ERWIN FRINK SMITH

ANDREW DBNNY RODGERS Ttt

^cni

I \

AM_

ERWIN FRINK SMITH

Memoirs of the

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

held at Philadelphia
for Promoting Useful Kijowledge

Volume 31

ERWIN F. SMITH

ERWIN FRINK SMITH

A STORY OF
NORTH AMERICAN PLANT PATHOLOGY

ANDREW DENNY RODGERS III

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE

PHILADELPHIA

1952

Copyright 1952 by the American Philosophical Society

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY J. H. FURST COMPANY, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

To Dr. Edgar Nelson Transeau

ACKNOWLl-DGMl^NTS

Most of the material contained in this book has been quoted
direct — or obtained from unpublished correspondence which has
never before been generally available. Footnote references explain
the previously published sources. Two years before his death, Dr.
Smith planned to write an autobiography and materials saved
throughout his lifetime for this purpose have provided by far the
largest portion of the unpublished sources. The author acknowl-
edges his indebtedness to Mrs. E. F. Smith for many interviews
and for permission to make use of these materials including diaries,
journals, correspondence, reprints, books, etc. Permission, further-
more, to use certain official documents and correspondence, copies
and originals, has been given by officials of the United States
Bureau of Plant Industry. The author obtained photostated copies
of a collection of materials held by the Agricultural Division of
the National Archives, Washington, D. C. Permission for the
use of these has also been granted by officials there. Letters written
by Dr. Smith to Dr. W. G. Farlow of Harvard University were
photostated; and for permission for their inclusion indebtedness
to officials of the Farlow Herbarium is likewise acknowledged.
Dr. T. S. Cullen lent the author the originals of the letters from
Dr. Smith to him. From various persons and institutions letters
written by the subject of this biography have been secured; and
each letter has been specially identified by a footnote or in the text.

The list of libraries and their facilities utilized by the author has
included the Library of the United States Department of Agri-
culture, that of the United States Department of Education, the
Library of Congress, the Library of the Michigan State Board of
Health, the Ohio State University Library, that of its Medical
School and Botany and Zoology Departments, the Ohio State
Library, the Columbus and Bexley, Ohio, Public Libraries, and
many libraries of botanical and scientific institutions. Indebtedness
to each one is acknowledged, especially the Ohio State University
Botany and Zoology Library, and to Dorothy (Mrs. E. M.) Sch.reck
its librarian.

vii

viii Acknowledgments

Many persons acquainted with the life and work of Dr. Smith
have been interviewed by the author. They include various of his
laboratory scientific associates and assistants and many scientists
in different research fields from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts, their
work or collaboration being described fully or in part in the
narrative.

In the preparation of this book, valuable criticisms and sug-
gestions for improving the text have been given by Dr. L. O.
Kunkel, Research Member Emeritus and formerly head of plant
science research of the Department of Animal and Plant Pathology
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York City,
by Dr. H. L. Russell, Dean Emeritus of the College of Agriculture
of the University of Wisconsin, and by Mrs. Smith. They have
read the complete text in first writing. Dr. Conway Zirkle, Pro-
fessor of Botany of the University of Pennsylvania, has read the
text in a later writing. Substantial portions, especially part or
all of Chapters XI and XII, have been read by Mrs. Margaret
Reed Lewis, cancer research specialist, the Wistar Institute of
Anatomy and Biology, and by Dr. A. J. Riker, Professor of Plant
Pathology, of the University of Wisconsin. To each one, for very
helpful aid and advice, corrections, and new sources of knowl-
edge, the author wishes to express his cordial thanks and grateful
appreciation.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. Boyhood, early sclioolini; and fcachinj^. Flora of Michigan.

Study at Michigan Agricultural College 1

II. Background of work and study in public health, hygiene, and
sanitation, pathology and bacteriology, preparatory for
research career in the plant sciences 31

III. Early work on plant pathology and bacteriology in North

America. Study under Professor Spalding at the University

of Michigan 89

IV. Vegetable pathologist with the United States Department of

Agriculture. Fungous diseases of plants, and peach
yellows, his specialties I35

V. Investigations in plant pathology placed on a nation-wide

basis 179

VI. Early studies in bacterial plant diseases. Fusarium diseases of

plants. Florida and California laboratories .... 228

VII. Recognition of the science of plant bacteriology in America 277

VIII. Smith chief of a laboratory of plant pathology. Recognition

of plant bacteriology in Europe 333

IX. First European journey. Plant breeding and the Third Inter-
national Conference on Genetics. Studies on crown gall of
plants and the etiology of plant tumors. Recognition of its
importance as an aid to medical research on animal cancer 395

X. Second European journey. International Congress of Medi-
cine. Further research on plant diseases, especially the
plant tumor and various coordinate problems . . . 467

XI. Further discussion of the crown gall-animal analogy — various
aspects of fact and theory. A suggested multiple factor
hypothesis of pathological growth. Further researches in
bacterial, fungous and virus diseases of plants . . . 521

XII. Third European journey. Coordinate study of cancer research.
International Congress of Plant Sciences of 1926. Last
work. Final honors 573

Ind

ex

655

IX

ILLUSTRATIONS

Erwin F. Smith frontispiece

Photograph taken in his laboratory in the early twenties

facing page 526

Making free-hand sections of inoculated wilted watermelon. 1895 527

In the library of his home, Washington, D. C 527

Chapter I

BOYHOOD, EARLY SCHOOLING, AND TEACHING. FLORA OF MICHIGAN.
STUDY AT MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

ERW'IN FRINK SMITH was born on January 21, 1854, at
Gilberts Mills, New York, the son of Louisa Frink Smith
and Rancellor King Smith, a tanner and shoemaker by trade.
Nine generations of the ancestry of Rancellor King Smith had
lived in the United States, as early as 1628-1629 the first having
migrated from England, settled at Salem, Massachusetts, and,
moving on to Connecticut, attained to positions of considerable
wealth and eminence in various towns, Norwalk most promi-
nently. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, about 1784,
one Noah Hoyt, the seventh of ten children, migrated to New
York, lived for a while in Saratoga County, and settled perma-
nently in Onondaga County. Lucy King, the granddaughter of
Noah Hoyt, married one Charles Smith on November 15, 1821.
He, it is believed, hailed from Palermo, Long Island, Nev/ York.
But he took up his occupation as a tanner in Oswego County,
and the couple was blessed with ten children, of whom the third
was Rancellor. On September 24, 1850, and at the age of twenty-
four years, this son, who had chosen his father's trade as his life
work, married Louisa Frink, of Herkimer County, New York,
daughter of Asa Leonard and Lydia Ellis Frink, and to them were
born two children, Erwin Frink, and Lillian, some two years
younger.^

Gilberts Mills, located not far from Syracuse and in the midst
of a progressive agricultural setting, was named for its principal
industry — its flour mills. It was a contented, thriving village, of
happy, strong folk. Many years later Erwin Smith redescribed his
recollections of this serene, untroubled community where he spent
his first fifteen years:

^ This paragraph is based on materials which Erwin F. Smith himself gathered
and was in part founded on data taken from David W. Hoyt's A ^genealogical
history of the Hoyt, Haight, and Hight families, 2nd ed., Providence, R. L, 1871.

2 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

Big droves of kine, orchards on all the hills,
Flower-banked white cottages in all the vales,
Broad pastures, zigzag-fenced with hemlock rails
The anvil's clang, the rumbling busy mills.
Tan-vats in rows, a salt-well's heavy drills.
The parson's Sunday face, the miller's tales,
Mowers with scythes and maids with milking pails.
The mill pond's mysteries ! The mill-stream's thrills.

Hour after hour he watched " the giant mill-beams gloom in
rows cobweb-festooned and hoar wtih whitest flour." Student
from his early years of intellectual awareness, he meditated on
the "prisoned god" he heard in the grinding of the mill-wheel.
But more, he studied the "finny tribes" he saw below the mill-
wheel. A stanza of quiet rapture caught his spirit:

Daily round and round the mill-wheel goes.
Dull rumbling like a demi-god in pain;
And endlessly like some god's ichor flows
The crystal stream o'er its green algal plain.

He early began to find " the strong sweet life of Nature . . .
the God of earth and heaven whom Science bares." Nature's
processes, as well as her myriad forms, appealed to his observa-
tion. "This swarming earth," he later wrote," "has been a trial
field wherein a virile God has sown in haste a horde of strug-
gling forms, hoping as yield to reach some consummating perfect
stage — elusive ever and evermore erased." The type is precious
to Nature; and the "rocks are full of types sketched out, re-
viewed, found wanting, cast away, or slowly trued to perfect
forms. Ceaseless, God's winnow-fan sorts better still from best."
Of all the mind's highways " the most sublime" were those made
from "deeps of space" by the astronomers. He, however, lived
and worked closely to the earth. In April he was often " a wan-
dering boy, in hemlock forests dim," enjoying the " spring's sweet
ferment," and conscious that " myriad million cells to one blind
end, in harmony attuned, within each tree, expand and bud:
absorb, consume and blend the gifts of earth and air by sun set
free." He wrote:

^ The Geological Record, January 2, 1913. Other quotations are taken from
published and unpublished poems which have a definite retrospective and biographi-
cal significance.

I'lora of M/c/.)/i^j//. Study at Mk hkjan 3

The plants, the swarming life in every nook,
Bird, beast, and froLT, I was their intimate,
And they my harvest home and great estate!
What lessons there I had from Nature's book ! '

Ants interested him all of his life. He watched them, studied
their habits and activities, explored their habitats, and wrote of
them :

I do not claim to know much about their mental processes; they may have
some. They certainly do most of the things done by primitive peoples
and I think they possess the rudiments of memory and reason. They are
feudal robbers. They have division of labor: soldiers, workers of various
sort, nurses, etc. They are agriculturists and harvest grains, honey and
flesh, and gather manures for their fungous gardens. They keep chattels,
make slaves, and fight desperate battles! Their nests are gynecocracies,
and the males are reduced to a fugitive life, ending with the reproduction
of the species. They have no tools or weapons, their fierce jaws being all-
suflicient. They have games but no religion, unless it be the worship of
their queen. There are more than a thousand species, but the largest
are scarcely an inch long.

Of "Ants " he wrote also in poetry:

Safe housed in earth each queen gives myriads birth.

Slight reason animates the swarming band,

A hungry plunderbund, as one they stand.

With instinct strong as death in reason's dearth.

They are a curious race of little worth.

The tribal need alone is their command;

Had they but larger grown, born to expand,

They must have been the dominant forms on earth.

Some secret force decreed they should be small.

Else had lions and tigers no chance at all.

And men been forced to live in trees like birds.

That we are not their slaves, to fetch and bring.

Or tend their gardens and their aphis herds.

Thanks to that force: through it, man stays the king! *

Rare happy hours were his along the streamlets and millponds
of the countryside. Sometimes he dropped his fishing line for a
catch. More often, however, his eager, inquiring mind captured
fresh knowledge of the life histories and habits of the animal or
plant life he observed. Of " Cat-Fish," he wrote:

' The Brookside, September 2, 1926. * July 4, 1926.

4 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

Within a group that has so little care

For home and its own young and conjugal life,

To see two fishes live as man and wife

And guard their eggs and rear the young they bear

With tenderest solicitude is rare.^

Or of frogs:

The aromatic birch by pondsides grew

And where tall hemlocks joined the cedar swamp;

Bullfrogs splashed there and cried har-r-omp, ar-r-omp.

This boy went about the countryside studying the living forms
of hills and valleys, intent only on knovv^ledge for knowledge's
sake. He revelled in the " thousand sights and scents and tastes "
of nature, the " faint sweet song the August crickets sing," the
"gold-green" landscapes, the green meadows, brown pastures,
and dense dark thickets. He learned as much as a boy could of
agriculture, how corn and oats and other farm products were
grown. When in " The Meadow,"

The golden buttercups were his delight,
Filling June meadows full of pure sun-gleams;
Then came wild strawberries, luscious, red and white;
Blue Mimulus along the winding streams.

In August blossomed stately meadow-rue;
Slender solidagos, braiding golden hair;
Gorgeous Turks-cap lilies, just a few;
With purple fringed orchids here and there.

All days the bobolinks and blackbirds sang;
Crows called and golden meadow larks flew low;
With his shrill shout and song the meadows rang.
For glad was the boy, beholding fair things grow.*^

Even at home on long Sunday summer afternoons, he found
beauty and dreams in his surroundings: "Then would [he] sit
beneath the lifted sash; To hear the music of the falling stream.
Or lie beneath the dooryard's mountain ash, Steeped in some
poet's " flight of fancy. The sounds of birds ringing through the
copses, the sight of blackberries ripening on the barren hillsides,
of the Jo-pye weed in bloom, of the sight of Lobelia cardinalis
the crimson flower, or sweet flag, or the "orchard crowned"

^ July 5, 1926. * September 3, 1926.

Flora of Michigan. SriJov at Mk.ur.an 5

valley: these, and a multitude of other joyous memories, lingered
with him many years. There was formed his deep consciousness
of obligation to the Creator. Insights into nature were awakened
there, which, with the years would mature and quicken an inspired
interest in interpreting facts of creation. Erwin found God in the
fields and forests about him, as well as in the church of which he
was so regular an attendant. Whereas he sought ostensibly for
things, fisii, water-weeds, red berries, the robin's nest, and other
natural objects, he discovered an elusive, but very real, cosmic
kinship with a " subtile presence everywhere that lends all motion,
light, and life," which comprehends all and "in one harmony all
discord blends." "All tends to good, all life is one in span," he
later wrote. " The Love Divine beneath its brooding wings, tender
as mother's love, enfolds all things that live and move, from
monad unto man; And what to us seems wrong in God's vast
plan, to our disturbed and faulty vision clings, as low-hung clouds
obscure the lark that sings, or blot Polaris and Aldebaran."

Probably Miss Ida Holmes, a friend and school teacher, more
than anyone gave Erwin his intelligent love of nature. Years of
Civil War between the North and South wrought a change in
the family of Rancellor King Smith. Lucy King Smith died while
serving as a nurse to Union soldiers. R. K. Smith enlisted with
Company K of the 184th New^ York Infantry and for years w^as
away from his home. While located with the Army of the Poto-
mac near Washington, D. C, in May 1865, he received a letter
from Ida Holmes which told of his children. " Lilly," she wrote,
"has grown like a w^eed. Irwin too has grow^n, and is quite a
gentleman. He reads my books with as much appreciation as
anybody and is, I think, an uncommonly intelligent boy for his
age." He borrowed from her books by Tennyson, Longfellow,
and Dickens. By the hour he listened to her tell "of Lowell and
Hawthorne, of Emerson and Thoreau, of James Freeman Clarke
and Edward Everett Hale; and of what the world would be when
all men should be noble and all women should come into their
own."

She lent him copies of the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Maga-
zine, Putnam's Magazine, and The Round Table. She believed in
the youth's future and, when a few years later she died, he cher-
ished the memory of her spirit and at last offered the following
tribute to her in verse:

6 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

O woman crowned! How much I owe to thee!
For thou didst teach the boy, as best of creeds,
Dearly to love great books and noble deeds,
And through their subtle alchemy be free.

The torch of learning kindled thus in me
Burns on, a sacred flame, which inward breeds
A hope that somehow answers to my needs,
And widens toward the universal sea.

In that large world of saints and seraphim,
That to our mortal eyes remaineth dim,
Would I could trace thy goings, spirit mother!

In vain ! But I have learned thy lessons well,

And when, in Death's Great Silence, muted, I dwell,

Many whom I have helped shall call me ' Brother ' ! '

Books and journals of scientific as well as literary interest were
included in his reading. Among the journals were Appletorfs
Journal of Literature, the Journal of Applied Chemistry, and The
American Naturalist. Among his books were Hu77iboldt' s Library
of Popular Science Literature, works on science and art, " Dick's
Complete Edition of Shakespere's Works," and books by other
masters.

On March 20, 1870, lie mentioned in his diary having received a
copy of Asa Gray's " School and Field Book of Botany." For many
years he was undecided between literature and science in his choice
of a career for himself. In fact, once deciding in favor of science,
he next experienced difiiculty in choosing between its various
branches: botany, chemistry, physics, and geology. His interest in
biology seems to have been early bound with his enjoyment of the
study of plants and animals. While quite young, he received a
present of a two-volume " Hydropathic Encyclopedia." The medi-
cal profession also, because it relieved suffering, appealed strongly
as another possible career for himself.

One afternoon he would read Thomas Gray's poems, and the
next, experiment with his crude chemical apparatus and para-
phernalia. Erwin ordered his chemicals from reputable companies.
His investigations covered some points of knowledge useful to
him later in experimental research. For instance, he^ "read in

' May 30, 1924.

* E. F. Smith, Mechanism of tumor growth in crowngall, Jour. Agri. Research
8 (5): 165 ff., at p. 171, 1917.

Floi-it of Miihigjii. Study at MirmcAN 7

some boys" wonder book that coffee berries, said to be proverbially
slow to i^erminate, mii;ht be germinated overnight by throwing
them into strong ammonia water. [He] bought some ammonia
with [his] pocket money, tried it, and found it to be as stated, but
[he] held no checks." Fifty years later, while studying ammonia
or salts of ammonia as a possible determining factor in the growth
of tumors in plants, he repeated these experiments and this time
held controls. He connected the work of his adult years with the
discoveries of his youth thus:

I have extended the experiment also to date seeds and to some others
known to be hard to germinate — that is, black-locust seeds, but only with
doubtful results,- and even in the case of coffee seeds some germinate
promptly in distilled water, so that, curiously enough, the experiment
which more than any other determined the trend of these researches would
have had no influence on my thinking had it been made in the first place
properly — that is, with a sufficient number of controls in pure water.

While midway in his 'teens, Erwin began to study ceils of
plants and plant life under the microscope. On January 5, 1870,
he wrote in his diary: "I studied cell life some tonight. [U]sed
Craig's microscope (100 diameters) . [S]aw the cells in two house
plants, moss and cacti . . . ." He drew plates of what he saw.
In the pith of elder he observed "six sided cells very plain"
and compared these with the skin of human hands. Microscopes
were rarities in those years, especially in rural America, and he
longed for one of powers strong enough to carry his anatomical
comparisons further. He was reading a text on anatomy and
physiology, and from the "Chemical News Am[erican] Reprint"
of November, 1867, he had copied a formula for preserving ana-
tomical specimens.

He was an amateur botanist as w^ell as a student of human
physiology; and amateur botanists, interested in cellular physi-
ology, were as rare as professional botanists whose work extended
beyond taxonomic classification of plants. Most botanists, ama-
teur and professional, were natural historians, and very few in
America were genuinely interested in plant physiolog)'.

Many of Erwin's amateur research ventures served practical
purposes, of immediate use, such as the preparation of variously
colored inks, medicinal prescriptions, glues, salves, stain removers,
cements for leather and gas pipes, and metal coatings. Of course,
his investigations required a knowledge of the few known basic

8 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

chemical elements, the simple compounds, and formulas for their
utilization.

On January 7, 1870, his diary read: " Father started for Michi-
gan yesterday. Gone to look at land and to visit friends." R. K.
Smith, for some time now out of the Army, had decided to join
the westward migration moving in large numbers of persons to
the frontier agricultural sections of the middle western and west-
ern states. Michigan already was a land of hope and promise,
and a virtual boom in farm-land values of many years standing
was not entirely over. Orchards of the best quality in the larger
fruits, notably apples and pear, peach, plum, and cherry, together
with vineyards and other small fruit culture, were being planted
throughout the state; and the stories of abundant harvests and
healthful living conditions caused many to dare the dangers of the
temporary lacks of civilization. While by far the largest land area
was still under forest, the state's industrial future seemed assured
because of the extensive business development from lumber and
horticultural crops. Urban as well as rural centers were growing
in population. The school system was adequate; and in its agri-
cultural college at Lansing and its university at Ann Arbor the
state had two of the best educational institutions of the nation.
Early in March, R. K. Smith returned to his family at Gilberts
Mills, New York, and on March 7 Erwin wrote in his diary:
"We start for the west the 20 of this month. Father has bought
a farm of 80 acres in the northwest corner of Clinton Co[unty}
in Michigan near Maple river .... The Future will soon be
the Past. God speed the Present."

A deep snow prevented the family's departure on March 20;
but the next became the "eventful day," and until the morning
of March 23 they rode "in the cars," crossing Suspension Bridge
during the night of the twenty-second, and reaching Detroit the
next morning. From there they went to the home of Erwin's
grandmother in Ionia County and lived about two weeks at North
Plains.

Erwin was so excited on reaching " the west [which had} been
settled in the last half century " that he wrote nothing in his diary
until April 8 and 9 vv'hen, their household possessions having
arrived by freight, they moved to their own farm. He described
his new home in the midst of

Flora of Mich'igiUi. Study at Michigan 9

beautitul spring weather. . . . The l.irni lutlicr has bought is somewhat
stony on the front part ol it, more so than he knew for, he buying it in
the winter, but this can be endured. [I]t must be endured. [0]thervvise
I hke it quite well. [I]t is pleasant, I think, the river running by our door
about an arrow's flight distance away, the banks lined with trees. [T]he
land rises from the river into a liill, part of whicii is covered with trees
behind the house. [T]he farm has about 150 young fruit trees, say six
years or so old. [T]hc woods are mostly Oak, though there arc Walnuts —
Black Walnut, Sweet Walnut, Bitter Walnut — Beeches [and] a very few
Red Elm.

Maple River was neither deep nor wide. In the spring the
overflow of its banks would cover large land areas. But its valley
was beautiful, and he learned to love it as much, if not more than,
the countryside around Gilberts Mills, New York.

Immediately after uncrating their furniture and settling their
home, Hrwin went to work woodchopping and picking up stones.
On April 14 they manured and plowed their garden. Ten days
later he and his father went into the nearby village Hubbardston
and purchased a cow and another plow. All that spring and
summer he helped his parents with the farm work and house-
hold chores. They harvested hay, corn, beans, apples, potatoes,
and other garden truck. They cut acres of clover for seed and
reaped a good financial return per bushel. They threshed buck-
wheat, sawed wood, sold oats, killed hogs, hunted for wild game
including turkeys, gathered hazel nuts and, all in all, their profit
that year seemed to vindicate the wisdom of casting their lot in a
frontier state.

Erwin was affectionate by nature and he longed for the loved
ones left at Gilberts Mills. Soon after arriving in Michigan he had
begun to write letters to friends and relatives, and by April 16
there was a prospect of answers. He read botany part of the day
and in the late afternoon walked through a wet drizzling snow-
storm to Hubbardston after the mail. As he trudged along the
icy and snow-covered road to town, his spirits were buoyant for
he was happy in the thought that, regardless of the years of hard
work before them, his family had a good home and " a good farm
as far as soil [was] concerned." Many persons would have been
discouraged because of the land's stoniness and stumpiness. The
sizable mortgage on the farm could have occasioned misgivings
for the future, even despair. He, however, was always happy

10 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

when out-of-doors. His parents had gone to the county seat on
business matters and left him with no special work. He, therefore,
gave himself over to searching for natural objects to add to his
collections of Indian relics, plants, stones, and animals. After he
had explored the three and one-half mile area to the village, he
went to the drug store where was located also the post office.'
Probably on this journey he became acquainted for the first time
with Charles F. Wheeler, the village druggist and postmaster
who, for the next sixteen years, would be one of his closest
friends.

Erwin was attracted to him " first because he was very congenial
and one of the few distinctly intellectual people of the village,
and because he was a born teacher and a man who rapidly and
effectively got hold of young people for their improvement. Next
to the church and perhaps more so than the church, the drug
store in that village was the intellectual center." ^ At least two
obvious reasons account for Wheeler's and young Smith's im-
mediate interest in each other. Wheeler also had been born in
New York State. Educated in the famous Mexico Academy
located in the town of his birth and bearing the same name, he
had journeyed westward and entered the University of Michigan
where he completed one year but left to enlist during the Civil
War on the Union side. Contracting pneumonia, he had been
rendered unfit for further active service. He then married and
settled at Hubbardston where in the drug business in partnership
with a cousin, Henry Wheeler, he remained for twenty years.

It is not improbable that when on April 16 Erwin walked to
the village drug store to obtain the family mail he had in his
pocket his copy of Gray's Field, Forest, and Garden Botany, the
second edition of which had been published that year. He had
heard of " a man in the village by the name of Wheeler who was
interested in botany." Quite likely, therefore, he inquired for him,
made his acquaintance, and "from that time on" they "got
together frequently to compare notes and specimens." As the
spring enlivened the earth with greenness and blossoms, they
began to collect together and separately. Erwin studied botany
that year from spring through autumn and by December he was

" Quotations are taken from a memorandum prepared by Smith many years later,
but left undated and unsigned.

floru of MiLhigdn. SiiJDv AT Michigan 11

referring in his diary to botanizing expeditions with "Charlie
Wheeler." They had decided to explore " the whole state as far
as [they] could do so and to make a catalogue of the plants of
the state which should be something more than a mere catalogue,
that is, [it was to] include geographical and ecological notes."
Ecology was a word not yet in use in America; and only in rare
instances were plants and plant societies studied in the light of
their physical and biological factors.

Geology, entomology, and medicine each appealed to him as
study subjects. But, most of all, he enjoyed the study of plants
and reading the books on botany. A "great variety of strange
and beautiful plants and shrubs" were to be found around Hub-
bardston and the environs of his father's farm. He brought plants
and shrubs from the woods to his mother's flower garden. Years
later he recalled his mother's garden in a poem:

There lilies opened white and creamy wells;

There daffodil and tulip flaunted gold;
Rathe primrose, crocus, hyacinth, made bold ;

There larkspurs grew with Canterbury bells.
Dark peonies where no sweet odor dwells,

Snow-ball, mock-orange, iris yellow-stoled,
June-rose, tall hollyhock, pinks manifold,

With half a hundred more fond memory tells.

And there the boy each spring and summer saw

The lithe shoots push from beds of warm brown earth,

Then leaf and flower appear, by some fixed law;
And wondered o'er it all, as seasons rolled —

The yearly miracle, the strange new birth —
And wonders yet the more, now he is old.i°

When the family moved to Michigan, the central parts of the
state were covered with huge forests of white pine. Many of the
pines were more than one hundred feet high and had trunks of
three to four feet in diameter. Some towered one hundred and
thirty to one hundred and forty feet and bore diameters of five to
six feet. The lumbering industry already had started to devastate
wude areas of valuable white pine forests. Yet many a summer
day he roamed the forests, searching for the dainty, creeping, twin-
flowered Linnaea, Clintonia, or orchids. Often he visited the
chestnut and beech woods, climbed high into their branches, bare

"April 6, 1913.

12 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

footed and bare handed, and returned proud of his store of golden
burs and meaty nuts. He learned the life habits of the field mouse
and timid hare, the brown bats which flew about on velvety wings,
the tawny foxes which lived among the hills. He found shells,
bones, and other fossiliferous evidences of ancient life in rocks of
the region, and prized them "more than gems." Of nights he
read on the region's natural history, examining his "treasure
trove" of corals, crinoid stems, and broken reefs from glacial
drift, and learned of the far past epochs and eras of the geological
calendar, from the period of Devonian seas and shores through
the Carboniferous and Cretaceous ages to the coming of man on
the earth. His imagination must have dwelt especially on the
" Strange herbs, and forests of the weirdest trees; Low shores that
swarm with life" where were no flowers or bees, and before the
coal was massed. Because, later in life, in 1925, he wrote a group
of poems on these subjects, and in each the reactions of an " eager
boy," obviously himself, were presented. Of " Evolution " he was

to say:

Out of the Earth itself came man and beast,
What's anchor'd, swims, or flits on painted wings,
The endless multitude of creeping things.
Tall trees, green herbs, gray lichen, fungus, yeast,
All eager to partake of Life's great feast —
What runs and leaps and soars, or merely clings.
What rusdes, murmurs, hisses, roars or sings,
Yea, whatsoever living thing is least !

Earth swarms! So be it, there is room for all!
And still they come! As on creation's day,
Triumphant rise new forms while old ones fall.
But the God in sentient things, the urge divine
That vivifies — That too must be in the clay:
Each atom of it throbs, a living mine ! ^^

Even before he knew much of Charles Darwin's Origin of
species by means of natural selection (1859), or Darwin's or
Alfred Russell Wallace's theories on evolution as presented July
1 1858, before the Linnean Society of London, he had observed
evidences of the relentless struggles for survival among natural
forms. One day he watched a large hornet battle with three flies,
take the juice of one and at the same time try to catch another;

" February 26, 1923.

Florj of Michi^iin. Sruin' at Mkiikian H

and he recollected that lie had read somewhere that wasps kill
insects and place them in their cells to feed on their larvae when
they hatch out. He was unafraid of reality and the facts of nature,
yet he adored legend and fiction and all things of the imagination.
In the forests he could reconstruct in fancy the sacrificial rites of
the Druids, the while he was watching a woodsman chop down a
tree. He could be at one and the same time a Robin Hood in
imagination and a woodchopper in actuality.

