Pan  jab.  There  were  60,674  plague  "seiz- 
ures" and  52,25  3  deaths  in  India  last  week — 30,909  of  these 
in  the  Pan  jab  and  over  2000  in  Ludhiana.     There  have  been 


^yusikjmcKi's&mir* 


REUNION  IN  LUDHIANA  IN  1905. 
THE  REVEREND  E  M  WHERRY,  AB,  AM  DD 
AND  HIS  WIFE,  CLARA  MARIA  BUCHANAN 


gg  no  cases  among  the  native  Christians.  The  Mohammedans 
are  the  hopeless  class.  Their  mullahs  (priests)  ought  to  be 
shot  for  they  forbid  all  good  adherents  to  leave  their  plague- 
infested  homes,  saying  that  if  they  do  so,  they  show  opposition 
to  the  will  of  Allah.  Those  who  "go  out"  are  deprived  of 
their  burial  rights  and  have  no  procession  to  follow  them  to 
the  grave. 

May  24,  1905,  Land  our  Hills:  I  have  no  idea  as  to  what  I  am 
to  do  next  winter.  When  I  left  Chicago,  Dr  Hektoen  said 
that  if  he  were  living  when  I  returned,  he  would  find  me  a 
place.  Enough  work  to  keep  me  busy  and  enough  money  to 
enable  me  to  live  are  all  I  ask. 

My  father  and  I  spent  a  day  and  a  half  at  Kasauli  where  the 
Pasteur  Institute  of  India  is  located.  I  am  glad  we  went,  for 
now  I  am  acquainted  with  one  of  the  most  delightful  men  I 
have  ever  met,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Semple,  the  director  and 
founder.  The  antivivisectionists,  you  know,  have  enough 
influence  [in  the  British  Islands]  to  prevent  the  founding  of 
government  Pasteur  institutes.  So  Dr  Semple  of  the  Royal 
Army  Medical  Corps  and  an  assistant  to  Dr  A  E  Wright  (the 
only  original  pathologist  they  have  in  England)  came  out  here 
and  founded  one  which  is  supported  by  voluntary  contribu- 
tions. I  will  tell  you  more  about  the  place  and  of  the  enthu- 
siasm of  its  founder  and  his  assistants  when  I  return.  But 
you  will  gain  some  idea  of  the  excellent  work  that  is  being  done 
when  the  last  year  shows  that  out  of  6 1 2  patients  which  came 
here  from  all  parts  of  India  for  antirabic  treatment,  there  were 
only  .81%  failures.  Between  70  and  80  patients  are  under 
treatment  now.  India  is  a  hotbed  and  perhaps  the  birthplace 
of  rabies.  On  account  of  the  ignorance  and  superstition  of 
the  natives  but  few  of  those  bitten  come  for  treatment.  How- 
ever, the  successful  cases  return  to  their  friends  and  so  the 
work  is  gradually  gaining  headway.  Another  institute  is  now 
to  be  founded  in  Madras. — I  am  invited  to  "tea"  at  Woodstock 
School  and  have  to  go.     I  hate  teas  and  all  their  kind. 

May  31,  1905,  Land  our  Hills:  I  wish  you  were  here  to  enjoy 
this  beautiful  scene.  My  father  and  I  are  baching  it  at  Wood- 
stock cottage,  a  very  nice  little  place  stuck  on  the  southern 
slope  of  this  hill  which  runs  up  to  Laltibba  (red  top)  about 


7000  feet  above  sea  level.   ...  I  am  glad  of  this  trip  to  the  QQ 
hills,  for  the  walks  and  mountain  air  have  made  me  feel  like 
a  different  being. 

]une  7 ,  1905 ,  Landour  Hills:  I  wish  you  had  been  here  to  help 
us  two  days  ago.  A  coolie  who  was  quarrying  down  in  the 
khud  had  a  large  rock  fall  on  him  producing  a  compound, 
comminuted  fracture  of  the  lower  third  of  the  left  thigh. 
Miss  Dr  Mitchell,  who  has  charge  of  Woodstock,  Nellie  and 
I  had  to  do  what  we  could  for  him.  Nellie  gave  the  chloro- 
form while  we  put  on  the  plaster  splint.  Miss  Mitchell 
worked  for  some  years  in  the  clinics  at  Rush.  I  felt  quite 
relieved  that  someone  who  knew  something  about  surgery  was 
within  reach.  As  far  as  we  can  judge  at  present,  our  patient 
is  doing  well. — One  can  find  plenty  of  medical  work  to  do  in 
India.  Since  coming  up  here  I  have  had  two  cases  of  infec- 
tion of  the  feet  with  lymphangitis  to  treat,  and,  in  spite  of  my 
training,  both  cases  recovered. 

The  dust  storms  here  are  frightful.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  see  Dehra  Doon  Valley  for  the  past  three  days.  The  clouds 
of  dust  blow  across  the  foothills,  cover  the  floor  and  blow  up 
here  into  the  first  range  of  the  Himalayas.  Oh,  India  is  a 
delightful  country!  The  dust  is  so  thick  that  I  cannot  see 
St  George's  College  across  the  khud — about  two  miles  as  the 
crow  flies. 

A  few  days  later  found  him  started  for  the  United  States. 
Stopping  in  Bombay  as  he  had  planned,  he  wrote  (June  21, 
1905): 

I  spent  a  day  with  an  old  college  chum  of  mine,  Reverend  A  B 
Allison,  at  Itawa  which  is  not  far  from  Agra.  It  was  as  hot 
as  blazes.  At  Allahabad  it  reached  114  in  the  shade  but  we 
managed  to  have  a  good  time  talking  over  days  at  W  and  J. 
The  punkah,  cold  baths  and  iced  lemonade  helped  out  won- 
derfully. Lucky  for  me,  it  rained  that  night  after  one  of 
those  dust  storms  which  add  to  the  charm  of  life  in  India;  and 
so  the  trip  to  Bombay  was  not  as  uncomfortable  as  it  might 
have  been.  On  Sunday  night  Allison  went  to  Agra  with  me 
and  we  visited  the  wonderful  Taj  Mahal  by  moonlight  and 
again  next  morning.  One  never  grows  tired  of  it.  This 
morning  I  drove  six  miles  to  Parel  where  the  Government 


QQ  laboratories  are.  I  had  a  letter  from  Captain  Lamb  who  is 
doing  the  antivenene  work  at  the  Pasteur  institute  at  Kasauli 
to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Bannerman,  in  charge  here  since  Haff- 
kine  was  expelled  for  his  carelessness.  I  couldn't  pay  Colonel 
Bannerman  a  greater  compliment  than  to  say  that  he  is  an- 
other Colonel  Semple.  It  does  one  good  to  meet  men  like 
these.  Colonel  Bannerman  showed  me  over  the  Institute, 
located  in  a  large  old  Portuguese  building  which  used  to  be 
the  Government  House,  surrounded  by  the  most  beautiful 
grounds  I  have  seen  in  India.  I  saw  the  preparation  of  prophy- 
lactic from  A  to  Z.  The  technical  methods  have  been  greatly 
improved.  Colonel  Bannerman  is  going  to  present  me  with 
a  jar  of  specimens  which  will  interest  you — the  cobra,  Russell's 
viper,  and  the  krait — the  three  most  venomous  snakes  in  India. 

June  24,  1905,  he  was  still  in  Bombay;  and  still  enthusiastic. 
Said  he: 

I  have  certainly  enjoyed  my  visit  to  the  medical  men  here. 
They  are  a  lot  one  is  proud  to  know.  Night  before  last  I  dined 
at  Captain  Liston's  home  along  with  his  wife  and  Dr  Martin, 
director  of  the  Lister  Institute  of  Preventive  Medicine  in  Lon- 
don. Dr  Martin  heads  a  commission  here  which  has  settled 
down  to  work  out  the  problem  of  plague  transmission  in  a 
sober-minded  and  careful  manner.  He  is  delightfully  frank 
and  jovial.  Captain  Liston,  as  you  may  know,  along  with 
Captain  James,  has  done  most  excellent  work  on  the  Anopheles 
of  India.     I  bought  their  book  this  morning. 

On  June  28,  1905,  he  was  back  in  Colombo: 

I  arrived  here  yesterday  morning  after  quite  a  rough  trip 
across  from  Tuticorni.  They  have  not  had  plague  here  so  the 
quarantine  regulations  are  strict  and  all  white  passengers  from 
plague  infested  localities  have  to  present  themselves  to  the  Port 
Sentry  Office  every  day  for  ten  days  after  their  arrival;  or  up 
to  the  time  they  leave.  Hundreds  of  coolies  are  imported 
daily  from  southern  India  and  these  are  kept  in  quarantine  for 
ten  days  after  their  arrival. 

Dr  Castellani  is  very  nice  and  I  expect  to  visit  his  laboratory 
every  day  up  to  the  time  I  leave.  I  am  having  a  galvanized 
iron  box  made  in  which  to  repack  my  cultures.     They  are 


uncontaminated  up  to  the  present  but  I  suppose  some  of  them  Q1 
will  be  dead  by  the  time  I  get  home. 

These  "cultures,"  of  course,  Wherry  had  lugged  out  of 
Manila.  Not  in  his  manifest  were  jars  of  major  parasites, 
more  jars  carrying  large  portions  of  human  anatomy,  count- 
less boxes  of  slides  and  those  vipers  given  him  as  souvenirs  of 
his  journey  across  India  (still  to  be  seen  in  what  was  the  inner- 
most of  his  sanctum  in  the  university  of  Cincinnati) .  For 
the  rest,  his  baggage  was  rather  light.  So  it  was  that  he 
stepped  aboard  the  Xieten  of  the  North  German  Lloyd  on  July 
2,  1905,  due  to  land  at  Havre  some  three  weeks  later.  Of  the 
total  adventure  he  spoke  but  rarely.  It  was  not  because  it  had 
been  hard — for  endurance  was  the  indispensable  ingredient  of 
the  philosophy  of  romance  by  which  he  lived — but  because 
unbearably  filthy.  He  had  been  able  to  make  India  third 
class,  but  he  had  not  been  able  to  get  away  from  it  except 
fourth  class — such  were  his  finances.  Under  this  designa- 
tion, he  had  become  freight  of  the  "self -moving"  variety, 
which  was  to  say,  one  with  the  cattle  and  swine. 

He  thought  it  good  fortune  when  he  discovered  himself  the 
owner  of  a  high-lying  bunk  in  the  hold  where  he  was  locked. 
Before  the  second  day  out,  however,  his  heart  was  wrung  by 
an  unshaven  Russian  with  much  cough.  Wherry  believed 
him  tuberculous  and  would  have  had  no  mixed  feelings  toward 
him  if  the  poor  soul  had  not  employed  the  one  wash  bucket  for 
cuspidor.  It  compelled  distance  on  Wherry's  part,  which  he 
said  received  cruel  rebuke  on  the  third  day  when  the  Russian 
asked  to  borrow  his  shaving  apparatus.  How  he  finally 
managed,  he  detailed  when  off  Naples  (July  17,  1905) : 

The  ship  was  so  crowded  and  everything  was  so  vile  that  I 
thought  I  would  not  be  able  to  stand  the  strain.  Halfway 
over,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  buy  the  bos'n's  cabin.  This 
is  nicely  fitted  up  and  I  have  had  it  all  to  myself.  One  of  the 
stewards  serves  me  my  meals  here  and  by  the  use  of  a  few 
judicious  tips,  I  have  had  many  delicacies  which  were  not  due 
me.  So  you  see  I  have  been  quite  comfortable  and  am  feeling 
quite  well. 

Wherry  went  to  Paris  to  visit  the  Instihtt  Pasteur.  It  was 
another  feature  of  his  wanderings  of  which  in  later  years  he 


GO  would  not  speak.  The  workers  in  the  institute  were  always 
out,  he  said,  and  their  laboratories,  always  closed.  It  hurried 
his  journey  to  London  where  he  was  received  more  warmly. 
The  object  of  his  quest  there  was  the  Tropical  institute  and 
Patrick  Manson — another  place  and  another  man  that  in 
future  years  and  in  future  talks  he  was  not  to  forget. 

Wherry  arrived  in  New  York  late  in  August  (second-class 
on  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II) .  Miss  Nast  (now  a  fourth  year 
medical  student)  was  vacationing  on  Lake  Erie  and  Wherry 
stopped  off  to  see  her.  Whereafter  he  took  train  westward  to 
Chicago.  Domiciled  there  with  his  sister  in  River  Forest,  he 
wrote  me: 

I  must  tell  you  that  as  soon  as  I  was  able  to  get  a  suit  of  Uncle 
Sam's  clothes  in  New  York,  I  made  a  bee-line  for  Ohio.  Marie 
had  me  visit  her  there.  Well,  I  can't  tell  you  everything — 
can  I?  But  next  day  we  picked  water-lilies  together  and  it 
is  all  over!  ...  It  was  an  entirely  different  thing  getting 
her  parents'  consent,  for  they  do  not  consider  me  religious 
enough.   .   .   . 

Here  was  first  notice  that  Miss  Nast  was  now  Marie.  And 
as  to  the  last  sentence  of  his  letter,  this  situation  was  to  be 
reversed  a  year  later  when  the  elder  Wherrys  were  for  the  first 
time  to  meet  Marie.  It  was  then  that  they  were  to  have 
doubts  regarding  her  basic  faiths. 

Wherry's  return  to  the  campus  of  the  university  of  Chicago 
and  to  the  smoke-laden  atmosphere  of  Rush  must  have  struck 
him  much  as  a  toper's  descent  from  brandy  and  soda  to  sar- 
saparilla.  The  prodigal  had  visited  strange  lands,  had  seen 
strange  sights,  had  grayed  psychologically  in  his  journeyings. 
At  home,  change  had  moved  at  slower  rate.  The  place  that 
he  had  held  with  Jordan  had  been  filled  by  another,  who, 
obviously  enough  could  not  be  pushed  out.  And  the  queue 
under  Hektoen  was  as  long  as  ever.  Le  Count  and  Weaver 
had  continued  as  they  were;  Wells  had  moved  forward  to  the 
South  Side;  but  Ricketts  and  Rosenow  were  still  present — and 
only  fellows.  Wherry's  solid  contributions  to  medical  science 
were  several,  but  hidden  because  in  government  reports,  or,  as 
manuscripts   still   to   come   from   the   press.    And   anyway, 


America's  institutions  of  higher  learning  were  not  looking  to  Q  ^ 
Rush's  graduates  for  educational  leadership. 

Wherry  wrote  of  his  plight  as  follows: 

I  am  pretty  much  "out"  of  things — partly  because  there  is  a 
scarcity  of  vacancies  and  partly  because  my  price  has  gone  up 
to  2000  per.  So  I  am  working  on  "editorials"  for  the  coin 
and  beginning  to  get  ready  for  the  State  Board  Exams.  .  .  . 
It  is  up  to  me  to  get  something  pretty  soon  or  I  may  have  to 
postpone  my  wedding  day — an  awful  calamity.  If  I  prac- 
tice, I  think  I'll  go  west.  But  I  am  so  loth  to  go  into  practice 
that  I  am  hanging  off  for  a  while.  Write  and  tell  me  the 
prospects  for  a  practitioner  out  west.  PS  I  have  a  double 
conjunctivitis  or  I  should  inflict  you  with  a  longer  tale.  P  P  S 
My  hands  are  sterile  so  cheer  up! 

In  spite  of  his  levity,  Wherry  was  in  despair.  Without 
funds,  without  space  even  in  which  to  work,  his  mental  state 
was  such  that  Marie,  when  she  again  saw  him,  declared  that 
his  affection  for  her  "had  cooled."  Theobald  Smith  offered 
him  a  thousand  dollar  job  as  a  stop  gap;  and  almost  simul- 
taneously his  "dear  friend  Joe  Ohlmacher  got  busy  and  got 
the  superintendent  of  the  Iowa  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane 
at  Independence,  Iowa,  to  offer  me  a  position  as  one  of  their 
ward  physicians  at  about  fifty  dollars  per  month  with  room, 
board  and  laundry."  He  expressed  his  fears  regarding  this 
offer  in  the  words:  "I  am  afraid  to  go  into  an  insane  asylum 
in  my  present  state  of  mind.  Anyway  it  wouldn't  do,  for  if 
I  have  to  practice,  I  am  going  where  there  are  flowers  and 
birds." 

September  28,  1905,  he  sent  this  note  to  Marie: 

Nellie  tells  me  that  the  coolie  Miss  Mitchell  and  I  set  a  broken 
leg  for  at  Landour  is  getting  along  nicely.  When  he  left,  he 
said  to  Miss  Mitchell  that  since  she  had  done  so  much  for  him 
up  to  that  time,  would  she  please  furnish  him  with  a  new  suit 
of  clothes  and  some  bedding.  The  cheek  of  the  Oriental  is 
boundless! 

August  of  1905  had  made  me  the  professor  of  pathology 
in  the  Oakland  college  of  medicine.  Feeling  myself  happily 
situated,  I  urged  Wherry  to  come  west.  In  answer,  he  wrote 
as  follows  (October  6,  1905) : 


C\A  .  .  .  To  tell  you  the  truth  I  am  rather  worried.  If  I  thought 
I  would  get  a  laboratory  position  by  waiting,  I  would  do  so. 
I  am  damnably  independent  and  although  this  policy  is  a  good 
one  anywhere,  it  is  somewhat  overshadowed  by  pauperism.  I 
spent  all  my  money  travelling  and  am  not  making  anything 
to  speak  of.  Still,  I  think  I  can  borrow  a  couple  of  hundred 
of  the  filthy  on  my  life  insurance  policy.  .  .  .  Oakland  ap- 
peals to  me  and  if  you  could  fix  up  some  sort  of  arrangement 
at  the  medical  school,  so  much  the  better.  You  say  the  place 
has  no  money.  Does  that  mean  that  there  is  no  exchange  of 
lucre  whatsoever?  Yes  or  no  might  express  the  difference 
between  life  and  death.  .  .  .  The  fact  is  I  am  tired,  and  it 
goes  against  the  grain  to  wait  for  someone  else  to  do  something 
for  me,  so  I  am  going  to  strike  out  for  myself  just  as  soon  as  I 
can  get  ready  for  a  state  board  exam.  .  .  .  What  must  be, 
must  be;  and  I  am  good  on  the  still  hunt.  ...  If  it  looks  as 
though  I  could  get  a  start  (at  the  medical  school)  I'll  come. 

October  28,  1905,  he  said: 

.  .  .  Pardon  me  for  writing  a  letter  which  seemed  "blue."  I 
shall  immediately  discard  my  blue  writing-pad  and  buy  a  red 
one.  ...  I  have  been  showing  Dr  Musgrave  about  for  the 
past  three  days  and  only  regret  that  I  could  not  give  him  a  bet- 
ter time.  He  left  last  night  for  San  Francisco  on  his  way  back 
to  Manila.  ...  I  think  I  will  wait  here  and  talk  things  over 
with  you  in  December.  I  could  not  raise  more  than  a  couple 
of  hundred  just  now  and  that  seems  too  little  to  risk  going  west 
with.  .  .  .  Paciencia! — something  will  turn  up. 

His  father  wrote  him  that  he  was  "sorry"  because  he  was 
"seriously  considering  going  west"  and  advised:  "Secure  a 
good  practice  and  surround  yourself  with  the  means  of  pur- 
suing investigation  independently.  My  prayer  in  it  all  is  that 
you  may  be  divinely  guided  into  that  sphere  where  you  can 
best  serve  God  &  humanity."  Then  to  comfort  his  son's 
soul,  he  added:  "Dr  Semple  called  after  you  left  Kasauli  and 
said  many  things  complimentary,  among  them  he  wished  you 
in  his  research  establishment." 

Late  in  November,  I  was  on  my  way  to  Europe  and  had 
agreed  to  meet  him  in  Chicago.  The  place  settled  upon  was 
a  saloon  which  had  been  a  favorite  of  student  days.     I  found 


him  in  the  back  room  clad  in  an  army  overcoat  bereft  of  its  Q^ 
buttons  and  frogs,  bought  from  an  officer  in  the  Philippines. 
Half  through  our  stew,  he  turned  to  me  to  say:  "You  know 
I  won't  be  able  to  pay  for  this." 

His  Christmas  days,  however,  were  brighter.  Marie  had 
asked  him  to  Cincinnati  for  the  week,  better  to  know  the  fam- 
ily. He  had  met  its  membership  only  casually  before — the 
Reverend  Dr  Albert  J  Nast  (stanch  and  intellectual  Methodist 
of  such  charm  that  an  unbeliever  once  said  of  him:  "If  he 
talked  to  me  an  hour,  he  would  make  me  a  Christian") ;  Aunt 
Fannie  Gamble  (the  sister  of  Dr  Nast,  who  had  taken  the  place 
of  Marie's  long  dead  mother  as  her  guardian  angel  both  spiritu- 
ally and  materially) ;  the  second  wife.  Their  days  together 
went  happily  except  for  restrictions  imposed  upon  Wherry's 
smoking.  What  had  become  his  habit  in  this  direction  may 
as  well  be  told  here.  He  had  been  graduated  from  medical 
school  without  the  touch  of  wine,  women  or  weed  upon  his 
lips.  In  the  Philippines,  Woolley  used  to  say,  the  wine  had 
made  the  hurdle  because  the  weather  was  depressing;  and 
there,  too,  the  tobacco  had  gone  over.  It  was  both  soothing 
and  cheap.  Wherry  was  to  prove  himself  the  world's  hardest 
smoker  and  of  the  worst  cigars.  He  began  in  the  morning  of 
days  when  men  still  wore  night  shirts  and  his  last  muscular 
movement  at  night  was  not  the  switching  off  of  a  light  but 
the  killing  of  a  cigar.  Early  broken  to  what  only  Malays, 
trained  on  papa's  stumps  in  the  Philippine  archipelago,  can 
endure,  he  was  graduated  to  "3  for  5"  stogies  on  arrival  in 
U  S  A,  to  change,  as  his  prosperity  increased,  to  "2  for  5." 
After  marriage  his  wife  used  to  buy  stogies  for  him  in  what 
she  called  "muff  boxes" — and  three  such  at  once.  He  died 
still  believing  their  tobaccos  of  unequalled  quality. 

Wherry's  confidence  that  "something  would  turn  up"  was 
not  misplaced.  While  in  Cincinnati  Hektoen  wrote  him 
(December  26,  1905) :  "I  have  what  I  think  very  good  news 
for  you.  You  do  not  need  to  hurry  back  but  so  soon  as  you 
return,  please  come  in  so  I  can  show  you  the  promised  land." 


1906-1907 


V 


HEKTOEN'S  promised  land,  too,  lay  in  the  west.  The 
Amalgamated  copper  company,  situate  in  Anaconda, 
was  at  the  moment  in  suit  with  the  farmers  of  the  district 
egarding  the  toxicologic  effects  of  smelter  fumes.  The  farm 
tock  had  been  dying  there  because  of  the  fumes  the  farmers 
said;  the  company  did  not  know;  so  the  question  at  issue  was 
what  was  killing  the  animals.  January  3,  1906,  Wherry 
wrote  Marie  out  of  River  Forest,  as  follows: 

I  start  for  Anaconda,  Montana,  at  9:00  to-morrow  morning 
and  can't  say  how  long  I'll  be  gone.  ...  I  will  try  to  collect 
material  and  complete  the  work  in  Chicago.  I  will  at  least 
be  able  to  get  out  of  debt  again  and  perhaps  make  some  of  the 
money  we  need. 

He  arrived  in  Anaconda  in  the  night  of  the  sixth.  By  the 
eighth  he  was  established  and  wrote  me:  "Hektoen  .  .  .  fixed 
it  up  for  me  at  $200  a  month  and  expenses,  and  next  a  m  after 
reaching  Chgo  I  left  for  here.  .  .  .  They  want  a  horse  disease 
investigated."  A  more  detailed  account  of  what  his  new  life 
was  to  be  appeared  in  this  letter : 

You  probably  know  what  an  organization  "Amalgamated 
Copper"  is.  It  has  enormous  plants  here.  Marcus  Daly 
tried  to  make  Anaconda  the  capital  of  the  state  but  failed. 
He  put  up  this  hotel,  which  is  a  peach,  a  fine  library,  theatre, 
etc.  The  company  has  a  large  arsenic  (one  of  its  by- 
products) plant  here  &  last  month  turned  out  about  1 50,000 
barrels — enough  to  pigment  the  whole  Caucasian  race.  Well, 
about  three  years  ago  a  large  number  of  cattle  &  horses  in  the 
surrounding  county  died,  and  the  fumes  from  the  arsenic  mill 
stack  were  made  the  cause.  The  company  settled  with  the 
ranchers  for  $35,000  and  everything  was  O  K.  An  improved 
stack  was  put  in  at  the  cost  of  $1,000,000  which  collects  most 
of  the  solid  matter  from  the  fumes  and  from  which  they  get 


QQ  20%  arsenic.  I  can't  give  you  all  the  details  of  the  present 
trouble  as  it  would  require  reams  of  paper.  But  about  a  year 
and  a  half  ago  the  ranchers  started  a  new  scheme  for  getting 
easy  money  and  with  the  help  of  lawyers  &  veterinarians  are 
about  to  bring  suit  against  the  Co  for  $3,000,000,  while  ap- 
plying for  an  injunction  to  shut  down  the  mills.  Statistics 
show  that  stock  loss  is  not  greater  than  usual  nor  greater  than 
elsewhere  in  the  state.  The  company  is  getting  advice  from 
Theobald  Smith,  Welch,  Adami,  Moore,  etc.  The  greatest 
veterinarian  in  America,  Dr  McEachran  of  Montreal  has  just 
left  me.  I  must  tell  you  more  of  him  sometime,  for  he  is  a 
grand  old  Scotchman.  The  farmers  claim  that  the  arsenic 
causes  a  rotting  away  of  the  nostrils  of  their  horses  and  as  here- 
about they  have  a  peculiar  disease  of  the  nostrils,  the  farmers 
are  making  much  of  it.  Dr  Gardner  of  the  veterinary  school 
at  Bozeman,  has  been  working  on  the  disease  but  as  he  is  not  a 
bacteriologist,  I  was  sent  for. 

I  am  struck  with  the  fair-mindedness  of  the  company's 
officials.  They  say:  "If  it's  arsenic  we  want  to  know  so  that 
we  can  make  reparation;  if  not,  then  find  out  what  it  is  so  that 
we  will  not  be  done."  There  are  a  number  of  suits  through- 
out the  country  waiting  to  see  how  this  one  turns  out.  Dr 
Spelman,  who  has  charge  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  hospital 
here,  and  Mr  Mathewson,  the  mgr  of  the  Co  have  already 
started  a  movement  to  keep  me  here  permanently.  If  I  can 
get  good  pay  and  facilities  for  research  it  might  not  be  a  bad 
idea.     There  is  no  bacteriologist  in  the  state. 

I'm  afraid  this  life  will  spoil  me.  This  matter  of  living  on 
the  best  of  the  land  and  not  paying  for  it  is  too  much  for  me. 
It  may  make  future  difficulties  harder  to  bear. 

12  P  M — Well,  the  lab  business  is  going  through  all  right 
with  permission  from  Mr  Mathewson  to  order  any  amount 
of  apparatus  we  want  and  Dr  Spelman  hot  on  the  idea  of  hav- 
ing it  established  in  the  hospital.  It  looks  as  though  we  may 
work  up  a  good  research  lab  at  the  expense  of  Standard  Oil. 

On  the  next  day  he  said: 

To-morrow  I  move  the  laboratory,  that  is  what  there  is  of  it, 
into  St  Ann's  hospital.  The  Mother  Superior  turned  over  two 
fine  rooms  to  me. 


Even  before  the  week  was  out  he  had  reverted  to  a  love  of 
his  medical  student  days  and  planned  "to  carry  on  some  ex- 
periments with  opsonins."  The  circumstances  of  his  new- 
found job  brought  back  his  silent  laughter  and  he  penned: 

By  the  way,  I  have  been  thinking  that  you  ought  not  to  pub- 
lish your  new  book  without  a  fitting  dedication.  I  do  not 
wish  you  to  strain  your  brain  over  the  subject  but  how  would 
this  do? — 

To  that  habit  of  continually  falling  into  Debt,  and 

To  that  Custom  of  Borrowing  which  has  kept  me  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  penury,  and  thus  furnished  a 
most  potent  Stimulus  to  a  Naturally  Lazy  Dispo- 
sition, and 

To  Those  Kind  Friends  who  have  loaned  to  me  in  my 
extremity,  and  especially 

To  Her  who  has  helped  me  spend  the  Money. 
But,  without  joking,  this  is  not  bad: 

To  ransom  Truth  .   .   .  rally  the  scattered  Causes; 

and  that  line  which  Nature  twists  .  .  .  untwine. 
This  is  sacrilegious  perversion  by  excerption  which  would 
make  Sir  Thos  turn  over  in  his  grave.  .  .  .  And,  by  the  way, 
I  will  not  need  to  borrow  the  money  now.  In  fact,  if  you 
happen  to  get  stuck  and  don't  ask  me,  I'll  feel  hurt.  I  have 
not  been  paid  yet  but  feel  sure  that  I  will  be. 

By  January  17,  1906,  he  could  say  that  he  had  "finished  up 
the  list  of  supplies  for  the  laboratory"  and  that  "it  came  to 
$788.00."  He  continued:  "I  expect  it  will  reach  fifteen 
hundred  but  the  Copper  Company  makes  more  than  that  each 
minute,  I  think."  On  January  18,  1906,  he  wrote  of  a  side 
line  into  which  he  was  being  pushed: 

There  are  many  nice  people  in  this  town  of  about  ten  thou- 
sand. The  climate  and  altitude  ought  to  make  the  place 
healthful  but,  of  course,  the  population  is  subject  to  most  of 
the  ordinary  ailments.  They  had  epidemic  typhoid  last  fall. 
There  were  two  deaths  from  diphtheria  day  before  yesterday 
and  some  even  contract  tuberculosis  here.  The  place  needs 
a  bacteriological  laboratory.  The  deaths  from  diphtheria,  a 
mother  and  baby,  were  inexcusable  and  the  manager  of  the 


99 


IN  THE  LABORATORY,  ANACONDA 


Company,  who  has  a  family  of  children,  was  quite  excited  over  1  Q1 
the  affair  and  this  morning  asked  me  to  install  the  regular 
method  of  diagnosing  diphtheria  bacteriologically.  So  Little 
Willie  gets  busy  making  up  Loffler's  serum.  No  work  of  the 
kind  is  being  done  in  the  state  and  we  can  get  such  work  to  do 
from  Butte  and  other  places,  at  least  enough  to  pay  for 
breakage. 

Those  who  remember  Wherry  out  of  the  flesh  will  appre- 
ciate what  such  a  story  as  he  tells  in  the  following  letter  (Janu- 
ary 21,  1906)  meant  to  him: 

Yesterday  afternoon  I  went  to  Butte  with  Dr  Spelman  and 
met  a  lot  of  the  physicians.  Most  of  the  men  plainly  showed 
their  disappointment  at  the  Company  establishing  a  labora- 
tory in  Anaconda,  a  smaller  place.  Dr  Spelman  took  delight 
in  stringing  them.  He  started  by  telling  them  of  our  three 
thousand  dollar  laboratory  here  and  ended  by  talking  of  our 
five  thousand  dollar  equipment.  We  will  install  necessary 
means  for  diphtheria  diagnosis  both  here  and  at  Butte  and  most 
of  the  doctors  say  they  will  be  glad  to  send  their  specimens  to 
us  instead  of  east  or  to  San  Francisco. 

On  January  24,  1906,  he  wrote: 

I  made  cultures  from  the  throat  of  one  of  the  Company's  men 
this  afternoon.  His  membrane  is  probably  due  to  a  strepto- 
coccus but  it  served  to  initiate  the  West  into  up-to-date  meth- 
ods. However  the  scheme  for  incubating  the  cultures  is  old. 
They  are  in  my  inside  vest  pocket.  The  only  incubator  we 
have  at  present  is  at  the  shop  having  an  electrical  regulator 
installed. — I  have  just  heard  that  it  will  be  necessary  to  make 
a  fifteen  mile  drive  to-morrow  morning  to  autopsy  a  horse 
which  went  crazy  owing  to  the  effects  of  smoke  and  arsenic. 

Sub  rosa,  he  communicated  the  finish  of  this  horse  tale 
twenty-four  hours  later: 

I  have  been  working  on  that  crazy  horse  all  day  and  am  just 
about  asleep.  The  horse  had  cerebro-spinal  meningitis  and  I 
am  trying  to  isolate  a  small  bacillus  present  in  large  number. 

Before  the  month  was  out,  Wherry  was  beginning  to  feel 
the  smart  of  partisan  battle  (January  29,  1906) : 


102  ^e  State*  a  paper  published  in  Helena,  said  to-day  that  all  the 
so-called  "experts"  are  hirelings  of  Amalgamated  Copper 
ready  to  perjure  themselves  at  a  moment's  notice.  I  suppose 
that  makes  it  so,  but  as  I  am  not  an  expert  and  am  not  expected 
to  qualify  as  such  but  simply  as  a  bacteriologist,  that  lets  me 
out.  It  calls  Anaconda  "the  city  of  whispers  where  one's  soul 
is  not  his  own,  where  no  one  dares  to  speak  his  mind  openly 
for  fear  of  Company  spies."  I  only  hope  that  they  don't  read 
my  love  letters.  I  can't  say  whether  I  am  on  the  right  or  the 
wrong  side  of  this  case  and  as  it  is  for  the  United  States  Court 
to  decide,  I  shan't  worry,  for  all  the  evidence  I  shall  present, 
will  be  simply  a  matter  of  fact. 

A  letter  dated  January  29,  1906,  made  casual  record  of  the 
painstaking  methods  pursued  by  him  all  his  life  in  the  prose- 
cution of  his  scientific  studies. 

We  have  a  lot  of  media  ready  and  to-morrow  we'll  have  Percy 
throw  and  tie  that  sorrel  cayuse  and  then  we'll  go  back  of  that 
ulcer  in  his  nose  in  real  surgical  fashion.  When  we  get  some 
pieces  which  are  presumably  free  from  surface  contamination, 
we'll  make  aerobic  and  anaerobic  cultures  in  Loffler's  serum, 
glucose  bouillon  containing  unaltered  horse  serum  and  some 
containing  horse  serum  heated  to  fifty  degrees  for  an  hour,  and 
in  plain  glucose  agar.  Then  we  must  make  a  sterile  salt  solu- 
tion suspension  of  some  of  the  tissue  and  inject  it  into  the  nasal 
submucosa  of  a  normal  horse.  You  see  we  don't  even  know 
yet  that  the  disease  is  contagious  or  inoculable.  If  it  is 
inoculable  we  must  find  the  cause. 

With  such  thoroughness  he  did  everything  that  needed 
doing.  On  Sundays  his  assistant  was  likely  to  take  the  day 
off.  Wherry  would  then  "play  char  in  the  laboratory,  feed- 
ing the  animals  and  scrubbing  and  sterilizing  the  floors."  He 
reported  upon  another  horse,  supposedly  dead  of  smelter  effects 
but  really  dead  of  an  infectious  disease,  February  14,  1906: 

Along  with  the  veterinarian,  Dr  Gardner,  I  posted  another 
crazy  horse  yesterday — a  case  of  strangles  with  multiple  ab- 
scesses in  the  cerebellum.  I  have  so  many  cultures  going  that 
I  often  work  after  supper.  But  now  that  I  have  all  past  and 
present  specimens  systematized  in  my  note  books,  side  cabinet 
and  specimen  bottles,  it  is  a  pleasure.     To  show  you  how  much 


the  Sisters  appreciate  laboratory  work — the  Mother  Superior  1  Q^ 
asked  me  the  other  day  if  her  chickens  ran  any  risk. 

His  friend  Woolley  reported  to  him  on  the  state  of  affairs 
in  the  Manila  laboratory  (January  24,  1906) : 

I  go  to  Siam  on  April  first.  .  .  .  That  3000  is  gold.  You 
know,  I  suppose,  that  Herzog  is  leaving,  Musgrave  given 
notice  of  his  resignation,  Clegg  and  Will  Young  pulling  out. 
Clover  leaves  September  and  Jobling  has  been  cabled  for. 
Sorrel  leaves  July.  Tavern  has  resigned,  Forbes  is  not  com- 
ing back,  Timmy  Smith  is  to  be  Governor  and  Gen  Wood 
Secretary  of  Police.  Everyone  has  congratulated  me  and 
asked  me  to  keep  my  eyes  open  for  them  in  Siam.  .  .  .  You 
old  Slob,  why  didn't  you  take  up  Theobald  Smith? 

"Twenty  degrees  below  zero"  registered  in  middle  March 
brought  Wherry  much  satisfaction.  "This  very  cold  weather 
will  do  me  a  good  turn,  for  they  will  not  be  able  to  kill  so  many 
horses  and  I'll  get  a  chance  to  get  caught  up."  The  Copper 
company  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  going  into  the  business  in 
no  superficial  fashion.  Wherry  referred  to  it — with  some 
other  things  of  importance — in  a  letter  to  me  (March  16, 
1906): 

...  I  am  sixty  dollars  a  month  better  off — with  a  definite 
contract  for  a  year.  So  this  is  where  Little  Willie  gets  a  ring 
next  month  and  if  you  will  stop  off  at  Balto  you  may  see  some- 
thing of  what  Amalgamated  can  do!  ...  I  am  sorry  you  are 
not  here  now.  They  want  a  man  awfully  bad  to  do  paraffin 
section  work.  Don't  laugh!  .  .  .  The  fact  is  these  people 
don't  know  what  they  are  getting  into.  Before  they  are 
through  killing,  we  will  have  tissues  from  several  hundred 
animals. 

A  single  day  told  of  the  "putting  away  of  the  tissues  from 
thirty  animals."  To  Marie  went  the  word:  "You'll  be  inter- 
ested to  hear  that  the  rabbit  inoculated  from  the  original  crazy 
horse  I  told  you  of  in  January,  died  a  couple  of  days  ago  with 
cerebral  symptoms."  Toward  the  end  of  the  month  Theo- 
bald Smith  arrived  and  made  two  autopsies.  "I  can  tell  you 
they  were  careful  ones,"  Wherry  reported,  continuing:  "It  is 
a  great  treat  to  have  him  here  for  he  knows  so  much  and  has 
such  a  fine  way  of  imparting  his  knowledge  to  others."     The 


1  QZi  work  and  personnel  of  the  laboratory  increasing,  more  space 
was  deemed  necessary.  Wherry  reported  his  quest  for  it 
(April  4,  1906): 

"Busy"  might  well  have  been  written  over  the  laboratory  to- 
day. .  .  .  Mr  Mathewson  wanted  me  to  ask  for  another  room 
at  the  hospital  as  we  are  getting  crowded.  I  did  it  as  nicely 
as  possible  for  me,  but  the  sweet  old  Mother  Superior  grew  as 
sour  as  a  sour  apple  and  told  me  we  couldn't  have  it.  Then 
she  recounted  the  worry  and  trouble  I  had  brought  her. 
"Why,"  she  said,  "we  haven't  been  able  to  hang  the  clothes 
in  the  back  yard  since  you  commenced  the  animal  house." 
This,  after  I  went  to  the  trouble  of  having  heating  pipes  and 
a  register  put  in  her  chicken  house! 

On  April  11,  1906,  he  recited  Theobald  Smith's  own 
story  of  his  great  and  first  discovery  of  the  transmission  of  an 
infectious  disease  by  an  intermediate  carrier : 

Dr  Smith  told  me  that  he  worked  for  three  years  on  the  trans- 
mission of  Texas  fever  by  ticks,  for  it  was  so  strange  and 
unheard-of  a  thing  that  he  had  to  convince  himself  over  and 
over  again  before  publishing  the  fact.  And  then  no  one  be- 
lieved him  or  paid  any  attention  to  the  fact  for  five  years! 
Think  what  a  field  in  our  present  day  notions  of  the  transmis- 
sion of  the  infectious  diseases  that  opened  up! 

To  this  he  added:  "Dr  Smith  was  feeling  ill  yesterday  and  J 
prescribed  for  him.  Trustful  man!  He  took  the  medicine 
and  says  to-day  he  is  feeling  well  enough  to  go  out  to-morrow." 

AT  different  moments  in  his  life,  many  different  labels 
were  affixed  to  Wherry.  Often  referred  to  as  a  "medi- 
cal scientist,"  he  was  more  often  called  an  "epidemiologist" 
or  a  "public  health  worker."  Such  men  seem  cold,  because 
numbers  and  statistics  too  frequently  displace  in  their  memo- 
ries, family  and  given  names.  Wherefore,  the  item  is  of  inter- 
est that  Wherry  never  thus  lost  a  story  because  of  the  pagina- 
tion. In  part  it  was  family  tradition — he  was  the  son  of  a 
minister;  and  the  churchly  fathers  of  the  nineteenth  century 
preached  no  gospel  more  clearly  than  that  Christian  service 
meant  service  to  human  beings.     From  the  first  he  knew  that 


plagues  killed  men;  and  that  leprosy  withered  human  arms  1  QS 
and  legs.     In  Anaconda  his  sight  did  not  dim. 

* 'There  is  a  poor  fellow  in  the  room  next  to  mine  with  ad- 
vanced T  B,"  he  wrote  (March  4,  1906) .  "I  must  find  out 
to-morrow  if  I  can  do  anything  for  him.  It  is  awful  to  hear 
him  suffer  and  not  know  who  he  is  or  what  he  looks  like."  On 
the  day  following,  he  added:  "I  saw  him  this  morning.  He 
is  a  little  old  gentleman,  with  sallow  face  and  deeply  sunken 
eyes.  He  worried  me  so  much  last  night  that  I  got  up  and 
took  a  double  dose  of  trional."  And  thus  (April  13,  1906) 
he  reported  of  a  second  "case"  concerned  not  at  all  with  the 
smelter  business: 

I  must  tell  you  of  my  other  sweetheart.  How  can  a  man  stick 
to  only  one  when  there  are  so  many  lovely  girls  in  this  world ! 
Elsie  Mary  Besant  of  whom  I  told  you  before,  had  another 
attack  of  chills  and  fever  yesterday  and  now  they  come  daily, 
though  when  I  wrote  you  three  weeks  ago  they  were  distinctly 
tertian  in  character.  With  the  cessation  of  quinine  they  re- 
turned and,  lo!  her  poor  erythrocytes  are  crammed  with  a 
double  or  triple  brood  of  the  infernal  parasites.  One  band 
is  in  its  infancy,  another  well  matured,  while  some  of  the  imps 
of  hell  are  segmented.  A  remarkable  instance  of  double  or 
triple  infection,  latent  since  last  September.  Elsie  is  the 
sweetest  little  four-year-old  you  ever  saw;  and  the  poor  little 
angel  has  whooping  cough,  too;  but  to-morrow  I  get  after 
the  plasmodia.  The  hospital  is  neglecting  the  amoebic  dysen- 
tery case,  too,  so  I  am  superintending  his  treatment  myself. 
He  is  so  emaciated  and  wants  so  much  to  get  well,  and  his  wife 
and  little  girl  are  so  anxious,  that  I  really  feel  conscience- 
stricken  at  not  having  paid  him  more  attention.  Of  course 
he  is  not  my  patient  but  he  will  be  hereafter!  Just  think,  he 
has  had  it  for  three  years  without  treatment! 

A  succession  of  letters    (for   the  most   part   to   Marie) 
described  his  activities  of  a  subsequent  month: 

Easter  Sunday  1906 — I  had  not  thought  of  the  day  until  yes- 
terday. Just  now  I  must  to  the  laboratory.  We  filled  little 
Elsie  with  twelve  grains  of  quinine  hydrochloride  yesterday 
morning.  This  morning  I  found  only  one  parasite  [in  her 
blood]  and  think  we  succeeded  in  killing  off  one  of  the  broods. 


106  April  16,  1906 — To-day  Dr  Spelman  and  I  gave  antitoxine 
to  two  wee  ones  at  the  Westside  convent.  One  is  serious — com- 
plicated with  whooping  cough.  Her  name  is  Thekla.  The  other 
is  a  tiny  girl  usually  full  of  life  and  sassy,  but  to-day  very 
meek. — Elsie  showed  me  her  new  red  and  white  dress. — It  is 
very  hard  to  educate  the  doctors  to  the  necessity  of  giving 
prophylactic  doses  of  antitoxine.  I  shall  try  again  to-morrow. 
...  I  have  my  room  all  rearranged  and  soon  will  have  some 
photos  of  Philippine  types  hung  up.  Then  I  shall  feel  quite  at 
home  among  the  savages  again. 

April  30,  1906,  Monday  night — I  must  send  you  a  line  to- 
night since  I  neglected  you  yesterday.  It  was  a  strenuous  and 
expensive  day,  and  it  served  me  right,  for  it  was  Sunday.  After 
working  all  morning  I  received  a  telegram  from  Dr  Ricketts 
asking  me  to  meet  him  in  Butte  if  possible.  Thinking  it  some- 
thing important,  and  as  I  could  catch  him  in  no  other  way, 
I  hired  a  team  and  drove  ten  miles  in  forty  minutes  to  Warm 
Springs  to  catch  his  train.  I  found  him  on  board  with  Dr 
Chowning,  on  their  way  to  Butte  and  Helena — Ricketts  per- 
force, and  Chowning  with  a  crazy  idea  of  petitioning  the 
Governor  to  allow  them  to  inoculate  one  of  the  state  crimi- 
nals (life  sentence)  with  "Spotted  Fever."  The  idea  might 
have  been  a  good  one  if  everything  that  could  have  been  done, 
had  been  done.  But  so  far  only  a  few  mediocre  men  have 
worked  on  the  disease  and  none  has  even  tried  monkeys. 
Ricketts  is  trying  to  get  some  but  cannot  afford  them.  The 
disease  is  not  contagious  but  must  be  frightful.  They  told 
me  of  their  two  last  cases  which  turned  almost  black  before 
death.  I  am  going  up  one  of  these  days  to  see  some  of  them 
and  have  arranged  to  supply  Ricketts  with  guinea  pigs  and 
media.  Who  can  tell?  Perhaps  Kismet  sent  me  out  here  just 
to  help  in  this  way — and  not  primarily  to  separate  me 
from  you! 

Little  Thekla  died  a  few  days  ago  of  uraemic  convulsions 
when  well  convalescent  from  diphtheria.  I  felt  like  saying 
"I  told  you  so,"  but  refrained,  for  they  wouldn't  push  the 
antitoxine  at  the  start.  She  was  such  a  patient  and  sweet 
little  thing  too.  I  went  to-night  to  make  cultures  from  the 
rest  of  the  family  to  see  if  we  can  break  quarantine  after 
fumigation.  Did  I  tell  you  about  their  method  of  fumigation 


here?  I  told  Dr  Spelman  that  they  might  just  as  well  set  their  1  Q"7 
formaldehyde  generator  on  top  of  one  of  these  hills  and  let 
her  go;  or  throw  so  much  formaldehyde  solution  per  month 
in  the  Warm  Springs  creek.  In  this  way  they  would  spend 
just  as  much  appropriation  and  avoid  giving  the  inhabitants 
a  false  sense  of  security.  Their  method  doesn't  touch  even 
moist  cultures.  The  apathy  of  the  physicians  concerned  is 
disgusting.  Fortunately,  one  meets  fine  exceptions  (like  Drs 
Spelman  &  McKenzie)  and  is  preserved  from  early  pessimism. 
But  I  can  see  that  it  will  be  a  continual  fight,  for  the  public 
too,  is  most  thoughtless.  It  has  grown  to  expect  these  things 
and  cannot  imagine  better  conditions.   .   .  . 

Well,  I  think  I've  done  pretty  well  for  a  man  who  didn't 
go  to  sleep  until  three  this  morning.  If  you  won't  tell  anyone 
I'll  confess  something.  You  see  I  had  to  wait  three  hours  for 
a  train  last  night  and  Butte  is  such  a  tough  place  that  I  went 
to  see  "Monsieur  Beaucaire"  in  self-defense.  [It  was  Sunday.] 
That  story  is  better  than  90%  of  the  sermons  one  hears — 
or,  I  should  say,  has  heard. 

P  S — I  couldn't  help  falling  in  love  with  the  heroine,  Lady 
Marie,  for  like  you,  she  marries  her  love  though  he  is  poor,  but 
unlike  you,  finds  that  in  loving  a  barber  she  has  won  a  prince! 

May  1,  1906 — I  gave  Elsie  four  grains  of  quinine  this  morn- 
ing to  drive  out  any  parasites  latent  in  her  spleen  and  this 
afternoon  found  her  blood  full  of  adult  parasites — two  or 
three  in  every  field  of  the  microscope.  Poor  child,  she  has  an 
awful  time  with  the  combination  of  whooping  cough  and 
malaria. 

May  6,  1906 — To-day  I  expressed  Ricketts  some  media, 
worked  on  some  cultures,  made  two  diphtheria  diagnoses  and 
cultures  from  the  blood  of  two  young  fellows  who  are  sus- 
pected of  typhoid.  They  had  an  epidemic,  milk  or  oysters  I 
suspect,  in  the  school  in  Spokane  and  about  twenty  were  ill 
and  some  died.  The  school  was  closed  and  the  boys  came  home 
a  few  days  ago  and  just  developed  symptoms.  So  you  see  the 
diagnosis  work  is  progressing. 

May  7,  1906 — It  looks  very  much  as  if  we  were  going  to  be 
at  the  head  of  the  Union  in  public  health  matters.  I  have  been 
talking  notification  and  laboratory  control  of  infectious  dis- 


108  eases  s*nce  *  came  here  and  to-day  Dr  McKenzie,  the  mayor, 
presented  the  matter  to  the  town  council  which  agreed  to 
pass  and  enforce  any  laws  we  saw  fit  to  present.  So  we  are 
going  to  make  compulsory  the  notification  of  all  sore  throats, 
from  each  of  which  a  culture  must  be  submitted.  All  the 
work,  free  of  charge!  We  are  also  going  to  make  the  noti- 
fication of  typhoid,  pneumonia  and  tuberculosis  compulsory 
and  we  hope  to  put  the  method  of  disinfection  on  a  satis- 
factory basis.  We  shall  keep  all  diphtheria  convalescents  in 
quarantine  until  their  throats  are  free  of  bacilli.  We  will  get 
the  laws  passed  and  then  see  if  we  can  make  the  physicians 
cooperate.  We  also  have  a  scheme  in  mind  to  furnish  antitoxine 
free  to  those  who  really  can't  afford  to  pay. 


AS  Wherry  watched  in  his  laboratory,  the  articles  writ- 
ten by  him  in  Manila  had  one  by  one  come  to  view  in 
the  United  States.  The  manuscript  for  the  last  [14]  had  been 
delivered  into  Hektoen's  hands  at  the  end  of  his  waiting  period 
in  Chicago.  Now  this  was  printed.  It  had  to  do  with  the  cause 
of  a  contagious  blister  disease  he  had  encountered  in  the  Philip- 
pines. This  pemphigus  he  ascribed  to  a  microorganism  newly 
discovered  by  him  and  dubbed  the  Micrococcus  pempbigi 
contagiosa.  He  had  isolated  it  from  five  cases,  reproducing 
with  it,  the  disease.  "The  kidney  shaped  diplococci"  were 
not  to  "be  confounded"  with  the  ordinary  staphylococci,  he 
warned. 

He  had  written  Marie  that  this  paper  was  to  be  the  product 
of  his  and  Woolley's  labors.  But  Woolley  had  not  been  con- 
cerned in  it.  It  appeared  instead  with  Moses  T  Clegg  as  co- 
author. This  future  assistant  director  of  the  U  S  leprosy  inves- 
tigation station  in  Hawaii  was  then  twenty-nine.  He  had  been 
a  graduate,  almost,  out  of  the  University  of  Arkansas  when 
he  entered  the  medical  division  of  the  U  S  army  to  serve 
through  the  Philippine  insurrection;  whereafter  he  had  been 
nominated  the  assistant  bacteriologist  in  the  Manila  labora- 
tory. Six  months  ago  Wherry  had  written  Clegg  that  he  in- 
tended to  use  his  name.  Clegg  responded  (December  19, 
1905): 


Your  kindness  was  certainly  appreciated  in  giving  me  more  1  QQ 
credit  than  I  deserve  in  that  article  on  pemphigus;  and  will 
never  be  forgotten.  ...  I  have  been  leading  a  fairly  moral 
life  since  you  left  (don't  misconstrue  that  sentence).  You 
remember  last  New  Year's  Eve.  I  do,  with  horror.  Since  then 
7  have  been  good.  ...  I  wish  you  would  call  on  my  sister 
and  make  black  seem  white  in  regard  to  me.  .  .  .  Have  made 
several  examinations  of  that  little  Jap  girl's  blood  for  filariasis 
but  have  been  unable  to  find  any  parasites  .  .  .  Joaquin  and 
William  send  best  regards.  Joaquin's  face  was  a  pleasure  to 
see  when  I  told  him  of  your  message  to  him. 

To  further  gossip  about  the  non-scientific  goings-on  in 
Manila  he  added  the  wish  that  Wherry  help  him  get  into  a 
medical  school.  It  was  after  this  letter  that  the  pemphigus 
article  had  come  from  the  press  with  Clegg  designated  its 
senior  author.  This  incident,  so  chronically  characteristic  of 
Wherry,  and  so  obvious  a  reason  for  the  enduring  affection 
that  all  his  laboratory  associates  bore  him,  brought  this  re- 
sponse (July  12,  1906)  from  Clegg,  now  resigned  from 
the  Manila  laboratory  and  on  his  way  to  study  medicine  in 
Tulane: 

I  was  greatly  surprised  to  see  my  name  before  yours  on  the 
reprint  but  I  have  taken  precaution  to  inform  all  I  know 
that  Dr  Wherry  was  the  "man  behind"  ...  It  would  be 
absurd  to  make  an  excuse  to  you  for  my  long  silence.  How- 
ever, you  understand  our  condition  (physical)  over  here,  so 
enough  said.  ...  I  am  still  at  the  Civil  hospital,  and,  by  the 
way,  I  have  a  case  on  hand  that  is  indeed  interesting.  Do  you 
remember  a  tall,  blonde  nurse?  I  am  her  beau  at  present  and 
a  little  loco.  Dr  Wherry,  love  in  the  tropics  is  awful  ...  I 
have  made  several  other  examinations  of  blood  from  your 
little  Jap  at  all  hours  of  the  night  and  day  with  negative 
results. 

The  exhibition  of  such  humanness  would,  like  nothing  else, 
bring  color  to  Wherry's  cheeks  and  elicit  his  never-to-be- 
forgotten  smile.  At  this  time,  too,  he  was  permitted  to  read 
more  austere  medical  opinion  of  him.  Victor  G  Heiser  (then 
thirty-three,  chief  U  S  quarantine  officer  of  the  Philippines 
and  the  newly  appointed  director  of  health)    declared  of 


1  Q  Wherry's   bulletin   on   glanders:    "A   paper   pronounced   in 
Europe  the  best  that  has  appeared  on  this  subject." 

While  other  duties  had  so  filled  his  Anaconda  days  that 
writing  was  largely  impossible,  he  nevertheless  did  get  two 
items  into  print.  They  were  important  as  having  to  do  with 
the  geographic  distribution  of  disease.  Under  a  single  head- 
ing [15]  he  told  of  a  patient  ill  with  amoebic  dysentery  who 
had  never  been  outside  of  Montana;  and  of  another,  harbor- 
ing a  chronic  malaria.  Opinion  at  the  time  believed  the  bowel 
infection  possible  only  in  those  who  had  come  in  contact  with 
the  Orient;  and  the  malarial  patient  had  become  infected  of 
the  plasmodium  in  regions  believed  to  be  free  of  all  the  circum- 
stances necessary  for  its  transmission. 

Wherry's  hours  were  now  filled  of  three  interests — there 
was  his  official  quest  which  had  to  do  with  what  was  killing 
the  farmers'  domestic  stock  and  charged  by  them  to  the  fumes 
emanating  from  Anaconda's  smelter  stacks;  that  really  more 
heart-warming  interest  which,  as  side  line,  was  his  bacterio- 
logical-diagnosis laboratory;  and,  of  course,  that  Spanish  castle 
upon  which  he  had  set  his  heart.  May  18,  1906,  he  wrote  to 
Marie:  "We  will  live  in  hope.  There  is  no  chance  of  my  having 
any  money  laid  up  by  fall,  but  if  this  position  is  assured  we 
could  risk  getting  married  on  the  prospects."  Under  the  other 
heads  he  reported  that  the  work  on  the  horses  "was  going 
along  nicely"  (he  had  isolated  the  Bacillus  necrophorus  from 
a  number  of  their  nasal  and  laryngeal  ulcers)  and  that  his 
diagnostic  efforts  were  bearing  fruit.  May  19,  1906,  he 
detailed: 

.  .  .  about  this  typhoid  epidemic  which  broke  out  at  the 
school  in  Spokane.  Quite  a  number  of  the  boys  died  there,  and 
the  rest  were  sent  to  their  homes  all  over  the  West.  Most  of 
these  have  since  developed  the  disease.  There  are  six  cases  here, 
three  under  the  care  of  Dr  McKenzie,  and  I  have  made  cul- 
tures and  found  the  typhoid  bacillus  in  two.  The  master  in 
charge  of  the  school  asked  me  to  examine  and  report  on  the 
water  of  their  well.  He  sent  a  sample  last  week.  It  was  so  sterile 
that  I  refused  to  report.  I  believe  the  old  rascal  boiled  it  before 
sending,  but,  of  course,  cannot  say  so,  for  one  may  not  risk 
accusing  an  individual  who  might  be  innocent.  To-day  we 


THE  REVEREND  ALBERT  J  NAST,  AB,  AM,  DD, 
CONFERS  WITH  WHERRY  IN  ST  ANN'S  HOSPITAL,  ANACONDA 


2  received  a  very  nice  letter  asking  for  our  results  which  would 
be  published  in  the  Spokane  papers  and  a  copy  sent  to  the 
parents  of  each  boy.  I  may  be  mistaken  but  I  think  I  am  on 
to  the  old  fellow. 

Wherry's  point  of  view  in  general  matters  of  medicine  had 
not  left  unaffected  either  the  men  of  his  Company  or  the 
doctors  of  the  place  who  had  come  in  contact  with  him. 
One  of  these,  frequently  referred  to  in  superlatives  by  Wherry 
(Thomas  J  McKenzie,  39,  into  medicine  and  politics  out  of 
Kentucky) ,  was  the  mayor  of  the  town.  Together  they  cooked 
up  a  series  of  ordinances  aimed  at  the  report,  control  and 
eradication  of  various  communicable  diseases.  The  science  of 
these  laws  had  been  dictated  by  Wherry;  their  enactment  via 
the  city's  council  by  McKenzie.  May  21,  1906,  Wherry  re- 
ported: "Hold  your  thumbs,  for  this  is  an  eventful  night.  The 
diphtheria  proposition  is  up."  Two  days  later:  "the  ordinance 
was  passed  by  the  city  council  last  night."  On  the  same  day 
the  first  "sore  throat"  came  to  the  laboratory  (which,  interest- 
ingly enough  proved  to  be,  in  Wherry's  hands,  not  an  antici- 
pated diphtheria  but  an  instance  of  Vincent's  spirillar  angina) . 
By  May  26  "the  docs  were  falling  right  in  line,"  and  "ten 
throat  cultures  to-day"  had  been  received.  May  30,  1906, 
Wherry  sent  Marie  a  sheaf  of  newspaper  clippings  with  the 
words:  "It's  awfully  late  but  I  cannot  sleep.  I  am  inclosing  a 
copy  of  the  ordinance  itself.  It  may  interest  you  to  see  what 
a  formidable  thing  it  is  in  its  legal  form." 

Anaconda's  population,  however,  did  not  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  behind  these  newly  established  public  health  laws 
there  was  operative  a  private  mind  and  worker.  Wherefore 
Wherry  found  himself  visited  in  the  next  weeks  by  commit- 
tees, family  groups  and  individuals  to  threaten  him  with  bodily 
harm  if  he  did  not  lay  off  them.  As  June  drew  to  a  close  he 
apologized  again  for  unchristian  behavior  to  Marie: 

Busted  the  Sabbath  again.  Can't  help  it,  for  it  will  be  nip  and 
tuck  as  to  whether  we  can  get  ready  for  the  trial  by  September. 
Sweet  and  I  will  have  to  work  nights  in  August. — As  you 
suggested,  the  sections  of  some  of  the  nasal  ulcers  have  given 
us  the  clue  which  fits  in  with  Dr  Moore's  hypothesis.  Deep  in, 
are  vegetable  pieces,  in  all  probability  the  barbed  awns  of 


"foxtail, "  a  grass  which  matures  in  the  fall  when  these  ulcers  *    ]  2. 
occur.  Some  are  surrounded  by  giant  cells  showing  that  they 
have  been  there  for  some  time. 

His  public  health  activities  received  notice  in  a  letter  of 
July  31,  1906: 

The  people  in  town  and  in  the  hotel  are  scared  stiff  about  the 
Anaconda  water.  There  has  been  a  small  epidemic  of  summer 
diarrhoea  which  I  think  can  be  attributed  to  picnics,  green 
vegetables  and  spoiled  milk.  This  morning  I  heard  it  reported 
that  there  were  six  cases  of  typhoid  in  town  and  one  in  the 
hospital,  which  is  all  untrue.  Also,  that  hundreds  of  people 
went  to  the  "Springs"  to  get  water  last  Sunday  because  of  it, 
and  that  the  commission  that  went  last  week  to  inspect  the 
water  reservoir  found  nine  dead  dogs  there.  The  saloon  keepers 
and  soda  people  are  joyful.  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  help  to 
spread  these  reports,  for  some  of  their  signs  vouch  for  the 
germicidal  properties  of  COz,  etc.  I  am  making  some  tests  for 
contamination  in  a  small  way.  We  haven't  time  to  go  into  a 
careful  bacteriological  examination.  The  water  always  smells 
badly  at  this  time  of  the  year  especially  after  it  has  been  heated. 
It  does  show  considerable  organic  matter  and  in  a  drop  of 
sediment  I  found  this  P  M  molds,  yeasts,  spirogyra,  ten  or 
twelve  different  species  of  protozoa,  rotifers,  flagellates,  cili- 
ates,  vorticella,  some  small  crustaceans  and  bacteria — surely 
enough  to  account  for  the  indefinable  stink  when  the  water 
is  boiled.  Of  course,  all  this  is  simply  "food  stuff."  I  am  look- 
ing for  B  colt.  If  you  could  find  out  in  the  library  what  kind 
of  an  odor  B  coli  produces,  I  would  be  very  grateful.  Flugge 
I  think  would  tell. 

On  August  6,  1906,  he  added  to  this  report: 

Some  careful  tests  for  coli  in  our  water  supply  show  it  pretty 
badly  infected.  The  source  is  the  Works  flume  water  which 
they  occasionally  turn  into  the  city  pipes.  The  reservoir  water 
comes  from  an  uninhabited  source,  is  carefully  protected  and 
excellent.  I  shall  report  that  as  long  as  they  use  the  flume 
water,  the  town  is  threatened  with  typhoid.  That  will  mean 
digging  another  reservoir.  But  the  Company  can  afford  it  for 
they  lost  a  good  many  workers  in  the  epidemics  of  years  ago. 
I  shall  stick  to  coffee,  tea,  and  aq  dist  until  something  is  done. 