Late in October 1870 the Smiths added one hundred new apple
trees to their orchard, and Erwin journeyed joyfully with his father
to a nearby railroad station to get them when they were shipped
from a Monroe nursery. When picking apples, high on a ladder,
"a basket on his knee, he was prone to sail his romantic ships far
beyond the thoughts of apples and relive the poets' legends which
haunted his brain and murmured on his lips. A rumor spread that
soon a railroad might be built to the village. He ardently hoped
this would be. He was a born enthusiast. When driving the
family's cattle and horses home from pasture, or hogs and other
domestic animals from the woods where they fed on acorns and
leafy foliage, he would mark out new plants, return to the locali-
ties after evening chores to gather them; and far into the night
study them with the aid of a manual. Things of both the earth
and sky entranced him. He could agree with John Ruskin that
there was no need of picture art galleries when gloriously colored
ever-changing skies were near. Equally much he could love with
his whole heart the sight of a meadow filled with sky-blue gentians
where a forest was the background. In autumn he would watch
the " gray oaks cast afield their rippling spray on long straight
arms to greet the autumn ray And make of light and shade the
background meet For picture painted by the moment fleet." To
him, as also to Thoreau, " Olympus is but the outside of the earth
everywhere," whether one gathered the pale anemone, blue rathe
violet, or harbinger-of-spring, climbed adventurously the hilltop
hemlocks to the open sky, or fished through the ice of Maple River
amid the barren trunks of maple, ash, and elm.

On September 4, 1870, Rancellor King Smith and his family
united with the First Congregational Church of Hubbardston.
That autumn thoughts of the family turned to Erwin's schooling,
a matter which owing to circumstances had been neglected since
their departure from Gilberts Mills. As late as December 21, the

14 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

youth wrote in his diary: " I am on the Farm, have worked on it
all the time since we came here. I am studying Arithmetic, Or-
thography, Gramar, and Botany. I do not go to School this
winter. I have made good progress in Botany this summer and
expect to do much more next Summer." He wished that he might
own books on materia medica, agricultural chemistry, astronomy,
and other subjects. Evidently as yet Charles F. Wheeler had not
started him on his study of French. The older of the two young
men was about two years ahead of Smith in botanical study; and
so he had first to catch up in botany. Nevertheless, Wheeler, also
interested in languages, gave him his first lessons in French, an
acquirement believed next in importance to German. They read
together. Wheeler lent young Smith books; among them, works
by Rousseau, his " Confessions " and " Emile," as well as Madame
De Stael's " L'AUemagne." These, with Scott's Waverley novels,
the writings of Bulwer-Lytton, and other literary masterpieces,
placed the Maple River farm youth in advance of the learning of
even the adult townspeople of Clinton or Ionia counties.

Erwin completed most of his grade schooling while living on
the farm. By long hours of study at home, the youth educated
himself. Schooling often had to be secondary to the farm work.
He may have attended some of the county schools before entering
at the advanced age of eighteen years the schools of Hubbardston.

During the winter months, when the heavy snows and cold
lessened his farming duties, R. K. Smith earned part of his
family's livelihood by making and selling medicines prepared
from mostly herbs and roots of plants. Foremost of the products
which he vended was a preparation known as " Burdock's Bitters."
Sincere and honest, devoutly religious, but poor, Erwin' s father
fought valiantly against adversity. But rains ruined their wheat
crop during two successive years, and, because of this and other
reverses, the farm in Clinton County was lost; and the family was
forced to move to one in North Plains Township, one mile north
of Hubbardston. To walk the distance to the village was possible.
In 1876, when twenty-two years of age, Erwin went to the high
school at Ionia, the county seat.^"

The year 1876, when the Philadelphia Centennial celebrated
one hundred years of American independence, was an important

^" Based on letters and materials collected by Miss Florence Hedges in 1932.

Floiii of Miibigiin. Study at Michigan 15

one in the life of young Smith. It took courage for a full bearded
youth to enter the Ionia High School, two weeks late, with few,
if any, acquaintances, and the difficult prospect of supporting him-
self during each of the years till graduation.

Exceptional circumstances often give rise to exceptional solu-
tions. A wise principal, Anson P. DeWolf, educated at the
University of Michigan, seems to have realized this. Impressed by
Smith's "unusual intelligence, courteous bearing and evident ac-
quirements," ^^ he granted him " full permission to come and go
as the spirit moved." The eager young scholar-farmer from Hub-
bardston " had acquired a fine knowledge of the French language."
Indeed, he already "read extensively the French scientific books"
., which laid part of his " foundation for the scientific work of his
later life."

On October 27, 1876, Wheeler, by letter, encouraged him to
continue his botanical studies while going to school in Ionia.
"We must begin," he wrote, "to think of getting the materials
in shape for our Catalogue, Catalogus Plantarum circa Hubbard-
stonensem Nascentiuni. How will that do for a title page.'' You
are studying Latin I believe. Are there any errors?" By 1878
they had prepared a "List of Cent[ral} Mich[igan] Plants."

Principal DeWolf never complained when his young student
dropped everything, filled his collecting can with food, and went
into the woods and fields to search the region for uncommon and
new species.

Joseph Charles Arthur, student of Charles Edwin Bessey of
Iowa Agricultural College at Ames, was among the nationally
known botanists with whom they exchanged specimens of plants.
As early as 1870 he had sent a list of his duplicates and, both
then and in 1876, offered copies of his catalogues of plants from
the Iowa flora. On October 16, 1876, from Philadelphia, he wrote
of the Centennial where he had an exhibit of Iowa plants for
which he received a medal. Thomas Jonathan Burrill, botanist of
the Illinois Industrial University, displayed a collection of woods."
Other botanists from various quarters of the nation supplied ex-
hibits. Federal Commissioner of Agriculture Frederick Watts had

^^ L. R. Jones, Erwin Frink Smith 1854-1927, a biographical memoir, Natl Acad,
of Sci. of the U. S. of Amer., 21:3, first memoir, 1939.

^*J. T. Barrett, Thomas Jonathan Burrill, Phytopathology 8 (1): 1, Jan. 1918.

16 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

arranged that each division of his Department — Entomology,
Chemistry, Gardens and grounds, Botany, Microscopy, and Statis-
tics— should contribute displays in acknowledgment of the "uni-
versally-accepted " belief that " to agricultural science and industry
belong the attribute of characterizing the leading feature of the
world's improvement." "

The Microscopical Division supplied a collection of " finely-
executed water-color drawings" representing a wide variety of
subjects, six hundred specimens in all, among which were shown
the more common molds, those destructive to vegetation and those
of value in preparing cheese, bread, and jellies. Approximately
one hundred varieties of vegetable starches were presented in one
series; edible and poisonous mushrooms were differentiated; and
one series of drawings illustrated such important diseases of
plants as pear-tree blight, the black knot of cherry and plum, and
the rot of potato. For the first time a " large collection of well-
executed drawings of cryptogamic plants" had been brought
together: and the collection, it was believed, ^^ would prove "of
permanent value to mycological science in America." In 1873^^
Thomas Taylor, the Department's microscopist, had reported ex-
aminations made of several plant diseases: hawthorn-blight,
potato blight and rot, black knot, orange blight, apple-speck or
rot, and onion-rust. Pear blight was omitted, perhaps because he
believed that its suspected fungous origin had not been proven.

Arthur, in his Philadelphia letter to Smith, mentioned no
exhibits except his own. He had spent six months at the Cen-
tennial; yet his next letter of January 6, 1877, told nothing of
interest on mycology but did compliment the young Michigan
student "on the very careful and scientific manner in which you
have preserved your last season's spec[imen}s. They are," he
wrote, " a hundred times more valuable than the ones sent me
previously."

Before he had graduated in 1872 from Iowa Agricultural Col-
lege, a compound microscope, a ToUes instrument, had been used
in courses there. In the spring (March-June) of 1871, Bessey had

^^ Repl't of the Comm'er of Agric. for 1876: 7, 12, Washington, Gov't Print. Off.,
1877.

^* Thomas Taylor, Microscopic investigations, Rep't of Comm'er of Agric. for
1876: 74-76.

^'' Rep't of the Comm'er of Agric. for 1873: 183-210.

Flora of Mich'i^iin. Srum at Mk iiigan 17

lectured on the funci " to what was then the class in advanced
botany, composed of members of the Junior Class. It naturally
follows," he later wrote," " that in the first course of lectures the
subject was not very profoundly treated and yet, since Ames Col-
lege is an agricultural institution, I found it necessary to deal with
the matter somewhat ' economically,' and this made it necessary
that 1 should discuss fungi in such way as to bring out the life
history of each plant so discussed. ... I had lecture demonstra-
tions on various spores and other parts of the more interesting
fungi. That first course of lectures was followed the next year
by a similar one, considerably improved," and ultimately these
lectures became the basis for his " treatment of the fungi" in his
rmportant text, Botany for High Schools and Colleges, which was
published in August of 1880.

In 1877 had been published at Beloit G. D. Swezey's Catalogue
of the Exogenous Endogenous and Acrogenous Plants of Wis-
consin. Smith thought this "very neat"; and he added to his
small number of correspondents a very important trio of southern
Indiana botanists, publishers of the recently established Botanical
Gazette. In 1878 Charles Reid Barnes of Madison, Indiana, and
Smith began exchanging species of plants and county and state
floras. Wheeler and Smith had a printed " List of Phaenogams,
Ferns, and Mosses indigenous to, or naturalized in, the Counties
of Clinton, Ionia, Gratiot, and Montcalm in Central Michigan."
Barnes had prepared a " Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and
Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of Jefi^erson County, Indiana."

In 1878 Professor John Merle Coulter of Hanover College,
Indiana, founder and editor of the Gazette, also arranged with
Smith to exchange " desiderata." Within a year Professor Coulter
and his brother, Stanley, were announcing plans for a state-wide
Indiana flora; and two years later, these editors of the Gazette
and Barnes presented their Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and
Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of Indiana.^'-* In 1882 a supple-
ment was added; 1,432 species and 577 genera were described
under four principal regional classifications: those plants common
to the river valleys, those of the lake borders, those of the prairies,
and those of the " barrens," so-called.

" Letter, C. E. Bessey to E. F. Smith, December 17, 1901.

** See chapter III, "' The Indiana Flora," in the author's biography of John Alerle
Coulter, Alissionary in Science, 29-37.

18 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

Similarly in 1881 appeared Wheeler's and Smith's Catalogue
of the Phaenogamous and Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of
Michigan, indigenous, naturalized, and adventive, in which 1,634
species and 113 families or orders were described.

These state catalogues brought each of their authors into promi-
nence, and every one of them became later leaders in American
botany. The work of the Michigan flora provided an introduction
for Smith to two of the state's professors of botany, William
James Beal at the agricultural college at Lansing and Volney
Morgan Spalding at the state university at Ann Arbor. Wheeler
and Smith, during fourteen years of exploring and gathering
specimens from other herbaria, systematized more than 1,100
species of flowering plants and ferns. Earlier catalogues of Michi-
gan plants, some originating from studies of specimens gathered
on the first scientific exploratory expeditions of the Great Lakes
and upper Mississippi River regions, had been consulted. Michi-
gan, for many years, had been among the leading states in the
study of plants. As early as 1838, when the creation of the state
university was still a matter of contemplation, a Gothic building
to house natural history and the appointment of Asa Gray as pro-
fessor of the subject were foremost among the plans. Valuable
herbaria, as, for examples. Dr. D. Cooley's at the Agricultural
College and Dr. John Wright's and N. H. Winchell's at the
state university, together with about a dozen formal plant lists,
were available and made use of. Wheeler and Smith paid tribute
to the pioneering accomplishments of " the little band of inde-
fatigable naturalists of the past generation. . . . First among
them," they said, " stands Dr. Douglass Houghton, while around
him, among others, may be grouped the botanists, Dr. Zina
Pitcher, Dr. Abram Sager, Dr. Dennis Cooley, and Dr. Daniel
Clark, of whom alone Dr. Clark remain[ed], full of years and
still active in the pursuit of his favorite science." Indebtedness
was acknowledged to George Thurber, a contemporary of Torrey
and Gray and still influential as editor of the American Agricul-
turist, to Professor Albert Nelson Prentiss and Professor J. C.
Holmes, formerly with Michigan Agricultural College. Once,
while on a visit to Hubbardston, Smith became acquainted with
Liberty Hyde Bailey, junior, who, while a student at Michigan
Agricultural College had met Wheeler and accepted his invitation

Flnru of M/cb/gnfL Study at Michigan 19

to visit him. Bailey was to IcaJ in the movement for a "new
horticulture." Durint; these years, he was more interested in
botany, thoui;h plant life of whatever form fascinated him. He
had become interested in the work of the cataloc^ue, furnished lists
and specimens of plants growing in the vicinity of Lansing and
Soutii Haven, his home. He would praise the catalogue in open
meetings of students and faculty at the agricultural college.

Smith had been fortunate in enlisting the interest of a number
of botanists over the country, hi the east was Mary Treat of
Vineland, New Jersey, known for her collections along the At-
lantic seaboard as far south as Florida and as an early biographer
of Asa Gray; also, S. N. Cowles of Otisco, Onondaga County,
New York. Among other collectors within near ranges of latitude
were correspondents in Canada and as far east as Sweden. In
North Carolina w^as M. E. Hyams, and at Washington, D. C,
Lester F. Ward who sent Smith copies of his Flora Columbiana.
Others might be mentioned. No one, how^ever, rendered more
valuable assistance to Wheeler and Smith than William James
Beal.

Beal, born in 1833 at Adrian, had been educated at the Uni-
versity of Michigan where he received his B. A. degree in 1859
and his M. A. degree in 1862. Going to Harvard to study under
Gray and obtain in 1865 his degree in science, he had excelled as
a student of botany and come under the influence of Louis
Agassiz. He left Harvard imbued with Agassiz's educational phi-
losophy; and passionately urged his students to learn every ob-
servable fact about nature and natural objects. Book learning w^as
not enough. The book of nature itself must be opened and care-
fully examined.

Logically enough, he emphasized investigations in physiology
and pathology without at any time neglecting the fundamental
importance of taxonomy and morphology. Beal was one of
America's first great plant histologists; and one of the first
teachers, if not the first, to take his students into the garden and
farm field to study crop improvement and into the forest and
scenes of wild nature to study the natural flora. Crop amelioration
by selection and hybridization was studied experimentally under
varying conditions of soil and climate. His work in seed testing
was valuable. First president of the Society for the Promotion of
Agricultural Science, he presided at its organizing meeting held in

20 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

Boston on August 24-25, 1880. In June 1879 Dr. E. Lewis Sturte
vant, then of South Framingham, Massachusetts, and editor of
Scientific Farmer, had published such a strong " Plea for Agri-
cultural Science" that Beai had begun corresponding with several
scientists with a view to forming a nation-wide society dedicated
to stimulating scientific study in agriculture. At the Rochester,
New York, meeting in September of that year of the American
Pomological Society, a preliminary organization had been effected,
and at the Society's first formal meeting Beal outlined a program
designating the objects and directions the Society should follow:

I. To encourage the formation, cooperation and support of agricultural

experiment stations.

II. To try to ascertain what experiments in agriculture are most needed,

and indicate the methods of conducting them.

III. To discover and define the best methods for uniform standards in
the analysis of soils, fertilizers and vegetable products.

IV. To discover and define the best methods of stamping out parasites
and contagious diseases of all domestic animals.

V. To endeavor to find the best combination of foods for growing and

fattening animals in the various parts of our country.

VI. To make discoveries and extend the application of science to dairying.

VII. To experiment in fish culture.

VIII. To investigate insects which are injurious or beneficial in agricul-
ture, and discover improved remedies for those which are injurious.

IX. To learn and point out the best methods for testing each kind of
agricultural seed, to ascertain its vitality and purity.

X. To make investigations in vegetable physiology, especially with refer-

ence to learning how to keep plants in healthy and productive
conditions. To study fungi which infect cultivated plants and point
out remedies.

XI. To advance the subject of improving crops by the selection, cultiva-
tion, crossing and hybridizing plants for seed.

XII. To encourage agricultural surveys in the states and the nation, and
to discover improved modes of conducting them.

XIII. To encourage agricultural education, to encourage and approve
good work done by any one in the United States Department of
Agriculture.

XIV. To encourage collecting and improved methods of arranging and
presenting statistics in agriculture.

XV. Finally in every way to encourage and help each other and others
who are not members in original research in all that pertains to
science in agriculture. -°

^^ Proc. First, Second and Third Meetings of the Society, ed. by W. J. Beal and
L. B. Arnold, 12-13, Syracuse, N. Y., Farmer and Dairyman Print. 1883.

Flora of Michignn. Study at Mk higan 21

In 1881 Real's famous address, '■The New Botany,'" was pub-
lished, and its presentation before a Michigan teachers' conven-
tion became an important event historically in the science. The
"new botany" signified new methods of study and instruction.
A maxim which Dr. Heal taught all of his life was " Details and
facts before principles and conclusions." He, before beginning
his forty years of teaching at Michigan Agricultural College, had
taught for two years and obtained a master's degree in science at
the University of Chicago. His doctorate of science was later
secured at Michigan Agricultural College. But by 1880 his alma
mater, the University of Michigan, had invested him with an
honorary degree of doctor of philosophy.

When Wheeler and Smith had their catalogue of Michigan
plants ready to be published, they went to Beal who consulted
Charles W. Garfield, a graduate and former teacher at the agri-
cultural college, now a farmer, banker, and business man still
vitally interested in horticulture, agriculture, and forestry, in fact
secretary of the state horticultural society. Bcal told him that
" two Hubbardston boys had something that was very valuable
but they had no money." Garfield saw in their work " just what
[he] wanted [for his] next horticultural volume and it was
printed in the 1880 report"-^ of the society. Reprints at a small
cost were made and Smith and Garfield became warm friends.
So recognized for its merit was the flora that copies containing 105
pages of descriptive material, corrections, and a preface which
elaborated " main features" of the vegetation of the upper penin-
sula, areas around the Great Lakes, in river valleys, upland re-
gions, marshes, pine country, the lower peninsula, and other
special localities, were published in bound form under the title,
Flora of Michigan.

How much of a part Volney Morgan Spalding had in its prepa-
ration before the year 1881 cannot be said positively. He had
published a " List of native medicinal plants of Michigan," and its
use as source material was acknowledged by Smith and Wheeler.
Spalding also was an easterner. In 1849 he had been born at
East Bloomfield, New York. But his advanced education had
been acquired at the University of Michigan where in 1873 he
had been graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Soon

" Letter, Garfield to William Alton Taylor, April 22, 1927.
2

22 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

appointed an instructor in zoology and botany, he was by 1879
assistant professor of botany.

During the early part of this year Anson P. DeWolf, principal
of the high school at Ionia, was taking advanced study at his
alma mater and wrote Smith of his interest in his work, mention-
ing " ' identification of vertebrates ' and Structural and Physiologir
cal Botany" as his main courses. He believed that, while Smith
was earning his high school education under difficulties that would
defeat many a valiant, hardy spirit, his "actual progress [was]
much greater than that of the average student in the University";
indeed, better " than two thirds of the students in our best col-
leges." He liked Smith's "cheerful outlook," and, believing his
health holding well against severe odds of arduous toil and study,
urged: ^^

T wish very much that you could have the advantages of the U[niver-
sity} of M[ichigan}. Your last letter contained some things of interest
respecting your work with the plants you are receiving and your plans,
and it being a very excellent letter I took the liberty to show it to
Prof[essor} Spalding. He remembered you well and the letter inspired
him with an unusual interest in you and your work. I supplemented the
letter with a detailed account of the admirable work you had done and the
beautiful spirit you had manifested, and I am sure you have not a warmer
friend or one more deeply interested in your success than he. He asked
me about you again yesterday and said " he should wish you could be here
next year." When you do come you will find in him an excellent in-
structor and an earnest friend. I think a irreat deal of him.

Yes indeed you will have a fine herbarium when you come, and I should
conjecture that you had one already. I should like to see it, but should
know altogether too little to appreciate its worth. I know but little about
systematic Botany but mean to know more about it sometime. My work
in botany has been structural. ... I am pleased at the grit you manifest
in taking up German by yourself. I hope you may succeed with it as you
did with French.

Smith this year evidently was earning his livelihood by teaching
in a district country school, Prairie Creek School by name.
DeWolf congratulated him on his progress in this, as well as his
individual studies. " You certainly have done remarkably well to
take care of so large and advanced a school," he wrote. Erwin had
planned that during the year 1879 he would complete his high
school education, and then go to college. In all candor he had

" March 30, May 25, 1879.

ri(j)d of Michigiin. Srunv at MicmciAN 23

written to \'iohi Holmes on March 28, 1878, in answer to her
inquiry us to what he proposed to do in life, that the following
year he would hnish his courses at Ionia High School and by then
would have had " four years drill in Latin, four in French, to-
gether with the usual amount of Algebra, Geometry, Rhetoric
c!<c," and had made up his mind to take a four years course

in our state University, or, perhaps at Cornell or Cambridye [Harvard
University] in order to fit [himself] for teaching; Natural History. Per-
haps you wonder [he continued] where I get my money and how I can
attord to belong to the non-producing classes so many years. Father
^ helps me some and for the rest I help myself. Sometimes I am ragged,
and often I am pinched for funds. . . . Besides my usual school work
this winter which has been confined, chiefly, to reading Latin and French
authors, I have been very much occupied evenings and Saturday with
botanical work. Last summer I pressed about 3000 plants and this winter
I have been looking them over and putting them into bundles to send to
my botanical friends. I keep up an active correspondence with a dozen
botanists in as many different states. . . .

During the summers he had worked on the farm at home. In
winters, while at school, he had to study so diligently that, strug-
gling against the preciousness of time, he could not be much with
friends, could not often write letters to them or his family. Faith-
ful adherence to the tasks before him, earnestness of purpose, and
reverent thankfulness for his opportunities, were characteristics
of him and parts of his gospel.

Smith's every writing on these and kindred subjects reveals a
simple, sincere dedication of himself to God's work. He was no
believer in putting " saints into theological strait-jackets." " ' The
groves were God's first temples,' " he later said,-^ " To me all days
are God's days, all men his children, and every devout heart pagan
or Christian his shrine. It goes, therefore, without saying that
' materialism ' does not seem to me to embody the last word either
in natural science or philosophy." He chose to regard his life and
his work as efforts expressive of true religion. Should attainments
not crown his labors with what the world called success, his faith
pointed to a "" diviner success in the great beyond.'^ Since child-
hood he had regularly attended singing school. Sabbath school,
morning, evening, and prayer services of his church. That gradu-
ally "Unitarian proclivities" gained ascendancy during his young

" Letter written September 9, 1901.

24 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

manhood meant no more, so far as the reality of his religious
nature was concerned, than that his high sense of honor and intel-
lectual integrity compelled him to reject all narrow orthodoxy.
On August 23, 1877, he wrote Viola Holmes concerning his
activities in the church; but he added, "it matters not so much
where we work, as how." He read sermons of the great pulpit
orators. David Swing especially to him presented " such manly
expositions of Christianity, as it really is, freed of incrustations."

He was no more the " pale faced little fellow whose delight was
to talk with Ida and Viola [Holmes], and to drink entranced at
the wells of knowledge." His sister LiUie had grown to be his
"friend and companion, — rare times," he wrote, "we have had
together reading Shakspere and the Poets." He was confessedly
a hero-worshiper, idolizing persons for " the nobility of their
souls " and not " the beauty of their garments." Later he ex-
plained, " In my high school days Carlyle had more influence on
me than any other prose writer and I am still thankful to the
crabbed old Scot for having impressed me so thoroughly with the
gospel of work. It has stood me in good stead many a time."
The English and American poets were " favorites " and helped
to make his high school experience " three delightful years at a
time when I should have been through the University." An essay
written by him in 1877 points to a considerable influence from the
nature symbolism of the poet Coleridge.

While a student at Ionia high school. Smith edited a small
journal. The Castalia. Miss Josephine Williams, his teacher of
literature and English, inspired him with her belief in his abilities
and his future. During one or two years he was one of several
young persons from the country districts who lived together in a
rented home in order to defray the expenses of their education.
One especially dear friend was Eva Walker. He was a leading
debater in the Philomathean Society of the high school, and en-
joyed the acquaintance of many students, young and old, who
were interested in cultural subjects.

Science, however, more than literature, was his pole-star in
humanity's service. Only a very few of his closest friends and
classmates could share his proficiency. The years in Michigan
had been busy ones, full " of hope . . . full of good . . . full of
toil . . . and more . . . they [had] given [him] a love and a

Flora of AUcbigjn. Study at Michigan 25

reverence for Nature, and a knowledge of [his] own innermost
self beyond all price." -^ His studies of plants were not his only
strong scientific interest.

One afternoon Professor DeWolf announced that a course in
zoology would be offered in the school. So enthused was Erwin
Smith that, collecting his thoughts "upon the real value of this
much neglected but interesting and important study," he prepared
and read before the students a theme entitled "A Plea for Zo-
ology." Outlining a bit of the interdependence and interrelation-
ships of the "animal and vegetable kingdoms," he urged that
comparative mechanisms and life histories of natural forms should
be studied not only because of the many interesting facts already
known and yet to be correlated with future discoveries but also
to understand man's own interrelationships " to each other and
to the earth, to himself and to the Author of all."

"The older and lower forms of life must be known," he in-
sisted, "before its highest manifestations can be clearly under-
stood." Recent disclosures now rendered it "imperative that we
accept Darwin's doctrine of the origin of species, or some similar
theory of Descent to account for a multitude of facts brought to
light since 1859." Science for Smith purposed through systematic
examination of nature's forms and the deducing of natural laws
to present an adequate conception of " the sublime, inspiring fact
that we and all forms of life, whether spoken into being by a
word, or slowly wrought into present forms through secondary
causes, are intimately related to one all wise God whose work
we are."

He was not a believer in Louis Agassiz's " theory of special
creations [of forms] in pairs upon various parts of the earth, a
theory," Smith said,"' "no more, if indeed as much, in harmony
with the account in Genesis, than is the doctrine of development."
He believed that "the great foundation principle of natural and
sexual selection [had been] first clearly enunciated by Charles
Darwin [and would] remain intact." He hailed " the time when
Natural History shall be taught in all schools not cautiously as
an enemy of truth, but boldly as a foundation of all morality and
religion." A knowledge of " some branch of Natural History,"

^* Letter, Smith to Viola Holmes, August 23, 1877.

"^ Undated memorandum, found among Dr. Smith's papers, and from which this
and the next quotation are taken.

26 Boyhood, Early Schooli::g, and Teaching

the twenty- four year old student urged, " is indispensable to a
sound education," and the investigation of our fauna through the
learning of zoology was as important as the study of " a kindred
science" of plants, botany.

Geologists, in accounting for the origin and age of the earth
and the formation of its large-scale physiographic features, were
still ridding their science of the last remnants of the older dogmas
of a cold earth, catastrophic change, and special creation.-'' Smith
evidently studied Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and
found developmental theories of slow, gradual change concerning
rock strata and other phenomena written into the English ge-
ologist's chapters on geological succession. This appealed to the
youth as more proof of the truth of evolution.

Asa Gray's Dariviuiana: Essays and Reviews pertaining to
Danvinism had been published in 1876; and by 1879 the Harvard
botanist's " Structural Botany or Organography on the basis of
Morphology," a sixth and revised edition of his Botanical Text-
book, was to appear. Smith knew that since the American botanical
authority's Introduction to Structural and Systematic Botany (the
fifth edition of the Text-book) had been published in 1857, he,
like Lyell, had become more than ever a believer in the principle
of orderly development. During this period, Smith, so far as is
known, wrote nothing on the germ-layer hypothesis in embryonic
development or on protoplasm and the cell theory, both "corner-
stones of scientific biology""^ scarcely less than a half a century
old. His preoccupation appears to have been with the third great
doctrine of biological science — that of organic evolution; and his
few preserved writings on the subject include mention of the
evolutionary beliefs of Herbert Spencer, Thomas Huxley, and
Jean Baptiste de Lamarck.

Already he had begun some studies in entomology. Students
came to the high school from the nearby towns of Saranac,
Smyrna, and other localities, as well as Hubbardston and Ionia,
the county seat. While exploring this and other regions for scien-
tific materials, he probably became acquainted with interested
persons who helped him with his studies. One E. H. Hunt aided
him. He in 1875, while at Michigan Agricultural College, took

*" Joseph Mayer, Modern geology, The seven seals of science, 276-277 ff., N. Y.
and London, Century Co., 1927.
"''Idem, 324-325.

riora of MichigiVi. STiiin' at Michigan 27

Smith's specimens of insects to Professor Cook, and tlie professor
supplied valuable information concerning some of them. Occa-
sional communications passed between Cook and Smith for at
least t\vo years.