1  A  This  is  just  to  reassure  you,  for  personally  I  have  grown  used 
to  taking  chances — which  is  to  wait  until  the  thunderbolt  hits 
the  other  fellow  and  then  be  careful.  But  the  Company  head 
(Mathewson)  is  interested  in  a  safe  supply  and  something 
practical  will  be  done  soon  to  furnish  it.  The  water  in  the 
flume  goes  to  the  Works  and  comes  chiefly  from  Warm  Springs 
creek  (on  which  they  hold  the  picnics)  and  a  good  many 
people  live  along  its  banks.  So  a  case  of  typhoid  along  the 
creek  exposes  the  whole  town.  The  water  takes  but  six  or  eight 
hours  to  run  its  course  of  thirty-six  miles,  so  the  germs  are 
brought  down  in  a  jolly  good  condition. 

Wherry  wrote  at  this  time  that  his  duties  kept  him  busy 
as  a  "slave."  His  "spare  time  had  been  consumed  in  writing 
more  important  messages!"  He  hoped  that  I  was  well  and 
making  money  "for  the  coin  is  so  necessary."  He  did  not  think 
that  he  could  risk  getting  married  unless  there  was  "some- 
thing permanent"  to  be  gotten  out  of  his  Anaconda  appoint- 
ment. "The  place  is  on  the  pig  but  the  lab  is  a  peach,"  he 
volunteered.  After  which  he  added.  "If  I  don't  stay  here,  I 
am  going  to  Portland.  It  is  in  direct  communication  with 
the  Orient  and  might  offer  opportunities  in  this  way."  July 
31,  1906,  he  was  still  "busy  as  a  louse,"  and  "working  late 
on  a  bacteriologic  report  (which  is  n  g  but  must  be  done 
to  show  that  my  intentions  are  good)."  Regarding  his  water 
analyses  he  had  on  hand  "a  bunch  of  fresh  water  protozoa 
that  would  do  any  physiologist's  heart  good."  Still  "so  busy 
working  for  the  family  that  there  is  no  time  to  think  up  any 
names  for  the  bugs,"  he  said:  "Whenever  the  demand  arises 
for  a  laboratory  assistant,  horse  doctor  or  crack  clinical  diag- 
nostician, just  telegraph  me."  I  did  not  telegraph  but  I  was 
able  to  send  him  a  letter  requesting  him  to  consider  residence 
in  the  San  Francisco  Bay  region.  Late  in  August  he  answered: 

There  is  no  doubt  about  what  I  want  to  do  ...  If  I  could 
get  a  start  in  California  I  would  do  my  best  to  get  away  from 
here,  though  the  lab  in  a  peach  and  200  a  month  and  expenses 
are  not  to  be  sneered  at.  What  do  you  think  I  could  get  from 
the  Oakland  school?  Could  it  stand  for  $1 500  a  year  all  time 
or  $  1 000  a  year  with  practice  on  the  side?  .  .  .  Let  me  know 
whether  you  think  my  head  is  swelled  or  whether  one  could 


get  along  on  less  ...  I  am  "bugs"  just  now  in  the  hope  of       IS 
getting  married  next  Christmas  and  cannot  think  things  out 
clearly. 

Ten  days  later,  after  registering  impatience  because  of  no 
word  from  me,  he  continued:  "Marie  agrees  with  me  that  the 
amount  of  money  at  stake,  apart  from  enough  to  pay  for  rent 
and  for  shredded  wheat  biscuit,  should  cut  little  figure  in 
deciding  where  we  are  to  be  next  year."  By  October,  the  au- 
thorities of  Anaconda  were  in  competition  with  those  of  Oak- 
land and  Wherry  wrote:  "they  would  like  to  fix  up  a  scheme 
for  keeping  me  here  to  run  the  lab  for  diagnosis  and  board  of 
health  work  but  are  not  sure  they  can  raise  the  money  I  asked — 
$3000  per.  The  Oakland  school  gives  me  a  definite  offer 
of  $125  *a  year.'  I  accept — trusting  that  it  means  $125  a 
month." 

While  this  letter  was  on  the  way  he  sent  a  second  (October 
4, 1906): 

Since  I  have  decided  to  cast  my  lot  with  Oakland  I  can 
hardly  wait  for  the  time  to  pass — though  I  will  not  presume 
to  say  that  what  is  going  to  happen  next  month  does  not  influ- 
ence my  feelings.  Isn't  it  a  rotten  system  that  puts  30  and 
sometimes  as  many  as  3 1  days  in  a  month?  .  .  .  She  is  at  the 
Women's  and  Children's  Hosp  at  Syracuse  until  Dec  1st  and 
says:  "To  feel  like  a  green  fool  and  yet  to  have  to  act  the 
grand  physician  is  not  easy!   ..." 

Other  epistles  out  of  this  period  told  of  his  continuous  labors 
for  the  suit  of  the  Amalgamated  copper  company.  Septem- 
ber 26,  1906,  he  wrote:  "I  spent  all  day  fixing  up  museum 
specimens  and  fairly  reek  Kaiserling  3.  We  have  a  fine  col- 
lection; and  they  are  well  put  up  and  arranged,  if  I  do  say 
it  myself.  Dr  Smith  and  Dr  Moore  will  be  dying  to  take  them 
back  East  with  them."  Whereafter  he  added:  "I  must  work 
harder  than  ever  to  prove  that  I  don't  shirk  in  the  anticipa- 
tion of  leaving."  Marie  had  written  him  that  the  Anaconda 
group  would  no  doubt  be  sad  to  see  him  go.    He  answered: 

No,  no  one  is  sorry  unless  it  be  some  of  the  people  I  had  the 
privilege  of  helping  in  a  medical  way.  I  think  Mrs  Gunnis 
and  Mrs  McCallum  will  be  sorry  for  they  can't  get  away 


1  A  from  the  idea  that  my  early  diagnosis  of  typhoid  in  their 
boys  had  something  to  do  with  their  recovery. 

October  17,  1906,  he  wrote: 

I  had  a  nice  letter  from  Dr  Hektoen  .  .  .  asking  me  to  give 
him  an  idea  as  to  what  kind  of  work  and  salary  I  wished  and 
he  would  then  let  me  know  if  they  had  anything  in  Chicago. 
"You  know  that  I  want  to  do  all  I  can  to  help  you  realize 
wished-for  opportunities.,,  Wasn't  that  kind  of  him!  But  I 
cannot  bear  to  think  of  going  back  to  Chicago.  I  shall  explain 
to  him  in  December  why  I  think  the  Pacific  Coast  is  the  place 
for  me.  The  die  is  cast  for  the  next  few  years  at  any  rate. 

Later  in  the  month  he  spoke  his  opinion  of  the  legal  suit  in 
which  he  was  involved: 

You  ask  about  the  trial.  As  I  have  told  you,  the  Farmers  Asso- 
ciation never  had  any  case  and  most  of  them  are  simply  the 
victims  of  ignorant  and  scheming  veterinarians  and  lawyers. 
We  will  be  busy  to-morrow  sealing  and  shipping  pathological 
specimens  to  Butte.  Gardner  wishes  to  present  them  and  as  I 
am  anxious  to  keep  off  the  stand  if  possible,  he  is  welcome  to 
do  so.  I  am  only  anxious  to  get  away  from  here. 

Wherry  expressed  here  a  dread  of  appearance  in  public 
which  fairly  obsessed  him  all  through  life.  In  this  instance 
the  situation  looked  particularly  bad  to  him  because  "private" 
interest  was  involved.  He  wrote  about  it  out  of  Butte  (Novem- 
ber 12,  1906)  when  summoned  there  for  expert  testimony: 

The  only  thing  about  this  lawsuit  which  worries  me  is  the  fact 
that  people  throughout  the  country  seem  to  think  that  the 
farmers  must  be  in  the  right  and  that  Amalgamated  specialists 
are  "bought."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Co  is  in  the  right  and 
the  farmers  deceived  by  a  bunch  of  rascally  lawyers  and  veteri- 
narians. However,  I  guess  I  can  stand  the  rep  if  Theobald 
Smith  can. 

His  appointment  to  the  Oakland  College  of  Medicine  was 
acknowledged  in  the  following  words : 

Hooray  for  me!  "Prof  of  Parasitology"  sounds  rather  sweep- 
ing, doesn't  it?  But  of  course  if  they  wish  me  to  say  something 
about  the  more  important  animal  parasites  of  man,  I'll  make 


MARIE  AND  WHERRY  MEET  AGAIN  IN  THE  FORMER'S  HOME 
CINCINNATI,  IN  LATE  DECEMBER  1906 


1  Q  the  bluff.  The  Pacific  Coast  is  the  place  where  tropical  medi- 
cine must  be  taught  in  America.  .  .  . 

In  the  bygone  year  Wherry  had  declined  the  direction  of  the 
government  serum  laboratory  in  Siam.  His  Philippine  col- 
league, Paul  G  Woolley,  head  of  the  serum  laboratory  there, 
then  had  taken  it.  Nothing  but  the  restlessness  of  his  soul 
urged  it,  for  his  move  to  Bangkok  changed  his  geographic 
placement  only.  Since  the  friendship  of  the  two  was  to  have 
much  to  do  with  the  future  of  each,  Woolley's  gypsy  spirit 
deserves  note.  In  a  letter  dated  September  18,  1906,  he  drew 
his  own  portrait.  "Chief"  was  printed  under  his  name  on 
new  stationery.  For  the  rest,  his  letter  spoke  his  ever  unhappy 
mind: 

.  .  .  hard  at  work  starting  this  thing.  When  my  two  big 
orders  come  from  Germany,  I  shall  have  a  fairly  good  working 
establishment  and  shall  be  proud  of  it  when  I  am  not  sick  of 
it.  The  worst  is  that  I  am  so  alone  and  with  only  the  litera- 
ture to  talk  with,  I  get  morbid  on  the  subject  of  my  own 
acquirements.  I  feel  continually  that  I  am  back-sliding. 
Alone,  I  don't  think  I  can  stand  it  for  more  than  my  contract 
time.  Can't  you  get  control  of  a  laboratory  and  take  me  in, 
or  will  you  come  out  here  for  what  I  am  getting — 3000  and 
a  house? 

Two  years  later  Woolley  was  to  get  command  of  just  such 
a  laboratory  and  invite  Wherry  in.  In  the  meantime  Wherry 
wrote: 

Just  had  a  fine  letter  from  Woolley.  He  is  well  fixed  in 
Phrapatoom.  He  seems  to  get  all  he  wishes  from  the  Prince, 
who  is  backing  up  the  lab's  schemes.  But  he  feels  his  isola- 
tion very  much.  He  wishes  to  know  if  I  would  come  out  for 
three  thousand  a  year  and  a  house.  I  shall  tell  him  to  cheer 
up  and  wait  until  we  have  built  up  the  Oakland  school  and 
then  we  may  be  able  to  offer  him  something  there. 

For  the  rest  of  November  in  1906,  Wherry  was  chiefly  in 
Butte;  and  on  the  stand.  "As  usual  I  am  very  nervous  under 
such  conditions,"  he  said.  But  he  had  been  promised  that  he 
would  be  through  and  able  to  bid  Anaconda  good-bye  by 
December  first,  which  made  him  glad.     Another  note  of  joy 


was   introduced   by   Theobald    Smith's    presence   who   had  '  JO 
brought  Wherry  "a  nice  bunch  of  his  reprints."     Then  he 
noted:  "I  have  a  peach  of  a  cold  and  that  makes  it  doubly  hard 
to  talk  but,  never  mind,  it  will  all  be  over  soon." 

On  December  twenty-ninth  of  1906  (he  was  now  thirty- 
two)  he  was  married  to  Marie  Eleanor  Nast  (M  D  this  year 
from  Johns  Hopkins) .  But  because  of  flood  interruption  the 
pair  did  not  arrive  in  Oakland  until  January  15,  1907. 


1907-1909 


VI 


IN  the  letters  of  congratulation  that  came  to  Wherry,  a 
number  got  quickly  from  felicitation  upon  his  marriage 
to  felicitation  upon  his  work.  The  knowing  and  practical 
Duncan  McEachran  (FRCVS,  DVS,  director  of  the  New 
Walrond  Ranche  company  limited  of  Livingstone,  Alberta) 
had  functioned  as  expert  for  the  Amalgamated  copper  com- 
pany and  wrote  (January  10,  1907)  on  company  stationery 
(cattle  brand  W  R  on  left  ribs;  earmarks:  slit  on  right  ear, 
two  slits  on  left  ear)  : 

While  it  would  have  been  a  great  pleasure  for  me  to  have  had 
you  spend  some  time  with  me  here,  the  weather  has  been  the 
worst  in  years  and  you  would  not  have  enjoyed  it.  ...  I  wish 
to  congratulate  you  on  the  valuable  technical  work  done  by 
you  on  this  great  case.  The  laboratory  is  a  credit  to  you,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  it  will  be  of  great  value  to  science  in  Montana. 
— Dr  Smith  wrote  me  from  the  train  en  route  east.  Like  my- 
self he  feels  sorry  that  Salmon  who  had  made  somewhat  of  a 
name  for  himself  as  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  animal  industries, 
should  have  been  so  foolish  as  to  go  on  the  stand  to  his  utter 
undoing.  I  never  had  a  doubt  as  to  the  company  winning  the 
case.  Now  that  the  evidence  is  all  in  and  Salmon,  the  farmers' 
right  bower,  was  so  weak  for  them,  and  so  strong  for  us — I 
know  that  the  verdict  will  be,  no  injunction;  no  damages, 
with  costs;  and  the  farmers  so  disgusted  that  they  will  never 
try  it  any  more.  Salmon  and  the  lawyers  will  probably  have 
to  whistle  for  their  fees. 

A  letter  from  Theobald  Smith  (January  12,  1907)  said 
much  the  same.  Hoping  that  Wherry  would  be  able  to  "get  a 
firm  foothold  in  his  chosen  work  in  the  West"  and  "be  a  good 
missionary  to  the  medical  profession,"  he  continued: 

...  I  went  out  to  assist  in  the  cross-examination  of  Dr 
Salmon.  His  evidence  was  very  poor  for  he  seemed  to  know 
nothing.  We  analyzed  one  of  his  autopsies  and  spent  a  whole 


I  O  2  ^ay  making  him  take  back  his  statements  or  acknowledge 
them  to  be  meaningless.  ...  In  one  case  he  showed  cell 
infiltration  in  the  kidney.  On  looking  into  the  microscope,  I 
found  a  small  artery  between  the  tubules  cut  longitudinally. 
The  transverse  nuclei  of  the  muscular  coat,  being  numerous, 
looked  like  an  "infiltration"  to  him.  I  became  very  sorry  for 
him  after  4  or  5  days  of  his  squirming  and  guessing  at  answers 
and  left  for  Boston. 

There  was  black  tragedy  in  these  mentionings  of  Salmon. 
They  referred  to  Daniel  Elmer  Salmon,  fifty-six,  graduate  of 
Cornell's  veterinary  school  and,  since  1 879,  first  member,  then 
chief  of  U  S's  bureau  of  animal  industry  in  the  department 
of  agriculture.  In  the  late  80's  this  was  where  Theobald  Smith 
(nine  years  his  junior)  had  been;  and  it  was  in  the  name  of  the 
two  that  in  the  publications  of  the  department,  the  transmis- 
sion of  Texas  fever  in  cattle  had  first  been  ascribed  to  the  bite 
of  a  tick.  In  the  federal  court,  sitting  in  Montana,  these  two 
minds  had  now  been  bayoneting  each  other. 

OAKLAND  is  bedroom  to  San  Francisco  as  is  Brooklyn 
to  New  York.  The  College  of  medicine  there,  established 
in  1902  as  a  stock  company,  was  Hve  years  old  when  Wherry 
entered  it.  Most  of  its  stock  had  been  absorbed  by  the  generous 
men  of  its  generous  faculty  who  had  deemed  good  the  opening 
of  another  medical  school  on  California  soil  ( four  more  were 
operative  in  San  Francisco  alone) .  Its  clinical  divisions  were 
headed  from  the  first  by  men  at  least  fair  (Frank  L  Adams 
and  Dennis  D  Crowley  were  its  surgeons ;  W  Francis  B  Wake- 
field, its  obstetrician  and  gynecologist;  Joseph  Maher,  its 
medical  chief;  Hayward  G  Thomas,  its  eye-ear-nose-  and 
throat-surgeon).  Its  scientific  divisions  were  trying  to  get  up 
to  this  standard  even  though  the  past  years,  with  Pauline 
Nussbaumer  heading  bacteriology  and  the  crabbed  but  schol- 
arly Carl  R  Krone,  physiology,  had  not  been  so  bad.  I  had  been 
added  for  pathology  in  the  year  gone  by,  and  now  Wherry  and 
his  wife  had  come,  who  were  before  long  to  bring  in  Creighton 
Wellman. 

The  equipment  of  the  school  was  meagre;  but  its  available 
pathological  and  bacteriological  material  (out  of  the  Alameda 


county  hospital,  chiefly)  was  the  envy  of  even  the  larger  of  2^ 
California's  schools.  What  was  needed  were  men  to  handle  it; 
and  Wherry  was  now  of  the  number.  Marie's  name  was  added 
to  the  faculty  list  for  teaching  in  physiology.  Writing  of  their 
professional  interests  to  Hektoen,  the  latter  ventured:  "They 
remind  me  of  the  beginnings  of  the  careers  of  scientific  men 
who  reached  distinction  later." 

From  "home"  in  River  Forest,  the  elder  Wherry  (on  fur- 
lough to  lecture  in  Princeton)  sent  his  son  a  book  on  the  mis- 
sionary movement  in  India;  and  his  new  daughter,  the  annual 
report  of  the  Ludhiana  medical  school  for  Indian  Christian 
women.    Therewith,  a  letter  (May  23,  1907) : 

I  think  you  will  be  interested  in  this  work  for  Indian  woman- 
hood. I  hope  the  reading  will  keep  your  heart  warm  for  the 
foreign  missionary  work.  Should  the  way  be  possibly  opened 
for  the  establishment  of  an  Oakland  auxiliary  to  the  American 
committee  (see  second  annual  statement  inclosed  with  report) , 
I  should  be  glad  if  you  could  work  it  up. 

History  does  not  declare  that  this  opportunity  ever  came. 
Wherry  himself  was  busy  in  different  direction.  He  had 
resumed  his  writing;  and  in  the  month  past  presented  a  paper 
before  the  California  state  medical  society.  Entitled  Insects 
and  infection  [16],  it  was  general  in  type.  Short  (twelve 
pages!)  and  authoritative,  he  introduced  it  in  typical  fashion: 
"The  title  of  this  long  paper  was  chosen  for  the  sake  of  brev- 
ity." After  a  recital  of  the  discovery  of  the  various  life  forms 
known  at  the  time  as  involved  in  the  transmission  of  different 
diseases,  and  their  classification  into  intermediate  hosts,  defin- 
itive hosts  and  mere  mechanical  carriers  of  various  types  of 
parasite,  he  ended  in  a  castigation  of  public  health  officials.  Of 
their  failure  to  eradicate  primary  sources  and  of  their  neglect 
to  protect  food  stuffs,  he  said:  "If  you  will  reflect  for  a 
moment,  many  a  poor  housekeeper  is  not  so  culpable  as  many 
a  board  of  health  which  year  after  year  allows  piles  of  horse 
manure  to  lie  unscreened  and  so  donates  to  the  public  an  annual 
visit  from  one  of  the  plagues  of  Egypt."  Pointing  out  that 
California,  because  of  its  salubrious  climate,  was  a  land  in 
which  the  diseases  of  the  Orient  might  flourish  if  imported, 
he  queried:  "May  I  ask  what  has  been  done  to  determine  the 


I  24  Presence,  bionomics  and  distribution  of  such  insects  as  might 
play  a  role  in  their  transmission?" 

He  had  been  settled  but  four  months  in  a  flat  (2059  Grove 
street)  and  to  the  task  of  his  teaching  in  Oakland,  when  San 
Francisco  called  upon  him  for  answer  to  that  exact  question. 

In  1900  that  city  had  discovered  herself  infested  of  bubonic 
plague;  and  twenty- two  had  died  of  the  disease.  In  the  next 
year,  thirty  more  died ;  and  in  the  next,  forty-one.  The  death 
curve  had  then  descended.  It  had  reached  zero  in  1906  just 
before  an  earthquake  and  fire  (April  6)  overcame  the  town. 
Whereafter  deaths  from  plague  reappeared  and  early  in  1907 
promised  a  record.  Before  that  year  was  to  end,  156  were  to 
sicken  of  the  disease  and  78  to  die. 

Dr  Joseph  J  Kinyoun,  who  when  forty  in  1900  had  first 
recognized  the  malady,  had  been  promised  a  lynching  for  his 
pains;  whereafter  he  was  crowded  out  of  the  western  scene  by 
Washington  command.  To  take  his  place  in  1903,  another 
member  of  the  U  S  public  health  service  had  been  sent  in, 
Rupert  Blue.  After  two  years'  absence  (now  forty,  since 
1892  continuously  in  the  U  S  public  health  service,  to  end  its 
surgeon-general  in  1912  and  president  of  the  American 
medical  association  in  1 9 1 6) ,  he  had  returned  to  his  job. 

Authoritative  handling  of  the  whole  situation  had  never 
been  good.  From  the  first,  federal  authority  had  concentrated 
upon  the  town,  for  this  kind  of  sickness  was  "interstate."  But 
it  had  not  gotten  very  far.  The  early  dead  were  chiefly  Chinese; 
and  San  Francisco's  board  of  health  felt  that  the  inhabitants 
of  Chinatown  were  hers.  Later,  freight  embargoes  had  been 
put  upon  California  by  her  sisters.  This  threatened  the  "busi- 
ness" of  the  state  and  so  state  authority  had  taken  a  hand — 
principally  to  suppress  "health"  reports  considered  inimical. 
Three  separate  agencies  were  therefore  active  at  the  "manage- 
ment" of  a  situation  obviously  in  need  of  concert.  To  help 
toward  this  end  Wherry  was  needed.  Thus  it  was  that  he  was 
invited  to  become  the  bacteriologist  to  San  Francisco's  health 
board;  and  accepted. 

His  nomination  had  come  through  Dudley  Tait,  surgeon. 
The  son  of  a  university  professor  and  educated  since  boyhood 
in  France,  he  had  returned  to  his  birthplace  French  (just  as  his 
brother  William,  the  legal  counsel  of  the  state  medical  board, 


had  returned  from  Gottingen,  German).  In  spite  of  personal  125 
success  and  absence  of  medical  school  portfolio,  he  had  retained 
an  enduring  interest  in  medicine's  larger  problems.  Thus  he 
had  been  chiefly  responsible  for  the  formulation  of  Califor- 
nia's medical  practice  act;  and  for  six  years  past,  as  "chairman 
of  the  committee  on  credentials"  of  the  state  board  of  medical 
examiners,  the  hangman  to  see  its  decrees  carried  into  effect. 
The  result  was  that  men,  whether  acquainted  with  him  or 
not,  always  feared,  and  either  loved  or  hated  him.  A  common 
form  of  salutation  among  them  was:  "How  is  that  son-of-a- 
bitch  friend  of  yours?"  He  carried  a  card  in  his  pocket:  "In 
case  of  sudden  and  disabling  accident,  do  not  take  me  to  San 
Francisco's  emergency  hospitals."  For  such  reasons  brother 
practitioners  wasted  no  time  on  him. 

Just  now  he  was  trying  to  put  better  sense  into  California's 
health  situation,  and  impressed  of  the  qualifications  of  the  new 
professor  in  Oakland's  college  of  medicine  hoped,  through 
his  appointment,  to  bring  about  a  surer  coordination  of  the 
state's  plague  suppression  measures.  Wherry's  scientific  knowl- 
edge, made  functional  by  that  quiet  front  of  his,  worked 
quickly  toward  this  end,  though  not,  as  we  shall  see,  without 
the  production  of  harness  galls. 


AS  the  new  bacteriologist,  Wherry  established  himself  in 
San  Francisco's  pest  house.  Out  of  it  worked  the  over- 
ailed  plague  suppressors  and  into  it  came  daily  their  game;  the 
tissues,  also,  of  those  human  victims  who  had  perished  of  the 
scourge.  The  trip  across  the  bay  to  San  Francisco  being  long, 
he  moved  his  belongings  there  (to  936  Lake  street) . 

The  day's  routine  got  him  quickly  to  that  study  of  the 
"presence,  bionomics,  and  distribution"  of  the  "insects"  of 
which  he  had  preached  to  the  doctors.  "When  acute  plague 
was  present  in  greatest  degree"  between  August  and  Novem- 
ber, he  had  collected  about  a  thousand  fleas.  In  what  he  added 
to  this  number  by  February  of  1 9  0  8 ,  he  could  distinguish  [19] 
(in  a  paper  of  less  than  three  pages!)  six  different  species  that 
had  lived  upon  almost  as  many  different  types  of  rats.  He 
noted,  too,  that  the  degree  of  infestation  varied  with  the 
season — against  some  ninety  fleas  picked  from  a  single  animal 


I  2  r\  m  September,  he  could  recover  but  one  in  May,  the  beginning 
of  the  flea  breeding  period. 

Of  the  flea  catch  from  men  he  wrote:  "Those  from  human 
beings  were  collected  from  themselves  by  medical  inspectors 
visiting  plague-infested  houses."  The  drama  of  this  situation, 
daily  repeated,  can  be  clear  only  to  those  who  know  what 
plague  means  and  the  manner  of  its  spread.  To  be  bitten  by 
an  infected  sample  of  any  of  the  several  types  hunted  down 
by  Wherry  meant  the  probable  death  of  the  unhappy  bitee. 
Thus  the  wife  of  one  of  the  inspectors  had  been  sickened. 
Standing  in  the  middle,  Wherry  knew  all  this.  After  his  bath 
in  the  morning,  he  would  go  to  work  in  clothes  plastered  with 
a  defense  barrage  of  his  own  composition — pyrethrum  powder 
mixed  with  naphthalin.  Fellow  passengers  in  the  street  cars 
moved  away  from  the  animated  moth  ball.  At  night  he 
would  fly  past  his  wife  for  another  bath  and  fresh  clothes 
before  taking  a  look  at  her.  Many  times  would  Wherry 
commend  his  unbemedalled  heroes.  Particularly  dear  to  him 
was  his  Diener  of  the  old  school,  A  Venzke.  Wherry  had 
inherited  him  out  of  surgeon  D  H  Currie's  public  health  lab- 
oratory and  was  to  own  him  for  the  rest  of  his  days  in  this 
business.  He  stood  daily  by  Wherry's  side — to  stretch  out  the 
dead  rats,  to  make  first  necropsy  upon  them,  to  make  those 
hair-raising  inoculations.  A  year  later  in  forwarding  a  dead 
Norwegian  rat  to  Cincinnati,  Venzke  called  it  a  specimen  that 
Wherry  "had  make  mit  immunity." 

More  of  Wherry's  time  went  into  an  examination  of  the  rats 
themselves,  brought  in  by  the  trappers.  Mere  statement  [27] 
that  of  the  14,1 84  rats  autopsied  to  date,  one  percent  had  the 
plague  would  have  sufficed — but  Wherry  never  worked  that 
way.  Instead,  (in  a  seven-page  paper!)  he  went  into  a  sta- 
tistical inquiry  of  the  population  levels  of  their  several  species 
(Mus  decumanus  accounted  for  more  than  ninety-eight  per- 
cent), the  incidence  of  plague  in  each  (against  one  percent 
in  all  other  varieties,  Mus  alexandrinus  showed  four) ,  and  the 
biology  of  their  civil  warfare.  To  this  he  added  a  description 
of  the  pathology  and  bacteriology  of  diseases  uncovered  in 
rats  that  looked  like  plague.  Under  separate  head  ( a  two-page 
paper! )  he  reported  on  one  of  these  in  particular  [  1 8 ] .  He  had 


unearthed  on  the  West  coast,  Stefansky's  leprosy-like  disease.  '  07 
Total  experience  was  summed  up  in  April  of  1 9  0  8  in  an  address 
to  the  California  state  medical  society.  To  add  life  to  his  words 
he  made  a  demonstration  of  plague's  pathology  and  bacteriol- 
ogy. This  address  (a  six-page  paper! )  was  not  to  see  print  until 
later  [20].  For  future  reference,  one  sentence  needs  quoting: 
"Rabbits  and  squirrels  are  susceptible  to  inoculation  but  I  am 
unaware  of  an  authentic  observation  of  a  natural  epizootic 
among  them.,, 

His  catholicity  of  interest  in  every  aspect  of  parasitism  made 
for  correspondence  and  friendships  with  like-minded  men 
elsewhere  in  the  world.  At  this  time  two,  especially,  were  of 
Wherry's  circle — C  F  Baker  (itinerant  biologist  to  U  S  and 
South  American  agricultural  set-ups)  and  Henry  Baldwin 
Ward  (of  the  dying  race  of  "zoologists";  then  in  the  univer- 
sity of  Nebraska  in  Lincoln) .  What  could  they  contribute  to 
the  subject  of  fleas,  the  hookworms  of  cats,  the  larvae  out  of 
the  lungs  of  rats?  Samples  were  going  forward  in  separate 
package.  Ward  (authority  in  this  field)  would  like  some  of 
Wherry's  tape  worms  in  exchange  for  specimens  from  him. 
Whereto  he  added  this  advice,  in  March,  that  Wherry  never 
heeded:  "Do  not  be  so  damned  modest."  Ward  continued: 
"Those  specimens  from  a  python  would  be  very  interesting, 
and  if  you  have  parasites  from  other  animals  from  the  East, 
or  from  humans,  I  should  be  particularly  pleased."  Hektoen 
sent  Wherry  a  receipt  for  his  donation  to  the  Fenger  memorial 
(he  could  again  yield  to  such  financial  call)  adding  in  his  own 
handwriting:  "Dr  Ophiils  [pathologist  of  Lane  medical  col- 
lege, newly  christened  the  medical  school  of  Leland  Stanford 
junior  university]  expresses  himself  as  extremely  well  pleased 
with  your  work.  I  hope  'they'  will  give  you  everything  you 
want."  Whereafter  he  asked:  "Have  you  found  any  instances 
of  sporotrichosis  [it  was  a  main  field  with  Hektoen]  in  your 
rats?  They  would  interest  me  very  much." 

Wherry's  days  were  full  enough,  yet  the  autumn  of  1907 
filled  them  further.  Over  in  the  Pinole  district,  some  twenty 
miles  north  of  Oakland,  the  Selby  smelting  &  lead  co  main- 
tained a  plant.  The  business  of  stack  fumes  killing  live  stock 
had  come  to  the  ears  of  the  local  ranchers  and  whispers  for 


I  O  ft  suit  were  in  the  air.  Wherry's  reputation  in  such  matters  had 
been  wafted  westward  by  identical  wind,  wherefore  he  was 
approached  for  opinion.  On  November  17,  1907,  "the  worst 
affected  horse  on  Mr  Cochran's  ranch"  was  brought  down  for 
his  examination.  In  the  presence  of  authoritative  witnesses, 
Wherry  made  a  thorough  job  of  it.  So  exhausted  by  slight 
exercise  that  it  would  not  move  even  when  whipped,  he  shot 
the  animal.  Whereafter  immediate  post  mortem  and  two 
months  of  preparation  of  the  organs  with  special  emphasis 
upon  the  central  nervous  system  (where  the  effects  of  arsenic 
poisoning,  if  present,  are  to  be  discovered) !  The  animal  had 
succumbed  to  a  lung  inflammation  caused  by  microbic  infec- 
tion, Wherry  found. 

Fearing  trouble  ahead,  he  asked  his  Anaconda  friend — 
McEachran — if  he  would  be  available  for  counsel.  Answering 
that  he  was  now  free  to  go  where  he  wished  and  that  he  could 
be  on  hand  "in  the  event  of  a  suit  being  taken,"  he  added  this 
advice  (February  3,  1908) :  "I  believe  much  could  be  done  in 
gaining  the  confidence  of  the  people  and  guiding  them  aright 
before  any  suit  is  started,  otherwise  the  expenses  soon  run  up 
into  large  sums  on  both  sides."  Of  such  better  sense  was 
Wherry,  too;  and  because  of  it,  what  might  have  been  another 
Anaconda  case,  died  out.  Before  this  happy  ending,  however, 
there  occurred  an  incident  which  must  be  recorded. 

To  keep  his  report  to  the  company  confidential,  in  part,  too, 
because  he  never  could  get  used  to  secretaries,  Wherry  sent  his 
ten-page  account  of  findings  in  the  horse  in  personally  con- 
ducted longhand.  E  B  Braden,  vice  president,  answered 
(April  10,  1908): 

I  have  your  letter  enclosing  your  report  on  the  Corcoran  horse 
[that  was  to  put  Wherry  straight  on  family  names].  Like  all 
professional  men  your  handwriting  is  not  of  the  best,  but  I 
have  had  my  secretary  transcribe  it  in  the  best  manner  pos- 
sible [all  Wherry's  u's  had  been  typed  n's;  all  his  v's,  r's]  and 
I  enclose  you  a  copy  together  with  your  original,  and  I  would 
greatly  appreciate  it  if  you  will  kindly  go  over  the  copy  and 
make  such  legible  corrections  as  are  necessary.  P/S  Kindly 
return  papers  to  this  office.  [Added  note]  Dr  Wherry:  For 
you.  EBB 


To  write  a  finis  to  this  tale  simultaneously  with  that  out  120 
of  Wherry's  Anaconda  days,  a  sentence  is  taken  from  a  later 
letter  by  McEachran:  "So  the  big  suit  was  squarely  fought  and 
honestly  won!  A  strange  judgment,  won  it  was,  by  expert 
testimony." 


BY  April  of  1908,  Wherry's  activities  as  bacteriologist  to 
San  Francisco's  health  board  had  so  effectively  com- 
mingled with  those  of  the  United  States  public  health  and 
marine  hospital  service  that  they  could  not  longer  be  ignored. 
Also,  plague  had  appeared  in  California  far  from  San  Fran- 
cisco's shores.  Why,  was  not  known ;  but  the  need  to  widen  the 
territory  in  which  plague  suppression  measures  were  necessary 
was  obvious.  Wherefore  the  city  of  Oakland  was  asked  to  bestir 
itself;  also,  the  state's  central  health  council  in  the  capital  city, 
Sacramento.  The  U  S  service  opened  quarters  in  Oakland  and 
sent  John  D  Long  there  as  chief.  (He  was  thirty-four,  a  Penn- 
sylvanian,  by  strange  coincidence  an  A  B  out  of  Washington 
and  Jefferson  college  as  was  Wherry,  at  twenty,  and  an  M  D 
three  years  later  out  of  the  state's  university;  now  a  passed 
assistant  surgeon,  he  was  in  two  years  to  become  assistant 
surgeon-general!).  Through  his  urging  Wherry  received  the 
following  communication  from  the  Treasury  department,  in 
Washington: 

As  recommended  by  Passed  Assistant  Surgeon  Carroll  Fox  on 
the  20th  ult  .  .  .  you  are  hereby  appointed  a  temporary  act- 
ing assistant  surgeon  in  the  public  health  and  marine  hospital 
service  in  the  United  States  for  duty  in  Oakland,  California, 
in  connection  with  the  suppression  of  bubonic  plague  with 
compensation  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  dollars  ($200.00), 
beginning  April  15,  1908. 

Anticipating  this  new  responsibility,  Wherry  had  already 
moved  his  scientific  belongings  back  to  Oakland.  Two  one- 
storeyed  shacks  in  the  red-light  district  that  bordered  on  the 
city  hall  had  been  made  over  for  him  into  a  laboratory.  After 
the  entire  floor  of  the  one  and  the  middle  half  of  the  other  had 
been  cleared  for  animals,  a  kitchen  remained  for  assignment  to 
Venzke,  and  a  bay  window  for  assignment  to  Wherry  and  his 


1  ^Q  microscope.  To  the  cognizant  the  new  picture  was  beautiful. 
Venzke  covered  the  animal  area  thickly  and  daily  with  new 
sawdust  and  brought  to  rest  upon  it  some  hundreds  of  wire 
cages,  each  housing  a  rat  or  two — not  the  white  coated,  but  the 
sewer  trained. 

Without  the  loss  of  so  much  as  a  day,  Wherry  continued  his 
San  Francisco  labors.  Before  long  he  could  write:  "Of  over 
30  000  rats  examined  .  .  ."In  more  public  fashion  his  pres- 
ence was  desired  to  address  the  members  of  Council  in  Oak- 
land, the  town's  chamber  of  commerce  and  various  business 
organizations.  Money  was  needed,  Wherry  declared,  not  only 
to  keep  anti-plague  measures  suppressive  but  to  make  them 
eradicative.  He  set  forth  the  record  of  what  had  been  done  in 
San  Francisco: 

The  organization  and  conduction  of  an  anti-plague  sanitary 
campaign  in  a  city  of  almost  half  a  million  and  covering  3  0 
square  miles  of  territory  are  no  small  matter.  About  1000  men 
were  employed  as  medical  and  sanitary  inspectors,  laborers  and 
rat  catchers.  Since  the  main  efforts  of  the  campaign  were 
directed  against  the  rat,  its  destruction  and  that  of  its  nests  and 
breeding  places  occupied  a  prominent  place.  To  this  were 
added  sanitary  inspections  and  the  installation  of  tightly  cov- 
ered garbage  cans.  Over  7000  (human)  dead  were  inspected 
and  all  suspicious  cases  autopsied;  about  2000  sick  and  one 
million  and  a  half  premises  were  inspected;  11,000  houses  were 
disinfected  and  1700  destroyed;  over  6,000,000  square  feet 
of  concrete  flooring  was  laid  in  basements  and  stables  and  over 
2,000,000  rats  destroyed  by  trapping  and  poisoning. 

These  measures  had  reduced  morbidity  and  mortality — 
more  pleasing  to  business,  brought  a  lift  of  quarantine  against 
the  bay  cities.  Wherefore,  business  and  politics  were  for  letting 
down  in  their  subscriptions — and  did.  Wherry  cried:  "You 
have  decided  to  waste  what  has  already  been  expended  and  to 
invite  another  outbreak."  Majority  answer  to  Wherry's  argu- 
ment was  a  question:  "What's  in  this  for  you,  Doc?" 

Wherry  fled  to  his  laboratory. 

On  June  19,  1908,  his  love  for  children  was  satisfied  at 
home  when  his  son  was  born.  The  elder  Wherry  out  of  India 


wrote:  "Your  baby's  grandfather,  William  Nast,  was,  in  my  1^1 
estimation,  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  his  age.   .   .  .   ;"  and 
expanding  in  opinion,  added:  "Children  are  the  greatest  of 
God's  gifts  in  this  world  aside  from  the  gift  of  eternal  life 
through  Christ,  His  Son." 

Ward,  in  his  world  search  for  parasites,  had  visited  the 
Wherrys.  "How  can  I  thank  you  both  for  your  splendid  treat- 
ment of  a  wandering  Swede,"  he  wrote;  and  reporting  out  of 
Seattle  where  he  was,  continued  (July  16,  1908) :  "Gave  Dr 
C  W  Chapin  of  the  U  S  P  H  and  M  H  laboratory  here  your 
leprosy  paper.  He  thinks  he  has  seen  the  disease.  .  .  .  He  does 
only  little  work  but  that  very  carefully.  Rats  found  dead  of 
plague  here  last  week!  They  are  doing  almost  nothing!!! 
Some  DR.S  say  they  never  had  plague  here! ! !" 

This  month  of  July  was  a  fateful  one.  Plague  in  Seattle  was 
to  be  taken,  of  course,  as  just  another  example  of  seaport 
infestation;  but  what  about  those  inland  instances,  widely 
dispersed,  in  California?  Down  in  the  Livermore  valley, 
William  Stewart  Taylor  (sixty)  was  rounding  out  a  thirty- 
year  devotion  to  its  medical  interests.  Three  generations  knew 
his  medicine  chest  and  his  surgery;  but  few  men  only,  his 
bacteriological  laboratory  and  the  depths  of  his  thinking. 
Pointing  to  the  pitted  hillsides  as  he  drove  to  the  sick,  he  said: 
"The  ground  squirrels  are  dying  again  as  they  did  three  and 
six  years  ago.  An  epidemic  is  raging  among  them."  And  asked 
what  kind,  he  answered:  "It's  bubonic  plague,  for  I  have  rolled 
over  the  dead  with  a  stick  and  seen  their  buboes." 

With  Wherry  now  active  in  Oakland,  Taylor  picked  up  a 
fresh  specimen  before  its  hole  on  a  July  morning  and,  sealing 
it  in  a  can,  dispatched  it  to  him.  It  arrived  of  a  late  afternoon. 
At  six  that  night  Wherry  telephoned  me  that  its  tissues  showed 
the  anatomic  lesions  of  plague  and  that  the  smears  from  them 
were  filled  with  "enormous  numbers  of  bipolar  staining  rods." 
He  had  made  inoculations  into  rats,  various  and  sundry  cul- 
tures also,  and  would  report  shortly.  Three  days  later  came 
this  message:  "The  cultures  show  involutional  forms  and  my 
inoculated  rats  are  sick."  When  he  killed  them,  he  saw  again 
the  lesions  of  plague  and  recaptured  his  bacillus  in  pure 
culture. 


1^2  ^  urged  Wherry  instantly  to  make  public  his  findings.  He 
demurred.  He  was  in  the  army  now  and  needed  to  report  first 
to  his  commanding  chief  in  San  Francisco.  He  had  written, 
too,  to  Ward.  In  a  letter  of  a  date  that  needs  emphasis  (August 
25,  1908)  Ward  answered:  "I  hope  you  are  planning  to 
publish  promptly  the  results  of  your  examination  of  the 
ground  squirrel.  The  world  at  large  should  know  the  fact.  It 
is  of  tremendous  import ance." 

Flashed  to  San  Francisco,  Wherry's  discovery  brought 
orders.  Long's  Oakland  army  would  proceed  to  field  and  shoot 
all  possible  ground  squirrels.  Beginning  August  5,  1908,  423 
of  the  animals  were  brought  in.  They  were  accompanied  into 
Wherry's  laboratory  by  a  varied  assortment  of  rats,  mice,  jack 
rabbits,  chickens,  gophers,  ground  owls  and  coyotes.  With  one 
exception  all  had  died  in  a  state  of  high  health,  Wherry 
reported.  The  exception  concerned  a  squirrel  which  though 
plague  infected  had  still  been  able  to  walk.  Besides  it,  three 
more  that  had  been  picked  up  dead,  were  plague  riddled. 

Wherry  reported  these  findings,  too,  to  the  head  office.  First 
public  notice  of  them  took  strange  form.  On  page  1 289  of  the 
Public  Health  Reports — the  full  title  continuing — issued  by 
the  Surgeon- general  Public  Health  and  Marine -Hospital  Ser- 
vice under  the  act  of  Congress  granting  additional  quarantine 
powers  and  imposing  additional  duties  upon  the  Marine - 
hospital  service,  approved  February  15,  1S93  Vol  XXIII — 
Part  II  Nos  27  to  52  inclusive,  appeared: 

PLAGUE  IN  GROUND  SQUIRRELS 
In  a  communication  dated  August  28  [!]  1908, 
Passed  Assistant  Surgeon  Blue,  San  Francisco,  Cal, 
transmits  a  full  bacteriological  report  by  Passed 
Assistant  Surgeon  McCoy  on  the  plague-infected 
ground  squirrel  found  on  the  Farias  ranch  in  the 
northern  part  of  Contra  Costa  county,  August  5, 
1908.  A  case  of  human  plague  occurred  on  this 
ranch  July  11,  1908.  (See  Public  Health  Reports, 
July  31,  1908,  page  1096.) 

Doctor  Blue  observes  that  this  is  perhaps  [ !  ]  the 
first  demonstration  of  the  occurrence  in  nature  of 
bubonic  plague  in  the  ground  squirrel    (Citellus 


beecheyi)  of  California.  There  can  be  no  further  1  'X'X 

doubt,  therefore,  he  writes,  that  these  rodents  are  an 
important  factor  in  the  dissemination  of  infection. 

Practically  the  same  findings  have  been  obtained 
by  Acting  Assistant  Surgeon  Wherry  in  the  Oak- 
land laboratory,  and  are  reported  under  date  of 
August  24  [/]  1908.  [Italics  mine.] 

The  following  is  the  report,  dated  August  27 
[!]  1908,  of  Passed  Assistant  Surgeon  McCoy  on 
the  examination  of  the  tissue  from  the  squirrel  sus- 
pected of  being  infected  with  plague.   .   .   . 

It  was  to  be  a  long  time  before  the  simple  fact  that  Wherry- 
had  been  the  first  to  prove  the  existence  of  plague  in  the  ground 
squirrel  was  to  be  written  out  in  plain  English ;  yet  longer  before 
it  was  to  be  told  that  he  had  thereby  explained  the  appearance 
of  human  plague  sporadically  at  inland  points,  that  the  west 
coast  was  now  to  be  considered  an  "endemic"  source  of  plague, 
that  plague  "prevention"  measures  were  due  for  a  twist. 

John  D  Long  saw  the  point.  If  not  with  his  connivance,  it 
was  at  least  with  his  silent  consent  that  Wherry  asked  me  to 
take  a  hand  in  bringing  the  new  crisis  in  California  to  more 
general  notice.  Not  bound,  as  was  he,  to  the  higher  authority 
of  federal  government  (I  was  a  plague  inspector  by  state 
appointment),  I  wrote  Samuel  Hopkins  Adams.  A  chief 
among  the  "muckrakers,"  he  was  interested.  But  he  was  on 
his  way  to  Europe,  and  would  turn  over  my  letter  to  Norman 
Hapgood,  then  the  able  editor  of  Collier's  Weekly.  Hapgood, 
too,  saw  the  point  and  after  an  editorial  sent  C  P  Connolly  to 
San  Francisco's  bay  district  to  investigate.  Convinced,  he 
wrote  an  article  for  his  magazine  in  the  issue  of  November  9, 
1908.  Excellent  in  its  statement  of  the  general  situation, 
effective  action  that  might  have  resulted  therefrom  was  largely 
blocked — by  telegrams  received  from  the  mayor  of  San 
Francisco,  the  mayor  of  Oakland,  the  commanding  officer  of 
the  U  S  public  health  service  in  the  city  by  the  Golden  Gate. 

DECEMBER   18,    1908,  Wherry's  own  story    [21]    of 
Plague  among   the  ground  squirrels   of  California, 
appeared.  The  manuscript  of  the  "temporarily  acting  assistant 


1  ^4  surgeon"  had  been  received  for  publication  October  26.  In 
accepting  it  Hektoen  had  written:  "It  is  needless  to  say  that 
we  are  thankful  to  you  for  letting  us  have  this  fine  article." 
Fine  it  was — with  no  mention  of  the  Livermore  squirrel  and 
no  statement  to  make  clear  that  gunmen  had  been  sent  after 
the  ground  squirrels  because  of  it;  no  mention  either  of  the 
fact  that  the  catch  had  been  brought  to  him  for  primary 
bacteriological  examination.  Wherry  opened  his  article  by 
saying: 

The  fact  that  a  number  of  ground  squirrels  have  been  proven 
to  be  infected  with  Bacillus  pestis  in  two  widely  separated 
sections  of  the  state  of  California  is  perhaps  the  most  serious 
feature  of  the  plague  situation  in  America.  .  .  .  Hillsides, 
railroad  cuts,  river  banks,  and  fields  are  literally  perforated 
by  their  complicated  systems  of  subterranean  tunnels.  .  .  . 
The  Arctomyinae  .  .  .  reach  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
ocean. 

An  historical  sketch  of  plague  as  seen  in  squirrel  types  else- 
where in  the  world  followed,  whereafter  a  "review  of  the 
events"  which  led  to  its  discovery  in  California's  representa- 
tive. Here  was  a  rehash  of  all  the  terrestrial  instances  of  human 
plague  with  careful  note  of  how  all  the  boys  who  had  seen 
them  had  guessed  their  emanation  from  the  ground  squirrels. 
Wherry's  discovery  had  merely  freshened  their  memories. 
Rupert  Blue  said:  "While  investigating  the  origin  of  one  of 
the  early  cases  of  plague  (Bock  1903)  .  .  .  I  was  impressed 
with  the  possibility  of  ground  squirrel  infection  in  Contra 
Costa  county."  Wherry's  article  gladly  let  each  man  have  his 
glory;  outsiders  could  quite  naturally  ask:  If  so  prescient  in 
epidemiology  why  never  a  suggestion  even,  regarding  squirrel 
control  in  eight  years? 

But  seven  of  Wherry's  twenty-three  pages  went  to  state- 
ment of  what  he  had  done;  and  a  goodly  part  of  these  centered 
on  praise  of  passed  assistant  surgeon  D  H  Currie's  (unpub- 
lished) laboratory  inoculations  of  plague  into  ground  squirrels 
and  to  citation  of  passed  assistant  surgeon  Geo  W  McCoy's 
confirmatory  diagnoses.  More  concerned  with  epidemiology 
than  with  priority,  he  described  how  plague,  fleas,  squirrels, 
rats  and  men  now,  struggled  upon  a  common  battlefield. 


UNITED  STATES. 

[Reports  to  the  Surgeon-General,  Public. Health  and  Marine-Hospital  Service.] 
Plague  in  Ground  Squirrels. 

In  a  communication  dated  August  28,  1908,  Passed  Assistant  Sur- 
geon Blue,  San  Francisco,  Cal.,  transmits  a  full  bacteriological  report 
by  Passed  Assistant  Surgeon  McCoy  on  the  plague-infected  ground 
squirrel  found  on  the  Farias  ranch  in  the  northern  part  of  Contra 
Costa  County,  August  5,  1908.  A  case  of  human  plague  occurred  on 
this  ranch  July  11,  1908.  [See  Public  Health  Reports,  July  31, 1908, 
page  1096.] 

Doctor  Blue  observes  that  this  is  perhaps  the  first  demonstration 
of  the  occurrence  in  nature  of  bubonic  plague  in  the  ground  squirrel 
{Citellus  heecheyi)  of  California.  There  can  be  no  further  doubt, 
therefore,  he  writes,  that  these  rodents  are  an  important  factor  in  the 
dissemination  of  infection. 

Practically  the  same  findings  have  been  obtained  by  Acting  Assistant 
Surgeon  Wherry  in  the  Oakland  laboratory,  and  are  reported  under 
date  of  August  24,  1908. 

The  following  is  the  report,  dated  August  27,  1908,  of  Passed 
Assistant  Surgeon  McCoy  on  the  examination  of  the  tissue  from  the 
squirrel  suspected  of  being  infected  with  plague: 


WHERRY'S  DISCOVERY  OF  PLAGUE  IN 

THE  GROUND  SQUIRREL  AS  FIRST  MADE  PUBLIC. 

FROM  PAGE  1289  OF  THE  U  S  PUBLIC  HEALTH  REPORTS 


1  %(\  •  •  •  ground  squirrels  may  act  as  a  host  for  the  Bacillus  pestis 
in  the  interim  between  the  more  noticeable  outbreaks  in  rats 
and  men  ...  a  human  having  acquired  infection  during 
squirrel  hunting  might  reintroduce  the  infection  among  rats 
either  in  the  form  of  plague-infested  squirrel  fleas,  or  by  him- 
self, being  then  the  source  of  infestation  for  human  fleas.  The 
human  flea  has  been  found,  sometimes  in  considerable  num- 
bers, on  rats  on  both  sides  of  the  bay. 

Anxious  to  gain  from  his  new  finding  more  practical  help, 
he  related  the  story  of  the  death  of  an  Oakland  sewer  worker 
on  the  fourth  day  of  a  "typhoid-pneumonia."  Surgeon  Long 
had  been  suspicious,  and  in  spite  of  the  threats  of  a  mob,  had 
personally  performed  necropsy,  proved  it  to  be  plague,  with 
confirmatory  bacteriological  diagnosis  by  Wherry.  Members 
of  Oakland's  council,  faced  with  these  facts,  had  declared  it  a 
"manufactured  case,"  designed  to  influence  them.  "It  was  no 
fault  of  the  town  council  that  subsequent  infection  of  rats  did 
not  occur,"  Wherry  said.  They  had  gotten  off  so  happily 
because:  "Owing  to  the  great  sanitary  clean-up,  human  fleas 
were  scarcer  in  the  bay  region  than  they  had  ever  been  as  far 
back  as  native  sons  could  recollect." 

To  this  aspersive  dig  a  footnote  in  Wherry's  article  is  added 
in  evidence  merely  of  the  fairyland  in  which  he  ever  lived: 

The  following  will  illustrate  very  well  how  a  flea  population 
may  once  again  come  into  its  own  in  a  locality  where  active 
sanitary  measures  are  frowned  upon.  Recently  a  rat  with  acute 
septicemic  plague  was  caught  in  the  basement  of  a  vacant 
dwelling-house  right  in  the  center  of  Oakland.  The  house 
faced  the  street ;  it  had  a  vacant  building  on  one  side,  a  Japa- 
nese market  on  the  other,  and  these  were  surrounded  by 
perfectly  filthy  shacks  occupied  by  Chinese.  The  basement  was 
riddled  by  rat  runways  and  rat  droppings  could  be  detected 
on  the  first  and  second  floors.  It  was  so  heavily  infested  with 
fleas  that  the  dust  upon  the  floors  could  be  seen  to  pulsate  with 
their  movements.  Four  sheets  of  fly  paper  were  placed  on  the 
floor  of  the  basement  for  one  minute  and  then  removed.  One 
of  these  sheets  was  speckled  with  190  fleas.  Another  sheet 
caught  115  fleas ;  a  third  about  9  5  fleas,  and  the  fourth  about 
75  fleas.  The  legs  of  the  man  [this  was  Wherry  himself!  ]  enter- 


ing  the  house  were  covered  with  fleas  and  he  was  able  to  bottle  1^7 
67  in  a  short  time.  .  .  .  As  the  house  had  a  rat  population  only, 
these  fleas  must  have  derived  their  nourishment  from  rats,  and 
at  least  one  of  these  was  plague  infected.  It  would  be  simply 
marvelous  if  something  did  not  happen  with  the  elements  in 
such  favorable  conjunction. 


PUBLICATION  of  this  article  on  plague  had  preceded 
some  others,  even  though  their  work  had  been  accom- 
plished earlier.  One  [22]  continued  on  the  leprosy  he  had 
unearthed  in  the  rats.  Did  the  house  flies  that  fed  on  their  open 
lesions  (or  those  of  leprosy  in  human  beings)  sicken  of  their 
bacillary  soup;  and  were  they  able  to  carry  it  away  to  infect 
other  living  objects?  The  bacilli,  he  discovered,  were  taken 
into  the  alimentary  tracts  of  the  flies,  stayed  there  even  if  the 
flies  went  into  pupal  form.  But  he  found  also  that  they  cleared 
themselves  of  this  infectious  material  in  two  or  three  days. 
They  did  not,  themselves,  suffer  from  the  disease  in  the  in- 
terim, nor  did  they  remain  mechanical  carriers  for  very  long. 
Filthy  business,  the  whole  of  it,  but  not,  in  the  language  of 
infection,  particularly  dangerous. 

Until  Wherry  had  proved  that  the  ground  squirrels,  too,  of 
California,  were  in  need  of  extinction,  plague  control  had 
centered  upon  the  extermination  of  the  rat.  It  is  at  once  both 
the  victim  of  the  disease  and  the  host  to  its  fleas.  These  suck 
its  blood,  leaving  the  dead  form  once  it  has  grown  cold  to  hop 
upon  the  first  warm  object  that  comes  along.  Thus  are  they 
able,  by  biting,  to  infect  it.  How  to  kill  the  rat  constitutes  the 
essence,  therefore,  of  hygienic  endeavor.  Many  schemes  to 
dispose  of  the  rat  have  been  tried — their  trapping,  their  starva- 
tion, their  poisoning;  their  subordination  to  feline  overlord- 
ship.  Each  and  all  are  but  partially  successful.  Ideal  would  be 
the  spread  of  an  infection  among  them,  which  while  killing 
the  rat  would  not  kill  associated  living  forms.  It  had  been  tried 
before.  While  dissecting  some  of  his  dead  guinea  pigs  (rodents, 
too)  Wherry  had  unearthed  an  organism  responsible  for  the 
abscesses  in  their  spleens  and  livers  [24].  It  was  identical  with 
one  that  Theobald  Smith  had  described  ten  years  before.  The 
two  had  much  correspondence  on  the  subject.  Wherry  had 


1  'X  Q  found  it  related  to  the  germ  of  hog  cholera  and  christened  it  the 
Bacillus  cholera-cavice.  He  sent  cultures  to  Theobald  Smith. 
"They  were  received  in  perfect  condition;  also  the  notes  per- 
taining thereto,"  said  Smith.  Less  than  a  month  later  he  wrote 
further  (November  2,  1908) :  "You  are  quite  right  to  give 
this  organism  a  name,  for  you  have  found  a  use  for  it  which  I 
hope  will  prove  of  permanent  value.  B  pestis-cavice  might  be 
better  since  the  disease  may  appear  as  multiple  spleen  &  liver 
abscesses  or  as  a  puerperal  disease."  The  newer  name  was  to 
endure.  As  to  the  "use  for  it,"  this  lay  in  its  effectiveness  as  a 
death  dealing  disease  if  fed  to  rats  [24],  It  was  acutely  fatal 
to  their  young  (and  to  mice),  Wherry  found;  but  not  to 
adults,  a  large  percentage  of  which  was  naturally  immune  or 
recovered  if  successfully  sickened. 

Wherry  lived  in  the  large  blue  heaven  of  parasitism  as  abso- 
lutely as  did  the  great  Smith  himself.  On  this  account  another 
letter  from  Smith  out  of  the  period  (written  from  Lynton, 
Devonshire,  July  18,  1909)  needs  quotation: 

The  relation  of  B  cavlce  to  the  other  members  of  the  para-colon 
group  I  shall  not  be  able  to  approach.  Your  own  information 
by  this  time  is  more  comprehensive  than  mine.  I  think  that  the 
only  way  to  find  out  relationships  is  to  infect  other  species,  as 
you  are  doing  and  attempt  by  passages  (of  feeding)  to  adapt 
one  to  another  host.  We  cannot  tell  how  plastic  these  varieties 
are  or  how  adaptable  until  we  have  tried  to  modify  them.  The 
experiment  is  still  the  only  clue. 

In  a  further  paper  [23]  by  Wherry,  yet  another  disease  in 
rats  was  described — an  infection  with  a  diplococcus  resem- 
bling that  of  epidemic  meningitis.  By  itself  it  was  just  the 
discovery  of  another  organism.  More  important  in  Wherry's 
eyes  was  its  variation  in  growth  characteristics.  The  paired 
micrococci  grew  out  as  chains  when  cultivated  artificially,  to 
revert  to  the  diplococcal  form  when  inoculated  into  animals. 

His  work  on  rat  leprosy  got  Walter  R  Brinckerhoff,  in 
charge  of  the  leprosy  investigation  station  at  Molokai  (TH) 
excited.  "The  rats  arrived  all  right  on  the  Alameda," 
Brinckerhoff  reported  (August  1908)  and  "I  am  obliged  for 
the  very  complete  notes  ...  It  seemed  like  old  times  to  get 
hold  of  such  a  business-like  collection  of  data."  More  letters 


passed  between  the  two  until  a  request  three  pages  long  at  [^0 
Christmas  asked  Wherry  to  join  the  leprosy  staff  in  Honolulu 
at  three  thousand.  "I  don't  want  assistants  but  men  capable 
of  working  on  their  own,"  Brinckerhoff  wrote.  The  tropics, 
leprosy,  the  serum  investigation  of  disease,  were  items  very 
close  to  Wherry's  heart.  But  he  was  already  under  army 
rule,  had  been  before,  and  was  gun-shy.  Brinckerhoff  wrote, 
"If  at  any  time  you  change  your  mind,  let  me  know." 

Mother  in  India  kept  Wherry  informed  of  their  daily  life: 
"A  young  Hindu  has  just  come  to  call  your  father  to  a  tem- 
perance meeting  ..."  Father  had  forgotten  the  appoint- 
ment. Mother  explained:  "Old  age,  you  see!"  Whereafter 
she  wished  statistics  on  the  California  plague  situation,  adding 
her  own  on  the  situation  in  India.  Then  this  more  distinctly 
family  inquiry:  "Have  you  still  with  you  the  woman  who 
can  cook  curry  and  pilau  for  you?"  It  referred  to  "Auntie" 
Boyle,  English  born,  India  raised,  now  resident  of  California 
and  the  nurse  to  Marie  and  her  baby.  The  father  harbingered: 
"We  have  good  news  from  Aunt  Sarah,  who  is  busy  in  the 
villages  telling  the  women  of  Jesus  and  His  love." 

Wherry's  studies  brought  him  much  praise.  Ward  sent 
eulogy  every  week.  "I  have  read  three  times  about  the  rat's 
liver  and  its  nodules,"  he  said.  McEachran  told  him  of  his 
"admirable  reports"  on  the  squirrels  and  the  leprosy  in  rats, 
adding  that  Dr  Montezambert  (chief  health  officer  for 
Canada)  had  "appreciated  them  very  much."  Wherry's 
admired  fighter  of  Bombay,  W  B  Bannerman  (chief  of  the 
Indian  plague  commission) ,  home  on  furlough  wrote  from 
Edinburgh:  "I  wonder  if  the  rat  leprosy  has  any  relation  to 
the  human  kind;  such  a  thought  suggests  ideas!"  Smith  sent 
word:  "The  relation  of  plague  to  the  native  rodents  appears 
to  be  a  formidable  one.  I  am  hoping  that  in  passing  thro'  and 
adapting  themselves  to  these  rodents  they  will  equally  lose 
their  virulence  for  man.  Let  us  hope  so  for  our  country's 
sake."  Howard  T  Ricketts,  fresh  from  his  victories  on  Rocky 
Mountain  spotted  fever,  said:  "Splendid,  your  work  on  plague; 
wish  I  could  have  had  a  share  in  it." 

Wherry  stood  in  need  of  cheer  from  such  finite  sources.  His 
own  school,  those  in  San  Francisco,  and  business  scarcely  knew 


1  Af\  what  it  was  all  about ;  and  the  colleagues  in  uniform  thought 
sufficient  the  presentation  at  women's  club  teas  of  the  claims  of 
one  garbage  cover  manufacturer  over  another.  Wherefore, 
news  from  the  medical  department  of  Nebraska's  university 
(part  in  Lincoln,  part  in  Omaha)  of  what  it  was  doing  en- 
thused him.  Ward  had  been  joined  by  Woolley,  finished  with 
his  contract  in  Siam  and  with  an  Order  of  the  white  elephant 
on  his  chest.  Arthur  D  Dunn  (professor  of  medicine  in 
Creighton)  had  placed  him  in  the  professorship  for  pathology 
in  the  rival  school.  "Hurrah!  A  letter  from  Bill.  Arigato  gozai- 
mas,"  Woolley  wrote.  The  crowd  there  was  going  good.  "Se- 
cure for  me  some  skins  of  the  ground  squirrel  and  forward," 
Ward  commanded.  In  acknowledging  them  and  the  simul- 
taneous receipt  of  pathological  specimens,  photographs  and 
flea  sets,  he  exclaimed:  "Splendid!  .  .  .  What  can  I  send  you 
of  half  such  interest  and  as  reasonable  return?"  A  late  addition 
had  come  into  this  group — Creighton  Wellman.  Missourian, 
thirty- four,  he  was  just  returned  from  Portuguese  West 
Africa  with  a  past,  many  writings  and  a  startling  collection  of 
Coleoptera.  He  was  lecturing  on  the  relation  of  tropical  dis- 
eases to  temperate  climes  but  needed  more  fixed  employment. 

Wherry  invited  him  to  talk  in  Oakland.  (Ward  had  warned: 
"Such  a  man  should  not  be  asked  to  travel  long  distances  and 
offer  his  services  to  institutions  or  societies  in  return  for  a  vote 
of  thanks.")  Thereafter  Wherry  succeeded  quickly  in  making 
Wellman  the  new  professor  of  tropical  medicine  in  the  Oak- 
land school.  This  start,  pushed  further,  would  have  estab- 
lished a  school  for  tropical  medicine  where  most  logically  it 
belonged.  Even  Ward  was  a  possibility:  "If  you  know  a  man 
who  would  give  money,  if  only  a  little  indeed,  for  a  research 
laboratory  and  let  me  get  free  from  this  abominable  legis- 
lative work,  I  should  welcome  the  chance."  But  the  west  coast 
knew  only  the  East  and  Western  Europe,  not  Cathay. 

Wherry  expressed  his  feelings  when  he  read  Leviticus  to  the 
doctors  of  his  state  in  April.  The  plague  situation  in  America 
was  never  printed: 

.  .  .  plague,  like  cholera,  has  its  endemic  centers,  starting 
from  which  it  spreads  in  epidemic  form  at  shorter  or  longer 
intervals.  One  of  these  is  situated  on  the  northern  declivity 


of  the  Himalayas;  another  in  the  adjacent  Chinese  province  1  ZlI 
of  Yunnan;  a  third  in  southeastern  Siberia  in  the  Lake  Baikal 
region  north  of  Mongolia  where  the  disease  is  endemic  among 
rodents  resembling  our  ground  hog  and  known  as  "tarba- 
gans."  Another  center  lies  in  Mesopotamia  and  in  1898  Robert 
Koch  found  one  in  Africa's  interior,  probably  Uganda.  Now 
we  add  a  final  spot — the  state  of  California. 

.  .  .  early  races,  even,  saw  a  connection  between  rats  and 
the  spread  of  human  plague.  In  1894,  in  Canton,  preceding 
the  outbreak  among  men,  rats  ran  over  the  streets  in  shoals 
and  died  in  large  numbers.  In  one  district  over  3  5000  dead 
rats  were  collected  in  a  day.  .  .  . 

The  history  of  plague  in  America  is  worth  reading  from  a 
political  and  sociological  standpoint  as  well  as  from  the 
medical.  .  .  .  Every  effort  was  made  by  local  and  state 
authority  and  the  business  interests  to  conceal  the  facts.   .   .  . 

The  almost  annual  recrudescence  of  plague  in  San  Francisco 
has  been  a  mystery.  Answer  to  the  question  was  found  when, 
in  August  1908  I  discovered  that  the  ground  squirrels  in  the 
counties  bordering  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  were  infected 
with  plague  and  that  they  had  died  in  large  numbers  of 
plague  in  the  past  few  years.  ...  in  at  least  five  counties 
across  the  bay  from  San  Francisco,  one  percent  of  the  squir- 
rels are  infected.  Several  cases  have  occurred  in  men  hunting 
these  squirrels.  Another  appeared  in  August,  1908,  in  Los 
Angeles — showing  that  plague  is  much  more  widely  scattered 
in  California  than  generally  believed.   .  .   . 

State  laws  were  passed  forbidding  the  transportation  of 
ground  squirrels  and  their  sale.  These  rodents  are  considered 
a  great  delicacy — though  personally  I  prefer  the  smell  of  a  rat. 

Do  you  think  that  the  law-abiding  nature  of  the  American 
makes  him  obey  this  law?  Not  at  all!  Hundreds  of  hunters 
shoot  squirrels  on  Sundays  and  cart  them  into  town.  It  may 
cheer  you  to  know  that  the  only  cases  of  human  plague  which 
have  occurred  during  the  past  year  have  been  among  these 
squirrel  hunters.  They  come  from  that  ignorant  and  yet 
sophisticated  class  you  all  know.  They  do  not  believe  that 
plague  exists.  The  Oakland  Tribune  says  that  the  plague  scare 
is  a  game  of  medical  graft;  and  the  hunters  believe  all  they 


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A  SHEET  OF  MANUSCRIPT  (1909). 
NOTE  CHANGE  OF  EDITORIAL  WE  TO  I 


read  in  the  Tribune,  They  have  hunted  squirrels  for  years  1  A% 
without  getting  sick  and  like  the  homeopaths  or  Christian 
scientists  are  in  the  state  of  mind  of  the  Armored  Armadillo — 
corrugated,  convoluted,  hornified  and  impenetrable  to  com- 
mon sense.  If  only  there  were  a  Providence  to  supervise  the 
proper  distribution  of  the  plague  bacillus!  Unfortunately  it 
most  commonly  attacks  the  poor  who  must  live  in  misery; 
or  the  strong  and  active  whose  occupation  brings  them  into 
contact  with  rats — street  loafers  and  idiots  are  immune. 
Among  the  latter  I  mention  town  councilmen.  Much  against 
my  wishes  plague  did  not  decimate  Oakland's  council. 

The  situation  in  my  opinion  is  extremely  grave,  for  plague 
among  ground  squirrels  means  that  we  have  an  endemic  focus 
in  America.  .  .  .  Wherefore  not  only  California  will  suffer 
from  time  to  time  from  plague,  but  the  danger  of  its  extension 
to  neighboring  states  and  eastward  will  persist. 

IN  July  of  1909,  Wherry  sent  his  family  to  Mill  Valley  for 
a  rest;  and  needing  one  himself  had  followed  for  a  week- 
end. On  August  ninth  he  returned  and  at  the  door  of  my  flat, 
pulled  a  yellow  sheet  from  his  pocket : 

On  nomination  of  Dr  Woolley  will  you  take  position  bacteri- 
ologist in  department  pathology  in  reorganized  Ohio-Miami 
medical  college  of  the  university  of  Cincinnati  salary  eighteen 
hundred  with  expectation  of  advance  in  nineteen  eleven. 
Charles  Wm  Dabney 

"What  will  you  do?"  I  asked.  There  was  no  smile  in  his 
answer:  "I'm  going,"  he  replied. 


1909-1912 


VII 


FUNDAMENTALLY,  Wherry  had  bought  a  pig  in  a 
poke.  The  old  medical  circus  that  was  Cincinnati  had 
ordered  a  new  top  in  the  year  gone  by,  which  had  made  every 
medical  employee  in  the  U  S  jittery  and  hopeful.  Daniel 
Drake's  grand  school  had  forgiven  its  erring  son  (also  some 
half  dozen  illegitimate  children  found  in  the  snow)  and  all 
were  to  live  happily  together  once  more  as  the  medical  arm 
of  the  town's  great  and  growing  university.  At  least  four 
major  chairs  were  to  be  made  "scientific."  Wherry  had  heard 
of  these  possibilities  a  full  year  before  receiving  Dabney's 
telegram  and  since  his  wife  had  come  from  Cincinnati,  she 
undertook  a  writing  to  some  of  the  distant  cousins  in 
Wherry's  behalf.  There  was  nothing  doing.  Medical  salvation 
flowed  from  the  side  of  Johns  Hopkins,  sometimes  Harvard. 
So  Woolley  had  been  brought  in.  It  was  his  urging  that  had 
nominated  Wherry  as  the  assistant  professor  for  bacteriology. 
Dabney  described  the  Cincinnati  situation  in  detail  (August 
10,  1909): 

.  .  .  our  new  medical  college,  recently  formed  by  the  fusion 
of  the  two  old  medical  colleges,  the  Ohio  and  the  Miami  of 
this  city.  Both  institutions  gave  up  to  us  [the  university  of 
Cincinnati]  their  charters,  good  will,  properties,  moneys,  etc 
— everything  in  fact — and  all  members  of  their  faculties 
resigned,  placing  themselves  entirely  in  our  hands  for  reor- 
ganization. The  new  faculty  was  then  appointed  in  June  last 
as  shown  in  the  catalogue.  We  are  still  looking  for  a  profes- 
sional educator  for  dean  .  .  .  the  new  city  hospital  .  .  . 
which  will  cost  over  four  millions  of  dollars  includes  a  great 
laboratory  for  pathology  and  bacteriology.  The  university 
will  have  control  of  all  its  medical  and  scientific  work  and  it 
will  thus  become,  for  all  purposes,  the  university  hospital, 
though  supported  by  the  city  at  a  cost  of  about  one  half  mil- 


1  4o  lion  a  year,  not  charged  to  us  .  .  .  The  hospital  will  make 
the  college. 

The  business  of  being  only  an  assistant  professor  did  not 
disturb  Wherry.  He  did,  however,  want  assurance  that  time 
would  be  available  for  independent  thinking,  and  a  salary 
equivalent  to  what  he  had  in  his  western  job.  "...  assure 
me  of  several  hours  a  day  free  for  research  .  .  .  and  finan- 
cial support  at  least  equal  to  what  I  am  getting  here.  All  work 
done  outside,  to  reinforce  one's  finances,  endangers  one's 
teaching  and  research."  August  14,  1909  the  president  of  the 
university  telegraphed : 

All  right  will  appoint  you  assistant  professor  bacteriology 
with  Woolley  and  bacteriologist  to  city  hospital  at  2400 
yearly  time  for  research  announce  this  appointment  imme- 
diately in  effect  September  first  expect  you  soon  as  convenient. 

Wherry  broke  camp  at  once  and  on  September  1 5  arrived 
in  Cincinnati.  Though  a  bit  late  for  the  newly  opened  medical 
session,  he  quickly  caught  up.  As  he  had  written  the  presi- 
dent: "I  do  not  anticipate  any  difficulty  in  getting  ready  as  I 
am  bringing  much  material  which  can  be  used  for  teaching 
purposes."  Much  it  was — a  regular  zoo.  Letters  of  congratu- 
lation— and  of  sorrow — lay  thick  on  his  desk.  Hektoen 
(August  28,  1909)  wrote:  "I  hope  very  much  that  things 
there  will  develop  as  planned  ...  I  wish  you  the  fullest 
success  in  creating  a  new  centre  of  bacteriologic  science.  I  am 
so  free  as  to  state  that  you  merit  a  higher  place  on  the  aca- 
demic ladder  than  the  one  announced  and  look  for  your 
speedy  promotion  .  .  .  All  your  friends  agree  that  Cincin- 
nati is  fortunate  in  getting  you."  H  Gideon  Wells  (who  had 
refused  the  Woolley  place)  wrote:  "...  the  facilities  for 
medical  education  and  research  that  the  new  hospital  will 
offer  constitute  the  best  field  in  the  U  S;  and  I  am  glad  you 
will  have  a  chance  at  it." 

Wherry  sent  some  of  these  letters  to  his  father  who  Novem- 
ber 3,  1909,  answered:  "I  return  these  testimonials  &  would 
say,  keep  them — they  may  be  of  use  to  you  some  day."  (The 
old  gentleman  never  did  get  clear  that  pull  is  better  than  push 
in  university  life;  and  friendship  than  merit!) 


Sadder  notes  came  out  of  a  bereaved  west.  Ricketts  in-  1  Zl"7 
quired:  "Why  didn't  they  ask  you  to  Stanford?"  and  Geo 
W  McCoy  ventured:  "I  never  get  tired  of  rubbing  it  into  the 
two  universities  here  for  letting  you  get  away."  Venzke's 
Ger-manic  depression  put  him  in  hospital.  A  report  stated: 
"He  is  suffering  from  the  well-known  nervous  manifestations 
of  subacute  poisoning  with  ethyl  hydroxide." 

After  two  weeks  in  Cincinnati  Wherry  could  write  a 
complete  description  of  the  place  (September  29,  1909) : 

.  .  .  Now  that  I  have  gotten  over  the  shock  which  the  dirt 
of  Cinti  gives  me,  and  have  grown  accustomed  to  seeing  Billie 
look  like  a  coal-heaver,  and  have  indefinitely  postponed  get- 
ting another  glimpse  of  Mt  Tamalpais,  and  have  resigned 
myself  to  the  separation  from  Oakland — perhaps  I  can  give 
you  a  fair  idea  of  what  there  is  here. 

The  medical  college  building  is  a  pippin,  sticking  right  out 
of  the  side  of  a  hill.  Say,  it's  100  feet  to  the  side  and  four 
stories  high — brick — large  and  small  rooms  with  high  ceilings, 
and  in  its  general  appearance  reminds  me  of  Rush.  Histology 
and  embryology  labs  in  basement;  physiology  lab,  lecture 
amphitheater  &  office  on  first  floor;  pathology  and  bacteriol- 
ogy on  second  floor.  I  don't  remember  the  third  floor  but  on 
the  fourth  are  the  laboratory  for  physiological  chemistry  and 
the  dissecting  room.  The  building  was  in  bad  shape  but  they 
have  done  much  to  improve  it  and  it  will  do  until  they  get 
into  their  new  buildings  perhaps  two  or  three  years  from  now. 
A  second  part  of  the  work  is  given  on  the  university  grounds 
and  a  third  part  at  the  city  and  Good  Samaritan  hospitals. 
The  city  hospital  reminds  me  of  [Chicago's]  Cook  county 
and  smells  just  like  it.  Since  most  of  the  inhabitants  are  crazy 
Dutchmen  there  is  no  difficulty  about  posting  every  case  that 
dies.  There  is  a  large  clinic  building  attended  by  hundreds  of 
patients  in  direct  connection  with  the  college  and  situated 
within  200  feet  of  it.  The  equipment  is  really  ample  for  teach- 
ing purposes;  and  so  far  as  research  goes,  Woolley  and  I  will 
do  all  our  work  at  the  city  hospital  lab. 

The  men  have  received  us  in  a  most  generous  spirit  and 
while  no  doubt  there  are  some  hard  feelings  as  a  result  of  the 
merger,  all  appears  smooth  on  top.  President  Dabney  is  a 


148  fine  man  an<^  a  k*£  man  an<^  nas  broad  plans.  He  is  keen  on 
teaching  the  preliminaries  from  a  scientific  standpoint. 

By  the  way,  a  couple  of  days  after  I  arrived,  Lyon  [Elias 
Potter,  forty-two,  physiologist  to  St  Louis  university  medical 
school,  not  an  M  D,  but  among  the  most,  if  not  the  most 
potent  voice  in  American  medical  educational  reform]  ap- 
peared— this  may  be  a  secret  so  keep  it.  They  are  thinking  of 
him  for  dean.  He  looked  things  over  but  I  don't  know  with 
what  result.  Baehr  [Edmund  Michael,  thirty-one,  self-taught 
collegian,  the  voice  of  Kraepelin,  Freud  and  Sherrington  in 
Cincinnati]  who  now  teaches  physiology  here,  is  an  awfully 
nice  young  fellow  with  a  very  level  head  but  is  in  the  practice 
of  medicine  and  I  imagine  no  more  of  a  physiologist  than  our 
instructor  was  at  Rush.  I  wish  we  could  get  a  chair  of  medical 
entomology  established  and  have  Wellman  but  I  am  going 
to  get  a  good  line  on  things  before  broaching  the  subject. 

I  could  not  find  a  fit  place  in  Cinti  at  $30— $40  per,  so 
looked  into  Fort  Thomas,  Ky,  and  fell  in  love  with  it.  Now 
we  have  a  beautifully  situated,  7  room  California  bungalow 
— a  perfect  dream — but  it  will  cost  $40  per.  Everything  is 
as  dear  here  as  in  California,  so  don't  be  deluded  about  the 
cheapness  of  living  east. 

Wherry  did  the  work  of  his  heart  in  the  crumbling  ruins 
of  Cincinnati's  onetime  glorious  city  hospital  by  the  side  of 
the  canal  on  Twelfth  street.  World  travellers  got  it  mixed  in 
their  minds  with  Vienna's  Allgemeines  Krankenbaus,  with  a 
storey  added.  Inside,  both  could  boast  the  same  courts,  cock- 
roaches and  calluses.  Undergraduate  bacteriological  teaching 
lay  a  mile  distant,  in  that  "pippin"  on  the  hill — McMicken's 
original  "college"  from  which  had  hatched  the  university  of 
Cincinnati.  A  "written  quiz"  here  December  first  permitted 
him  free  time  for  correspondence.  He  wanted  direct  news  of 
"Auntie  Boyle"  in  California  who  had  so  often  satisfied  his 
hunger  for  "cully-lice."  Whereafter  he  continued:  "To-night 
we  celebrate  the  merger  of  the  medical  colleges  by  a  function. 
If  I  can  get  into  my  dress  suit,  I'll  go.  Adios!  The  hour  is  up." 

The  Christmas  weeks  were  rather  full.  His  second  child,  a 
daughter,  was  born — and  Marie  had  not  been  well. 

By  January  1 3 ,  1 9 1 0  he  again  had  heart  to  take  pen  in  hand. 


It  was  to  elaborate  upon  a  telegram  sent  me  earlier,  and  in  his  1  AC) 
own  name,  to  visit  Cincinnati.  He  had  suggested  my  con- 
sideration as  physiologist.  "Woolley  and  I  have  been  operat- 
ing on  Dabney  (on  the  part  of  the  university)  and  Forch- 
heimer  (on  the  part  of  the  medical  faculty)  to  get  busy  and 
fill  this  chair  .  .  .  Dabney  visited  the  east  ...  I  judge 
that  the  remarks  were  not  in  your  favor." 

For  myself,  I  was  not  particularly  interested,  for  Freer  of 
the  Philippine  service  had  passed  through  California.  I  had 
accepted  the  chair  for  pathology  in  the  Manila  school  and  was 
awaiting  sailing  orders.  But  attack  upon  the  character  of  one 
of  his  friends  was  more  than  Wherry  would  ever  stand.  Hav- 
ing continued  "operation"  in  Cincinnati,  he  sent  me  a  tele- 
gram (January  20,  1910)  that  made  me  his  colleague:  "Full 
professorship  free  field  come  and  see  us  without  abandoning 
other  position."  It  was  after  this  visit  to  "see"  and  to  "lecture" 
that  my  appointment  followed  and  he  wrote  (February  22, 
1910): 

I  use  ruled  paper  because  it  is  easier  to  write  in  a  straight  lme. 
The  note  you  dropped  out  of  the  train  was  finally  picked  up 
and  arrived  the  other  day  telling  us  that  you  were  safely  on 
your  way  back.  I  felt  quite  relieved — not  that  I  think  that 
this  is  such  a  wicked  world,  but  you  are  so  young.  In  spite 
of  that,  however,  most  of  the  men  seem  delighted  with  the 
news  of  your  appointment.  I  have  not  told  them  that  you 
might  come  before  September  but  think  that  if  you  can 
arrange  it,  it  would  be  a  good  stunt  to  get  settled  and  get 
some  research  started,  though  they  say  it  is  as  hot  as  Hades 
in  Cinti  in  the  summertime.  ...  I  have  started  some  work 
on  the  effects  of  acids,  bases  &  salts  on  bacteria — have  only 
just  gotten  some  standard  solutions  made  up — and  am  going 
to  work  first  with  the  cholera  spirillum  owing  to  its  great 
susceptibility  to  the  H  ion.  By  the  way,  I  spotted  a  case  of 
amoebic  dysentery  the  other  day — in  a  physician's  wife — 
undiagnosed  for  eight  months  and  apparently  contracted  here. 
If  I  can  only  find  a  few  more  examples  of  tropical  disease 
perhaps  we  can  get  Wellman,  too.  I  do  hope  Stanford  doesn't 
make  an  ass  of  itself  by  letting  him  get  away  from  the  coast, 
for  that  is  the  place  for  a  school. 


I  SQ  POME  other  items  absorbed  the  time  of  Wherry's  first 
v3  months  in  Cincinnati.  Howard  T  Ricketts,  victorious 
but  exhausted  by  his  studies  of  Rocky  Mountain  spotted  fever 
(in  the  past  three  years  he  had  transmitted  it  to  animals,  first 
by  the  blood,  then  by  the  bite  of  a  tick,  finally  by  the  injec- 
tion of  a  small  bacillus  he  had  discovered  in  human  instances 
where  the  mortality  goes  as  high  as  ninety  percent)  wrote 
(August  12,  1909) :  "Confidentially,  I  am  thinking  of  taking 
up  typhus  fever."  He  needed  "more  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  insects"  and  wanted  Wherry's  help.  "This  is  a  nervy 
request  and  rebuff  from  you  would  be  considered  proper." 
December  20  he  was  in  Mexico  thanking  Wherry  for  a  fine 
"bunch"  of  references,  monographs  and  reprints  unobtain- 
able "even  in  the  U  of  C.  Things  took  a  very  sudden  turn  and 
I  came  down  here,"  he  continued.  "Shall  write  you  later  about 
doings.  A  hot  mixup.  Three  parties  at  work  and  a  fourth  one 
expected."  (What  this  referred  to  was  a  competitive  excur- 
sion by  four  different  "research"  agencies  all  better  equipped 
financially  than  Ricketts.  He  had  not  been  allowed  time  to 
recover  from  the  fatigue  of  his  Montana  sojourn,  typhus 
struck  his  wearied  body,  and  he  died  [thirty-nine,  in  the  City 
of  Mexico,  May  3 ,  1910].)  Whereafter  he  returned  to  a  more 
personal  theme.  "When  your  name  is  mentioned  in  Chicago, 
it  is  with  regret  that  you  are  not  still  there.  It's  all  their  fault, 
and  a  great  mistake  to  let  you  go." 

Distance,  of  course,  had  made  it  impossible  for  mother  in 
India  to  attend  the  birth  of  her  granddaughter  in  Cincin- 
nati; besides  which  other  things  in  the  compound  at  home  had 
come  up.  She  wrote  (January  11,  1910) : 

We  were  in  the  midst  of  Genl  Assem  .  .  .  The  Presbyterian 
church  of  India  honored  your  father  by  electing  him  moderator 
&  everyone  was  so  pleased  with  the  way  in  which  he  conducted 
the  business.  We  had  22  people  at  our  table  for  five  days — 
3  meals  a  day  &  afternoon  tea.  Your  Aunt  Sarah  helped  me 
but  I  gave  clear  out  on  the  3rd  day  &  had  to  go  to  bed  .  .  . 

We  have  had  some  sad  cases  in  our  Mission.  Lucy  came  out 
to  her  parents,  arriving  in  Dehra  two  days  before  Christmas. 
Her  brother  paid  her  way.  About  two  or  three  days  after 
Xmas,  they  sent  a  telegram  to  your  father  asking  the  Assem- 


bly  to  pray  for  her,  as  she  had  "acute  mania."  Miss  Mitchell  1  SI 
who  was  here  went  right  off  thinking  she  might  be  able  to 
help,  &  as  7  thought  it  must  be  a  mistake  in  the  telegram, 
she  wrote  at  once  saying  it  was  really  acute  mania  &  not 
pneumonia  as  I  had  hoped.  They  have  to  feed  her  some  way 
through  the  nose.   .  .   . 

Then  a  few  days  before  the  Assem  opened,  your  father  got 
a  telegram  addressed  to  the  Senior  Missy  here,  telling  him  of 
Dr  M's  severe  illness  at  Subathu.  It  was  from  the  Civil  Surgeon 
there,  saying  that  he  needed  care  at  once,  his  family  being  in 
America.  After  talking  together  about  it,  Dr  Fife  said  he 
would  go — so  he  went  and  brought  Dr  M  down  to  this  place. 
It  seems  he  was  poisoned  two  years  ago  in  performing  an 
operation  on  a  man  for  a  bad  disease,  &  he  took  treatment  for 
a  year,  but  was  told  he  should  take  it  for  2  yrs,  however  he 
didn't,  so  now  there  seems  to  be  danger  of  an  abscess  on  the 
brain.  He  sees  double  and  his  mind  is  not  clear.  .  .  .  Doc- 
tors must  run  awful  risks  when  they  perform  these  dirty 
operations ! 

Please  give  us  your  real  address.  Will  said  you  had  taken  a 
house  at  St  Thomas,  Ky  ...  I  am  inclosing  some  clippings 
to  show  you  that  India  is  still  in  unrest.  The  disloyalty  of  the 
Arya  Somajists  is  being  found  out  and  the  young  Rajah  who 
has  just  come  into  power  is  helping  to  bring  to  justice  all 
Anarchists  &c.  Mr  Warburton,  Chief  of  Police,  is  his  right 
hand  man  in  detecting  &  punishing  all  offenders.  Mr  W  used 
to  be  here  in  your  time,  Will.  Mr  Jackson  was  killed  because 
he  was  an  English  official,  and  every  now  &  again  a  bomb  is 
sent  to,  or  thrown  at  some  one,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Deputy 
Commissioner  at  Ambala.  .  .  .  The  professions  of  some  of 
the  Hindus,  at  being  disgusted  with  acts  of  murder  &c  are 
mere  hollow  shams  to  hide  their  own  disloyalty,  and  the 
palaver  of  the  Mohammedans  every  one  knows  is,  because 
they  hate  the  Hindus  ivorse  than  the  English.  We  do  not  see 
trouble,  therefore  do  not  fear  it,  tho'  the  bomb  at  Ambala 
comes  pretty  close  to  home.  P  S  The  Missionaries  here  each 
entertained  guests  at  Genl  Assem  time,  &  there  were  many 
Indians  provided  for  at  a  separate  table  &  cheaper  than  the 
European  table.  We  had  5  very  nice  Indians  at  our  table. 


1  S  9  Out  °^  $an  Francisco  and  Oakland,  Wherry's  one-time  col- 
leagues continued  to  plaster  him  with  letters  of  regret.  What 
he  wanted  more  were  the  rats  he  had  left  behind,  inoculated 
with  leprosy.  Geo  W  McCoy  promised  (January  18,  1910) : 
"I  will  see  that  they  are  forwarded  right  away,  ...  it  seems 
to  me  that  there  might  be  some  danger  of  their  dying  in  the 
long  cold  trip  back  to  the  barbarous  East.  ..." 

The  chief  of  the  Institute  for  the  research  of  infectious  dis- 
eases in  Tokyo,  the  great  S  Kitasato  (co-worker  with  von 
Behring  in  the  discovery  of  diphtheria  antitoxine) ,  had  been 
stirred  by  Wherry's  leprosy  studies.  January  24,  1910  he 
asked:  "...  send  ten  white  rats  newly  inoculated  with  your 
bacilli.  I  have  asked  the  Toyo  Kisen  Kaisha  to  carry  them 
aboard  its  ship  to  Japan.  .  .  .  Ask  the  agent  of  the  Toyo 
Kisen  Kaisha  to  carry  them  to  me.  All  the  expenses  will  be 
paid  as  soon  as  your  accounts  arrive.  Thanking  you  in  advance 
for  the  great  trouble  incurred  upon  you  ..." 

Wherry  delegated  this  request  to  McCoy  who  reported 
(March  9,  1910)  that  a  telephone  communication  from  the 
Toyo  Kisen  Kaisha  had  declared  it  willing  to  take  the  rats 
only  after  assurance  from  him  that  there  was  "no  danger  to 
the  ship.  I  will  send  them  as  soon  as  I  can,"  he  continued,  "but 
leprosy  rats  have  grown  pretty  scarce  in  Butchertown." 

Return  is  now  made  to  some  other  letters  of  McCoy,  each 
of  which  reported  autopsy  findings  in  rats  that  had  died, 
inoculated  with  leprosy.  In  his  original  paper  on  the  subject 
Wherry  had  declared:  "Owing  to  accident,  my  wild  rat  and 
guinea  pig  inoculation  experiments  were  failures."  McCoy's 
reports  showed  that  all  Wherry's  subsequent  inoculations  had 
been  successful,  that,  in  other  words,  the  leprosy  had  been 
transmitted  to  rats  and  that  it  had  spread  into  their  bodies 
from  the  site  of  original  inoculation.  Since  these  findings  were 
never  published,  two  of  McCoy's  reports  are  quoted  in 
extenso: 

Rat  No  1:  Died  February  26,  1910;  an  infiltration  6  cm  long 
by  2  cm  wide,  over  the  front  middle  of  the  abdomen,  yellow- 
ish, granular  and  entirely  characteristic  of  rat  leprosy;  smears 
filled   with   acid-fast   bacilli;    the   inguinal   glands    a   little 


enlarged   and   smears   show   a   few  bacilli;   internal   organs  1  ^  *X 

negative. 

Rat  No.  2:  Died  April  28,  1910  [the  last  of  Wherry's  series] ; 

an  ulcer  the  size  of  a  dime  directly  between  the  sternum  and 

pubis,  at  probable  site  of  inoculation,  infiltration  around 

this  lesion  covers  an  area  about  the  size  of  a  twenty-five  cent 

piece;  large  numbers  of  acid- fast  bacilli  in  smears  from  this 

location;  axillary  and  inguinal  glands  moderately  enlarged, 

with  smears  showing  the  presence  of  a  few  acid- fast  bacilli; 

no  other  lesions. 

To  these  scientific  reports  were  added  data  on  West  coast 
epidemiology  that  must  have  given  Wherry  some  unexpressed, 
warm  feelings  inside.  February  28,  1910,  McCoy  wrote: 
"Found  a  plague  infected  squirrel  in  San  Luis  Obispo  county, 
a  few  days  ago.  This  county  is  just  about  half  way  between 
Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco  and  on  the  coast.,,  March 
9,  191 0  he  added:  "We  are  getting  a  good  many  plague  squir- 
rels just  outside  of  Berkeley  now.  They  may  represent  the  same 
focus  that  you  struck  nearly  a  year  ago,  although  some  of 
those  that  we  have  gotten  have  been  found  much  nearer 
Berkeley  than  those  found  by  the  men  when  you  had  charge 
over  there."  And  June  6,  1910,  he  said:  "We  are  finding  addi- 
tional counties  that  are  infested  and  goodness  only  knows 
where  it  will  end." 

WITH  the  spring,  discussion  of  material  available  for 
the  newly  wanted  dean  of  Cincinnati's  medical  school 
and  for  a  "full-time"  professor  of  anatomy  grew  more  active. 
Lyon  had  been  proffered  the  former  job;  and  refused.  Now 
Wherry  proposed  that  Dudley  Tait  of  San  Francisco  be  con- 
sidered for  both  posts.  Anatomy  in  the  medical  schools, 
Wherry  believed,  had  gone  too  "scientific"  and  it  was  time 
to  give  it  a  more  "surgical"  or  "applied"  twist.  Tait  had  repu- 
tation both  in  surgery  and  medical  education;  and  would  be 
ideal.  Dabney  was  convinced.  When  first  broached  on  the 
subject,  Tait  had,  however,  declined.  Wherry  wrote  about  this 
and  some  other  things,  March  28,  1910: 

Judging  from  a  telephone  message  I  had  from  Dr  Dabney 
yesterday  I  suppose  that  Tait  definitely  refused.  I  am  sorry. 


IS  A  He  would  have  been  a  dandy  man  for  the  place.  Sometimes 
I  wonder  though  whether  he  would  have  liked  to  wait  for  the 
developments  which  are  planned.  In  many  ways  the  school  is 
pretty  crude  as  things  stand.   .   .   . 

Now  about  inviting  the  Amer  Assoc  of  Pathologists  and 
Bacteriologists  here  for  next  year.  I  talked  the  matter  over 
with  Woolley  again  to-day  and  he  does  not  feel  that  we  could 
show  them  a  good  time  here  just  yet;  in  a  couple  of  years  or 
so  things  will  be  on  a  different  footing.  Then,  do  you  realize 
that  May  is  as  hot  as  Hell  here  with  no  place  to  go  but  out, 
and  nothing  to  see  but  breweries? 

I  stopped  my  experiments  on  the  effects  of  acids  &  salts  etc 
on  bacteria  as  things  became  very  strenuous  but  will  continue 
them  soon.  Just  at  present  I  am  trying  to  cure  animals  infected 
with  Tr  brucei.  It  is  terrible  to  get  an  idea  into  your  head  so 
strongly  that  nothing  but  a  series  of  hard  work  experiments 
will  serve  to  knock  it  out. — "Well,  I  must  close  and  answer 
some  silly  questions  in  bacteriology  asked  by  a  gentleman 
from  Indiana. 

Tait's  refusal  was  not  as  "definite"  as  Wherry's  letter  had 
indicated.  Actually  three  more  months  went  into  correspon- 
dence between  the  principals.  At  one  time  Wherry  wrote  me: 

Pres  Dabney  invited  me  down  to  talk  over  Tait.  The  politics 
of  these  things  are  too  much  for  me.  If  you  are  still  in  Chgo 
and  will  come  down,  stay  with  us  in  the  country  where  the 
blossom-perfumed  breezes  blow. 

April  22,  1910,  Wherry  was  still  hopeful: 

I'm  very  glad  to  hear  that  Tait  is  going  to  visit  us.  I  firmly 
believe  him  the  man  we  need  here  and  have  told  Dabney  so, 
though  I  have  avoided  trying  to  persuade  the  President  in  his 
particular  favor  as  there  seems  to  be  some  feeling  among  the 
local  men  that  we  are  trying  to  get  a  clique  together — which 
of  course  is  all  bosh.  .  .  .  Naturally,  Dabney  has  heard  that 
Tait  is  strong  headed  &  speaks  his  mind  freely  &  so  seems  to 
fear  that  Tait  might  not  have  the  patience  to  wait  for  the 
developments  he  (Dab)  has  planned  &  which  he  feels  will 
surely  come  though  slowly.  ...  I  am  in  a  hurry  just  now, 
so  adios! 


A  few  weeks  later,  Wherry  had  heard  of  my  desire  to  bring  1  S  S 
with  me,  at  a  small  salary,  a  research  slave  out  of  Oakland. 
He  had  also  heard  that  physiology  in  Cincinnati  had  no 
money  for  such  purpose.  Said  Wherry  (June  10,  1910)  : 

...  If  Pres  Dabney  cannot  find  the  money  to  place  the  sug- 
gested assistant  in  your  department,  nominate  him  for  pathol- 
ogy, let  us  pay  the  bill,  and  use  him  in  physiology.  I  have 
spoken  to  Woolley  about  this  .  .  .  Now  as  to  the  reason  why 
I  have  not  written  for  so  long:  I  have  been  working  like  the 
devil  on  some  cases  of  pernicious  anemia  that  Dr  Forchheimer 
got  for  me,  and  on  one  fatal  case  we  posted  at  the  hospital.  Of 
course  my  work  is  on  etiology  from  the  infectious  point  of 
view.  I  have  argued  thus : 

1  Repeated  injections,  continued  over  a  long  period  of 
time,  of  a  hemolytic  agent,  e  g  ricin,  produces  the  ana- 
tomic and  physiologic  picture  of  pernicious  anemia. 

2  The  toxine  (?)  of  Bothriocephalus  latus  absorbed  from 
the  intestinal  tract  produces  the  picture  of  so-called 
"cryptogenetic"  pernicious  anemia  in  a  considerable 
percentage  of  cases. 

Might  it  not  be  possible  that  these  "cryptogenetic"  cases 
are  due  to  hemolysin  produced  by  some  microorganism  in  the 
intestinal  tract — bacterial  or  protozoan?  I  have  been  looking 
for  everything  and  have  collected  and  compared  a  mass  of 
stained  preparations  and  cultures.  You  can  imagine  that  I  was 
somewhat  excited  when  the  contents  of  the  ileum  and  colon 
(from  the  fatal  case)  when  plated  in  agar  mixed  with  de- 
fibrinated  rabbit's  blood,  showed  the  presence  of  a  very  large 
percentage  of  bacteria  whose  colonies  were  surrounded  by  a 
wide  zone  of  hemolysis. 

However,  I  am  beginning  to  cool  off,  now  that  I  have  studied 
some  normal  controls  and  cases  other  than  pernicious  anemia. 
But  I  still  hope  to  find  some  specific  differences.  In  any  case,  I 
will  have  learned  something  about  the  hemolyzers  of  the  in- 
testinal tract.  I  have  no  intelligent  assistance  whatever  and 
the  preparation  of  media  etc  takes  much  time.  Most  of  the 
young  fellows  are  afraid  to  stick  to  anything  so  time-con- 
suming as  bacteriology. 

As  you  will  see  from  the  paper  I  send  along,  Dabney  got 


ISA  his  nerve  up  and  did  some  real  reorganizing,  but  has  not  yet 
found  a  dean.  I  tried  to  make  an  appointment  with  him  several 
times  but  failed;  and  the  last  time  I  called  up  he  was  out,  but 
saw  Woolley  the  same  evening  and  asked  what  I  wanted. 
Woolley  told  him  I  wanted  to  know  how  the  Tait  affair  stood. 
He  said  that  Dr  Tait  had  definitely  turned  us  down  and  then 
went  on  to  tell  Woolley  how  he  thought  that  we  (Woolley 
&  I)  had  better  not  get  mixed  up  in  the  dean  affair  as  there 
was  already  some  dissatisfaction  about  our  activity  in  the 
matter.  .  .  . 

By  the  way,  Wellman  has  probably  told  you  of  the  work  on 
Treatment,  Forchheimer  is  editing.  .  .  .  Tell  him  that  I  want 
his  dope  on  the  writers  for  tropical  diseases. 

P  S  Forchheimer  asks  me  to  keep  the  knowledge  of  this 
new  work  of  his  Q  T.  How  about  the  can-can  at  St  Louis? — 
"Rotten  if  true." 

By  middle  June  the  Tait  matter  was  finished.  He  declared 
himself  "inadequate;"  also,  he  had  suffered  a  heart  attack — 
first  onslaught  from  without  that  ever  put  fear  in  him.  Wool- 
ley  was  made  dean,  and  Henry  McElderry  Knower  (long  left 
on  the  shelf  at  Hopkins  with  Ross  Harrison)  the  anatomist. 

Politics  in  the  university  were  rather  foul.  A  secret  ballot, 
it  was  said,  indicated  that  its  board  of  directors  was  standing 
£yq  to  four  against  Dabney's  continuance  in  office;  and  more 
newspaper  print  spoke  of  university  authority  as  desirous  of 
closing  the  medical  school — the  student  registration  had 
dropped  down,  resignations  after  the  amalgamation  had  made 
sore  hearts,  the  town  doctors  did  not  like  the  medical  profes- 
sors, etc.  Wherry  wrote  from  his  laboratory  (July  27,  1910) : 

I  hate  to  hurry  on  this  humid,  hot  morning  but  I  want  to  send 
you  this  clipping  from  the  morning's  Enquirer  which  will 
interest  you,  though  I  think  any  talk  of  closing  is  rot.  When 
do  you  start  for  Cinti?  It  is  hot  as  hell  here  now  but  will  be 
just  as  bad  in  September.  .  .  .  We  are  over  in  Avondale  for 
a  few  days  at  Aunt  Fannie's  [Francesca  Nast  Gamble,  Marie's 
aunt,  who  had  grown  up  with  Ivory  soap  and  put  a  million  of 
the  proceeds  into  China's  Methodist  missions  alone] .  She  wants 
us  to  take  her  cottage  at  Lakeside  (on  Lake  Erie)  but  the  milk 
problem  up  there  is  not  an  easy  one  &,  then,  I  don't  see  how  we 


can  afford  it.  I  made  some  on  the  side,  but  most  of  the  men  1  j"7 
never  paid  up.  We  have  plenty  to  live  on  at  home,  so  don't  get 
out  your  handkerchief — only,  I  mean,  I  don't  care  to  spend 
half  a  hundred  extra  just  now. — I  have  not  found  the  cause 
of  pernicious  anemia  yet.  The  climate  reminds  me  of  Colombo. 

The  newly  headed  departments  that  now  comprised  the  two 
first  years  in  Cincinnati's  renovated  medical  school  got  off  to 
a  good  start  when  the  autumn  semester  opened.  The  chiefs  had 
shown  good  sense  in  leaving  the  personnel  of  their  various 
divisions  untouched — no  men  in  any  of  them  had  been  dis- 
missed, and  where  some  had  resigned,  they  had  been  brought 
back.  Thus  the  academic  half  of  the  school  could  now  boast 
some  thirty  men — Knower  was  forty  and  the  old  man  of  the 
lot — at  once  young,  friends,  enthusiastic  and  medically  san- 
guine. Wherry  was  happy.  He  wrote  of  the  situation  to  his 
mother  who  replied:  "It  must  be  very  nice  indeed  for  so  many 
of  you  young  fellow-student  doctors  to  be  working  in  the 
same  place." 

AS  Wherry  was  thus  seeing  to  a  close  his  first  year  in  Cin- 
cinnati, more  of  what  he  had  done  in  California  came 
into  print. 

Poet  that  he  was,  he  had  asked  early  in  the  season  why  plague 
as  he  knew  it,  was  no  longer  as  hemorrhagic  as  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  men  bled  so  that  it  was  called  the  Black-death. 
"The  social  misery  of  the  fourteenth  century  was  accom- 
panied by  the  prevalence  of  scurvy,  a  disease  which  might  well 
contribute  to  the  degree  of  hemorrhage  which  occurs  in  the 
normal  individual,"  he  wrote.  And  so  in  a  (six-page!) 
paper  [25]  he  told  of  guinea  pigs  made  scurvic  by  bad  feed- 
ing, inoculated  with  nonkilling  strains  of  plague,  which 
showed  more  blood  than  controls  decently  fed.  That  was  the 
answer  to  his  scientific  query;  but  in  getting  it  Wherry  had 
recognized  and  drawn  upon  work  little  known  then,  forgotten 
now — the  important  discoveries  of  Axtel  Hoist  and  Theodor 
Frolich  who  in  trying  to  explain  ship  beri-beri  and  scurvy  had 
pointed  out  the  horrors  of  all  "one-sided"  diets  (the  common 
lot  of  man  in  the  breakfast  food  period,  and  of  the  domesti- 
cated animals  throughout  time) .  Vitamines,  cabbage  and  fat 


1  ^  Q  reputations  were  to  come  to  science  later,  but  here  was  the 
truth  in  1907.  Wherry  saw  the  tragedy  in  the  dumb  martyrs 
about  him.  "My  laboratory  animals/*  he  wrote,  "stock  guinea 
pigs  dead  of  general  anasarca  with  muscular  hemorrhages  .  .  . 
no  bacteria  .  .  .  guinea  pigs  with  scurvy."  How  often  before 
(and  since)  had  they  not  gone  down  in  the  records  of  scientific 
research  as  the  victims  of  this  or  that  experimental  endeavor 
when  thoughtlessness  or  just  crass  ignorance  of  fundamental 
dietary  rules  was  the  real  answer ! 

There  was  further  report  on  rat  leprosy  [26].  He  had  tried 
to  protect  both  white  and  gray  rats  against  the  disease  by  first 
"vaccinating"  them  by  the  injection  of  dead  organisms.  Such 
treatment,  he  said,  did  not  materially  affect  the  outcome  when 
subsequently  inoculated  with  live  organisms,  even  though  in 
one  of  his  ever  modest  addenda  he  spoke  of  the  "marked"  delay 
in  development  of  disease  symptoms  in  two  of  his  animals  over 
the  controls.  Then  he  detailed  a  tricky  way  of  getting  leprosy 
bacilli  "concentrated."  He  ground  up  leprosy  affected  tissues 
in  salt  water,  covered  the  mixture  with  chloroform  and  shook 
it.  The  chloroform  grew  cloudy,  and  evaporation  of  a  drop  of 
it  showed  "millions"  of  lepra  bacilli  "free  from  all  cellular 
elements  and  other  bacteria."  To  finish  this  essay,  he  added 
notes  on  six  lice  that  he  had  taken  from  a  severely  leprous  rat. 
He  had  ground  them  up,  stained  the  mess,  to  find  hundreds 
of  the  bacilli  in  their  intestinal  tracts — thus  leaving  something 
more  for  the  epidemiologist  to  worry  about. 

1909  closed  with  a  description  of  the  "first  case  of  un- 
doubted squirrel  plague  in  man  which  has  come  to  autopsy  in 
America"  [28].  A  (six-page!)  paper  detailed  its  manifesta- 
tions in  a  thirteen-year-old  Portuguese  boy  who  had  been 
shooting  ground  squirrels  near  Niles  (Dr  W  S  Taylor's  dis- 
trict) in  California.  He  had  never  been  away  from  this  inland 
home — had  never,  in  fact,  seen  a  trolley  car — so  probability 
that  he  had  incurred  the  disease  while  visiting  a  water  front 
was  obviously  out.  And  anyway,  no  human  or  rat  plague  had 
been  seen  in  California  for  seven  months  past.  But  a  plague 
infected  squirrel  had  been  found  in  the  region  where  the  boy 
hunted.  He  had  sickened  July  27,  1909.  The  next  day  there 
was  fever  (104°)  ;  and  enlarged  axillary  glands  appeared.  In 
another  twenty- four  hours  he  was  on  his  way  to  a  hospital  in 


Oakland  where  the  glands  were  cut  out;  but  not  examined.  ISO 
Now  the  rest  of  his  lymphatics  swelled  up  but  it  was  five  days 
before  anybody  suspected  plague.  Wherry  was  called  and  in 
a  newly  excised  gland  found  a  lot  of  his  pets,  grew  them  out 
in  glass  tubes  and  scratched  them  into  guinea  pigs  and  rats — 
to  make  them  die.  The  boy  himself  developed  pustules  all  over 
his  body  on  the  tenth  day;  and  these  showed  plague  bacilli. 
Thus,  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  his  disease  he  entered  eternity. 

Autopsy  showed,  besides  the  generally  poisonous  effects  of 
acute  infection,  "bubonic,  lobular  pneumonic  and  pyemic 
plague."  The  combination  was  new,  for  plague  is  usually  con- 
tent to  express  itself  in  but  one  of  these  ways.  The  crystal 
gazers  now  said  that  Wherry's  description  was  what  they  had 
always  recognized  as  squirrel  plague.  Wherry  stated:  "We  have 
never  seen  lesions  of  the  same  nature  in  any  other  case  of 
human  plague;  in  fact,  without  knowledge  of  the  previous 
history  of  the  case  one  would  scarcely  have  suspected  plague 
infection  at  autopsy." 

He  completed  his  literary  year  by  describing  with  Wellman 
(still  in  the  Oakland  college  in  California  but  soon  to  head 
tropical  diseases  at  Tulane)  various  external  [27]  and  inter- 
nal [32]  parasites  of  that  now  so  important  ground  squirrel. 
In  June,  July  and  August,  it  was  written,  they  carried  a  lot 
of  bedbug  like  creatures  in  their  ruffs;  and  in  all  seasons  of 
the  year  another  lot  of  protozoa,  worms  and  mites  in  their  little 
insides. 

Free  for  a  moment  of  the  chains  that  bind  the  man  of  science 
too  closely  to  his  shop,  he  made  a  general  address  to  the  medical 
teachers  of  his  newly  adopted  state  [31].  "The  chief  function 
of  a  medical  school  is  to  turn  out  competent  practitioners," 
he  said.  "Have  the  methods  of  instruction  used  in  the  past 
yielded  the  ideal  practitioner?"  By  no  means,  he  thought,  with 
half  their  diagnoses  proved  wrong  on  the  autopsy  table.  The 
student  had  what  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  called  a  "natural 
incapacity  for  sound  observation,"  and  it  was  the  purpose  of 
the  medical  teacher  to  train  this  out  of  him.  His  best  way  lay 
in  the  use  of  that  best  of  his  tools,  the  laboratory.  "We  fail 
to  apply  the  laboratory  method  to  the  so-called  practical 
branches"  of  medicine,  Wherry  said. 


]AQ  TN  late  September  (1910)  mother  wrote  of  the  rather  terri- 
JL  fying  political  situation  in  India;  and  added  some  statistics 
on  the  health:  "A  teacher  died  of  cholera  at  Edgehill,  then  a 
nurse  and  several  servants."  Receipt  of  this  information  coin- 
cided with  that  of  a  personal  note  from  Wherry's  adored  co- 
worker, J  D  Long,  now  assistant  surgeon- general  U  S  P  H  & 
M  H  service  in  Washington.  Cholera  was  a  more  generalized 
world  menace.  Would  Wherry  be  of  his  private  list  for  call, 
in  case  the  sporadic  cases  that  had  passed  the  U  S  borders  got 
out  of  hand?  "We  want  you  as  diagnostician  for  the  central 
portion  of  the  U  S  in  case  of  need." 

While  standing  thus  ready  for  federal  duty  he  was  not  idle 
at  home.  Emil  Blunden,  physician,  had  removed  seven  Filaria 
loa  from  his  wife's  eyes,  beginning  in  1907  when  the  two  had 
been  stationed  in  Batanga  of  the  Cameroon.  Four  of  the  speci- 
mens had  been  excellently  preserved  by  the  doctor  in  chloral 
hydrate  and  presented  to  Wherry.  Drawings  of  the  worm  in 
scientific  catalogues  had  never  been  good  and  description  of  it, 
confusing.  In  a  ten-page  article  [33]  (senior  authorship  be- 
stowed upon  O  V  Huffman)  Wherry  remedied  these  defects. 
A  bit  later  he  described  in  an  eleven-page  paper  [34]  (senior 
authorship  assigned  to  Paul  G  Woolley)  twenty-two  "spon- 
taneous" tumors  discovered  in  wild  rats.  They  had  been 
"found  during  the  systematic  examinations  of  rats  captured 
or  killed  in  San  Francisco  during  the  campaign  for  the  eradi- 
cation of  plague  (1907—08)."  Wherry  expressed  "regret" 
that  his  report  did  not  deal  with  the  inoculability  of  the  tumors 
— explained  by  a  "lack  of  energy"  and  the  absence  of  "time  for 
experimentation"  because  of  the  demands  of  his  routine.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  tumors  were  of  epithelial  origin,  one-third  of 
connective  tissue;  while  the  half  were  non-malignant  and  the 
other  half,  malignant.  Practically  every  organ  had  been  struck 
by  the  one  or  other  kind.  More  interesting  than  his  descrip- 
tions were  some  side  notes.  Several  of  the  sarcomas  and  one  of 
the  epitheliomas,  for  example,  existed  in  association  with  vari- 
ous parasitic  worms.  In  another  group,  the  "metaplasia  was 
believed  due  to  continued  irritation  of  one  sort  or  another. 
...  It  was  difficult,  however,  to  discover  what  the  cause  of 
the  irritation  was.   .   .   .  There  were  microbic  parasites  pres- 


ent  .   .   ."  Reverting  to  the  general  question  of  what  caused  1  ^1 
tumors  anyway,  he  wrote : 

These  facts  bring  up  the  questions,  whether  it  is  the  worms 
themselves  or  their  secretions  that  are  to  blame  for  the  tumor, 
or  whether  it  is  the  ova  that  are  chiefly  to  blame,  as  in  bilhar- 
ziosis  of  the  bladder  and  intestine. 

Wherry  had  yet  another  hangover  from  California.  It  con- 
cerned a  plague-like  disease  of  squirrels  he  had  encountered 
for  which  no  causal  element  had  been  discovered.  McCoy  was 
shortly  to  fill  in  this  void.  At  the  moment  he  wrote  to  Wherry 
(February  28,  1911): 

The  plague-like  disease  you  mention  is  the  most  puzzling  thing 
we  have  struck.  The  lesions  in  the  squirrels  closely  resemble 
those  of  plague  and  in  the  guinea  pig  they  would  defy  the  most 
experienced  to  distinguish  them.  A  guinea  pig  will  turn  up  on 
the  post  mortem  table  and  from  the  lesions,  none  of  us  can  say 
whether  it  is  plague  or  the  other  thing.  The  cause  of  the  dis- 
ease has  thus  far  eluded  us.  I  have  concluded  that  I  do  not  know 
much  about  cultural  bacteriology  because  of  the  one  hundred 
and  more  attempts  we  have  made  to  isolate  the  organism,  every 
one  of  them  futile.  Maybe  we  will  strike  it  some  day,  but  I  am 
beginning  to  get  rather  discouraged  about  it. 

Better  weather,  however,  lay  ahead.  What  McCoy  had  in 
hand  was  infection  with  a  microorganism  which  before  1911 
was  over,  he  was  to  grow  out  on  laboratory  media  and  to 
baptize — the  Bacterium  tularense. 

EMOTIONAL  background  for  Wherry's  daily  work  was 
of  the  best  in  1911  and  with  trifling  breaks  it  was  so  to 
continue.  The  scientific  neighbors  left  in  California  were  re- 
placed by  friends  newly  made  in  Cincinnati — and  they  grew 
fast  in  number.  Even  the  die-hards  of  his  reconstituted  medi- 
cal faculty  were  increasingly  sure  that  Dabney  had  made  no 
mistake  when  he  brought  Wherry  into  town.  His  immediate 
family  was  well;  and  the  news  from  India  was  good.  February 
14,  1911,  Mother  reported: 

.  .  .  Your  Aunt  Sarah  [sister  of  the  Rev  E  M  Wherry]  has 
put  off  going  [to  U  S]  until  Fall,  as  she  thinks  there  is  so  much 


\C\)  to  be  done  at  Jagroon  [locus  of  her  missionary  labors] ,  and  she 
doesn't  care  to  be  home  for  more  than  a  year.  We  went  to 
Allahabad  and  stayed  three  days  at  Dr  Lucas's.  Nellie  &  Miss 
Mitchell  also  went  &  they  stayed  at  Dr  Arthur  Ewing's.  We 
went  to  see  the  Exposition.  It  was  like  most  of  its  sort  and  was 
really  very  good.  We  had  tea  at  a  tea  house  &  sat  down  with 
some  Missionaries  from  Persia  and  Egypt,  and  some  travellers 
from  Easton,  Pa,  who  had  been  here  before  to  see  us.  Then  we 
went  to  Lucknow,  and  had  for  our  fellow  passengers  the 
coachman  of  the  Viceroy  and  a  young  Mohammedan  who 
early  in  the  morning  spread  his  rug  and  knelt  upon  it  and  went 
through  his  prayers  at  a  great  rate.  The  Conference  was  a  great 
success.  ...  It  was  held  in  the  Isabella  Thoburn  College  of 
the  Meth  Mission.  We  were  entertained  at  the  Deaconess' 
Home,  and  part  of  the  house  was  an  old  tomb,  and  the  Moham- 
medan's grave  was  in  the  corner  of  the  dining  room,  but  under 
the  floor.  Our  hostess  was  a  Miss  Inness.  Her  mother  was  a 
daughter  of  an  old  officer  by  the  name  of  Tanner,  who  lived 
in  Mussoorie  &  had  a  Mohammedan  wife.  When  the  parents 
died,  the  children  were  likely  to  lose  their  money — they  were 
rich — but  they  called  in  a  lawyer  from  South  Africa  who  was 
in  Mussoorie,  &  he  won  their  case  for  them,  then  married  this 
lady's  mother.  Miss  Inness  is  an  honorary  worker  and  is  a  good 
Christian  lady  with  rather  thick  lips  and  woolly  hair  as  her 
father  had  some  African  blood  in  him.  A  good  many  people 
got  ill  there,  from  change  of  food  &  water  perhaps.  I  amongst 
others.  Your  father  kept  up  until  he  got  home,  then  went  to 
bed  with  a  very  bad  cold  &  fever.  We  were  afraid  of  pneu- 
monia, but  after  a  week  in  bed  the  fever  left  him,  though  he 
still  has  a  bad  cough.  Miss  Holiday  of  Persia  and  Dr  Tweimer 
of  Arabia  came  back  with  us  &  they  &  your  father  got  the 
papers  that  were  read  ready  for  print,  and  sent  them  off  to 
Revell  in  N  York.  I  do  hope  that  much  interest  was  roused  for 
the  work  amongst  M's. 

In  the  Methodist  Mission  at  Lucknow,  we  met  a  young  man 
who  is  a  great  grandson  of  our  good  old  friend  who  used  to 
live  in  River  Forest.  He  has  only  been  in  India  a  short  time,  but 
preaches  in  the  English  church  in  Lucknow.  The  Meth's  have 
several  churches  there — nice  large  ones.  ...  It  has  been  so 
cold  this  winter,  but  now  that  the  weather  is  becoming 


warmer,  I  feel  better,  for  I  dislike  the  cold.  .  .  .  How  nice  it  1q^ 
would  be  if  you  could  go  to  Europe  next  summer.  I  think  it 
would  be  nicer  if  you  could  come  on  to  India  to  see  us,  and  the 
sights  here,  but — it  takes  a  lot  of  money  I  know.  There  is  still 
a  good  deal  of  plague  here — not  in  Ludhiana  but  in  India.  One 
morning  the  dakwalla  delivered  our  mail  &  by  the  next 
morning  he  had  died  of  plague. 

Father  was  no  less  realistic  (May  25,  1911)  : 

...  I  add  a  short  letter  to  thank  you  for  the  pamphlets.  I 
am  greatly  interested  in  all  such  study.  The  only  wonder  is, 
that  such  minute  organisms  as  the  filaria  loa  should  occupy  the 
study  of  so  many  great  men  for  such  long  series  of  years.  [In 
his  printed  paper,  Wherry  had  traced  scientific  discussion  of 
the  subject  back  to  Guyot,  1777.]  It  is  also  most  interesting 
that  your  specimen  should  have  been  carried  all  the  way  from 
Africa  to  Cincinnati.  What  wonders  Biology  brings  to  light! 
By  the  way,  I  am  most  interested  in  reading  a  book,  written 
by  your  old  friend  Dr  Snowden  [professor  out  of  W  and  J] 
entitled  The  world  a  spiritual  system. 

August  30,  1911,  marked  a  third  report  of  his  personal 
activities: 

I  have  just  finished  carrying  through  the  Press,  Vol  III 
of  Lucknow  Conference  on  Islam,  entitled  Lucknow  1911.  As 
soon  as  I  get  bound  copies  I  shall  send  you  one.  I  am  carrying 
two  other  vols  through  the  press  ( 1 )  my  Church  History  in 
Roman  Urdu — it  is  only  about  one  quarter  way  as  yet — & 
( 2 )  Vedic  Civilization  in  Roman  Urdu  by  Rev  B  B  Roy,  .  .  . 
I  am  trying  to  unload  &  have  sent  in  my  resignation  of  the 
Hon'y  Sec'yship  of  the  C  L  S  (Pupil  Branch) . 

Mother's  life  with  him  in  the  country  (Lai  Tibba,  Septem- 
ber 7,  1911)  was  less  hectic:  "It  is  nearly  tiffin  time,  and  as  I 
am  housekeeper,  I'll  have  to  stop  writing  and  attend  to  it."  A 
month  later,  in  a  letter  carefully  marked  "keep"  by  Wherry, 
the  father  told  his  life's  story  (October  12,  1911): 

It  is  just  44  years  since  your  mother  and  I  left  Honey  Brook 
for  India,  via  Boston  &  Calcutta.  Many  changes  have  occurred 
since  then.  We  have  grown  old  and  gray.  Our  children  (ex- 
cepting two  whom  you  never  saw)  are  still  in  the  land  of  the 


164 


living,  and  with  them  ten  grandchildren.  All  of  my  brothers 
and  sisters  are  living,  excepting  your  Aunt  Nancy,  and  your 
mother's  only  sister.  This  is  a  wonderful  record  for  which  we 
are  thankful.  Though  separated,  we  have  had  intercourse  by 
letter  and  occasional  visit.   .   .   . 

My  printed  accounts  will  show  [of  the  missionary  move- 
ment] its  progress  during  the  decade  1901—1910.  I  also  sent 
[you]  a  similar  report  for  the  C  L  S  (Pupil  Branch).  The 
figures  might  interest  some  of  your  friends. 

For  the  C  L  S,  I  published  in  1900-191 1,  in  Urdu  &  Pan- 
jabi,  95  books,  making  221,000  volumes.  For  the  American 
Tract  Society,  84  books  &  Tracts  =  200,000  vols.  This  totals 
1 79  books — nearly  all  new  and  all  produced  under  my  direc- 
tion— some  of  them  my  own  and  original.  In  all  there  are 
421,000  books  &  tracts.  Add  to  this: 

2000  copies,  Islam  in  India  &  the  Far  East 
1000  Islam  refuted  on  its  oivn  grounds 

1000  Present  state  of  Moslem  controversy 

1000      "      Mohammedan  controversy 
1000  History  of  the  church  (Roman  Urdu) 

along  with  numerous  articles  in  American  reviews  &  periodi- 
cals, and  my  constant  work  in  editing  the  Nur  Afshan  as 
English  Weekly  for  8  years  and  in  vernacular  Urdu  for  1 1 
years  &  you  will  see  that  I  have  not  been  idle.  I  also  compiled 
&  edited  the  Annual  Report  for  1 1  years — each  of  100  pages 
in  range — and  also  one  vol  Cairo  Conf  Report  &  one  of  Luck- 
now.  Pardon  this  personal  history — I  have  never  spoken  of  it 
to  any  one  before. 

In  my  report  to  Government  I  showed  growth  of  our  Indian 
Christian  community  within  the  bounds  of  our  Mission  only: 

In  1901,  Organized  churches  were                      20 — in  1910,  25=  gain  5 

Meeting  places  for  worship  were          38 — "  "  82  =  gain  44 

Communicant  members  were  2,083 — "  "  5,402  =  gain  3,319 
"       Adherents    (Baptized  children 

&c)   were  3,376—"  "  10,817  =  gain  7,441 
"       Presbyterian   Native  Commu- 
nity was  5,459 — "  "  16,219  =  gain  10,760 

These  are  all  included  in  the  Indian  'Presbyterian  Churchy 
which  has  14  presbyteries,  5  synods  and  a  general  assembly, 
which  Church  numbers  about  5  0,000  members. 


The  men  who  write  devoid  of  creed  to  show  the  failure  of  1  qS 
missions  do  not  know  what  they  are  talking  about.  .   .   .  We 
are  planning  to  go  home  again  in  1913.  I  feel  that  the  strain 
of  8  l/z  years  is  too  much  at  our  age. 

Mother  was  a  bit  less  concentrated.  November  29,  1911, 
she  wrote: 

.  .  .  The  Board  has  been  visiting  us.  They  are  just  giving  a 
few  days  to  each  Mission,  but  no  doubt  will  know  all  about  it 
when  they  get  home!  .  .  .  Dr  Noble  got  a  good  deal  of 
money  while  she  was  in  America,  also  a  good  big  sterilizer,  so 
they  are  prospering  all  around. 