In 1867 Albert John Cook, professor of zoology and ento-
mology at the college, had begun the first formal course in any
American college, devoted exclusively to the study of insect pests
and supplemented by collections of specimens. ■** Lectures and
some previous instruction had been given earlier by C. V. Riley
whose nation-wide reputation had been gained while State Ento-
mologist of Missouri by reason of his efforts to stop the spread of
the Colorado potato beetle during the 1860's from the Rocky
Mountain plateau regions to the central and eastern states. He
studied the life histories and habits of insects and the insecticides
which might be used to exterminate them. The ravages of the
Colorado potato beetle were controlled by a substance known as
Paris Green which was dusted on the plants or the pests. Scientific
agriculture now included economic entomology in the study of
diseases of crops. The value of insecticidal applications was being
studied in Europe and a comparatively untried field was being
opened to demonstrations here. Riley, Cook, John Henry Corn-
stock of Cornell University, B. H. Mudge and Edward A. Popenoe
of Kansas, Burrill of Illinois, and many other able men began to
build this useful science into the fabric of scientific American
agriculture. In 1876 a United States Entomological Commission
was appointed to study Rocky Mountain grasshoppers and, under
Riley's leadership, published notable volumes on Rocky Mountain
locusts and cotton insects, some incidental papers, and a volume
on forest insects by A. S. Packard. During the 1850's Townend
Glover had served the United States Commissioner of Patents as
the first federal entomologist. In June 1878 Commissioner of
Agriculture William G. LeDuc appointed Riley chief of the
Division of Entomology of the United States Department of
Agriculture, and in his office was employed another scholar who
was to become one of America's foremost entomologists, Leland
O. Howard. Entomologist Riley reported that year that, since
taking office, he had "more particularly" concerned himself with

^* Herbert Osborn, Fragments of entomological history including some personal
recollections of men and events, published by the author, 95-97, 103, Columbus,
Ohio, 1937.

28 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

" four classes of insects that seriously affect American productive
industries for good or for evil. These [were]: 1st. Insects affect-
ing the cotton plant. 2d. Silkworms. 3d. Insects affecting the
orange and which so seriously threaten orange culture in Florida.
4th. Insects affecting the cranberry." -^ As yet, federal research
had not been coordinated with instruction such as was being de-
veloped in colleges of agriculture over the nation in the 1870's,
notably by BurriU in Illinois, Charles H. Fernald in Maine, Com-
stock in New York, and Popenoe in Kansas.^*'

Cook, like Beal, had been influenced by study under Agassiz.
He generously advised youthful students of natural history, es-
pecially those interested in entomology. On June 13, 1877, he
wrote Erwin Smith concerning a larval specimen of what he
thought might be Apple-tree Canker-Worm. He suggested the
desirability of securing the mature insect since its origin was in
doubt and a matter of importance.

Plants, nevertheless, remained his favorite study. In 1879 E. H.
Hunt of Saranac told him that in the library of a nearby grange
could be found " a full set of the [Michigan] State Pomological
and Board of Health reports," together with four volumes of
reports of the United States Department of Agriculture. Smith
began to make use of these. An interest in forestry, encouraged
by Beal probably, was aroused when the early reports on this sub-
ject became available. During his senior year in high school, how-
ever, much of his time for study and reading was taken by neces-
sary employments. In 1880 to provide finances to complete his
schooling and prepare for college that year, he worked as a prison
guard at the Ionia State Reformatory.

On June 25, 1880, he was graduated from the Ionia high school,
and for the graduation exercises he composed the school's
"Alumni Song," which expressed characteristically his love of,
and search for, truth. Fourteen students made up the graduating
class.

That summer he attended the summer school of Michigan
Agricultural College at Lansing. He roomed with G. H. Failyer,
later professor of chemistry at Kansas State Agricultural College.

"" Report of the Entomologist, Ann. Rpt. of the Coinin' er of Agric. for 1878: 209,
Washington, Gov't Print. Off., 1879.

^° Fragfne>Us of entomological history, op. cit., 95. Concerning the Entomological
Commission, idem, 35-36.

Flora of Michig.Di. Study at Michigan 29

His two or three main courses were plant histology under Ik-al
and zoology and entomology under Cook.

Since his and Wheeler's Catalogue of the Phaeyiogamous and
Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of Michigan was soon to be pub-
lished, some of his time had to be given toproof-and-copy-reading.
Some of his time, furthermore, was occupied by a part-time em-
ployment with the United States Weather Bureau. Smith became
acquainted with William Arnon Henry, a recent graduate in Agri-
cultural science from Cornell University, who the next year was to
become professor of botany and agriculture at the University of
Wisconsin and in 1887 director of the state agricultural experi-
ment station. Each was interested in teaching science and litera-
ture, and had taught in secondary schools. Henry pronounced
Smith "a pleasant gentlemenly person in conversation"; and as
the next half dozen years went by and he read Smith's scientific
papers and saw notices of his communications, his first opinion
that he was " a good botanist and a clear careful writer on botani-
cal subjects" was supplemented by a belief that he had "done
good work in studying the low^r forms of plant life."

Beal regarded Smith as " a very clear and very capable student,"
who had " a great liking for botany [and] a practical turn which
would be of great value to him." Cook spoke for his accomplish-
ments in zoology and entomology. He estimated Smith " as a very
close enthusiastic student, a man of rare attainments, natural and
acquired," and, as late as 1886, believed he knew of no young
man whom he could "more highly, and gladly recommend" for
a position as professor of natural history. Failyer w^as sure Smith
was both diligent and efficient, and of exceptional ability and
worth."

When Wheeler's and Smith's Catalogue of Michigan Plants
was published, Henry immediately offered congratulations, saying,
" It is a credit to your state as well as yourself that such a list
is published." Charles Sprague Sargent, Director of the compara-
tively new Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, character-
ized the catalogue as both " interesting and most instructive. . . .
Such publications," wrote Sargent, "are most important, and
should be prepared for every State." Professor N. H. Winchell of
the University of Minnesota, who was in charge of a botanical
survey of that state and had been a resident of Michigan, compli-

*^ Quotations taken from letters written in May 1886.

30 Boyhood, Early Schooling, and Teaching

mented the authors on the thoroughness of their work. Another
former resident of Michigan, Albert Nelson Prentiss, Professor
of Botany and in charge of the botanical laboratory of Cornell
University, wrote Smith:

Please accept my thanks for the " Catalogue of Michigan Plants." It bears
evidence of painstaking care, and is altogether a commendable work.
There is no flora in which I feel quite so great an interest as in that of
Michigan, as it was among its plants that I made my first ventures in
botanical studies.

Many congratulations were received. Byron David Halsted,
now associated with George Thurber and the American Agricul-
turist but in 1885 to become professor of botany at Iowa Agri-
cultural College at Ames, tendered his "most sincere thanks."
He was a holder of degrees of bachelor and master of science
from Michigan Agricultural College and had been Farlow's first
graduate student of plant diseases at Harvard University. Lester
F. Ward called the catalogue " a model of neatness and con-
venience and well gotten up." Norton S. Townshend of Ohio
State University, answering a request for Ohio geological survey
reports, thanked Smith especially for a copy of the flora. Other
scientists acknowledged receiving copies. In two leading centers
of plant research, Washington, D. C, and the environs of Boston,
the work was recognized. Farlow and Sereno Watson of Harvard
and Commissioner Loring of the Department of Agriculture sent
communications. Beal, knowing that the list was verified from a
collection of 1,700 plants, sold or distributed at Lansing twenty-
five copies among faculty and students of the agricultural college.

More than ever Erwin Smith was being confronted with his
unrelenting problem of poverty. After his summer spent at Michi-
gan Agricultural College, he found that he could not enter, as
planned, the University of Michigan that autumn. He returned
to Ionia and again accepted employment at the Ionia State Re-
formatory— this time as a keeper of the prison at a salary in-
creased to fifty dollars a month. Not much more is known of his
life during the year 1881 than that his and Wheeler's catalogue
was published and that he lived most of the time at Ionia. Student
he remained, however, and, while not neglecting his study of
plants, he read more and more on public health, sanitation, and
human diseases.

ClIAl'lIlv 11

BACKGROUND OF WORK AND STUDY IN PUBLIC HEALTH, HYGIENE,

AND SANITATION, PATHOLOGY AND BACTERIOLOGY, PREPARATORY

FOR RESEARCH CAREER IN THE PLANT SCIENCES.

MICHIGAN was among the first states to create a Board of
Health. Its Roard was established in the early 1870's, and
its Secretary, Dr. Henry B. Baker, was for many years a leader
(5f the movement for public hygiene and sanitation within the
state and nation. For a decade a national movement to improve
public health had been gaining strength. Since the years 1857-
1860, national sanitary conventions had been assembling in Phila-
delphia, Baltimore, New York, and Boston. During the 1860's
the Civil War had temporarily interrupted progress. But once the
war was over, the campaign to combat the ravages of dangerous
communicable diseases, especially those which had been reaching
epidemic proportions, began again to gather momentum. In 1865
Dr. Stephen Smith and others had conducted a sanitary survey of
New York City and exposed the wide-spread prevalence of diar-
rheal disease, typhus fever, smallpox, etc., among its crowded
tenement sections and elsewhere. By 1872 the influence of his
work had gathered a sufficient following to bring about the
appointment of a preliminary committee to form the American
Public Health Association; and with its first meeting modern
public health practice was given an impetus. The first volumes
of its Proceedings are said ^ to contain

a mine of information, for they indicate the vital matters that concerned
the leaders of that day. Many of the principles that were presented in the
very first report have become the foundation stones on which public health
in America has been built. The broad viewpoint and scope of interest of
these pioneers may be indicated by the subjects that were discussed at the
first meeting. Among others one notes: 1. Public health education, which
was considered even at that time to be of primary importance in public
health matters. 2. Vital statistics— race and nationality, rural and urban
factors in relation to mortality. 3. The germ theory of disease. 4. The
epidemiology of typhoid fever and particularly the relationship of water

^ Wilson George Smillie, Public health administration in the United States, 17,
N. Y., Macmillan, 1940.

31

32 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

supplies to this disease. 5. Control of specific diseases, particularly small-
pox, yellow fever, and cholera. 6. Quarantine and disinfection. 7. Water
purification, street cleaning and scavenging.

The first state to create a health board had been Massachusetts,
and its action appears to have been taken largely as a result of a
report of a sanitary survey made by Lemuel Shattuck and his
associates. The exemplary work of a short-lived health board under
Edv/in Chadwick v/as partly responsible for the curvey; and the
English influence was again revealed in 1876 when, within seven
years after its creation, the Massachusetts board placed before its
constituency a reprinting of a booklet by John Simon on Filth
Diseases and Their Prevention.^ Simon had been one of the first
municipal health officers of England. A medical officer of London
and the British government, he in 1878 had been honored with the
presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons, and for his accom-
plishments and other important writings on public health and
sanitation, he was knighted in 1887.^

Other states followed the example of Massachusetts. As early
as 1870, a state health board had been organized on the Pacific
coast in California. In 1872, among the southern states, Virginia
established a health board. Either just before or during 1872 or
1873 when Michigan did, Minnesota created a state health board.
The District of Columbia in 1871 had established such an official
agency, and in 1874 Maryland, and in 1875 Alabama, were added
to the list.-*

Many years before, large municipalities had begun to organize
health departments. Near the turn of the century Baltimore
officials had been convinced of what might be accomplished by a
municipal health service and organized the nation's first city health
department. Others began to do likewise about two decades later:
Philadelphia (1818), Providence (1832), Cambridge, Massachu-
setts (1846), New York (1866), Chicago (1867), Louisville
(1870), Indianapolis (1872) and Boston (1873). Not until
1888 was a first diagnostic laboratory for the control of com-
municable diseases established. This was located in Providence,
Rhode Island, under the pioneering leadership of Dr. Charles

* E. O. Jordan, G. C. Whipple, C.-E. A. Winslow, A pioneer of public health
William Thompson Sedgwick, 5-6 f ., New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1924.
^ New International Encyclopedia 21: 121.
' W. G. Smillie, op. cit., 15 f.

PrHPAKAIORV K) RrSHARCII CARliliR 33

Value Chapin. He, after serving in 1879-1880 as house physician
of Bellcvuc Hospital in New York City, had become in 1884
superintendent of health at Providence and in 1886 professor of
physiology at Brown University. New York also a few years later
established such a laboratory under Dr. Hermann Biggs, a " states-
man of public health"" as well as physician and an outstanding
leader in the American movement.

Sometime around the year 1870 health boards had begun to
require the reporting of the more important contagious diseases.
At first, primarily administrative agencies, these boards had to
, spend much time educating a disbelieving public in the practical
values of sanitary science; and for the purpose often authentic
statistics concerning diseases and epidemics had to be acquired.
Often their rules and regulations required the passing of laws to
secure their enforcement, and frequently hostility to the measures
was encountered. With the advancement of modern preventive
medicine and the practical introduction of vaccines and antitoxins
against human and animal diseases, their task in public education
became less difficult. But their official duties were greatly ex-
panded. "Environmental sanitation," W. G. Smillie says,® "be-
came a secondary activity of the health department, and control of
communicable disease a major function." Public confidence in the
work of the health boards increased as their successful conquests
of disease began to outnumber their failures.

The forces of public hygiene and preventive medicine united
efforts, and as early as 1879 a National Board of Health was
organized. This lasted but a few years. Yet its discontinuance did
not undermine the American Public Health Association. It became
the leading national organization in public health matters. Dr.
Smillie suggests' two reasons why the health board failed: its
inherent weakness, but mainly that " the country as a whole was
not yet ready for a nation-wide health promotion service."

The humanitarian phase of the movement in which Erwin Smith
first became interested was that directed toward improving hy-
genic conditions within prisons. For more than a century in
several European countries, notably England, reforms had been

" Charles Edward Amory Winslow, The life of Hermann M. Biggs Ai. D,. D. Sc,
LL. D., with bibliography, Phila., Lea and Febiger, 1929.
" Op. cit., 18-19.
'' Op. cit., 19.

34 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

correcting evils in prisons and almshouses. In English prisons,
infirmaries and medical care had been provided for the sick
Rooms were required to be regularly cleaned and ventilated, walls
and ceilings scraped and whitewashed, and generally such
measures had to be taken " as would tend to restore and preserve
the health of the prisoners." ® It was part of an era of providing
better treatment and care for the indigent and helpless ill; and
toward this end more public hospitals were built. Similar reforms
were needed in America, but not to the same extent as in the older
countries. For example, such a requirement as to eliminate under-
ground dungeons was rarely applicable in prison reforms here.
There were, however, some conditions in need of amelioration;
and on one of these — proper ventilation — Erwin Smith spoke at a
sanitary convention held in December 1883 at Ionia. ^ He said:

Those who have carefully examined our poorly ventilated State prisons
have repeatedly had demonstrated to them by the sense of smell, if not
otherwise, that the upper layer of air in a room occupied by large bodies
of men become soonest charged with foul emanations. In sleeping wards
where cells rise above each other in from three to five tiers, the impurity of
the air, as shown by the sense of smell and general feeling of oppressive-
ness, increases as one ascends from one gallery to another, until, towards
morning, on the uppermost gallery near the ceiling, the stench and oppres-
siveness of the air becomes almost intolerable ; and this, too, in spite of the
fact that in our State House of Correction, at Ionia, numerous openings
have been provided in the outer walls near the floor for the express
purpose of ventilation. It is also true, as I know by observation, that
prisoners who sleep in ranges of cells near the ceiling complain more of
headache, have less appetite, and eat considerably less food than those
sleeping in cells near the floor. From these considerations I think it is
apparent that a room cannot be properly ventilated by simply making an
out-door opening at or near the floor.

This was not said as part of a formal address, but in discussion
which followed an address on "Ventilation."

Smith's hours on duty at the reformatory while a guard were
from one o'clock in the morning until one o'clock in the after-
noon. At night he was on duty along the cell block and in the
mornings when the prisoners went to breakfast he went on the

^A Pioneer of Public Health, op. cit., 3-5 (quoted address by Dr. Sedgwick on
" The rise and significance of the modern movement for public health ").

" Supplernent to the 12th Annual Report of the Sec'y of the Mich. State Board of
Health for year ending Sept. 30, 1884, report of convention in part prepared by
assistant secretary Erwin F. Smith.

Pri;paratory to Ri;si:ARc;n Cari:i-r 35

wall with a shotqun. The sufTcring and confinement of prisoners
was a melancholy sight to him. Often while on duty he would
repeat to himself an old couplet: " Be the day weary, be the day
long, It ringcth at last to evensong."

He took this position because, since he had to work to go to
school, there was an opportunity to study between rounds. He was
working then on the catalogue of Michigan plants. He was prob-
ably reading also in sanitary science.

Smith began on October 30, 1878, what he called his " Index

Rerum." His introduction read: "In every book I read, I find

^ some valuable things along with a great deal of to me useless

matter. By keeping an Index book the wheat can be separated

from the chaff and made available for future use . . . ."

Into this was written no abstract or material from state health
board reports. In 1881 when a school journal, the Michigan
School Aloderator,'^^ published his review of the Michigan board's
report for 1880, he suggested that these reports were "valuable
for study and reference and ought to be in every teacher's library.
The school room," he said, "is the proper place for instruction in
Hygiene." Nor was anything of public school interest included
in his "Index Rerum." From Ionia, on November 17, 1881, this
young scholar, himself once a school teacher, supplied to the
School Moderator '^'^ a short, informative argument on behalf of
the teaching of " Physiology in Common Schools." " Now is the
time," he urged, " for the district teacher to agitate forming a
class in physiology [to] understand the laws of health." Physi-
ology without hygiene was like Hamlet without the Prince. He
recommended several texts on human physiology — Gray's Anat-
omy; Flmt's, Dal ton's, or Carpenter's; and said, for "various
reasons" he preferred Dalton's.

Erwin believed.

It is not so much the possession of great libraries as it is the faithful use
of small ones, that makes men learned. I cannot think the Bible, Shake-
speare, and the dictionary sufficient for a man's education, as some have
declared ; but I have learned that a few books carefully read are better than
hundreds of volumes carelessly thumbed. Someone says of Carlyle's library
that the books were few but " worn and battered as if thrown at the ages."

^"Founded at Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 27, 1881, as The School Moder-
ator. Smith's review, " Health Report for 1880," was published in vol. 1, no. 11,
p. 803.

2 (12): 820, December 1, 1881.

11

36 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

Early in 1882 the editor and publisher of the School Moderator
arranged with Smith to have charge of a " Scientific and Sanitary "
department of the publication. In June of that year he was em-
ployed as a correspondence clerk by the Michigan State Board of
Health, and moved from Ionia to Lansing. He was probably
recommended for this position by Dr. Robert C. Kedzie who,
although professor of chemistry at Michigan Agricultural College,
was also a doctor of medicine and an influential figure in the state
medical society and the state health board; a past president of
both organizations.

In 1876 Dr. Kedzie had been chairman of the section of public
hygiene and state medicine of the American Medical Association.
He was a graduate of the first class of the medical department of
the University of Michigan, had distinguished himself as a student
then, practiced his profession for a time, but, because of his
predilection for chemistry, had accepted a teaching position in that
subject at the agricultural college, and become one or the founders
in America of the science of agricultural chemistry. Smith valued
his acquaintance with him and secretary Henry B. Baker of the
Michigan health board, both men doctors of medicine and workers
for the cause of public hygiene and health. In 1881 Dr. Baker
had a column in the Michigan School Moderator. This was
entitled, "Health in Michigan," and was usually based on health
bulletins recently published by the board.

Smith's "scientific and sanitary" department of the Michigan
School Moderator covered many subjects. Two of his early con-
tributions v/ere on " Cheap aquariums " and " Meteoric fossils."
But soon many notes on botany, astronomy, physics, chemistry,
geology, and zoology began to appear. Those on botany ranged
from comments on Asa Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America
to Edward Tuckerman's study of lichens; from cross-fertilization
of plants by insects to insectivorous or "carnivorous" plants;
from the Michigan flora including its ferns to garden plants and
seed catalogues. Paragraphs or brief articles dealt with such sub-
jects as the solvent power of water, silk production in Italy, stellar
immensities of space, comets and superstitions, light velocity, the
earth's motion, the electric light, minuteness of particles of matter,
fire prevention in buildings, and much else.^' Smith's interest in

^" " Scientific and Sanitary " department notes, data, and articles began in January,

Pruparatorv to RiiSHARCn Carhi-r 37

facts about human diseases and their etiology was evident
throughout the two volumes when the department appeared. He
included references to documents on diphtheria and scarlet fever,
to prevention and treatment of other diseases; and, once warning
against a threatened epidemic of smallpox, he urged that the
current prejudice against " vaccine points " was unfounded. Later,
during the summer of ISS"^, when a serious outbreak of typhoid
fever occurred in Ionia, Smith addressed a letter to his former
fellow- townsmen in which he advanced impure water supplies
and lack of proper sewage disposal as probable causes.''' It is not
known definitely when his studious interest in malaria was first
aroused. But it was soon after the year 1881 that he began to
read on the subject and sometime during or before 1883 when he
learned that Edwin Klebs, noted German physician and patholo-
gist and one-time assistant of the great Rudolph Virchow, was
believed to have discovered in 1879 " the cause of malarial fever."
Smith described in his "Index Rerum " the manner in which the
''Bacillus vialariae" was cultivated.

In 1873 Klebs, in an important treatise, " Beitraege zur Kennt-
niss dcr Micrococcen," ^^ had outlined his fractional method of
culture study. No reference to this was made by Smith in his
valuable index entries, nor to any other of Klebs's discoveries.
Emile Duclaux, in his book Pasteur: The History of a Mind,'^^
accredits Klebs with having found bacterial organisms in purulent
nephritis (1865) and with having in 1872 "shown how, starting
from a wound, bacteria could penetrate the lymphatics or the
veins by means of the interstices of the connective tissue, and from
there infect the thrombi of the blood vessels or produce abscesses.
Then," Duclaux concludes, "came the discovery of bacteria in
erysipelas, hospital gangrene, puerperal fever, diphtheria and
other diseases."

Erwin F. Smith's interest in the bacteria may have been started
by his reading of Dr. Sternberg's translation of Antoine Magnin's

1882, and were concluded May 31, 1883. Citations are dispensed with because of
their abundance. See volumes 2 and 3 of the publication.

^^ Report of the Sec'y of the Mich. State Board of Health for the year 1885;
278.

^* Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharmakol. 1: 31-64, with four plates, 1873.

*^ Translated by Erwin F. Smith and Florence Hedges, 248-249, Philadelphia and
London, W. B. Saunders Co., 1920.

38 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

treatise on The Bacteria. The first edition of this work was pub-
lished in French in 1880; and by November 30, 1882, he had
prepared for the Michigan School Moderator '^'^ "a short account
of the bacteria." He recommended the translation as the "best
book on this subject for English readers. . . . This, however," he
cautioned, "was published two years ago, since which time there
have been important discoveries and many changes of opinion."

By this time the alert, young student was much interested in
physiology and was keeping abreast of new discoveries in pathol-
ogy. His review of a book on the physiology of digestion took
into account the value of permanently recorded experimental data
for the building of scientific truths. He believed that the science
of human physiology had made "wonderful strides" since the
year 1833." To him, moreover, the learning revealed by the
microscope was like exploring " a strange, diminutive wonderland,
more startling and vastly more real " than any stories of Aladdin
or Grimm or Gulliver or Munchausen. To him the microscope
provided " a genuine terra incognita of wonders." ^^

Dr. George M. Sternberg had been graduated in I860 from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in
New York City, and the following year been appointed Assistant
Surgeon of the United States Army. In 1892 he was to present
his classic work, A Manual of Bacteriology,^'-^ which, prepared by
"one of the pioneers" in the science in this country, was to be
regarded as the English-reading public's "first adequate survey
of the bacteriological field." The work was divided into four
main parts: classification, morphology, and bacteriological tech-
nology; its general biological character; pathogenic bacteria; and
saprophytes. In a chapter on susceptibility and immunity, Dr.
Sternberg said: " The experimental evidence detailed gives strong
support to the view that acquired immunity depends upon the
formation of antitoxines in the bodies of immune animals." A
reviewer in Science ^'^ found that he, "while disposed to accord to
phagocytosis an important role in some diseases, [was] profoundly
impressed — as [were] most bacteriologist — by the remarkable evi-

"3 (13): 199.

^'' Mich. Sch. Mod. 2 (19): 938, Jan. 26, 1882.

'«2(31): 162, Apr. 20, 1882.

" New York, William Wood & Co., 886 pages.

""21: 107-108, Jan. 24, 1893.

PRHPARATOin TO Rl.SllAKCH CaRUI-R 39

Jcncc adduced durint; the last few years in support of the ' anti-
toxinc ■ theory." By 1892 Elie Mctchnikoff s " brilliant phagocyte
theory" was believed to embody "at most only a partial explana-
tion of the facts of immunity."

Some idea of the thrilling cjuarter-century in which lirwin Smith
was to be educated and acquire his early learning in pathology
and bacteriology may be deduced from another quotation from
this review. The reviewer, seeing in the growing science of bac-
teriology a partial, if not complete, vindication of the practical
worth of "pure science," said of this period: "To have given to
tl;e world for the first time a rational theory of infectious disease,
and to have indicated the therapeutic possibilities of the future
are achievements that may well make the last quarter of the nine-
teenth century memorable in his history of human progress."

Before Dr. Sternberg published his manual which became a
standard one for the new science, he enlarged and revised to the
year 1884 his translation of Magnin's treatise on bacteria. His
career as an army surgeon had provided him with exceptional
opportunities for studying epidemic diseases."^ In 1867, while
stationed at Fort Harker, Kansas, he had been on the scene of a
serious cholera epidemic; in fact, lost his wife from the disease.
In 1871 at Fort Columbus, New York, and a few years later at
Barrancas, Florida, he had observed the ravages of yellow fever;
and in 1879 served as a member of the Havana yellow fever com-
mission. For a decade thereafter he worked on the etiolog)^ of this
disease, and years later when an army board was sent to Cuba to
study the contagion and its transmission he, as Surgeon General,
w^as primarily responsible for the government's sponsoring the
commission."

The study of scientific disinfection is believed "^ to have been
started by Dr. Robert Koch in Germany and Dr. Sternberg in
America. In 1878, while stationed at Walla Walla, Washington,
the young American army surgeon had begun experiments to test

"^ Drs. Howard A. Kelly and Walter L. Burrage, George Miller Sternberg (1838-
1915), Dictionary of American Medical Biography, 1158-1160, N. Y. and London,
D. Appleton & Co., 1928.

^' E. F. Smith wrote of this: " Sternberg, the bacteriologist, was Surgeon General
at the time and without his warm support nothing would or could have been done."
See, Dr. Smith's address, Fifty years of pathology, given in 1926, Proc. Internal.
Congr. of Plant Sciences 1:31, 1929.

'^ Drs. Kelly and Burrage, op. cit.

40 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

the practical value of disinfectants, and in these used putrefactive
bacteria to determine germicidal activity. His experiments were
continued, under the auspices of the American Public Health
Association, at the army medical laboratories in Washington and
still later at the laboratory of pathology at Johns Hopkins
Hospital.

He was also a skillful photomicrographer. In 1881 he exhibited
to the American medical profession one of the first photographs
of the tubercle bacillus, cause of tuberculosis. By 1886 he pos-
sessed a photomicrograph of the causal bacillus of typhoid fever.
In 1884 he made available in America a photomicrograph of
Alphonse Laveran's plasmodium, believed to be a parasitic proto-
zoan of the red blood corpuscles and the cause of malaria fever."*

Erwin Smith, while reading about the bacteria and public
hygiene, became acquainted with the work of Dr. Sternberg.
Entries in his "Index Rerum" as of 1882-1883 show a definite
interest in the etiology of yellow fever -^ and considerable knowl-
edge, as of 1881, concerning the proof of a " schizomycete " or
"bacillus" of malaria. In 1880 Laveran, a French army surgeon
stationed in Algiers, had found in the blood cells of patients
suffering from malaria certain pigmented bodies, and reported his
discovery to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. '"^ American medical
scientists, however, had not fully begun their studies of elements
in the blood of malaria patients; and a belief in bacilli, as possible
causes of both yellow fever and malaria, was fairly prevalent.

Young Smith's interest in the "Bacillus malariae" seems to
indicate more an experimental research scientist in-the-making
than a medical doctor. He appears to have read of bacteria at
this time equally as much as a student of plants as a student of
diseases afflicting mankind. The " bacillus malariae " was referred
to as a "plant," but, what is more important, was his interest in
the environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, oxygen re-
quirements, etc.) necessary to the organism's " development and

=** Idem.

"-'Smith's entries cited; Monsieur Victor Babes's paper, descriptions, and figures
in Comptes Rendus, 97: 682-685, Sept. 17, 1883; and Dr. Joseph Jones's report
(New Orleans) to the Board of Health, reprinted in the London Practitioner,
July and Aug., 1882.

^"See, Dr. Harvey Gushing, The life of Sir William Osier 1: 270 and n. 1,
Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1925.

Prlparatorv to Ri:si;ar(H CARrnR 41

multiplication." He had begun some reading in plant physiology.
A lecture, published in Ndture,'' on the "Excitability of Plants"
fascinated him. In his "Index Rcrum ' he outlined the results
of irritability experiments on Mimosa and some experiments,
made with the use of an electrometer, on Dionaea, an insecti-
vorous plant. The similarities in movement phenomena and other
changed physical conditions observed in these two genera of
plants were compared; and comment extended to resemblances
and ditterences which take place in animal tissues, for example,
when muscles contract.

In 1S82, when he prepared his " short account of the bacteria "
for the Micbrgan School Moderator, he knew something of the
bacilli which were supposed to explain putrefaction and fermenta-
tion. He knew something of the bacilli which were believed to
cause anthrax (or splenic fever) in animals, consumption in man
and animals, and diphtheria in man. The July 1882 number of
the London Practitioner was important because it contained a
paper by a Swedish doctor on the etiology of scarlet fever, and
because of another which told of the presence of micrococci in
mumps. Earlier that year, in his "scientific and sanitary" column
for the /Moderator,-^ he had written on angleworm infusion as
possibly involved in the etiology of typhoid fever. Soil, water,
and air parasites always interested him. In his " Index Rerum,"
his references to plants contained some mention of works on
fungi, but none specifically concerning diseases of plants. The
North American fossil flora, including such current interest topics
as the genesis and migration of plants, interested him. But equally
strong were his interests in matters dangerous to human welfare
and health: unsanitary house drainage, sewer gas, street filth, and
the like.

Before Smith moved from Ionia to Lansing to accept a position
as correspondence clerk of the Michigan State Board of Health,
he had learned of Louis Pasteur's discovery in France of a vaccine
remedy against anthrax in animals. Immediately following an
editorial on the death of Charles Darwin, who he believed had
since 1859 "completely revolutionized scientific thought," he pub-

" August 10, September 14, 1882. Lecture by J. S. Burdon Sanderson.
"2 (22): 18, Feb. 16, 1882.

42 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

lished in the Michigan School Moderator-^ another editorial on
Pasteur's vaccine from an attenuated culture.

Great is M. Pasteur, the French savant. Nothing since [Edward] jen-
ner's [discovery of smallpox vaccination 2°} is more remarkable than his
recent discovery of the cause of splenic fever, and of simple means for
its prevention. He has been able to check the ravages of this fatal disease
by means of a peculiar vaccination. Germs of this disease are grown in
the laboratory and under certain conditions, the key to which M. Pasteur
has discovered, a mild form of virus is developed. Sheep vaccinated with
this virus suffer a slight sickness and thereafter enjoy complete immunity
from the dreadful scourge. As an example of what he could do, M. Pas-
teur selected 50 sheep, 25 of which number he vaccinated with the modi-
fied virus. These were but slightly indisposed, and soon recovered. After
fourteen days he inoculated each of the 50 sheep with splenic fever virus.
The 25 vaccinated animals resisted the infection; the unvaccinated ones
all died of splenic fever within 48 hours. The practical value of this dis-
covery will be reali2ed when it is known that the loss to the flocks of
France from splenic fever has annually exceeded $4,000,000. Vaccina-
tions have become general in the departments around Paris.

M. Pasteur has opened a great field for study. He is practical and his
researches are wonderfully suggestive. What if we shall be able to dis-
cover and stamp out the germs of yellow, typhoid and miasmatic fevers,
by and by, and to reduce the dreadful mortality of diphtheria and scar-
letina. It now seems probable! M. Pasteur is evidently on the right track,
and a multitude of trained observers both in America and Europe will
follow his leadership.

The Michigan Board of Health, interested in preventing the
outbreak, or controlling the spread, of contagious diseases, con-
tinued to publish each year compilations of the geographical dis-
tribution of diseases throughout the state. Very likely Erwin
Smith helped to prepare the Board's weekly reports and summaries
which analyzed the diseases of increasing or lessening prevalence,
their supposed or known causes, and any valid remedies or cures
therefor. In the secretary's report for the year 1882 ^^ was con-
tained a reference to Robert Koch's experimental studies of " con-
sumption," and it was indicated that tuberculosis, whether in man
or animals, is a communicable disease caused by a " microscopic
bacillus." In November Smith, in his " short account of the bac-
teria," called this the "Bacillus tuberculosis."

"2 (35): 235, May 18, 1882.

"" See, Dr. Warren T. Vaughan, Strange malady, The story of allegory, 25-27,
Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1941.
*'P. 518.

PRin'ARATom' TO Risi:ar(H (]ari;i:r 43

From February 28 until March 1, 1882, a Sanitary Convention
had been held at Aim Arbor. This was presided over by the
Michii^an jurist, Thomas M. Cooley; and the secretary of the
convention was Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, a graduate of the Univer-
sity of Michigan's medical department and later to be its dean.
Not yet had Dr. \'aughan been made a full professor of hygiene
and physiological chemistry at the University; and not yet had he
gone aboard to study, and come under the influence of, among
others. Max von Pettenkofer. " No king ever did for Munich and
Bavaria what this model scientist did," Vaughan wrote ^- of von
'Pettenkofer.

About the middle of the nineteenth century Munich was a hotbed of
typhoid fever. From 1857 to 1867 the annual death rate from this disease
in that city averaged two hundred and three per one hundred thousand.
The city was honeycombed with privy vaults and shallow wells. The
contents of the former leaked into the latter, from which the people drank.
About the later date there came to this city a young, intelligent epidemiol-
ogist, one of the first of his kind, by the name of Pettenkoffer. He induced
the people to abandon their privy vaults and cesspools, to build a system
of sewers and to bring a pure water supply from a mountain lake. By
these means the prevalence of typhoid fever was within a few years
reduced to almost zero.

Erwin Smith has described ^^ the North American and European
situation in epidemic diseases prior to 1876 thus:

Typhus fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, syphilis, cholera,
yellow fever, and the plague destroyed hundreds of thousands of persons
every year, and the causes were not known and there were no remedies.
There was a shot-gun quarantine and disinfection of clothing (now known
to be useless) for yellow fever, and with stenches in the houses there
were prayers in the churches against yellow fever, cholera, and other
epidemics. Malarial fever destroyed or invalided multitudes of persons
every year and rendered a large part of the tropics uninhabitable to the
white man, and nothing was known as to its cause or as to how it was
contracted. Many supposed it was due to breathing night air. Following
Pettenkofer, the cause of typhoid fever was supposed to be a miasm in
some way related to the depth of the ground water. No one suspected that
deadly diseases could be transmitted by flies, mosquitoes, ticks, bedbugs,
fleas, lice, cats, rats, rabbits, goats, antelopes, and other animals, or that
an apparently healthy human being (one recovered from a disease) could
remain the carrier of its germs deadly to another. Such ideas were all

'"A doctor's memories, 152, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1926.
''Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 15-16 (address given in 1926).

44 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

on the knees of the gods. The world was not ready for them. It was too
much absorbed in money-making, pleasure, politics, war, and other-world
religion to pay much attention to causes of disease, nor was the scientific
man properly equipped for the study of minute parasites. Apochromatic
glass and cultural equipment were things of the future . . . [T]here was
no science of bacteriology, no immunology, cytology, no genetics, no plant
or animal pathology worthy of the name, no public health service founded
on exact knowledge, and in nearly every case no well-ascertained remedies.
In fact, there was no medicine such as v/e now have based on the circle
of the sciences ....

In America, before 1870, educational entrance requirements
were not in force in even the best medical schools. Laboratory
work and practice were almost unknown.^* "The teaching of
medicine as a science, as something of larger scope than its prac-
tice," Garrison has said,^^

began with the foundation of laboratories and with the gradual assemblage
of specialties as units in university instruction .... It was only toward
the end of the 19th century, under the direction of Eliot at Harvard,
Billings, Welch, and Osier at the Johns Hopkins, and Pepper in Phila-
delphia, that medical teaching began to be true university teaching, in the
sense of training a student to make use of his own mind as a substitute
for blind acceptance of dogma.

Until that time, medical teaching had been mostly by lectures
and demonstrations, supplemented by text-book reading.

Erwin Smith participated in discussions on hygiene at the Ann
Arbor Sanitary Convention."" During the following April,^^
another similar convention took place at Greenville, and at this
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg spoke. He was a graduate of Michigan
State Normal School and the Bellevue Hospital Medical College
of New York City, and had not only founded but was also super-
intendent and surgeon of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Smith may
have heard his address on "Disposal of decomposing organic
matter," since, when in 1881 he reviewed^* the eighth annual
(1880) report of the Michigan State Board of Health he chose as

"W. T. Sedgwick, A pioneer of public health, op. cit., 13-14.

*^ Fielding H. Garrison, An introduction to the history of medicine, 4th ed.,
755-756, Phila. and London, W. B. Saunders Co., 1929-

"* 10th Ann. Rep't Sec'y St. Bd. of Health of Mich, for 1882; 202.

^'^ Idem, acc't of meetings at Greenville, April 11-12, 1882. See also, Mich. Sch.
Mod. 2 (37): 262; 2 (38): 278.

^"The school moderator (Michigan), 2 (11): 803, Nov. 24, 1881.

Pri:paratory to Rlslarch Carei-r 45

a paper " of interest " another by Dr. Kellogg on " Decaying wood
a cause of disease." At that time he found of especial interest also
Dr. Vaugiian's "brief but valuable paper" on "Contamination of
drinking-water by filtration of organic matter through the soil."

By 1882 the Michigan State Board of Health had been func-
tioning almost a decade, and Dr. Vaughan and Dr. Kellogg were
both, at one time or another, among its members and prominent
in its deliberations. Dr. Henry Brooks Baker,^" its secretary since
1872, had received his medical education at the University of
Michigan and the Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He em-
ployed Smith for work with the health board immediately follow-
ing the Greenville convention. Smith probably was acquainted
with each of these leaders in American sanitary science.

At the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, Dr. William Henry
Welch, professor of pathological anatomy and general pathology,
had within a very few years past established " the first laboratory
course in pathology ever given in an American medical school." *°
Following this, another similar laboratory had been founded
under Professor Theophil Mitchell Prudden" at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University; and thus two
leading American medical schools had recognized pathology " as
a subject of independent merit that should be taught practically,
in the laboratory."*- Both men had studied abroad: Prudden at
Heidelberg, Vienna, and Berlin, part of the time taking work with
Rudolph Virchow and Julius Arnold; and Welch at Strassburg,
Leipzig, and Breslau under many of the greatest masters of
pathology, physiology, physiological chemistry, and other subjects.
Both Welch and Prudden w^re of Connecticut birth and graduates
of Yale University; Prudden of Sheffield Scientific School and
Welch of the College of Arts and Sciences. Before going abroad,
Welch had obtained his degree of doctor of medicine from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia. Prudden had
taught at Yale and studied at the medical school there before
beginning work with Dr. Francis Delafield at the College of

" Henr>' Brooks Baker, Sanitary News 5 (55): 79, Feb. 1885.

*" Simon and Jannes Thomas Flexner, William Henry Welch and the heroic age
of American medicine, 114, New York, Viking Press, 1941.

" Francis Carter Wood, Theophil Mitchell Prudden, Diet, of Amer. Biog. 15:
252-253, Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1935.

" William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 116-117.

46 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

Physicians and Surgeons. Welch's rirst European journey has
been characterized as "in its results perhaps the most important
ever taken by an American doctor." *^ He had planned to study
with Virchow but, at Leipzig, while working with Ernst Wagner
in pathology and Carl F. W. Ludwig in physiology, he was ad-
vised by Ludwig to go to Breslau and study with Julius Cohnheim,
a brilliant pioneer in the " application of physiological methods to
pathology." ** At Strassburg he had studied normal histology with
Waldeyer, physiological chemistry with Hoppe-Seyler, and before
he returned home he studied pathological histology with von
Recklinghausen, Virchow's "most brilliant pupil."

While in Europe, Welch and Prudden became acquainted.
Toward the middle 1880's both men went to the University of
Berlin to study with Dr. Robert Koch. The advancement of ex-
perimental hygiene by improvements in bacteriologic technique
has been called " the chief glory of Koch's Institute." *° Prudden
and Welch went to Koch's famous laboratory to learn this, and
more, to learn everything possible of bacteriology and the master's
new study methods. Both men, while in Europe, worked with
other leading scientists: Prudden with Ferdinand A. T. Hueppe,
and Welch with Wilhelm Frobenius and Max von Pettenkofer at
Munich, Karl Fliigge at Gottingen, and, among others, again at
Leipzig with Ludwig and Weigert.*®

During his first journey, at Leipzig, Welch met Dr. John Shaw
Billings*^ from America who was in Germany to study labora-
tories and methods with a view to organizing a hospital and
medical department at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Billings,*^
after distinguished service with the United States Army Medical
Corps during the Civil War, had been transferred to the Surgeon-
General's office in Washington, where he remained for the next
thirty years. He was a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio,
" the tenth medical college founded in this country and, following
the medical school of Transylvania University (Lexington, Ken-

''yem, 16.

**Uem, 78-110 (account of Welch's first European journey), quotation at p. 94.
"^ F. H. Garrison, Inlro. to the hist of med., op. cit., 582.
" WillLwi Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 102, 107, 138-149.
'■'' Idern, 92-93.

**F. H. Garrison, John Shaiv BillinRs, 136, N. Y. and London, G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1915.

PlU-PARATOllV TO RliSliARCH CARI-.IiR 47

ciicky), the second to be established west of the AUeghenics
(1819)."'^'' His years of service with the Medical Corps had
proved fortunate, since, while located at important government
hospitals, he acquainted himself with the latest and most approved
ideas of hospital construction and administration. In time he was
to plan the construction and administration of at least seven great
buildings — the Barnes Hospital or Soldier's Home of the District
of Columbia, the Army Medical Museum of Washington, D. C,
the Johns Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore, the Laboratory of Hy-
giene and the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine in
Philadelphia, the New York Public Library, and the Peter Bent
Brigham Hospital of Boston.'''''

More than ten years before Pasteur and Koch had discovered
the proper methods to investigate the infectious diseases of
animals and man. Dr. Billings had been interested in the germ
theory. During the 1860's and early 1870's, he had reported on
cattle diseases and, in the course of his investigations with Dr.
Edward Curtis, had examined "' fluids of diseased cattle with refer-
ence to the presence of cryptogamic growths." ^^ Contagious
pleuropneumonia and the "Texas cattle disease" were two of the
animal maladies experimentally studied. Their conclusions were,
of course, in the negative, but, it must be remembered that, at
that time, fevers and infectious diseases of man had been studied
for possible cryptogamous origins." After graduating from medi-
cal school, Dr. Billings had been appointed to the faculty as a
demonstrator of anatomy. In Washington his interest in micro-
scopy was supplemented by an interest in microphotography.^^
He learned to read the German language by studying Rudolph
Virchow's three volume treatise on The Pathology of Tumors.
Part of his future greatness was to lie in the field of medical
bibliography, and at the Johns Hopkins Hospital medical school
he was to be a lecturer on medical history.

Dr. Billings was among those leaders of American medicine
who early realized the need for more adequate laboratory facilities

so

51

*' Idem, 4-18, quotation at p. 8.

Idem, 339.

Report of the Comm'er of A,^r/c. on the Diseases of Cattle in the United States.
156-170, Washington, Gov't Print. Office, 1871.
^- John Shaw Billings, op. cit., 150-152.
^""Idem, 138.

48 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

in medical schools. Medical students in large numbers were going
to Berlin, London, Paris, or Vienna to complete, or take all of,
their studies, and the main reasons were superior teachers and
superior laboratory and clinical facilities.^*

Erwin Smith, while yet in Ionia, might have read of the nev/
laboratories of pathology established by Dr. Welch and Dr.
Prudden. More likely, he became interested in their work, after
their founders returned from their studies with Dr. Robert Koch.
He probably knew something of the work of Dr. Billings after he
became connected with the Surgeon General's office. Not yet had
Dr. Sternberg become president of the American Public Health
Association. Many years would pass before Sternberg would be
president of the American Medical Association, and not until 1893
would he be Surgeon General. Smith's learning about pathology
was in 1882 still a matter of books and scientific papers he could
obtain. In Lansing he had access to better libraries. But his learn-
ing about the works of Pasteur and Koch was still quite meagre.

Since the latter half of the 1870's, Pasteur, " the pioneer of
modern preventive inoculation against disease," and Koch, to
whom "we owe the development of the correct theory of specific
infectious diseases," °^ had been at work in their laboratories. We
do not know whether Erwin Smith knew anything of Pasteur's
earlier studies of fermentation and biogenesis. We do know,
however, that by 1882 he believed that the " researches of [John]
Tyndall and Pasteur" had "settled in the negative" the question
of the spontaneous generation of plant and animal forms. ^'^ We
know also that he knew something of the medical research work
of Edwin Klebs of Prague, who, along with Pasteur, did much to
win over pathologists to the bacterial theory of infection.'' Young
Smith at this time appears not to have known of the great French-
man's important studies of alcoholic fermentation and diseases of
wine and his investigations of microorganisms in beer. This work,
for the most part, preceded the year 1875. But, during the last
half of the 1870's,^^ Pasteur's studies of the virulent diseases of

^* F. H. Garrison, Intro, to the Hist, of Med., op. cit., Ibd.

°® F. H. Garrison, Introd. to the hist, of med., op. cit., 575. See also to the same
effect, William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 146.

^^ Michi.s^an School Moderator 3 (13): 199 f., Nov. 30, 1882.

^■^ F. H. Garrison, Intro, to the hist, of med.. op. cit., 580-581.

^^ Idem, ')l6-'bll. Also, Dr. C. A. Herter, The influence of Pasteur on medical
science, Bull. Johns Hopkins Hospital 14 (153): 327-330, Dec. 1903-

Pruparatorv to Rr.si'ARCH Cariior 49

anthrax- and chicken cholera took place, and by 1882 Smith had
learned of his immunological experiments against anthrax. This
was important because during the next decade a firm biological
basis for the modern public health movement would be supplied,
and the way be opened for the development of bacteriology and
immunology. New discoveries would bring about astonishingly
rapid advancements in medical science, and indeed in the animal
and plant sciences; and the public health movement would begin
to pass from an emphasis on "sanitation of the environment,
through the conquest of the insect-borne pestilences and the scien-
tific use of vaccine and serum therapy, to the great social and
educational movement of the present day, — boasting of successes
\shic!i involve the prolongation by [many] years of the average
period of human life." "

Infiltration of the new learning from Europe to America was
gradual, and in many quarters tardy. Communication facilities
then were not what they are now. Because of the exact technical
proficiency required for proper understanding and introduction of
the new research methods, American scientists had to await the
return of trained students from abroad and the extension of edu-
cational and laboratory facilities. Students acquainted with the
new research skills were in demand, and book learning prepared
some brilliant, capable workers.

Science in America was still conquering frontiers. Charles
Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) and the evolutionary doctrine
were gaining adherents, but complete acceptance of the new views
was belated and confined to the most advanced scholars. Science
in nearly all branches was analytic rather than synthetic. On this
continent the important economic and scientific explorations of
western United States to determine our mineral resources and
other objects of national and state wealth had not been entirely
completed. Geologists, while probing more deeply into the
"' scheme of the rocks," their stratigraphy and paleontology, had
been also understandably slow to appreciate the full value and
significance of so important a work as Sir Charles Lyell's Princi-
ples of Geology.^^ Important theories of the earth's transforma-

^' A pioneer of public health William Thompson Sedgwick, op. cit., 7.

•"Brief History of the Association 1848-1948, 7, 9, Amer. Assoc, for the Ad-
vancement of Science, Washington, 1948. Lyell's Principles was published 1830-
1833.

50 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

tions and elemental composition had been advanced here before
gatherings of scientists; but the necessary emphasis of the science
was still on the minerals and wealth-producing resources. In a
few words, geology was still largely mineralogy. Zoologists had
still before them the task of completing their initial systematic
arrangements of the American fossil discoveries of vertebrate. and
invertebrate life. Belief in man's antiquity was asserted, *^^ but final
proof for the view had not yet been established. In 1869 Joseph
Leidy's monograph on the "Extinct Mammalian Fauna of Ne-
braska and Dakota" had appeared, and during the next decades
studies by Edward Drinker Cope*^- and Othniel Charles Marsh
would increase knowledge of the life histories of many forms of
fossil vertebrates. Among the more interesting of the discoveries
were toothed birds and horses, and in some of the work Darwin
found the best proof of evolution to appear in twenty years. ''^

Entomology, too, was primarily taxonomic. John Lawrence
LeConte,'^^ " the greatest of American entomologists," devoted his
life especially to systematic work. Investigating " as far as prac-
ticable " life histories of the Coleoptera and other groups of
insects, he defined more than 1,100 of the higher groups, and
formed nearly 250 synoptic or analytic tables. Before his death in
1883, he had described " for the first time " half of the Coleoptera
of the United States.

Most of the early important classification studies made by
Charles Leo Lesquereux on the paleobotany of North America
appeared during the 1870's and 1880's.

In the physical sciences, astronomy, chemistry, physics, etc.,
large segments of study represented more the work of analysis
than synthesis. It is of interest to learn that not until almost the
middle of the nineteenth century were the first American volume
of astronomical observations and first catalogue of stars
published.''

" Idetn, 10.

°" Marcus Benjamin, Edward Drinker Cope, Leading American tnen of science
ed. by David Starr Jordan, 313-340, N. Y., Henry Holt and Co., 1910.

^•'George Bird Grinnell, Othniel Charles Marsh, ibid., 283-312 at p. 301.

^* Samuel H. Scudder, John Lawrence Le Conte, Biog. Memoirs Nat'l Acad. Sci.
2: 261-293, 1886; A hist, of the first half-century of the Nat'l Acad, of Sci., 157,
Washington, 1913.

"'B. A. Gould, James Melville Gilliss, C/V?,?. Mem. Nat'l Acad. Sci. 1: 135-179,
1877; A hist, of the first half-cent, of Nat'l Acad., op. cit., 136.

Preparatory lo Ri;si;ar'..ii C\RiiER 51

In jMthology the 1880's brought forward distinct advances in
learning over the 1870's. For instance, the germ theory of disease,
still under questioning scrutiny in the 1870's, became firmly estab-
lished during the 18S0's, improvements in research technique
making possible astonishing accumulations of proof as to micro-
organisms as causes of disease. Erwin Smith, in health work
which required some knowledge of the latest triumphs of animal
pathology, was bound to become familiar with the more important
" high-lights " of a transition period which reached this country
between the last years of the 1870's and, continuing throughout
tht 1880's, influenced greatly the course of development of plant
pathology as well. He believed: ^'^

Three main currents of thoui^ht and pathological influence flowed into
this . . . period from earlier times. These three streams were (1) the
purely systematic mycological influence of such men as Corda, Elias Fries,
and the Tulasne brothers; (2) the experimental and observational work
on the morphology and etiology of human diseases by Henle, Cohnheim,
and Virchow and of plant diseases by such masters as Farlow, Berkeley,
Kijhn, and DeBary; (3) the bacteriological and animal pathological re-
searches of Louis Pasteur and his school. The last influence was greatest
of all, but each current interacted with the other two, and all of them on
the men of this period. . . .

We know that Erwin Smith by 1882 knew of the famous dis-
cussions " fought so bitterly pro and con" ''' between Pasteur and
his pupils, Joubert and Chamberland, on the one side, and "Dr.
Bastian and others " on the opposing. These discussions, accord-
ing to Smith, had been going on " for the last dozen years."
Emile Duclaux says,"'' " All our present technique has arisen from
the objections made by Bastian to the work of Pasteur on spon-
taneous generations." In other words, it was Pasteur's defense of
his conclusions by repeating his experiments that established in
the minds of other scientists the fundamental validity of his
laboratory technique and the truth of his assertions. From his
studies of fermentation and specific ferments emerged his dis-
covery of anaerobic organisms, a discovery w^hich Smith later
ranked third in his list of " milestones in the progress of bacteri-

'" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 14-15.

"''Mich. School Moderator 3 (13): 199 f., Nov. 30, 1882.

"^^ Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. a/. ,114. See also, Third Part.

52 Background of "Work and Study in Public Health

ology." ^^ The " overthrow of the doctrine of spontaneous gen-
eration" was placed first among "some of the milestones," and,
second, was the "' discovery that putrescible fluids (exclusive of
milk) will not decay after boiling, if protected from the bacteria
of the air by means of cotton-plugs." Each was a proof of the
value of the fundamental knowledge revealed by Pasteur. .

Only the invention by Robert Koch of a method to obtain pure
cultures for the isolation of bacteria and fungi on solid media, a
technique employing a poured plate,'° later improved by the Petri
dish,^^ and gelatin for streak cultures, was regarded by Smith as
possibly more important." This was believed with full knowledge
of the influence in developing antiseptic surgery which Pasteur's
method of protecting his flask cultures from air contaminations
had on the great English surgeon, Joseph Lister. Lister applied
the principle to protect wounds in surgery, and he took also
from Pasteur his dilution or mineral solution method for ob-
taining cultures and elaborated a method " to obtain pure cul-
tures of " the lactic acid bacillus by gradual isolation of a single
bacterial cell with a clever syringe of his invention, the only
method of consequence," Dr. Garrison has said,'* "between Klebs
(1874)'=^ and Koch (1877)."'*'

At the great International Medical Congress of London, held in
August, 1881, when Pasteur's discovery of a vaccine remedy
against anthrax was explained amid loud cheering from the
audience, Robert Koch's poured-plate method for obtaining pure
culture colonies of microorganisms on solid media was also de-
scribed and demonstrated before Lister, Pasteur, and other world-
known celebrities in pathology. Koch's original sterile nutrient
jelly or gelatin bacteria beds were soon to be displaced or supple-
mented by vegetable jelly derived from seaweed, or agar-agar; and

**E. F. Smith, Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 1: 152-153, Carnegie Insti-
tution of Washington, Sept. 1905.

■"' Robert Koch, Zur untersuchung von pathogenen organismen, Mittheil. a. d.
kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte 1: 1-48, l4 pi., Berlin, 1881.

" R. J. Petri, Fine kleine modification des Koch'schen plattenverfahrens, Central-
hlatt fiir Bakleriologie 1 (9): 279-280, 1887.

''- See, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18.

^^ Trans. Pathological Soc. of London 29: 425-467, 1878.

'* Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 590.

" Op. cit. See Bacteria in realtion to plant disease, op. cit., 1: 226.

""" Koch's 1877 publications will be mentioned and cited a few paragraphs, post.

Pruparatokv to Ri'Staiu II (^ari:i;r 53

the new methods of work would constitute a vast improvement
over the procedures employed by Brcfcld in the study of common
moulds and fungi, and, indeed, on the culture methods of Pasteur,
Klebs, and others.'" Duclaux reminds us that, nevertheless,
Pasteur, while isolating the bacterid ium of anthrax from the
"myriads of germs which accompany it in the soil," employed the
principle of securing his " pure cultures in the medium best fitted
to the physiological needs of the anthrax bacillus,"^'* and these
experiments date from the year 1881. This does not imply that
Pasteur did not accept Koch's better laboratory method. It is
fold '■' that at the International Medical Congress, when he saw
Koch demonstrate his plate cultures, Pasteur rushed forward, ex-
claiming, "C'est un grand progrcs! " It was about this time that
Koch and his assistants perfected steam sterilization as a pro-
cedure in laboratory investigations.^" In 1881, furthermore, John
Tyndall (1820-1893), an Englishman, friend of Pasteur, a physi-
cist and student of heat, light, sound, and fermentation, published
his Essays on the floating matter of the air, and **^ the study
included a consideration of air floating matter in relation to putre-
faction and infection.''- Smith accredited Tyndall ^^ with discover-
ing intermittent steam sterilization. " [H]e it was," Smith later
said, "who recommended discontinuous sterilization, another
superb simple procedure," and listed "Tyndall's discontinuous
moist sterilization " eighth among the " milestones " of progress in
bacteriology.^*

The year 1881 was considered by Smith "the proper starting
point" for workers determining the systematic priority of bac-
terial species. Saying this in the first of his great three-volume
work. Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases,^^ he reasoned that
this year represented " the time when bacteriologists were first able

" E. C. Large, The advance of the fungi, 210 f., N. Y., Henry Holt & Co., 1940.

^' Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 286.

'* F. H. Garrison, Introd. to the Hist, of Med., op. cit., 579.

«" Idem.

Idem. 858. See, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18.
Fift)' years of pathology, op. cit., 18.