Late  in  December,  she  continued: 

I  am  thankful  to  say  that  we  are  all  living  and  pretty  well. 
We  had  what  was  called  the  Bradt  party,  who  are  travelling 
around  the  world  visiting  Missions.  There  were  9  in  the  party. 
....  At  Dehra  your  father  met  Nellie  with  a  lot  of  Wood- 
stock girls  &  came  home  on  the  same  train  with  her.  When  he, 
your  father,  got  home  at  1.30  at  night,  he  saw  that  7  was  not 
in  bed,  and  after  looking  all  about  &  not  finding  me  he  asked 
Mohammed  Baksh,  where  the  mem  sahib  was,  and  he  giggled 
and  said  "Dilli  Kogaya."  The  day  before  Miss  James,  one  of 
our  missionaries,  came  in  &  said  that  she  &  several  other  ladies 
were  going,  and  begged  me  to  go  along,  so  I  thought  it  would 
be  a  good  joke  on  your  father.  .  .  .  They  were  young  Rajahs 
and  looked  so  nice  on  their  fine  horses.  That  was  the  day  the 
King  &  Queen  arrived  at  Delhi.  We  got  there  at  5  ock  in  the 
morning  having  left  Ludhiana  at  2.30  the  afternoon  before. 
From  the  R  R  station  to  the  Fort — not  much  more  than  a 
mile — the  roads  were  lined  with  soldiers.  A  salute  of  1 0 1  guns 
was  fired — first  3  3  guns  were  fired,  then  a  fieu  de  joie  went  off 
— which  was  a  click  of  every  gun,  one  quickly  after  the  other 
— then  3  3  more,  then  another  fieu  de  joie  &  3  5  guns  &c.  By 
this  time  they  had  reached  the  Fort  by  another  gate  &  inside 
had  "received"  the  Rajahs,  then  they  came  out  our  gate.  It 
was  a  sight  worth  seeing  &  I  left  at  4  ock  that  afternoon  & 
reached  Ludhiana  at  5  in  the  morning,  tired  but  pleased.  I  then 
persuaded  your  father  and  Nellie  to  go  down  for  Coronation 
Day,  which  they  did,  and  which  they  have  not  regretted.  That 


1  66  ^ay  z^e  King  surPrisec*  everybody  by  proclaiming  that  Delhi 
1*JU  was  hereafter  to  be  the  Capitol  of  India,  instead  of  Calcutta. 
Before  he  left  the  King  laid  the  foundation  stone  of  the  new 
Capitol  building.  Then  he  divided  Bengal  in  a  way  which  has 
pleased  the  Hindus.  Lord  Curzon  had  displeased  them  very 
much  by  the  way  he  divided  it,  then  there  were  other  surprises 
which  I  don't  remember. 


FORT  THOMAS,  KENTUCKY,  1911 


1912-1915 


VIII 


MATTERS  did  not  change  with  1912.  Father  wrote  that 
"the  strain  of  work  since  Annual  Meeting  had  been 
very  great,"  including,  besides  home  duties,  "Trustees*  meet- 
ings, University  Convocations,  General  Assembly  in  Bombay 
— a  ten-day  absence — and  two  visits  weekly  to  Jagroon  to 
superintend  building."  Mother  thought  "it  seemed  to  agree 
with  him  to  have  to  drive  about — it  took  him  from  his  desk, 
altho'  he  had  plenty  of  work  to  do  at  that."  Father  wished  that 
he  could  go  home  to  his  "class  jubilee  at  W  &  J.  I  have  missed 
every  reunion  since  I  graduated."  He  warned  Wherry:  "I  fear 
you  are  overworking  your  eyes.  Your  photo  suggests  the 
thought."  Innocent  of  the  fact  that  his  granddaughter  in 
Chicago  had  already  been  struck,  he  continued:  "I  hope  that 
awful  plague — infantile  paralysis — will  not  reach  you.  I  have 
been  reading  up  on  it.  We  have  nothing  worse  than  ordinary 
bubonic,  and  smallpox  and  measles  here!"  January  30,  1912, 
Mother  noted: 

A  lot  of  poppies  of  a  large  variety  have  come  up  in  our  garden 
&  I'm  having  them  planted  in  beds — they  look  pretty  when 
in  bloom,  and  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  am  encouraging  the  use  of 
opium!  I  have  a  few  chickens  which  lay  nice  large  eggs,  but 
I  think  we'll  eat  up  the  fowls  before  we  go  up  hill  in  June.  If 
left  with  the  sweeper,  most  of  them  will  disappear — "wild- 
cats, jackals  &c"  are  said  to  carry  them  off,  but  we  know  very 
well  that  most  of  them  are  sold. 

3 1  st  One  of  our  Christian  women  asked  me  to  trade  my 
5  good  fowls  for  the  common  kind  which  she  has,  so  I  have 
done  it.  I  had  told  her  that  we  were  going  to  eat  them,  so  she 
was  glad  to  make  the  exchange,  as  she  wants  to  raise  some. 

By  March  things  had  grown  less  sunny: 

.  .  .  Robt  Lakewood  had  to  leave  the  Mission  &  India — he 
confessed  to  having  lived  a  vile  life  out  here.  Went  home  a 
year  ago  &  came  out  in  Nov,  then  his  conscience  seemed  to 


170 


trouble  him  &  he  made  some  awful  confessions.  You  remem- 
ber I  warned  you  about  inviting  him  to  your  house,  when  he 
was  in  Am.  It  is  an  awful  shock  to  the  Mission.  He  tried  twice 
to  kill  himself. 

On  Friday  the  Women's  Home  Misy  Soc  is  to  meet  here. 
We  have  about  3  5  members.  I  usually  serve  tea  &  doughnuts. 
We  have  been  giving  out  money  through  the  Presbyterial 
Soc'y  to  help  support  a  Bible  Woman  at  Jagroon,  but  she  has 
left  that  work  so  we  will  have  to  decide  what  our  money  will 
be  spent  for.  This  morning  I  was  down  in  the  city  in  my  jin 
&  I  met  a  nice  phaeton,  with  a  Hindu  lady  &  her  little  girl 
beside  her  riding  through  the  bazaar.  Women  are  coming  out 
more  than  they  used  to,  and  are  wanting  schools.  In  our  school 
there  are  about  8  0  Mohammedan  girls  and  3  0  Hindus.  For  the 
latter  we  have  a  separate  room  &  a  teacher,  as  they  are  taught 
Hindi,  while  the  M's  are  taught  Urdu.  They  have  a  Bible  lesson 
every  day,  and  are  taught  to  sew  too.  We  have  a  Eurasian  lady 
as  principal  teacher.  I  visit  it  as  often  as  I  can. 

Sometimes  horrible  things  occur  here.  One  night  two  weeks 
ago,  the  wife  of  Rev  Mr  Wood  of  the  Church  of  England  Miss 
in  Lahore  was  wakened  by  some  one  trying  to  smother  her — 
her  husband  had  gone  to  Allahabad.  She  tried  to  scream  &  saw 
a  big  Pathan  standing  over  her  with  a  knife  in  his  hand.  She 
caught  his  hand  &  cut  her  own  terribly,  and  yelled  so  that  she 
was  heard.  He  was  a  young  Theological  Student  in  her  hus- 
band's school.  He  ran  &  got  into  his  bed,  but  was  arrested.  His 
clothes  were  covered  with  blood  so  it  was  easy  to  tell  who  the 
guilty  one  was.  He  was  tried  &  sentenced  to  1 2  years  rigorous 
imprisonment  &  a  fine  of  Rs  1000 — in  default  of  payment 
he  gets  2  more  years  of  jail. 


"\T7THERRY  had  bowed  into  the  year  with  a  paper  [35]. 
\ty  A  four-page  account  dealt  with  the  killing  effects  of 
the  alkaloid  of  ipecac,  emetine.  Medical  men  had  long  used  the 
drug,  by  mouth  or  by  injection,  in  their  treatment  of  amoebic 
dysentery;  but  no  scientific  study  of  the  matter  had  ever  been 
made  until  an  army  surgeon  (E  B  Vedder)  tried  out  the  mate- 
rial in  test  tubes.  Emetine  had  thus  been  found  to  be  rather 
good  as  a  strangler  of  various  protozoa;  but,  what  Wherry 


felt  equally  important,  effective,  too,  in  holding  down  the  '  "71 
growth  of  various  bacteria.  This  pleased  him,  because  amoebic 
dysentery  in  man  always  appears  as  such  a  double  infection; 
in  fact  it  was  by  the  institution  of  this  *  'symbiosis' '  that 
Musgrave  and  Clegg  had  succeeded  in  growing  the  amoebae 
of  dysentery  in  glass  vessels.  Via  this  method,  back  in  1909, 
Wherry  had  isolated  a  single  amoeba  from  the  tap-water  in 
Oakland  along  with  a  harmless  bacterium.  Three  years  later 
their  descendants  were  still  going  strong.  Well,  here  was  a 
protozoan-bacterium  mixture  much  like  that  always  found  in 
human  instances  of  amoebic  dysentery.  What  would  emetine 
do  to  it?  Wherry  asked.  It  killed  both  parties,  he  found,  but 
only  after  many  hours  of  subjection  to  the  poison,  when  the 
temperature  was  right,  and  if  the  amoebae  had  not  armored 
themselves  by  encystment. 

In  the  summer  he  went  to  the  Marine  laboratory  in  Woods 
Hole  where  Mother  wrote  him  of  her  mid-year  vacation  (July 
9,1912): 

...  I  had  a  bad  cook,  so  rather  than  try  to  get  another  one, 
we  accepted  Miss  Mitchell's  offer  to  come  here  [to  the  hills  in 
Mussoorie].  We  had  a  letter  from  your  sister  this  week  in 
which  she  told  us  of  your  having  been  made  a  full  Professor, 
Will.  I  want  to  congratulate  you  upon  this — and  to  say  that 
we  are  very  glad.  You  told  us  that  your  salary  had  been  raised 
and  we  rejoice  with  you  over  that  too. 

.  .  .  They  are  greatly  in  need  of  rain  in  the  Pan  jab.  The 
ferns  on  the  trees  show  that  it  is  coming.  A  lady  Miss'y  of  the 
Church  of  England  died  lately  of  heat  apoplexy.  There  are 
not  so  many  cases  of  plague — there  never  are,  when  the  heat 
is  so  great.  I  send  a  cutting  [on  T  B  prevention]  for  you  to 
read  but  I  dare  say  you  know  it  all.  Our  pastor  has  been  sent 
to  Almora  where  there  is  a  sort  of  sanatorium  for  treating 
tuberculosis.  They  give  injections  &  feed  patients  on  certain 
things. 

He  had  dragged  along  his  amoeba  to  wet-nurse  by  the  sea- 
shore, having  diagnosed  it  in  Cincinnati  as  one  of  the  Limax 
group,  more  determinately  vahlkampfia,  species  No  1.  This 
meant  that  it  never  grew  tails.  He  was  just  trying  to  discover 


"70  what  kind  of  culture  ground  would  most  definitely  yield  his 
protozoon  the  more  abundant  life,  when,  behold!  he  found 
this  "fixed"  species  possessed  of  "the  ability  to  turn,  appar- 
ently at  will,  into  actively  motile  flagellated  form"  [39]. 
This  was  a  change  in  biological  nature  as  violent  as  when  a 
nigger  goes  white,  or  a  chicken  develops  webbed  feet.  Wherry 
loved  the  antics  of  his  amoeba  so  much  that  he  got  enthusiastic 
— he  wrote  an  eighteen-page  article  about  it,  plus  a  fine  set 
of  his  own  wash  drawings.  What  he  wanted  most,  however, 
was  knowledge  of  the  conditions  that  had  wrought  this  change 
from  gelatinous  droplet  to  flagellate.  Why  had  other  men 
never  seen  it?  They  had  grown  tired,  for  one  thing,  when  they 
had  cultivated  their  amoebae  but  a  little  while.  Wherry  had 
observed  his  microorganism  "daily,  for  a  year"  but  still  felt 
it  only  "a  beginning  towards  an  insight  into  the  life  history 
of  a  single  species."  Also,  they  had  paid  no  attention  to  the 
kind  of  food  fed  their  amoebae,  either  in  the  general  substrate 
or  the  bacteria. 

Wherry  got  these  matters  under  control.  As  to  the  bacteria, 
they  seemed  to  make  no  difference,  but  as  to  the  substances 
furnished  in  general  food  supply,  this  made  a  lot.  The  amoebse 
were  being  raised  on  an  egg-white  fodder,  and  when  so  nour- 
ished never  got  out  of  their  pudding  form;  but  as  soon  as  a 
little  egg-yolk — shades  of  the  viosterols! — was  added,  they 
made  themselves  into  independent,  free-swimming  forms. 
Plenty  of  drinking  water  and  fresh  air  also  helped.  Under 
such  circumstances  "literally  hundreds  or  thousands  of  flagel- 
lates" developed  out  of  their  slimy  ancestors — to  return  to 
their  slimy  form  when  again  submerged  in  an  environmental 
diet  less  rich. 

Wherry's  study  of  Limax  was  an  extension  merely,  of  his 
Philippine  labors — further  incursion  of  the  field  of  "varia- 
tion" in  species  as  inducible  through  changes  in  environment. 
Besides  his  amoeba,  he  had  busied  himself  with  another  organ- 
ism— the  bacillus  of  tuberculosis.  Two  elements  in  its  physical 
make-up  had  always  appeared  as  "variants" — some  of  the 
bacilli  would  at  times  develop  within  themselves  bodies  which 
in  other  bacteria  were  designated  "spores";  and  yet  others 
would  lose  their  "acid-fastness." 

As  to  the  spores,  [3  6]  two  or  three  of  these  commonly  ap- 


THE  ASSOCIATE  PROFESSOR  OF  BACTERIOLOGY  IN 
CINCINNATI'S  REVAMPED  COLLEGE  OF  MEDICINE,  1912 


I  "7 'A  peared  as  more  intensely  stained  spots  bulging  from  the  main 
diameter  of  the  bacillus.  Wherry  recalled  that  such  varieties 
usually  turned  up  in  old  tuberculous  lesions,  like  lung  cavi- 
ties. Here  infection  is  generally  of  the  "mixed"  variety,  in 
other  words,  the  tubercle  bacilli  grow  in  conjunction  with 
other  microorganisms.  Wherry  repeated  this  state  of  affairs  in 
test  tubes  by  growing  his  tubercle  bacillus  in  double.  "Spores" 
appeared  regularly  when  the  Bacillus  coli  was  house  guest. 

The  effects  of  the  latter  upon  the  culture  medium  furnished 
the  tubercle  bacillus  a  something  necessary  for  the  production 
by  it  of  the  fat-like  substance  characteristic  of  the  "spores," 
Wherry  believed.  What  this  might  be,  was  an  alcohol,  he 
thought.  Wherefore  he  prepared  a  series  of  soups  of  exact  com- 
position for  culture  of  the  organism.  They  consisted  of  salts 
dissolved  in  water  with  a  bit  of  ammonia  added  (as  a  source 
of  nitrogen)  and  then  an  alcohol  of  some  sort.  In  all  of  them 
there  was  luxuriant  growth.  Any  alcohol  did  the  organism 
good  but  some  were  better  than  others.  Best  of  all  for  the  pro- 
duction of  "spores"  was  propyl  alcohol.  Thus  another  "varia- 
tion" in  morphology  was  proved  to  be  dependent  upon  the 
kind  of  food  furnished  the  organism  in  its  environment. 

These  studies  showed  Wherry  that  the  presence  of  certain 
food  substances  improved  not  only  the  opportunities  for  the 
development  of  "spores"  but  for  the  development  of  "acid- 
fastness"  by  the  organism  in  general.  The  term  is  statement 
for  a  characteristic  of  the  bacillus  of  tuberculosis  not  common 
to  the  general  run  of  microorganisms.  Back  in  the  seventies 
of  the  eighteen-hundreds,  observers  with  their  microscopes 
found  that  by  pouring  the  newly  discovered  aniline  dyes  over 
their  bacteria  or  the  slices  of  tissue  they  had  prepared  for 
microscopic  examination,  certain  parts  (like  the  bacteria  or 
the  nuclei  of  cells)  took  up  the  dye,  thus  to  expose  themselves 
as  more  strongly  differentiated  figures  against  a  less  defined 
background.  By  this  method  the  great  Robert  Koch  had  first 
made  visible  the  rod  shaped  organisms  which,  buried  in  tissue, 
he  held  to  be  the  cause  of  tuberculosis.  But  all  organisms  could 
be  "stained"  by  such  method.  What  Koch  now  brought 
out  was  that  the  tubercle  bacillus,  once  so  stained,  resisted 
destaining  if  bathed  in  acid.  All  other  organisms,  after  such 
ablution,  yielded  up  their  cosmetics,  the  tubercle  bacillus  alone 


(like  some  other  organisms  to  be  discovered  later)  being  "acid-  '  "7  S 
fast."  Acid-fastness  thus  became  a  characteristic  of  the  germ. 
Wherry  had  long  had  in  hand  a  strain  of  B  tuberculosis 
gotten  out  of  Koch's  laboratory  in  1888  by  his  distinguished 
pupil,  Victor  C  Vaughan  ( *  1 8  5 1 ,  the  one-time  Latin  teacher 
who  as  professor  of  hygiene  and  physiological  chemistry  in 
Michigan's  university  showed  how  flies,  sloppiness  and  typhoid 
in  1898  killed  and  maimed  more  American  soldiers  than 
Spanish  bullets).  Even  then  it  had  been  the  106th  transplant 
from  one  of  Koch's  first  cultures.  Wherry  had  watched  it  for 
some  years  himself,  transplanting  it  to  a  new  garden  every 
two  months.  Time  and  this  hard  life  had  tamed  the  brute. 
In  1 9 1 3  Wherry  described  it  as  a  "saprophyte" — meaning  that 
it  could  no  longer  produce  disease,  even  when  injected  into 
the  least  resistant  of  animals,  the  guinea  pig.  Correlative  sign 
of  its  weakness  was  the  organism's  inability  to  retain  color — 
it  was  no  longer  "acid- fast"  (acid-proof,  as  Wherry  said 
correctly  in  his  meticulous  English) .  Wherry  would  see  [37] 
what  in  laboratory  life  had  thus  brought  down  the  old  "cap- 
tain of  the  men  of  death."  He  grew  it  out  once  more  on  the 
meanest  of  culture  grounds,  but  one  of  which  he  knew  the 
exact  composition.  In  these,  "acid-fastness"  never  appeared. 
Whereafter  he  added  various  alcohols,  and  various  sugars;  and 
now  the  acid- fastness  returned,  even  to  the  point  where  all 
the  "rods"  stained  deeply.  The  vinegars  and  ammonium  salts 
(or  the  simple  ammoniacal  compounds  found  in  digested 
meat)  along  with  some  simple  sugars  or  the  alcohols  (propyl 
and  glycerine)  were  all  that  was  needed.  Thus  he  made  another 
"inborn  characteristic"  of  a  "species"  merely  a  matter  of  its 
"environment." 


FEBRUARY  7,  1913,  Hektoen  wrote:  "To  come  to  the 
point  at  once — I  would  like  very  much  to  know  whether 
you  would  care  to  come  back  to  Chicago  and  work  in  the 
Memorial  Institute." 

Ever  since  Wherry  had  been  brought  as  subaltern  to 
Cincinnati,  Hektoen's  blood  had  boiled.  Now  the  new  John 
McCormick  building  and  hospital  for  infectious  diseases,  of 
which  he  was  chief,  was  about  to  be  opened  on  Chicago's  West 


i  ~]  r\  Side.  The  master  had  opportunity  for  the  first  time  to  proffer 
Wherry  those  better  backgrounds  for  his  work  that  its  quality 
deserved.  But  matters  medical  down  in  Cincinnati,  too,  had 
taken  a  turn.  Woolley  had  been  dean  three  years,  and  no  job 
had  ever  been  worth  that  much  time  to  him.  Furthermore, 
Cincinnati's  new  great  hospital  was  about  to  open.  It  was 
shortly  to  be  the  body  of  Cincinnati's  medical  school.  Chris- 
tian R  Holmes  had  built  it;  was  now  looked  to,  to  run  it.  He 
was  professor,  also,  in  the  college — what  better  sense  than  to 
make  him  the  boss  of  the  whole  outfit?  First  of  his  orders  con- 
cerned Wherry  who  would  henceforth  be  head  of  a  new  and 
separate  department — bacteriology  and  preventive  medicine 
— at  increased  salary.  Wherefore  Wherry  replied  to  Hektoen's 
letter  as  follows  (February  15,1913): 

I  was  very  glad  to  get  your  kind  note  but  hardly  know  how 
to  answer  it.  There  are  many  reasons  why  I  should  like  to  be 
in  Chicago.  On  the  other  hand  I  have  felt  quite  well  satisfied 
here  for  they  have  fulfilled  all  their  promises — given  me  a  full 
professorship  at  3000  and  required  only  3  months  of  teaching. 
In  a  year  we  will  be  in  our  new  pathology  building.  The  only 
unpleasant  complication  I  can  foresee  is  the  possibility  of  a 
shortage  in  equipment  and  supplies. 

Then,  it  has  been  a  great  source  of  satisfaction  that  the 
men  here  have  not  urged  me  to  "make  good"  by  publishing 
something  every  three  months.  I  am  very  slow  in  planning 
and  carrying  out  experimental  work  and  in  analyzing  the 
results;  and  any  urging  would  upset  the  apple  cart,  I'm  sure. 
This  is  especially  true  since  I  have  had  an  obsession  concerning 
the  importance  of  going  back  and  beginning  the  study  of  the 
biology  of  bacteria  all  over  again;  and  work  with  synthetic 
media  is,  to  say  the  least,  discouraging.  Such  work,  aided  by 
the  principles  of  selection,  seems  to  me  to  offer  as  great  possi- 
bilities and  results  as  those  that  have  been  obtained  by  bota- 
nists. So,  if  nothing  interferes,  I  think  I  will  keep  on  with  this 
sort  of  work. 

On  the  ancient  principle  that  it  never  rains  but  it  pours — 
Wherry  was  thirty-eight  and  had  lived  through  many  drought 
years — three  further  requests  came  to  him.  W  G  MacCallum, 
professor  of  pathology  in  Columbia,  asked:  "I  am  writing  to 


see  whether  we  could  tempt  you  to  come  to  New  York."  "7 "7 
Edwin  O  Jordan  of  the  university  of  Chicago  inquired  (May 
8,  1913) :  "Would  it  be  possible  for  you,  and  would  you  con- 
sider it  worth  while  to  come  here  for  the  spring  quarter  of 
1914?"  May  30,  1913,  he  wrote  further:  "I  shall  not  be  able 
to  get  more  than  $800  from  the  president  for  this,  but  there 
is  another  fund  I  can  tap  for  $200.  Write  me  formal  accep- 
tance on  the  $800  basis  and  we  can  consider  the  matter 
clinched."  Now  Wherry's  Manila  friend,  John  R  McDill, 
returned  to  Milwaukee  for  living  and  to  Rush  in  Chicago  for 
teaching,  wrote:  "I  need  a  man  like  you  for  the  biological 
part  of  it.  Perhaps,"  he  added,  "we  can  get  the  U  C  to  put 
in  a  dept  of  trop  medicine."  But  anything  as  needed,  or  good 
and  great  as  that,  was,  of  course,  never  to  be.  This  tropical 
zephyr  merely  died  in  Chicago's  windy  corridors. 

McDill  added  in  subsequent  letters  opinion  and  advice 
which  publicly  or  privately  viewed  are  worthy  of  note. 
November  16,  1913,  he  wrote: 

I  wish  you  could  see  how  some  of  the  clinics  are  at  present 
conducted  at  Rush.  One  of  the  best  surgical  clinics  that  I  ever 
saw  was  given  by  Frank  Billings ;  another  by  Bertram  Sippy. 
An  evening  program  supposed  to  be  surgical  was  by  Rosenow, 
Billings  and  Mix. 

Whereafter  he  added : 

I  am  telling  you  this  even  tho  you  know  about  it,  because  I 
want  to  point  out  to  you  the  advantage  of  employing  your 
latent  abilities  as  an  internist — the  advantage  to  the  patient, 
your  laboratory,  your  enthusiasm  and,  incidentally,  your 
pocket-book.  You  may  have  been  cultivating  that  side — I  hope 
you  have — but  if  you  have  not,  I  advise  you  to  affirm  that  you 
are  open  to  practical  work  when  it  promises  to  be  worth  while 
to  you  scientifically. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Wherry  had  been,  was  and  was  to 
continue  at  just  such  program.  With  Woolley  and  Forch- 
heimer,  Saturday  mornings  were  already  given  over  to  "patho- 
logico-clinical  conferences."  As  to  insistence  upon  freedom  to 
do  as  he  wished  about  any  sick  man  who  made  appeal  to  him, 
this  was  principle  with  Wherry  that  endured  throughout  his 
life.  Any  narrowing  of  medical  activity  or  mind,  whether  it 


"7Q  came  through  collegiate  designation  as  "full-time"  instructor 
or  as  restriction  in  scientifically  applied  labor  for  the  ill — 
every  mounting  "requirement"  or  formulation  of  "standard" 
in  "teaching" — was  anathema.  Free  souls,  freely  thinking  and 
working  as  they  pleased  were  his  ideal,  from  medical  student 
to  dying  doctor.  His  scientific  labors  might  correctly  enough 
have  led  to  increased  revenue  (it  was  "moral"  and  he  needed  the 
money)  yet  such  never  came  to  him.  This  was  because  all  who 
knocked  might  enter — their  diseases  were  the  same,  weren't 
they? — and  those  without  funds  always  constituted  the  ma- 
jority of  his  "practice."  His  ill  were  those  that  the  medical 
world  had  rejected,  for  which  it  believed  nothing  more  could 
be  done — a  lot  of  cancers,  paralyses  and  the  generally  maimed 
in  joints  or  muscles  or  nerves.  With  them  came  another  non- 
paying  clientele,  esoteric  in  its  demand  for  the  best — doctors 
or  missionaries. 

Still  speaking  into  the  blue  of  the  marginal  medicine  of  the 
moment,  McDill  wrote: 

We  were  enormously  impressed  by  Rosenow's  work  on  sec- 
ondary bone,  muscle  and  joint  infections.  Simply  monu- 
mental! And  only  a  few  days  ago  he  cultivated  an  organism 
from  a  human  stomach  ulcer,  and  reproduced  the  ulcer  in  a 
dog  by  injection  of  the  organism  into  its  general  blood  stream! 
.  .  .  Two  of  the  surgeons  up  from  your  city  got  a  little 
excited  at  the  prospect  of  losing  you.  Let  them  guess;  it  will 
do  no  harm. 

The  summer  of  1913  again  took  Wherry  to  Woods  Hole. 
He  answered  a  letter  of  mine,  enthusiastic  about  the  Cana- 
dians, as  follows  (July  21,  1913): 

Have  been  trying  to  convince  you  for  several  years  that  the 
English  are  the  real  cream  of  the  earth's  population,  i  e  the  top 
scum.  I  can  now  bend  my  energies  toward  converting  you 
along  other  lines  e  g  that  every  cell  is  surrounded  by  a  true 
semipermeable  membrane.  The  only  reason  why  you  can't  see 
"how  in  the  devil  the  cell  can  then  live,"  is,  because  you  don't 
know,  nor  does  anyone  else  know,  what  a  semipermeable  mem- 
brane is!  Yet  they  teach  the  students  here,  all  about  it.  You 
ought  to  visit  us;  it  would  do  you  good. 

Opinion  on  some  of  his  coworkers  followed:  "A  P  Mathews 


finds  himself  the  only  insurgent  left  among  the  older  men."      "7Q 
H  B  Ward,  Edward  B  Meigs  and  G  L  Kite  (of  whom  more, 
later)  came  in  for  warm  praise.  Of  a  man  who  had  become  one 
of  my  critics,  he  wrote: 

He  is  really  a  very  nice  fellow,  but  my  dear  Boy,  you  may  never 
fear  that  he  will  someday  flocculate  your  colloids.  He  has  just 
as  much  originality  as  a  sulphur-crested  cockatoo.  But  then, 
that  is  what  makes  him  such  a  nice  fellow.  I'm  tired  of  these 
damned  original  grumps  who  live  in  everlasting  terror  lest 
some  other  damned  original  grump  beat  them  to  a  hypothetical 
explanation  of  a  problem  unexplainable.  Here,  for  example, 
they  are  still  harping  on  the  old  idea  that  every  type  of  germ- 
plasm  is  of  a  specific  kind  &  can  only  give  rise  in  each  instance 
to  a  specific  type  of  organism — and  yet  if  they  would  but 
reflect  a  bit  they  might  recall  the  fact  recognized  by  all  lay- 
men since  earliest  times,  that  the  human  ovum,  at  times  and 
in  places,  not  infrequently  gives  rise  to  an  ass. 

I  had  a  devil  of  a  time  with  my  rabbits.  They  cost  me  about 
$2.00  &  you  should  have  seen  me  going  up  5th  ave  N  Y  with 
the  rabbit  box!  Now  besides  them,  I  had  to  take  care  of  a 
family  of  seven — 1  wife,  2  kids,  2  parti-colored  rats  and  2 
white  mice.  Things  would  have  been  easier  if  I  had  given  the 
mice  away  and  raised  more  kids. 

Medical  registration,  because  of  mounting  requirements  for 
admission,  had  gone  into  a  tail  spin  in  Cincinnati.  Wherry 
commented:  "Dabney  is  rather  discouraged  about  students 
for  next  year — thinks  we  may  have  3  or  4  freshmen  if  we're 
lucky.  Well,  goodbye." 


WHEN  Wherry  returned  to  Cincinnati  for  the  1913 
medical  school  opening,  his  contribution  to  Forch- 
heimer's  five- volume  Therapeusis  of  internal  diseases  awaited 
him.  Frederick  Forchheimer  had  in  1908  hit  the  medical 
writing  bull's-eye  with  a  one-volume  text,  Prophylaxis  and 
treatment  of  internal  diseases.  Physiologically  trained  and  a 
scholarly  critic  of  his  professional  world,  which  in  getting 
increasingly  right  in  diagnosis  had  gone  increasingly  wrong 
in  doing  anything  for  the  stricken,  his  single  volume  text  came 


1  80  as  new  §osPe^ t0  na^  tne  doctors  of  U  S — the  only  group  left 
on  earth  after  a  holocaust  of  scientific  "advance"  with  even 
remnants  of  interest  in  treatment  remaining.  The  success  of 
the  volume  had  made  its  publishers  cry  for  more,  and  this 
five-volume  text  had  been  the  answer.  It  had  taken  Forch- 
heimer  almost  £.ve  years  to  edit  the  work  and  the  labor  of  it 
killed  him  (tJune  1,  1913). 

His  nose  had  ferreted  out  Wherry  to  assume  responsibility 
for  a  section  on  Tropical  diseases — the  commission  referred 
to  as  something  to  be  held  secret  three  years  earlier.  Not  wish- 
ing to  do  it  all  by  himself,  Wherry  had  suggested,  and  had  had 
added  as  coworkers,  Woolley  and  Wellman.  The  three  did  a 
fine  job.  These  notes  relating  to  Wherry's  part  are  not  in  con- 
sequence to  be  taken  as  criticism — other  men  in  other  chapters 
might  as  readily  have  been  taken  for  example;  they  are  picked 
upon  merely  as  contrasting  background  for  what  was  Wherry. 
Publishers  and  editors  write  "blurbs"  about  their  writers  in 
which  they  list  their  degrees,  where  they  held  job,  cite  in  brief 
their  qualifications  for  the  task  in  hand.  It  required  five 
printed  lines  to  tell  of  Woolley's  past;  three  to  tell  of  Well- 
man's;  Wherry  got  a  half.  It  said:  "Associate  Professor  of 
Bacteriology,  University  of  Cincinnati."  A  later  issue  added: 
"A  B,  D  D,"  which  silently  pleased  him;  and  gave  him  endless 
amusement. 

He  had  been  commissioned  to  cover  as  many  pages  as  he 
would.  Paid  for  by  the  folio  and  needing  the  money,  here  was 
opportunity.  Altogether,  the  section  devoted  to  tropical  dis- 
eases covered  209  pages.  Wherry  took  41.  Standing  in  my 
laboratory  with  the  finished  manuscript  in  his  hand  he  an- 
nounced: "This  is  all  there  is  to  be  said  on  these  subjects." 

I  have  stressed  before  how  Wherry  was  never  better  than 
when  draughting  the  outlines  of  some  "general"  subject.  He 
had  uncanny  sense  of  where  the  simpler  elements  belonged 
in  the  total  architecture — even  when  he  had  baked  the  bricks 
of  a  structure  himself.  It  led  to  a  lasting  difference  of  opinion 
between  us  regarding  the  growing  rigidity  of  American  med- 
ical educational  programs  and  the  limitation  of  professional 
class  numbers.  Wherry  was  in  his  own  person  the  greatest 
defense  for  my  position  that  I  could  point  to,  as  I  insisted  that 
he  should  lecture  to  the  five  hundred  instead  of  boil  soup  for 


the  five.  Scullions  could  be  found  for  the  latter — not  for  the  1  Q1 
former. 

Of  the  thirty-odd  items  that  made  up  the  tropical  disease 
section,  Wherry  covered  seven.  Reference  will  not  be  made 
to  those  on  Asiatic  cholera,  [45]  Malta  fever,  [46]  filarial 
disease  [43]  and  those  due  to  one-celled  organisms,  [41,  42] 
authoritative  and  critical  as  they  were.  He  wrote  the  opening 
chapter  for  the  entire  set  on  The  role  of  the  medical  man  in  the 
future  control  of  the  tropics  [40].  This  was  the  beginning 
sentence : 

Encircling  the  earth,  between  30°  N  and  30°  S  of  the  equator 
are  tropical  and  subtropical  regions — the  most  beautiful,  the 
most  fertile,  the  most  richly  endowed  portions  of  the  globe. 
Time  and  again  they  have  been  invaded  by  northern  races  in 
search  of  wealth.  Stricken  by  strange  pestilences  of  mysterious 
origin,  the  invaders  disappeared.  Gradually  the  rumor  spread 
and  the  belief  became  ingrained  that  there  lay  "the  white 
man's  grave." 

To  get  at  once  to  the  heart  of  the  problem,  he  asked: 

Will  modern  science  operating  through  the  medical  man  be 
able  to  neutralize  the  forces  which  act  deleteriously  upon  the 
white  man  in  the  tropics?  .  .  .  The  problems  facing  white 
settlement  have  been  greatly  modified  by  recent  advances  in 
our  knowledge  of  tropical  diseases,  but  these  researches  tend 
rather  to  promote  .  .  .  the  efficiency  and  supply  of  black 
labor  than  to  guarantee  successful  and  permanent  settlement 
by  whites. 

Allowing  that  hygiene  could  protect  the  white  man  against 
the  diseases  peculiar  to  the  tropics,  what  about  light,  heat, 
and  moisture?  To  which  Wherry  answered:  "He  must  acquire 
more  pigment,  go  unclothed,  readjust  his  thermoregulatory 
mechanism — nervous  and  cutaneous."  It  was  not  an  end  easy 
of  accomplishment,  yet  a  situation  that  had  to  be  met,  for, 
said  Wherry: 

The  fact  remains  that  the  tropics  are  largely  in  his  possession, 
and  that  he  will  have  to  face  the  problem  of  developing  their 
enormous  natural  wealth  as  a  source  of  supply  for  an  over- 
crowded world — not  by  the  old  and  reprehensible  system  of 


1  QO  exploitation,  but  by  holding  and  developing  them  as  a  trust  for 
civilization. 

Here,  his  ideal  of  the  doctor  was  speaking,  as  it  had  been 
bred  into  him  on  Halsted  street  in  Chicago  and  nurtured  by 
his  trampings  about  the  world.  This  man  was  to  go  forward 
but  not  as  conquistador,  salesman  or  tax  collector,  but  as  one 
charged  to  make  better  this  human  existence. 

The  modern  moment  had  separated  economics  and  sociology 
from  the  spiritual  body  of  man;  so  had  the  biological  sciences 
broken  with  folklore,  with  fairy  tales,  with  what  some  are 
pleased  to  call  "religion."  What  Wherry  thought  in  such  mat- 
ters is  best  told  in  his  own  words,  wherefore  this  lengthy 
excerpt  from  his  scientific  exposition  of  plague  [44] . 

Comparatively  recent  discoveries  have  placed  in  the  hands  of 
man  a  sure  remedy  against  the  plague.  For  now  we  know  the 
elements  which,  when  brought  into  conjunction,  start  that 
prairie  fire  which  thrice,  in  recent  times,  has  swept  the  earth 
with  its  destroying  blast.  Certain  rodents,  their  fleas,  and  man 
are  the  combustibles;  B  pestis  the  spark. 

Medical  prophylaxis  looks  into  the  future  as  far  as  possible, 
and  builds  a  barrier  which,  though  like  the  wall  of  China 
takes  a  hundred  years,  stands  forever.  All  efforts  which  bring 
about  temporary  prophylaxis  alone  are  wasted,  along  with  time 
and  money.  Why  is  it  that  even  so-called  civilized  races  resist 
our  efforts  to  bring  about  immunity  to  disease?  The  answer 
would  be  totally  discouraging  were  not  ultimate  victory  so 
desirable.  .  .  .  Thus  the  plague  problem  is  narrowed  down 
to  the  rat  problem.   .   .   . 

Rats  did  not  embark  with  Noah.  For  is  it  not  revealed  in  the 
Quassul  Ambia  of  the  Mohammedans  how  that  patriarch,  hav- 
ing forgotten  in  his  hurry  to  install  sanitary  arrangements  in 
the  Ark,  appealed  for  help  from  on  high?  The  pig  was  created 
to  clean  up  the  accumulated  offal ;  but  the  ever-restless  Shaitan 
drew  forth  from  the  pig,  rats  which  multiplied  enormously, 
and  their  gnawings  endangered  the  whole  animal  kingdom. 
The  angel  Gabriel,  descending  upon  request,  instructed  Noah, 
and  he,  passing  his  hand  over  the  nostrils  of  the  tiger,  drew 
forth  cats,  which  soon  held  the  rats  in  check.  One  should  be 
glad  to  know  this  in  order  to  place  blame  and  shame  where 


they  really  belong.  We  must  admit,  however,  that  Shaitan  was  1  QX 
clever  when  he  endowed  his  children  with  such  extraordinary 
fecundity.  After  thousands  of  years,  suffering  mankind  has 
waked  up,  in  spots,  to  the  moral  necessity  of  making  a  con- 
certed effort  against  the  offspring  of  that  Evil  One.  We  have 
national  and  international  societies  for  the  destruction  of 
vermin,  and  one  small  nation  has  found  it  profitable  from 
a  business  standpoint  alone  to  place  a  bounty  on  rats.  This  is 
a  good  beginning,  but  there  seems  to  be  some  confusion  about 
the  modus  operandi.  Had  those  Poles  not  checked  those  East- 
ern hordes,  we  would  have  taken  in  with  our  mother's  milk 
the  knowledge  that  the  cat  is  the  especially  created  enemy  of 
the  rat,  and  the  reasons  therefore,  and  so  have  averted  the  just 
criticisms  of  Buchanan.  To  expect  extermination  of  the  rat 
seems  preposterous,  for  we  are  but  human.  However,  so  far 
as  plague  prophylaxis  is  concerned,  that  is  unnecessary;  the 
factor  of  safety  may  be  reached  by  reducing  their  numbers. 

Buchanan  prevented  the  recurrence  of  plague  in  certain 
Panjab  villages  by  importing  cats.  .  .  .  "It  is  one  of  the  mea- 
sures of  plague  prevention  dictated  by  their  scriptures  to 
Mohammedans  and  Hindus  alike,  and  which  will,  therefore, 
be  acceptable  to  all." 

Independently  R  Koch  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  only 
solution  lay  in  the  breeding  and  maintenance  of  an  efficient 
race  of  cats.  Like  Noah,  he  found  that  keeping  them  on  ships 
bound  for  the  tropics  insured  comparative  freedom  from  rats. 
His  plan  has  been  advocated  by  Kitasato  in  Japan.  There  the 
latter  found  that  the  percentage  of  cats  to  houses  varied  from 
four  in  Tokyo  to  forty-nine  in  the  Yamanashi  district,  where 
cats  are  kept  to  protect  the  silk  industry  from  rats.  Shiga 
considers  the  latter  place  safe  from  plague ;  we  know  that  the 
former  is  not.  That  sounds  like  plain  sailing,  but  Shaitan  has 
kept  busy — he  put  the  Cysticercus  fasciolaris  in  the  livers  of 
rats  and  mice  so  that  cats  may  suffer  and  often  die;  and  strange 
ideas  into  the  brains  of  the  more  weak-minded  humans. 

.  .  .  When  a  corporation  or  large  stable  owner  is  able  to 
evade  successfully  an  explicit  ratproofing  ordinance  in  the  face 
of  a  State  Board  of  Health  backed  by  the  Federal  Government, 
one  must  surely  conclude  that  the  relation  of  hygiene  to 
material  progress  is  still  unappreciated.   ...  In  the  mean- 


184 


time,  where  social  conditions  permit,  among  the  simple- 
minded  so-called  savages,  among  physicians,  nurses,  and  sani- 
tary inspectors,  and  in  such  others  to  whom  perpetuity  seems 
desirable,  one  may  produce  temporary  immunity  to  plague  by 
vaccination  with  dead  or  living  attenuated  cultures  of  B  pestis. 


DECEMBER  1,  1913,  began  like  every  other  day — the 
usual  set  of  "specimens"  had  collected  in  the  ice-box 
and  the  usual  set  of  calls  for  "pathologic  consultation"  lay  on 
Wherry's  desk.  Among  the  latter,  Derrick  T  Vail,  chief  of  staff 
in  the  ophthalmic  division  of  Cincinnati's  general  hospital 
wished  his  look  upon  an  eye  case  that  had  gone  wrong.  The 
meat  cutter's  left  orb  had  reddened  November  twenty-first 
and  by  the  twenty- fourth  had  so  swelled  that  he  needed  a 
doctor.  Some  ten  small  ulcers  punctuated  the  lining  of  his  eye- 
lids; but  the  man  was  so  sick  all  over  that  more  than  these 
had  to  be  considered.  Things  were  spreading,  too,  that  was 
plain,  for  the  lymph  gland  in  front  of  his  ear  was  tender  and 
before  the  week  was  out  all  the  similar  glands  in  his  neck  and 
arm  pit  followed  suit.  Now  he  was  very  sick,  looked  it,  and 
had  high  fever.  To  make  things  worse,  a  lot  of  small  boils 
appeared  about  his  temple.  Because  he  was  a  butcher  and  so 
had  doings  with  animals,  glanders  was  suspected.  All  it  needed 
to  clinch  the  thought  was  Wherry.  Wherefore  he  appeared — 
with  his  platinum  needle  to  make  many  smears  and  more  cul- 
tures. Well,  it  wasn't  glanders ;  nor  was  it  any  other  common 
garden  variety  of  microorganism  that  was  doing  the  mischief. 
Wherry  would  have  discovered  anything  like  that  right  away. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  all  his  looking  and  staining  were  in  vain. 
Worse  yet,  nothing  grew  on  all  those  culture  media  that  he 
had  inoculated  and  dragged  back  to  his  inner  laboratory — and 
he  knew  how  to  tease  the  tenderest  of  this  world's  creatures 
into  growth.  At  this  point  any  ordinary  bacteriologist  would 
have  called  it  a  day,  closed  his  ledger  and  next  morning 
"reported":  cultures  sterile.  The  situation  is  repeated  daily. 
To  these  men  negative  findings  become  proof,  even,  that  here, 
thank  God,  is  a  pathological  process  not  infectious  in  origin; 
something  due  to  the  dissolute  or  unchristian  life  of  the 
stricken,  perhaps.  Such  report  comforts  the  doctor,  too.  If 


science  cannot  give  answer,  why  should  he  be  expected  to  1  QS 
know?  And  as  to  the  patient,  well  it's  his  disease,  isn't  it? 

And  so  after  some  weeks,  and  still  very  ill,  the  meat  butcher 
tired  of  his  hospital  residence  and  left. 

But  Wherry  had  not  forgotten  his  man.  On  December 
fourth  he  again  scraped  a  bit  of  tissue  from  an  ulcerated  patch, 
stirred  it  up  in  salt  water  and  injected  it  into  a  defenseless 
guinea  pig.  Five  days  later  it  was  dead.  Autopsy  showed  its 
lungs,  spleen  and  liver  to  be  riddled  with  minute  patches  of 
dead  tissue;  but  most  careful  staining  methods,  attempts  at 
culture,  etc,  revealed  nothing  certainly  identifiable  as  bac- 
teria. So  Wherry  took  of  the  spleen  of  this  animal  and  injected 
it  into  a  second.  In  five  days  it,  too,  was  dead.  More  than  a 
month  and  twenty- four  animals  went  into  this  disheartening 
business.  Obviously  the  disease  was  there,  but  why  could  he 
not  isolate  the  organism? 

Perhaps  it  was  a  "virus"?  This  is  the  refuse  pile  to  which  all 
organisms  are  relegated,  supposed  to  be  present  but  too  small 
to  be  seen  with  the  microscope.  Wherry  knew  how  to  get 
answer  to  this  question.  Twelve  years  before  he  had  calculated 
and  shown  how,  if  so  small,  they  went  through  filters  of  speci- 
fied pore  size;  how  if  not,  they  stayed  behind,  were  large 
enough  then  too,  to  lie  within  the  visible  range.  He  tried  to 
filter  his  unseen  organism  and  found  it  not  to  pass. 

Clearly  something  else  was  wrong.  He  had  not  discovered 
the  right  nourishment,  he  said.  So  out  of  Musgrave's  and  his 
own  experience  he  recalled  the  virtues  of  eggs.  On  such  diet — 
variously  styled,  to  be  sure,  to  get  away  from  the  too-simple 
restaurant  designation — Wherry  now  grew  out  the  causal 
agent  of  his  death-dealing  disease,  succeeding  at  the  same  time, 
by  modification  of  the  existent  methods  of  staining,  in  making 
it  readily  visible  under  the  microscope.  It  was  a  little  bacillus, 
so  short  that  it  commonly  looked  round,  with  a  capsule  cover- 
ing it  like  a  halo.  Besides  this  description  [47]  Wherry  brought 
forth  some  further  facts.  He  reported: 

We  kept  the  virus  going  chiefly  by  rubbing  a  little  spleen  pulp 
into  a  scratch  on  the  abdomen  of  animals.  Simply  dipping  a 
fine  needle  into  the  spleen  of  a  dead  animal  or  into  a  culture 
and  pricking  the  ocular  or  palpebral  conjunctiva  of  rabbits 


1  Ro  or  §uuiea  pi§s  resulted  in  the  production  of  multiple  areas  of 
necrosis  just  like  those  in  the  human  case  and  was  followed 
by  septicemia  and  death  within  a  very  few  days.  .  .  .  Some 
experiments  showed  that  death  might  occur  when  infectious 
material  was  simply  placed  on  the  uninjured  mucous  mem- 
brane of  the  eye  or  nose. 

These  things  showed  how  burningly  infectious  his  micro- 
organism was.  Worse  yet  was  the  story  of  "guinea-pig  39." 
It  had  eaten  "most  of  the  spleen  of  guinea-pig  3  3  chopped  up 
and  mixed  with  bread.  It  died  in  three  days  and  showed  char- 
acteristic changes  in  the  liver  and  spleen  and  involvement  of 
the  cervical  glands."  Excellent  descriptions  of  the  organic 
changes  followed  the  accounts  of  his  experiments,  along  with 
beautiful  colored  plates  (this  was  the  invariable  expression  of 
enthusiasm  and  satisfaction  in  his  work  on  Wherry's  part) . 

Could  this  so  highly  virulent  organism  be  tamed  a  bit;  or 
could  it  be  made  yet  more  deadly?  Mere  cultivation  in  the 
laboratory  did  not  act  toward  the  former  end;  nor  the  com- 
monly practiced  passage  from  animal  to  animal  toward  the 
latter.  In  both  instances  the  newly  infected  just  laid  down 
and  died  in  five  days.  Asking  now  which  of  the  animals  com- 
monly seen  about  a  farm  might  prove  the  most  likely  "hosts" 
of  the  disease  germ,  he  discovered  that  the  ordinary  domesti- 
cated stock  was  rather  resistant;  but  all  manner  of  "rodents" 
went  out  promptly.  In  Ohio  and  vicinity  this  meant  the  rab- 
bits, the  squirrels,  the  rats,  the  mice  and,  of  course,  their 
imported  South  American  cousins,  the  guinea  pigs.  Where- 
after (out  of  a  "case  report"  again!)  came  the  philosophic 
kernel : 

Our  findings  indicate  that  this  disease  is  widespread  among 
rodents  ...  it  may  someday  take  its  place  along  with  B 
pestis  as  a  menace  to  man. 

THOUGH  Wherry  had  isolated  his  organism  indepen- 
dently, and  that  by  cultural  and  staining  methods 
essentially  his  own,  he  now  found  its  general  characteristics  to 
be  identical  with  those  of  an  organism  isolated  from  the  Cali- 
fornia ground  squirrel  by  Geo  W  McCoy  (and  Charles  W 


Chapin)  a  year  earlier.  It  will  be  remembered  what  a  headache  1  Q"7 
McCoy  had  gotten  out  of  his  inability  either  to  see  or  to  grow 
the  cause  of  that  plague-like  disease  so  often  referred  to  in  his 
correspondence  with  Wherry.  By  the  use  of  coagulated  egg- 
yolk  he  had  at  last  succeeded.  Since  the  source  of  his  infected 
squirrel  had  been  Tulare  county,  he  immortalized  that  lovely 
spot  by  calling  the  new  organism,  the  Bacterium  tularense. 

What  do  scientific  men  do  in  such  circumstances ;  and  what 
did  Wherry  do?  With  one  stroke  of  his  pen  he  passed  all  credit 
for  discovery  to  his  old-time  associate. 

Now  another  instance  of  human  infection  was  brought  to 
Wherry's  attention  by  Robert  Sattler;  and  a  third  was  to  be 
reported  in  the  next  year  by  the  brother  (Frederick  W  Lamb) 
of  his  associate  in  these  first  studies  (BH  Lamb) .  Some  half 
dozen  more  came  upon  the  floors  of  his  hospital  to  be  recorded 
only  in  the  newspapers.  An  interesting  variant  was  introduced 
by  some  of  the  latter  in  that  original  infection  had  entered, 
not  through  the  eye  but  through  a  finger  to  spread  to  the 
glands  of  the  arm  and  arm  pit,  always  accompanied  by  high 
fever  and  invariably  in  men  who  had  dissected  rabbits.  But 
Wherry  was  no  longer  looking  for  examples  but  for  the  spring 
of  infection.  "We  have  been  anxious  to  find  the  source  of 
human  infection  in  this  locality,"  he  wrote  [48],  His  experi- 
ments had  shown  that  rodents  deserved  first  consideration; 
and  Vail's  patient  had  been  a  specialist  on  Hasenpfeffer.  Now 
came  farmers'  tales  of  death-dealing  epidemics  among  the 
rabbits.  In  November,  1914,  such  a  story  originated  in  south- 
ern Indiana.  Cincinnati's  cooperative  health  officer  (J  H 
Landis)  sent  two  huntsmen  into  the  district  to  bring  back 
what  they  could.  They  shot  three  rabbits  and  found  two  dead 
on  a  farm  some  miles  beyond  Vevay.  The  latter  were  infected 
of  B  tularense.  Wherewith  the  story  of  human  infestation  with 
"rabbit-fever,"  from  its  beginning  to  its  end,  had  been  told. 

Wherry  did  what  he  could  "to  help  physicians  in  the  dis- 
covery of  further  cases  in  man."  He  would  furnish  the  diag- 
nostic brains  if  they  would  furnish  the  pus.  "They  may  well 
prove  to  be  cases  of  this  disease  when  there  is  a  history  of  hav- 
ing shot  or  handled  rabbits,  squirrels  or  ground-squirrels." 
1914  closed  with  his  presentation  in  concise  and  final  form  of 
A  new  bacterial  disease  of  rodents  transmissible  to  man  [49]. 


188 


Then  he  allowed  this  interest  to  become  a  part  of  the  deeper 
lying  portion  of  his  life's  current. 

Additional  instances  of  the  disease  came  to  notice  in  Cin- 
cinnati's general  hospital  but  Europe's  war  was  a  more  intrigu- 
ing proposition,  wherefore  for  the  colleagues  and  the  public, 
interest  in  "rabbit  fever"  slumbered.  One  of  his  playmates  (in 
1924!)  asked  if  C  Pascheff  (of  Sofia)  had  not  "discovered" 
the  disease.  Pascheff  had  described  it  (in  1915),  had  even 
transmitted  it  to  laboratory  animals.  But  he  had  done  this 
as  a  double  infection,  falling  into  error  by  describing  the 
accompanying  organism  as  the  essential  "cause"  of  the  disease. 

After  the  War  (in  1919)  E  E  Francis  (forty-seven,  M  D 
out  of  Cincinnati,  long  of  the  staff  of  the  USPH&MHS) 
began  exhumation  of  the  stiff.  He  had  discovered  that  the 
"deer-fly  fever"  of  Idaho  and  Montana  was  infection  in  man 
with  B  tularense;  also,  that  it  was  carried  from  rabbits  to  men 
by  the  bite  of  this  fly.  This  was  scientific  confirmation  of  the 
voodoo  belief  of  northwest  deer  killers.  But  back  in  1912, 
McCoy  had  already  shown  that  fleas  could  do  it.  In  1921 
Francis  rechristened  Wherry's  "rabbit-fever"  (the  name  first 
given  tularense  infection  by  a  newspaper  scout)  tularemia. 
Now  many  men  with  many  articles  added  to  the  "literature" 
of  the  subject.  One  even  wrote  a  book;  but  all  never  learned, 
or  forgot,  the  by  this  time  ancient  history  here  set  down.  It 
was  even  proposed  to  call  the  disease  by  a  man's  name — though 
not  that  of  McCoy  or  Wherry — but  this  fervor  died.  In  1925 
Wherry  was  active  upon  the  only  item  left  untouched  in  his 
brief  publications — that  of  the  treatment  of  the  disease.  But 
its  discussion  is  more  properly  taken  up  later. 


THE  tularense  studies  had  carried  Wherry  into  the  new 
year  of  1914.  All  day,  each  day,  he  had  cultured,  inocu- 
lated, autopsied,  peered  for  hours  through  his  so  beloved  Zeiss 
apochromatic  3  mm  1,40  oil  immersion.  The  Christmas 
holidays  had  made  no  difference.  Young  Wolfgang  Ostwald, 
invited  of  Wherry  as  head  of  Cincinnati's  research  society  to 
lecture  on  colloids,  came.  They  had  long  discussions  together 
of  matters  biological  (Ostwald  had  been  born  such,  too) .  The 
latter  departed,  declaring  himself  "captivated  of  Wherry." 


Whereafter  lightning  struck;  and  Wherry  sickened.  He  went  1  QQ 
to  bed  with  "grippe;"  but  at  the  end  of  a  week  was  worse  than 
at  its  start.  Two  weeks  passed,  and  his  old-time  friend  came 
down  from  Chicago.  Rosenow  said  he  had  pneumonia.  Wherry 
picked  at  his  bedclothes,  ran  fever  and  lay  thus  for  six  weeks. 
He  had  been  breathing  and  handling  much  tularense.  May 
that  have  been  the  miasma  that  invaded  him?  Remembering 
nothing  of  his  sick  days,  he  sought  the  sun  in  Florida.  Here 
the  father  sent  to  his  son  thanks  that  he  had  not  died;  adding: 
"We  are  very  much  saddened  by  the  apparently  hopeless  con- 
dition of  Aunt  Fannie.  She  is  however  one  of  the  Lord's  dear 
children  and  He  will  care  for  her." 

Wherry  sent  me  a  post  card  from  Daytona  (March  9, 1914) 
where  James  Gamble  had  insisted  that  he  come  to  his  house: 

This  is  a  beautiful  place  on  the  island  &  right  on  the  Halifax 
river.  The  ocean  is  a  few  minutes  walk  across  the  island.  It  is 
pretty  cool,  S6°  F  at  12  o'c  yesterday  and  37°  F  early  this  a  m. 
Please  write  at  once  and  let  me  know  about  Helen  [the  wife 
of  Paul  G  Woolley  who  had  been  acutely  ill].  I  have  been 
getting  stronger  every  day  &  can  take  quite  a  respectable  walk 
but  am  very  stiff  &  my  pleurae  still  stick. 

Aunt  Fannie's  state  grew  worse.  Wherry  returned  to  Cin- 
cinnati to  see  her  die.  April  demanded  his  presence  in  Chicago. 
Settled  there,  he  wrote  from  the  department  of  bacteriology 
in  the  university  (April  11,  1914) : 

I  am  o  k  and  enjoying  the  work  here.  I  have  a  class  of  four- 
teen fairly  good  students — in  fact  most  of  them  are  the  pick 
of  the  soph  medics.  I  was  able  to  get  out  of  the  tropical  courses 
at  Rush.  Rosie  [Edward  C  Rosenow]  told  me  I  couldn't 
undertake  so  much,  so  I  was  able  to  fix  it  up  with  McDill  and 
the  course  has  been  postponed  indefinitely.  I  went  to  lunch 
with  Wells  [H  Gideon]  the  other  day.  He  is  very  nice  and  told 
me  that  he  had  "defended"  you  in  the  East  many  a  time.  You 
are  so  damned  bull  headed  and  dogmatic  that  they  don't 
understand  you  down  on  the  eastern  "sho."  I  think  that 
Taylor's  [AlonzoEngelbert]  fears  that  young  Ostwald's  visits 
about  the  country  would  do  you  good  are  being  realized  (you 
are  a  sly  fox  for  a  Dutchman!) .  You  see,  no  one  knew  any- 
thing about  colloid  chemistry  in  this  country  (excepting  A  P 


1  QQ  Mathews  and  a  few  like  him)  and  consequently,  not  being  able 
to  judge  your  work  and  being  too  damned  lazy  to  look  up  the 
dope  on  it,  they  dismissed  it.  Now,  having  received  elementary 
instruction  in  the  Field  they  are  better  able  to  see  that  perhaps 
your  work  has  something  to  it — but  of  course  not  such  a 
sweeping  damned  lot  as  you  claim.  Rosie  examined  me  about 
1 0  days  ago  and  seemed  to  think  that  I  was  all  right.  Wish  you 
could  be  here  too.  But  I  must  close,  for  Marie  &  I  swore  yes- 
terday to  cease  talking  about  our  childhood  days.  Give  my  love 
to  everybody  and  tell  them  that  if  Cincinnatians  weren't  so 
lazy,  Chicago  wouldn't  be  able  to  put  it  over  them  in  any  way 
that  I  can  see. 

One  product  of  Wherry's  experience  in  Chicago  was  a 
renewal  and  a  deepening  of  his  friendship  with  Jordan;  an- 
other, a  meeting  with  M  W  Beijerinck.  The  two  world  names 
on  variation  in  microorganisms  as  inducible  through  change 
in  environment,  thus  stood  side  by  side.  Beijerinck  bid  Wherry 
follow  him  to  Holland  to  demonstrate  his  findings  there;  but 
still  wretched  after  the  experiences  of  the  winter  he  wisely 
decided  to  stop  with  his  family  in  Woods  Hole.  The  product 
of  this  vacation  was  another  paper  [50],  this  time  with  G  L 
Kite  on  the  mechanism  of  phagocytosis.  Amoebae  and  the  free 
swimming  white  cells  of  the  blood  had  always  been  endowed 
with  a  sort  of  intelligence — they  "chose"  their  foods  and 
swallowed  them  or  not,  as  they  deemed  fit.  Wherry  thought 
the  matter  overdone.  He  suggested  instead  that  it  was  all  a 
matter  of  accident.  The  surfaces  of  the  white  blood  corpuscles 
were  "sticky"  and  when  brought  in  contact  with  foreign 
particles  (like  carbon,  carmin  or  the  bacteria)  just  naturally 
picked  these  up.  It  was  a  matter  of  chance  meeting  merely 
between  the  two;  and  the  degree  of  this  stickiness.  There  were 
rules  to  the  game  but  they  weren't  psychological  rules.  Some 
leucocytes  would  swallow  bacteria  no  matter  what  their  kind 
or  state.  Others  had  to  be  coaxed.  He  reverted  to  his  medical 
school  studies  to  ask  about  the  "opsonins."  They  turned  out 
to  be  materials  present  in  blood  which  so  changed  the  bacteria 
involved  that  this  relative  stickiness  between  surface  of 
leucocyte  and  surface  of  germ  was  made  just  right  for  the 
engulfment  act. 


Initial  discovery  of  the  sticky  nature  of  the  surface  of  1  Q1 
amcebse  Wherry  attributed  to  Sellards  and  his  coworker  in 
this  paper,  G  L  Kite.  When  in  their  gelatinous  form  amoebae 
were  always  thus  sticky;  not,  however,  when  in  the  flagellated 
state  of  their  existence.  While  their  paper  detailed  experiments 
entirely  bacteriological,  Wherry  assigned  senior  authorship  to 
Kite.  It  was  his  way  of  expressing  publicly  the  high  regard 
he  had  for  Kite's  discoveries  who  had  used  the  Barber  pipette 
for  the  dissection  of  the  single  cell.  An  amoeba,  he  showed, 
might  be  sliced  as  so  much  meat;  certain  structures  seen 
within  cells  and  assumed  to  be  liquid  (like  the  reproduction 
"astrospheres")  were  more  nearly  solid  and  could  be  dragged 
out  of  the  cells  as  sugar  crystals  out  of  jelly;  also,  the  surface 
of  cells  was  anatomically  scarcely  differentiate  from  their 
general  mass.  "Kite  is  condemned  as  crazy  because  he  has 
proved  all  the  accepted  physico-chemical  notions  of  the  living 
cell  wrong,"  he  wrote  me.  Perhaps  the  wish  fathered  the  fact. 
Kite  visited  a  neurological  institute;  and  in  another  year  was 
one  in  the  history  of  science  with  Robert  Mayer  and  Ignaz 
Philipp  Semmelweis. 

Aunt  Fannie's  death  eased  things  financial.  The  house  at 
759  Ridgeway  avenue  and  a  bequest  came  to  Marie;  much  of 
the  other  property  went  to  foreign  missions  and  a  fund  for 
"worn  out"  preachers  of  the  Methodist  church.  Enough 
remained  over  for  the  education  of  the  children  and  to  express 
Aunt  Fannie's  deep-seated  affection  for  Wherry,  in  spite  of 
his  failure  to  be  of  one  mind  with  her  in  biological  philosophy. 
Her  estate  set  aside  the  sum  of  thirty  thousand  for  the  use  of 
his  laboratory.  He  needed  it  sorely  enough,  and  yet  before  the 
gift  had  come  into  his  hands  he  had  assigned  the  half  of  it  to 
a  brother  division  in  the  medical  school  (mine)  . 