' See, " Annotated list of persons mentioned in this book," Pasteur: The history
of a mind, op. cit., 350.

^* Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 1, op. cit., 153; Fifty years of pathology,
op. cit., 18.

*■'• Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (September, 1905),
op. cit., 155.

3

SI
82
83

54 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

to make and easily maintain pure cultures of any given organism,
namely, from the discovery of the poured-plate method of isola-
tion in the year 1881." Not once in pages of his department of
science and sanitation in Michigan School Moderator did Smith
refer to Koch's invention of a poured plate method nor to Koch's
canons or rules of laboratory procedure, published in 1882-1883-.^®
These postulates, in great part a more perfect statement of de-
siderata taught Koch by Henle, required that the disease be repro-
duced and unvaryingly demonstrate the presence of the suspected
organism, exclusive of all other matter which might cause the
disease, and not once but many times vv^as the isolation procedure
to be repeated.^' Of course, the Michigan School Aloderator was
not addressed to an audience of experimental scientists. But in
1882^^ Smith exulted that 221 persons in Michigan were actively
engaged in studying science, although of this number how many
were actual or aspiring pathologists was not revealed. During
1882-1883 Smith was, at best, a beginner in bacteriology. Having
no research laboratory affiliation, he had not reached the point of
learning laboratory procedure.

This was less true of generic nomenclature in bacteriology,
which later was believed by him to have been really begun with
Ferdinand Cohn's first morphological classification of the bac-
teria, which was prepared between the years 1870 and 1875. Some
classification of different forms of the bacteria was contained in
Dr. Sternberg's translation of Antoine Magnin's treatise. The Bac-
teria. Presumably, Smith in 1882 ^^ drew from this source his
popularly intended definitions of Bacillus subtilis as " found in
rancid fats and . . . the cause of the butyric ferment " and Bacillus
anthracis as occurring " in the blood of animals sick of splenic
fever." In 1872 Cohn had formed his new genus Bacillus,
founded chiefly on Bacillus subtilis and including Bacillus ulna
and Bacillus anthracis, the last representing. Smith believed, " a
sort of afterthought," since he had never studied the organism

®* Robert Koch, Ueber die milzbrandimpfung, eine entgegnung auf den von
Pasteur in genf gehaltenen vortrag, Kassel und Berlin, Theodor Fischer, 1882.
The same in French. Theodor Fischer, 1883.

*^ Cecelia C. Mettler, History of medicine, ed. by Fred A. Mettler, 263-264,
Toronto, Blakiston Co., 1947; see also, F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history
of medicine, op. cit., 579, and authorities cited.

^^ Michit^an School Moderator 2 (19): 938, Jan. 26, 1882.

^^ Michigan School Moderutor 3 (13): 199, November 30, 1882.

Pkiparatorv to Ri srAiuii Cari'tr 55

causing anthrax."'" In 1868 a genus had been used to describe the
anthrax organism, Bacteridium Davainc, so named in honor of
Casimir Davainc, who studied anthrax before Pasteur and who
Duclaux has said " perfectly demonstrated the coexistence of the
bacteridium and of the anthrax." "* Smith noticed this genus when
he discussed "Nomenclature and Chissifications " in Bacteria in
Relation to Plant Diseases^-'- but he also stated his belief that "' In
the way of generic nomenclature there is not much of value prior
to Cohn's first great paper in the year 1872." Cohn in 1876
discovered the spores of Bacillus subtilis^''^ but he is best remem-
bered for his great studies which appeared in Beitrage zur Biologie
der Pfianzen, edited by him at Breslau 1870-1892 and comprising
five volumes. An eminent authority on algae and fungi, he was
accredited by Smith with two "milestones" in bacteriology: first,
his system of classification, and second, his discovery of endospore-
bearing organisms resistant to heat.^*

Robert Koch, the modest district physician of Wollstein, Ger-
many, more interested in his research than in medical practice,
chose the erudite botanist of Breslau before whom to demonstrate
his conclusions as to the life history and sporulation of the anthrax
bacillus. As early as 1870, it is said,-" Cohn had called attention
to the vegetable nature of bacteria. In 1876, at the Botanical
Institute of Breslau, before Cohn, Weigert, Leopold Auerbach,
Ludwig Traube, and Julius Cohnheim, Dr. Koch followed his
preliminary report to Cohn with a three-day demonstration of his
culture methods and results, °^ and his proof as to the role of the
spore in the etiology of anthrax won from Cohnheim the famous
declaration:

Let everything stand and go to Koch! This man has made a great
discovery which, in its simplicity and exactitude of method, is the more
remarkable as Koch is separated from all scientific associations, and
everything which he has done is absolutely complete. Nothing remains

^'^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 158, 159.
'* Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 238-240.
'^ Op. cit., 154-176. Quotation at p. 156.

^'^ Introduction to the history of medicine, by F. H. Garrison, op. cit., 575.
'^Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 153.

'^ S. and J. T. Flexncr, William Henry Welch and the heroic age of American
medicine, op. cit., 100.

" F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 578.

56 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

to be done. I regard it as the greatest discovery yet made in bacteriology,
and I believe Koch will astound and shame us all with discoveries yet
to come. 9^

Koch, at this time scarcely thirty three years old, had spent
less than ten years in medical practice since getting his degree of
doctor of medicine at the University of Gottingen. Cohn imme-
diately published Koch's memoir which demonstrated that the
" anthrax bacillus is the cause of the disease, and that a pure
culture grown through several generations outside the body can
produce it in various animals."'*^ Moreover, Pasteur completely
confirmed Koch's results. Of Koch's immediately following tri-
umphs. Dr. Garrison **" has commented summarily:

In November, 1877, Koch published his methods of fixing and drying
bacterial films on cover-slips, of staining them with Weigert's anilin dyes,
of staining flagellae, and of photographing bacteria for identification and
comparison. ^°° In 1878 appeared his great memoir on the etiology of
traumatic infectious diseases (" Untersuchungen ueber die Aetiologie der
Wundinfectionskrankheiten," Berlin,) in which the bacteria of six different
kinds of surgical infection are described, with the pathological findings,
each microorganism breeding true through many generations in vitro or
in animals. These three memoirs elevated Koch to the front rank in
medical science, and, through Cohnheim's influence, he was appointed to
a vacancy in the Imperial Health Department {Kaiserlicbes Gesundheit-
samt), with [Friedrich] LofBer and [Georg] Gaffky as assistants, in 1880.
Here, in 1881, he produced his important paper upon the method of
obtaining pure cultures of organisms by spreading liquid gelatin with
meat infusion upon glass plates, forming a solid coagulum.

Apparently, the first written references by Smith to these scien-
tific discoveries appeared in the May 31, 1883, issue of the Michi-
gan School Moderator '^°'^ and dealt with Koch's discovery and
proof that tuberculosis is a highly infectious bacterial disease

"^ S. and J. T. Flexner, William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 100. See also, fimile
Duclaux, Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 242.

®* F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 578, and
authorities cited. The title of Koch's paper was " Aetiologie der Milzbrandkrank-
heit begriindet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus anthracis," Cohn's Beitr.
z. Biol. d. Pfianzen, 2: 277 fF., Breslau, 1876.

"* Introduction to the History of Medicine, op. cit., 578-579.

^'"' Robert Koch, Verfahren zur Untersuchungen, zum Conserviren und Photo-
graphiren der Bacterien, Cohn's Beitrage 2 (3): 399-434, Breslau, with 24 photo-
micrographs on 3 plates.

'"'3 (36): 653.

Preparatory to Ri:si;ar( h (^ARrini 57

afTccting both man and animals. Wc do not know whether Smith
purposely awaited such time as Koch's conchisions had been cor-
roborated by further research. Rut such an intention seems somc-
wh.;t indicated by the following language:

Ihc rcscarthcs of the German savant, Dr. Koch, concerning the nature
and cause of consumption, have attracted world-wide attention. As a
result of experiments upon lower animals, and of exhaustive microscopic
study, the Doctor concludes: 1. That consumption is contagious, and
2. That it is caused by a hActer'ium. The latter may be set down as one
of the most striking pathological discoveries of modern times. So novel,
indeed, is this view ot tuberculosis that many have doubted its trustworthi-
Ress, preferring to await the verification of Dr. Koch's researches by other
observers before civini: full credence. Such verification we now have in
the experiments of Dr. W. W. Cheyne and other competent observers,
and we may accept Dr. Koch's views as substantially proven. Dr.
Cheyne's paper is published in The Practitioner, London, England, April,
1883. A good abstract of Dr. Koch's original article may be found in
The Philadelphia Medical Times for September 9, 1882, and a full transla-
tion of it in The Cincinnati Lancet and Clinic, May 12, 1883-

By 1883 Koch, in charge of the important German Cholera
Commission which visited Egypt and India, was strengthening still
more the germ theory of disease and the doctrine of contagium
animatum (Henle, 1840) ^°- upon which the theory rested. His
most valuable studies of Asiatic cholera were performed in Egypt
and India, while residing in those countries when the epidemic
was violent. He reported from time to time his conclusions as to
the disease, its contagious nature and cause. An outbreak of
another epidemic in southern France enabled him, moreover, to
verify these conclusions which he presented in a formal address at
Berlin in July, 1884.^°^ During the spring of that year and soon
after the return of the expedition. Dr. Koch had been honored by
an official dinner for his "series of brilliant observations from
the discovery of the spores of the bacillus anthracis to that of the
bacillus of cholera." Koch, in response, is said to have "claimed
only to have discovered improved methods of observation." ^°''

^''" F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 575.

***' Appleton' s Annual Cyclopedia and register of important events of the year
1844, n. s., 9: 143-145, N. Y., D. Appleton and Co., 1885. See also, idem, for
the year 1883, 8: 298, on cholera in Egypt; 7: 798-799, 1882, concerning Koch's
discovery of the tubercle bacillus; also, 4: 442-444, 1879, as to the germ theory
of disease

^°* Harvey Gushing, The life of Sir William Osier, op. cit., 1: 212-213, quoting
a letter from Osier.

58 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

Koch found the so-called "comma bacillus," and for his courage
and persistence was compared to another heroic figure in medi-
cine, Rudolph Virchow, who had gone to the scene of a typhus
epidemic and risked his life " as much as the man who examined
the bodies of cholera patients in the dirty huts by the Ganges."
Dr. William Osier, then in Berlin, vv^rote of Koch: "His career
is particularly pleasing, and it reminds one of that other country
physician who nearly a century ago made the memorable observa-
tions on cow-pox." This represented a considerable shift in
Osier's attitude toward the discoveries of Koch and Pasteur, and
appears to have been quite typical of the reaction of many medical
scientists in America. Dr. Harvey Gushing, in his two-volume
study of The Life of Sir Willia772 Osier discloses that in 1881

Osier, like many other physicians, did not appear at this time fully to grasp
as Lister did the significance of Pasteur's work, or to show great interest
in Koch's remarkable contributions; and in [a letter written from the
International Medical Congress of London at which Pasteur was called on
to describe his recent experiments, which showed that animals could be
protected " against certain scourges " by vaccination, Osier] dismissed the
subject with the mere statement that "" there was an abundant discussion
on germs " in the Pathological Section, hideed [continued Dr. Gushing
in his discussion of the attitude of the medical profession in 1881 toward
Pasteur's and Koch's discoveries,} the editorials in most of the British and
Canadian journals of the time intimate that M. Pasteur saw germs every-
where, and his views regarding their prevalence as a cause of disease were
regarded as rather horrible, if not mirth-provoking.

It seems that Pasteur's anthrax vaccine was interpreted, at first,
as of primary value to agriculture and veterinary science, what
there was of the latter. When, however, in 1882 Koch's discovery
of the tubercle bacillus was reported, the attitude toward the work
started by Pasteur changed with amazing celerity. This discovery
became, as Smith recognized, one of the great finds of modern
pathology. It became acknowledged as "one of the most impor-
tant discoveries bearing upon the relation of micro-organisms to
disease, a subject which," Dr. Gushing has said,^*"' " made this
particular decade stand out above all others in the history of
medicine."

Greater recognition came to Dr. Koch after his work on Asiatic

^°^ Idem, 189-190.

"" The life of Sir William Osier, op. cit., 1: 198-199.

PRliPARATORV TO Rl SI! ARCH CARLliR 59

cholera. He " discovered the cholera vibrio, its transmission by
drinking water, food, and clothing, and incidentally found the
microorganisms of Egyptian ophthalmia or infectious conjuncti-
vitis (Koch-W'ceks bacillus, 1883), for which results he received a
donation of 100,000 marks from the Prussian " ^"' government,
and in 188*) was appointed Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology
at the University of Berlin. Under his tutelage some of the
world's most brilliant medical research scientists were to be de-
veloped: Emil von Bchring, Shibasaburo Kitasato, Friedrich
LofHer, Richard Pfeiffer, Albert Friinkel, William Henry Welch,
flnd others. Each gained eminence in his own right, and Koch was
accompanied on the Egypt-India Cholera Commission journey by,
among others, Georg Gaffky, who took Koch's place in charge of
the expedition and was later succeeded by Loffler.^°^

Erwin Smith, presumably in the year 1884, abstracted for his
" Index Rerum " a translation of a report (or abstract of a report)
made by Koch from Calcutta, India, to the German government.
His abstract, entitled "Asiatic Cholera" and based on material
taken from the Journal d' Hygiene, read as follows:

Dr. Koch now thinks he has established what seemed probable from
his Egyptian researches, but not then certain, i. e. that cholera is caused by
a minute transparent highly refractive bacillus. This bacillus resembles a
comma, or bow in shape, and is endowed with active motion. He has
made 17 dissections of cadavers and examined 27 other cholera patients,
and in each case found this specific bacillus in the rice water discharges,
as well as in the intestines. In no case was he able to discover it in the
dejections of persons suffering from other diseases, even diarrhea, or by
most careful examination of cadavers of persons, dead of other diseases.

The most important practical points of the report are: 1. A moderate
amount of heat kills this bacillus. 2. It grows rapidly in artificial culture
fluid, under proper conditions and on moist clothing, blotting paper, or
moist earth. 3. It requires an alkaline solution in which to develop.
[Ajcids, even weak solutions, kill it. The acids of a healthy stomach offer
to it an impossible barrier. Koch further notes in this connection the fact
that persons suffering from disorders of the stomach are most likely to
be attacked by cholera.

Soon we shall again consider research in cholera, and Smith's
interest in methods to prevent epidemics of the malady by sanitary

^°' F. H. Garrison, Intro, to the hist, of f)ied., op. cit., 579.

'^"^ Idem, 579. See also, V. C. Vaughan, A doctor's memories, op. cit., 146;
also, William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 147-149; also, Douglas James Guthrie,
A history of medicine, Phila., J. B. Lippincott Co., 237-288, 1946.

60 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

science. Koch had received his commission to study cholera
largely because of his work in tuberculosis, and the German
pathologist's studies of both diseases greatly stimulated the scien-
tific aspirations of the young Michigan student. He said:

In 1882 {Koch} demonstrated in laboratory animals that tuberculosis
could be produced by inoculating pure cultures of a microorganism culti-
vated from tubercles. ^°3 In 1883 he announced his discovery of the cause
of Asiatic cholera, followed the next year by a long paper on the same
subject, with all necessary proofs.^^" In 1884 Koch also published his
magnificent long paper on the cause of tuberculosis, a model for all
time."^ What a year that was! and what enthusiasm these two papers
evoked! I remember it all as if it were yesterday, and much of the old
thrill comes back! I knew very little about Pasteur in those days, but
Robert Koch was my hero, and his influence more than that of any other
man decided me to enter pathology and bacteriology.^^-

During these years there were other important discoveries"^
which stimulated study. Three of the most celebrated, among
many others, were: Lofifler's and Emil Schiitz's discovery of the
bacillus of glanders (1882);"^ Carl Eberth's"^ and Gaffky's"^
discovery of, and v/ork with, the bacillus of typhoid fever (1883-
1884) ; and Arthur Nicolaier's discovery of the cause of tetanus
(1884)."' Notable, too, v/as the work of several on lobar pneu-
monia: Pasteur, Sternberg, Albert Frankel, and Carl Friedliinder.

Smith, when writing of medical research, did not presume to be

^°* For a more elaborate discussion, including an allusion to Koch's famous
address given before the Physiological Society in Berlin March 24, 1882, see The
life of Sir William Osier, op. cil., 1: 198-200. This address was published in
Berliner klinische Wochenschrift 19: 221-230, 1882.

^"Robert Koch, Vortrag ueber die Cholera, Berliner klin. Woch. 31 and 32:
477-483, 493-503. Deutsche med. Woch. 32 and 32a: 499-507, 519-523, 1884.
Reprinted in Fortschr. der Med. 2(16): 121-134; (17): 141-168, 1884.

^" Die Aetiologie der Tuberkulose, Mitteil. a. d. K. Cesundheitsamte, 2: 1-88,
with 10 plates, 1884, Translated for New Sydenham Society, CXV.

^^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18.

^^^ See, for instance, F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of ynedicine,

op. cit., 582 fT.

^^* Vorlaufige Mittheilung iiber die Arbeiten des K. Gesundheitsamtes, welches
zur Entdcckung des Bacillus der Rotzkrankheit gefiihrt haben, Deutsch. med.
[Vochenschr. 8: 707-708, 1882.

"^ Der Typhusbacillus und die intestinale Infection, Vortrag 226, Volkmann's
Sanunel. Klin. Vortrlige. Innere Med. 77: 2,033-2,050, Leipzig, Breitkopf und

Hartel, 1883.

""Zur Aetiologie des Abdominaltyphus, Mittheil. a. d. K. Gesundheitsamte 2:

372-420, 1884.

"' Ueber infcctiosen Tetanus, Deutsche med. Wochenschr. 10: 842-844, 1884.

Prhparatory to Ri;si;ARf:n Carffr 61

a student of each subject from beginning to end. Often the " mile-
stone" or " liighlight '■ interested him most. His point of view
was that one could not know plant pathology thoroughly "with-
out paying some attention to the diseases of animals and of man,
for," said he,"'* " the subject is really one subject with the same
general principles of procedure in research and the same under-
lying laws. Moreover," he believed, " plant pathology is tremend-
ously indebted to animal pathology in many ways."

The fact, therefore, that a bacillus of leprosy had been found
outv^-eighed in importance the fact that Armauer Hansen dis-
covered it, that Hansen was a Norwegian, or the exact time when
the real discovery took place. On one occasion Smith gave the
year of discovery as 1880."° Friedrich Fehleisen published in
1883 on the etiology of erysipelas,^-" and showed by pure cultures,
as a result of many years of study, that the disease is caused by
streptococci. On this subject he had written before,'-^ but this
evidently was to Smith the paper of final importance. About the
same time Friedliinder discovered the pneumococcus,^" and to this
Smith later in writings referred.

It would be some years after Nicolaier's find of the tetanus
bacillus before Von Behring and Kitasato would discover an anti-
toxin for tetanus. It would be more than half a decade before
Von Behring's valuable antitoxin for diphtheria would be either
discovered or made available. Before 1884 Edwin Klebs had
seen the bacillus of diphtheria, but not until this year did
Loffler remove doubt as to the organism's causal relation to the
disease. Since Loffler secured pure cultures. Smith must have
believed his demonstration tantamount to an original discovery. ^-^

Prior to 1884, half a dozen or more years were required to

^'■^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 14.

^^"Idem, 18.

^-° Die Aetiologie des Er^'sipels, Verlag von T. Fischer, Berlin, 1883.

*" F. H. Garrison, huro. to the Hist, of Med., op. cit., 858.

'"" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18; The life of Sir William Osier, op. cit.,
1; 216 (to effect Frlinkcl in 1884 described the pneumococcus but its relation to
the disease was not generally accepted). See also, C. Friedlandcr, Ueber Pneu-
monie-Micrococcen, Fortsch. d. Med. 3: 91-93, 1885.

'"* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 19; F. Loffler, Untersuchungen iiber die
Bedeutung der Mikroorganismen fiir die Entstehung der Diptherie beim Menschen,
bei der Taube und beim Kalbe, Mitteil a. d. K. Gesundheitsamte, 2: 421-499, 1884;
Intro, to hist, of med., op. cit., 858-859, also p. 5S1; Justina Hill, Germs and the
man, 95, 210, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1940.

62 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

differentiate the staphylococcus from the streptococcus and prove
the differentiation by isolations in pure culture/-*

The importance of the year 1884 was shown also by Watson
Cheyne's find of Bacillus alvei in foul brood of bees/"^ The dis-
tinguished veterinarians, Saturnin Arloing, also a physician, and
Auguste Chauveau, an anatomist and pathologist, one of France's
great physiologists, and said^-° to have been "abreast of Pasteur
in his conception of pathogenic viruses (1868) and their attenua-
tion (1883-1884)," published in 1884 their important study of
septicemias, " Etude experimentale sur la speticemie gangre-
neuse." ^-' A few years earlier, Arloing, with Charles Ernest
Cornevin and Philippe Etienne Thomas, a pathologist and a
veterinarian of France, had studied symptomatic anthrax of cattle;
and a German pathologist. Otto von Bollinger, had produced
Actinomycosis, or lumpy jaw of cattle, by means of the vegetable
parasite. Actinomyces bovis, or the ray fungus/"* The half-decade
immediately preceding the year 1884 had been of vast importance
to both animal and medical pathology, and not alone because of
the epoch-making discoveries of Pasteur and Koch. As illustra-
tions of this, it may be noticed that, while Friedrich LofBer did not
really publish on swine-erysipelas until 1885,^'^ he had discovered
the bacteria of this disease about the same time he and Schiitz dis-
covered the bacillus of glanders. Albert Neisser of Breslau dis-
covered in 1879 the gonococcus, cause of gonorrhoea and other
serious ailments,"" and it will be recalled that in this year the

^"* D. J. Guthrie, A history of inedicine, op. c'lt., 288; F. H. Garrison, Intro, to
hist, of med., op. cit., "bll, 857; Justina Hill, Gerins and the man, op. cit., 46. It
should be pointed out that Smith, in his address, Fifty years of pathology, did not
include under the year 1884 any of the studies being made of the staphylococcus,
although in other connections he referred to the work of Pasteur (1878-1892) on
streptococcus and staphylococcus pyogenes.

^^® Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 19.

^^° F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of rnedicine, op. cit., 563. See also
" Annotated list of persons " in Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 323 (con-
cerning Arloing), 328 (Chauveau), and 349 (Thomas).

^" Ball, de I' Acad, de med., 2e ser., 13: 604-615, May 6, 1884.

^"* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18. Concerning Arloing, Cornevin, and
Thomas's study of symptomatic anthrax, see, also, Pasteur, The history of a mind,
op. cit., 315. Also, F. W. Garrison, Intro, to the hist, of med., op. cit., 583.

^"* F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of tnedicine, op. cit., 581, and
citing Lofiler's publication on this, Arb. a. d. K. Gesundheitsamte, 1: 46-55, Berlin,

1885.

'•='» Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18. See also. Garrison, Introduction to the

PiirPARATORV TO Ri:si Alu 11 Cakijir 63

many years of study ot malarial fever and its cause came to a
focus. Laveran"s discovery in 1880 of protozoan parasites in
malarial fever of man stimulated new research which extended
over many years. Ettore Marchiafava, Italy's leading pathologist,*''^
and Angelo Celli, among other eminent scientists of the same
nationality, studied malaria, and Smith said of them: "'-

In 1884 Marchiafava and Cclli saw the meningicoccus of meningitis
and correctly described its location, but [Anton] Weichselbaiim was the
first to isolate it in pure culture (1887). i-"*^ Marchiafava and Celli subse-
quently ditferentiated the parasite of tertian malaria, and Celli wrote
njuch on the occurrence and prevention of malaria in Italy. ^^*

Another important discovery originating from studies of dis-
eases ocairring around the Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere was
that of the micrococcus of " Malta fever," so-called because of its
prevalence on the island of Malta. " Malta fever " is now known
as " undulant fever," and is caused by microbes now known as
brucella, a derivation from the name of the discoverer, Dr. David
Bruce, a young English medical officer, who found the causal
organism in the spleen of patients."^ Unpasteurized milk and
other foods from cows, pigs, and goats are now known to be
agencies which transmit the microbic cause of this disease to man.
Bruce's discovery followed by several years the period in Erwin
Smith's life of which the year 1884 was a climax.

Until the year 1883 Smith had been a text-book student of
botany at night, a botanical explorer and systematist on Sundays
and holidays, but every day of every week during working hours

history of medicine, op. cit., 582 and 857. Also C. C. Mettler, History of medicine,
op. cit., 645, and authorities cited.

"' F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 144.

'^- Fifty years of pathology, op. -cit., 19. See also, F. H. Garrison, Intro, to the
hist, of med., op. cit., 144, for the names of other Italian scientists who studied

malaria

13.3

F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 582, gives
the year 1887 as when Weichselbaum proved the cause of cerebrospinal meningitis.

'^* Garrison, idem, 583, writings of Laveran's discovery of the Plasmodium of
malarial fever, adds: "These hemocytozoa were accurately described by Ettore
Marchiafava and Angelo Celli (1885). ... In 1889, Marchiafava and Celli
showed that the organisms of the pernicious and the tertian and quartan forms
are different. " Other important malarial research results are also defined.

"" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 25. Smith and Garrison agree that the
year of this discovery was 1887. See, F. H. Garn.son, Introd. to the hist, of med.,
op. cit., 582. See, also, Justina Hill, Germs and the man, op. cit., 78.

64 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

and very often at night he studied health matters. In September
1883 he added to his regular duties with the State Health Board
his employment by The Sanitary News, an illustrated daily and
weekly journal believed by him to be the best of its kind in the
west. This journal reported the latest work being done in Europe
as well as America. Before proceeding to the further years of
this employment, however, we must acquire some idea of the
status of plant pathology, the branch of science to which ulti-
mately he would dedicate his life's work.

During the late 1850's Julius Gotthelf Kiihn of Germany had
published an important, and perhaps " the first distinct treatise on
plant diseases worthy of mention." "'^ He is regarded by some
authorities as the " Father of Modern Plant Pathology." ^^' Be-
cause of his work and that of Heinrich Anton de Bary, " founder
of modern mycology," on the entophytic fungi, the past quarter
of a century had been " characterized by an almost complete de-
votion to the study of the causal relations of fungi to the diseases
with which they are found associated." ^^^ Kiihn's treatise was
entitled Die Krankheiten der Kulturgewachse, ihre Ursachen und
ihre Verhutung, or The diseases of cultivated plants, their cause,
and their prevention. Dr. Whetzel has said of this work: "It is
in several respects an epoch-making book. It is the first phyto-
pathologic text to appear based upon the remarkable and far-
reaching discoveries and researches of de Bary, the Tulasne
brothers, Pasteur, and other workers of the first half of the 18th
century in the field of parasitology." ^^^

DeBary, Dr. Whetzel believed,

did not concern himself extensively with the pathology of the diseases with
which he worked, except from the point of view of the physiologist under-
taking to discover the nature of the life of the parasite, its mode of attack,
its method of feeding, and its life history. With the many other aspects
of the disease, especially the economic, he concerned himself little. ^*°

DeBary, born in January 1831, at Frankfurt am Main, Germany,
became interested in botany while a student at the Gymnasium,
and so strongly did his enthusiasm for its study persist that,
despite his medical degree secured in 1853 at the University of

""Cornelius L. Shear, Phytopatholorj 3 (2): 77, April 1913.
"■^ Herbert Hice Whetzel, An outline of the history of phytopathology, Al, Phila.
and London, Saunders Co., 1918.

^''^ldem,AA. ^^^ Idem, "bl. ^^"^ Idem, Al.

PrI^PARATORV to Ri-SHARCH CARlUiR 65

Berlin and a few months of practice at Frankfurt, he gave up
active participation in this profession to devote himself to research
in botany, hi December of his graduation year he began as an
instructor, or privat doccnt, at the University of Tubingen. He
published his classic work, Die Brafid Pilze (1853), in which,
though only twenty-two years of age, he "established beyond
doubt the causal nature of the fungi found associated with rust
and smut diseases." '" Two years later he became Karl Wilhelm
von Niigeli's successor at the University of Freiburg, and there, as
a professor, he remained until 1867 when, after refusing a call to
^the University- of Leipzig, he accepted a professorship at the
University of Halle formerly held by D. F. L. von Schlectendal.
From 1872 until his death in 1888 he occupied the chair of botany
at the University of Strassburg.^''-

Gifted with brilliance and the instincts of a cautious experi-
mental scientist, one who refused to admit or advance any truth
as fact until proved by exact, technical procedures, he studied the
lower plant forms. In 1861 he published "his investigations on
the cause and nature of the late blight of potatoes in which he
proved the causal relation of Phytophthora infestans. In 1865 he
published his work, establishing the relation of the aecidium on
barberry to the rust fungus on wheat." ^^^ These were studies on
which many predicate their belief that he was " the father of
modern plant pathology," but, whether or not, no one denies that
he supplied a foundation for future work in mycology and plant
pathology. Smith said: " DeBary's work cleared the way for all
that has followed in plant pathology, and we must ever think
and speak of him with that reverence due to a great master." In
his series of monographs on algae, fungi, myxomycetes, bacteria,
and higher plants, Smith saw that "biological adaptations were
always kept in mind " and that " his work and that of his students
. . . had much influence on human and animal pathology, since
his very successful infection experiments with fungi on plants sug-
gested many things to those who were trying to determine the
cause of human and animal plagues." ^"

In 1865, the same year DeBary demonstrated heteroecism

^" Idem, 45.

*** Erwin F. Smith, Anton de Bary, Phytopathology 1 (1): 1-2, Feb. 1911

^♦^'H. H. Whctzel, op. cit., 45.

*♦* Anton de Bary, op. cit., 1-2.

66 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

among the Uredinales,"^ he made use of careful culture experi-
ments to determine life histories and cycles of development of
fungi. "'^ Michael Stepanovitch Woronin and Anders Sand0e
Oersted soon made use of the procedures, new then to botanical
investigations; and eventually, we shall see in Chapter III, the
new methods would be brought to America by one of DeBary's
students. Although DeBary died at the age of iifty-seven years,
no less than sixty-eight men later distinguished in science studied
under him at Strassburg."'

On one occasion at least, Erwin Smith divided the history of
plant pathology into two periods — before and after the year
1880."^ Others"^ who have written on this subject seem fairly in
accord that a pre-modern era ended during the early 1880's, about
the time that DeBary, after supplying a scientific interpretation of
the cereal rusts, was completing and ready to publish his classical
v/ork on the comparative morphology and biology of the fungi
and other forms of the lower plant orders.

Smith chose as his year of division, 1880, for many reasons. In
his presidential address before the Society for Plant Morphology
and Physiology in 1902 he emphasized that before that year
laboratory methods for the study of fungi and bacteria

were not well developed. In the first place, there was no exact and con-
venient method for obtaining pure cultures and, in the second place, the
microscope was still the principal instrument of research. . . . The main
thing considered was the parasite rather than the host plant, and the
technique for the study of both was of the simplest sort. We had no
precise fixing and staining methods, no fine microtomes with their yards
of serial sections, no synthetic culture media, no elaborate sterilizing ovens
and broad chambers, and no apochromatic glass for lenses. " Pure cul-
tures " were practically unknown, and photography and photomicrography
had not yet become arts of daily use in the laboratory. . . . Only the
crude beginnings of bacteriology were earlier than 1880. Prior to that
time we had, it is true, the fractional and dilution methods of isolation,

^*° Joseph Charles Arthur, History and scope of plant pathology, address before
the Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, ed. by
H. J. Rogers, 5: 154, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1906.

^*'' W. A. Kellerman, Index to Uredineous culture experiments with list of species
and hosts for North America, Jour. Mycology 9 (4): 244, Dec. 1903.

"■^ E. F. Smith, Anton de Bary, op. cit., 2.

^** Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, Science n. s. 15 (381): 601-612,
at pp. 602-605, 1902.

^*® J. C. Arthur, op. cit., where a period 1850-1880 was considered.

Prmfakaiorv to Ri:si:Aiu:n Caiu:I'R 67

but these. althoui;h capable of yicklinq qood results, arc troublesome and
have never appealed very stroni;ly to the mass of workers.

Before 1880 the available literature had been mostly works on
the classification and description of fungi, with some few books
of merit on plant diseases. " In the time of which I speak," con-
tinued Smith,

there were already many excellent helps in the way of treatises on fungi.
We had, for instance, the splendid volumes of tlie " Selecta Fungorum
Carpologia " by the brothers lulasne, and if we were not always sure of
the Latin construction, we could at least read the magnificent copper plates
^which embellish these volumes. There were also books by Persoon, Corda,
the Nees von Esenbecks, de Notaris, Rabenhorst, de Schweinitz, Fuckel,
Bonorden and Montagne. There were numerous volumes by the Swedish
mycologist Frieze. We had also Berkeley's "" Outlines," Cooke's " Hand-
book of British Fungi," and many scattered descriptions by Oudemans,
Magnus, Schroeter, Winter, Berkeley, Cooke, Ellis, de Thuemen, Rehm
and others, in Hedwigia and other journals. The Italian Saccardo had not
yet begun his monumental compilation of all known species of fungi, but
he was printing the first parts of his " Fungi Italici." Several parts of
Brefeld's "" Untersuchungen " also appeared prior to 1880, and there was
an excellent " Handbuch " of cryptogamic plants by Luerssen. There were
also some good exsiccati, including, in this country, the first centuries by
Ellis. . . .

In the matter of plant diseases, we were much less well provided. In
fact, there was scarcely anything in English in the nature of a general
treatise. The nearest approach I can recall was a brief chapter on diseases
caused by fungi in Berkeley's "Outlines of British Fungology " (I860),
and a little book by M. C. Cooke entitled " Rust, Smut, Mildew and
Mould" (1865). A knowledge of foreign languages was even more
essential in that day than it is now for the study of diseases of plants.
Even in European tongues there were comparatively few useful general
works on diseases of plants. We had, it is true, the rare, largely neglected,
and generally negligible, crude, early works of Re, Unger, Meyen, Hamel
and Hallier. There was also the first edition of Soraucr's " Pflanzenkrank-
heiten " (1874), and Winter's little book of a dozen chapters, which
appeared in 1878. This book, which described some of the commonest
diseases of plants, is now quaint and old-fashioned reading, but it then
seemed a model in its way. In 1878 there also appeared a little book by
de Jubainville and Vcsque on " Les Maladies des plantes cultivees, des
arbres fruitiers et forestiers, produites par le sol, — I'atmosphere, — les para-
sites vegetaux, etc., d'apres les travaux de Tulasne, de Bary, Berkeley,
Hartig, Sorauer, etc." There was also an earlier and very good book for
its time by Kuhn (1858).

As to bacterial diseases of plants, Smith believed that the litera-

68 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

ture prior to 1880 had been almost wholly inadequate. Before
1874 it had been an " ill-digested mixture of fact and specula-
tion." ^^° He pointed to Sorauer's Handhuch der Pfianzenkrank-
heiten of that year in which was " no mention of bacterial diseases
of plants. A great many diseases are included," Smith said,

but none of this type. De Jubainville and Vesque writing in 1878 mention
a " cellular rot " of potatoes, radishes, carrots, and beets, occuring in the
soil or in cellars, but they attribute it to soil ill-adapted to the plants or
to improper cultivation. No mention is made of bacteria either as the
cause of this rot or of any other disease mentioned by them. There is
nothing on this subject in Winter's little book, published in 1878. . . .
The first edition of [A. B. Frank's Die Krankheiten der Pfla/?zefz'], pub-
lished in 1880, contains a brief chapter on root-tubercles of Leguminosae,
but nothing on bacterial diseases of plants.

J. Reinke's and G. Berthold's Zersetzimg der Kartoffel (1879)
was also discussed since a potato rot was described, but their work
was criticised, especially for a lack of clarity on some points and
the failure to make use of pure culture experiments.

Practically contemporaneous with Woronin's announcement ^^^
in 1866 of his discovery of bacteria in the root- tubercles of lupins,
the Frenchman Davaine,^^" calling his organism Bacteriiwi putre-
din'is^^^ had shown that certain plants would rot when inoculated
with infusions containing bacteria. Ph. Van Tieghem in 1879
claimed to have rotted land plants with his Bacillus amylobacter.^^^
There were other miscellaneous discoveries. Smith's bibliography
on " thermophilic bacteria " ^^' began with a publication by Pierre
Miquel of this year. But to an American, Thomas Jonathan
Burrill, belongs the honor of having found and proven (1877-
1880) the first real parasitic bacterium in a plant disease. His
discovery in pear blight, and proof by direct infection experiments,
of "minute moving organisms," ^^"^ bacteria ^^^ and not fungi,

^^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 2: 9-10, Carnegie Inst, of Washington,

1911.

^^^ See bibliography. Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 239.

*"= Bact. in rel. to pi. dis., op. cit., 2: 89-

"^ Idem, 9, 77.

"* Idem, 11.

"'^ Bact. in rel. to pi. dis., 1: 247.

156 'j-_ J Burrill, Blight of pear and apple trees, 10th Annual Report of the Board
of Trustees of Illinois Industrial University for two years ending Aug. 30, 1880,
62-84, Springfield, 1881.

*" Trdwj. ///. State Horticultural Soc. for 1877: 114-116; for 1878: 79-80.

Proparatory to Riisi-ARCH Cariji.r 69

extended the study of bacteria to plant diseases and tiic study of
plant diseases to include bacterial causes. His discovery and his
experiments, which withheld the test of subsequent investigation,
will be elaborated more fully in Chapter III.

Burrill was a student of the German and French languages, as
well as a botanist w ho early realized the need, especially in the
agricultural colleges, for studying vegetable diseases, hi 1880 a
short treatise on bacteria by Georg Winter, appearing as one of
the parts of D/e Pi/ze of Rabenhorst's Kryptogamenjlora Deutsch-
lands (1884), was translated by Burrill and published in 1882 as
^part of a paper entitled simply "The Bacteria."''' Smith re-
viewed the "neat," sixty-five page pamphlet the next year in the
hWchiPan School Moderator}-'' It contained, he told his readers,
" a very satisfactory account of the nature and organization, effects,
and classification of these microscopic plants." In this paper on
"The Bacteria," Burrill described the organism of pear blight and
entitled it Micrococcus amylovorus.

Smith at this time believed that the bacteria are " cellular
organisms of a vegetable nature." His belief was based on
Magnin's treatise which considered, among many other points,
their structure, the nature of the substances contained in their
protoplasm, their forms, multiplication, and " their role in fermen-
tations, in putrefactions, in contagious diseases, and in surgical
lesions." In his "Index Rerum," Smith devoted several pages to
points about bacteria; and one, "The actual state of our knowl-
edge of bacteria," was taken directly from Magnin's work as
translated in 1880 by Dr. Sternberg.

Among the pages of Smith's "Index Rerum" appeared no
mention of the work of Burrill on pear blight, no reference to the
work of Anton de Bary, none to the work of Kiihn or his book
on plant diseases, no allusion to culture study of fungi or bacteria,
no reference to the early plant disease study of Dr. William
Gilson Farlow of the Bussey Institution and cryptogamic labora-
tories at Harvard University, and none to Woronin's researches on
the life histories of the lower plants, chiefly fungi. Woronin ""^
was a former student of DeBary at the University of Freiburg and

^■^^llth Ann. Rep't III. Indus. Univ., reprint.
"'3 (36): 653, May 31, 1883.

'""Erwin F. Smith, Woronin, Phytopathology 2 (1): 1-4, 1912, quotation and
papers tabulated at p. 2.

70 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

a graduate of the University of St. Petersburg. He studied also
at the University of Heidelberg; and he spent some time in I860
with Gustave Thuret and E. Bornet at Antibes, France, studying
Mediterranean algae. Smith later wrote of him: "As early as
1880 his name was known in every quarter of the globe as a very
original and distinguished investigator, possessed not only of
unusual powers of observation, but endowed with a genius for
painstaking, so that his papers remain models of lucid presenta-
tion and convincing illustration." He tabulated the famous Rus-
sian scientist's papers, those done alone and those with DeBary,
and among those v/hich he regarded as "wonderfully illumi-
nating" v/as his paper on the club root of cabbage (Plasmodio-
phora) which we shall consider again later.

If, during the early 1880's, Smith was studying the accessible
literature on diseases of plants, his interest in the subject could not
have been primary and was quite unlike his enthusiasms for syste-
matic botany and the literature of animal and human pathology.
The last was a part of his daily work. His botanical interest had
never failed him; but botany, either as an independent instruc-
tional entity or a practiced profession, was almost unknown in
America, especially in the " west." Botany was still an adjunct of
"natural history" or the natural sciences. Even in the eastern
states, for the most part it was a taxonomist's science. As late as
1883 one major laboratory equipped for real experimental re-
search in plant physiology existed, and that was at Harvard Uni-
versity under George Lincoln Goodale. Some other laboratories
had been equipped for undergraduate instruction. Professor
Beal's laboratory at Michigan Agricultural College was one, and
from there Smith could have acquired some modern knowledge of
laboratory procedures and methods. Beal's and Dr. Bessey's
laboratories were modelled after those at Harvard.

No laboratory in the United States for the study of human,
animal, or plant diseases, however, was yet comparable to the
laboratory of the Imperial Health Department in Berlin, to which
in 1880 Robert Koch had been appointed. During the early 1860's
Louis Pasteur had held a professorship at Lille. ^''^ But, mainly,
his work had been done in Paris at the Ecole Normale, and the

^"^ The influence of Pasteur on medical science, op. cit., 327.

PiuiPARATORV TO Ri'.si-ARcn Cari;i;r 71

Sorbonne where his professorship was in chemistry.'"- He was
bcqinnint; to exercise a threat inlluencc on animal and human
patholoi^y. and, indeed, on medical and health matters [generally.
But Emile Duclaux warns that ever we must keep in mind "the
fact that Pasteur was neither a physician nor a veterinary surgeon,
and that the history of any disease, ^j a disease, did not interest
him deeply. That which he studied in the anthrax bacteridium
was not the anthrax, but the mode of reaction of the microbe
toward the organism in which it developed. Every bacterial cell
able to become pathogenic in any way or by any means whatso-
,ever, and thus to throw light on the mechanism of the struggle
with the cells of the host organism, was welcome in his labora-
tory." ^"

We do not know precisely when Erwin Smith learned of Pas-
teur's vaccine against fowl cholera. But one so enthused about the
vaccine made from an attenuated culture against anthrax would
learn soon, it would seem, of another similar and practically con-
temporaneous discovery important to animal pathology, especially
since he believed that these " laid the foundations of immun-
ology." ^" During the middle 1880's Joseph Meister, a youth nine
years of age, was vaccinated successfully for hydrophobia by a
remedy found by Pasteur in an attenuated virus; and this Smith
called "' the greatest triumph of all." Years later, in Paris, he
would become acquainted with Meister, by that time an adult. ^"^

We do not know, furthermore, precisely when Erwin Smith'
first learned of the new anilin stains begun about 1875 to be used
by Carl Weigert and others to demonstrate bacteria in tissues. We
do know that Smith regarded their introduction and that of photo-
micrography as an important "milestone" of progress in bacteri-
ology; ^^"^ and that he believed staining in tissues was "worked up
carefully for bacteria causing animal diseases" more than a
quarter of a century before much was known of the " best methods
of staining bacteria in vegetable tissues." '" The effective tech-

"-y4 bioneer of public health William Thompson Sedguick, op. cit., 7; F. H.
Garrison, Intro, to the hist, of med., op. cit., 575, 579.
*"' Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 253-254.
^"^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 17.

"^"^ Idem, Journal of Smith's third European tour, February 2, 1925.
"^^"^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 153.
^"^ Idem, 29, 153.

72 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

nical proficiency demonstrated by Koch as early as his publishings
on bacterial wound infections and sepsis must have been a strong,
abiding reason why he in time appealed to Smith as a " hero " in
science.

The great distinguishing feature between the work of Pasteur
and Koch — what has been called " the central jewel in the diadem
of Pasteur's achievements " ^'^^ — was the epoch-making principle
of experimental immunity to pathogenic bacteria. Emile Duclaux
has said ^"^^ that Pasteur, but for this, might have been only a
" precursor " to some other scientific man, " a Koch for example,"
since

his pathological work was the development and the complement of his
work upon the fermentations. . . . He remains the equal of many when
he demonstrates the bacterial origin of anthrax or of other diseases. Where
he is without equal is when he discovers the attenuation of viruses, and
when he introduces into science that fertile notion that allows us to act
upon a disease by acting, not upon the sick person, as up to that time one
had been in the habit of doing, but upon the pathological bacterium.

Smith, like Duclaux, found in Pasteur's work the origins of
bacteriotherapy. Whereas Darwin's work had given wide cur-
rency to the phrase " struggle for existence," Pasteur's experiments
had placed another phrase, the "struggle for oxygen," into the
scientific foreground. Duclaux explained "° thus:

Some common bacteria sown with the anthrax bacteridium, in neutral
or alkaline urine, prevent its developing because they take possession of
the ground more rapidly and exhaust the oxygen. They can, in the same
way, arrest its development in an animal. " It is possible " [said Pasteur}
"" to inject great quantities of the anthrax bacteridium into an animal
without its contracting the disease, if some of these common bacteria have
been present in the culture used." Here we have the first example of
bacteriotherapy, to which Cantani returned later, and which has not spoken
its last word. The interpretation of these facts has changed, and we know
now that it is less simple [than it seemed at that time] but the idea of
the struggle for existence was nevertheless then introduced into pathology,
in the domain of cellular antagonism: and it has remained there.

Pasteur began to study fermentation and disease before Koch
secured his medical degree from Gottingen. For some time, how-

*'* Dr. C. A. Herter, The influence of Pasteur on medical science, op. cit., 329.
^"^ Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 232.
"" Idem, 256.

PrCPARATORY to RliSHARCn CaRF-HR 7^

ever, Pasteur's lack of pathological training stood in his way.
For instance, during tlic 1860's, while studying the butyric acid
ferment (1863) and later a disease of silkworms known as
flacherie, he had observed the formation of spores; but he was
not as prepared as Koch to study sporulation in anthrax. Koch
began to study the disease in 1876. He forced the rods of the
anthrax to produce spores and proved their fundamental signifi-
cance in the disease's etiology. By experiments, furthermore, he
proved the transmission of infection through spores in the earth
and the food of animals. ^'^

Pasteur, on the other hand, knew how to perform an indefinite
series of cultures, something which it is said ''- Koch as yet had
not learned to do. He proved that the virulence of anthrax be-
longs to the bacteridium and, examining the microbe's reaction to
the organism, brought forth proof of a bacterial secretion which
produces a symptom of the disease — agglutination and massing
together of the corpuscles of anthrax blood. Koch had realized
that the anthrax bacteridium is aerobic and, to survive, has to have
oxygen. ^'^ But he had not actually found anthrax spores in the
earth, nor did he know how long these spores live. Pasteur dis-
covered that anthrax spores are distributed by earthworms and,
moreover, could survive for many years where the conditions were
the slightest possible for bacterial growth. An analysis of the
comparative contributions to learning made by these two great
scientists might be extended over many pages.

During the early 1880's, Erwin Smith, in his '" Index Rerum, '
wrote of Pasteur in another connection. Concerning antiseptic
treatments for wound infections, he abstracted the substance of
three pages from Sternberg's translation of Magnin's The Bac-
teria. Monsieur Gucrin had caused

many bad wounds [to heal] by keeping them closely covered with cotton
wadding. Following Pasteur, he attributed this to the power of batten
to strain out or hinder germs floating about in the air from gaining access
to the wounded surface. Lister had equal success ... by the use of
carbolic acid spray, and of dressing saturated with this acid. He attributed
his success to the antiseptic properties of the acid — thought it destroyed

*" Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. tit., 241-244.

*^° iJem, 250-255, " the first example introduced into science of a bacterial secre-
tion producing one of the symptoms of a disease."

^''^ Idem, and pp. 286-287. Also, Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 17.

74 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

the germs. Virchow and other microscopists have proved that bacteria
occur quite generally in such wounds in spite of this treatment. The cause
of their more rapid recovery must be sought elsewhere according to
Magnin.

In 1874 Dr. Lister had sent Pasteur his "celebrated letter
acknowledging the value of his work in relation to antiseptic
surgery." Pasteur was then being "virtually transformed," Garri-
son says/"^ " from a chemist to a medical man, particularly in his
mode of attacking the problem of infectious diseases." Even as
the science of physiological chemistry is written before and after
Pasteur, and medical bacteriology before Koch and after Koch,
so surgery is divided into two great periods: before and after
Lister. ^'^ In France, Germany, and England, world renowned
institutions for the study of infectious diseases and their preven-
tion have been established, each to honor the work of a
countryman.

During the 1870's and 1880's Lister was reforming surgical
practice on the bases of antisepsis and chemotherapy. This was
the period when Pasteur was "writing and speaking on wound
infections and the cause of puerperal or childbed fever and on
the necessity of an entire change in surgical procedure in order
to avoid the frightfully prevalent hospital infections."^'® In the
matter of puerperal fever studies, Pasteur had predecessors, among
them, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes of Boston and Dr. Ignaz
Semmelweis of Vienna.^" Lister was influenced by this part of
Pasteur's work, and by the latter's studies of air-borne bacteria,
bacterial wound infections, fermentation and putrefaction includ-
ing the ferments of lactic and butyric acids and, in fact, the whole
range of his investigations. At the microscope he himself had
studied the life histories of fungi and bacteria and their parts in
fermentation and putrefaction. ^^^

In his first volume of Bacteria in relation to plant diseases "^
Smith evaluated the early work of Pasteur and Koch:

*''* Intro, to the hist, of rned., op. cit., 576-571.

^''^ Harvey Graham, The story of surgery, with a foreword by Oliver St. John
Gogarty, 361, N. Y., Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1939.

^■"' E. F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 17.

^'''^ Idem, n. 2. See also, C. C. Mettler, History of medicine, op. cit., 975-977,
account of studies before and by Pasteur on puerperal fever; F. H. Garrison, Intro,
to the hist of med., op. cit., 576-577, 435.

^'^ Harvey Graham, The story of surgery, op. cit., 342-360, at p. 351.

"• Op. cit., 152.

Preparatory to Ri:si:ar(:h Carf.i-r 7")

France has had many ^rcat sons, none ^t^rcater than [Pasteur]. His
refutation of the doctrine of spontaneous generation cleared the air of
many misconceptions and hiid the foundations for exact experimentation.
His demonstration of the nature of pebrine and flacherie, two destructive
diseases of silk worms, broui^ht attain into vivid lii;ht the assumption that
the orit^in of a great variety of human and animal diseases sliould be
sought in the activities of microscopic organisms. His studies of anthrax
and' other diseases of warm-blooded animals confirmed this suspicion and
set a great many persons thinking and working. His investigations of the
problems connected with fermentation were similarly fertile in discovery
and in suggestion.

The publication of Robert Koch's great paper on tuberculosis in 1884
marked another distinct advance. The same memorable year Koch pub-
lished in full his discovery of the cause of Asiatic cholera, only a brief
announcement of it having been made in 1883. The whole world was
interested, and from this time on experimenters began to multiply in every
civilized land, boards of health, universities, and private citizens vying
with each other in the establishment of laboratories for the study of these
minute organisms endowed with so much power for good or evil.

In a sense, these two paragraphs must have been, on Smith's
part, somewhat autobiographical. They must have represented his
memory of the evolution of bacteriological science in America and
throughout the world. Pasteur's early studies on crystallography
find little place except indirectly through the great one's mastery
of experimental technique. Dr. Christian A. Herter,''" at the
opening of the medical department of Johns Hopkins University
in 1903, appraised in a valuable address " The Influence of Pasteur
on Medical Science," '" and, among other points, estimated that
the " crystallographic researches were the bridge over which the
far-seeing investigator passed on the way to lay the foundations
of a new biological science, a science which has effected a veritable
revolution in our conceptions of medical problems." From these
studies Pasteur went on to his study of the micro-organic life
involved in various kinds of fermentation. Pasteur's saving of the
Silkworm industry in France ranks as a great scientific and eco-
nomic feat. Against one disease which was killing silkworms —
the pebrine or corpuscle disease caused by the psorosperm Nosema
bombycis — he devised a method of breeding new and healthy silk-
v/orms by carefully selecting eggs shown by the microscope to be

"° Concerning Herter, see, Dr. J. C. Hemmeter, MaMer minds in tnedicine, 546-
348, N. Y., Medical Life Press, 1927.
"^ Op. cit., 326-327.

76 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

free from infection.^**^ His study of the disease of the morts-flats,
or flacherie, took him into "the domain of pathology [and] led
him to examine a host of new problems " which, Duclaux ^^^ indi-
cated, " had clearly a reflex action on his later discoveries." To
employ Dr. Herter's interpretation, Pasteur, by these researches,
entered ''*

the realm of animal pathology, and . . . thus the vestibule of modern
medicine. For it is true that the laws governing the propagation and
development of the flacherie disease have the most striking analogies to
those of the diseases of man. The varying susceptibilities of different
individuals to the same microorganisms, the influence of the path of infec-
tion and the fact that flacherie organisms acquire increased virulence after
passage through the bodies of living silku'orms foreshadow discoveries in
human pathology. The two volumes dealing with the diseases of silk-
worms and dated 1870, are works whose contents should be familiar to
every independent student of the infectious diseases.

Pasteur's researches were not without other practical and ap-
plied value. Notably from his study of acetic acid fermentation
came his recommendations to the wine industry of methods to
prevent the spoiling of wine. Valuable scientific information was
also supplied vinegar manufacturers. But for our purposes, his
contributions to pure science are of more moment. Considering
the subject of the mediation of living organisms in fermentation.
Dr. Herter stated: '"'

[Pasteur's] first notable paper in the long series which solved one of the
most pressing questions in biology deals with lactic acid fermentation. . . .
This research ended, as is well known, in the discovery of a specific lactic
acid organism or ferment, and in die cultivation of this and other organ-
isms in an artificial medium free from albuminoids. Pasteur was not slow
in forming the hypothesis that difi^erent types of fermentation are depen-
dent on different types of microorganisms and this idea of specificity soon
established in relation to the ordinary decompositions ultimately became
the basis of our modern knowledge of the infectious diseases.

The research on lactic acid fermentation thus gave the coup de grace to
the chemical theory of fermentation at the same time it marked the birth
of the promising science of bacteriology. The development of a method
designed to secure pure cultures from fluid media, the use of culture media

^^ndem, 329.

^^'^ Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 179 f.

^^* The influence of Pasteur on medical science, op. cit., 329.

"' Op. cit., 328.

Prlparaiokv ic) Ri;si;arch Cari:i;r 77

of known composition and the careful chemical study of products of de-
composition all belong to this early period of Pasteur's life and were
achievements of the deepest significance for the future of the great
department of knowledge which has revivified the biological sciences.

Another research on fermentation deserves more than passing notice on
account of the extraordinary discovery which appears as its almost acci-
dental by-product. This is the investigation on butyric acid ferments
(1861). This research brought to light the fact that there are motile
organisms capable of inducing a decomposition of sugar with the pro-
duction of butyric acid. In the course of this research Pasteur saw that
these organisms (whose motility was most puzzling on account of its
suggesting animal life), behaved very differently according to their posi-
^tion with reference to the cover-glass, those at the center being active,
while those at the periphery and exposed to the air were checked in their
movements. From this casual observation came the fundamental concep-
tion of anaerobic life.

Smith's text-book reading was mostly on botany. But by 1884
he was keeping informed of the latest in bacteriology. In a letter
to his Swedish correspondent, G. Hyltcn-Cavallius, he told him
how "extremely interesting" he was finding Julius von Sachs's
Vorlesungen ilher Pflanzen-Physiologie, and added: "In this
country we are now greatly interested in the study of the bacteria.
All foreign publications are speedily put before our people by the
journals, and some original work is also being done." It was this
year that Smith made available to the Michigan State Board of
Health a digest or report — said to have consisted of some 180
pages ^^'^ — of European and American publications on sanitation,
hygiene, pathology, and bacteriology. Since September 1883, he
had been supplying to The Sanitary News of Chicago translations
and notes culled from foreign literature. Within a few months at
least four translations, articles, or notes had been published: " The
Sanitary Improvement of Paris ";^^' "The Sanitary Condition of
Damietta (Egypt) and the Cholera ";'^^ "Sanitary Inspection of

*®*L. R. Jones, Biographical memoir of Erwin Frink Smith 1854-1927, Nat.
Acad. Sd. Mem. 21: 4, first memoir. The author has not been able to find where
this was published, if it was published at all. He, however, has been informed by
Dr. Frederick V. Rand, who prepared the bibliography and part of the subject
matter of this memoir that Dr. Jones's source of information probably was Dr.
Vaughan.

^^' Sanitary News 2 (23): 129-130, Oct. 1, 1883.

'■'"'Idem, 2 (24): 137, Oct. 15, 1883. See also, Erwin F. Smith, The influence
of sewerage and water-supply on the death rate in cities, supplement to the Annual
Report of the Michigan State Board of Health for the year 1885, and reprint, pp.

78 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

Lodging Houses in Paris ";^^'' "Paris Water Supply." ^^'^ Other
"foreign gleanings," as, for examples, on "Cholera in Egypt,"
" Cholera in Calcutta," and " Preventable Disease in Ireland,"
were prepared and submitted by him. These show that his sources
were official health officer reports, the Journal d'Hygiene of Paris,
hygienic society bulletins, and government publications. In Octo-
ber, 1883, he purchased Littre's Dktionaire de la Langue Frangaise,
a five volume work of about 5,000 closely printed pages, and he
had decided to devote the year 1884 to the reading of German,
the while continuing his reading of French both by way of scien-
tific publications and a study of Pierre Etienne Duchartre's
Elements de Botanique.