August  of  1914  brought  the  War  in  Europe.  In  November 
the  father  commented: 

The  war's  various  fortunes  render  mail  service  uncertain  .  .  . 
Give  our  warmest  love  to  Dr  &  Mrs  Nast  who  must  be  greatly 
distressed.  We  are  all  subscribing  here  for  the  support  of  the 
German  missionaries  in  India.  A  united  movement  among 
about  4000  missions  will  bring  a  large  sum  even  at  monthly 
subscriptions  of  Rs  5/  each. 


102       November  11,  1914,  he  was  still  sufficiently  detached  to 
sos: 

I'm  honorary  member  of  the  Luther  Burbank  society  and  have 
subscribed  to  1 2  illustrated  volumes  to  preserve  to  the  world 
the  discoveries  &c  of  Luther  Burbank.  They  may  send  them 
to  you.  Care  for  them.  They  will  cost  $81/ — Whew!  You 
may  open  them  and  see  &  read  but  take  good  care  of  them. 

Values  beyond  the  immediate  of  war  persisted.  Sister  Lillian 
out  of  Kasur  where  she  and  her  husband  were  stationed  wrote 
long  paragraphs  of  the  "kiddies,"  concluding  (January  28, 
1915):  "We  get  nothing  but  war  news  out  here  &  are  sick  of 
it!  But  not  half  as  sick  as  the  poor  people  who  are  in  it!" 


1915-1917 


IX 


THE  McCuskeys  were  "in  camp  in  a  field  away  from  the 
village  but  within  easy  walking  distance  of  where  the 
preaching  tent  is."  In  spite  of  growing  need  in  Europe,  the 
missionary  movement  was  holding  its  own  in  India;  and 
Lillian  could  write:  "The  Xtians  insist  on  supplying  us  with 
milk — 6  &  7  seers  a  day!  So  we  have  plenty  of  butter.  They 
also  have  presented  us  with  wood."  Of  her  own  labors  she 
reported: 

I  saw  the  women  at  noon  and  talked  to  them.  I  am  hearing 
them  recite  the  10  commandments,  Lord's  Prayer  &  creed. 
Not  half  of  them  know  these.  I  hope  then,  that  the  women  I 
teach  will  teach  others.  The  baker's  wife  is  no  good.  She  can't 
read  and  also  she  doesn't  know  enough  herself  to  teach  the 
women. 

Statistics  chiefly,  made  up  a  closing  paragraph: 

We  were  out  for  two  weeks  this  trip  &  Frank  baptized  about 
250.  This  District  is  right  in  the  Mass  Movement  &  whole 
sections  of  villages  come  out  (i  e  are  baptized)  at  one  time. 
Of  course  this  is  all  amongst  the  Sweeper  Class.  The  new  con- 
verts are  learning  fast  &  it  is  wonderful  what  a  difference  it 
makes  in  their  appearance,  their  homes  &  lives.  We  haven't 
nearly  enough  teachers.  We  have  far  more  boys  ready  to  go 
to  school,  than  we  have  room  for.  .  .  .  You  have  a  busy  life 
too,  but  do  take  time  to  write.  I  dread  "growing  away"  from 
my  own  brother.  I  am  only  just  beginning  to  realize  that  I  am 
a  really  grown  up  woman ! 

Word  from  mother,  too,  indicated  that  the  general  scene  in 
India  had  not  been  much  disturbed.  The  rains  had  "soaked  the 
ground  and  laid  the  dust,  too";  whereafter  it  had  grown  cold. 
"Plague  is  flourishing — always  does  in  cold  weather."  Com- 
menting on  Lillian  and  her  husband's  activities  outside  Kasur, 
she  referred  to  it  as  a  district: 


194 


.  .  .  where  some  of  those  Sikhs  live  who  came  back  from 
Canada  on  that  ship  Komagatu  Maru  and  are  trying  to  stir 
up  sedition.  ...  A  lot  of  them  landed  at  Ludhiana.  I  saw 
them  wandering  about  in  European  clothes,  their  long  hair 
was  cut  and  also  their  beards  shaved  off,  so  that  I  scarcely 
recognized  them.  .  .  .  The  Ludhiana  district  is  a  bad  one 
for  thieves.  The  Salvation  Army  people  have  started  a  weav- 
ing business  where  many  thieves  live,  hoping  to  redeem  them 
from  such  lives — having  to  steal  for  a  living. 

By  February  20,  1915,  she  had  grown  a  bit  critical: 

Have  our  letters  been  opened  by  the  censor?  Yours  all  are — 
even  the  newspapers.  One  week  a  bit  was  cut  out — I  suppose 
it  wasn't  fit  for  us  to  read.  It  now  takes  6  weeks  for  yours  to 
reach  us. 

Reporting  at  once  on  things  medical,  psychological,  spiri- 
tual, economic  and  political,  she  continued: 

One  afternoon  about  4.30  your  papa  and  I  went  to  call  on 
the  doctors  of  the  Med  School.  It  was  their  tea-time  and  we 
thought  they  would  be  in.  They  are  so  busy  they  are  hard  to 
catch.  Dr  Maja  came  to  the  door  and  said  that  Soni  had  taken 
strychnine.  So  Dr  Brown  ran,  and  the  girl  denied  having  taken 
it,  but  was  dead  an  hour  afterwards.  There  were  2  native  girls 
who  were  fast  friends  but  they  had  quarreled  and  the  other 
one  had  taken  up  with  another  girl  as  her  friend  so  this  one 
said  she  couldn't  live  without  her  and  did  take  poison  and  lied 
about  it.  They  are  so  silly  sometimes.  Plague  is  very  bad  in  the 
Panjab  just  now.  I  have  closed  my  little  school,  as  the  father 
of  one  of  the  boys  died  and  some  were  sick  in  the  homes  from 
which  the  children  come  ...  It  is  pitiful  to  see  and  hear 
them  when  anyone  dies.  I  passed  a  house  a  few  days  ago  from 
which  I  heard  a  woman  screaming.  I  inquired  and  found  that 
her  14  yr  old  boy  had  just  died  of  plague  .  .  .  Lest  you  may 
not  have  reed  my  letter  I  thank  you  again  for  the  pretty  blouse 
&  the  nice  necktie  for  your  papa.  They  are  just  what  we 
needed.  .  .  .  While  away  this  last  time  the  missionaries' 
salaries  were  raised  to  $100  a  month,  so  that  we  have  plenty. 
22nd  Feb  Those  Sikhs  that  came  back  from  Canada  are 
trying  to  do  somebody  harm.   They  have  thrown  several 


bombs.  ...  &  on  Sat  a  Sikh  shot  a  head  constable  and  a 
subinspector  of  police.  They  are  very  bitter. 

Some  of  this  bitterness  of  soul  got  into  the  animals.  (Wherry 
was  always  sure  about  these  Indian  transmigrations.)  Lillian 
reported  as  follows  of  her  husband  who  "had  just  left  in  a  turn- 
turn  this  morning:" 

He  really  left  yesterday  on  a  camel  but  it  acted  so  badly  that 
he  walked  back.  The  camels  are  all  acting  very  badly  just  now. 
The  riding  camels  won't  let  anyone  mount,  &  if  one  manages 
to  mount,  the  animal  tries  to  knock  him  off  against  a  tree. 

On  the  Saturday  preceding  she  had  started  to  sit  up  with  a 
missionary  sister  who  was  expectant. 

I  was  so  excited  that  I  didn't  sleep  all  Saturday  night.  After 
the  doctor  came  she  began  to  have  a  very  bad  time  &  he  gave 
her  hyoscine — which  put  her  out  of  her  head — i  e  she  didn't 
know  what  she  was  doing  &  she  fought  so  hard,  that  I  was 
sore  for  2  days  afterwards.  .  .  .  What  did  you  have  to  pay 
for  a  Md  of  s  g  Cossipore  sugar?  and  did  they  send  it  V  P  P? 
I  have  to  pay  2  Rs  a  bag  in  Ferozpur ! 

But  more  than  the  ascending  price  of  sugar  was  affecting 
the  life  of  the  Wherrys  in  India.  Subscription  to  their  schools 
was  falling  off,  in  spite  of  need  for  its  increase.  It  impelled 
the  father  to  write  to  his  daughter-in-law,  Marie  (March  5, 
1915): 

I  am  sending  the  enclosed  [a  brief  in  behalf  of  the  Women's 
Christian  medical  college  of  Ludhiana,  whose  primary  object 
was  the  training  of  Indian  Christian  women  as  medical  mis- 
sionaries for  India]  to  ask  whether  you  could  not  organize  a 
Ladies  Auxiliary  to  aid  the  medical  college  in  the  town  where 
your  husband  was  born.  .   .  . 

MARIE  attended  to  this. 
Wherry  was  busy  moving  his  belongings  from  Cin- 
cinnati's old  hospital  downtown  to  the  recently  completed 
new  structure — the  creation  of  Christian  R  Holmes — on  the 
hill.  In  it,  Cincinnati's  renascent  medical  department  of  the 
university — a  hospital,  two  clinics  and  three  laboratory  setups 


195 


1  Oo  Previ°usly  scattered  over  widely  separated  segments  of  city 
soil  for  the  teaching  of  the  students — was  being  collected  in 
one  spot  again.  With  larger  influx  of  students  and  larger 
teaching  responsibilities,  it  took  much  of  Wherry's  time  and 
his  personal  scientific  studies  were  pushed  aside.  As  spring 
came  he  needed  rest.  And  so  to  San  Francisco  and  its  dwarfed 
world's  fair  and  to  sit  again  upon  the  shoulder  of  Mount 
Tamalpais.  Before  he  got  there  his  mother  wrote  him  (March 
14,1915): 

I  try  to  imagine  you  and  the  children  in  that  nice  home  that 
was  your  aunt's.  We  have  had  a  great  deal  of  rain  which  of 
course  makes  plague  worse.  Yesterday  (Sunday)  while  I  was 
sitting  on  the  veranda,  1 1  funerals  passed  by  on  their  way  to 
the  Mohammedan  cemetery  which  is  behind  the  Women's 
Medical  School.  A  boy  who  attended  my  little  school  got 
down  with  it  and  Dr  Orbison  treated  him  with  iodine  and  he 
got  well.  Dr  O  has  cured  several  people  by  using  this  treat- 
ment. One  or  two  drops  are  taken  inwardly  &  it  is  applied  to 
any  outside  buboes  also.  I  think  the  Salvation  Army  in  India 
discovered  this  cure.  .  .  .  We  have  been  warned  by  the  Police 
to  be  armed,  so  Nellie  left  her  pistol  with  her  father.  He  is 
treasurer  of  this  Station  so  keeps  a  safe  and  he  has  locked  up 
the  pistol  in  it!  Two  men  who  were  caught  for  robbing  and 
killing  were  hanged  in  our  jail  last  week.  An  old  Christian 
man  who  wanted  to  see  the  sight  got  a  ladder  &  climbed  up 
on  the  roof  of  the  med  school  which  is  just  beside  the  jail.  He 
was  arrested.  Several  Sikhs  were  arrested  here  who  had  bombs 
&  materials  for  making  them — one  exploded  and  so  they  were 
caught.  .  .  .  The  young  men  who  had  a  hand  in  throwing 
that  bomb  at  the  viceroy  in  Delhi  were  hanged,  but  one  of  the 
principal  ones  is  in  America.  It  is  a  pity  they  can't  be  arrested 
over  there. 

Evidence  for  the  truth  of  her  letters  was  usually  furnished 
by  clippings.  So  with  this  letter  there  came  one  making  Com- 
missioner Booth-Tucker  sponsor  for  the  iodine  therapy.  Local 
Mohammedans  had  passed  a  "regulation"  expressing  "their 
absolute  loyalty."  "These  were  the  Sikhs,"  mother  wrote  on 
the  clipping.  Then  the  official  count  of  the  plague  dead.  In 
February,  23389  had  perished  in  the  Panjab.  Indicative  of  her 


A  FAIRY-GOD  OF  CHILDREN, 
CALIFORNIA,  1915 


198 


lighter  hurnor  was  another  excerpt  from  the  matrimonial 
column  of  the  local  newspaper: 

Wanted — A  suitable  match  for  a  Bunjahi  Khatri  girl  aged  16 
years.  She  knows  Gurmukhi,  Hindi,  Bhasha,  Urdu  and  some- 
what English  and  well  versed  in  household  affairs,  and  in  fact 
perfect  in  every  respect.  Only  those  having  European  qualifi- 
cations of  Khatri  caste  and  also  widower  can  apply  stating 
ages  of  children. 

April  6,  1915,  she  reported  further  on  the  criminal  state  of 
the  nation: 

I  don't  know  if  I  wrote  that  we  were  invited  to  attend  a  prize 
giving  over  on  the  camping  ground.  Over  Rs  4000/  of  Gov't 
money  was  given  away  in  prizes  to  men  who  helped  in  the 
capture  of  some  Sikhs  who  shot  a  constable  &c.  One  got 
Rs  250/  because  he  caught  ...  a  murderer.  That  man  & 
another  were  hung  in  our  jail  grounds.  They  gave  5  men 
Rs  250/  prizes  and  one  old  woman  &  a  little  child  got  about 
Rs  5  0/  &  so  on,  altho  this  woman's  child  was  so  wounded  by 
shot  that  it  died. 


WHERRY  returned  to  his  new  laboratory  in  Cincinnati 
by  middle  summer  to  engage  the  Entamoeba  buccalis. 
It  was  an  item  of  public  discussion  because  C  C  Bass  (thirty- 
nine,  self-declared  Mississippi  "piney,"  who  had  made  Tulane 
authority  in  the  protozoal  infections  of  man)  had  discovered 
it  a  constant  find  in  the  dirty  mouths  of  pyorrheally  affected 
individuals  and  had  attributed  to  it  active  participation  in  the 
disease.  Hitherto  it  had  been  considered  only  a  "saprophyte" 
living  happily  in  the  muck.  Because  of  Bass's  work  the  treat- 
ment of  pyorrhea,  both  locally  and  systemically,  became 
that  of  amoebic  dysentery;  and  ipecac,  emetine  and  quinine 
were  administered. 

This  mouth  amoeba  had  never  been  cultivated  in  the  lab- 
oratory even  though  direct  smears  indicated  that  plenty  of 
the  animals  were  present.  Wherry  wrote  [51]:  "It  has  appar- 
ently been  conceded  that  the  Entamoeba  are  so  parasitic  as  to 
be  non-cultivatable.  This  is  probably  not  true  of  any  parasite. 
When  we  fail  to  cultivate  an  organism  it  simply  means  that 


we  have  either  not  furnished  it  suitable  food  or  are  unac-  1  QQ 
quainted  with  some  physical  factor  which  influences  its  metab- 
olism." It  was  such  broad  philosophy  that  underlay  all  his 
work.  He  had  been  studying  the  total  parasitic  inhabitants  of 
the  mouth  but  was  after  the  protozoal  types  more  specifically. 
"Quite  a  series  of  attempts"  with  media  of  different  com- 
position yielded  him  nothing.  Now  he  found  one  that  fur- 
nished the  "suitable  food"  called  for  in  the  above  equation. 
It  was  modification  of  a  medium  recommended  by  W  Blair 
M  Martin.  Wherry  said  he  had  "been  particularly  impressed 
with  his  work."  It  consisted  of  agar-agar  (Japanese  seaweed 
jelly)  mixed  with  sodium  phosphate  and  "rich  in  ovomucoid" 
— nothing  far  removed  from  the  eternal  egg  diet  upon  which 
Wherry  had  so  often  and  so  long  fed  his  own  stock.  To  it  he 
had  added  the  fluid  which  collects  over  the  lung  in  pleurisy, 
allowing  the  mixture  to  "solidify  in  the  slanting  position  for  a 
night,"  as  is  the  custom  of  bacteriologists;  whereafter,  he 
permitted  "the  water  of  syneresis  to  collect  for  a  day  longer." 
(This  reference  to  "water  of  syneresis"  bears  noting.  The 
bacteriologists  had  long  called  it  "water  of  condensation," 
which  it  is  not.  Wherry  gave  the  matter  right  explanation — a 
fluid  squeezed  off  by  the  more  solid  hydrophilic  colloid. ) 

On  this  substratum  the  Entamoeba  buccalis  "survived."  So 
did  another  protozoon  never  before  cultivated,  and  found  in 
dirty  mouths  and  on  other  mucous  surfaces,  Trichomonas 
intestinalis.  But  they  did  more  than  this — they  grew.  It  was 
particularly  noticeable  in  "the  water  of  syneresis."  In  this 
Wherry  found  the  second  element  of  his  equation,  that  "phys- 
ical factor  which  influences  metabolism."  It  was  all  a  matter 
of  correct  oxygen  pressure.  Said  he  of  his  experiments:  "The 
protozoa  grow  best  under  aerobic  conditions,  while  the  bac- 
terial flora  is  almost  entirely  anaerobic."  The  startling  appli- 
cation to  the  problem  of  bacterial  culture  which  he  was  to 
make  of  this  generalization  was  to  come  forth  shortly.  In  the 
meantime  he  deprived  his  Entamoeba  of  air  by  sealing  it  under 
a  cover  glass.  In  half  an  hour  it  went  slimy  and  passed  into 
"a  morphologic  type  such  as  one  most  frequently  encounters 
in  preparations  direct  from  the  gums."  Infection  of  host,  in 
other  words,  was  infection  under  "anaerobic"  conditions  and 


200  sometning  ^ar  removed,  in  consequence,  from  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  organism  "grew'*  best. 

Wherry  at  once  applied  his  conclusions  to  the  cultivation 
of  a  "diplococcus"  that  had  evaded  all  laboratory  method. 
Bacteriologists  had  long  squeezed  the  blood  of  their  own  fingers 
over  culture  media  to  make  the  micrococcus  of  gonorrhea 
feel  more  at  home;  but  even  so  had  had  but  disappointing 
results.  "Most  of  those  who  have  worked  with  the  isolation 
of  the  gonococcus  from  exudates  admit  that  its  cultivation  is 
attended  by  many  difficulties  and  uncertainties,"  said  Wherry 
[52].  Following  "no  results"  with  a  "number  of  such  media" 
he  described  his  success  in  four  instances  of  the  disease  in  chil- 
dren and  one  in  an  adult.  It  was  due  to  the  use  of  Martin's 
culture  mixture,  he  said.  Fact  was,  that  this  had  not  been  the 
large  variable  in  the  total  picture.  What  was  necessary  was 
provision  of  a  right  air  pressure.  "Gonococci  thrive  only  at  a 
partial  oxygen  tension."  When  incubated  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  even  Martin's  medium  had  yielded  "no  gono- 
coccus colonies  at  all";  but  Wherry's  "control"  tubes,  hitched 
in  tandem  to  freshly  inoculated  slants  of  the  Bacillus  subtilis 
to  eat  up  the  oxygen  in  the  tube,  "yielded  hundreds." 

It  marked  another  triumph  in  bacteriological  cultivation. 
But  Wherry  saw  (in  his  two-page  paper!)  far  beyond.  "The 
question  is,  are  the  aerobic  strains  heretofore  isolated  the  gono- 
coccus?" (meaning  the  germ  capable  of  producing  disease). 
"Inoculation  experiments  performed  on  man  answer  in  the 
affirmative."  Here  he  traced  back  to  the  ante-bacteriological 
period  when  the  great  John  Hunter  had  infected  himself  of 
the  disease.  "Then  we  must  assume  that  while  the  majority 
of  the  gonococci  are  microaerop biles,  a  few  become  adapted 
to  aerobic  growth."  Ever  dubious  of  the  scientific  value  of 
therapeutic  evidence,  Wherry  had  this  clinical  fact  to  support 
his  contention.  Chronic  gonorrheics  who  had  not  cleared  in 
years  after  all  types  of  "antiseptic"  treatment  with  perman- 
ganate or  silver,  healed  promptly  after  baths  in  hot  water 
which  did  naught  but  bring  oxygenated  blood  to  diseased 
parts.  But  Wherry  was  thinking  even  more  deeply.  He  con- 
cluded: "Growth  under  partial  oxygen  tension  may  give  us  a 
different  antigen"  (a  different  producer  of  an  antitoxic  body) . 

More  detailed  report  (eleven  pages!)  followed  [54].  Here 


Wherry  discussed  what  had  been  done  on  "the  respiration  of  201 
bacteria,"  laying  special  emphasis  on  the  work  of  those  who 
had  shown  "that  the  optimal  conditions  for  the  growth  of 
any  single  species  do  not  depend  so  much  on  the  presence  or 
absence  of  oxygen  as  on  its  tension."  Here  his  Beijerinck  (out 
of  Chicago  and  Holland,  it  will  be  remembered)  was  pointed 
to  as  Number  One  man,  for  it  was  he  who  had  acquainted  the 
world  with  the  microaeropbiles.  "It  seems  remarkable  to  us 
that  greater  attention  has  not  been  paid  to  the  oxygen  require- 
ments of  parasitic  bacteria,"  wrote  Wherry.  "Recent  experi- 
ence has  suggested  that  the  cultivation  of  many  of  the  un- 
known viruses  of  infectious  diseases  may  depend  more  on  the 
presence  of  the  right  oxygen  tension  than  on  the  composition 
of  the  artificial  medium."  Whereafter  he  recorded  "the  details 
of  our  discovery  that  the  gonococcus  is  a  partial  tension  organ- 
ism." The  "our"  is  italicized  because  Wherry  discovered 
many  things  and  many  principles  in  his  life;  but  only  rarely 
did  he  so  frankly  call  himself  the  author.  It  was  more  common 
practice  for  him  just  to  hand  the  fruits  of  his  tree  of  knowl- 
edge to  anybody  standing  around  the  place. 

He  proceeded  next  "to  describe  a  partial-tension  Clostridium 
and  a  partial  tension  bacterium  from  a  human  knee  joint 
resembling  B  abortus.  None  of  the  three  organisms  will  grow 
anaerobically  (that  is  to  say  in  the  complete  absence  of  oxy- 
gen) but  they  throw  off  aerobic  variants  from  their  partial- 
tension  growths."  Now  Wherry  showed  "that  Leptothrix 
innominata  of  the  human  mouth  has  a  very  wide  range  of 
oxygen  tension,"  and  recorded  observations  indicating  that 
rfB  typhosus  becomes  adapted  to  partial  tension  growth  within 
the  body." 

As  already  detailed,  he  had  thus  made  the  cultivation  of  the 
gonococcus  "an  easy  matter."  The  Clostridium,  growing  quite 
naturally  at  partial  tension  below  the  (fully  oxygenated) 
surface  of  his  culture  medium,  he  teased  into  life  under  aerobic 
conditions  by  breaking  this  surface  and  allowing  the  organism 
to  crawl  upwards.  The  descendants,  now  used  to  the  fresher 
air,  would  then  go  on  happily  when  transplanted  into  like  cir- 
cumstances elsewhere.  For  his  bacillus  of  typhoid  fever  he 
noted  a  growth,  under  aerobic  conditions,  of  "thousands  of 
colonies";  but  under  partial-tension,  of  "millions."  Anae- 


202  r°kica^y  ne  got  hardly  any.  For  the  bacterium  from  the  knee 
joint  he  got  growth  neither  aerobically  nor  anaerobically  but 
"thousands"  in  the  intermediate  zone;  for  his  Leptothrix 
(isolated  from  the  human  gum  line)  he  got  no  growth  aero- 
bically, some  anaerobically  but  best  growth  at  partial  tension. 
In  the  last  named  instance  he  had  not  only  shown  that  partial 
tension  was  optimal  for  the  growth  of  the  microorganism  but 
had  actually  cultivated  it  for  the  first  time ;  on  which  account 
he  made  of  his  findings  a  separate  paper  [5  5]. 

A  "discussion"  brought  these  laboratory  experiences  to  a 
close.  Such  "theory"  of  disease  as  he  expounded  is  rarely 
read,  in  consequence  is  hardly  known.  Wherefore  it  is  too  fre- 
quently disparaged;  what  is  worse  for  a  sick  world,  unap- 
plied. "The  majority  of  bacteria  actively  multiplying  within 
the  tissues  of  a  host  are  adapted  to  a  pressure  of  less  than  2 1  % 
oxygen.  They  exist  under  partial-oxygen  tension,"  he  said. 
".  .  .  What  effect  this  observation  may  have  on  the  cultiva- 
tion of  hitherto  unrecognized  infectious  agents  remains  to  be 
seen.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  B  typhosus  failed  to  attack  glucose 
under  partial  tension  but  attacked  it  vigorously  when  grown 
aerobically  is  certainly  worth  considering.  ...  Is  it  not  pos- 
sible that  the  partial- tension  mode  of  nutrition  in  vitro  is  more 
nearly  that  which  the  microorganism  follows  in  the  body  of 
the  host?  If  so,  does  failure  to  take  this  into  consideration 
account  for  our  inability  to  recognize  toxine-production  by 
many  species  in  vitro}  Does  this  mode  of  nutrition  build  up  a 
bacterial  cell  body  of  very  different  chemical  composition 
from  the  ordinary  aerobic  and  anaerobic  strains  we  have 
worked  with  in  the  past?" 

He  ended  with  reference  to  the  work  of  Bordet,  Rowland, 
Rosenow  and  Beijerinck  supportive  of  his  views.  He  was  back 
in  the  very  fundamentals  of  biological  existence — the  drama 
of  life  living  on  life,  and  the  "variations"  assumed  by  species 
as  the  conditions  for  the  battle  were  changed.  In  conclusion 
he  quoted  Beijerinck:  "Variations  in  oxygen  pressure  above  or 
below  that  most  favorable  to  vital  function  are  chief  factor, 
and  these  ferments  [Beijerinck  used  the  term  in  Pasteur's  sense, 
as  synonym  for  microorganisms]  only  continue  to  display 
constant  specific  characters  when  continuously  cultivated  at 


a  certain  oxygen  pressure — otherwise  these  characters  disap-  20^ 
pear  and  new  ones  originate." 


WHILE  thus  engaged,  1916  opened  and  Wherry  received 
this  Christmas  letter  from  his  mother  (December  25, 
1915): 

Papa  had  a  carbuncle  cut  out  of  his  back  just  three  weeks  ago 
&  he  has  been  in  bed  ever  since.  They  dress  it  twice  a  day  &  put 
such  a  big  pack  of  cotton  on  top  that  he  cannot  lie  on  it  .  .  . 
We  had  a  good  many  callers  &  several  Mohammedans  told  me 
that  they  were  praying  for  his  recovery.  I  let  7  Hindus  go  into 
the  bed  room  to  make  their  salaams.  They  brought  2  large  brass 
trays  full  of  apples,  oranges,  sweets,  nuts  &c.  I  gave  most  of 
it  to  the  servants  &  some  of  it  to  the  Christians  .  .  .  Nellie 
still  expects  to  go  home  in  March  unless  they  begin  to  blow  up 
ships  going  via  China  &  Japan  .  .  .  With  6  servants,  there  is 
no  one  who  can  do  nurse's  work!  cook,  kit,  sweeper,  bhisti, 
gariwalla  &  watchman.  The  latter  sleeps  all  night.  Last  night 
I  saw  an  old  white  horse  filling  himself  with  grass  from  our 
garden.  He  and  buffaloes  &  their  calves  eat  our  few  flowers, 
too.  27th  Sad  news  at  noon  today  of  Mr  Kelso's  death.  I  think 
Jamie  &  John  would  appreciate  a  letter  from  you,  Will.  Jamie 
you  know  is  Prest  of  Allegheny  Semy,  Pittsburg  Pa  &  John 
is  a  Prof  at  Wooster  College.  Alec  has  a  church  some  place  in 
Pa.  Mary  is  teaching  at  Northfield  and  Bessie  is  here.  She 
studied  nursing. 

Two  weeks  later  she  could  report  that  "Papa  is  now  able  to 
be  up"  and  continued: 

...  A  young  Eurasian  has  been  attending  to  the  dressings. 
She  has  taken  the  regular  course  of  medicine  here  but  Govt 
doesn't  call  anyone  a  Dr  with  this  degree  .  .  .  Every  day 
nearly,  orders  come  for  his  books.  He  has  a  young  man 
to  attend  to  the  book  orders.  It  sounds  big  but  after  all  hardly 
pays,  as  things  are  gotten  very  cheaply.  .  .  .  Your  papa  is 
now  here  on  the  veranda  trying  to  make  the  wick  work  right 
of  the  little  oil  heater  you  gave  us,  Will,  as  we  were  leaving  San 
Francisco.  I  think  it  needs  a  new  wick  put  in  which  we  have. 
For  a  tin  of  Snow  Flake  oil  which  is  the  best  we  can  get  here 


O  f)A.  — American  oil — we  pay  one  dollar  5  0  cents.  A  tin  contains 
about  4  gallons.  That  is  pretty  cheap  I  think.  There  is  lots  I 
might  tell  you  but  can't  on  account  of  the  Censor — you  would 
never  get  it.  We  are  safe  tho'  so  don't  fear  for  us. 

A  few  days  later  the  father  wrote  himself  to  "all  the  chil- 
dren in  America."  Wherry  noted  upon  it  for  the  ultimate 
recipient:  "I  expect  you  will  get  this  letter  last  of  all.  When 
you  are  through  with  it  please  return  it  to  me  unless  you 
particularly  wish  to  save  it  yourself."  This  was  the  father's 
message  (January  11,  1916)  : 

It  was  hoped  I  should  be  able  to  preside  at  Annual  Meeting  of 
the  General  Committee  of  the  Ludhiana  Medical  College,  that 
I  would  be  able  to  eat  my  Christmas  dinner  in  Kasur  where 
there  was  to  be  a  family  gathering  &  that  I  should  be  able  to 
attend  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
India.  But  alas,  not  one  of  these  events  was  open  to  me.  .  .  . 
I  had  long  wanted  the  Modern  Bible  but  the  separate  parts 
were  too  expensive  for  me.  Aunt  Sarah  was  here  over  Sunday. 
For  a  lady  of  67  she  looks  as  if  she  were  fifty.  She  is  fond  of 
camping  &  spends  most  of  the  winter  in  tents.  The  work  at 
Kasur  is  booming  along  apace.  During  the  year  the  way  has 
been  opened  to  four  regiments  of  Christian  soldiers,  about  70 
or  80  recruits  have  gone  from  Frank's  [McCuskey]  people. 
It  is  a  great  thing  for  the  Christian  community.  .  .  .  The 
Lord  bless  you  all.  We  rejoice  in  your  prosperity  and  I  have 
been  specially  pleased  to  hear  from  Almena  that  she  has  taken 
a  hand  in  the  Persian  mission. 

Wherry  interrupted  his  so  fundamental  observations  on 
host-microorganismal  biology  with  a  note  on  the  filterability 
of  the  Bacillus  bronchisepticus  [56].  It  was  old  stuff  to  him. 
He  wished  merely  to  see  to  it  that  honor  was  given  where  honor 
was  due.  Several  "new"  microorganisms  as  the  cause  of  infec- 
tious disease  in  animals  had  been  described.  They  were  iden- 
tical with  the  organism  which  Theobald  Smith  had  discovered 
responsible  for  an  epidemic  form  of  pneumonia  in  guinea  pigs 
almost  two  decades  ago,  Wherry  pointed  out.  He  did  not 
mention  his  own  isolation  of  the  bacillus  pestis  caviae  one 
decade  ago.  The  filterability  of  the  bacillus  had  been  stressed 
as  discovery.  "It  is  only  fair  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 


Smith  casually  noted  this  and  asked  me  to  go  over  his  obser-  205 
vations.  This  was  done."  Which  merely  meant  that  scientific 
progress  needs  to  march  back  at  moments — to  1902. 

A  second  interruption  came  as  appeal  to  him  to  pass  judg- 
ment upon  the  findings  and  ideas  of  Charles  Alfred  Lee  Reed. 
This  abdominal  surgeon  (ex-president  of  the  American  medi- 
cal association  and  a  doctor  whose  activities  had  carried  the 
name  of  medical  Cincinnati  far  beyond  its  street-car  termini) 
had  noted  that  three  epileptics  ceased  in  their  attacks  after 
excision  of  the  large  bowel.  The  observation  had  led  him  to 
conclude  that  the  absorption  of  poisons  from  the  bowel,  or  the 
invasion  therefrom  of  the  blood  stream  by  pathogenic  bacteria, 
reaching  the  brain,  gave  rise  periodically  to  the  convulsive  seiz- 
ures characteristic  of  the  disease.  A  hopelessly  ill  contingent 
was  flocking  to  his  doors  ready  to  undergo  the  so  serious  opera- 
tion if  there  was  prospect  even,  of  relief.  Reed  had  long  been 
hated  of  his  confreres;  and  his  "success"  in  the  newly  created 
operative  field  did  naught  to  assuage  this  hate. 

To  ground  more  scientifically  his  clinical  deductions,  he 
had  sought  for  a  microorganismal  cause  in  the  blood  stream 
of  his  patients;  and  had  found  it — the  Bacillus  epilepticus.  An 
assistant  had  helped  him  to  the  discovery.  Unhappily  neither 
of  them  knew  much  of  the  trickiness  of  bacteriology  or  of  the 
highly  developed  special  knowledge  required  in  1916  of  men 
with  opinion  in  the  field.  Reed  had  put  his  head  in  a  noose,  and 
a  mob  was  crying  for  someone  to  tighten  it.  Wherry  was  asked 
to  be  the  man. 

The  story  ended  in  a  (two-page!)  report  [57].  In  six 
patients,  picked  of  Reed,  Wherry  made  cultures  of  the  blood, 
failing  in  all  to  isolate  the  organism  which  Reed  had  claimed 
the  causal  factor.  Whereafter  he  examined  Reed's  own  culture 
giving  opinion  that  it  was  nothing  but  one  of  the  ordinary  air- 
blown  bacterial  contaminators  that  harry  the  working  hours 
of  every  bacteriologist  not  always  and  completely  onto  his 
curves. 

For  Wherry  it  was  the  unhappy  ending  of  a  blue  day;  for 
the  crowd  in  general,  a  pretty  hanging.  What  it  did  not  see 
was  that  in  throwing  out  the  dirty  bath  water  (to  use  a  Ger- 
man figure)  a  pretty  baby,  too,  perhaps,  had  been  flung  in  the 
gutter. 


206  TN  India  by  April,  the  European  war  compelled  the  father 
JL  to  be  "acting  principal  of  the  school  and  the  college." 
Mother  explained  how  "a  good  many  people  who  had  intended 
going  to  England  or  Scotland  wanted  to  send  their  children 
to  the  local  schools."  From  her  own  side  she  could  report  that 
she  had  "varnished  most  of  the  old  furniture  so  that  it  looks 
new,  and  you  will  perhaps  be  surprised  to  hear  that  we  have 
had  electric  lights  put  into  6  rooms.  India  is  advancing."  The 
war  situation  had  brought  the  military  to  her  summer  abode 
in  Mussoorie  and  she  reported: 

There  are  quite  a  number  of  English  soldiers  up  here.  I  saw 
about  a  hundred  march  into  the  Church  of  England  on  Sun- 
day. Only  6  came  to  the  Kellogg  Mem'l  Church  [Presbyte- 
rian] who  of  course  were  dissenters.  .  .  .  Yesterday  we  got 
a  telegram,  telling  us  of  Dr  Charlie  Newton's  death.  He  was 
the  second  one  to  die  of  us  four  who  came  out  47  years  ago  on 
a  sailing  ship  &  we  were  the  last  who  ever  came  to  India  in  that 
way.  ...  I  wonder  if  you  get  all  our  letters?  I  try  to  be  very 
careful  how  I  express  myself  when  I  write!  as  several  of  my 
letters  had  bits  scratched  out  or  cut  out.  Our  police  officer  has 
been  transferred  to  Jullundur  so  we'll  not  hear  so  much  of 
what  is  going  on  around.  The  conspiracy  trial  is  over.  A  good 
many  were  sentenced  to  death  &  some  transported  for  life, 
&c,  &c.  .  .  . 

In  July  she  was  checking  up  on  the  censor:  "I  enclose  4 
clippings  &  a  programme.  Are  they  all  in  this  letter?"  Where- 
after she  listed  the  botanical  triumphs  about  her  house: 
22  pots  &  tins  of  the  most  beautiful  Begonias  that  I've  ever 
seen.  On  some  a  double  flower  &  a  single  one  on  the  same  stem. 
We  have  3  fuchsia  plants,  on  one  of  them  39  buds  &  flowers. 
...  a  great  many  geraniums  in  bloom  too.  We  found  3  small 
fir  trees  and  we  also  planted  a  walnut  tree.  We  find  the  electric 
light  very  much  cheaper  than  kerosene.  For  this  last  month  our 
bill  for  the  meter  &  electricity  was  60  cents.  Just  think  of  that! 
...  I  have  canned  some  pears  &  peaches,  and  made  raspberry 
jelly  and  apricot  and  peach  jam.  July  5th  Yesterday  the  Am 
Missionaries  met  and  celebrated  the  4th,  mostly  by  eating. 
.  .  .  We  were  glad  to  get  those  little  pamphlets,  Will,  that 
you  get  out.  My!  how  learned  you  are!  Most  of  it  is  beyond 
my  comprehension. 


She  added  to  these  exclamations  further  notes  on  crime- 


knowing  full  well  that  Wherry's  love  of  it  inflamed  his  imag- 
ination quite  as  much  as  his  struggles  with  the  occult  of 
science.  So,  all  about  the  newly  installed  women  as  police;  the 
unearthing  of  crime  by  the  military  intelligence;  the  tricky 
methods  pursued  by  detectives  in  capturing  "thugs" — an 
Indian  designation  of  their  kind,  by  the  way.  For  July  17,  a 
party  had  been  made  of  old  friends,  "to  celebrate  our  49th 
wedding  anniversary." 

Wherry  now  received  word  that  his  capable  sister  Nellie, 
long  a  teacher  in  India,  had  arrived  in  Chicago.  She  was  on 
furlough,  but  her  greater  interest  in  things  American  was  soon 
to  set  her  at  work  in  our  own  war  manceuvers;  thus  she  was 
destined  never  to  see  India  again.  After  the  War,  Wherry  was 
to  take  her  into  his  own  home.  "I  owe  her  that  for  what  she 
did  for  me  in  college,"  he  said. 

Mother  changed  from  one  letter  paper  to  another  to  write: 

That  other  paper  is  so  rough,  I  give  it  up.  I  am  sending  2  news- 
papers printed  by  the  Am  Methodist  Mission.  Please  let  Dr 
Nast  see  them.  .  .  .  No  doubt  you  are  very  busy.  We  had 
rather  an  exciting  time  last  week.  We  discovered  that  our 
chokidar  was  covered  with  itch.  Then  Lillie  found  our  Khid- 
mutgar  lying  on  the  dining  room  floor,  unconscious.  Your 
father  straightened  him  out  &  they  carried  him  to  the  kitchen. 
After  a  while  he  came  to  &  got  a  knife.  We  thought  it  was  an 
epileptic  fit  but  know  now  that  he  must  have  drunk  some- 
thing. Much  love  from  your  loving  Mother. 

In  this  summer  the  career  of  U  S's  evangel  of  prohibition, 
John  G  Woolley,  had  closed.  For  a  year  past  he  had  been 
preaching  the  cause  in  Skandinavia.  But  moderate  success  had 
followed  upon  his  efforts,  because  Danes  and  Norwegians 
liked  Madeira  and  port  with  their  fish.  Nor  had  success  been 
greater  in  Portugal  and  Spain,  where  they  liked  fish  with  their 
Madeira  and  port.  The  strain  of  it  killed  him.  His  son,  Cin- 
cinnati's pathologist,  journeyed  overseas  to  bring  back  the 
body  with  much  difficulty  and  bribe.  Wherry's  father  wrote 
(August  18,  1916)  that  he  "grieved  to  hear  of  Woolley's 
sorrow."  Himself,  he  had  thought  that  one  of  his  missionary 
associates  might  be  on  the  way  out  with  a  cancer  of  the 


207 


208  stomach.  The  patient  had  gone  to  Dr  Wanless  of  Miraj  who 
told  him  he  had  sprue!  "He  was  sent  up  to  Mohabaleshwar  to 
eat  strawberries — nothing  but  strawberries!  He  immediately 
began  to  recover  and  within  six  weeks  returned  north  practi- 
cally cured.  I  was  reminded  about  what  you  said  of  American 
doctors  not  being  able  to  diagnose,"  father  concluded.  A 
postscript  said: 

Your  account  of  your  discoveries  is  very  interesting.  I  want  to 
leave  the  Burbank  books  with  you  until  we  return  home.  But 
there  were  3  vols  separate  &  marked  as  a  gift  to  Woodstock 
College.  These  I  want  sent  here. 


IN  October  of  1916  Wherry  submitted  another  paper  [59] 
to  Hektoen  {The  adaptation  of  parasitic  microorganisms 
to  a  lowered  oxygen  tension)  and  promised  him  a  second  [60] 
(  The  influence  of  oxygen  tension  on  morphologic  variations  in 
B  diphtheriae) .  After  accepting  the  first,  Hektoen  accepted 
the  second,  sight  unseen  (January  9,1917) :  "Thank  you  very 
much  for  the  article  you  are  sending.  We  are  always  glad  to 
get  articles  from  you.  Naturally  we  desire  the  best."  Besides 
which  compliment  he  penned  another  in  his  signature:  "Most 
cordially,  your,  L  Hektoen." 

In  the  first  of  the  above  papers  Wherry  cited  his  former 
efforts  "tending  to  establish  the  generalization  that  many,  if 
not  all,  endoparasites  become  adapted  to  a  tension  of  oxygen 
below  the  atmospheric."  Most  of  this  (seven-page!)  article 
dealt  with  his  experimental  study  of  a  streptococcus  but  a 
precedent  portion  with  the  better  growth  of  two  animal  forms 
(a  filaria  and  a  herpetomonad) .  Reduced  oxygen  pressure  had 
favored  the  growth  of  the  filaria.  "It  may  help  to  explain  why 
the  embryos  of  Ankylostoma  (hookworm)  and  Necator 
thrive  best  in  a  sandy  soil,"  Wherry  said.  The  herpetomonads 
had  grown  both  aerobically  and  under  partial  tension,  but 
better  under  the  latter  circumstances.  Their  motility  too,  gen- 
erally assumed  to  be  an  index  of  their  vitality,  appeared 
greatest  under  those  conditions  of  oxygen  pressure  most  like 
those  under  which  they  had  been  grown.  These  were  expan- 
sions of  experiments  made  earlier  [53]. 


He  had  retrieved  his  streptococcus  from  an  instance  of  209 
prostatitis.  The  ever  conscientious  observer  added  to  its  his- 
tory this  parenthetic  warning:  "It  is  not  claimed  here  that 
there  was  any  connection  between  the  organism  isolated  and 
the  condition  of  the  patient.  ..."  From  a  single  colony — in 
bacteriology  each  such  is  presumed  to  be  the  family  born  of 
a  single  organism  of  fixed  type — Wherry  inoculated  a  deep 
tube  of  culture  fluid.  To  his  surprise,  growth  occurred  at  two 
sharply  defined  but  different  levels  in  his  column  of  "soup," 
a  first  near  the  top  and  a  second,  near  the  bottom.  The  organ- 
isms living  at  the  top  obviously  liked  some  air;  those  in  the 
bottoms,  shunned  it.  (Wherry  said  that  the  latter  were 
aerophobe — air  fearing — which  so-descriptive  term,  either 
Beijerinck  or  he  invented.)  A  single  "strain"  had  given  rise 
to  two  totally  different  biological  products!  Here  is  how 
Wherry  reacted: 

A  similar  phenomenon  has  been  recorded  by  Wittneben.  We 
were  inclined  to  believe  that  Wittneben  had  been  working 
with  a  mixed  culture.  It  seemed  extremely  improbable  to  us 
that  the  culture  of  a  single  species,  all  the  individuals  of  which 
were  grown  under  the  same  conditions,  could  be  composed  of 
descendants  adapted  to  such  widely  varying  oxygen  require- 
ments. Observation  has  reversed  our  preconceived  ideas. 

Wherry  transferred  his  pure  bred  microaerophile  and  aero- 
phobe strains  to  new  culture  grounds  kept  under  identical 
conditions  of  air  pressure.  Both  "tended  to  throw  off  vari- 
ants," Wherry  found.  And  now  he  injected  each  of  his  two 
strains  into  the  circulation  of  animals.  His  findings  were 
"inconclusive,"  he  said.  Fact  was,  the  aerobic  strain  had  not 
diseased  his  animals;  the  aerophobe  produced  "marked  con- 
gestion of  the  tissues  about  the  joints  which  were  full  of  bloody 
fluid."  A  rather  violent  picture  of  acute  rheumatism  the  by- 
stander would  say!  And  rather  startling  proof  that  micro- 
organisms tend  to  localize,  to  grow  and  to  make  sick  those 
portions  of  anatomy  where  lack  of  oxygen  and  therefore 
optimal  conditions  for  their  growth  are  most  apparent. 

Pressure  of  oxygen  again  showed  itself  the  main  factor  in 
the  production  of  the  various  "forms"  of  the  diphtheria 
bacillus.  Many  such  had  been  described — long  and  short,  pyri- 


0 1  Q  form  or  conical,  branching  or  not,  cross-barred  or  not,  with 
or  without  polar  granules.  The  alphabet  had  been  called  upon 
to  designate  them  and  particular  types  had  been  regarded  as 
so  characteristic  as  to  identify  the  organism.  Said  Wherry: 
"The  partial  tension  cultures  showed  much  more  luxuriant 
growth  than  the  aerobic  .  .  .  Bringing  the  bacteria  out  of 
the  tissues  at  partial  tension  enabled  them  to  grow  faster  and 
they  went  on  to  the  formation  of  barred  types,  whereas  aerobic 
cultivation  yielded  chiefly  the  small,  solid  staining  type."  Thus 
was  explained  "the  occurrence  of  various  morphologic  types 
of  the  diphtheria  bacillus  in  a  mixed  culture  from  the  lesions 
of  diphtheria."  It  could  be  understood  "only  when  one  appre- 
ciates the  influence  of  oxygen  on  the  rate  of  growth."  Then, 
as  indicative  of  how  clearly  he  saw  the  whole  problem  in 
nature,  he  concluded:  "In  mixed  cultures  from  the  throat  the 
morphology  ...  is  probably  modified  by  chemical  products 
of  growth  as  well  as  by  the  reduced  oxygen  tension  resulting 
from  such  association." 


1917-1920 


X 


WHERRY  was  at  work  upon  these  "chemical  products 
of  growth"  as  1916  passed  into  history.  The  new 
year  was  to  bring  war  for  USA  and  other  confusions.  Early 
in  February  his  mother  acknowledged  "my  50th  anniversary 
presents  from  you  both."  She  told  of  her  plans: 

The  silk  is  entirely  too  good  for  me;  but  I  will  obey  Nellie's 
command  and  have  a  good  Russian  dressmaker  make  it  up  for 
me.  I  think  she  is  Russian,  Madame  Savoilsky,  and  she  does 
good  work. 

Description  of  other  things  in  Ludhiana  took  more  space. 
There  was  to  be  a  wedding  in  the  compound  and  all  hands  had 
been  called  on  deck: 

Your  papa  is  to  perform  the  ceremony  with  Frank's  help. 
Margaret  is  to  play  the  wedding  march  and  Donald  and 
Franie  are  to  be  flower  bearers.  Willie  is  to  help  serve  refresh- 
ments. I,  with  Lillie's  help,  made  the  wedding  cake  and  to-day 
4  other  ones  &  on  Monday  we  will  make  4  more  .  .  .  The  day 
before,  your  father  is  to  marry  a  couple  of  native  Christians 
and  in  March  Ebenezer  Ahmod  Shah  is  to  marry  Salome.  Both 
are  well  educated  and  well  suited  for  one  another.   .   .  . 

From  here  the  reader  must  guess  for  himself  to  which  of 
the  several  principals  further  reference  was  intended: 

The  bride-to-be  &  groom  are  both  in  Ludhiana  now  as  one  of 
them  has  to  be  here  4  days  before  the  wedding — there  is  a  lot 
of  red  tape  connected  with  a  wedding  here.  Your  papa  used  to 
have  a  license  to  marry  but  it  had  run  out  and  he  had  to  get 
a  new  one.  Yesterday  his  Gov't  permit  came  and  has  set  the 
parties'  minds  at  ease.  .  .  .  7th  Well,  the  wedding  came  off 
splendidly.  The  married  couple  went  off  in  a  Motor  Car,  no 
one  knows  where!  Our  cakes  were  very  good.  The  papers  now 
say  that  Am  is  going  into  the  war.  I  only  hope  that  none  of 


212  our  ^r*enck  W1^  nave  to  §° — tne  slaughter  is  terrible.  Much 
love  to  Dr  and  Mrs  Nast. 

The  father  made  his  acknowledgment  later  (February  21, 
1917)  for  "Roosevelt  Books  on  Travels  in  Africa  and  South 
America  (Brazil) ."  He  had  "written  to  the  Burbank  Society 
about  the  9  missing  volumes  .  .  .  subscribed  for."  Two  pages 
of  detail  about  these  and  further  instruction  regarding  their 
care  followed — a  worry  happily  terminated  in  May  by  a  letter 
from  mother,  saying  the  three  volumes  for  India  had  arrived. 
Father  inclosed  a  long  "cutting  on  Kala-Azar"  and  added:  "I 
seem  to  be  busy — Principal  of  Woodstock,  President  Ludhiana 
Gen  Com  of  Medical  College,  Manager  Nur  Afshdn,  Supt 
Christian  Book  Store  &  President  &  Chairman  of  a  half  dozen 
Societies  &  Committees."  Of  other  portions  of  the  Wherrys 
in  India  he  said:  "Lillie  &  Frank  &  Aunt  Sarah  are  all  busy 
making  Christians  in  the  Kasur  District." 

Though  April  made  us  part  of  the  international  conflagra- 
tion, India,  with  three  years  of  it,  still  allowed  mother  to  write 
(May  18,  1917): 

Things  seem  very  quiet  here  and  were  it  not  for  the  soldiers 
and  the  papers  we  would  hardly  know  that  war  is  going  on 
.  .  .  John  Ramditt  who  used  to  work  with  your  father  in  his 
Nur  Afshdn  office  went  off  to  Mesopotamia,  is  back  on  fur- 
lough and  will  marry  Ellen  Istifan  and  then  go  off  again, 
perhaps  forever. 

To  which  she  added  these  remarks: 

You  furnished  Clara  with  some  serum  to  cure  her  grippe, 
didn't  you?  She  escaped  an  attack  this  winter  and  gave  your 
serum  the  credit.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  that  trouble  could 
be  prevented.  We  enjoy  seeing  your  articles  but  your  terms  are 
beyond  me! 

It  was  not  a  serum  but  a  vaccine — cultures  of  organisms 
considered  the  cause  of  various  pathological  manifestations, 
killed,  and  injected.  He  had  for  years  past  given  such  treat- 
ment to  the  afflicted;  and  was  to  continue.  Success  at  the 
special  moment  had  brought  him  an  unlooked-for  lot  of  "tes- 
timonials." In  the  number  of  those  who  wrote  stood  Cincin- 
nati's social  foreground — Emerys,  Tafts,  Strietmanns,  and  a 
bevy  of  doctors.  They  were  "much  better  and  without  pain" 


— and  grateful.  Point  is  made  of  the  matter,  for  from  these  21^ 
sources  were  shortly  to  come  sorely  needed  subsidies  to  his 
department.  Though  of  the  first  established  in  the  "new" 
school,  Wherry's  division  was  always  to  rest  at  the  bottom  of 
the  financial  ladder.  Administrators  ever  on  hunt  for  subscrip- 
tion to  university  cause  seek  motive.  Well,  here  it  is. 

Mother  told  of  adventures  which  had  been  his  in  the  days 
of  long  ago: 

The  children  went  up  the  hill  last  ev'n'g  to  see  some  foxes  that 
live  in  a  hole  in  the  ground.  They  saw  two  little  ones  and  an 
old  one  but  they  ran  into  their  nest.  It  is  too  soon  for  the 
monkeys  as  the  crops  have  only  been  sown. 


THE  world  vortex  now  engaged  Wherry.  Though  long 
committed  to  the  British  side,  the  conviction  had  grown 
slowly  and  was  not  yet,  even,  without  its  reservations.  He  had 
hangover  still  of  an  active  as  opposed  to  an  atrophied  Chris- 
tianity; and  he  was  doctor — sworn  to  God  to  save  and  not 
to  take  life.  He  had  seen  the  half  of  his  family  and  his  friends 
labelled  "German"  in  disparagement;  and  made  suspect,  even 
though  rooted  in  American  soil  at  least  eighty  years.  All  of  it 
somewhat  foolish,  he  said;  and  smiled.  But  the  national  dedi- 
cation did  change  him — into  something  yet  more  silent. 

He  volunteered;  refused  admittance  to  the  regular  army 
(forty- three  with  a  leak  in  his  heart)  he  asked  assignment  to 
the  medical  division.  This,  too,  was  denied  him.  So  why  not  a 
dollar-a-year  man,  to  see  action  in  Washington?  If  you  but 
knew  it,  his  daily  business  with  living  fire  was  quite  as  hazard- 
ous as  TNT.  Thus  for  a  season,  he  waved  about  in  the  nation's 
capitol  some  finely  engraved  and  uncashed  checks  from  "The 
Treasurer  of  the  United  States  of  America,"  for  twenty-five 
cents  each;  to  be  estopped  of  court  for  gumming  up  the 
nation's  bookkeeping. 

Geo  W  McCoy  (how,  no  one  knows)  got  him  a  more 
lucrative  job.  August  14,  1917  Wherry  wrote  from  Chevy 
Chase: 

I  have  at  last  summarized  our  "acidosis"  inoculation  experi- 
ments. I'll  send  you  a  copy  for  comment  and  addition.  My 


214 


notes  are  incomplete  on  the  last  rabbits  and  guinea-pigs.  You 
will  know  whether  the  animals  lived  and  were  turned  back 
into  the  breeding  stock  or  not.  The  first  of  our  series  are  the 
most  satisfactory  for  I  have  a  daily  history  of  these  with  the 
urinalyses. 

This  reference  was  to  experiments  on  susceptibility  to  infec- 
tion, never  published.  A  virulent  strain  of  pneumococcus  had 
been  injected  into  a  lot  of  healthy  laboratory  animals  as 
opposed  to  an  equal  number  previously  exposed  to  cold,  starva- 
tion or  a  "one-sided  diet"  (oats  and  water) .  Most  of  the  latter 
died,  almost  all  the  former  lived.  Wherry  continued: 

I  came  on  to  the  Hygienic  Laboratory  July  7th  at  the  request 
of  McCoy.  I  am  "doing  my  bit"  for  250.00  a  month!  I  was 
to  have  done  about  six  pieces  of  work  but  so  far  have  spent 
all  my  time  helping  on  the  problem  of  the  standardization  of 
anti-meningococcus  serum.  This  is  some  job  as,  so  far,  I 
haven't  found  any  "immune  bodies"  in  it  apart  from  aggluti- 
nins. However  Dr  Wayson  &  I  are  now  starting  some  protec- 
tion tests  which  may  yield  a  basis  for  work.  The  routine  of  the 
laboratory  in  the  control  of  biologic  "therapeutic"  products  is 
large  and,  on  the  whole,  very  well  done.  But  of  course  they 
are  up  against  a  big  problem  in  attempting  to  "standardize" 
such  materials. 

One  of  the  men  in  the  lab  was  ordered  away  and  I  rented 
his  home  north  of  Washington.  Marie  and  the  kids  came  on 
the  middle  of  July  &  Nellie  the  first  of  August.  We  enjoy  the 
place.  I  have  seen  most  of  the  things  of  interest  excepting  a 
Senator  &  a  Representative. — I  will  be  back  Oct  1st. 


AND  he  was — much  to  the  comfort  of  his  medical  school 
dean,  Holmes.  Teaching  had  long  since  palled  upon  the 
half  of  his  faculty,  and,  away  now  in  barracks,  continuation 
of  medical  education  and  the  production  of  new  doctors  were 
problems.  By  Christmas  Wherry  found  himself  one  of  the  only 
three  full  professors  left.  With  nothing  but  student  assistants 
as  helpers,  he  assumed  responsibility  for  all  bacteriology, 
pathology,  laboratory  diagnosis  and  preventive  medicine!  And 
met  it! 


In  spite  of  a  call  upon  him  for  his  every  waking  hour,  he  01  ^ 
made  a  new  discovery.  He  had  already  observed  how  the  dif- 
ferent organisms  to  which  he  had  applied  himself  needed  for 
optimal  growth  an  exact  concentration  of  oxygen.  Now  he 
found  them  equally  dependent  upon  an  exact  concentration 
of  carbonic  acid  gas  (CO2,  as  the  boys  call  it).  The  bygone 
year  had  showed  "that  if  the  respiratory  CO2  evolved  by  a 
freshly-planted  virulent  culture  of  the  tubercle  bacillus  was 
removed,  growth  did  not  take  place."  The  bacilli,  though 
alive,  remained  in  a  non-reproductive  state.  His  (four-page!) 
article  [61]  detailed  quantitative  study  of  the  question.  He 
made  implantations  of  the  tuberculosis  germ  from  two  dif- 
ferent strains  into  test  tubes  in  the  regular  fashion.  But  now 
he  hitched  these  tubes  by  means  of  a  tightly  fitting  rubber 
hose  to  a  second,  containing  a  fluid  which  would  or  would  not 
suck  up  the  carbonic  acid  gas  as  produced  in  the  growth- 
process  of  the  organism.  When  water  merely  was  thus  em- 
ployed, the  tubercle  bacillus  grew  luxuriantly  (because  the 
CO2  it  produced  accumulated  and  was  not  absorbed  by  the 
water) ;  but  when  an  alkali  of  some  sort  was  added  to  this 
water  (Wherry  used  barium  hydroxide  or  sodium  hydroxide) 
they  grew  hardly  at  all.  But  neither  too  much  nor  too  little 
of  the  CO2  might  thus  be  allowed  to  stagnate  in  the  atmosphere 
about  the  organism.  Its  total  absence  was  inimical  to  growth; 
but  thirteen  percent  of  it,  also.  Best  growth  occurred  in  a 
middle  concentration — around  seven  or  eight  percent.  When 
tubercle  bacilli  are  first  set  out  upon  fresh  ground  there  is  con- 
siderable delay  before  new  growth  begins.  The  "lag"  takes 
days.  Wherry  explained  the  matter.  Not  until  "both  oxygen 
and  carbonic  acid  gas  pressures  reach  an  optimal  point,  does 
growth  start." 

Wherry  had  announced  a  law.  He  had,  moreover,  been 
working  with  an  "acid-fast"  microorganism.  How  he  was  to 
apply  his  new-found  knowledge  to  make  another  acid- fast 
organism  grow  (the  bacillus  of  leprosy)  never  before  culti- 
vated on  laboratory  media,  we  shall  discover  later. 

Two  months  after  the  appearance  of  these  studies,  Wherry 
sent  a  further  paper  to  Hektoen.  Four  and  a  half  pages  were 
headed,  Cultures  of  a  leptothrix  from  a  case  of  Pari7iaud's  con- 
junctivitis   [62].   The   title   needs   inspection.    Superficially 


0 1  r\  viewed  it  was  another  case  report — albeit  of  a  disease  not  so 
common.  But  two  discoveries  lay  in  it.  A  leptothrix  as  cause 
of  this  eye  disease  had  previously  only  been  hinted  at;  and 
except  for  Wherry's  own  achievement  in  this  direction,  none 
had  ever  cultivated  such  organism  in  the  laboratory. 

The  patient  was  a  red-eyed  boy  out  of  Victor  Ray's  ophthal- 
mic clinic;  and  since  he  got  well  fairly  quickly  that  would, 
for  most  men,  have  been  the  end  of  the  story.  Ray  noticed  that 
certain  features  of  the  disease  made  it  stand  forth  from  the 
common  run,  and  summoned  Wherry.  For  one  thing,  it  had 
spread  beyond  the  lids;  and  the  lymph  glands  in  front  of  the 
ear  had  abscessed  (as  in  tularense  infection) .  The  details  coin- 
cided with  that  form  of  chronic  conjunctivitis  which  Parinaud 
had  described  in  1889.  No  cause  for  it  had  ever  been  found. 
Such  had  been  described  but  as  commonly  denied.  Verhoeff 
had  made  the  only  solid  contribution  to  the  subject  when  he 
recognized  as  constantly  present  in  the  human  tissues  "a 
minute  filamentous  organism."  But  he  had  not  succeeded  in 
growing  it  outside.  In  Ray's  example  of  the  disease  none  of  the 
commonly  responsible  organismal  causes  of  inflammation  in 
the  eyes  was  doing  the  mischief,  that  was  certain.  Attempts 
merely  to  stain  any  kind  of  microorganism  in  smears  and 
scrapings  by  six  different  methods  failed  in  Wherry's  hands. 
Also,  he  could  grow  nothing  on  all  manner  of  laboratory 
media.  Then  he  inoculated  some  guinea  pigs  and  rabbits  (to 
see  if  tuberculosis  might  be  present)  but  they  showed  no 
symptoms  of  disease.  Whereafter  he  scratched  the  infectious 
material  into  the  eyelids  of  a  mouse.  It  developed  eye  signs 
similar  to  those  in  the  boy.  From  it,  Wherry  translated  the 
disease  to  two  other  animals;  and  then  from  these  he  succeeded 
in  cultivating  a  microorganism.  His  success  came  through 
application  of  the  principles  for  growth  that  he  had  so  long 
and  so  often  stressed — a  proper  medium  (egg-yolk)  and 
proper  atmosphere  (partial  tension  or  no  oxygen  at  all).  At 
a  single  stroke,  as  it  were,  he  had  both  isolated  and  grown  in 
the  laboratory  an  organism  never  before  isolated  and  never 
before  grown  (except  by  himself  in  the  instance  of  Miller's 
leptothrix) — a  Leptothrix.  Now  he  returned  to  the  patient, 
similarly  to  isolate  and  grow  this  organism  out  of  the  glandular 
swellings  of  the  boy  himself. 


In  the  autumn  of  1917  influenza  broke  out  over  the  map  of  0 1  7 
U  S  A.  It  had  started  in  a  naval  camp;  gotten  worse  in  the 
military  cantonments;  had  reached  a  crest  in  those  barracks 
where  doctors  only  were  housed.  The  civil  population  was 
invaded,  with  nearly  everybody  (because  of  the  many  fatali- 
ties) having  the  jitters.  From  one  hospital,  squads  of  orderlies 
broke  and  ran  when  delegated  to  duty  in  influenza  wards.  The 
disease  was  going  strong  when  Wherry  volunteered. 