Smith found learning the German language " a very great task."
" It will take me a year or two more at the very least," he told his
mother in a letter of March 15, 1884, " and I have been working
faithfully for fully as long as this. I now recite, or rather read,
once a week to a German minister, who gives me excellent instruc-
tion." And in this letter he expressed his happiness in his work.

The more I learn of public health work, the more cordially do I find
myself in sympathy with it. There is no question but that this Board in
the past ten years of its existence has saved this State in sickness and death,
by its active efforts in the prevention of the spread of communicable
diseases alone, a hundred times more than all it has cost. I had the same
impression before I entered this Office, but did not then have as great
familiarity with the facts as I now have.

In a letter to Professor Volney Morgan Spalding of the Uni-
versity of Michigan, he disclosed he was reading Goethe's
" Faust " with much pleasure but planned to be soon at his botani-
cal studies again in real earnestness. Liberty Hyde Bailey, junior,
was then an assistant at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard Univer-
sity. He was assistant curator of the herbarium, in entire charge
of the nomenclature of the botanic gardens and greenhouses and
of the students' and garden herbaria, and assistant in physiological
experiments. Smith's letter of April 18 to him asked how Das
Botanische Centralblatt compared

28-29, where a copy of Smith's translation, Cholera in Damietta, has been set
forth almost in full.

^^^ Sanitary News 3 (26): 22, Nov. 15, 1883.

^^Udem, 23.

Piu;PARAi()Rv TO Rr.siiARCH Cariu^r 79

with other German botanical journals? I think I wrote you about buying
Sachs" " Vorlcsunt;cn iibcr Pflanztn Fhysioloi^ie." It is a great book in
more senses than one. I think 1 shall send for deBary's " Vcrglcichendc
Anatomic dec Vcgetationsorgane dcr Phancrogamen und Fame," and
[Karl von] Goebel's '" Grundziige der Systematik und spccicllen PHanzen-
physiologic." I want both very much. I am half through the first volume
ot the third edition of Duchartrc's " l-lements." The style of the book
pleases me. It is more interesting than a novel.

The previous year Bailey had written that he was enjoying the
"' privilege of attending Dr. Goodale's lectures " at Harvard. By
August 1884 Smith was reading Sachs's Vorlesiingen iiber Pflafi-
"zefi-Physiologie and comparing its subject matter with the last
edition of the great German botanist's Lehrbuch der Botanik. He
found that the author had "changed views considerably." This
he said in a letter to G. Hylten-Cavallius of Lund, Sweden, and
since plant specimens were sent to this correspondent through the
Gray Herbarium, another exchange of letters with Bailey took
place. For some time he had been urging Smith to spend a year
in study at Harvard. Smith had confessed he would " be only too
glad to study at Cambridge," but it would not be possible this
year. Someday, he promised, he would leave the " tread-mill " and
" drudgery" of much of his work, and go to college, but till such
time as he could afford it, he would have to be content.

Late in August 1884 a Reverend Mr. Rork, who was moving his
school from Sherwood, Michigan, to Lansing, asked Smith to
teach classes in botany and French. By mid-October, instead of
teaching botany and French, Smith had a class of thirty-two young
men and women in physiology and hygiene. This work, also, was
in addition to his regular duties with the Board of Health. Jerome
Walker's Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene was the text used
and he recommended it to readers of the Michigan School Mod-
erator.^^"- Smith believed Martin's Human Body (Henry Holt and
Co., New York) "the best Physiology yet approved'' by school
boards, but Walker's book was "one of the best" and published
that year. Smith's teaching, a " labor one of love," he told Charles
F. Wheeler, took place each day after dinner and lasted forty
minutes. " I use a text," he wrote his mother December 14, 1884,

But we have dissections in the class room (cats, etc.) and I get as much
material for study as is convenient from the butcher shops. I also make

"^ 5 (20): 384, Jan. 29, 1885.

80 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

good use of the microscope, get the pupils to do as much outside reading
as possible, and when we are done with each subject I require a written
summary of it, made without use of the textbook. Most of my pupils
have become very much interested in the study. We shall continue it
about three months longer.

Early in March Smith had examined and shown to Dr. Baker of
the Michigan health board trichinae in " a small piece of muscle
taken from" the body of a boy who had "died of trichiniosis,
caused by eating uncooked pork . . . ." Material for the examina-
tion had been sent to the health board by a doctor, and, in part,
Smith's memorandum read:

Use[d] Bausch & Lomb's Physician's Microscope C eyepiece and % inch
objective. Studied the sections about 2 hours. Never before saw any
meat so literally filled with the parasites. Counted 16 of the worms in
one field, 20 in another and 30 in another, seemed to be more abundant
in some parts than in others. In only a few cases did I detect any well
defined cysts. The worms were among the muscular fibers doubled and
coiled into various shapes. I also re-examined some of the sow's flesh
sent. . . . Found usually two or three encysted trichinae to a field.
Only one hog was diseased in this way. . . .

During the summer of 1884 he edited, and supervised the
publishing of, the proceedings of the Ionia state sanitary conven-
tion. In the spring a sanitary convention had been also held at
Hillsdale; and by summer its proceedings were being printed. The
Board's annual report for the year 1883 was soon to appear, and
to contain " a compilation of all the laws relating to Public Health
in Michigan, for the use of local boards of health. You see,"
Erwin wrote to his mother, " there is no end to work in this Office.
I am so busy, as a rule, that I do not mind the flight of time." In
1884 Secretary Baker reported Michigan to have between three
and four thousand physicians and fourteen hundred health
officers. ^^" Smith gathered and put together not only data con-
cerning their education and practice but also names and addresses
of secretaries of state boards of health, twenty-seven in number,
and the names and addresses of state medical societies, forty two
in all, including Canadian references. Moreover, he sent " fre-

"■"- Sanitary News 4 (37): 11, May 1, 1884. See also San. Netrs 3 (29): 67,
concerning Ionia convention; concerning Hillsdale convention, p. 10. Data as to
Smith's work taken from his correspondence.

Prfparatorv to RrsnARCH CARnnR 81

tjucnt and valuable contributions . . . upon various scientilic sub-
jects ■■ *"^ to The Sanititry News.

In 1SS4 he served in Lansing as secretary of the Citizens' Law
and Order League. Since 1882 lie had been connected with the
United States Weather Bureau there. For one year he was the
weather observer, and had "continued [his] readings in that de-
partment.'" He was "familiar with all the details" of the work
and " with the general plan of work of the U. S. Signal Service,'-"
and he edited the bureau's meteorological data for the year 1883,
a task which did not reach the printer until 1885.

He was saving his money to enter the University of Michigan
the following September. "By that time," he told his mother,
" I shall have a pretty full knowledge of German, and some
additional knowledge of Botany, — all of which will be useful."
He had kept Professor Spalding advised on his studies. One of
the reasons he gave why he liked Duchartre's Elements de Bota-
uique was the fullness and usefulness of the foot-note references
to " continental authorities." As he read, he said, " I am more
than ever surprised at the amount of original research done by the
Germans. The authority for seemingly three-fourths of the newer
statements is some German paper or monograph."

In August 1884, at an eastern publisher's request, he criticised
a book on physiology and hygiene. In four pages of criticism,
Smith cited conclusions by Galton, Denton, Huxley, Hartley,
Miquel, Parke, Buck, von Pettenkofer, Koch, and others. Promi-
nent among his points was the subject of disinfectants and germi-
cides. But that sanitary science had not won him away completely
from botany was evident throughout the year. When others urged
that he could make more money from law, medicine, real estate,
or business pursuits, Smith unvaryingly replied that already he
had "chosen, and given a good many thousand hours of hard
study to the preliminaries " of natural history, and he was " not
inclined to change [his] plans."

January 26, 1883, he began a study which was to last some two
years, and more. It was to be an economic, and not scientific,
survey of the influence of civic cleanliness in lowering the death

**^ Letter from editors G. P. Brown and John K. Allen, May 13, 1886 concerning
his work for Sani/ary News.

"* Letter, Smith to Prof. M. W. Harrington, Detroit Observatory, Ann Arbor,
June 14, 1885 concerning work with the weather bureau for past three years.

82 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

rates of cities. Primarily it was to focus on the availability of
adequate sewerage and pure water supply in reducing the annual
number of deaths from several epidemic diseases, principally
typhoid fever and cholera, and on the theory that diphtheria is a
contagious disease transmissible from person to person and from
place to place, like smallpox and scarlet fever, statistics were
gathered with regard to it and other diseases. Smith addressed a
letter to Dr. Max von Pettenkofer of Munich which read:

Most esteemed Sir: — In studying the reduced death-rate from typhoid
fever and similar diseases, resulting from improved sanitary measures in
cities I have been much struck with the Munich statistics quoted from
you by Dr. Douglas Galton in Transactions of the Sanitary Institute of
Great Britain, Vol. IV., 1883. It is stated that enteric fever decreased in
Munich, with increase of sewerage, from a death-rate of 24.2 per 1,000,000
inhabitants for the quinquenium 1854 to 1859 to one of only 8.7 for the
quinquenium 1875 to 1880. If it is not asking too much of you, will
you have the kindness to inform me what has been the average enteric
fever mortality in Munich for the four years 1881 to 1884 — the period
since the Vienna Congress.

Smith had kept watch of the international congresses. Early in
1884 he had offered to Sanitary News a summary of a translated
" interesting communication in French relative to the International
Sanitary Congress to be held at the Hague," the Netherlands.

Dr. von Pettenkofer must have responded to his letter, and
either referred him to the source of publication or sent a reprint
of an article by him, which Smith translated and had published
in the Sanitary Neu'S of September 26, 1885, under the title,
"Does Hygiene Pay?" There it was argued, and with statistics
supporting the conclusion that " Hygiene is health-economy as
national economy is the science of economics applied to other
possessions."

Among many other scholars, health officers, bureaus, societies,
and municipal, state, and national governmental agencies. Smith
wrote to Dr. John S. Billings of the Surgeon General's Office at
Washington. His requests ranged all the way from loans of
literature to gathered statistical information. From leading cities
of Germany, France, Italy, Austria, England, Russia, Mexico, and
the United States, information and data were obtained, and by
March 19-20, 1883, Smith was presenting a preliminary discussion
labelled, " Sewerage and Water Supply," ^"^ at a sanitary conven-

^^^ Annual Report of the Michigan State Board of Health, suppL, 104-106, 1885.

Preparatory to Ri;snAR(;n Cari-i-r 83

tion held at Lansing, in the a)urse of which he argiicd that soil
cleanliness, pure water supply, and adequate sewage disposal by
sewerage and proper drainage deter and reduce mortalities due to
especially cholera and typhoid fever. Curiously, not one reference
to Koch's proof of the comma bacillus of Asiatic cholera was
made. The principal presentation, entitled "The Influence of
Sewerage and Water-Supply on the Death Rate in Cities," ""'
occurred at Ypsilanti in July of that year. Neither at this sanitary
convention, in the main discourse, did Smith attempt to discuss the
etiology of any one of the diseases, although as to each some
attention was paid to the point.

Sanitary News in 1883 published a preliminary announcement
of Koch's discovery of the cholera bacillus, in 1884 a full an-
nouncement, and in 1885 a summary. Smith had access to these
and the foreign literature. By this time, he probably had read
Koch's original reports. Part of Dr. Baker's recommendation of
Smith for future employment was based on the fact that he read
and wrote " French easily, and [was] a fair student in German.
He is a fine student in the natural sciences, having in Botany more
than a State reputation," also said Baker. " [W]hile here, he read
a great deal on sanitary science, and wrote a paper on ' The Influ-
ence of Sewerage and Water-Supply on the Death-Rate in Cities.' "
This would convince a reader of "Mr. Smith's carefulness and
true scientific spirit. I consider the paper a valuable contribution
to sanitary science. ... I know of no young man who gives so
large promise of valuable work in the field of science as Mr.
Smith." As late as 1894 Dr. G. L. Magruder, dean of the medical
department at Georgetown University, wrote Smith that he re-
garded it as a "most valuable paper." Further on, we shall see
that this paper became one of the reasons why Dr. William H.
Welch of Johns Hopkins Medical School interested himself in
Smith and his studies in plant bacteriolog}\ His paper was typical
of the sanitary science of that day. A need was evident for more
and better vital statistics on which to found study. Development
of the science was " the soundest social and financial economy ";
and it was " the coming science . . . most recently developed . . .
because," WTOte Smith, " it is based upon all the others. Mathe-
matics, physics, chemistry, biology, statistics are all tributary to it.

^** Reprint no. 243, op. cit., 84 pp.

84 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

What has been done is but a tithe of the beneficient work which
can be done and will be done in the years to come." He prophe-
sied that " some of us will undoubtedly live to see chairs of sani-
tary science established in all our universities, and the funda-
mental principles of the science taught in all the common schools."
His paper was not a study in the medical aspects of the subject
but a proof of the value and importance of accurate statistics on
birth, deaths, and movements of populations and how death-rates
in cities were lowered by proper sewerage and pure water-supply.
Smith, as early as December, 1884, may have discussed with Dr.
Spalding his studying plant diseases when he should have accu-
mulated sufficient funds to finance a year or more at the University
of Michigan. During that month he had journeyed to Ann Arbor,
had "a long and friendly chat" with the University's "acting
professor of botany," and their conference probably was about
more than taxonomy and the Michigan flora. It must have in-
cluded plant morphology and plant physiology, and something of
plant pathology. For, that summer Smith had purchased, and
surely was reading, DeBary's Verglekhende Anatomie der Vegeta-
tionsorgane der Phanerogamen und Fame (1877); and, imme-
diately upon his return to Lansing, he either looked up or verified,
and sent to Spalding, the title of DeBary's "new book," Ver-
gleichende Morphologie und Biologie der Pilze, Mycetozoen und
Bacterien (1884). Smith had been acquiring several "German
botanies to mouse on," he told friends, but the fact was he was
building, or adding to, his botanical library. Karl von Goebel's
Grundzilge der Sptemattk und speciellen Pfianzenmorphologie
(1882) had also been received, along with four volumes of
Charles Darwin's works and Lesquereux and James's Manual of
North American Mosses published that year. Since for many years
the following were in Smith's library, the Darwin works must
have been: (1) The Power of Movement in Plants (1883); (2)
Insectivorous Plants (1883); (3) The Various Contrivances by
which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects (1884); and (4) The
Movements and Habits of Clitnbing Plants (1883) . The last two
were second editions. Sachs's Geschicte der Botanik (1875) also
had been ordered during the summer and was later in Smith's
library for many years. At least twice he had tried to acquire a
copy of the fourth edition of Sachs's Lehrbuch der Botanik and
once the second part of Duchartre's Elements de Botanique.

FRrPARATORv TO Ri:si:ak( 11 Cari:i:r 85

VVol f "s Nciturwissenschaftlich-rniilhematisches Vnd erne cum had
been ordered early in the spring and during the summer the four-
volume dictionary, M. H. Baillon's Le Dictiotiaire cie Botanique,
may have been added. It was ordered but, since Smith asked
Bailey at Harvard to consult with Dr. Gray with regard to the set's
merit for his purposes, he may have countermanded the order,
awaiting word from Bailey. In later years Smith possessed an
eleven-volume edition of this work.

While in Ann Arbor, Smith had dinner with Dr. J. B. Stccre,
professor of zoology at the university who had contributed to the
-science department of Michigan School Moderator ^^'' two articles,
"Lessons in Zoology," one on birds and one on reptiles. Dr.
Stecrc thought highly of Smith and later recommended him as
"an indefatigable student in Botany," whose published Michigan
flora was " the most valuable and complete work in existence."
"I consider him excellently fitted," wrote Dr. Steere, "both by
training and by natural tastes and talents for Scientific teaching."
Smith also called on Dr. Victor C. Vaughan, then an assistant
professor and soon to be full professor of hygiene and physio-
logical chemistry in the university's medical department. While
on this visit, he was probably told by these leaders of the faculty
of science that, conditioned upon his passing each of the requisite
examinations and with one year of resident study, he would be
granted a degree. In the next chapter will be described more fully
the circumstances of Smith's enrollment, but that the arrangement
was perhaps unparalleled was later indicated by Professor Spald-
ing, who commented that accrediting Smith "with the work of
three years [was] a thing that [he did] not remember to have
occurred in any similar case since [he had] been" with the uni-
versity. Obviously, the arrangement was a tribute to Smith's work-
manship and thoroughness of preparation. Dr. Vaughan believed
in Smith's superior worth and erudition in sanitary science. By
June 5 of the following year, Smith had in possession a terse
letter from him, which read, " Dear Mr. Smith, I can pass you on
the course in Sanitary Science."

Erwin, however, was not to specialize in sanitation and hygiene,

*" 3 (27): 473, March 22, 1883; also, the June 7 issue of the same volume and
year. Smith would have accepted more of these articles for publication, but the
next was submitted after he had resigned from this position and was giving his
spare time to Sanitary News.

86 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

nor in pathology and bacteriology, but in the natural sciences, and
particularly botany. When he consulted Dr. Vaughan, he may still
have been contemplating the medical profession. To prepare for
the practice of human medicine or surgery, however, would prob-
ably have required more than one year of resident study at the
university. Dr. Spalding may have turned Smith to the idea, of
studying parasitic fungi, or Erwin evolved his plan from the abun-
dant preparatory reading which he pursued the summer previous
to his entrance to the university. July 9, 1885, in any event, he
tendered to Dr. Baker his resignation from his position with the
Michigan State Board of Health. It was to take effect on July 21,
and Smith felt constrained to say: " I am led to do this because I
need the time for proper preparation for my University work next
year." He thanked the secretary for his courtesy to him during his
three years of service, and closed his letter by reiterating his
"lively interest in Public Health work in general" and especially
such work as was being done in Michigan.

A week before his resignation became effective, he ordered
DeBary's Vergleichende Morphologie und Biologie der Pilze,
Mycetozoen und Bacterien (1884), Dr. W. Zopf's Die Spaltpilze
(1885), Dr. E. Klein's Microorganisms and Disease (1885), and
W. B. Grove's A Synopsis of the Bacteria and Yeast Fungi
(1884). Early in February he had sent for Eduard Strasburger's
Das Botanische Practicutn (1884) a.nd on July 21, 1885, he ordered
Dr. Ferdinand Hueppe's Die Methoden Bakterien-Forscbung
(1885). Hueppe, a Prussian army surgeon, had done important
work on fermentation (1883), had begun to study the bacteri-
ology of milk (1884), and, besides being a principal collaborator
with Koch, had prepared this "well-known manual on bacterio-
logical methods (1885)."^^^ During the spring Smith had ex-
amined Dr. Germain See's De la Pbtisie Bacillaire des Poumans,
a work published in Paris in 1884, and had v/ritten to Dr. William
Oldright of Toronto that he had found it "very interesting,
especially some chapters." It seems apparent that Smith, while
preparing for the University, read bacteriology as much as botany,
and that he himself, or with Dr. Spalding's help, began to realize
he might combine these two interests by studying plant pathology.
That summer he became convinced that bacteria cause diseases of

^"^ F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 582.

Pri FAUATORv TO Ri siARc H ('ari;i;r 87

plants as well as of animals incluJin^ man. In Aui;ust, at Ann
Arbor, occurred the thirty-fourth meeting of the American Asso-
ciation for tlie Advancement of Science and the sixth meeting of
the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. Smith
either attended these meetings or learned, through reading, of
certain research proofs made by Dr. J. C. Arthur at the New York
Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva to the effect that a
plant disease known as pear blight is caused by a bacterium.

In October of that year was published by the Michigan Horti-
culturist,^^'' edited by C. \V. Ciarfield, an article by "' Erwin F.
-^mith, Lansing" entitled "Recent Literature concerning Pear
Blight." This began: "Nothing has interested me more as con-
nected with the subject of horticulture recently than the discussion
upon pear blight," and reference was made to a "valuable con-
tribution" by Dr. Arthur at the Ann Arbor meeting from which
Smith "gathered facts that may be of interest to the readers of
the Michigan Horticulturist.'^ Arthur had confirmed Burrill's ex-
periments and "conclusively proved'' that a micrococcus is "the
real cause of the blight" and not merely a "concomitant" of the
disease. Burrill's and Arthur's studies on pear blight will be com-
pared more fully in Chapter IIL Suffice it to say now that Smith
appeared to believe himself sufficiently acquainted with the labora-
tory procedures of bacteriologists to be convinced that Dr. Arthur,
making use of culture methods similar to those used by DeBary
and an improvement on the inoculation experiments used by Pro-
fessor Burrill, had proved the bacterial origin of pear blight
"beyond doubt." Smith's article reads as if to warrant this con-
clusion, and what he later said of the work accomplished on pear
blight by each of these scientists will be set forth in the next
chapter.

Some other work which Smith had done was preparing him for
the university. May 30, 1885, he had forwarded to John Merle
Coulter, editor of the Botanical Gazette, " a translation of a very
recent and somewhat interesting note on the continuity of vege-
table protoplasm," which became, when published by the
Gazette,-''^ a leading article entitled, " On the perforation of cells

"M: (2), 34-36.

"" 10(8): 322-324, August 1885. See also, E. P. Smith, Trimorphism in Litljo-
spermum canescens, Bot. Gaz. 4(4): 168, 1879.

88 Background of Work and Study in Public Health

and the continuity of protoplasm in vegetables." Prepared by
M. L. Olivier, it had been presented to the French Academy of
Sciences by Monsieur P. E. Duchartre, professor at the Institut
Agronomique of Versailles, to whom in 1884 Smith had sent a
copy of the Flora of Michigan. Sachs had been among the first to
insist on the continuity of protoplasm throughout the vegetable
organism. "°^ Probably Smith acquired his original interest in this
fundamental conception for investigations in physiology from
some writing by Sachs. But, whether or not, the new study was
based on examinations of living plant tissues and utilized modern
techniques of photography, stained sections, and microscopic
analysis, and was proof of an interest in plant physiology in
addition to plant pathology and botanical taxonomy.

Coulter the next year was to say of Smith: "He has my
unqualified recommendation for any position which has to do with
Natural History . . . He will bring to it the strength of modern
thought and methods and a large acquaintance with the leading
workers in the department." Similarly positive would be another
botanist's opinion as to Smith's capability. Charles Reid Barnes
was a professor at Purdue University and he, Arthur, and Coulter
were co-editors of the Botanical Gazette. Each was now interested
in "physiological botany." By 1885 Arthur had finished trans-
lating Anton de Bary's "article on bacteria" from his recent
Vergleichende Morphologie tind Biologie der Pilze, Aiycetozoen,
tind Bacterien, a translation which he evidently never published.
Smith did not begin to read this book by DeBary until July 7,
1886, but, when he did, he determined to " master the details " of
Ij. 202 Yhat his interest in human physiology, as a teaching subject,
had lasted was shown by brief descriptive reviews of textbooks in
the Michigan School Moderator,~°^ and by his promise of March,
1885, to Commissioner of Education John Eaton of Washington
to complete, as requested, an article on " Physiology and Hygiene
in our Public Schools." The study of plants, and of plant physi-
ology and pathology, was now, however, his main absorbing
interest; and, with this enthusiasm in mind, he made ready to
enter the university.

""■ William A. Locy, The grotvth of biology, 408-409, N. Y., Henry Holt and
Co., 1925.

*"* Fifty years of pathology, op. cil., 19.

'"'^5 (20): 384, Jan. 29, 1885; 5 (39): 775, June 18, 1885; etc.

Chaptfr III

LARLV WORK ON PLANT PATHOLOGY AND HACTLRIOLOGY IN

NORTH AMLRICA. STUDY UNDLR PROl-LSSOR SPALDING AT

TIIL UNIVI-RSITY OF MICHIGAN

IN 18^8 tlic American Association for the Advancement of
Science had been organized, and by the 1880's was the oldest
general, national scientific society on the North American conti-
nent. The Association of American Geologists and Naturalists
in 1842 had effected a national organization from several at-
tempts at forming societies devoted to various branches of science.
Academies of science had flourished for many years in the larger
cities, notably New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and St. Louis.
But, during the middle years of the century, even before the
National Academy of Sciences was organized at Washington, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science had become
the federated national unit, created to serve the interests of the
two major divisions, natural philosophy or the physical sciences,
and natural history, the biological sciences as then known. ^ Under
its mantle, numerous other scientific societies would become
associated and affiliated, and the Association itself would be
organized in sections. Not until 1892 would the science of botany
have its own section G, although while yet it was combined with
zoolog)^ under section F botanists of North America established a
botanical club. Dr. Beal, presiding at the Minneapolis meeting
in 1883 of the Association's section of biology, made the theme
of his presidential address the relation of agriculture to science,
and Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant spoke on "Agricultural Botany."
The American Pomological Society, organized in 1848, was the
most influential organization in the American fields of agriculture
and horticulture. Its members had been principally responsible
for organizing in 1880 the Society for the Promotion of Agricul-
tural Science. The American Medical Association had been
organized two years before the Pomological Society, at New York
City in May 1846. Its membership including delegates from the

"■ Science, 463, 478, Nov. 14, 1947.

89

90 Early Work in North America

state medical societies, this organization had held its first conven-
tion the next year at Philadelphia.

Sometime in the early 1880's Charles Edwin Bessey, while yet
at Iowa Agricultural College, had been shown a rough draft of
proposed legislation to be presented to Congress to " establish
National Experiment Stations." - Bessey, asked to define the pur-
poses of such stations, shaped at once a clause to include, among
their leading objectives, "original researches on the physiology of
plants and animals and the diseases to which they are severally
subject with the remedies for the same." In 1880 agricultural
experiment stations were organized in only four states: Connecti-
cut under Dr. Samuel William Johnson; California under Dr.
Eugene Woldemar Hilgard; North Carolina under Dr. Charles
William Dabney; and New Jersey under Dr. George H. Cook.
At some universities, notably Cornell and Harvard, experimental
work in agriculture was in progress. At Cornell University, station
work had been maintained since 1879 as an adjunct of a depart-
ment of agriculture. At Harvard University, as early as 1870 the
President and Fellows had commenced to organize a school of
agriculture and horticulture pursuant to the provisions of the will
of Benjamin Bussey, and a grant from the trustees of the Massa-
chusetts Horticultural Society " for the support of a laboratory and
for experiments in agricultural chemistry to be conducted on the
Bussey estate."^ In the last week of the year 1871, the laboratory
of the Bussey Institution directed by Professor F. H. Storer, pro-
fessor of agricultural chemistry, had become available. Research
both there and at Sheffield Scientific School of Yale stressed agri-
cultural chemistry, the field of investigation in which S. W. John-
son also was a leading American authority.

About 1863 the Connecticut legislature, by appropriating funds
from the sale of land-grant scrip under the Morrill Act of 1862,
had made possible the creation of chairs of agriculture at Sheffield.
Since 1846, when John P. Norton had been appointed to a pro-
fessorship, the instruction there had included some work in agri-
cultural chemistry and vegetable and animal physiology. About

' " The Development of Plant Pathology in the University of Nebraska," address
delivered by Bessey at the University October 24, 1910.

' A. C. True, Origin and development of agricultural experiment stations in the
United States, Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1888, ibid.:
541-558, at pp. 541-542.

On Plant Pathology and Bacthriology 91

1S6^ William Henry Brewer had accepted a professorship in agri-
culture. He was a botanist, an authority on farm animals and
animal breeding. But he was not a student of plant diseases. Nor
was Johnson who was the author of the two small but important
books. How crops fee J, a treatise on the atmosphere and soil as
related to the nutrition of agricultural plants, and How crops
grow, a treatise on chemical composition, structure, and life of the
plant for all students of agriculture. Nor did the creation in 1873
of an agricultural experiment station in Connecticut, first at Mid-
dletown and two years later on a land-grant basis at New Haven,
bring about immediately in that state a definite program of re-
search in diseases of plants.

At the United States Department of Agriculture, William
Saunders, superintendent of gardens and grounds, had written as
early as 1876'' on Phylloxera vastatrix, the "grape-root louse."
In the Department reports appeared numerous miscellaneous men-
tions of crop diseases prevalent or threatening in this country. But
there was no well defined research program for their study. In
January 1869, at an agricultural conference in Illinois, T. J. Burrill
had constructively suggested that a "new field of labor" was
"opening before the student of botany, that of the vegetable dis-
eases. Perhaps," he said, "nothing pertaining to plants is so little
understood"; and he prophesied that with "the increased facili-
ties of later years for microscopic observations " more attention
would be given to the subject. His work, and that of a few other
men, gave the work, as we shall see, its start in America.