The  Surgeon-general  of  the  Public  health  service  answered 
Wherry's  "letter  and  telegram"  (January  12,  1918) :  "I  desire 
to  state  that  the  kind  of  duty  contemplated  is  only  for  tempo- 
rary periods  in  connection  with  special  investigations  of  certain 
diseases  as  meningitis."  For  proper  induction  to  this  work, 
Wherry  applied  to  the  U  S  civil  service  commission  for 
appointment  as  "special  expert  in  bacteriology  and  epidemiol- 
ogy." After  four  months  he  got  it.  But  by  May,  "meningitis" 
had  abated  and  the  Surgeon-general's  office  suggested  that 
trachoma  (a  Babylonian  disease)  be  taken  up  instead.  As  to 
the  new  specificity  of  his  "research,"  what  difference  did  that 
make? — bugs  had  always  been  bugs  to  him.  It  took  two 
months  more  of  letterwriting  and  orders,  signed  by  five  dif- 
ferent principals,  before  the  where  and  how  and  with  what,  of 
Wherry's  labors  were  settled.  He  believed  Cincinnati  (closest 
to  his  teaching  obligations)  the  best  place;  the  government 
decided  that  Pikeville  was  better — centre  of  Kentucky's  age- 
old  red-eye.  June  8,  1918  the  Department  still  believed  that 
work  there  "could  not  be  commenced  at  least  until  July  1st." 
Nevertheless  Wherry  was  inspecting  the  field  of  his  new 
assignment  June  thirteenth. 


IN  the  meantime  some  other  telegrams  and  special  deliveries 
had  arrived — as  usual,  not  to  find  him  at  once.  Medical 
Detroit  was  undergoing  reform  and  its  College  of  medicine 
and  surgery  was  straining  upward.  N  P  Colwell  (then  the  si- 
lent, clear-thinking  pope  of  the  American  medical  association's 
Committee  on  medical  education)  and  H  Gideon  Wells  (pro- 
fessor of  pathology  in  Chicago's  university)  had  been  asked 
for  counsel;  and  had  suggested  "Wherry  of  Cincinnati"  as 
dean.  The  school  had  just  "become  an  integral  part  of  the 


218  educational  system  of  the  city  under  its  board  of  education." 
Its  deanship  was  not  a  bad  offer — six  thousand  the  annum  and 
the  post  of  pathologist  in  Detroit's  largest  hospital  were  there 
for  the  man.  Officers  and  faculty  wrote  officially  and  privately 
in  warmest  appeal.  One  "had  not  taken  to  the  applicants;" 
another  wanted  an  "independent,  out-of-town  man,  an  origi- 
nal investigator  who  would  put  the  college  in  the  front  rank." 
Albert  P  Mathews,  about  to  join  Cincinnati's  faculty  expressed 
that  town's  feelings:  "I  am  getting  heart  disease  waiting  to 
hear  whether  you  are  to  remain  or  go."  After  a  visit  to  Detroit, 
Wherry  refused.  His  letter  to  the  temporarily  active  dean,  W 
H  MacCraken  (June  20,  1918) ,  spoke  so  clearly  his  views  in 
matters  academic,  that  it  is  quoted: 

I  did  not  send  you  a  night  letter  as  you  suggested  because  I  felt 
it  rather  hard  to  express  my  reasons  in  so  few  words.  I  shall  find 
it  difficult  anyway.  Originally  I  hesitated  considering  the  posi- 
tion at  all,  because  my  leaving  this  school  would  cripple  it  at 
a  time  when  it  is  extremely  hard  to  get  men,  and  when  it  has 
just  raised  my  pay  to  $4,000.  .  .  .  I  did  not  realize  until  we 
talked  the  matter  over  in  Detroit  that  the  Board  expected  me 
to  teach  pathology  and  bacteriology  in  addition  to  being  dean. 
Such  an  arrangement  would  of  course  make  me  dean  in  name 
only.  Furthermore,  while  it  was  stated  that  the  dean  would 
have  full  power,  I  came  to  feel  that  in  reality  he  would  be  wise 
if  he  adopted  a  policy  already  mapped  out  for  him — at  least 
for  the  time  being. 

Now  I  might  be  willing  to  give  up  some  of  my  time  for 
research  for  the  sake  of  developing  a  new  scheme  of  education 
— where  the  biological  and  dynamic  subjects  of  the  curricu- 
lum are  favored  and  nurtured  more  than  the  morphological — 
but  in  order  to  do  so  the  dean  would  certainly  have  to  be 
assured  of  full  power.  The  question  of  his  leadership  would 
then  involve  tenure  of  office;  and  assurance  of  this,  you  must 
admit,  rests  on  rather  insecure  foundations.  [He  had  been 
informed  that  he  would  be  appointed  not  for  life  but  under 
a  two  to  five  year  "contract."] 

Lest  my  letter  is  taking  a  tone  which  I  don't  wish  it  to 
assume,  I  hasten  to  say  that  I  was  very  much  pleased  with  the 
treatment  you  accorded  me.  I  thank  you  for  the  plain  fashion 


in  which  you  discussed  the  situation.  I  have  no  doubt  that  you   91  Q 
and  I  could  have  gotten  along  together  famously. 

Nor  have  I  any  doubt  about  your  being  able  to  build  up  the 
school — only  it  appeared  to  me  that  the  process  would  be  slow, 
still  further  delayed  by  the  War,  and  I  did  not  feel  like  giving 
up  my  line  of  work  for  such  a  period.  This,  coupled  with  the 
insecurity  of  the  deanship,  and  pressure  at  this  end  both  in  the 
form  of  duty  and  further  support  for  research  work  in  my 
department  decided  the  question  finally. 

He  wrote  me  more  jocularly  (June  26,  1918) : 

I  have  decided  to  stay.  I  took  Holmes's  promise  for  the  follow- 
ing: Salary  $4500;  1000  a  year  for  expenses  of  the  dept;  a 
promise  that  he  would  campaign  for  funds  to  create  a  chair 
in  hygiene  to  pay  at  least  $3000;  likewise,  two  $500  fellow- 
ships ;  the  promise,  also,  that  he  and  Wolf  stein  would  do  their 
utmost  to  put  the  status  of  full-time  teachers  in  the  medical 
school  on  the  basis  discussed.  ...  It  is  hard  to  tell  you  just 
why  I  lost  my  enthusiasm  about  Detroit.  I  think  I  decided  to 
stay  because  it  was  easiest — to  do  so  satisfied  my  desire  not  to 
be  separated  from  those  I  like  to  work  with  (this  includes 
you ! )  and  my  desire  not  to  give  up  my  toys  and  take  up  the 
big  stick.  Then,  they  told  me  that  the  exact  status  of  this  new 
Board  had  not  been  determined.  They  however  meant  well  and 
perhaps  everything  would  have  been  O  K  if  I  had  gone.  After 
I  refused  they  telegraphed  again  saying  that  they  would  be 
willing  to  pay  more  if  I  would  come.  I  guess  they  are  in  bad. 
Unfortunately  they  took  the  attitude  (at  least  so  it  seemed  to 
me)  that  I  would  be  an  effective  piece  of  camouflage  instead 
of  really  giving  me  the  power  &  means  to  paint  the  scenery 
for  them.  How's  that! 

I  go  to  Pikeville  in  July  but  don't  know  just  when.  In  the 
meantime  I  am  consuming  numerous  novels.  Ervin  [D wight 
M,  bachelor  out  of  Wooster  in  Ohio,  ardent  worker  in 
Wherry's  department,  later  graduate  of  Cincinnati's  medical 
school  to  become  a  distinguished  West  coast  doctor]  has  writ- 
ten a  note  on  diabetes.  I  believe  he  has  the  means  of  demon- 
strating the  glycogenic  function  of  the  internal  secretion  of 
the  pancreas  and  if  his  surgical  experiments  &  analyses  bear 
out  the  idea,  he  will  undoubtedly  have  gotten  nearer  to  the 


220  nature  °^  diabetes.  We  cannot,  however,  keep  him  out  of  the 
army,  for  he  is  determined  to  go.  I  told  him  that  he  ought  to 
solve  the  problem  of  diabetes  first. 


IN  late  August,  Ervin  reported  thus  to  Wherry  on  the 
referred-to  "note:"  "A  M  A  returned  my  article — but 
not  so  quickly  as  J  Bio-Chemistry."  Wherry  was  now  on  the 
trachoma  problem  in  Pikeville.  From  there,  on  the  typewriter 
— unusual  method  for  him — he  wrote  me  (August  2,  1918) : 

Things  are  going  rather  slowly  today  so  I  thought  I  would 
practice  a  little  on  you.  I  was  glad  to  hear  of  your  steady  stream 
of  patients  who  thus  again  exhibit  their  trustful  nature.  It  is 
a  great  thing  to  have  a  Personality — if  you  can  get  into  the 
right  line  of  work.  Even  Kaiser  Bill's  would  be  useless  if  he 
were  farming  one  of  these  here  hills. 

My  patriotic  work  has  so  far  comprised  (seems  to  me,  when 
one  thinks  slowly  and  carefully,  that  there  ought  to  be  a  z  in 
that  word!)  culturing  and  taking  tissue  from  three  cases  of 
chronic  trachoma.  They  are  coming  in  slowly.  Yesterday  I 
grandly  asked  for  my  hotel  bill  and  then  discovered  that  I  was 
not  so  rich  as  I  had  thought!  Even  so  one  can't  be  a  spendthrift 
among  these  Pikers.  If  Uncle  Sam  ever  decides  to  pay  me  for 
sticking  it  out  here  for  two  dreary  months,  I'll  be  rich. — Marie 
is  in  Cleveland  today — she  was  put  on  that  State  milk  com- 
mission. I  think  her  appointment  exhibited  an  unprecedented 
and  unlooked-for  amount  of  intelligence.  Please  excuse  these 
long  words  but  I  must  get  practice  by  patient  persistence.  I 
could  have  written  ten  times  as  much  by  pen  and  I  have  Story 
Tellers'  Pruritus  in  my  desire  to  relate  you  a  number  of  facts 
— but  this  does  look  neat  and  polite,  doesn't  it? 

You  should  come  down  here  and  get  the  data  on  a  problem 
in  heredity.  On  a  creek  1 9  miles  from  here  live  three  families 
— about  12  households  of  from  3—12  members  each — all  of 
English  strain.  They  have  always  lived  here  and  have  always 
intermarried.  They  average  two  born  deaf-and-dumb  per 
household.  There  is  also  one  paralytic  idiot  among  them. — 
Two  days  ago  one  of  the  little  girls  in  the  hospital  who  had 
been  blind  from  trachoma  for  three  years,  opened  her  eyes  and 


cried:  "I  can  see!  I  can  see!"  So  the  work  seems  very  worth  221 
while.  Well,  I  am  exhausted ! 

Official  explanation  of  why  he  had  not  been  reimbursed  for 
"expenses"  came  next  day.  A  governmental  chief  wrote:  "I 
have  been  unable  to  obtain  a  copy  of  your  appointment  and 
this  is  necessary  in  order  that  it  may  accompany  your  expense 
account  to  Washington." 

How  Wherry  busied  himself  in  Pikeville  can  perhaps  be 
found  in  the  files  of  Washington.  These  facts  leaked.  He  trans- 
mitted trachoma  from  the  eyelids  of  patients  to  those  of 
monkeys.  He  thought,  too,  that  he  had  seen  at  least,  the  causa- 
tive factor  in  the  disease.  The  only  evidence  of  it,  however, 
appeared  in  a  letter  to  Marie,  at  the  moment  resident  in 
Cincinnati  (August  13,  1918)  : 

I  have  run  across  an  interesting  little  bacillus  which  is  present 
in  large  numbers  in  the  smears  from  the  case  of  acute 
trachoma.  It  is  demonstrated  with  great  difficulty,  for  like 
tularense,  it  stains  with  about  the  same  intensity  as  the  back- 
ground of  the  preparation.  N/200  NaOH  with  a  little 
Loeffler's  blue,  or  fuchsin,  brings  it  out.  You  will  laugh  at  my 
excitement  for  you  have  seen  it  end  in  nothing  so  often.  I  made 
smears  from  three  chronic  cases  today  and  will  see  if  I  can  find 
the  same  bug.  They  came  from  a  single  family  of  twelve — all 
of  whom  are  infected.  They  are  certainly  a  nervy  lot.  Frowney, 
a  girl  of  twelve,  lay  there  and  let  Dr  Raynor  rub  all  her 
granulations  off  without  a  whimper. 

Had  a  nice  long  letter  from  Mr  Monroe  yesterday.  He  wants 
a  surgeon  for  Detroit  and  I  advised  Symmes  Oliver  or  Dudley 
Palmer. 

I  picked  up  a  sore  throat  somewhere;  hope  not  at  Ashland 
[where  poliomyelitis  was  active]  and  that  the  children  are  all 
right.  Don't  worry,  it  is  not  much  and  I  will  get  it  with  per- 
manganate. ...  Be  sure  Billie  is  well  before  leaving  for 
Michigan;  but  you  must  go,  and  as  soon  as  possible.  Try 
Empire  and  then  look  around.  You  always  come  out  on  top! 
Thanks  for  the  check  for  sixty  dollars;  will  bank  it  for  my 
last  two  weeks  expenses. 

By  September,  Wherry's  responsibilities  were  calling  him 
back  to  Cincinnati.  At  least  a  fraction  of  the  government  ser- 


222  v*ce  aPPreciated  what  he  was  doing.  Not  only  "interested"  in 
his  researches,  satisfied  with  his  progress  and  excited  by  the 
"possibility  of  finding  the  causal  agent  which  has  baffled  the 
world,"  Russell  Wesley  Raynor  said  (September  3,  1918)  that 
he  "would  be  very  much  gratified"  if  Wherry  would  continue 
his  work  at  the  laboratory  in  Pikeville.  "Is  it  not  possible  that 
you  can  do  so?"  he  asked.  Before  leaving  Kentucky  Wherry 
wrote  his  daughter,  now  aged  nine  (September  11,  1918)  : 

Thank  you  for  your  pretty  letter  written  with  a  quill  pen. 
That  was  quite  an  idea!  Two  hundred  years  ago  quill  pens  were 
the  fashion.  In  fact  they  did  not  have  anything  else  excepting 
pens  of  split  reed  and  these  are  still  used  in  India.  The  old  poets 
used  quill  pens  and  one  of  them  must  have  been  an  ancestor 
of  yours  for  you  wrote  me,  "The  water  is  very  pretty.  When 
the  sun  shines  on  it,  it's  silver."  That's  a  beautiful  idea,  I  think. 
.  .  .  Some  of  the  people  here  use  very  bad  English  for  they 
say,  "He's  most  ez  tall  ez  I're."  I  may  leave  here  Saturday. 


ON  arrival  in  Cincinnati  the  paper  met  him  which  was  to 
be  his  last  for  a  time.  Eight  pages  told  of  A  respiratory 
stimulant  and  toxic  substance  extractable  from  lung  tissue 
[63].  It  had  been  received  by  Hektoen  in  March.  Said 
Wherry: 

The  interesting  method  we  shall  describe  of  producing 
accelerated  respiration  or  death  was  discovered  accidentally 
in  an  experiment  with  tuberculous  tissue  from  a  rabbit's 
lung.  A  piece  of  tissue  filled  with  tubercles  was  ground  .  .  . 
suspended  in  salt  solution  .  .  .  injected  intravenously  into 
another  rabbit  which  immediately  fell  on  its  side  .  .  .  and 
died  a  few  seconds  later. 

He  omitted  relating  earlier  experiments  during  which  he 
had  thought  the  effects  due  to  a  toxine  of  the  tubercle  bacil- 
lus. Tests  showed  that  "it  played  no  part."  In  other  words 
the  extract  of  normal  lung  did  the  mischief.  He  explained 
how  little  was  required.  A  given  weight  of  rabbit  lung  was 
crushed  in  ten  times  its  volume  of  salt-water.  But  "one  cc 
of  this  crude  extract  did  not  really  contain  0.1  gramme  of 
lung  tissue,  for  most  of  the  tissue  remained  in  the  mortar." 


Yet  of  the  supernatant  soup,  "the  fatal  intravenous  dose  for  22^ 
rabbits  weighing  up  to  four  pounds  was  0.3  cc  [5  drops] 
..."  One  animal  after  another  succumbed  in  thirty  sec- 
onds. "0.1  cc  failed  to  kill  but  markedly  accelerated  the 
respiration."  Extracts  from  all  other  organs  (liver,  kidney, 
ileum  and  spleen)  except  omentum,  stood  far  below  that  of 
lung.  The  lethal  substance  "did  not  pass  the  Berkefeld  candle 
N,  and  was  removed  by  animal  charcoal."  He  pointed  to  some 
of  its  other  characteristics.  Blood  left  in  the  lung  was  not 
responsible.  When  whole  lung  was  heated,  the  noxious  agent 
could  still  be  extracted  from  it;  but  similar  heating  of  the 
extract,  destroyed  it.  (Chemists  see  in  such  fact  the  existence 
of  a  compound  not  broken  into  smaller  bits  in  an  absence  of 
water;  but  "hydrolyzable"  as  soon  as  this  is  present.)  When  the 
same  tissue  was  extracted  twice,  the  second  carried  over 
"something  capable  of  giving  protection." 

Wherry  had  described  a  material  which  when  added  to  blood 
made  it  clot;  and  this  clotting  of  the  blood  within  the  vessels 
had  been  responsible  for  the  sudden  death  of  his  animals.  The 
biological  effect  was  allied  to  the  "Theobald  Smith  reaction," 
and  "anaphylactic  shock."  A  few — like  the  great  experimen- 
talist, F  G  Novy — had  long  taught  that  these  animal  reactions, 
too,  were  the  product  of  coagulation  intravascularly.  Wherry 
found  all  of  them  to  belong  in  "the  field  of  colloid  chemistry." 

Wherewith,  because  "unable  to  continue  this  work,"  he  left 
its  further  prosecution  to  others.  He  had  opened  the  way  to  a 
long  series  of  biochemical  studies.  Through  C  A  Mills  chiefly, 
Wherry's  lung  extract  was  proved  a  compound  of  albuminous 
material  with  a  peculiar  type  of  fat,  neither  arm  of  which 
alone,  as  had  previously  been  believed,  made  blood  clot. 
Because  derivable  from  all  tissues  (but  best  from  those  that 
Wherry  had  described)  it  was  called  tissue  fibrinogen — for- 
merly it  had  been  designated  nucleoprotein,  fibrin  ferment, 
thrombin,  etc.  In  Mills's  hands  it  was  purified,  made  available 
to  the  surgeon,  since,  to  prove  of  great  service  in  stanching 
blood  flow  in  many  a  "bleeder." 

Wherry  resumed  his  duties — doubled — as  teacher.  Also, 
there  came  more  insistent  demands  upon  him  from  the  local 
draft  board,  the  health  board  and  his  university  committees. 
He  hated  the  latter  type  of  job,  accepted  appointment  usually 


00a  because,  he  said,  it  "helped  him  to  scuttle  the  ship."  Still,  these 
vagrant  activities  were  not  altogether  unsatisfying,  for  they 
narcotized  a  mind  rather  distraught  by  the  war.  November 
brought  peace,  but  even  so  matters  continued  disorganized. 
He  stepped  through  a  winter  in  which  the  mere  meeting  of 
the  day's  demands  was  sufficient.  When  spring  broke,  the 
Detroit  college  of  medicine  and  surgery  made  new  effort  to 
capture  him.  W  H  MacCraken  wrote  (April  9,  1919) : 

You  have  been  fortunate  in  escaping  the  trials  of  the  past  year 
— the  Students'  army  training  corps,  financial  problems,  the 
maintaining  of  a  fairly  efficient  teaching  staff,  the  influenza 
epidemic. 

It  was  complete  description  of  what  Wherry  had  not 
escaped.  MacCraken  asked,  would  he  reconsider  his  refusal? 
If  so,  MacCraken  was  willing  "formally  to  resign  so  that 
Wherry  would  not  be  put  in  the  position  of  seeming  to  displace 
him." 

This  matter  hardly  disposed  of,  a  second  appeal  came  in.  I 
was  asked  in  July  to  bring  the  post  of  pathologist  in  the  Saint 
Francis  hospital  in  San  Francisco  to  Wherry's  attention.  As 
"private"  institution  it  had  long  existed  as  excellent  example 
of  private  and  individual  care  for  the  individual  patient;  thus 
withstanding  the  huzzas  for  "public"  institutions  which  saw 
progress  only  in  publicity,  thorough  regimentation  of  every- 
thing from  an  assignment  of  numbers  to  the  patients  to 
approved  causes  for  their  deaths,  and  in  "organization"  and  an 
appeal  to  charity  for  half  their  cash.  A  hundred  doctors  owned 
this  hospital,  ran  it  at  the  decent  figure  of  a  first-rate  hotel, 
kept  the  private  lives  of  their  exclusively  private  patients, 
private;  and  brought  to  their  aid  the  best  of  an  anti-"social- 
ized"  medical  or  surgical  skill.  James  J  Hogan  (who  in  1910 
had  recognized  that  blood  remains  in  the  blood  vessels  because 
a  hydrophilic  colloid  and  had  introduced,  in  lieu  of  a  donor, 
the  use  of  protein — gelatine — injection  mixtures,  to  see  his 
principles  of  treatment  in  shock  taken  over  in  1915  by  Sir 
William  M  Bayliss  and  a  gum  arabic  mixture)  had  quit  the 
post  of  laboratory  chief.  The  hospital  staff  (to  which  any 
state-licensed  physician  was  welcome)  knowing  its  value, 
wished  it  filled  by  the  best  available  candidate;  and  would  pay 


for  him.  Wherry  wrote  me  (July  31,  1919)  out  of  Empire  in  0  2  S 
Michigan  where  he  had  joined  the  Woolleys  "to  fish:" 

Thanks  ever  so  much  for  the  large  salaried  job  you  steered  in 
my  direction.  It  was  tempting  and  you  must  not  think  that  I 
didn't  appreciate  it  because  I  turned  it  down.  San  Francisco 
has  not  lost  its  charm  for  me;  but  I  want  to  do  more  than 
diagnosis  work  and  fear  that  what  I  might  get  into  would 
resolve  itself  too  largely  into  that.  Sometimes,  as  you  know,  I 
get  awfully  peeved  at  myself  for  so  continuously  blundering 
about  in  the  research  &  educational  field. 

Whereafter  he  swung  into  this  essay: 

I  must  quote  here  from  Adami:  "When  Professor  Bateson, 
from  the  vantage  ground  of  his  studies  of  the  last  fifteen  years 
or  so,  begins  to  lay  down  the  law  regarding  evolution,  I  cannot 
but  help  being  reminded  of  Bombus,  the  bumblebee  .  .  . 
blundering  out  of  the  fields  and  hedgerows  into  a  greenhouse, 
and  bumping  its  head  noisily  again  and  again  against  the  glass 
because  of  its  incapacity  to  drive  into  that  head  the  fact  that 
transparency  and  penetrability  are  not  necessarily  associated 
phenomena."  That's  my  state.  I  apparently  have  the  habit;  and 
would  rather  hate  to  break  up  our  associations  in  Cincinnati. 
And  the  situation  in  our  school  is  growing  better  every  day  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  our  catalogue  makers  [I  was  its  editor!] 
revised  the  advanced  standing  rules  backwards.  But  paciencia! 
We  will  get  even  with  you  when  we  get  back! 

We  are  enjoying  ourselves  very  much.  It  helps  a  great  deal 
having  the  Woolleys  here.  Paul,  I  expect,  will  stay  out  in  Colo- 
rado all  summer.  Beula  [his  3000  pound  Buick  automobile] 
behaved  very  well  on  the  trip  but  broke  her  clutch  collar  at 
Connersville,  Ind.  That  held  us  up  for  a  day  and  the  rat- faced 
garage  man  who  fixed  her  up  for  $17.50  put  her  collar  on 
hindside  foremost.  She  is  a  wonderful  car  though,  for  in  spite 
of  this  fact  she  sailed  along  merrily  out  to  Barrington,  111,  up 
to  Omena,  Mich,  to  Old  Mission  &  down  here — then  the  but- 
ton wore  off  her  collar  band  and  one  could  go  into  any  old  gear 
without  pushing  the  pedal.  Several  years  ago  Zaza,  the  Seer  of 
the  Pacific,  told  me  that  in  my  old  age  I  would  make  a  discov- 
ery which  would  make  my  fortune.  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  I  have  made  it.  Why  have  a  clutch  pedal  if  one  can  shift 


OOK  gears  without  it?  Think  of  the  saving  in  metal  alone,  not  to 
mention  the  foot  pounds  in  pressure!  Of  course  there  may  be 
a  slight  difficulty  in  the  way — if  one  were  to  crank  the  machine 
it  might  run  him  down.  But  then,  that  would  develop  agility 
in  the  next  generation  according  to  your  teachings  and  thence- 
forward the  Yellow  Peril  with  its  ju-jutsu  tricks  would  be  no 
more.  And  anyway,  a  man  who  cranks  a  machine  is  a  damn 
fool. 

Wherry  was  revising  his  contributions  to  Forchheimer's 
Therapeusis  of  internal  diseases  to  comment  thus  upon  his 
labors: 

Marie,  who  is  looking  over  my  plague  article  (which  is  poor) 
interrupts  my  train  of  thought  here  by  saying  "Your  spelling 
is  rotten — there  are  tivo  m's  in  inflamatory  &  one  I  in 
travells."  How  many  things  have  been  overlooked  in  the  official 
marriage  oath! 

Marie  had  corrected  the  first  line  by  penning  on  the  side: 
"It  is  not;  it  is  fine!  Marie." 

Telegraphic  attempt  to  locate  Wherry  in  Cincinnati  had 
failed  as  usual,  and  Edmund  M  Baehr,  just  returned  from 
service,  had  relayed  the  message  to  Michigan.  Wherry  answered 
him  directly: 

I  was  so  glad  to  learn  that  you  were  back.  The  telegram  was 
sent  by  post  to  me  from  Traverse  City  &  came  yesterday.  As 
the  telephone  lines  are  down,  I  am  mailing  this  note.  Please 
wire  Martin  that  I  cannot  consider  the  St  Francis  hospital 
position.  It  will  take  much  more  than  a  mere  increase  in  salary 
to  make  me  consider  leaving  our  medical  school  which  I  believe 
is  just  on  the  point  of  developing  into  one  of  the  best  in  the 
country.  All  we  need  is  a  little  more  team  play  on  the  part  of 
those  in  the  faculty  who  are  interested  in  seeing  real  work  done. 
In  spite  of  various  handicaps  its  growth  is  most  encouraging. 
If  the  progressives  get  together  and  boost  this  tendency  and 
really  utilize  the  material  equipment  we  now  have,  nothing 
can  prevent  our  further  development  in  the  right  direction. 
The  more  I  see  &  hear  of  medical  college  situations  elsewhere 
the  more  I  am  impressed  with  our  good  fortune  in  having  a 
dynamic,  forceful  &  resourceful  dean  like  Holmes  back  of  us. 
He  really  considers  the  school  his  child,  as  it  is,  and  is  not  only 


anxious  about  its  nutrition  &  growth  but  is  most  willing  to  227 
consult  with  others  concerning  its  welfare.  If  we  advise  him 
to  feed  the  baby  sliced  cucumbers,  it  will  be  our  own  funeral. 

We  are  enjoying  our  stay  here  very  much.  The  air  &  the 
water  are  fine.  The  Woolley  family  give  Marie  &  me  &  the 
children  the  companionship  we  like  and  we  will  probably  stay 
as  long  as  they  will  let  us  run  up  the  bill. 

Well,  old  Ulysses,  we  look  forward  to  the  tales  of  your 
wanderings.  P  S  You  might  tell  Martin  that  if  there  is  any 
difficulty  in  filling  the  job  out  West  that  I  would  advise  them 
to  get  Dr  B.  He  is  so  good  that  I  wish  we  had  him  in  Cinti. 
He  is  just  out  of  service. 


WHERRY  returned  to  the  home  town  to  take  a  more 
than  common  interest  in  the  amalgamation  of  its 
"public  health"  interests  into  one.  The  Cincinnati  public 
health  council  was  being  born  and  now  came  up  the  unex- 
pected picture  of  Wherry  devising  and  correcting  drafts  of  its 
constitution  and  by-laws!  I  found  among  these  papers  the 
script  of  one  of  his  public  addresses,  never  printed,  revealing 
beyond  expectation.  This  is  how  he  could  combine  science, 
poetry,  propaganda  and  inducement  to  the  listener  to  follow 
the  sawdust  trail : 

Over  twenty-three  times  as  much  money  is  expended  yearly 
by  this  city  for  fire  and  police  protection  of  property  as 
is  expended  for  the  conservation  of  health  (20  cents  per 
capita)    .   .   . 

A  new  tribe  of  savages  was  recently  discovered  in  the  inte- 
rior of  the  island  of  New  Guinea.  Among  them,  swine  are 
sacred  and  not  uncommonly  a  mother  will  kill  her  baby  to 
suckle  a  young  pig!  You  shudder  .  .  .  But  we,  too,  spend 
fortunes  and  rush  experts  across  the  continent  to  save  our  hogs 
from  cholera  and  our  sheep  from  anthrax  .  .  .  while  we  let 
our  babies  die.   .  .   . 

A  worm,  too  small  to  be  seen,  forms  the  heart  of  the  largest 
and  most  beautiful  pearl.  Nature  is  a  strange  artisan!  At  the 
other  extreme  there  is  born  from  a  worm  the  Winged  Death — 
the  common  house  fly.  Conceived  in  filth,  born  of  the  manure 


O  O  Q  pile,  it  crawls  over  our  cakes  and  secretly  plants  the  seeds  of 
disease  in  baby's  milk!  It  does  more  to  spread  the  germs  of 
disease  than  any  other  known  agency. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  British  in  India  learned 
of  that  mysterious,  dark  band  of  Thugs,  devotees  of  Bhowanee, 
at  whose  shrine  they  offered  up  human  sacrifice.  His  followers 
were  initiated  with  solemn  ceremony  and  taught  how  to 
strangle  with  the  sacred  cloth,  neatly  and  quickly  in  order 
that  no  moan,  no  cry,  no  muffled  scream  should  escape  the 
victim.  They  travelled  in  bands  and,  overtaking  smaller  groups 
of  merchants  benighted  in  the  bleak  unpeopled  wastes  between 
villages,  offered  them  protection.  When  a  sense  of  security  had 
stolen  over  the  weary  camp,  when  the  silence  of  the  night  was 
broken  only  by  the  laugh  of  a  jackal,  the  doomed  were  seized. 
"The  sacred  cloth  was  whipped  around  the  victim's  neck,  there 
was  a  sudden  twist,  and  the  head  fell  silently  forward,  the  eyes 
starting  from  the  sockets;  and  all  was  over!"  Champion  Thugs 
were  Futty  Khan  and  Buhram.  Futty  Khan's  list  was  508  men 
in  twenty  years,  and  he  was  still  a  young  man  when  the  British 
Government  stopped  his  activities.  Buhram's  list  totalled  931, 
but  it  took  him  forty  years  to  accomplish  this. 

In  the  United  States  alone,  over  five  hundred  men,  women 
and  children  are  strangled  every  day!  Thousands  daily,  slowly, 
but  surely,  reach  the  point  of  suffocation!  And  their  death  is 
not  a  merciful  one.  With  wasted  bodies — hungering  for  air — 
they  die  with  the  hope  of  life  still  in  their  eyes!  The  annihila- 
tion of  the  followers  of  Bhowanee  immortalized  England. 
What  are  we  doing  to  destroy  the  "great  white  plague?"  .  .  . 
A  victim  of  consumption  "may  expectorate  from  500,000,000 
to  3,000,000,000  tubercle  bacilli  in  twenty- four  hours!"  In 
summertime  this  sputum  of  the  gutters,  the  alleyways  or  our 
parks,  is  attacked  by  a  horde  of  house  flies  which  smear  their 
feet  in  it,  rub  it  off  upon  their  wings,  or  devour  it.  Where  then 
do  they  go?  Shall  they  visit  your  house,  to  clean  themselves 
upon  your  bread  or  to  leave  microscopic  tracks  on  the  edge 
of  your  baby's  glass?  That  is  not  all,  for  having  swallowed  the 
germs,  the  fly  acts  as  a  culture  tube  for  them.  Now  each  "fly 
speck"  may  contain  as  many  as  5,000  germs  of  tuberculosis! 
It  has  been  proved  experimentally  that  thirty  infested  flies  may 
deposit  from  six  to  ten  million  tubercle  germs  in  three  days! 


There  is  only  one  remedy  against  the  Winged  Death  .  .  .  990 
Had  man  spent  the  last  decade  in  mere  "swatting"  of  the  mos-  '  "* 
quito  he  would  still  be  paying  his  former  toll  to  malaria  and 
yellow  fever.  The  only  remedy  against  the  mosquito  is  destruc- 
tion of  his  breeding  place;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  house 
fly.  Most  are  bred  in  horse  manure — the  rest  in  the  accumula- 
tions of  the  rags,  paper,  and  filth  of  our  alleys  and  gutters. 
How  simple!  Frame  laws  which  will  make  imperative  the  keep- 
ing of  such  materials  in  fly  proof  receptacles,  and  insure  their 
removal  and  sanitary  disposal  often  enough  to  prevent  the 
hatching  of  flies!  But  your  Board  of  health  must  be  supplied 
with  sufficient  inspectors  to  see  that  the  law  is  enforced;  and 
it  must  have  your  approval  and  the  backing  of  your  courts. 


1920-1925 


XI 


THE  autumn  of  1920  marked  the  centenary  of  Cincin- 
nati's medical  college.  Dean  Christian  R  Holmes  had 
planned  its  celebration — the  scattered  clinical  and  scientific 
branches  of  the  old  school  had  been  brought  together  again 
in  one  geographic  spot,  it  was  financially  in  soundest  state,  he 
had  housed  the  enterprise  in  a  set  of  buildings  that  no  other 
medico-educational  enterprise  in  U  S  A  could  boast,  the  stu- 
dent body  was  of  world-wide  origin,  and  the  men  of  its  faculty 
were  returning  from  the  war — there  was  cause  for  jubilation. 
With  the  dean  first,  Wherry  was  second  man  to  the  univer- 
sity's "senate,"  and  the  dean  had  assigned  to  him  the  task  of 
picking  from  America's  medical  thousands  a  few  upon  whom 
the  laurel  wreath  of  accomplishment  might  be  bestowed.  But 
before  this  collegiate  gathering  could  take  place,  the  captain 
died.  The  matter  needed  to  be  deferred  a  year;  and  was. 

Invitation  had  taken  me  to  lecture  in  Europe.  There  Wherry 
wrote  (February  2,  1921) : 

I  am  holding  my  little  finger  for  you,  though  in  imagination 
only,  for  I  have  always  had  the  greatest  confidence  in  the  little 
Boy  Orator  from  Halsted  St. 

I  am  always  surprised  when  a  butterfly  emerges  from  the 
tomb.  You  will  remember  de  Santo,  our  Filipino  from  Min- 
danao. Give  him  a  bolo  and  a  G-string  and  he  is  a  head  hunter. 
A  couple  of  weeks  ago  he  presented  a  paper  on  hookworm 
disease  to  the  class.  He  brought  two  maps  of  the  hemispheres 
to  point  out  its  geographical  distribution,  mentioned  every 
race  and  place,  gave  statistics,  symptomatology,  pathology 
and  treatment  in  detail,  and  ended  with  a  plea  that  medicine 
take  greater  interest  in  the  prevention  of  a  disease  so  world- 
widely  disabling.  His  presentation  was  of  the  best,  and  the  class 
gave  him  an  ovation;  yet  I  am  afraid  that  but  few  felt  the 
way  I  did  after  reading  the  autobiography  of  Booker  T 
Washington.   .  .   .  Dr  &  Mrs  Nast  want  us  to  spend  the  sum- 


232 


mer  in  China  but  I  don't  see  how  we  can  afford  it  unless  I 
could  substitute  there. 

Headship  of  Cincinnati's  university  changed  hands  and 
Frederick  C  Hicks  (fifty-eight,  for  long  years  a  favorite  of 
the  students  in  the  classical  half  of  Cincinnati's  university,  an 
economist  with  understanding  heart)  came  in.  He  continued 
Wherry  in  his  place.  It  was  the  kind  of  "administrative" 
appointment  that  he  loved — it  had  to  do  with  policy  and  not 
bookkeeping — and  so  Wherry  wrote  his  faculty  colleagues 
(August  25,  1921): 

Upon  whom  do  you  think  we  should  confer  honorary  degrees 
at  our  coming  centennial  celebration?  They  should  be  medical 
men  or  men  working  in  the  related  sciences.  If  you  have  a  name 
to  suggest,  indicate  in  full  the  reasons  therefor. 

Almost  no  nominations  were  made.  Wherry  put  forward 
a  list  all  his  own.  On  November  6, 1 92 1 ,  the  University's  presi- 
dent spoke  in  the  great  hall  of  Cincinnati's  new  medical  school, 
"by  virtue  of  the  power  vested"  in  him.  For  "eminent  scholar- 
ship and  public  service,"  the  title  of  doctor  honoris  causa  to 
the  following: 

Charles  Cassedy  Bass  (forty-five,  first  to  grow  malaria  in  a 
test  tube) ;  Mary  Muhlenberg  Emery  (for  largest  faith  in 
Cincinnati's  medical  future) ;  Ross  Granville  Harrison  (fifty, 
first  to  grow  animal  tissues  in  a  test  tube) ;  Ludvig  Hektoen 
(fifty-seven,  for  proving  science  as  well  as  wheat  to  come  out 
of  the  West) ;  Christian  R  Holmes,  posthumously  (sixty- 
three,  for  being  Cincinnati's  second  Daniel  Drake) ;  Edwin 
Oakes  Jordan  (fifty- four,  for  making  bacteriology  function 
in  sanitation)  ;  Dean  Dewitt  Lewis  (forty-six,  for  insisting 
that  biological  principles  must  be  guide  to  surgery) ;  Robert 
Williamson  Lovett  (sixty-one,  for  utilizing  physiological  law 
in  the  correction  of  deformity) ;  Elmer  Verner  McCollum 
(forty-one,  for  proving  that  men  may  starve  in  the  midst  of 
plenty) ;  William  Snow  Miller  (sixty- two,  for  writing  apoc- 
ryphally  on  the  lung) ;  Frederick  C  Novy  (fifty-six,  for 
biology  beyond  its  systematics) ;  John  Barton  Payne  (sixty- 
five,  for  being  more  than  clerk  in  U  S's  Interior  department) ; 
Joseph  Ransohoff  (sixty-seven,  for  knowing  not  only  what 
but  how  to  say  the  medical) ;  Edward  Carl  Rosenow  (forty- 


five,  as  greatest  disciple  of  a  master,  Frank  Billings) ;  Louis  2^^ 
Schwab  (seventy,  because  Cincinnati's  graduate,  physician 
and  mayor) ;  William  Thompson  Sedgwick  (sixty-five,  for 
proving  that  the  man  and  not  the  thing  makes  the  difference 
between  an  engineer  and  a  plumber — he  was  so  appreciative 
of  his  distinction  that  he  ordered  his  burial  in  Cincinnati's 
gown) ;  Charles  Rupert  Stockard  (forty-one,  for  seeing  men 
in  dogs)  ;  Henry  Baldwin  Ward  (fifty-five,  a  zoological  ency- 
clopedist who  saw  West  in  East,  and  East  in  West) ;  John 
Clarence  Webster  (fifty-seven,  for  knowing  obstetrics  as 
physiology,  and  gynecology  as  pathology) . 

Nominated,  approved  of  senate,  but  deferred,  was  B  K 
Rachford  (unrecognized  till  now  for  his  scientific  discoveries 
and  too  recently  responsible  for  financial  contribution  to  the 
university  not  to  have  the  cause  for  his  distinction  blurred) . 

Public  as  opposed  to  private  higher  education  thus  proved 
for  a  moment,  that  it,  too,  could  know  its  great. 

In  this  year  Wherry  expanded  his  household.  He  had  added 
sister  Nellie,  to  whom  he  said  he  "owed"  it,  back  in  1916.  Now 
father  and  mother  came  out  of  India,  all  to  continue  in  his 
house  to  the  time  of  their  deaths  some  years  later  (t  1928, 
1927,  1926).  For  a  year,  brother  Frank  McCuskey,  sister 
Lillian  and  their  four  children  f urloughed  with  him.  With  his 
own  two,  it  made  for  six  juveniles  about  the  place.  One  was 
stricken  with  whooping-cough.  He  inoculated  the  remainder 
of  the  lot  and  the  elders  prophylactically  with  his  pertussis 
vaccine.  All  escaped  infection  except  himself — the  shoemaker 
had  failed  to  sole  his  own  shoes. 

He  broke  his  two-year  silence  in  the  public  press  with  some 
articles.  His  love  of  all  living  creatures,  his  knowledge  of  the 
exotic,  had  gained  for  him  the  affection  of  Cincinnati's  famed 
animal  dealers — Madam  Haller  and  son  Louis  of  the  Harz 
mountains  canary  vivarium  situated  on  Vine  street  in  Cincin- 
nati. Impressed — after  years — of  Wherry's  capacities,  they 
would  now  commit  their  dying  and  dead  to  him  instead  of  to 
the  incinerator.  Thus  had  come  a  Mexican  parrot.  He  described 
in  it  a  leprosy-like  disease  of  the  lungs  [64]. 

Just  another  "case"  report  (one  page  long  with  two  pages 
of  illustration!) !  In  the  light  of  later  endeavors,  however,  a 
point  of  historic  significance  lay  therein.   He   told   of  his 


2^4  attempts  to  cultivate  by  partial  tension  and  carbon  dioxide 
method  the  acid- fast  bacilli  he  had  discovered  in  the  lung.  "Six 
months"  of  labor  at  the  business  had  yielded  him  nothing. 

Almost  simultaneously  he  reported  (twelve  pages!)  upon 
spray- borne  bacteria  as  the  cause  of  respiratory  infection  [65]. 
Influenza  and  pneumonia  as  the  fatal  consequences  of  ordinary 
"colds'*  were  still  much  the  subject  of  medical  debate  and  C  T 
Butterfield  of  the  U  S  public  health  service  had  been  assigned 
to  Cincinnati  for  collaboration.  Did  people  "inhale"  these 
noxious  organisms  into  their  lungs,  develop  inflammation  in 
consequence,  and  die?  To  reproduce  the  situation,  cultures  of 
influenza  and  pneumonia  were  sprayed  into  the  atmosphere 
surrounding  susceptible  laboratory  animals.  Less  infection 
resulted  than  most  men  thought.  Authoritative  opinion  held 
air-borne  bacteria  not  to  get  far  below  the  neck.  Wherry 
recovered  his  sprayed  microbes  from  the  very  limits  of  the 
lung.  Even  so  they  had  but  rarely  injured  the  host  sufficiently 
to  produce  disease.  "Since  none  of  the  twenty-nine  mice 
became  infected  after  inhaling  virulent  pneumococci,  one  may 
conclude  that  some  predisposing  factor  must  precede  or  ac- 
company such  an  implantation  of  bacteria."  The  infested  host 
had  to  be  weakened  to  make  the  disease  "take."  Nice  stuff  for 
the  medical  philosophers!  Just  what  is  there  to  drafts  and  cold, 
to  overwork  and  worry,  to  bad  food  and  bad  hygiene  that 
allows  so-weakened  animals  to  cave  in;  the  physiologically 
right,  as  in  these  experiments,  to  come  through?  Such  query 
was  fundamental. 

The  mucous  membranes  of  both  the  respiratory  and  the 
alimentary  tracts  are  constantly  the  garden  plots  of  a  "flora" 
of  large  variety.  In  the  main,  the  flowers  are  "saprophytic" 
and  just  grow  in  the  lush  bottoms  without  harm  to  the  under- 
lying earth.  But  off  and  on,  more  wicked  weeds  appear  and 
the  soil  itself  is  poisoned.  This  study  had  shown  how  even  then, 
bad  effects  are  the  rare  and  not  the  to-be-expected  conse- 
quence. The  earth  was  "resistant." 

Census  on  all  the  forms  and  all  the  kinds  of  microorganisms 
lying  about  upon  man's  mucous  membranes  was  far  from 
complete.  Wherry  had  been  newly  inspecting  the  premises. 
So  he  added  some  new  names  to  the  list  of  established  fami- 
lies [66].  In  four  pages  (!)  he  described  his  isolation  of,  and 


the  biological  characteristics  of  a  microorganism  that  blackens  0  *Z  S 
decayed  teeth  (B  melaninogenicum) .  He  had  found  it  not 
only  in  the  mouth  but  in  an  "infected  surgical  wound." 

I  here  recall  a  comment  Wherry  had  made  years  before: 
"Cultures  from  the  pus  of  these  wounds  smell  for  all  the  world 
like  the  surgeon's  breath." 

He  grew  out  also,  and  described  for  the  first  time,  M  minu- 
tissimus.  It  accompanied  commoner  types  of  microorganismal 
infection.  The  life  characteristics  of  B  duple x-nonliquefaciens 
and  M  reniformis,  already  known  as  the  inhabitants  of  the 
mucous  membranes,  he  made  more  precise.  The  importance  of 
this  work  lay  in  his  differentiation  of  them  from  better  known 
forms  which  they  looked  like.  Wherry's  brands  were  innocent 
and  harmless  even  as  they  were  mistaken  for  others  which 
carried  immoral  connotation. 


FOLLOWING  the  medical  school's  centenary  celebration 
came  a  quick  descent  from  admiration  of  the  flowers  of 
education  to  consideration  of  their  fertilizers.  Since  Holmes's 
death,  J  C  Oliver  had  acted  as  dean;  but  demand  (and  funds) 
for  a  "full-time"  replacement  brought  Henry  Page  (fifty- 
two,  Colonel  USA,  retired  for  disability)  into  the  job.  It  was 
a  tough  one.  For  more  than  a  decade  past  everything  in  school 
and  hospital,  from  professors  to  scrub  women,  had  just  bowed 
down  naturally  to  Holmes;  Page  believed  in  legal  prop  for 
the  matter.  The  request  irritated  his  board.  Nothing  else 
requiring  reordering  in  the  school,  the  curriculum  was  taken 
in  hand — already  a  nightmare  to  the  most  bedevilled  of  uni- 
versity students.  Page  changed  all  morning  sessions  to  the 
afternoon  and  all  afternoon  sessions  to  the  morning.  Two  of 
the  professors  protested — their  sinuses  did  not  drain  until  late 
and  they  simply  could  not  meet  those  earlier  hours.  Another 
question  came  up:  What  should  be  the  policy  of  the  faculty 
in  limiting  the  size  of  every  class  admitted  to  the  medical  col- 
lege? Hereat  reliable  witnesses  affirmed  that  Holmes  rolled 
in  his  sleep.  January  31,  1922  a  "committee"  addressed  a  ques- 
tionnaire to  the  faculty.  Since  Wherry's  name  appeared  among 
the  signers,  the  following  high  spots  are  excerpted: 


2^6       What  is  the  max  no  of  students  you  can  properly  instruct? 
How  much  time  should  teachers  have  for  research? 
Is  time  spent  in  research  of  greatest  benefit  to  (a)  teachers, 

(b)  students,  (c)  college? 
Should  the  entering  class  be  limited  to  60? 

The  answers  to  the  "research"  questions  are  omitted.  As  to 
the  students,  sixty  could  in  no  sense  be  taken  care  of,  even 
fifty  cluttered  up  things  and  forty  might  approximate  a  work- 
ing base.  (This  meant  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 
students  for  the  four  years;  the  faculty  roster  alone  carried 
over  two  hundred  names.)  The  matter  was  settled  in  open 
meeting.  After  two  hours  of  discussion,  the  university's  presi- 
dent who  had  come  in  for  the  occasion,  said:  "The  Board  will 
do  exactly  what  you  gentlemen  advise.  Your  recent  increases 
in  salary  were  made  possible  by  increased  student  receipts  and 
will,  of  course,  have  to  be  rescinded."  For  ten  minutes  the 
faculty  went  into  a  huddle,  deciding  at  its  termination  that 
a  minimum  of  seventy-five  could  easily  be  placed  in  the  next 
session. 

In  the  summer  of  1922  my  mother  was  prostrated  with  a 
cancer  and  anemia.  A  letter  to  me  out  of  Lakeside,  Ohio,  where 
Wherry  had  gone  for  rest,  gave  a  picture  of  him  as  doctor 
(July  25,  1922): 

I  saw  a  report  in  the  N  Y  Times  about  a  "wonderful  cure"  for 
pernicious  anemia.  It  is  some  compound  of  germanium.  I  know 
this  sounds  like  advice  from  your  country  cousin  who  has  read 
an  ad  in  the  Hickville  Courier-Gazette  but  I  cannot  help  feel- 
ing that  it  would  be  worth  trying.  We  all  love  Mrs  Leonard 
so  much  that  we  wish  to  do  something.  .  .  .  Margaret  [now 
thirteen]  has  been  sketching,  but  finds  water  and  rocks  hard. 
She  is  fond  of  fishing  and  when  we  have  gone  out  together  she 
has  had  most  of  the  luck — pulling  in  two  large  "sheep-head" 
just  as  we  were  about  to  give  up.  She  is  as  much  of  a  fish  in  the 
water  as  Marie  and  swims  all  around  me. — You  know  I  have 
my  reservations,  but  Hearst  somehow  or  for  some  reason  is 
allowing  Norman  Hapgood  to  say  some  very  plain  things  in 
his  International.  If  you  haven't  seen  them,  look  them  up. 

A  week  later  he  added:  "I  am  mailing  you  Our  medicine 


men  which  you  will  like."  Two  weeks  thereafter  he  wrote  2^7 
from  Canada  where  he  had  motored  (August  13,  1922) : 

I  do  wish  that  we  could  do  something  for  Mrs  Leonard's  com- 
fort. .  .  .  We  have  had  a  lovely  time  on  Lake  Joseph.  We 
are  looking  at  several  places  that  are  for  sale — two  islands  and 
three  points.  One  island  in  particular  is  a  peach.  It  is  hard  to 
find  a  good  house,  good  boathouse,  good  wharf  boats,  canoes, 
pine  trees  and  a  beautiful  view  for  our  price  but  we  are  looking 
just  the  same. 

A  letter  dated  August  25,  1922  from  Lakeside  to  which  he 
had  returned,  showed  him  with  a  mad  on;  but  humorous  too: 
"I  have  sent  the  Board  of  directors  a  protest  on  the  treatment 
of  my  department.  I  need  to  prove  definitely,  right  now, 
whether  I  am  a  guinea  pig  or  not."  He  appended  what  he  called 
"an  attempt  to  improve  my  mind."  In  a  one-minute  essay 
headed,  Evolution — Insect  or  Man?  he  reflected  upon  the 
origins  of  the  then  so  popular  "vitamins:" 

Insects  have  always  chosen  the  germ  of  the  seed  in  which  to  lay 
their  eggs,  for  long  ago  the  experimental  method  taught  them 
that  in  it  lay  the  food  necessary  for  the  growth  and  nourish- 
ment of  their  young. 

Civilized  Man  (immersed  in  the  conceit  of  his  superiority) 
has  for  centuries  thrown  away  the  germ  to  feed  himself  upon 
the  left-overs.  Only  recently,  and  by  adopting  the  same 
experimental  method,  has  he  discovered  that  the  insect  was 
right. 

He  concluded:  "Get  Hearst's  International  for  Aug,  for  the 
beginning  of  a  good  series  on  the  pill  peddlers  by  De  Kruif . 
You  will  like  it." 


FOR  play,  he  turned  to  a  group  of  outlaws  for  whose  gath- 
ering Edmund  M  Baehr  had  been  chiefly  responsible 
(associate  professor  in  physiology,  neurologist,  ex-member  of 
Ohio's  board  of  charities  and  corrections,  ex-service  man) .  It 
had  agglomerated  about  a  table  in  Mecklenburg's — ex-beer 
— garden  when  week-ends,  holidays  or  the  summer  closed  the 
eating  emporium  of  the  medical  school.  Membership  was 
voluntary  and  self-induced.  Though  the  group  could  count 


2^8  but  two  "head"  professors,  it  dared,  nevertheless  to  hack  at 
the  oak  stiffening  as  "progress"  in  Cincinnati's  medical  edu- 
cation. If  the  sclerosing  process  could  not  be  checked,  the 
whole  thing  might  be  chopped  down,  it  said;  and  life  begun 
anew  with  a  sapling.  The  subscribers  could  still  laugh. 
Before  long  its  meetings  were  known  as  those  of  a  "Black 
faculty"  (so  named  of  O  V  Batson,  shortly  to  become  the 
professor  of  research  anatomy  in  Pennsylvania's  Jefferson 
college) . 

By  1924,  evening  sessions  were  being  called.  Some  fourteen 
got  together  to  talk  about  all  manner  of  things  and  to  do  as 
they  pleased  about  some  others.  No  organization,  no  constitu- 
tion, no  president,  no  program,  no  dues  ever  interfered  with 
"business;"  no  name  even.  Baehr  once  called  it  "the  Philo- 
sophic-literary-artistic, etc"  society.  Meeting  at  each  other's 
houses,  black  bread,  cheese  and  undenatured  beer  had  usually 
been  discovered  by  the  temporarily  active  host.  With  time, 
some  of  the  earlier  members  departed,  to  be  replaced  by  a 
homeopath,  two  dentists,  a  painter,  an  architect  and  an  actu- 
ary. At  one  time  a  dean  of  the  college  (AC  Bachmeyer)  was 
a  member;  and  throughout,  the  assistant  dean  and  faculty 
secretary  (Frank  B  Cross) .  Other  names  to  rise  to  fame  were 
Shiro  Tashiro  (nerve  conduction  is  associated  with  a  burning 
process) ,  Robert  A  Kehoe  (authority  in  heavy  metal  poison- 
ing), Gustav  Eckstein  (to  read  to  this  crowd  first,  the  lives 
of  his  laboratory  animals).  All  the  men  "did"  something — 
the  professionals  because  they  were  professional,  the  rest 
because  they  had  ardor.  Thus  they  crafted,  sculpted,  painted 
or  wrote — by  hiding  Pegasus.  Powerless  specifically  in  any  of 
Cincinnati's  affairs,  all  could  do  something  to  the  machinery — 
they  frequently  dropped  tools  into  the  running  parts. 

Wherry  was  qualified  member  under  several  designations. 
His  love  of  the  crowd  came  to  expression  in  many  a  letter. 
To  the  pretty  things  he  had  so  often  done  to  illustrate  his 
scientific  articles,  he  added,  for  this  group,  some  landscapes; 
and  to  his  scientific  essays,  "stories."  These  tales  should  have 
been  printed.  Unhappily  he  kept  the  originals  in  a  lower 
drawer  of  his  hospital  desk — and  search  after  his  death 
revealed  that  he  had  destroyed  them.  The  themes  of  two  are 
repeated.    In  one  he  portrayed  the  struggle  of  a  Scotchman 


marooned  in  the  tropics;  and  the  battle  of  his  soul  between  the  2^9 
easy  existence  offered  him  there  and  the  call  to  duty  out  of 
the  home  country.  (Wherry  was  by  lineal  descent  a  Scotch 
Presbyterian.)  The  other  (1930)  was  inspired  of  the  kid- 
napings  that  governmental  impotence  was  toying  with. 
Wherry  had  caught  his  man.  The  item  at  issue  was  proper 
punishment.  What  more  just  than  banishment  to  Rat  island 
off  South  America,  where  the  rodents  swarmed  over  him  to 
leave  but  the  calcium  of  his  bones! 

In  the  summer  of  1923  I  had  accompanied  one  of  the 
members  of  this  catorce  (Cincinnati's  great  painter,  John  E 
Weis)  into  our  Southwest.  There  Wherry  wrote  me  (June 
30,1923): 

I  hope  you  are  enjoying  yourself  in  the  riot  of  colors.  I  inclose 
clippings  about  the  college  which  came  as  a  surprise  this  A  M. 
As  you  know,  Blackfan  has  gone  to  Harvard  &  is  taking 
McKhann  with  him.  I  presume  Higgins  will  leave  us  next. 

The  clippings  referred  to  an  affiliation  that  had  been  con- 
summated between  Cincinnati's  oldest  dental  school  and  the 
university.  (It  lasted  only  three  years  when  the  dental  school 
closed.)  Another  was  editorial  on  "Drifting  at  the  medical 
college"  in  Charles  P  Taft's  (chief  among  the  donors  to 
everything  in  Cincinnati's  university)  Times-Star.  Why 
was  Blackfan  leaving?  Why  was  Heuer  (head  of  surgery) 
unhappy?  Why  was  there  "opposition  to  a  progressive 
policy?"  Holmes,  who  had  resuscitated  the  great  enterprise, 
was  not  dead  three  years  and  yet  something  was  "standing 
between  Cincinnati  and  the  development  of  a  great  medical 
college  here." 

Wherry  followed  a  week  later  with: 

I'm  worried  about  your  patient  Harkness  [an  instance  of 
pseudo-leukemia  that  had  been  x-rayed].  Of  course  you 
hardened  devils  of  general  practitioners  would  lose  no  sleep 
over  such  a  little  thing  as  I  am  going  to  recount  to  you.  But 
when  you  run  off  and  leave  a  laboratory  recluse  the  responsi- 
bility of  caring  for  such  a  lovely  fellow,  it  scratches  through 
the  surface  of  his  uncalcimined  soul  when  something  goes 
wrong.  For  the  past  three  days  he  has  been  feeling  weaker 
and  weaker.  Now  he  walks  with  a  staggering,  spastic  gait; 


240  no  ^oss  °^  muscu^ar  power  or  tactile  sensation;  knee  reflexes 
exaggerated;  very  unsteady  on  standing  with  eyes  closed. 
Otherwise  he  has  been  getting  along  beautifully — his  neck  is 
still  small  and  the  itching  has  almost  disappeared.  He  still  has 
the  profuse  sweating.  As  I  said,  I  am  worried.  I  promised  to 
acquaint  you  with  the  above  facts;  otherwise  I  would  not 
have  written,  for  I  think  you  should  shed  the  town  com- 
pletely for  at  least  one  summer. — With  my  best  for  all  my 
friends  and  my  worst  for  all  my  enemies,  I  am  .  .  . 
P  S  I  cut  out  the  vaccine  &  iodine  for  a  while  and  increased 
the  lemonade  &  Vichy.  Is  that  the  right  thing  to  do,  doctor? 

A  further  report  was  made  July  16,  1923 : 

I  had  Baehr  down  to  see  Harkness.  He  says,  transverse  myelitis 
at  about  the  level  of  the  7th  dorsal.  The  situation  has  not 
grown  worse  in  the  past  week  excepting,  as  you  might  expect, 
that  his  gait  is  even  more  spastic  with  some  increased  weakness 
in  the  muscles  of  the  lower  legs.  Baehr  did  not  think  the  vac- 
cine had  anything  to  do  with  the  new  signs  but  I  have  cut 
the  dose  down  to  %  cc  once  a  week  &  will  then  give  him  a 
rest.  I  have  written  Baehr  to  remind  him  of  the  need  for  his 
next  visit. 

Wherry  was  busy  these  days  treating  all  manner  of  disease, 
supposedly  incurable  but  perhaps  infectious,  with  vaccines  of 
various  kind.  In  this  way  he  saw  some  twenty  sick  daily. 
How  they  clung  to  Wherry!  They  had  been  jettisoned  for  the 
most  part  by  the  more  orthodox  of  the  medical  fraternity, 
steadfaster  in  their  adherence  to  the  articles  of  faith  of  the 
craft.  So  I  saw  the  hopelessly  ill  weep  when  Wherry  would 
depart  the  city  for  a  week-end. 

He  published  another  paper  ( four  pages ! ) .  While  growing 
the  cause  of  lobar  pneumonia  "in  tandem  with  other  bacteria, 
it  was  noted  that  it  would  not  grow  with  a  spore- forming 
ammonia  producer"  [67].  Since,  after  administration,  am- 
monia is  excreted  through  the  lungs,  Wherry  "was  inclined 
to  believe  that  in  addition  to  the  expectorant  action  of 
ammonium  compounds,  they  might  exert  an  inhibitory  action 
on  the  pneumococcus,"  as  well,  thus  to  account  further  "for 
the  popular  and  apparently  beneficial  action  of  these  salts  in 
colds  and  bronchitis."  He  performed  many  experiments  to 


test  this  view,  concluding  that  ammonia  was  such  an  inhib-  241 
itor  but  only  when  in  alkaline  form  (as  ammonia  water  and 
not  as  ammonium  chloride,  for  example).  This  made  him 
urge  alkalinization  with  the  administration  of  ammonium 
compounds.  Both  the  ammonia  and  the  alkali  were  deserving 
of  consideration  by  the  physician  bent  upon  checking  the 
harmful  effects  of  pneumococcus  infection. 

He  added  another  observation.  The  discovery  of  "capsules" 
about  the  pneumococcus  had  long  been  one  of  the  best  methods 
for  their  identification.  But  they  were  hard  to  see.  Wherry 
proposed  a  bath  of  acid  of  proper  concentration  to  make  these 
cowls  show  up  at  once;  then  if  "stained,"  most  contrasting 
pictures  between  microorganism  and  capsular  substance  could 
easily  be  obtained. 

In  these  days  Wherry  stole  increasingly  into  the  attic  of 
his  house — to  paint.  He  had  turned,  too,  to  oil  instead  of  water 
color.  The  change  had  not  gone  well.  August  28,  1924  he  was 
on  vacation  and  reported: 

I  have  to  confess  to  you  that  I  lost  my  nerve  for  oil  painting 
when  it  came  to  starting  and  left  my  fine  outfit  at  home.  It 
seemed  too  difficult  for  me  to  attempt.  The  fact  is,  I  am  lazy. 
That  is  why  I  like  fishing;  it  is  a  prize  form  of  loafing  with 
a  little  excitement  added  once  in  a  while.  I  had  a  good  time 
in  Wisconsin  but  am  anxious  to  get  at  the  bugs  again. — No 
doubt  you  have  heard  of  the  plan  at  the  university  for  popu- 
larizing science.  I  have  been  chosen  to  represent  the  medical 
school.  I  am  out  of  any  popular  lecture  scheme. 

But  he  wasn't.  He  came  forward  handsomely  to  give  five 
lectures  on  the  contributions  of  bacteriology  to  the  history  of 
scientific  thought.  He  had  urged  discussion  upon  his  listeners. 
The  result,  he  declared,  was  disappointing.  Only  one  ques- 
tioning mind  had  risen  to  ask:  "Why  do  they  put  boric  acid 
in  babies'  eyes?"  His  epistle  continued: 

Among  the  letters  of  recommendation  for  a  new  assist  prof 
in  my  department  is  one  which  calls  him  "too  independent 
minded."  So  I  told  McCord  [his  departmental  associate  in 
charge  of  preventive  medicine]  to  go  after  him  as  we  needed 
a  little  independent-mindedness  in  our  joint. — Don't  fall  off 
any  glaciers. 


242       ^  month  later  he  wrote  me  again  (October  4,  1924) : 

Our  latest  Dean  has  packed  up  and  left  town.  There  are  no 
definite  rumors  as  to  what  comes  next — though  there  is  talk 
of  giving  Bachmeyer  the  combined  job,  partly  because  he 
would  be  a  good  man  and  partly  because  there  is  no  other 
way  to  raise  his  salary.  Personally  I  think  him  excellent. — Has 
your  ethmoiditis  lighted  up  again?  Never  mind — you  can 
always  come  back  to  me  knowing  that  I  will  cure  you! 

Baehr  sent  information  on  identical  subject  (November  11, 
1924) .  His  letter  to  me  is  quoted  as  outline  of  his  mind  and 
to  explain  why  friendship  between  Wherry  and  him  was  so 
enduring. 

There  is  a  perfect  wealth  of  painful  news  to  tell;  the  town 
is  buzzing  over  the  keyhole  revelations  supplied  them  by  our 
frightful  press  concerning  our  former  medical  student  who 
had  magnificent  courage  and  poor  advice  and  ran  away  with 
the  man  she  wanted.  Nothing  has  been  omitted;  our  circu- 
lations are  tingling  with  wish  complexes  encouraged,  and  with 
indignation  over  any  one  who  dares  break  the  rules  we  wish 
to  break  and  dare  not.  Enough.  If  I  knew  where  to  find  her 
I  should  send  her  an  encouraging  word. 

The  Dean  has  quit.  More  buzzing.  Hell  of  a  world,  isn't  it? 
I  am  growing  to  hate  it  more  and  more;  not  the  world  but 
the  poor  dirty  creatures  that  assume  the  right  to  dominate  it. 
— My  own  practice  is  growing  slowly  and  surely  (which  is 
all  you  can  say  for  the  Alps) .  We  are  all  in  perfect  health 
but  a  little  concerned  over  rumors  that  you  are  not.  If  the 
headaches  continue,  come  home  and  I  will  fill  you  full  of 
chlorine  which  will  put  an  end  to  the  thing  in  two  weeks 
(Excelsior  laundry  technic) . — Wherry  had  most  of  us  out 
to  a  smoker  last  night  to  meet  an  out-of-town  visitor.  One 
of  the  crowd  advised  him  that  there  was  no  opportunity  here 
for  a  live  man.  The  party  continued,  nevertheless,  with  C  A  L 
Reed  doing  all  the  talking.   .   .   . 

I  confess  that  it  causes  me  anguish  to  search  all  this  bunk 
out  of  the  forgotten  recesses  in  my  weary  brain;  but  I  know 
for  certain  that  you  must  do  the  same  thing  unless  something 
is  wrong  with  you. 
P  S  Feet  of  clay  at  Walnut  movie.  Rottener  than  I  feared. 


1925  saw  Wherry  at  the  setting  down  of  a  philosophy  of  24S 
infection  which,  in  a  certain  sense  became  his  life's  testa- 
ment. It  was  founded  upon  the  work  of  long  years.  Super- 
ficially he  was  continuing  addition  to  practical  therapy;  but 
deeper  down  his  "better  clinical  results"  were  the  outgrowth 
of  reasoned  argument  about  the  whys  and  wherefores  of 
resistance  to  invasion  by  an  enemy  attacker. 

Four  pages  (!)  on  Gonorrheal  ophthalmia  treated  with 
acri flavin  [68]  started  again  as  a  case  report.  An  infected  eye, 
proved  to  be  of  specific  origin  by  Wherry's  own  methods  of 
culture,  had  resisted  approved  treatment  for  ten  days,  being 
still  swollen  shut  and  filled  with  discharge.  Wherry  laid  over 
the  eye,  cloths  saturated  in  strong  salt  water  (a  mixture  of 
ordinary  salt  with  Epsom  salts)  and  instilled  a  dye,  acriflavin. 
In  three  days  the  swelling  had  subsided,  the  eye  was  open  and 
the  pus  had  almost  disappeared.  But  since  bacteria  could  still 
be  found  microscopically,  more  intense  and  continuous  instil- 
lation of  the  acriflavin  was  resorted  to.  In  two  days  all 
discharge  ceased  and  in  a  week  the  eye  was  well. 

To  the  world,  it  brought  improved  treatment  of  just 
another  patient.  To  Wherry,  it  was  the  clinical  proof  of 
scientific  deduction.  He  had  taken  the  cause  of  the  disease 
into  his  laboratory,  discovered  there  the  conditions  that  made 
it  live  best,  the  exact  concentration  of  dye  necessary  to  kill 
it,  and  something  of  the  circumstances  which  made  it  more 
susceptible  to  this  throttling.  A  culture  medium  simply  too 
dry  would  not  raise  his  microorganism;  so  he  had  induced  a 
similar  unfertility  in  the  tissues  of  the  eye  by  removing  the 
water  by  salting.  He  made  this  fact  into  a  law  by  extending 
the  truth  of  his  observations  on  gonorrhea  to  other  life  forms 
— B  pyocyaneus,  B  mucosus,  B  coli.  "I  have  seen  anthrax  of 
the  eye  in  man  cured  in  24  hours,  staphylococcus  infection  of 
the  eyelids,  erysipelas  and  extremely  edematous  streptococcus 
sore  throats  subside  rapidly  when  the  accompanying  edema 
was  reduced"  by  "salt-wet  dressings,"  he  said. 

How  to  raise  constitutional  resistance  to  infection  by  the 
injection  of  killed  cultures  of  the  organism  had  long,  of  course, 
been  his  goal  and  that  of  many  other  workers  in  bacteriology. 
All  had  injected  "vaccines"  to  increase  "immunity."  Whether 
by  direct  route  or  more  indirectly  through  stimulation  of 


244  "opsonin"  production  that  favored  "phagocytosis"  as  per 
Metchnikoff's  ideas — such  had  been  the  daily  employ  of 
Wherry  since  student  days. 

The  clinical  results  achieved  through  vaccine  therapy  had 
been  variable.  Some  doctors  held  them  "good";  others,  useless. 
These  bacterial  stocks  had  been  made  by  boiling  up  the  micro- 
organisms as  so  much  soup.  Wherry  asked  if  other  methods 
of  preparation  might  not  be  better — perhaps  the  immunity 
producing  properties  of  the  dead  organisms  had  been  unduly 
changed  by  the  way  they  were  cooked.  Could  not  they  be 
killed  without  this  drastic  chemical  change?  Could  not 
bacteria  be  "coagulated"  by  other  process  than  that  of  heat, 
as  by  treatment  with  an  antiseptic  like  formaldehyde? 
"From  a  study  of  the  literature  and  from  our  own  observa- 
tions the  treatment  of  bacterial  antigens  with  formaldehyde 
leads  to  their  detoxication  without  affecting  their  antigenic 
value,"  he  wrote  [69],  He  cited  his  laboratory  experiences  in 
evidence.  He  had  made  immune  to  tropical  dysentery  ( Shiga's 
bacillus)  a  large  number  of  rabbits — through  first  injection 
of  the  animals  with  such  a  formaldehyde-killed  culture  of  the 
bacilli.  Thereafter  he  had  given  them  lethal  doses  of  the  living 
organism.  With  the  exception  of  the  underimmunized,  all  his 
animals  lived. 

Now  he  applied  his  ideas  to  the  cause  of  typhoid  fever,  suc- 
ceeding here,  too,  in  producing  an  immunity  in  men  without 
the  severe  reactions  common  to  the  use  of  the  commercially 
prepared  (heat-killed)  varieties. 

His  theology  was  presented  as  an  address  to  Cincinnati's 
Ophthalmological  club  in  December  [70].  While  entitled: 
The  use  of  vaccines  and  dyes  in  controlling  infections  of  the 
eye,  it  was  statement,  really,  of  all  he  believed  to  lie  behind 
the  universal  drama  of  one  life  trying  to  live  upon  another. 
What  I  quote  is  practically  all  the  paper  (it  was  one  and  a 
quarter  pages  long!).  Beginning  with  the  facts  which  to  his 
mind  underlay  the  establishment  of  infection,  he  said: 
...  So  far  as  the  host  is  concerned,  the  body  may  be  con- 
sidered as  a  cylinder  covered  by  skin  and  mucous  membrane 
which  have  natural  defensive  powers  of  a  high  order;  but 
also  contain  many  weak  points  where  parasites  may  estab- 
lish themselves  and,  through  adaptation,  acquire  the  ability 


to  thrive  in  the  deeper  tissues — the  tonsils,  adenoids,  mucous  24^ 
and  sebaceous  glands,  hair  follicles,  etc. 

The  parasite  must  be  possessed  of  ferments  which  will 
enable  it  to  utilize  the  sources  of  carbon  and  nitrogen  fur- 
nished by  the  host,  and  it  must  have  a  type  of  respiration,  or 
acquire  it  through  adaptation,  which  will  enable  it  to  survive 
in  the  relatively  low  tension  of  oxygen  found  in  the  tissues. 
It  must  find  its  food  substances  in  solution  or  be  able  to  pro- 
duce chemical  changes  which  will  bring  about  a  solution  of 
the  tissue;  for  under  normal  conditions  the  cells  of  the  host 
.  .  .  contain  little  or  no  free  water.  That  bacteria  cannot 
utilize  body  colloids  unless  in  liquid  form  can  be  shown  by 
growing  them  in  a  nutrient  solution  containing  increasing 
quantities  of  a  colloid  capable  of  binding  water,  such  as  agar- 
agar — the  rate  of  growth  being  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  con- 
centration of  the  agar-agar.  Injury  of  healthy  tissue  resulting 
in  local  edema  furnishes  food  in  solution  and  hence  a  favor- 
able place  for  the  growth  of  bacteria,  even  the  saprophytic. 

From  such  theoretical  backgrounds,  Wherry  divided  what 
might  be  the  cure-bringing  methods  of  the  doctor  into 
such  as  prevented  trouble  and  those  best  suited  to  meet 
it  afterwards.  Under  the  former  lay  soap- and- water  clean- 
liness, the  immediate  sterilization  of  injured  areas  (here 
Wherry  emphasized  the  employment  of  those  death- dealing 
substances,  which  while  killers  of  the  infection  did  not  simul- 
taneously kill  the  cells  of  man,  namely,  the  dyes),  the  imme- 
diate reduction  of  swelling  (since  it  shut  the  air  off  the 
invading  organisms  to  allow  their  better  growth)  and  the 
removal  of  established  bacterial  nests  (as  in  the  tonsils  and 
teeth) .  Under  the  latter  lay  immunization  against  infection. 
The  external  skins  of  his  human  "cylinder"  should  be  made 
immune,  and  this  immunity  then  be  carried  clear  through. 
Take  the  water  out  of  every  injured  spot,  be  it  superficial  or 
deep,  to  make  mere  life  hard  for  the  microorganisms;  and 
then  build  up  the  host's  total  resistance.  Phagocytic  immunity 
"might  be  aided  by  passive  immunization"  (the  injection  of 
"antibodies"  earned  by  another  host — as  the  diphtheria  anti- 
toxine  produced  by  a  horse) ;  but  an  active  immunity  earned 
by  efforts  of  the  host  himself  was  better.  To  this  end  Wherry 
advised  the  injection  of  "suitably  prepared  antigens." 


0A(\  He  demonstrated  the  soundness  of  his  principles  by  refer- 
ence  to  clinical  experience.  If  his  listeners  cared  to  follow  him, 
then  they  too  would  dehydrate,  paint  with  Churchman's 
gentian  violet  or  Benda's  acriflavin  (depending  upon  whether 
the  invader  liked  his  food  sweet  or  sour)  and  prepare  and 
administer  properly  trained  "antigens." 


1925-1930 


XII 


THE  ideas  in  bacteriology  that  were  Wherry's  gathered 
unto  him  a  long  file  of  coworkers  and  "students."  His 
first  scientific  walks  had  brought  Lyon,  McDill,  Clegg,  Mus- 
grave,  Woolley,  Spelman,  Agnes  Walker  and  Wellman  to  his 
side.  In  Cincinnati  he  added  O  V  Huffman  (dean,  later,  of 
the  Long  Island  medical  college  and  beloved  practitioner  of 
internal  medicine  to  his  death,  1937).  1914  saw  him  convert 
the  medical  student,  B  H  Lamb,  into  a  bacteriologically- 
minded  practitioner.  N  E  Wayson's  affection  for  him  then  came 
to  flower  (assistant  surgeon,  U  S  P  H  S,  he  had  just  shown  how 
stable  and  house  flies  carry  tularense) .  At  Woods  Hole, 
Wherry  joined  up  with  Kite  as  two  mercury  droplets  coalesce. 
In  1916  he  inducted  Wade  W  Oliver  (Huffman's  successor  in 
the  Long  Island  college)  into  the  ways  of  microorganismal 
life;  and  in  1917  placed  D  M  Ervin's  name  on  the  printed 
page.  Wherry's  reputation  was  such  that,  in  1920,  C  T  Butter- 
field  (U  S  P  H  S)  was  assigned  to  Cincinnati  for  collaboration. 
Others  who  at  one  time  or  another  in  the  twenty-seven  years 
of  his  residence  in  Cincinnati,  dipped  into  Wherry's  laboratory 
to  get  the  shove  that  oriented  them  for  life,  make  too  long  a 
list  to  cite. 

The  close  of  the  war  returned  George  E  Rockwell  to  his 
tribe  ( to  enlarge  upon  Wherry's  studies  on  the  gaseous  require- 
ments of  bacterial  life,  to  write  a  common  sense  book  on 
Streptococcic  blood-stream  infections,  to  be  of  the  first  to 
advise  the  oral  administration  of  vaccine) .  C  F  McKhann  came 
in  (to  join  in  Rockwell's  studies  and  go  pediatric)  with  J  A 
Bowen  (the  mucous  membrane  of  the  eye  can  be  immunized 
locally  by  proper  vaccine  against  subsequent  infection  with 
a  live  and  disease-producing  diphtheria  bacillus) ,  Merlin  L 
Cooper  (the  respiratory  mucous  membrane  can  be  immunized 
ditto,  against  an  otherwise  fatal  strain  of  the  pneumococcus) , 
John  H  Highberger  (proper  oxygen  and  carbon  dioxide  pres- 
sures are  necessary  for  best  growth  of  molds  and  yeasts,  too) , 


248 


A  A  Draper  (the  aerial  growth  of  yeasts  is  favored  by  the 
presence  of  phosphate  in  the  nutriment)  and  Frank  E 
Stevenson  ( the  skin  reacts  better  to  a  dose  of  tuberculin  after 
the  childhood  fevers  than  while  they  are  on) . 

At  least  the  half  of  all  students  to  come  out  of  Cincinnati's 
medical  school  capable  of  any  type  of  independent  thinking 
or  work  owed  this  start  to  Wherry.  They  drew  their  stimulus 
from  the  air  that  enveloped  his  working  quarters.  He  pub- 
lished relatively  little  in  his  own  name.  To  the  day  of  his  death 
commentators  were  necessary  to  expand  his  Aristotelian 
paragraphs  into  chapters. 


I  WENT  to  Mexico  in  1925,  protected  against  typhoid  by 
a  vaccine  according  to  Wherry.  Many  more  organisms 
were  thus  injectable  without  undue  systemic  effects;  and  their 
immunizing  properties  better,  because  not  heat-killed.  Wherry 
wrote  me  (July  6,  1925) : 

I  hope  you  are  enjoying  the  Moctezuma  [a  famous  brand  of 
Mexican  beer].  I  tried  to  estimate  the  number  of  bacilli  in  the 
vaccine  I  gave  you  and  got  counts  varying  from  45  to  103 
billion  bugs  per  cc.  So  I  think  you  are  getting  at  least  9  billion 
bugs  in  each  0.2  cc.  3  or  4  doses  ought  to  be  the  equivalent  of 
the  commercial  stuff.  Your  two  Cincinnatians  had  such  severe 
reactions  to  the  second  dose  of  the  commercial  variety  you 
gave  them,  that  both  had  chills  &  went  to  bed — so,  for  the  last 
dose,  I  gave  them  my  vaccine.  Inoculated  the  rest  of  my  family 
yesterday  and  I  myself  have  taken  3  shots  without  anything 
worse  than  local  redness  &  tenderness. 

He  had  been  using  the  new  vaccine  not  only  for  the  protec- 
tion of  travellers  about  to  invade  typhoid-ridden  countries 
but  for  the  therapy  of  the  disease  in  man  as  well.  Since  1925 
he  had  treated  thirteen  patients,  succeeding  in  shortening  by 
many  days  their  four  weeks  of  fever;  and  in  suppressing  the 
"relapses"  so  common  to  the  disease.  But  there  had  not  been 
enough  typhoids  in  Ohio  to  make  these  conclusions  binding — 
so  the  "biometricists"  said.  Would  not  someone  step  forward 
with  a  few  thousand,  Wherry  asked,  to  send  him  to  Mexico 
where  negligible  hygiene  still  allowed  plenty  of  the  population 


to  fall  sick  in  God's  own  way?  The  daughter  of  Charles  P  Taft  OA.C) 
(Mrs  William  T  Semple)  volunteered  to  raise  the  necessary 
funds  but  only  if  Marie  would  go  along  to  "look  after  him." 
Besides  the  Tafts  and  Semples,  the  two  William  Cooper 
Procters,  Mary  Hanna  and  E  W  Edwards  subscribed — to  an 
expedition  that  made  for  great  advance  in  the  treatment  of 
typhoids  but  one  which  Wherry  slyly  rated  as  good  deal  of  a 
junket.  He  had  again  done  the  typical  thing,  divided  his  gains 
among  some  members  newly  added  to  his  staff — Thomas  J  Le 
Blanc  ( thirty- three,  writer,  Rockefeller  health  evangelist  and 
now  the  associate  professor  of  preventive  medicine  with 
Wherry) ,  Lee  Foshay  (thirty-one,  M  D  out  of  Pennsylvania, 
clinician  via  Hoover  and  Cleveland,  Ohio) ,  Robert  Marrenner 
Thomas  (twenty- three,  Cincinnati  medico  from  California  to 
join  Florence  Rena  Sabin  later  in  New  York) — and  taken 
them  along  to  Mexico.  I  had  arrived  earlier  in  Cuernavaca. 
There  he  wrote  me  when  he  reached  the  capital  (July  14, 
1927): 

We  arrived  in  Vera  Cruz  two  days  ago  after  a  splendid  trip. 
We  spent  Monday  at  Orizaba  but  the  mountain  was  obscured 
by  clouds.  Just  got  a  glimpse  of  its  base  from  the  train  next 
day.  We  are  all  feeling  the  altitude  and  will  have  to  take  it 
easy  for  a  few  days.  [In  the  precedent  summer  he  had 
"packed"  in  Michigan  and  had  stretched  his  heart,  according 
to  Marie.  ]  I  don't  wish  to  boast  but  I  have  stood  the  change 
better  than  most  of  the  party.  Dr  Bermudez  of  the  School  of 
hygiene  has  been  most  kind  and  to-day  introduced  us  to  Prof 
Medellin  who  is  in  charge  of  the  public  health  work  of  the 
Republic.  Next  week  we  hope  to  get  settled  in  one  of  the  labo- 
ratories and  on  the  track  of  some  cases.  We  will  have  to  work 
within  4  or  5  hours  by  train  from  Mexico  City.  The  authori- 
ties do  not  advise  trying  anything  farther  away  [revolutionary 
disturbances  were  on  in  the  provinces]. 

Mariana  had  not  died  by  July  31,  1927: 

We  have  been  stamping  about  waiting  for  our  freight  to 
arrive.  They  stuck  us  duty  on  everything  including  the  cotton 
the  bottles  were  wrapped  in — 84  +  pesosl  However  we  got  the 
box  yesterday  and  I  will  be  ready  for  cases  next  week.  Dr  Jose 
Sozaya,  a  graduate  of  Harvard,  is  temporarily  director  of  the 


O  ^  Q  new  Institute  of  hygiene  here.  It  is  a  wonderful  place  and  you 
must  visit  it.  I  doubt  if  the  USA  has  its  equal  in  beauty  of 
design  and  few  places  only  can  excel  it  in  equipment.  Through 
the  help  of  Dr  Bermudez  we  have  met  the  chief  jefes  who 
promise  all  sorts  of  things.  P  W  Monroe,  a  leading  American 
physician  and  surgeon  here,  has  been  most  kind;  and  H  Mooser, 
the  Swiss  pathologist  &  bacteriologist  at  the  American  hospital. 
He  has  assigned  to  us  our  first  two  cases — cultured  by  himself. 
He  is  very  clever  and  has  done  a  lot  on  rat-bite  fever;  has  many 
things  going  all  the  time.  He's  a  regular  Mexican,  or  Swiss, 
"Rosenow." 

Time  is  going  fast  and  unless  we  get  more  cases  soon,  the 
expedition  will  be  a  fizzle.  We  have  been  unable  to  insist  upon 
the  fulfillment  of  promises  made  to  us  heretofore  because  we 
did  not  have  our  materials ;  but  in  a  few  days  we  will  be  able 
to  push  the  inspectors  to  report  all  febrile  cases  for  culture. 
I  brought  along  a  tube  of  vaccine  to  immunize  Foshay  but  used 
it  up  in  treating  Mooser's  cases.  One  was  a  relapse,  the  other 
a  German  girl  of  24  yrs  in  the  second  week.  After  6  daily  doses 
their  temperatures  came  to  normal.  Hope  this  means  some- 
thing. Mooser  says  that  if  cases  appear  as  in  previous  years  he 
may  be  able  to  give  us  5  0. 

If  I  had  had  a  little  foresight  I  might  have  run  down  to-day 
to  see  you  and  returned  Sunday,  but  I  was  so  anxious  to  get 
the  lab  established  and  media  ready  that  I  left  the  hotel  early 
this  morning  without  thinking  of  the  possibility.  On  the  way 
home  I  got  lost  and  did  not  get  back  to  the  hotel  until  late. 
It  is  I  who  will  have  to  push  things  or  we  may  not  get  enough 
cases  to  warrant  the  expenditures. 

Before  returning  from  Mexico  for  his  work  in  Cincinnati, 
he  wrote  his  daughter  who  with  Marie  had  preceded  him  to  U  S 
(September  11,  1927): 

I  sent  off  a  scrappy  note  to  mother  this  morning — in  a  hurry, 
as  I  got  up  late.  Please  thank  her  for  the  check  for  fifty  dollars. 
I  am  about  out  of  my  own  money  for  my  accounts  didn't  come 
out  square  last  week  and  I  had  to  put  twenty  pesos  in  the  fund! 
Le  Blanc  &  Thomas  have  not  yet  returned  from  Cuernavaca. 
I  expect  them  this  evening. 

I  despise  the  thought  of  not  seeing  you  before  you  leave  for 


Smith.  Perhaps  I  will  not  stay  much  longer  but  even  then  I  251 
will  get  back  too  late  to  see  you  before  you  go  East.  I  have 
found  no  new  cases  and  think  I  will  be  through  with  the  three 
I  am  treating  in  a  few  days.  Perhaps  I  could  add  more  cases  to 
the  list  by  returning  to  Cinti.  Mother  writes  as  though  there 
were  some  at  home.  .  .  .  Tell  her  I  will  get  the  belts  &  purses 
she  suggests.  I  am  going  to  have  a  silver  door-plate  made  for 
Dr  Sozaya  to  put  on  the  room  he  has  set  aside  for  us  foreign 
workers — guest  laboratory.  Well,  it  is  3  P  M  &  I  must 
hurry  to  the  bank  and  get  this  in  the  Correo. 

Wherry  came  out  of  Mexico  with  the  accounts  of  fifteen 
further  instances  of  typhoid  fever  to  add  to  his  Cincinnati  list, 
scientifically  proved  to  be  such  and  young  enough  in  the  run 
of  the  disease  to  make  clear  the  value  or  valuelessness  of  his 
vaccine  therapy.  The  whole  story  was  published  shortly  [73]. 
He  compared  the  results  of  treatment  with  his  formaldehyde 
detoxicated  vaccine  in  twenty-eight  cases  with  the  fate  of 
sixty-eight  "controls"  treated  according  to  Hoyle.  Through- 
out his  series: 

the  course  of  the  disease  had  been  shortened,  the  temperature 
uniformly  showing  a  tendency  to  drop  to  normal  after  the 
seventh  or  eighth  dose  and  then  coming  to  normal  by  irregular 
lysis.  The  average  duration  of  the  fever  in  the  treated  cases  was 
27.5  days,  in  the  controls,  39.  The  incidence  of  complications 
seemed  decreased — seven  percent  in  the  treated,  thirty-six 
percent  in  the  untreated.  Convalescence  was  shortened  .  .  . 
The  death  rate  decreased  from  ten  percent  for  the  untreated, 
to  zero  for  the  treated. 


BEFORE   this  report,   two   others   on   practical   vaccine 
therapy  had  appeared  [71,  72],  Underlying  his  successes 
were  principles. 

His  experimental  findings  and  his  scientific  abstractions  had 
increasingly  moved  the  locus  of  immunity  from  a  position 
somewhere  "in  the  blood,"  to  where  it  really  belonged — the 
tissues  themselves.  Tissue  immunity  was  the  essential  thing! 
The  appearance  of  "immune  bodies"  in  the  blood  was  just  the 
consequence  of  its  sewering  them  out. 


252  With  his  collaborators  he  had  produced  localized  tissue  im- 
munities— in  the  eye,  in  portions  of  the  respiratory  and  alimen- 
tary mucous  membranes,  in  the  skin — by  topical  application 
or  local  injection  of  his  vaccines.  But  in  these  experiments,  the 
signs  were  plain  that  from  the  locally  immunized  spots  sub- 
stances passed  into  the  whole  body  so  as  to  make  resistance  to 
the  disease  more  general.  He  could  discover  immune  bodies  in 
the  circulation. 

At  times,  however,  things  did  not  go  so  smoothly.  Just  as 
he  had  seen  a  localized  immunity  develop,  he  now  saw  a  local- 
ized anaphylaxis — a  hypersusceptibility,  as  he  called  it.  As  a 
second  dose  of  horse  serum  in  diphtheria  treatment  had  at 
times  not  benefited  but  killed  the  patient,  so  after  his  vaccine 
injections,  Wherry  had  noted  not  "cure"  but  varying  degrees 
of  "reaction."  These  local  effects  of  a  second  dose  of  vaccine 
were  identical,  Wherry  said,  with  what  happened  when  live 
organisms  got  through  the  body  barriers  and  started  on  their 
way.  He  burlesqued  the  arrangements  of  words  that  men  used 
to  "explain"  the  situation. 

"The  bacteria,  having  gained  entrance  to  the  body  through 
some  suitable  path,  make  their  way  into  the  blood  or  lymph 
streams  or  into  the  tissue  spaces,  and,  if  the  conditions  are 
favorable  and  if  the  resistance  of  the  host  is  such  or  so,  they 
grow  and  multiply  and  set  up  an  irritation  of  the  tissues." 

Wherry  continued: 

I  have  not  really  quoted  the  above  statement  but  believe  it 
represents  fairly  the  current  mode  of  evading  the  plain  state- 
ment that  we  have  very  hazy  ideas  concerning  the  first  steps 
in  the  process  of  infection.  .  .  .  We  should  be  interested  first 
of  all  in  how  bacteria  gain  entrance  to  the  tissues,  for  in  order 
to  do  so  they  must  penetrate  into  either  skin  or  mucous 
membrane. 

What,  in  more  scientific  phraseology,  really  did  happen? 
Wherry  said : 

Let  us  focus  attention  on  the  factors  which  make  possible  the 
invasion  of  this  mass  of  colloids  .  .  .  which  we  call  the  animal 
body.  So  far  as  the  microorganism  is  concerned,  in  order  that 
it  may  lead  a  parasitic  existence  it  must  be  provided  with  a 


type  of  respiration  .  .  .  which  will  enable  it  to  survive  in  the  0  j  ^ 
relatively  low  tension  of  oxygen  found  in  the  tissues  of  a  living 
host;  and  it  must  be  possessed  of  ferments  which  will  enable 
it  to  utilize  the  sources  of  carbon  and  nitrogen  furnished  by 
the  host.  It  must  find  the  food  substances  in  solution  (as  after 
trauma)  or  be  able  to  produce  chemical  changes  which  will 
bring  about  a  solution  of  the  tissue,  for,  under  normal  condi- 
tions the  cells    .   .   .  contain  little  or  no  free  water. 

Emphasizing  again  his  experiments  on  the  inability  of  bac- 
teria to  grow  upon  media  too  gelatinized  (since  such  contained 
no  free  water)  while  they  grew  luxuriantly  in  the  "waters  of 
syneresis,"  squeezed  off  by  the  media,  he  went  to  one  of  his 
great  generalizations: 

In  quite  an  analogous  manner  the  bacteria  which  are  capable 
of  producing  an  extensive  local  edema  are  the  species  which 
spread  most  rapidly  .  .  .  B  pestis,  B  anthracis,  B  tularense, 
B  welchii,  B  cedematis  maligni,  the  streptococci  of  erysipelas, 
scarlet  fever,  epidemic  sore  throat,  strangles  in  horses  .  .  . 
The  mechanism  by  which  these  bacteria  produce  the  hydration 
of  the  tissues  which  enables  them  to  grow  and  multiply  is  not 
clear. 

Actually,  Wherry  was  clearer  on  this  subject  than  anyone 
else  had  been  before  him:  "The  filtrates  of  cultures  contain 
substances  which  produce  local  congestion  and  edema  .  .  . 
these  might  be  amines." 

He  supported  his  conclusion  by  collection  of  the  much  scat- 
tered evidence  which  showed  that  disease-producing  organisms 
quite  regularly  produce  amines,  and  that  these  increase  the 
swelling  of  laboratory  proteins  just  as  they  increase  what  he 
had  called  "tissue  hydration."  Infestation  with  bacteria  was 
thus  turned  to  infection  by  them,  if  endowed  with  proper  life 
capacities;  and  the  harmless  "saprophyte"  suffered  reclassifi- 
cation as  a  "pathogen." 

But  these  bacterial  soups,  besides  thus  making  for  a  swelling, 
also  produced  immunity.  This  could  not  be  due  to  their 
content  of  amines,  for  such  compounds  are  of  too  simple  a 
chemical  composition  to  produce  it — things  much  more  com- 
plicated, like  the  complete  and  original  albuminous  materials 
from  which  the  amines  come,  were  required.  Wherry  said: 


254 


"  .  .  .  Because  the  filtrates  have  antigenic  value  also,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  two  substances  are  identical." 


FROM  his  bacteriological  and  clinical  observations  Wherry 
built  up  concepts  of  infestation  and  infection,  of 
localized  and  general  immunity,  of  localized  and  general 
"anaphylactic"  susceptibility,  sensitivity,  and  the  schemes  for 
their  discovery  and  treatment  that  were  the  enveloping  spirit 
of  his  laboratory,  the  guide  to  its  therapeutic  ventures,  and 
the  substance  of  the  too  few  "contributions"  he  made  to  the 
printed  page.  He  had  for  years  employed  vaccines  to  bring  up 
general  immunity,  thus  to  kill  down  more  effectively  what 
were  the  general  or  local  manifestations  of  infection.  Vaccine 
therapy  by  the  medical  world,  however,  was  little  thought  of. 
His  associate,  Stanley  Dorst  stated  the  reasons  therefor:  the 
manufacture  of  vaccines  was  too  much  a  commercialized 
venture;  even  the  right-minded  failed  to  get  in  culture  the 
true  cause  of  the  disease  to  be  treated;  straight-out  stupidity 
and  incompetence  lay  in  too  many  of  the  "technicians"  so 
largely  relied  upon  in  hospitals  for  "scientific"  diagnosis. 

What  did  Wherry  declare  necessary?  Individual  study  of 
the  individual  patient  by  the  bacteriologically  competent  was 
needed  if  results  were  to  be  obtained.  He  had  always  insisted 
upon  an  "autogenous"  vaccine  (one  produced  from  the 
specific  microorganism  infesting  the  patient  himself) .  Its 
preparation  was  easy  when  only  one  organism  was  involved. 
But  how  might  one  know  in  infections  from  the  nose,  the  lung, 
the  gut  or  the  genito- urinary  tract — where  three  to  fourteen 
invaders  were  discoverable — which  was  the  disease-producing 
germ?  Wherry  answered:  Discover  to  which  of  the  several  the 
patient  is  "sensitive."  To  this  end  a  vaccine  needed  to  be  made 
from  each  of  the  organisms  separately,  a  bit  injected  into  the 
skin  and  the  effects  noted.  If  a  welt,  or  an  area  of  redness  for 
a  number  of  hours  about  the  point  of  injection  was  not  pro- 
duced, the  patient  was  either  not  "susceptible"  to  infection  by 
that  organism,  or  "immune."  That  organism,  obviously,  was 
not  a  source  of  his  constitutional  poisoning  and  might  be  set 
aside.  But  if  a  more  positive  reaction  was  obtained,  then  to 
relieve  the  general  or  local  symptoms,  "desensitization"  had  to 


be  practiced.  This  called  for  tiny  doses  of  the  vaccine  prepared  ^  S  S 
from  all  those  strains  to  which  the  patient  had  proved  sensi- 
tive; repeated  day  after  day  until  "immunity"  had  been 
produced.  This  point  was  reached  when  increasing  doses  of  the 
vaccine  no  longer  occasioned  a  local  reaction.  The  patient  had 
then  learned  to  meet  his  poison — a  matter  proved  by  the  cessa- 
tion of  symptoms  for  which  he  had  originally  consulted  his 
doctor. 

A  paper  setting  forth  these  ideas,  after  years  of  work, 
appeared  in  1928  [74].  Here  was  description  of  his  "sensi- 
tivity" test,  the  rules  for  the  selection  of  proper  "antigens," 
illustrative  case  histories  of  patients,  particularly  of  those  who 
had  been  the  victims  of  "mixed"  infection — sinusitis,  asthma, 
colitis,  skin  eruption. 

He  repeated  his  beliefs  in  a  chapter  written  for  E  O  Jordan's 
Newer  knowledge  of  bacteriology  and  immunology  [75], 
entitled  'Phagocytes  and  phagocytosis  in  immunity.  Preceding 
his  views  were  clipped  history  and  fine  English.  Recalling  "the 
ardent  contest  between  the  champions  of  the  humoral  theory 
of  immunity  and  those  who  maintain  that  certain  body  cells 
play  an  equally  important  part"  he  held  both  parties  to  have 
right  on  their  side. 

When  foreign  bodies  of  a  varied  nature,  including  parasitic 
microorganisms,  gain  entrance  to  the  tissues,  they  are  invested 
by  certain  cells  derived  from  the  fixed  tissues  or  from  the  cir- 
culating blood.  .  .  .  When  this  ingestion  (phagocytosis)  is 
followed  by  digestion  the  host  recovers,  otherwise  it  succumbs. 
.  .  .  Many  investigators  question  the  ability  of  the  phago- 
cytes to  kill  the  parasites.  Some  maintain  that  the  parasites  are 
killed  first  by  normal  or  acquired  bactericidal  substances  and 
then  ingested  and  removed  as  so  much  foreign  debris. 

He  summarized  briefly  and  pungently  the  "more  important 
steps  in  the  growth  of  our  knowledge."  Starting  with  the 
phagocytic  half  of  the  total  problem,  he  reviewed  what  we 
know  of  the  anatomy  and  the  origin  of  the  tissue  and  blood 
cells  involved  in  the  process.  The  Kupff er  cells  of  the  liver  were 
to  him  "specialized  endothelial  cells  within  the  capillaries 
anchored  out  into  the  blood  stream  by  guy  ropes  of  cyto- 
plasm." Pretty  morphology,  which  did  not,  however,  blind 


256  him  to  their  physiology!  They  had  a  "maximum  power  of 
phagocytosis  and  cleared  the  blood  stream  of  foreign  particles 
within  a  very  few  minutes.' '  Wherry  had  great  confidence  in 
these  "normal  but  swollen"  cells,  for,  said  he,  "leucocytes  are 
more  active  when  they  are  hydrated."  The  white  cells  of  the 
blood  that  carry  granules  which  stain  red  with  a  dye  called 
eosin  (the  eosinophils)  had  always  intrigued  him.  Said  he: 

They  are  called  forth  in  response  to  local  or  general  anaphy- 
lactic shock — occur  in  all  "sensitivity"  conditions,  e  g  asthma, 
sinusitis,  mucous  colitis  and  various  inflammations  of  the  skin. 
The  nature  of  the  substances  which  call  them  forth  is  un- 
known but  they  are  probably  products  of  autolysis  derived 
from  tissues  or  from  parasites. 

The  eosinophiles  appear  in  large  number  in  individuals 
infested  of  worms.  They  had  long  been  known  to  appear  in 
asthma;  what  interested  Wherry  was  that  they  were  present, 
too,  in  colitis,  sinusitis,  and  various  skin  diseases.  This  made 
the  latter  a  "kind  of  asthma" — meaning  that  the  mechanism 
back  of  the  symptomatology  of  all  of  them  (edema,  mucous 
secretion,  involuntary  muscle  spasm,  aggregation  of  eosino- 
philes) was  probably  the  same.  All  were  the  product  of  foreign 
protein  intoxication — sometimes  gotten  from  unusual  foods, 
from  pollen  or  other  "dusts" — but,  in  Wherry's  instances 
from  the  proteins  of  bacteria  themselves,  resident  within  the 
victim.  That  is  why  he  saw  all  of  them  as  sensitizations,  made 
worse  by  renewed  intoxication  or  infection;  why  he  would, 
by  proper  vaccine  therapy,  desensitize  and  so  cure  the  victim. 

He  told  quickly  the  story  of  a  century  and  a  quarter  of 
such  prophylactic  and  therapeutic  immunization.  Edward 
Jenner  had  started  it  in  1796  by  "vaccinating"  the  human 
race  with  the  "living,  attenuated  virus"  of  cowpox,  to  protect 
the  race  against  the  more  virulent  form  of  the  disease,  the 
smallpox.  Louis  Pasteur  (some  seventy-five  years  later)  had 
not  changed  things  much  with  his  antirabic  injections,  for  he, 
too,  had  used  a  living  organism  to  produce  immunity.  Change 
came  in  the  late  eighties  when  the  Spaniard  Juan  Ferran  re- 
sorted to  a  killed  culture  of  cholera  to  protect  against  infection 
with  the  living  organism.  Waldemar  Mordecai  Wolff  Haffkine 
(*  1860,  Russia)  continued  these  "vaccinations";  adding  to 


the  scheme,  plague.  In  1900  Sir  Almroth  Edward  Wright  257 
(*  1861,  England)  had  extended  the  list  of  diseases  thus  pro- 
tected against,  by  adding  typhoid  fever.  But  he  did  more.  Ac- 
cepting Metchnikorf's  theory  of  immunity  ( phagocytosis  is  its 
measure) ,  he  showed  how  such  might  be  favored  through  the 
"opsonins;"  and  yet  more  important,  how  by  use  of  the  vac- 
cines previously  employed  only  for  the  prevention  of  disease, 
these  might  be  employed  to  aid  the  patient  in  recovery  after 
the  disease  had  started.  Wherry  quoted  Wright:  "The  idea  that 
the  uninfected  and  still  inactive  regions  of  the  body  can,  by 
applying  the  stimulus  of  a  vaccine,  be  made  to  bring  succour 
to  the  infected  regions  was  the  mother-idea  of  vaccine 
therapy." 

Wherry  believed  that  the  logical  outgrowth  of  Wright's 
studies  should  lead  to  the  fulfillment  of  a  prophecy:  The 
physician  of  the  future  will  be  an  immunizator,  explaining 
why  this  fair  end  had  not  yet  come  about.  "Baffled  by  the 
difficulties  and  uncertainties  of  the  opsonic  technique  and 
perhaps  justly  fearing  the  dreaded  'negative  phase'  the 
physician  still  fixes  his  eye  on  the  chemical  and  physical  mani- 
festations of  disease  and  largely  ignores  the  parasites  whose 
destruction  is  the  sine  qua  non  to  recovery."  It  made  him 
suggest: 

In  view  of  the  specificity  of  antibodies,  therapeutic  immuniza- 
tion must  develop  along  specific  lines.  .  .  .  We  must  do  more 
than  merely  inject  an  antigen.  It  must  be  the  right  antigen 
administered  in  the  proper  dose  at  sufficiently  frequent 
intervals. 

But  how  to  find  it?  "When  a  series  of  heat-killed  bacterial 
antigens  is  injected,  some  give  rise  to  local  urticaria.  Its  pro- 
duction indicates  susceptibility."  This  local  edema  Wherry 
saw  as  a  reaction  fatal  to  the  interests  of  the  patient  and  favor- 
able to  the  further  life  of  the  invading  microorganism,  for  it 
"(a)  provided  dissolved  food  for  the  bacteria,  (b)  diluted 
antibodies,  (c)  immobilized  phagocytes,  (d)  prevented  ab- 
sorption of  antigenic  substance  and  (e)  favored  digestion  of 
the  fixed  tissues  and  abscess  formation."  To  combat  the 
situation,  he  counselled  the  doctor: 

Every  effort  should  be  directed  toward  reducing  the  edema 


258 


by  the  use  of  hypertonic  salines,  glucose,  incision,  etc;  and  in 
the  case  of  open  wounds,  antibacterial  substances  should  be 
drawn  into  the  focus  by  establishing  an  external  flow  of  serum. 
As  many  of  the  parasites  as  can  be  reached  should  be  killed  by 
the  use  of  dyes,  etc.  Often  the  successful  reduction  of  the 
edema  at  the  beginning  of  an  acute  inflammation  may  by  itself 
so  favor  the  normal  defense  mechanism  that  healing  follows 
promptly. 


THE  summer  vacation  Wherry  spent  in  Maine.  He  wrote 
of  his  activities  from  Lincoln ville  (August  25,  1928) : 

I  wish  you  were  here  to  go  sketching  with  us.  Unfortunately 
the  fogs  roll  in  and  spoil  our  game.  Several  of  my  daubs  tickled 
me  for  a  while,  until  it  was  pointed  out  that  the  perspective 
was  conspicuous  by  its  absence,  and  some  other  vital  defects 
stared  the  ordinary  beholder  in  the  face  but  went  right  by  the 
admiring  eyes  of  its  creator.  Occasionally  we  see  a  four  or  five 
masted  schooner  in  full  sail  but  these  will  soon  be  gone.  They 
burned  up  five  of  the  pretty  things  in  the  Portsmouth  harbor 
last  week.  Penobscot  Bay  used  to  be  a  great  centre  for  salmon 
fishing  but  this  industry  is  on  its  last  legs  for  the  salmon  don't 
like  the  big  dam  built  just  above  Bangor.  Where  they  used  to 
see  billions  of  young  salmon  in  the  breeding  grounds,  one  can 
scarcely  find  any  now. — Thanks  for  letting  me  see  Chandler's 
letter.  He  expresses  what  many  of  us  feel.  It  is  too  bad  that 
universities  never  try  the  graceful  thing  while  a  person  like 
Miss  McVea  still  lives. 

The  reference  was  to  Emilie  Watts  McVea.  Born  in,  and 
warm  lover  of  the  South,  she  had  come  from  Knoxville  at 
Charles  William  Dabney's  bidding  to  the  deanship  for  women 
in  Cincinnati's  university,  to  proceed  after  eight  years  of  it  to 
the  presidency  of  Sweet  Briar  college  for  women  in  Virginia, 
until  illness  quenched  her  vital  fires. 

As  winter  came,  Wherry  might  not  see  the  "daubs"  he  had 
made,  hung  for  show  in  Closson's  gallery  downtown.  But  he 
could  read  about  them  from  his  bed.  His  heart  had  gone  weak. 
It  was  nothing,  he  said.  He  would  rest  now,  and  then  ask  for 
a  long  overdue  sabbatical  year.  With  this  thought  still  fresh 


in  his  mind,  a  telegram  from  the  Rockefeller  foundation  sug-  259 
gested  that  he  go  to  Manila  and  its  School  for  hygiene  and 
public  health  in  the  university  of  the  Philippines,  for  two 
years.  He  was  for  declining,  when  Marie,  sensing  his  enthu- 
siasm for  the  project,  suggested  that  he  ask  if  one  year  might 
prove  acceptable.  It  did ;  and  he  started  from  Cincinnati  in  the 
spring. 

From  Honolulu,  from  the  beach  at  Waikiki,  he  sent  a  report 
of  his  westward  journey  (April  25,  1929)  : 

We  were  pretty  much  on  the  go  in  S  F  having  most  enjoyable 
visits  with  the  Strietmanns,  Kellys,  Ervins  and  Briccas.  By 
chance  we  ran  into  Woolley  [he  had  resigned  from  the  Cin- 
cinnati faculty,  had  spent  a  year  in  Detroit,  and  had  then  gone 
to  California  with  a  tuberculosis  of  the  spine]  who  was  up  for 
x-ray,  looking  well  and  as  sassy  and  self-centred  as  ever.  He 
asked  for  no  one.  Here,  we  have  been  overwhelmed  with  kind- 
ness— Fennels,  Larsons,  Leonards,  Waysons,  etc.  I  am  to  spend 
to-morrow  with  Wayson  talking  leprosy;  and  the  day  after, 
I  talk  on  vaccine  therapy  to  the  medical  group  here.  Larson 
said  that  they  would  be  curious  to  know  what  I  thought,  as 
the  "authorities"  had  come  out  attacking  the  usefulness  of  all 
vaccines.  If  I  am  proved  wrong,  I  will  have  to  devote  more 
time  to  painting. — Say!  I  bet  you  went  completely  cuckoo 
when  you  were  here.  I  have  never  wanted  to  be  able  to  paint 
so  much  as  now.  The  place  is  putting  a  spell  over  me. 

Wayson's  clinical  observations  on  treated  and  untreated 
leprosy  are  most  interesting.  I  believe  he  is  right  in  his  estimate 
of  the  ester  work  [the  administration  of  chaulmoogra  oil  or 
its  ester,  at  the  moment  hailed  as  "cure"  for  leprosy].  The 
problem  will  have  to  be  solved  all  over  again.  I  wonder  if  Le 
Blanc  could  compute  for  me,  on  the  basis  of  probabilities,  how 
many  solutions  there  are  to  a  problem?  After  that,  perhaps, 
we  might  start. 


HIS  first  letter  out  of  the  School  of  hygiene  in  Manila,  had 
nothing  to  say  of  the  town,  but  reported  instead  on  the 
fate  of  another  of  my  personal  pets.  My  laboratory  had  always 
carried  a  rather  extensive  cross  section  of  zoological  life — 


2  60  sa^aman(^ers>  bull  frogs,  mud-puppies,  fish  and  carnivorous 
birds — and  as  disease  or  death  overtook  it,  medicine's  best 
minds  stood  by.  The  doctor,  consultant,  diagnostician,  bacte- 
riologist, pathologist  and  mortician  to  the  gang  was  most 
commonly  Wherry  himself.  This  time  it  was  the  death  of  a 
parrot  (June  20,  1929): 

The  slides  arrived  and  I  concur  with  Dr  Sanders's  diagnosis — 
one  showed  a  very  good  section  through  the  body  of  a  mite 
and  a  cross-section  of  two  of  the  legs  with  muscle  showing 
plainly.  The  bird  died  of  a  pulmonary  (bronchial)  infestation 
with  a  sarcoptid  mite.  I  was  sorry  to  hear  of  Ruby's  death, 
too. 

Ruby  was  the  six-year  old,  $30,000  East  Indian  rhinoceros 
of  Cincinnati's  zoo,  dead  of  beri-beri.  The  animal  had  gone 
paralytic  some  months  earlier  and  Doctor  Dock  (Norton, 
DVM,  2824  Vine  street)  long-time  veterinarian  to  the  park, 
had  asked  me  in.  We  had  become  colleagues  in  earlier  days  in 
consultation  over  birds,  when  he  had  left  this  matter  much  in 
my  hands  by  saying:  "You  know  my  specialty  is  lions  and 
tigers."  Wherry  was  a  bit  cruel  in  further  comment:  "It  would 
have  been  a  great  triumph  if  you  had  pulled  her  through.  I 
hope  for  your  sake  that  the  elephant  does  not  sicken  next." 

July  25,  1929,  he  wrote  again: 

It  takes  time  to  get  things  going  satisfactorily  in  new  sur- 
roundings but  at  last  I  am  ready.  I  had  hoped  to  get  right  at 
treating  more  typhoids  but  owing  to  lack  of  interest  on  the 
part  of  the  assistant  prof  of  medicine  who  handles  the  typhoid 
pavilion,  we  have  been  delayed;  now  we  have  permission  and 
may  get  a  series. — Manila  is  full  of  typhoid.  Bacterial  dysen- 
tery ran  high  and  at  present  we  have  quite  a  little  dengue.  I 
cannot  see  much  improvement  in  general  health  conditions. 
They  have  spent  $2,500,000  annually;  but  this  was  largely 
consumed  in  organization  &  personnel  and  is  scattered  over 
the  usual  public  health  activities  which  we  have  taught  to  be 
essential.  Soil  pollution  is  widespread  in  Manila  itself,  yet 
nothing  constructive  is  being  done  to  meet  that  situation. 

September  14,  1929,  he  reported  to  his  assistant  in  bac- 
teriology [the  modest  Craig  Howard,  of  the  best  of  his 
departmental  teachers] : 


.  .  .  We  are  enjoying  the  life  in  Manila  very  much  and  I  will  261 
have  to  drag  my  family  home.  They  wish  that  we  were  to  be 
here  for  two  years  instead  of  one.  We  get  out  week-ends  for 
sketching  when  the  weather  permits.  I  cannot  see  that  I  have 
improved  much.  The  wet  season  was  quite  wet.  Two  weeks 
ago  the  centre  of  a  typhoon  came  up  to  within  thirty  miles  of 
the  city  &  then,  fortunately,  swerved  north.  Typhoon  signals 
jumped  from  4  to  7  in  a  few  hours  and  everyone  ran  home  to 
make  things  fast.  The  floods  put  our  water  supply  out  of  com- 
mission breaking  the  main  thirty  feet  under  the  Mariquina 
river.  They  got  a  temporary  supply  of  raw  water  installed  & 
now  the  city  has  heavily  chlorinated  but  still  much  polluted 
&  muddy  water.  The  local  health  office  has  gone  in  extensively 
in  vaccinating  the  city  population  against  typhoid,  dysentery 
&  cholera.  They  use  a  serum-sensitized  vaccine.  One  cannot 
rely  on  their  statistics  however,  for  they  are  handicapped  by 
inefficiency.  This  school  of  hygiene  is  their  hope.  ...  I  have 
become  interested  in  isolating  acid- fasts  from  nature.  Next 
week  I  try  cultures  from  leprosy. 

I  had  a  nice  letter  from  Rockwell  and  I  can  see  that  you 
have  done  things  to  improve  the  department  and  I  am  grateful 
to  you  for  it.  "While  I  am  enjoying  this,  I  am  already  anxious 
to  get  back  to  my  old  friends. 

Two  weeks  later  he  wrote  me  (September  28,  1929) : 

I  felt  encouraged  last  week-end  over  a  picture  I  got  at  Nova- 
leches,  of  mountains,  lake,  and  plumed  grass. — Margaret  got 
a  bad  throat  &  has  been  laid  low  for  ten  days.  She  developed 
a  curious  membrane  and  while  I  could  not  find  diphtheria 
bacilli,  I  got  worried  when  it  did  not  yield  to  gentian  violet 
or  acriflavin.  I  called  in  Dr  Watrous.  He  said  he  had  not  seen 
a  throat  like  it  before,  but  tried  5  %  silver  nitrate  &  it  cleared 
right  away.  It  pays  to  call  the  doctor  early! 

We  have  enjoyed  the  company  of  young  Dr  Ralph  Wheeler 
— son  of  the  ant  man  of  the  Bussey  institute.  Ralph  was  a 
member  of  the  Roosevelt  expedition  to  Indo-China  &  came 
here  to  get  treatment  for  malaria.  He  has  been  collecting  the 
swifts  of  the  P  I.  He  doesn't  care  to  practice  and  is  undecided 
about  the  future  but  thinks  he  will  go  in  for  some  branch  of 
public  health  where  his  zoological  instincts  will  have  a  chance. 


2  6  2  ^e  memDers  of  that  expedition  certainly  had  a  hard  time  with 
disease  although  it  was  successful  otherwise.  The  trouble  with 
being  a  physician  to  an  expedition  is  that  you  have  to  deal 
with  a  lot  of  egoists  who  won't  take  advice.  I  am  not  sure  that 
that  was  the  reason  for  the  illness  in  the  Roosevelt  expedition 
but  that  is  my  idea. 

I  have  started  culturing  the  leprosy  bacillus  but  so  far  with 
negative  results. — Please  give  my  best  to  the  Black  faculty. 


H 


E  wrote  again  to  Craig  Howard  on  October  26,  1929: 


.  .  .  Let  me  tell  you  now  that  between  your  efforts  and  Dr 
Strietmann's  I  was  treated  like  royalty  on  the  Dollar  line.  I 
liked  eating  with  the  captain  on  each  boat,  too,  but  several 
times  I  had  to  dress  for  it  and  that  bored  me. — I  wish  I  could 
get  a  record  of  the  marvelously  lighted  scenes  we  are  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  time;  but  I  am  too  bum  an  artist.  However, 
if  I  ever  do  learn  to  paint  I  am  coming  back  to  the  tropics. 

I  certainly  miss  the  laboratory.  The  reason  I  am  writing  you 
so  long  a  letter  is  that  I  am  sort  of  wound  up — it  is  just  after 
my  maiden  lecture  and  quiz  to  1 2  students  taking  bacteriology 
in  the  course  on  Public  health  education.  They  are  to  teach 
public  health  in  the  schools.  It  will  be  interesting,  in  a  way, 
to  see  what  we  can  make  of  them — perhaps  just  what  we  make 
of  our  own  students. 

A  couple  of  months  ago  we  gave  the  Moss  aptitude  tests  for 
medical  schools  to  the  sophomore  medical  class.  The  results 
show  that  the  students  here  are  just  as  capable  as  those  in  the 
medical  schools  of  the  USA.  That  is  interesting  if  true — for 
the  grades  made  in  the  aptitude  tests  corresponded  exactly 
with  the  grades  made  by  the  same  class  in  biochemistry.  I 
believe  that  any  old  sort  of  test  will  throw  the  students  into 
three  classes. 

A  letter  to  me  was  dated  November  22,  1929: 

We  returned  last  Sunday  from  Baguio.  Unfortunately  the 
Igorrotes  are  not  allowed  to  come  to  town  in  their  pristine 
glory  but  must  wear  shirts.  This  requirement  was  instituted 
of  the  missionaries,  who  thereby  think  themselves  exerting  a 


civilizing  influence.  The  Igorrotes  work  hard;  their  women  96S 
along  with  them  and  enjoying  equal  rights.  They  are  stocky 
with  long  bodies  and  rather  short,  powerful  legs,  Mongoloid 
features  and  absolutely  reliable  characters.  Captain  Gardiner's 
wife  got  some  of  the  soldiers  to  pose  in  costume  and  Marie  and 
Margaret  caught  some  interesting  studies.  I  stuck  to  the 
scenery  and  the  pine  trees. 

I  have  been  trying  various  stunts  on  the  lepra  bacillus  and 
recently  obtained  cultures  that  show  proliferation.  I  would 
like  to  get  more  "real"  cultures,  for  I  believe  it  would  make 
possible  treatment  of  the  disease  by  desensitization.  It  is  sur- 
prising how  often  the  recurrent  attacks  of  leprosy  are  mark- 
edly urticarial  and  anaphylactic  in  type.  Dr  Schobel  here  has 
gotten  suggestive  "takes"  in  monkeys  by  super  infection,  i  e 
reinoculation,  after  sensitization.  His  work  on  syphilis  and 
yaws  in  monkeys  fits  in  nicely  with  what  I  have  been  preach- 
ing about  the  role  of  sensitization  in  infection  and  desensitiza- 
tion with  recovery — monkeys  are  sensitive  to  reinoculation 
with  yaws  until  they  have  run  the  course  of  the  disease,  when 
they  become  desensitized;  and  the  whole  course  from  sensi- 
tivity to  desensitization  can  be  shortened  by  using  repeated 
doses  of  a  killed  virus.  The  question  of  the  complete  cure  of 
syphilis  and  its  prevention  by  inoculation  is  wound  up  in  the 
preparation  of  a  suitable  antigen  which  will  give  the  desired 
desensitization.  I  am  to  talk  on  this  subject  to  the  Army  med 
officers  club  next  Wednesday.  I  find  Major  Simmons,  who 
heads  the  Army  medical  research  board,  good  company;  and 
Dr  Schobel  drops  in  quite  frequently.  There  are  few  here  who 
know  what  he  is  talking  about. 

In  the  new  year  he  wrote  again  (February  7,  1930) : 

Last  week  I  sent  you  a  set  of  poker  chips  by  registered  mail. 
I  had  intended  to  send  you  the  receipt  in  this  letter  but  cannot 
find  it.  I  hope  they  reach  you. 

I  have  just  written  a  preliminary  note  for  Dr  Hektoen  on 
the  cultivation  of  an  acid-fast  from  leprosy.  I  have  gotten  it 
proliferating  in  one  medium  only,  have  grown  it  from  three 
cases  and  have  two  subcultures.  It  grows  very  slowly;  and  so 
far  only  within  the  semisolid  medium  at  partial  oxygen  tension 
and  with  increased  carbon  dioxide.  Like  the  lepra  bacillus  in 


264 


smears  from  cases,  it  cannot  be  stained  by  the  T  B  method  if 
it  has  first  been  treated  with  xylol  &  alcohol. — We  are  busy 
getting  set  to  leave  Feb  26th,  hoping  to  spend  3  weeks 
in  Kashmir.  They  say  that  the  Kashmiri  women  are  the  most 
beautiful  in  Asia. 

Official  account  of  this  growth  of  Hansen's  bacillus  (long 
seen  in  the  lesions  of  leprosy  but  never  before  obtained  as  cul- 
ture upon  artificial  media)  appeared  in  Hektoen's  journal. 
Less  than  four  pages  told  the  story  [77],  with  the  half  of  these 
taken  up  by  photomicrographs.  He  repeated  it,  somewhat 
later,  with  a  bit  of  poetry  added  [78].  Success  had  come  to 
him  by  preparing  a  proper  ground  for  the  organism  and 
enveloping  it  in  a  proper  atmosphere.  So  he  had  beaten  up  hen's 
egg  (both  white  and  yolk)  with  oleic  acid  and  glycerine  and 
half  stiffened  the  mixture  with  a  bit  of  agar.  He  had  then 
arranged  this  semisolid  mass  in  such  fashion  that  he  could  vary 
the  amount  of  oxygen  and  carbon  dioxide  contained  in  the 
atmosphere  above  it.  The  methods  employed  were  those  which 
he  had  earlier  found  optimal  for  the  growth  of  other  "acid- 
fasts."  Taking  a  bit  of  the  blood  oozing  from  the  freshly 
"snipped"  surface  of  an  actively  growing  leprous  lesion — he 
had  made  sure  that  it  really  contained  the  causative  organism 
by  direct  microscopic  examination — he  spread  it  upon  the 
semisolid  medium.  In  four  to  six  weeks,  growth  appeared  in 
samples  from  three  different  patients;  and  from  these  primary 
growths  he  succeeded  in  subculturing  the  organism.  But  this 
was  ticklish  business,  for  the  organism  refused  to  develop 
unless  fed  this  special  medium  and  only  when  air-conditioned 
as  already  described.  Even  so,  after  more  weeks,  though  it  did 
not  die,  it  refused  to  grow  further.  "Best  growth,"  was  assured 
"in  cultures  kept  first  at  partial  oxygen  tension  (little  O2  but 
CO2  present)  for  a  month,  after  which  they  were  kept  under 
O2  and  CO2." 


WHERRY'S  son  William  arrived  in  Manila  in  time  to 
complete  the  family  fold  before  its  departure  for 
India.  A  first  stopping  place  was  Agra — which  thus  saw  again 
its  once  boyish  visitor  as  a  somewhat  tired  man.  "It  is  getting 
very  hot  here,"  he  wrote  (March  21,  1930) ;  "and  we  will  be 


glad  when  our  tour  is  over."  In  the  next  month  he  had  reached  2o^ 
the  land  of  his  search,  to  write  from  Houseboat  817,  Nasim 
Bagh,  Srinagar  (April  27,  1930)  : 

I  was  glad  to  hear  from  you.  ...  As  to  the  college  of  medi- 
cine, your  comments  on  the  new  system  prove  again  that  we 
two  think  alike.  My  question  is — Reorganize}  Reorganize 
what?  Instead  of  meeting  some  of  the  real  needs  of  our  uni- 
versity— like  better  men  at  better  salaries  in  the  liberal  arts 
and  engineering  schools,  full-time  men  in  obstetrics,  gyne- 
cology &  skin  &  venereal  in  our  own  school — I  bet  you  that 
the  whole  show  will  end  in  a  rewriting  of  the  catalogue.  And 
when  the  catalogue  is  rewritten,  the  same  old  boys  will  be 
teaching  the  same  old  subjects  in  the  same  old  way.  And  why? 
Because  they  are  the  same  old  boys  with  the  same  old  ideas. 
No,  I  don't  think  I  shall  come  back  feeling  that  the  university 
has  made  any  progress.  But  why  should  I  bother  about  the 
marionettes  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  when  the  beautiful 
vale  of  Kashmir  urges  me  to  produce  horrible  reproductions 
of  her  snow-clad  mountains  encircling  her  floating  gardens — 
islands  covered  with  huge  chenar  and  poplar  trees,  gardens  full 
of  blooming  apples,  pears  &  pomegranates,  and  wide  stretches 
of  yellow  mustard  fields?  This  has  been  a  cold  spring.  Even  so, 
the  plant  life  is  very  beautiful.  I  shall  be  sorry  when  we  leave. 

Our  houseboat  is  quite  comfortable.  There  are  six  of  us 
[Frank  McCuskey  and  sister  Lillian  had  joined  the  group], 
fed  &  taken  care  of  by  a  crew  which  lives  on  an  accompanying 
houseboat.  We  have  a  large  living  room,  a  dining  room,  a 
pantry  &  three  bed  rooms,  each  with  its  bath.  We  eat  kicheri, 
pilau,  curry  &  rice,  soup,  lamb,  mutton  &  vegetables  &  much 
tea  &  many  muffins.  We  have  chota  hazri  at  7:30,  breakfast 
at  1 1,  tea  at  4: 30  &  dinner  at  8.  The  boat  is  provided  with  a 
shikar  a,  a  flat  bottomed  canoe  some  2  0  feet  long  &  3  feet  wide, 
upon  which  a  canopy  is  erected;  when  cushioned  &  paddled 
by  4  men  it  makes  a  convenient  and  comfortable  way  of 
getting  to  neighboring  points  of  interest.  If  we  want  to  go  on 
a  long  trip  we  hire  a  larger  shikar  a  for  8  annas  [16  cents]  an 
hour. 

Nasim  Bagh,  or  Nasim  gardens,  is  on  the  shore  of  Dal  lake. 
Here  we  have  a  wonderful  grove  of  chenar  (plane)  trees — 


266  hundreds  °f  them  6—10  ft  in  diameter — one  of  the  Rajah's 
fruit  &  flower  gardens  and  a  mosque,  famous  because  it  owns 
one  of  the  hairs  from  Mohammed's  beard.  It  is  called  Hazarat 
Bal  &  every  Friday,  thousands  of  Mohammedans  come  from 
all  over  in  canoes  to  pray.  There  has  been  heavy  rain  for  two 
days  &  last  night  much  new  snow  fell  on  the  nearby  hills.  So 
to-day  I  am  reading  Edgar  Wallace,  Oppenheim  &  such 
trash. — We  came  up  from  Peshawar  over  a  bad  mountain 
road.  As  it  was  so  badly  damaged  by  landslides  that  it  had  to 
be  closed,  we  will  go  back  another  way,  by  Jammu,  on  the 
10th. 

Apr  29th — Yesterday  &  to-day  have  been  gloriously  beau- 
tiful and  we  have  spent  the  days  painting  on  the  lake  and  at 
Shalimar  gardens.  One  reaches  Shalimar  Bagh  by  a  long  canal 
bordered  by  willows  &  chenar  trees.  These  gardens  were  made 
— as  most  of  the  great  works  of  art  in  northern  India — by 
Akbar  the  Great  Mogul  emperor.  Laid  out  for  his  favorite 
wife,  one  beautiful  garden  rises  above  another  in  four  tiers  to 
the  foot  of  a  range  of  beautiful  hills.  Above  everything  towers 
the  blue  &  purple  mass  of  snow-capped  Hazribal,  1 3,000  feet 
high.  A  twenty  foot  stream  flows  down  the  centre  of  the  gar- 
den through  white  marble  channels  &  black  marble  rest  houses, 
forming  a  series  of  falls,  and  in  the  topmost  garden  operating 
hundreds  of  fountains.  The  floors  of  the  gardens  are  a  vivid 
green  dashed  with  wide  splashes  of  white  and  purple  daisies, 
pansies,  iris,  cedar,  poplar,  pine,  chenar  &  lilac  in  bloom. 
Unfortunately  the  Kashmiris  are  a  dirty  lot  who  never  wash 
their  clothes — so  they  are  not  as  decorative  as  they  might  be. 
One  misses  here  the  bright  colors  in  the  clothing  of  the  plains 
peoples. 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  the  papers  and  Sherrill  [Cincinnati's 
city  manager]  are  riding  Bachmeyer.  I  doubt  if  they  could 
find  a  better  man.  I  hope  Sherrill  doesn't  want  a  job  for  one 
of  his  army  friends.  That  would  be  fatal. 

MAY  31,  1930  he  was  in  Cairo  "so  missing  letters."  Its 
museum  had  "enthralled"  him.  Whereafter  he  went 
to  Tripoli,  the  Holy  Land,  Greece,  Italy  and  Germany.  Early 
in  July  he  landed  in  Switzerland — with  appendicitis.  In  the 


Bezirksspital  of  Interlaken,  surgeons  de  Cervin  and  Rieben  2o7 
operated  upon  him,  with  E  C  Rosenow,  who  had  driven  over 
the  mountains  all  day  from  his  vacation  resort,  standing  by. 
It  was  the  second  time  that  the  two  now  famous  classmates 
out  of  Rush  had  thus  met  in  medical  crisis.  In  three  days  he 
was  convalescent — with  windows  open  and  the  birds  flying 
upon  his  bed  for  crumbs.  Then  he  made  his  way  to  London 
to  report  (August  31,  1930): 

I  had  a  very  comfortable  two  weeks  in  the  little  county  hos- 
pital at  Interlaken,  and  amused  myself  with  water  colors  of 
the  scenery  and  colored  reconstructions  of  some  sketches  I 
made  in  the  Berlin  zoo.  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  Weis  is  coming 
over.  Wish  I  could  go  through  a  gallery  or  two  with  him 
(might  learn  something  you  know) !  We  have  seen  the 
National  &  Tate  collections  and  must  say  that  I  am  very 
fond  of  the  British  work,  especially  the  portraits  by  Sargent 
[American,  but  labelled  "British  school"  over  there]  & 
Augustus  John.  The  latter  is  Britain's  leading  man.  You  see, 
I  talk  as  if  I  knew! 

I  will  have  many  of  Eckstein's  stories  to  read  when  I  get 
back;  also  your  Permanent  Palette  in  its  completed  form — 
although,  you  will  remember,  I  read  the  first  draft.  I  told 
Brentanos  in  Paris  about  it  and  they  are  sending  for  copies. 
Thought  I  might  as  well  help  you  sell  a  few! 

Before  Mrs  McCammon  [his  technical  assistant]  went  on 
her  vacation,  she  wrote  me  that  she  had  been  unable  to  get 
the  hospital  to  clean  my  laboratory.  So  I  suppose  that  is  the 
first  job  I  will  have  to  tackle.  The  filth  of  my  department  of 
bacteriology  and  hygiene  is  a  disgrace. 

I  have  done  little  medical  visiting — the  Koch  institute  in 
Berlin,  the  School  of  trop  medicine  in  Hamburg  &  the  Pasteur 
institute  in  Paris  only;  but  I  am  glad  to  have  seen  these.  They 
emphasize  what  I  have  always  said — there  is  only  one  thing 
that  counts,  brains.  The  places  where  Koch,  Metchnikoff  & 
Pasteur  worked  are  not  any  better  (if  cleaner)  than  my  own 
laboratory.  Plotz  has  installed  for  himself  a  white  tiled  room 
in  the  Pasteur  institute  "at  his  own  expense."  Most  of  its  men 
were  away  on  vacation  but  a  Dr  Rabaud  (who  founded  the 
Pasteur  inst  in  N  Y  city)  spent  an  hour  on  me.  He  was  rather 


2oR  interested  in  a  streptococcus  which  he  had  isolated  by  Rose- 
now's  method  from  the  root  of  a  tooth  extracted  from  a 
dementia  praecox  case.  The  first  subcultures  when  injected 
into  rabbits  produced  death  with  marked  congestion  of  the 
cerebral  cortex;  subcultures  failed  to  kill  or  produce  such 
lesions.  He  thought  he  was  getting  improvement  with  a  vac- 
cine. Rabaud  believes  that  there  is  a  disturbance  of  internal 
secretion  in  these  cases  and  in  one  or  two  has  noted  improve- 
ment after  implanting  testicular  and  thyroid  grafts  from 
monkeys.  Recent  work  by  someone  has  shown  that  monkey's 
blood  falls  into  three  groups — two  common  &  one  uncommon 
— and  he  thought  that  the  failure  of  grafts  might  be  due  to 
using  tissues  from  monkeys  of  the  wrong  blood  group.  At 
any  rate  he  is  going  to  make  his  next  grafts  from  a  monkey 
with  homologous  blood  grouping.  Rabaud  struck  me  as  an 
up-to-date  clinical  practitioner  and  investigator.  By  the  way, 
he  says  that  the  only  intestinal  antiseptic  is  argyrol  by  mouth, 
liquid,  or  in  keratin  coated  capsules — "harmless  in  any 
amount."  I'll  give  you  another  clinical  tip  which  may  help 
you.  I  got  a  bad  attack  of  eczema  before  leaving  Manila  and 
could  not  get  rid  of  it  until  I  got  hold  of  some  "bile  salts." 
The  attack  was  accompanied  by  liver  disturbance  character- 
ized by  incomplete  digestion  of  fats — just  as  in  the  cases 
Tashiro  &  I  treated  at  home.  This  is  the  only  time  that  any- 
thing I  have  discovered  has  benefited  me. 

What  Wherry  here  referred  to  was  the  outgrowth  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  effects  of  intestinal  putrefaction;  and  Shiro 
Tashiro's,  of  the  antifermentative  activities  of  the  bile  salts. 
The  two  believed  certain  eczemas  to  be  the  peripheral  mani- 
festations of  a  lowered  liver  function,  failing  at  times  to 
"detoxicate"  poisons  produced  in  the  gut.  Wherry  had  always 
wished  that  his  name  might  be  joined  with  Tashiro's  on  a 
paper.  He  got  his  wish  [79], 

The  years-old  eczema  of  a  medical  student  who  showed  too 
few  bile  salts  and  too  many  fatty  acid  crystals  in  his  stools  had 
been  taken  as  indication  of  a  liver  inadequacy.  Bile  salts  by 
mouth,  up  to  a  grain  three  times  daily,  were  given.  The  boy 
was  cured  in  a  week,  to  convert  himself  into  a  guinea  pig  for 
the  benefit  of  medical  congresses.  Presenting  himself  as  a 


clinical  subject  at  their  opening,  he  would  reexhibit  himself  269 
at  their  close  as  cured — having  taken  bile  salts  in  the  interim. 
Wherry  and  Tashiro  detailed  the  histories  of  five  such  cases 
with  "others"  announced  for  subsequent  report. 
More  therapeutic  instruction  followed : 

I  forgot  to  mention  this  yesterday — if  the  pyelitis  in  your 
patient  is  due  to  B  coli  or  a  related  organism,  try  my  method 
of  treatment.  You  know  that  I  found  out  in  test  tube  experi- 
ments that  whereas  B  coli  is  quite  resistant  to  acriflavin  alone 
or  hexylresorcinal  alone,  it  is  killed  in  high  dilution  of  their 
mixture — or  when  weakened  by  one  is  killed  by  the  other — 
same  principle  as  a  heart  blow  followed  immediately  by  an 
upper  cut.  On  this  basis  I  cured  a  child  on  the  pediatric  service 
that  had  had  coli  pyelitis  for  months  &  been  on  hexylresorcinal 
without  benefit.  Later  I  cleared  up  two  cases  of  coli  cystitis; 
I  gave  one  grain  of  acriflavin  (keratin  coated  pills  or  capsules) 
every  four  hours  for  2—3  days  until  the  urine  was  strongly 
fluorescent;  and  then  started  (continuing  the  acriflavin)  with 
5  grains  of  hexylresorcinal  every  four  hours  for  a  day  or  two. 
In  one  of  the  latter,  the  patient  felt  badly  after  24-3  6  hours 
of  the  combined  therapy  and  treatment  was  stopped;  never- 
theless on  the  next  day  the  urine  had  cleared!  Adios! 

Though  separated  from  his  appendix,  Wherry  maintained 
that  the  operation  had  been  unnecessary.  He  was  "sensitive," 
he  said,  to  some  of  his  intestinal  flora  and  had  suffered  an 
"asthmatic"  cramp  of  the  involuntary  muscles  of  his  lower 
bowel.  He  convinced  even  E  C  Rosenow  that  he  would  have 
gotten  well  anyway  if  only  they  had  given  him  sugar.  The 
latter  wrote  to  Marie  (August  2,  1930) :  "Tell  Will  that  Dr 
W  J  Mayo  has  stated  that  in  obscure  abdominal  conditions 
resembling  appendicitis,  the  cause  may  be  an  intestinal  allergy, 
quite  as  he  surmised."  Rosenow  continued  this  letter  in  more 
personal  fashion,  making  some  notes  that  one  day  may  be  of 
medico-historic  interest: 

.  .  .  Just  received  a  letter  from  Dr  Plotz  at  the  Pasteur  insti- 
tute telling  me  of  the  isolation  in  pure  culture  of  a  diplo- 
streptococcus  corresponding  to  the  one  I  have  repeatedly 
isolated  from  the  spinal  fluid  in  cases  of  poliomyelitis.  I  think 
I  told  Dr  Wherry  of  seeing  a  case  of  polio  at  the  congress  in 


270  Par*s*  I  made  a  spinal  puncture  and  took  part  of  the  fluid  to 
Dr  Plotz  at  the  Pasteur  institute.  He  cultured  it  by  a  special 
anaerobic  method  which  he  has  devised  and  obtained  the  result 
mentioned.  He  stated  frankly  that  while  surprised  over  his 
unexpected  result,  he  was  pleased  nevertheless.  I  spent  most 
of  the  afternoon  searching  for  diplococci  in  the  sediment. 
Their  Gram  stains  at  the  hospital  and  at  the  institute,  too,  were 
so  rotten  that  I  could  scarcely  use  them;  but  at  that,  I  found 
several  diplococci.  Dr  Plotz  is  going  to  Strasbourg  to  obtain 
more  material,  where  there  is  an  epidemic  of  poliomyelitis. 
I  predict  complete  corroboration  of  my  work  for  he  is  genu- 
inely interested  and  will  give  my  methods  a  fair  trial.  This 
has  not  been  the  case  heretofore,  especially  in  the  hands  of  the 
workers  from  the  Rockefeller  institute.  They  say  that  "every 
dog  has  his  day."  Maybe  Thursday  July  24,  1930,  the  day  I 
was  willing  to  see  the  case  of  poliomyelitis,  will  prove  my  day. 
We  will  see.  Good  luck,  with  all  my  heart. 

Marie  had  forwarded  this  letter  to  me  with  a  note  (August 
4,  1930): 

Will  thought  you  might  be  interested.  Plotz  is  from  the 
enemy's  camp,  and  that  is  a  great  deal.  Stitches  out  to-day — 
everything  fine. 


1930-1936 


XIII 


FRIENDS  and  requests  awaited  Wherry  when  he  reappeared 
in  town.  Things  in  the  Institute  for  medical  research  of 
Christ  hospital  needed  ordering.  Back  in  1927,  its  persistently 
generous  supporter,  James  Norris  Gamble  (*1836,  son  of  the 
Gamble  of  Procter  &  Gamble  "mfrs  of  soaps,  candles  and  oils," 
bachelor  out  of  Kenyon  college  at  1 8,  and  master  therefrom  at 
2 1 ,  chemist,  mayor  once  of  Cincinnati's  Westwood,  since  the 
age  of  26  a  member  of  his  company  and  for  forty  years  its 
vice  president,  "fl932)  had  "created  for,  and  endowed  in  the 
hospital  an  institute  for  medical  research."  He  wished  it 
operated  as  were  similar  institutions  elsewhere  in  U  S  A;  and 
to  make  the  plan  practicable,  pushed  a  million  and  a  half 
across  the  table  to  the  hospital's  trustees.  In  charge  of  this 
brilliant  idea  was  his  son-in-law,  Alfred  K  Nippert  (U  C 
graduate,  attorney,  ex-judge,  husband  of  Maud  Gamble) ; 
while  first  to  be  drawn  upon  for  counsel  had  been  Wherry. 
The  two  were  clear-headed  as  to  what  needed  to  be  done — a 
floor  of  the  newly-building  hospital  was  set  aside  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  new  enterprise  and  men  to  staff  it  were  looked 
for.  Wherry  should  have  been  placed  in  direct  command  as 
obviously  best  gardener  of  the  scientific  upshoot.  He  de- 
murred; and  no  proper  pressure  was  put  upon  him.  He  had 
nominated  for  the  place  Herman  Mooser  ( Swiss  out  of  Mexico, 
authority  on  typhus  and  rat-bite  fever;  sponsor  for  the  idea 
that  chronic  immunity  is  the  product  of  chronic  infection) . 
None  better  could  have  been  chosen  as  productive  worker; 
but  scientific  philosophy  and  foreign  manner  did  not  go  so 
well  in  a  place  not  free  of  all  sectarianism,  and  American 
primarily  in  its  regard  for  the  sick.  So,  before  long,  Mooser 
was  to  return  to  his  Mexico,  and  Christ  hospital's  grand  project 
was  to  shrink  again  to  the  safer  routines  of  urinalyses  and 
negative  August  von  Wassermann  reactions.  Even  so,  the 
lungs  of  the  new  baby  had  breathed  a  little — Mooser  had  en- 
larged his  studies  on  the  carriage  and  harboring  of  typhus 


2  7  2  ^ever>  Lee  Foshay  had  developed  new  cultural  and  staining 
methods  for  B  tularense;  some  of  the  other  men  had  proved 
real  chemistry  to  be  hidden  in  the  biological. 

September  24,  1930,  William  H  Howell  (seventy,  head  of 
U  S's  thought  in  physiology  for  forty  years,  author  of  the 
country's  standard  text  upon  the  subject,  and  now  the  gentle- 
manly director  of  Hopkins's  school  of  hygiene)  wrote:  "... 
delighted  to  know  that  you  are  willing  to  give  one  of  our 
De  Lamar  lectures.  Will  you  please  send  me  at  least  a  provi- 
sional title?"  Wherry  announced:  Hypersensitivity  to  bac- 
terial proteins  and  its  role  in  susceptibility  and  immunity; 
with  the  date  set  for  March  31,  1 9 3 1 .  It  was  printed  [80],  to 
represent,  perhaps,  the  most  succinct  statement  of  his  scien- 
tific philosophy  ever  made — or  that  succeeding  years  were  to 
permit  him  to  make.  Essentially  technical,  some  of  the  follow- 
ing items  were  more  general  in  their  interest. 

He  reaffirmed  his  notions  of  the  difference  between  infesta- 
tion by  a  potential  parasite  and  infection.  To  pass  from  the 
first  to  the  second  required  a  breaking  down  of  the  natural 
defenses  of  the  body.  He  restated  what  were  the  biological 
characteristics  of  the  microorganism  necessary  to  such  end, 
illustrating  the  play  involved  by  detailing  his  experience  in 
treating  inflammation  of  the  eye.  "Bacteria  localize  in  the 
conjunctiva  .  .  .  Several  times  I  have  treated  a  beginning 
pneumococcus  infection  with  a  few  drops  of  1—4000  optochin; 
the  bacteria  are  killed  quickly  and  healing  occurs."  But  "such 
good  results  cannot  be  obtained  if  one  waits  a  little  longer. 
..."  Then  the  infesting  parasite  becomes  infectious  and 
establishes  itself  within  the  tissues.  "If  the  resultant  edema  be 
great,  further  invasion  is  favored  and  conversely,  if  it  be  re- 
duced by  agents  which  dehydrate  colloids  the  progress  of  the 
infection  is  restrained  and  the  infecting  agent  overcome  by 
the  host." 

What  could  be  done  to  aid  the  host?  It  had  to  be  "desensi- 
tized"; and  this  through  use  of  a  properly  injected,  properly 
prepared  vaccine. 

All  the  toxines  of  bacteria,  as  well  as  similar  poisons  produced 
by  reptiles  and  insects,  are  of  such  a  nature  that  when  injected 
they  give  rise  to  the  production  of  antagonistic  substances. 


We  may  call  the  substance  injected  the  antigen  and  the  result-  27  3 
ing  antagonistic  substance  the  antibody.   ...  If  the  bacterial 
body  used  as  antigen  first  be  digested  .  .  .  the  antigenic 
properties  are  lost. 

How  by  avoidance  of  digestion  to  retain  a  maximum  of 
antigenic  properties  while  reducing  to  a  minimum  the  toxic 
properties  of  his  vaccines  had  long  been  his  goal.  Wherefore 
he  had  shifted  from  use  of  the  older  heat-killed  varieties  to 
his  newer,  made  by  treatment  with  formaldehyde,  hydrogen 
peroxide,  nitrous  acid,  and  like  substances.  Thus  he  "detoxi- 
cated"  his  "antigens"  even  as  he  made  them  stronger  in  the 
business  of  producing  immunity.  The  result  was  that  he  could 
inject  greater  quantities  to  get,  in  consequence,  greater  anti- 
toxic reaction  by  the  patient  or  animal  treated.  The  injectable 
dose  in  the  instance  of  tularense  infection  was  by  this  method 
pushed  to  eight  times  the  old  level  by  his  coworker  Foshay; 
Rockwell  did  the  same  with  streptococci;  and  O'Neil,  with 
some  half  dozen  strains  of  undulant  fever.  Rabbits,  goats  and 
horses  were  thus  not  only  more  quickly  and  more  effectively 
immunized,  but  made  into  the  taps  for  antitoxic  serums  of 
higher  curative  value  in  specific  diseases  than  ever  before 
known.  As  will  appear,  two  great  ends  had  been  accomplished 
— better  vaccines  for  the  better  production  of  "active"  im- 
munity; and  better  sources  of  antitoxine  for  immediate  sal- 
vation through  "passive"  immunity. 

Together  with  these  stellar  performances  of  fact,  Wherry 
asked  questions.  He  had  always  been  at  what  was  behind  the 
eternal  fight  of  one  life  against  another.  Himself,  he  held  to 
the  view  "that  in  response  to  the  entrance  of  a  foreign  protein, 
the  animal  body  elaborates  a  specific  ferment,  capable  of 
digesting  it."  The  ferment  was  universally  present — in  the 
blood,  in  the  tissues  themselves.  "When  the  protein  enters  a 
second  time,  this  specific  ferment  attacks  it  with  avidity  and 
during  the  process  of  digestion  toxic  substances  are  produced, 
and  if  enough  protein  is  present,  enough  toxic  substance  may 
be  liberated  to  injure  the  animal."  The  injury  might  be  general 
and  the  animal  die  of  general  anaphylactic  shock;  or  more 
local,  in  which  case  more  spotty  evidences  of  anaphylaxis 
appeared — the  patient  instead  of  dying  got  hives,  or  hay  fever, 


2 74  a  c°lic>  or  a  localized  blossoming-out  in  areas  once  affected  by 
the  proteins  of  bacteria  sown  into  that  spot.  Wherry  con- 
tinued : 

According  to  this  theory  a  sensitized  animal  differs  from  a 
normal  one  only  in  possessing  a  mechanism  which  can  more 
rapidly  destroy  the  foreign  protein.  The  defensive  mechanism 
is  not  without  its  disadvantages.  .  .  .  When  this  reaction 
occurs  at  the  site  where  bacteria  are  growing  it  is  advantageous 
to  the  parasite,  for  the  local  edema  furnishes  food  in  solution, 
dilutes  important  antibodies,  etc.  .  .  .  Animals  which  have 
recovered  from  a  severe  general  anaphylactic  shock  are  resis- 
tant to  another  dose  of  the  foreign  protein  for  a  considerable 
time  and  are  said  to  be  desensitized. 

Wherry  utilized  the  fact  that  in  many  instances  "the  host 
becomes  hypersensitive  to  a  second  parenteral  introduction  of 
the  poisonous  products  of  the  causative  agent,"  to  devise  a 
"sensitivity  test."  Heat-killed  bacteria  were  injected  into  the 
skin.  If  the  patient  was  "sensitive,"  the  spot  of  injection 
reddened  and  swelled  up;  otherwise  nothing  happened. 
Wherry  reported  how  by  it  he  distinguished  in  a  "mixed"  flora 
the  particular  strain  or  strains  responsible  for  the  constitu- 
tional symptoms  of  the  particular  patient. 

These  ill  were  of  the  number  that  make  up  the  heartbreaks 
of  medical  practice — "urticaria,  angioneurotic  edema,  spastic 
and  mucous  colitis,  so-called  chronic  appendicitis,  certain 
types  of  chronic  arthritis."  He  could  have  added  others  with 
which  he  had  had  long  experience — asthma,  sinusitis,  recur- 
rent colds,  and  certain  infections  of  the  eye,  skin  or  subcu- 
taneous tissues.  What  he  said  of  the  matter  was  that  "search 
for  etiologic  agents  by  the  use  of  intradermal  tests"  had  yielded 
him  "suggestive  information."  Specifically,  he  had  corralled 
two  or  three  microorganisms  out  of  a  farm  yard  of  ten  or 
twelve  species,  settled  upon  them  as  the  criminal  offenders, 
had  seen  to  their  proper  growth  upon  artificial  media,  con- 
verted them  into  vaccine,  and  by  injection  thereof  gradually 
"desensitized"  the  patient;  and  so  cured  him.  He  allowed  suc- 
cesses of  this  kind  to  speak  for  themselves.  More  typical  of  him 
were  such  words : 

Occasionally  the  intradermal  test  elicits  so  marked  a  local  reac- 


tion  that  one  feels  that  he  has  found  the  right  antigen.  An  0~7^\ 
additional  test  remains:  the  result  of  desensitization.  When 
recovery  accompanies  desensitization,  one  feels  that  a  causal 
relationship  has  been  established. 


THE  summer  of  1931  took  him  to  Maine.  Here  he  painted; 
and  developed  great  enthusiasm  for  Jonas  Lie  on  the 
island  of  Mount  Desert.  But  physically  he  was  not  well.  He 
reached  home  in  time  for  the  school  opening.  Coming  to  its 
first  faculty  meeting,  he  was  seized  with  great  pain,  turned 
blue  and  slumped  over  in  his  chair.  Three  months  in  hospital 
followed  and  another  three  in  his  home;  then  the  gingerly 
attempt  to  sit  through  an  hour  or  two  each  day  in  his  labora- 
tory. From  here  he  might  direct  his  scientific  colleagues,  read 
of  the  sense  of  fright  his  acute  illness  had  given  his  friends,  page 
over  the  letters  that  brought  him  judgment  of  his  medical 
achievements.  Topley  of  the  London  school  of  hygiene,  Pin- 
coffs  of  the  University  of  Maryland  hospital,  Worden  out  of 
Ravenna  in  Ohio,  wrote  in.  Conscience  overwhelmed  his  erst- 
while student,  Binzi  Suyenaga,  now  in  Nagasaki  (March  9, 
1932): 

Lately  the  memory  that  you  wrote  me  once  to  send  a  leaf  of 
my  photograph  occasionally  comes  up  to  me,  and  I  am  taking 
this  opportunity  to  be  in  accord  with  your  old  requirement. 

The  president  of  the  American  college  of  physicians  invited 
him  to  address  his  thousand  in  Montreal  in  the  week  of  Febru- 
ary 6,  1933.  Francis  M  Pottenger,  graduate  of  Cincinnati's 
school  of  medicine,  believed  Wherry's  "work  on  bacterial 
allergy  of  tremendous  importance  to  medicine."  He  answered 
(June  13, 1932): 

I  accept  with  pleasure.  I  presume  it  would  be  well  to  choose  a 
general  title:  The  role  of  desensitization  in  recovery  from 
bacterial  infections. — I  have  been  laid  off  since  last  October 
with  angina  pectoris  but  am  about  over  it.  We  have  gone 
ahead  trying  to  carry  the  desensitization  work  to  its  logical 
conclusion — the  production  of  desensitizing  antisera.  Dr  Lee 
Foshay's  antitularensic  serum  works  like  a  charm — producing 
desensitization  &  recovery  in  a  few  days  in  cases  that  would 


2"7q  require  three  months  of  desensitization  by  direct  inoculation 
of  detoxified  vaccine.  We  are  immunizing  goats  against  six 
other  bacteria  and  if  I  can  afford  it,  we  will  start  two  or  three 
horses  this  summer. 

Pottenger  added  to  his  enthusiastic  acknowledgment :  "You 
are  too  good  a  man  to  be  laid  up  by  any  infirmity.' '  Unable 
because  of  his  physical  state  to  go  on  vacation  this  summer, 
he  was  informed  (July  20,  1932) : 

As  per  the  minutes  of  Council  of  the  City  of  Cincinnati,  Vol- 
ume 5  5,  page  206,  July  9, 1932:  Mayor  Wilson  announced  the 
reappointment  of  Dr  William  B  Wherry  as  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Health  for  a  term  beginning  August  2,  1932,  and 
ending  August  1,  1942.  Confirmed  by  the  following  vote. 
Yeas — Messrs  Druffel,  Hall,  Imbus,  Patterson,  Pollak,  Rose, 
Wilson,  Woeste,  Yeatman. 

That  meant  that  confirmation  was  unanimous.  Other  docs 
by  other  city  councils  had  been  thus  complimented.  But  in 
Wherry's  instance,  a  bit  more  was  involved.  Cincinnati's 
"small"  council  had  done  it — one  intelligent,  one  free  from 
party  prejudice — one  that  had  brought  to  a  half  million 
urbanites  the  designation,  "best  governed  city  in  U  S  A." 

He  wrote  me  August  2,  1932: 

I  have  had  no  attacks  for  three  months  and  my  tendency  to  a 
disturbed  splanchnic  circulation  has  disappeared.  Have  gone 
sketching  several  times  as  far  as  Moscow  [Ohio]  and  Brook- 
ville  [Indiana]  without  getting  exhausted.  So  much  for  the 
case  report. — It  must  be  lovely  in  Florence.  One  gets  dulled  to 
the  beauty  of  our  hills,  and  yet  after  one  has  been  indoors  for 
several  months  he  again  sees  the  local  loveliness.  Bachmeyer 
fixed  up  the  stable  behind  the  hospital  garage  for  me  and  I 
got  two  of  the  city  work  horses  for  $60  apiece,  and  expect 
them  daily.  We  will  immunize  one  with  B  tularense  and  the 
other  with  polyvalent  strep.  I  hope  by  next  winter  to  discover 
whether  or  not  our  method  yields  desensitizing  sera.  If  not, 
we  will  try  other  schemes,  for  I  am  sure  that  such  sera  can  be 
produced  for  a  variety  of  bacteria  and  that  they  will  prove 
curative  as  has  our  antitularensic  serum. 

By  the  summer's  end  he  ventured  to  visit  his  former  chief, 
Edwin  Oakes  Jordan,  in  Homewood,  Illinois.  Hektoen,  ap- 


prised  of  the  sojourn  wrote  (September  22,  1932) :  "Some-  277 
how,  I  had  not  heard  of  your  illness.  Dear  Wherry,  I  hope  you 
are  better  and  that  things  are  going  well  with  you."  He 
answered  (September  26,  1932) : 

I  should  certainly  have  looked  you  up  had  I  been  able  to  make 
the  trip  into  Chicago.  I  think  I  am  through  with  my  angina 
.  .  .  and  am  back  on  the  job.  I  do  hope  that  the  position  of 
the  Memorial  institute  has  improved,  for  the  splendid  record 
it  has  made  must  not  be  interrupted.  Dr  Jordan  told  me  in 
confidence  about  it. 

He  was  able  to  make  the  Montreal  meeting  of  the  American 
college  of  physicians  in  February  of  1933.  A  (four  page!) 
printed  report  [81]  told  his  tale. 

An  important  factor  in  susceptibility  and  immunity  and  one 
largely  overlooked  is  that  it  is  requisite,  in  order  for  bacteria 
to  thrive  and  multiply,  to  have  food  in  solution.  ...  A 
microorganism  can  lead  a  parasitic  existence  only  when  food 
substances  are  provided  by  a  host;  thrives  at  low  oxygen 
tension;  puts  the  gels  of  the  host  in  solution.  If  after  implant- 
ing itself  in  the  tissues  of  a  host,  the  interaction  between  the 
parasite  and  the  host  leads  to  the  liberation  of  substances  which 
injure  the  host  and  interfere  with  the  normal  defense  mecha- 
nism of  the  host  then  the  parasite  is  a  pathogenic  parasite.  In 
the  sensitized  animal  the  ability  to  split  a  specific  protein  is 
greatly  enhanced  and  the  phenomena  of  ordinary  inflamma- 
tion are  greatly  exaggerated.  .  .  .  The  reaction  between 
parasite  and  host  leads  to  marked  local  edema. 

The  thing  at  stake,  in  his  mind,  was  how  most  effectively 
to  "desensitize"  the  patient.  It  might  be  accomplished  "ac- 
tively" by  the  use  of  small  doses,  frequently  repeated,  of  a 
specific  antigen — a  proper  vaccine;  or  "passively,"  through 
employment  of  a  correct  antiserum.  "For  the  treatment  of 
acute  bacterial  infections  accompanied  by  hypersensitivity  our 
hope  must  lie  in  the  production  of  desensitizing  antisera," 
Wherry  wrote. 

In  the  rest  of  his  report  he  detailed  the  good  results  he  had 
had  by  the  last  named  methods  in  killing  down  the  hang-over 
signs  and  symptoms  "due  to  persistent  hypersensitivity"  in  a 
whole  flock  of  infections.  But  he  did  not  reserve  this  glory  to 


2  "7  ft  himself.  There  were  Rockwell,  Dorst,  Foshay  and  O'Neil,  he 
said,  just  to  mention  his  majors.  Of  them  he  reported:  "One 
accomplishes  here  in  a  few  days  by  passive  desensitization  that 
which  can  be  brought  about  only  by  several  months  of  active 
immunization."  He  ended  as  he  always  did  when  sitting  as 
judge  upon  his  own  accomplishments: 

The  hypothesis  I  presented,  when  carried  to  its  logical  con- 
clusion is  not  clear  in  all  its  details  but  it  has  directed  our 
experimental  work  and  has  brought  forth  results. 

In  March  Wherry  went  to  Seattle  with  Marie  and  Margaret 
to  see  her  off  to  Yokohama,  to  marry  James  Gordon  Ziegler 
(chief  in  the  offices  of  the  American  express  company  at 
Yokohama) .  Three  months  later  the  senior  pair  used  the 
summer  months  to  visit  the  juniors  there.  As  to  interest  in 
medicine,  he  had  little.  Upon  return  to  Cincinnati  he  con- 
gratulated the  third  of  his  masters,  Theobald  Smith  (now 
seventy- four)  upon  the  receipt  of  another  long  overdue 
medal.  A  beautifully  handwritten  answer  out  of  Princeton, 
N  J,  said  (December  19,  1933): 

I  was  much  pleased  to  hear  from  you.  It  is  now  a  quarter 
century  since  we  parted  on  the  grounds  of  the  Anaconda 
company.  I  travel  little  as  it  does  not  agree  with  me,  hence 
my  anticipations  of  reaching  Cincinnati  someday  have  not 
come  true.  Science  is  moving  so  fast  in  many  directions  both 
+  and  -  that  I  feel  lost,  and  wonder  why  medals  should  come 
this  way  at  this  stage. — I  trust  that  you  are  feeling  well 
enough  to  take  care  of  yourself  and  that  your  work  is  still 
not  a  burden. 

No  doubt  because  he  was  aging  (sixty-eight),  Jordan  was 
about  to  be  presented  with  the  inevitable  portrait.  Wherry 
was  too  ill  to  respond  at  once  to  the  invitation  to  subscribe. 
These  words  appeared  upon  his  envelope:  "1/29/34  wrote 
that  I  would  send  a  check  in  a  few  days — 2/2/34  sent  check." 

Commendation  of  his  work  increased.  Albert  P  Krueger 
(first  to  prepare  vaccine  by  grinding  the  organisms  to  death) 
thought  Wherry's  "thesis  to  have  many  points  of  application 
and  to  explain  many  clinical  phenomena."  Roger  S  Greene 
(director  of  Peiping  Union  medical  college)  was  bringing  his 
writings  "to  the  special  attention  of  his  departments  of  medi- 


cine  and  bacteriology."  His  former  student,  Alfred  A  Draper  270 
(director,  the  Steffen  biological  laboratories,  New  York)      " 
wrote: 

.  .  .  The  myth  has  long  existed  that  clinical  laboratories 
must  be  commercial.  I  hope  that  you  gain  a  bit  of  satisfaction 
from  the  assurance  that  the  scientific  seeds  and  the  anti- 
commercial  ideas  which  you  once  put  into  my  head  took  root. 
I  have  studied  the  flora  of  over  3  500  stool  specimens.  .  .   . 

A  veritable  bale  of  letters  came  from  patients  and  friends. 
I  excerpt  this  sample: 

You  have  been  calling  on  my  wife  for  two  years.  During  all 
that  time  you  have  brought  help,  advice  and  cheer  to  us,  the 
great  value  of  which  cannot  be  adequately  appraised.  We 
have  been  disappointed  because  whenever  a  plan  of  partially 
discharging  our  obligation  to  you  has  been  broached,  it  has 
been  met  with  refusal.  Please,  Doctor  Wherry,  regard  this  as 
a  sacred  pact  justified  on  the  grounds  of  benefit  to  a  patient 
attainable  in  no  other  way. 

WHERRY  thought  it  necessary  to  unload.  He  began  in 
the  summer  of  1934  with  another  excursion  into 
Japan.  Upon  returning,  he  amputated  the  preventive  medicine 
half  of  his  department  to  make  Le  Blanc  its  head.  A  member 
for  almost  two  decades,  of  Cincinnati's  health  board,  he  re- 
signed. Its  energetic  and  effective  president  (the  virile  son  in 
the  90's  of  the  medical  college  of  Ohio  and  its  associate  pro- 
fessor of  contagious  diseases  afterwards,  Mifflin  B  Brady) 
answered  (January  4,  193  5) : 

At  the  meeting  this  morning  attended  by  Doctor  Muhlberg, 
Mr  Freiberg,  Mr  Johnson  and  Doctor  Brady  [the  entire 
membership]  the  following  action  was  taken:  You  are 
respectfully  informed  that  there  is  only  one  place  fitting  for 
your  resignation,  your  own  waste  basket. 

Now  came  statement  from  H  S  Cumming,  Surgeon-General 
U  S  P  H  S,  Washington  (January  29,  193  5) : 

I  have  recommended  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  your 
appointment  as  a  member  of  the  National  advisory  health 


280  councu  f°r  a  Peri°d  of  five  years,  and  he  has  approved  this 
appointment. 

Hektoen,  Hunt,  McCollum,  Rosenau,  Stengel,  McCoy  were 
of  the  crowd.  It  was  pleasant  business  to  be  offered  a  horse  in 
the  wagon-train  of  which  he  had  so  often  and  so  irregularly 
been  a  part ;  but  he  could  not  accept.  Wayson  wrote  him  from 
Honolulu  (February  8, 193  5) : 

I  learned  from  Fennel  [Eric  A,  ex-U  S  P  H  S,  now  practicing 
in  Hawaii]  that  you  developed  complications  which  put  you 
down  again;  and  that  Mrs  Wherry  suffered  a  fractured  thigh. 
I  write  to  remind  you  that  the  Waysons  are  hoping  hard  that 
you  will  both  soon  be  well  enough  to  be  about. — I  sent  you 
recently  an  article  on  the  epidemiology  of  leprosy  in  Hawaii. 
There  are  no  discoveries  in  it,  but  a  lot  of  work  establishing  or 
disrupting  hypotheses.  While  the  analysis  may  appear  to  be 
only  arithmetical,  more  is  involved. 

He  and  Wherry  had  long  discussed  treatment  for  leprosy. 
Wayson  continued: 

I  have  tried  to  desensitize  a  group  of  patients  by  the  use  of  a 
suspension  of  organisms  obtained  from  leprous  rats — killed 
with  formaldehyde,  washed,  etc.  A  control  of  rat  tissue  alone 
produced  no  ill  effects.  The  results,  however,  appear  to  be 
nil.  An  intracutaneous  test  with  the  same  material  appears  to 
have  specificity,  and  positive  reactions  occurred  in  80%  of 
24  patients  adjudged  quiescent  or  recovering,  and  in  20% 
of  60  patients  adjudged  active  or  progressing.  A  large  per- 
centage of  those  with  positive  reactions  developed  a  sterile 
abscess  after  two  to  eight  weeks ;  or  among  those  treated,  after 
the  last  inoculation.  A  few  who  subsequently  developed 
leprous  reactions  had  acute  erysipelatous  inflammations  de- 
velop at  the  site  of  the  intradermal  test,  though  there  had 
been  only  a  small  (0.5  cm)  indolent  ulcer  at  the  site  previous 
to  the  leprous  reaction. 

I  think  I  have  obtained  passage  of  the  rat  lepra  organism 
through  the  unbroken  nasal  mucous  membrane,  with  sub- 
sequent infection,  in  a  rat. 

Since  19321  have  watched  the  development  of  minor  neuro- 
logical findings  in  the  children  of  leprous  parents,  and  have 
recently  seen  the  cases  proved  up  with  skin  and  bacteriologic 


findings.  Clinical  histories  had  made  me  suspect  that  the  dis-  281 
ease  develops  thus,  but  I  now  have  proof.  These  patients  also 
have  the  organism  in  the  nasal  mucous  membrane  before 
definite  skin  lesions  materialize.  Early  diagnosis  will  certainly 
have  to  be  made  in  many  cases  by  neurological  examination! 
Here  comes  in  the  possibility  of  getting  an  intradermal  test, 
etc! — Plague  is  quiet.  There  seems  to  be  some  "endemic" 
typhus.  That's  about  all  I  know  that  might  be  of  interest. 

Wherry  now  penned  what  was  to  be  his  last  scientific  paper 
[82].  It  was  official  report  on  how  in  undulant  fever — Bru- 
cellosis— a  new  antiserum,  made  via  the  vaccine  injection  of 
"6  strains"  of  the  organism  into  goats,  had  cut  in  two  the 
clinical  manifestations  of  the  affected.  Human  victims  who 
had  suffered  for  months  with  recurrent,  invaliding  and  pros- 
trating fever  had  been  rendered  "afebrile  in  9  days,  asymp- 
tomatic in  15,  and  able  to  resume  occupation  in  3  l/z  weeks." 
Even  better,  they  had  remained  well  "4  to  29  months."  Here 
again,  and  as  final  message,  Wherry  wrote:  "We  draw  no 
conclusions  from  this  limited  experience." 

Chronically  lacking  funds  for  his  laboratory,  he  casually 
mentioned  his  need  to  Maud  Nippert  (daughter  of  James  N 
Gamble).  He  wanted  to  enlarge  his  stock  farm.  She  wrote 
(June  14,  193  5): 

Sorry  to  have  been  so  short  and  snappy  last  evening — but  of 
late,  I  say  no  first,  and  sometimes  reconsider.  In  this  case,  just 
because  it  is  you,  I  do,  and  so  am  enclosing  a  check  [it  was  for 
a  thousand]  which  I  hope  will  help  your  pet  hobby.  Just  what 
that  is,  I  do  not  know — but  anyway,  you  might  as  well  experi- 
ment with  it,  as  Uncle  Sam. 

Cross  section  of  what  was  being  done  with  such  moneys  is 
best  revealed  by  a  look  at  bacteriology's  scientific  library.  In 
five  years  he  and  his  departmental  workers  had  brought  forth 
more  than  forty  communications.  Besides  those  already  named, 
Robert  Coulter  Walker  had  studied  quantitatively  the  effects 
of  dehydration  of  medium  upon  bacterial  growth;  Joseph  T 
Tamura  had  cultivated  the  "virus"  of  lymphogranuloma 
inguinale  (the  sixth  venereal  disease)  in  visible  form;  Rock- 
well and  Herman  C  Van  Kirk  had  contributed  to  the  eternal 
problem  of  the  "common  cold"  by  stressing  the  value  of  oral 


°  fa  -»><?^  v 
MBRAR 


FINIS,  HONOLULU,  1936 


administration  of  proper  vaccines ;  John  H  Foulger  had  studied  O  8  \ 
the  "peculiar"  activities  of  urea  as  an  antiseptic  and  a  bacteri- 
cide; and  Alexander  R  Johnston,  the  pharmacological  and 
colloid  effects  of  the  toxic  amines;  Bernice  Elaine  Eddy  had 
disclosed  the  existence  of  protective  substances  in  the  sputum 
of  pneumonic  patients  at  the  time  of  crisis;  etc;  etc. 

H  Lara  of  the  School  of  hygiene  and  public  health  in  Manila 
now  inquired  if  some  "shells  had  arrived  safely."  They  had. 
In  one  of  his  dreamy  moments,  Wherry  set  heart  upon  the  half- 
ton  bivalves  indigenous  to  the  tropics.  Now,  to  his  pride  and 
joy,  a  pair  reposed  before  the  porch  stairs  of  his  Ridgeway 
avenue  house.  Lara  continued  (July  12,  1935)  : 

We  are  very  grateful  for  the  interest  that  you  entertain  about 
what  goes  on  here. — The  sunset  of  Manila  Bay,  the  lake  and 
river  sides,  and  the  many  lanes  that  once  made  your  acquain- 
tance are  vying  with  each  other  in  clothing  themselves  trim. 
They  tell  me  that  they  wish  to  be  seen  by  you  again  and  that 
they  will  never  get  tired  of  posing  for  you  and  of  revealing 
to  you  their  hidden  beauties. — Nature's  truth  is  greater  than 
word.  I  lack  word.  Therefore  I  must  stop. 


THE  handicap  of  illness  forced  him  to  delegate  an  increas- 
ing fraction  of  the  day's  demands  to  his  coworkers — 
so  his  junior  students  heard  him  no  more  in  inspiring  lecture; 
and  his  senior,  saw  him  less  in  hours  of  conference.  To  the 
succession  of  letters  that  tried  to  make  him  member  of, 
sponsor  for,  lecturer  to,  or  contributor  in,  every  type  of  social, 
health,  medical  and  bacteriological  organization  or  congress 
known  to  man,  he  had  to  say  no.  It  was  all  too  much — also,  a 
bit  too  late.  How  would  he  spend  the  modicum  of  energy  that 
had  returned  to  him  as  spring  opened  in  1936?  Most,  he  wished 
to  see  the  lepers  again ;  and  a  glimpse  of  his  children  would  be 
pleasant.  Why  not  Hawaii  where  Wayson  had  invited  him? 
There,  too,  would  be  Badger  (successor  to  Wayson)  and 
Fennel  and  Brunot — war  horses  with  him  out  of  campaigns 
of  earlier  decades;  and  those  tropic  palms  that  hid  yaws  and 
sprue  and  marsh  fever.  So,  in  middle  May,  he  went. 

September  29,  1936,  Wherry  wrote  to  Tashiro  from  Hono- 
lulu: "I  have  had  a  wonderful  summer."  But  the  final  days 


284  ^a(^  not  ^een  so  wonderful.  Bidding  adieu  to  his  daughter, 
returning  to  Japan,  made  the  pain  down  his  arm  greater. 
And  the  seamen  were  threatening  strike  in  San  Francisco; 
better  to  hurry.  He  penned  a  last  word  from  the  Lurline: 

We  left  two  weeks  earlier  than  we  expected — while  the  leaving 
was  possible.  There  is  a  superb  oil  of  the  original  Lurline  as 
two-masted  schooner  by  Montague  Dawson  in  the  forward 
saloon  &  the  reading  room  is  flanked  with  pictures  of  clipper 
ships. 

In  San  Francisco,  he  thought  it  well  not  to  disembark.  At 
Los  Angeles  (October  10,  1936)  his  son  met  him,  to  take  him 
to  his  home  for  rest.  Five  days  later  Marie  wrote:  "Will  is 
sitting  up  occasionally  but  feels  wretched. — I  try  to  assume 
your  best  bedside  manner  and  to  buoy  his  spirits.  But  it  doesn't 
work  very  well.,, 

HE  arrived  in  Cincinnati  on  October  thirty-first,  1936.  It 
was  the  eve  of  All  Saints'  Day.  The  trip  had  been  hard; 
and  he  was  tired.  His  return  had  been  unannounced.  Never- 
theless three  of  his  students  forced  the  railway  gates.  Gray  and 
sweating  he  pressed  their  hands.  His  wife  bent  over  him  to 
report:  "The  specimens  are  all  safe."  One  hundred  and  thirty 
cultures  from  leprosy  alone  were  in  a  kit  that  had  never  been 
beyond  the  touch  of  his  hand!  He  smiled.  She  turned  to  him 
a  second  time:  "We  are  home,  Will." 


Bibliography 

THE  following  list  of  the  publications  of  WILLIAM  B 
WHERRY  is  the  only  approximately  complete  ever 
prepared.  It  is  the  work  of  Catherine  Barrere.  The  bracketed 
numbers  refer  to  the  bracketed  citations  in  the  text;  the  places 
of  publication,  as  volume,  page  and  year  conform  to  interna- 
tional usage. 

[  1  ]  The  Distribution  of  Segmentation  and  Fragmentation 
in  the  Myocardium 

Transactions  of  the  Chicago  Pathological  Society 
4,133  (1899-1901) 

[  2  ]   Carbuncle  and  Pyemia 

Transactions  of  the  Chicago  Pathological  Society 
4,484  (1899-1901) 

[3]  A  Case  of  So-called  Malignant  {Staphylococcus)  Car- 
buncle of  the  Upper  Lip  Followed  by  Pyemia 
American  Medicine  3,  28  (1902) 

[4]  Experiments  on  the  Permeability  of  the  Berkefeld  Filter 
and  the  Pasteur -Chamberland  Bougie  to  Bacteria  of 
Small  Size 

Journal  of  Medical  Research  8,  322  (1902) 

[  5  ]   A  Case  of  Infectious  Dermatitis  in  Chronic  Morphin- 
ism, Accompanied  by  an   Unknown  Diplococcus, 
Resembling  M  Gonorrhea 
(With  Palmer  H  Lyon) 
American  Medicine  6,  401  (1903) 

[6]   The  Use  of  Ace t ozone   {benzoyl-acetyl-peroxide)    in 
the  Sterilization  of  Water  for  Drinking  Purposes 
Fourth  Annual  Report,  Philippine  Commission, 
415  (1903) 

[7]  A  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  a  Peculiar  Form  of  Hand 
Infection,  Due  to  an  Organism  Resembling  the  Koch- 
Weeks  Bacillus 

(With  John  R  McDill) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  1,  58  (1904) 


2  $6  Bulletin  10,  Bureau  of  Government  Laboratories, 

Manila  (1904) 

[8]  Glanders:  Its  Diagnosis  and  Prevention.  Together  with 
a  Report  on  Two  Cases  of  Human  Glanders  Occur- 
ring in  Manila  and  Some  Notes  on  the  Bacteriology 
and  Polymorphism  of  Bacterium  mallei 

Bulletin  24,  Bureau  of  Government  Laboratories, 
Manila  (1904) 

[9]  Some  Observations  on  the  Biology  of  the  Cholera 
Spirillum 

Bulletin  19,  Bureau  of  Government  Laboratories, 

Manila  (1905) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  2,  309  (1905) 

[10]  Notes  on  a  Case  of  Hcematochyluria,  together  with 
some  Observations  on  the  Morphology  of  the  Embryo 
Nematode,  Filaria  nocturna 
(With  John  R  McDill) 
Bulletin  3 1 ,  Bureau  of  Government  Laboratories, 

Manila  (1905) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  2,  412  (1905) 

[11]  A  Search  Into  the  Nitrate  and  Nitrite  Content  of 
Witte's  "Peptone"  with  Special  Reference  to  its 
Influence  on  the  Demonstration  of  the  lndol-  and 
Cholera-Red  Reactions 

Bulletin  3 1 ,  Bureau  of  Government  Laboratories, 

Manila  (1905) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  2,  436  (1905) 

[12]  The  Bacteriological  Examination  of  a  Plague  Rat,  with 
Notes  on  the  Capsular  Substance  Formed  on  Nutri- 
ent Agar  by  some  Bacteria 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  2,  577  (1905) 

[13]   Tropical  Splenomegaly 

(With  W  E  Musgrave,  P  G  Woolley) 
Bulletin  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital  17,  28 
(1906) 

[14]   The  Etiology  of  Pemphigus  Contagiosus  in  the  Tropics 
(With  Moses  T  Clegg) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  3,  165  (1906) 


[15]  A  Case  of  Amebic  Dysentery,  Originating  in  Montana:  O  Q"7 
A  Case  of  Latent  Malaria 
(With  J  F  Spelman) 
Northwest  Medicine  4,  277  (1906) 

[16]  Insects  and  Infection 

California    State    Journal    of    Medicine    5,    281 
(1907) 

[17]  Plague  Among  Rats  in  San  Francisco 

(With  Agnes  Walker  and  Edgar  H  Howell) 
Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  50, 
1165  (1908) 

[18]   The  Leprosy-Like  Disease  Among  Rats  on  the  Pacific 
Coast 

Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  50, 
1903  (1908) 

[19]  Fleas  on  Rodents  and  Men  on  the  Pacific  Coast 

Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  5 1 , 
495  (1908) 

[20]   The  Bacteriology  and  Pathology  of  Plague  (With  the 
Demonstration  of  Gross  and  Microscopic  Specimens) 
California    State   Journal    of    Medicine    6,    3  51 
(1908) 

[21]  Plague  Among  the  Ground  Squirrels  of  California 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  5,  48  5  (1908) 

[22]  Further  Notes  on  Rat  Leprosy  and  on  the  Fate  of 
Human  and  Rat  Lepra  Bacilli  in  Flies 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  5,  507  (1908) 
Public  Health  Reports,  United  States  Marine  Hos- 
pital Service  23,  1481  (1908) 

[23]  Streptococci   Occurring   as   Diplococci   in   Rats    (M 
norvegicus) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  5,  515  (1908) 

[24]   Experiments  on  the  Use  of  Bacillus  Pestis-Caviae  as  a 
Rat  Virus 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  5,  519  (1908) 
Preliminary    note    in    Public    Health    Reports, 
November  (1908) 


2 R8  [25]   The  Influence  of  Scurvy  on  Hemorrhages  in  Plague 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  6,  564  (1909) 

[26]  I  Experiments  on  Vaccination  against  Rat  Leprosy 
II  On  the  Extraction  of  Rat  Lepra  Bacilli  from 
Watery  Emulsions  by  Means  of  Chloroform  III  Rat 
Lepra  Bacilli  in  the  Rat  Louse 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  6,  630  (1909) 

[27]   Ticks  on  the  California  Ground  Squirrel 
(With  F  Creighton  Wellman) 
Entomological  News  20,  276  (1909) 

[28]  Subacute  Plague  in  Man  due  to  Ground  Squirrel 
Infection 

(With  George  W  McCoy) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  6,  670  (1909) 

[29]  A  Case  of  Apparent  Cure  of  Filarial  Hematochyluria 
(With  J  R  McDill) 
Journal  of  Tropical  Medicine  12,  241  (1909) 

[30]   The  Relation  of  Rat  Leprosy  to  Human  Leprosy  {with 
an  exhibit  of  gross  and  microscopic  specimens) 
California    State   Journal    of    Medicine    7,    301 
(1909) 

[31]  The  Value  of  Laboratory  Methods  to  the  Medical 
Student 

Lancet-Clinic  103,575  (1910) 

[32]  Some  New  Internal  Parasites  of  the  California  Ground 
Squirrel  (Otospermophilus  beecheyi) 
(With  Creighton  Wellman) 
Parasitology  3,417  (1910) 

[33]   A  Description  of  Four  Filaria  loa  from  the  Same  Patient 
(With  O  V  Huffman) 
Parasitology  4,7  (1911) 

[34]  Notes  on  Twenty-two  Spontaneous  Tumors  in  Wild 
Rats  (M  norvegicus) 

(With  Paul  G  Woolley) 

Journal  of  Medical  Research  25,205  (1911) 

[3  5]   The  Amebicidal  Action  of  Emetin 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  10,  162  (1912) 


[36]  A  Preliminary  Note  on  Some  Chemical  Conditions  280 
Favoring  the  Production  of  the  So-Called  "Spores" 
in  B  tuberculosis 

Lancet-Clinic  109,  134  (1913) 

[37]  Some  Chemical  Conditions  Influencing  Acid-Proofness 
and  Nonacid-Proofness  in  a  Saprophytic  Culture  of 
B  tuberculosis 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  13,  144  (1913) 

[3  8]  Some  Chemical  Conditions  Favoring  the  Production  of 
"Spores"  in  B  tuberculosis 

Centralblatt  fur  Bakteriologie,  Parasitenkunde 
und  Infektionskrankheiten  (lte  Abt)  70,  115 
(1913) 

[39]  Studies  on  the  Biology  of  an  Amoeba  of  the  Limax 
Group.  Vahlkampfia  sp  No  I 

Archiv  fur  Protistenkunde  30,77  (1913) 

[40]  Introduction — The  Role  of  the  Medical  Man  in  the 
Future  Control  of  the  Tropics 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
667,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[41  ]  Amebiasis 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
703,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[42]  Diseases  Due  to  Other  Flagellata  and  the  Ciliata.  Balan- 
tidium  coli 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
760,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[43]  Filariasis 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
786,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[44]  Plague 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
816,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[45]   Asiatic  Cholera 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
827,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 


290  t46^  MaltaFever 

Forchheimer:  Therapeusis  of  Internal  Diseases  4, 
839,  New  York  and  London  (1913) 

[47]  Infection  of  Man  with  Bacterium  tularense 
(With  B  H  Lamb) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  25,331  (1914) 

[48]  Discovery  of  Bacterium  tularense  in  Wild  Rabbits  and 
the  Danger  of  its  Transfer  to  man.  Preliminary  Note 
(With  B  H  Lamb) 

Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  63, 
2041  (1914) 

[49]  A  New  Bacterial  Disease  of  Rodents  Transmissible  to 
Man 

Public  Health  Reports  29,  3387  (1914) 

[50]   The  Mechanism  of  Phagocytosis 
(With  G  L  Kite) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  16,  109  (1915) 

[52]  On  the  Cultivation  of  Entameba  buccalis  (A  Prelimi- 
nary Note) 

(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 
Lancet-Clinic  2  2  5,  295  (1916) 

[52]  On  a  Rapid  Method  of  Cultivating  the  Gonococcus 
(A  Preliminary  Note) 
(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 
Lancet-Clinic  2  2  5,  306  (1916) 

[53]   The  Role  of  Oxygen  in  the  Cultivation  of  Animal  Para- 
sites (A  Preliminary  Note) 
(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 
Lancet-Clinic  2  26,  1  (1916) 

[54]  Adaptation  to  Certain  Tensions  of  Oxygen  as  Shown 
by  Gonococcus  and  Other  Parasitic  and  Saprophytic 
Bacteria 

(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  19,  288  (1916) 

[55]  Leptothrix innominata  (Miller) 
(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  19,299  (1916) 


V 


6]   Remarks  on  the  Filter  ability  of  Bacillus  bronchisepticus  901 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  19,  3  04  (1916)  "* 


[57]   Blood  Cultures  in  Epilepsy 

(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 

Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association  67 , 
1087  (1916) 

[58]   The  Educational  Requirements  for  a  Public  Health 
Nurse  of  the  Future 

The  Visiting  Nurse   Association   of   Cincinnati. 
Seventh  Annual  Report,  7  (1916) 

[59]  Further  Observations  on  the  Adaptation  of  Parasitic 
Microorganisms  to  a  Lowered  Oxygen  Tension 
(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  20,  28  (1917) 

[60]  Influence  of  Oxygen  Tension  on  Morphologic  Varia- 
tions in  B  diphtherias 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  21,  47  (1917) 

[61  ]   The  Necessity  of  Carbon  Dioxide  for  the  Growth  of  B 
tuberculosis 

(With  D  M  Ervin) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  22,  194  (1918) 

[62]   Cultures  of  a  Leptothrix  from  a  Case  of  Parinaud's 
Conjunctivitis 

(With  Victor  Ray) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  22,  5  54  (1918) 

[63]   A  Respiratory  Stimulant  and  Toxic  Substance  Extract- 
able  from  Lung  Tissue 
(With  D  M  Ervin) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  23,  240  (1918) 

[64]   A  Leprosy -Like  Disease  in  the  Lungs  of  a  Mexican 
Parrot 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  27,  293  (1920) 

[65]  Inhalation  Experiments  on  Influenza  and  Pneumonia, 
and  on  the  Importance  of  Spray-Borne  Bacteria  in 
Respiratory  Infections 
(With  C  T  Butterneld) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  27,  315  (1920) 


OQO   [66]  Notes   on  Some  Bacterial  Parasites   of   the  Human 
Mucous  Membranes 

(With  Wade  W  Oliver) 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  28,  341  (1921) 

[67]  Action  of  Ammonia  on  Pneumococcus  and  Mechanism 
of  Capsule  Staining 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  34,  124  (1924) 

[68]  Gonorrheal  Ophthalmia  Treated  with  Acriflavin.  Acti- 
vation of  Bactericidal  Action  of  this  Dye 

American  Journal  of  Ophthalmology  (Third 
Series)  8,  8  58  (1925) 

[69]  Detoxication  of  Bacterial  Vaccines  by  Formaldehyde 
(With  J  A  Bowen) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  37,  520  (1925) 

[70]  The  Use  of  Vaccines  and  Dyes  in  Controlling  Infections 
of  the  Eye 

Cincinnati  Journal  of  Medicine  6,  529  (1925) 

[71]  A  Case  Illustrating  Local  Sensitization  of  the  Eye  to  a 
Bacterial  Protein 

(With  Clarence  King) 

Cincinnati  Journal  of  Medicine  8,  85  (1927) 

[72]  Tissue  Hydration  and  its  Relation  to  Susceptibility  and 
Immunity,  as  Shown  by  Skin  Tests  in  Asthma, 
Chronic  Sinusitis  and  Other  Infections 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  41,  177  (1927) 

[73]  The  Treatment  of  Typhoid  Fever  with  Detoxicated 
Vaccine 

(With  T  J  LeBlanc,  L  Foshay  and  R  Thomas) 
Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  43,  189  (1928) 

[74]  Local  Skin  Reactions  in  the  Selection  of  Antigens  for 
Atitogenous  Vaccines 
(With  Stanley  Dorst) 
Ohio  State  Medical  Journal  24,  539  (1928) 

[75]  Phagocytes  and  Phagocytosis  in  Immunity 

Chapter  LXVI  in  E  O  Jordan  and  I  S  Falk's:  The 
Newer  Knowledge  of  Bacteriology  and  Immu- 
nology, 870,  Chicago  (1928) 


[76]  Studies  in  Immunity.  1  Nonspecific  Factors  Influenc-  90^ 
ing  the  Reaction  of  the  Skin  to  Tuberculin 

(With  A  Graeme  Mitchell,  Bernice  Eddy  and 

Frank  E  Stevenson) 
American  Journal  of  the  Diseases  of  Children  3  6, 
720  (1928) 

[77]  Note  on  the  Cultivation  of  an  Acid -Fast  Bacillus  from 
Leprosy 

Journal  of  Infectious  Diseases  46,  263  (1930) 

[78]  Cultivation  of  an  Acid-Fast  Bacillus  from  Leprosy 
Philippine  Journal  of  Science  43,  577  (1930) 

[79]   Eczema,  an  Expression  of  Hepatic  Insufficiency  and  its 
Cure  with  Bile  Salt.  An  Abstract 
(With  Shiro  Tashiro) 

Medical  Bulletin,  University  of  Cincinnati  6,  156 
(1931) 

[80]  Hypersensitivity  to  Bacterial  Proteins  and  its  Role  in 
Susceptibility  and  Immunity  (De  Lamar  Lecture) 
American  Journal  of  Hygiene  14,  539  (1931) 

[81]   The  Role  of  Desensitization  in  Recovery  from  Bacterial 
Infection 

Annals  of  Internal  Medicine  7,  728  (1933) 

[82]  Brucellosis  in  Man:  Treatment  with  a  New  Antiserum 
(With  A  E  O'Neil  and  Lee  Foshay) 
American  Journal  of  Tropical  Medicine  15,  415 
(1935) 


this  m2fi^m  BOOK 


WILLIAM  B  WHERRY 

BACTERIOLOGIST 

by 
Martin  Fischer 

was  designed  by  Jaques  Cat  tell  and  George  M  Houck;  it  was 
set  and  printed  by  The  Science  Press  Printing  Company  of 
Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  USA,  and  bound  by  The  Frank  J 
Howard  Company  of  Baltimore,  Maryland.  The  type  face  is 
14  point  Garamond;  the  type  page  28  x  48  picas;  the  text 
paper  is  Strathmore  Wayside  Text;  the  black  ink  used  was 
supplied  by  the  Crescent  Ink  and  Color  Company,  the  red  by 
the  Sinclair  and  Valentine  Company;  the  quarter  binding  is 
in  Morocco  leather  with  pyroxylin  cloth  sides;  end  sheets 
Shadowmould  Fleur-De-Lis;  stamping  in  All  Purpose  XX 
deep  Gold,  23  kt;  with  cover  design  by  The  Science  Press 

Printing  Company. 

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