William Gilson Farlow^ '" in 1866 had received his bachelor of
arts degree from Harvard College and in 1870 a degree of doctor
of medicine from the university medical school. Before entering
the medical school, he had studied anatomy under Dr. Jeffries
Wyman; and before graduating he had been honored by an ap-
pointment as a surgical interne at the Massachusetts General
Hospital under Dr. H. J. Bigelow^ He had chosen to study medi-
cine because, as he later told Smith, Dr. Gray had advised him to
do so,

* Kept, of the Comm. of Agric, 70-73. Washington, Govt. Print. Office, 1877.

"William Albert Setcliell, William Gilson Farlow 1844-1919, Nat'l Acad, of
Sciences, Biographical Memoirs 21 (4), 22 pp. See also, Anniversary Number
Commemorating the 100th Birthday of William Gilson Farlow 1844-1944, Farlowia,
A Journal of Cryptogamic Botany 2 (1): iff., Jan. 1945.

92 Early Work in North America

since that was the only way of getting into any part of a natural history
career. . . . When I began to study, [he said], there were few persons
who pretended to study botany at all but most of them were well trained
as far as training went in those days. There were few inducements to
study botany beyond the natural desire of those naturally interested in the
subject. . . . The death of Horace Mann Jr. just as I took my M. D. made
it possible for me to begin as an assistant in botany.

Farlow secured his appointment at the Gray Herbarium soon
after graduating from the medical school and continued in that
position for two years. As an undergraduate he had been taught
by Gray in the regular required sophomore course; and in his
junior year he had been one of several students who requested
special advanced instruction in systematic botany. During his
senior year he had been one of two voluntary workers at the Gray
Herbarium." He doubtless acquired from Gray an extensive
knowledge of the flowering plants and vascular cryptogams, in-
cluding marine algae of which there was a considerable collection
at the Herbarium. His summer of 1871 was spent at Woods Hole,
Massachusetts, with a corps of naturalists under Spencer F. Baird
of the United States Fish Commission. Gray, overburdened with
the work of his and John Torrey's Flora of North America,
planned to make Farlow the curator of the Herbarium, and Farlow
did some work arranging the thallophytes of the Herbarium. But
in June 1872 he, as America's first real botanical student to seek
advanced study under DeBary, began a tour of England and conti-
nental Europe which during two years would include travels in the
Scandinavian countries, Russia, Switzerland, France, and Ger-
many. At DeBary' s laboratory at Strassburg he received instruc-
tion in " the management of cell cultures and the techniques
required " in studies in mycology, and of the anatomy of vege-
tative organs of the flowering plants and ferns. Six years earlier
DeBary had published his work on the morphology and physi-
ology of the fungi, lichens, and myxomycetes, and he was now at
work on his Verglekhende Anatomie der V e get ationsor gane der
Phanerogamen und Fame (1877). While in his laboratory,
Farlow studied and described the first known case of apogamy in
ferns. He also read the 1870, or second German, edition of
Sachs's Lebrbuch der Botanik.

* W. G. Farlow, The change from the old to the new botany in the United States,
Science, n. s. 37 (942): 82-83, Jan. 17, 1913.

On Plant Pathology -\ni) Ha( tlkiolocv 93

At one tunc Faiii)\\ IkkI tlu)UL;ht of studying with Sachs at
W'urzburg. Gray, however, believed he would go to DeBary, and
wrote Alphonsc DeCandollc so. America's leading botanist had
shown a steadily increasing interest in plant physiology and plant
pathology. Both by writings and in his lectures to students during
his last years before retiring from teaching, he had sought to
stimulate interest in Europe's "Scientific Botany." For years he
had placed confidence in men medically trained. He himself, his
close collaborator Torrey, his two appointees Goodale and Farlow,
and many of his botanical correspondents were doctors of medi-
cine. George Engelmann of St. Louis, whose abilities as a botanist
he esteemed second to none in America, was by profession a
medical doctor. His inaugural dissertation at the University of
Wiirzburg dealt chiefly with the monstrosities and aberrant forms
of plants." These men knew the rudiments of anatomy, physi-
ology, and pathology. While in this country study-methods of
these subjects had not been widely extended from the animal side
of biological investigation to that of plants, the beginners of
modern plant science research (excluding taxonomy and an older
morphology) were to borrow some investigation-techniques from
zoologists especially as research in cytology and embryology w^ould
get fully under way; * and, conversely, zoologists adapted some of
the study methods of botanists to their inquiries. In Europe
Eduard Strasburger was just coming on the botanical scene.
DeBary's Vergleichende Anatom'ie was being prepared, partly to
keep a promise made to Wilhelm Hofmeister. Farlow met many
botanists of prominence, heard W. P. Schimper lecture on bry-
ology, worked on algae at Antibes with the French phycologists G.
Thuret and E. Bornet, studied lichens at Geneva, Switzerland,
with the help of Johann Miiller-Argoviensis; and very important
were his consultations with J. G. Agardh, Elias Fries and his son,
and other cryptogamists, as well as his work at various scientific
academies where valuable collections of cryptogamia were.®

In June of 1873 Gray reported to DeCandollc:

'Charles A. White, George Engelmann, Natl. Acad. Sci. Biog. Mem. 4: 1-21,
1902; Hist, of first half-century of the Natl. Acad., 130, Washington, 1913.

* W. G. Farlow, op. cit., 83-84.

"W. A. Sctchcll, op. cit., 4 f. See also A,"?er. N.^turalist 8: 1, 112, 295. See
also, Hilda F. Harris, The correspondence of William G. Farlow during his student
days at Strasbourg, Farlowia 2 (1): 11 ff., 1945.

94 Early Work in North America

Professor Goodale, under appointment as assistant professor of vege-
table physiology, will take the whole work of instruction in botany off my
hands ; but if a former assistant and pupil, Dr. Farlow, now with DeBary,
proves capable of it, as I hope, he will, I trust, take up the work in
systematic botany. His fancy, however, is for Cryptogamia.

Gray had written Farlow that what was " most wanted " in the
United States was instruction and research in the cryptogamia,
fungi especially. They arranged to acquire the late M. A. Curtis's
collection of fungi; and Farlow, himself an enthusiastic student
of the algae, co-worker with D. C. Eaton, S. T. Olney, Edward
Tuckerman, and other American correspondents of Gray, was
given on his return charge of cryptogamic botany at the Bussey
Institution as an assistant professor of botany. The catalogue
for the year 1874-1875 announced a course to be given by
Farlow, " Vegetable anatomy particularly the microscopic study
of wood. Rudiments of cryptogamic botany. Fungi, especially
those injurious to vegetation. Special investigations on the dis-
eases of plants will be pursued." " Until 1879 when his gradually
enlarged course of instruction at the Bussey Institution was trans-
ferred to the Cambridge campus of Harvard, Farlow gave instruc-
tion also at Cambridge two days a week and in the summer school.
His laboratory for this teaching was in Lawrence Hall; and, con-
tinuing his study of the marine algae on which he had published
before going abroad, he maintained an "improvised laboratory"
for this purpose at Woods Hole. About 1875 laboratory practice,
in addition to lecture attendance, became a requirement in the
Natural History curriculum under Goodale and Farlow; and this
applied in the course in Advanced Botany in which the study of
cryptogamic botany was an elective. Farlow's laboratory and
herbarium were moved several times: from Lawrence Scientific
School to Boylston Hall and finally to several locations in the
Museum of Comparative Zoology including the Agassiz addition
and botanical quarters of the total building. Still later the Farlow
Herbarium was established on Divinity Avenue in its own building.

By 1874 the botanical department at Harvard was said ^^ to
have " a thoroughly furnished laboratory, garden and greenhouse "

^° Ernst A. Bessey, Tlie teaching of botany sixty-five years ago, Symposia Com-
memorating Six Decades of the Modern Era in Botanical Sciences 1: 1-3, reprinted
from the lotra Slate Coll. Jour. Sci. 9(2 and 3): 15-17, 1935.

^* Ernst A. Bessey, quoting the university catalogue, op. cit., 16.

On Plant Pathoi.ocv and Bacthriologv 95

with the hirgcst hbrary and herbarium in America. Before Farlow
liad t;onc to Europe, C^iray may have strengthened in liim an
interest in plant reproduction among algae and fungi, since he
lectured on these subjects in 1872 and perhaps before. DeBary,
however, also a doctor of medicine, more than any other scholar
probably, helped the young student to apply his knowledge of
physiology, anatomy, and pathology to the study of plants and
plant diseases; at least, DeBary quickened his zeal for research in
the life histories of the lower organisms. W. A. Sctchell, one of
.Farlow's biographers, believed that "since DeBary paid much
attention to the parasitism and saprophytism of fungi and the
reactions of host plants to their parasitic forms, we may readily
infer that Farlow received much inspiration for the work he insti-
tuted on his return to America on phytopathology." His work at
the Bussey Institution became "primarily directed toward the
fungi of economic interest . . . [H]e laid there, firmly and effi-
ciently, the foundations of what has come to be known as phyto-
pathology." ^-

His accounts of asexual growth from the prothallus of Pteris
cretica and Pteris serrulata, published " partly here the year of his
return, created notice. During the next decades no scholar of
plant evolution among the lower orders was to write on this
continent with more authority than he. Moreover, his articles
which appeared in the first volumes (1876-1880) of the Bussey
Institution's Bulletin won for him instantaneous acclaim and, from
the point of viev/ of the plant pathologist, have been regarded as
"epoch making"^* since not only were life histories of disease-
producing organisms shown but also from his descriptions of how
host plants are attacked methods were suggested whereby to
eradicate and prevent the causes of disease. In 1875 he published
on the potato rot, and immediately Charles H. Peck urged, " We
need more such papers. . . . Let me say by all means follow up
this line of investigation."

In 1876 appeared Farlow's article, " On the American grape-

'- op. cit., 4, 5.

"Bo/. Zeit. 32: 181; Quar. Jour. Micr. Sci. 2 (14): 266; Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts
and Sci. 9: 68.

^* Beverly T. Galloway, Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United
States, Yearbook of the U. S. Depl. Agric. for 1899: 191-200, at p. 193.

96 Early Work in North America

vine mildew," ^^ a disease studied for many years as a part of
investigations of downy and powdery mildews. DeBary discovered
the germination of oospores of Plasmopara [Peronospora] vit'i-.
cola; and to Farlow's work has been traced discovery of the
germination of the conidia of the fungus/'' Dr. Benjamin M.
Duggar ^' has classed this work of Farlow and the " incomparable
studies of DeBary upon Cystopus, and other forms" as among
the "models of mycological research." Research in plant pathol-
ogy, Duggar said in 1910, "has gone but little farther." David
Fairchild, writing ^^ of Farlow's first graduate student, Byron
David Halsted, recollected that Halsted always was "proud of
having been Dr. Farlow's first pupil in plant diseases." Fairchild
believed that " of the pioneer work on Plowrigbtia movhosa [black
knot of plum and cherry] which Dr. Farlow did, [Halsted] was
... an enthusiastic witness." In 1876 was published, ^° well illus-
trated, his report on the black knot, another disease which engaged
his and other workers' attention for many years. This same year
he reported " On a disease of olive and orange trees occurring in
California in the spring of 1875." "'' Ten years later he was to
present before the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural
Science of which he became a member in 1880, "Notes on some
injurious fungi of California." -^ Some of his work was for the
Massachusetts Board of Agriculture as well as the Bussey Institu-
tion. In 1877 he presented before the Board a paper on " Diseases
of fruit-bearing trees"" and that same year published in the
Institution's Bulletin, " Notes on some common diseases caused
by fungi." -^ The year before, he had published a " Synopsis of
the Peronosporeae of the United States," -* and the total number
of species of Peronospora and Cystopus amounted to ten. In 1883,

'^^ Bull. Bussey Inst. 1: 415-425 {Peronospora viticola). Farlow's article on the
potato rot appeared in the same volume, pp. 319-338.

'^'^ Phytopathology 2 (6): 235, Dec. 1912.

''''Phytopathology 1 (3): 72, June 1911.

'^Phytopathology 9(1): 1-7, Jan. 1919. Halsted's thesis subject was "A classi-
fication and description of the American species of Characeae," Bost. Soc. Nat.
Hist. Proc. 20: 169-190, March 1879 (W. A. Setchell, op. cit., 6).

'^ Bull. Bussey Inst. 1: 440-454.

^" Idem, 404; Jour, of Bot. l4: 287.

" Proc. 6th Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. AgrJc. ScL, 29-31, 1885.

-= Rept. Mass. Board Agr., p. 218, 1878.

"Z5;///. Bussey Inst. 2: 106, 1877.

''^ Bull. Bussey Inst. 1: 426.

On Plant Pathology and Ra( timuology 97

for the Societ)' for the Promotion of A^t;riailtural Science, was
prepared an " Enumeration of the Pcronosporeae of the United
States," -* in which he reviewed species of the genera in his collec-
tion, together with those added since 1876. Specimens were fur-
nished him by botanists over the nation, many of whom — Arthur,
iVssey, Halsted, H. W. Harkness, Peck, A. R. Seymour, Spalding,
and William Trelease — were at one time or another his students
or regular correspondents. To this study he appended an index
of host plants of the species of Peronospora and Cystopus. The
rusts became one of hiS' specialties in plant disease study, and in
1878 he began to publish on these, presenting in the Proceedings
of the American Acadeiny of Arts and Sciences'-'^ a short paper
" On the synonymy of some species of Uredineae."

During his lifetime, Farlow accumulated a vast fund of knowl-
edge of lichens, mosses, algae, and fungi. In 1920 G. P. Clinton
said -^ of this,

We have, or have had, botanists who surpassed him in knowledge
concerning each of these groups, save the fungi, but none who equalled
him in familiarity with them all. He was truly entitled Professor of
Cryptogamic Botany. Just as surely as the old time Professor of Natural
History has passed out of existence, so, to the mind of the writer, he
represents the last of those who were able satisfactorily to cover the wide
field of cryptogamic botany.

Farlow's knowledge of the fleshy fungi became second only to his
knowledge of parasitic fungi, and he was an authority on algae.-®
He studied the deteriorating effect in water supply of certain
lower algae and related organisms, and, his conclusions demon-
strating importance on the matter of water purification, his reports
to the Massachusetts Board of Health and the w^ater board of the
city of Boston were recognized as " notable contributions " -^ on
the subject.

^^ Proc. 4th Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Set. (combined with Proc, 5th Meet.),
17-20.

-" 13: 251.

^''Phytopathology 10 (1): 1-8, Jan. 1920.

"W. A. Setchell, op. cit., 13; Wm. Randolph Taylor, William Gilson Farlow,
promotor of phycological re.scarch in America," Farlow/a 2(1): 53-70, Jan. 1945.

-'A pioneer of public health W. T. Sedgwick, op. cit., 60; W. A. Setchell,
op. cit., 5; W. G. Farlow et ai, Algae: in Report on a peculiar condition of the
water supplied to the city of Boston 1875-76, Rept. Cochituate Water Board,
Boston 10, 1876; W. G. Farlow, Remarks on some algae found in the water

98 Early Work in North America

The establishment in 1871 by the United States Fish Commis-
sion of an investigation base at Little Harbor, Woods Hole, not
far distant from historic Penikese Island where Louis Agassiz had
had his celebrated Anderson School of Natural History, was fol-
lowed a few years later by the founding at Woods Hole of the
Marine Biological Laboratory.^'' In 1878 Farlow made for the
Fish Commission an important report " On the nature of -the
peculiar reddening of salted codfish during the summer season," ^^
and within a few years his earlier reports on seaweed and marine
algae were outdone in significance by a 210 page elaboration of
"The marine algae of New England and adjacent coast.""- Of
the seven original trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory,
Farlow was the only plant scientist; and largely through his efforts
botany was early recognized as a main research subject.

His most far reaching contribution, nevertheless, was in intro-
ducing in this country careful culture practice and experiments to
describe life histories and developmental cycles of organisms
which cause plant diseases. His work of 1876 on " Onion smut " ^^
was important because of its disclosure of the disease's fungous
origin and, also, in that his work perpared the way for Roland
Thaxter to establish its manner of infection and a suggested
method of prevention. In 1880, as the first of the Anniversary
Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, Farlow began
to publish on " The Gymnosporangia or cedar apples of the
United States," ^* a research of several years which dwelt on the
relationships of Roestelia and Gymnosporangium. During the
next decade and a half, some of the ablest talents of early Ameri-
can plant pathology — Thaxter, Halsted, Louis Hermann Pamrnel,
and Fred Carlton Stewart, each a former student of Farlow —
would work at the problem of establishing satisfactorily the con-
nection between several species of Gymnosporangium and asso-

supplies of the city of Boston, Bull. Bussey Inst. 2 (1): 75; On some impurities
of drinking water caused by vegetable growths, Rept. Mass. Board of Health etc.
1, suppl.: 131; In Remsen, 1., Report on a peculiar condition of the water, etc.,
City of Boston, Dec. 143: 15, 1881.

^^ Frank R. Lillie (and E. G. Conklin), The Woods Hole Marine Biological
Laboratory, 24-26, 35, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1944.

^''Rept. U. S. Fish Comm. 1878: 969, 1880.

"-Rept. U. S. Fish Comm. 1879: 1-210, 1882. Separates printed in 1881.

"""Rept. Mass. Board Agric. 1876, pt. 2: 164, 1877.

"* Ann. Mem. Bast. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1-38, 1880.

Ox Plant Pathology and Bacteriology 99

ciated Rocstclia occuiiini; in this country.''* Professor Spalding
has evaluated as of that time the value of Farlow's work on the
black knot of plum and the gymnosporangium or cedar apples.
He said:

Besides numerous otiicr papers by Dr. W". G. Farlow '® . . . that on
the Black knot of the plum and cherry is one of the most complete and
satisfactory. In this, for the first time, the complete history of the nature
and development of this disease and the means of checkint^ it were fully
discussed. Still more important from a scientific as well as practical stand-
point, are his later researches on the orchard rusts that in some portions
of the country have proven highly destructive to apple trees. The fungi
producing these rusts are now known to infest cedar trees during a portion
of their cycle of development and to pass from these to apple trees ; and
it has also been shown that certain varieties, notably wild crab apples, are
much more liable to infection than other kinds. From these facts, which
it has taken the labor of many years to establish, the following preventive
measures are indicated: 1. The cutting out of red cedars where they have
been allowed to grow in the vicinity of apple orchards. 2. The destruction
of wild crab apple trees that harbor the disease. 3. The selection of varie-
ties for cultivation that are least susceptible to its attacks.

Thomas Jonathan Burrill, whom Gray recognized as early as
1872 as a cryptogamic botanist of extraordinary erudition, thanked
Farlow in 1881 for his recently published " Gymnosporangia or
cedar apples of the United States." He praised the work, saying:

Your resume of the literature is of much interest and value while the
critical examination and comparison of species is, to my mind, the best
work of the kind so far produced in America. Not less interesting though
less conclusive is the account of your culture experiments. I sincerely
hope these may be repeated by yourself and others stimulated by your
example.

BurriU ^' had been born in 1839 at Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
and when a youth nine years of age had migrated with his
family to a farm in Stephenson County, Illinois. During the sum-
mers he learned farming and during the winters attended a
country school. At an older age than usual he entered high school

'■^W. a. Kellerman, journal of Mycology 9 (4th quar.): 244, Dec. 1903.

** Prepared sometime between 1888 and 1890. Quotations taken from the origi-
nal manuscript found among the papers of Dr. Smith.

''' Charles F. Hottes, Personal recollections of Thomas J. Burrill and his work,
Illinois Alumni News, 6-7, Feb. 1940; J. T. Barrett, Thomas Jonathan Burrill,
Phytopathology 8 (1): iff., Jan. 1918; also unpublished manuscript material by
Dean Eugene Davenport concerning Burrill.

100 Early Work in North America

at the nearby county seat of Rockford and earned most of his way
through. Twenty-six years old when he graduated from the State
Normal University, he began to serve two years as superintendent
of the Urbana public schools; and in 1867 Major John Wesley
Powell, appointed to the chair of natural history and geology of
the Illinois Industrial University, selected Burrill to accompany
him as botanist of his first expedition to the Colorado Rocky
Mountains.

His teacher in botany had been Dr. J. A. Sewall who was also
curator of the museum of the State Natural History Society at
Normal. Dr. George Vasey, who in 1872 became botanist of the
United States Department of Agriculture, was presiding officer
of this society the year Burrill graduated from college. Two other
members were Dr. B. D. Walsh, state entomologist, and Professor
Jonathan B. Turner of the state university to whom often has
been accredited a role of leadership in securing enactment of the
Morrill Act of 1862. BurriU's " interest in systematic botany stim-
ulated by contact with these men," Dr. Hottes has said,^^ "no
doubt was responsible for the collection and identification of the
local flora of Champaign county, made while he was superin-
tendent of the Urbana Public Schools. This collection, together
with a small part of that of the Powell Colorado expedition,
formed the nucleus of the present University [of Illinois]
herbarium."

Powell's first Colorado expedition proving the need of a further
exploration and survey of the Colorado River of the West, the
Major chose this over a career of teaching and Burrill received in
1869 his appointment as assistant professor of natural history at
the university. His first appointment in 1868 was to teach algebra
but within a few months his subject was changed to natural
history and botany; and by 1870 he was promoted to professor of
botany and horticulture.^"

Eugene Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture of the
University of Illinois from 1895 until 1922, and closely associated
with Burrill, has written that he was a man

of the Darwin type, indeed he resembled him closely in many of his
features. He had the same attitude toward new facts and possibilities.
He was essentially university-minded, and as vice-president and for a time

"^ Op. cit., 6. " J. T. Barrett, op. at.

On Plant Pathology and Bactlriology 101

Actinia Recent (Frcsidciit) it was he who matlc the University of lUinois
out ot wli.it had been but a small collei;e with a small collei^e outlook. . . .
Had he not been, almost from the first, charged with heavy responsibility
for the t;cneral University welfare he woukl have been one of the world's
foremost bacterioloi;ists. As it was, his discovery of the cause of pear
blis;ht marked a new step in the study of microscopic life.

Biirrill's own account""' of his early teaching was as follows:

in my first public address at the University here in the winter of 1869-70 I
pointed out the need of studies in the diseases of plants and referred
slii;htly to what was then known on the subject. The following year I
introduced in the course of instruction a term's work called " Cryptogamic
Botany": this was most surely curious teaching but parasitic fungi was
made a part of the work. By 1873, however, we had gotten better into
the subject. . . '. [I]n the Transactions of the Illinois Horticultural
Society, volume 7, page 217, 1873, you will find a paper entitled " Aggres-
sive Parasitism of Fungi " in which the claim is made that these vegetable
parasites are the cause not simply the results of diseases. In the same
series, volume 9, page 139, 1875, you will find a paper entitled "Lettuce
Mold, or Leaf Blight " showing something of what I was at at that time.
From this on in those earlier days my students always had as a part of
their botanical instruction this matter of fungous parasites.

According to Dr. Hottes, the text used in the course on crypto-
gamic botany was Mordecai Cubitt Cooke's ^^ Rusf, Smut, Mildeiv,
and Mould, An introduction to the study of Microscopic Fungi
(186'S), a little volume considerably the product of study at the
Kew Gardens, England. He equipped a botanical laboratory and
furnished microscopic instruction to his students who were " given
the opportunity of seeing and studying from actual specimens the
characteristics of the mildews and other forms of plant disease."
His first microscope was imported from J. Moeller, Giesen, Ger-
many, 1868. The second was purchased in 1869 from Spencer and
Eaton. A Newton Binocular with all accessories was next bought;
and in 1876, under his direction, " the University Mechanical
Shops made eight microscope stands, and furnished them with
oculars and objectives imported from J. Moeller. . . . Prof. Bur-
rill's deepening interest in the bacteria demanded increasingly
better lenses giving greater magnification and higher resolving
powers. He purchased for $120 a R. S. Tolles, Boston, Mass., Ks
inch, from Spencer Sons, Canastota, N. Y. (1869), a Vis inch

"Letter written by Burrill to Smith, December 17, 1901.
*' H. T. Gussow, Pljyto pathology 6 (1): iff., Jan. 1916.

102 Early Work in North America

($70), a Beck of Mo inch, and finally with the discovery of the
apochromatic by Abbe, a 2 mm. Zeiss oil immersion ($130) v/as
imported. The glass in these objectives was not stable, and the
one he used was returned to Jena a number of times where it was
reconditioned free of charge."*" One microscope, constructed by
W. H. Bullock of Chicago (1879), was planned by Burrill, and
other equipment for microphotography was obtained.

Before considering his study of parasitic bacteria which cause
diseases in plants, we must examine a little further his work on
parasitic fungi. In 1882, at the third meeting of the Society for
the Promotion of Agricultural Science,*^ he described three fungus-
caused maladies: apple scab {Fuskladium dendntkimi) ; orange
rust of blackberry {Coeo^na lummata, Schw.); and blackberry
and raspberry cane rust. Spalding believed that he had gathered

a good deal of valuable information concerning certain common and
destructive though as yet insufficiently known parasitic diseases. One of
these is the orange rust of raspberry and blackberry leaves, common
enough about Ann Arbor, and of wide occurrence elsewhere. Another
is the cane rust of the same plants, less conspicuous but in some localities
still more destructive. For both of these the remedies already indicated
by experience are recommended, viz., cutting out the canes as soon as the
berries are picked, keeping the fields clean, and choosing for cultivation
such varieties as have proven less liable to attack.**

Burrill's "Notes on Parasitic Fungi" and a paper given at the
same meeting on the day previous by Charles A. Goessmann ot
Massachusetts Agricultural College on " Observations regarding
the Yellows of the Peach "*^ appear to have been the first dis-
cussions on plant pathology read before this Society; and among
the first before any national scientific organization in America.
The next year, at the Philadelphia meeting of the American
Pomological Society, Halsted presented a paper on " The white
mildews " or Erysipheae. In this, for the first time in America or
elsewhere, the word "fungicide," an adaptation from "insecti-
cide," was formally used before a gathering of scientists.'"^

*^ C. F. Hottes, op. cit., 7.

*' Proc. 3rd Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agrk. Sci. at Montreal, 103-110.
** Op. cit. This address, when revised, appears to have been entitled, " Recent
Progress in the Study and Treatment of Diseases of Plants."
" Proc. 3rd Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 63-66, 1882.
*' Letter, April 5, 1893, Halsted to Galloway. See also Halsted's paper, A

On Plant Patholoc.v and Bacteriology 103

Spalding believed that "some interesting and valuable" re-
search was also being performed at the University of Wisconsin.
" Of these," he said,

may be specially mentioned the spot disease of strawberry leaves, which
within a few years has proven hiqhiy destructive to certain varieties of
strawberries in common cultivation. The description of the parasite, the
indication of varieties most susceptible to the disease and others that are
practically exempt, and the directions for checking the difficulty by burning
over the beds are the main features of the report for which we have to
thank Professor [of Botapy and Horticulture William] Trelcase.

In the second annual report*^ of the Wisconsin Agricultural
Experiment Station had been published with bibliography
Trelease's "very full account"'''* of the white rust of strawberry.
His report traced the vegetative growth of the fungus Ramiilaria
tulasnei within the leaf tissues of the plant, the production of
white spots and summer spores or conidia, the distribution by wind
or other agencies of the conidia on short branches of the mycelium
that project through the stomata of the leaf, and an overwinter-
ing stage of the fungus. His undergraduate work in botany and
mycology had been taken at Cornell University under A. N.
Prentiss and W. R. Dudley; and, under Farlow at Harvard, he
had secured his doctorate of science. Since becoming an instructor
at the University of Wisconsin, he had been much influenced by
the work of Burrill in Illinois. When he "was working as a
beginner on the parasitic fungi of Wisconsin, [Burrill], as a
master, [w^as working] on those of Illinois."*'' The Illinoisan's
discovery that pear blight is caused by a bacterium was in part
responsible for Trelease's early interest in bacteriology and for
his teaching of plant bacteria in his university courses in botany.^"
He, while at Wisconsin, built a valuable herbarium which in-
cluded cryptogamic specimens. In 1885, however, he was offered,
probably on Dr. Asa Gray's recommendation, the professorship of

tomato disease, Proc. 5th Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 42, 1884. At p. AA the word
" fungicide " is used. This meeting took place at Philadelphia.

*^Pp. 47-58.

*^ F. L. Scribner, Fungous diseases of plants, Rep't of the Comm'er of Agric.
for 1885: 82.

"Wm. Trelease, Thomas Jonathan Burrill, Botanical Gazette 62: 153, 1916.

" Papers on bacteriology and allied subjects, by former students of Harry Luman
Russell, University of W^isconsin Studies Science 2: 10, 1921.

104 Early Work in North America

a new department of botany in Washington University and to
direct the Shaw School of Botany in St. Louis. He accepted and,
when in 1889 the Missouri Botanical Garden was established, he
became its director also.

Strawberry diseases were being studied elsewhere in the central
west. Before the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society meeting
at New Orleans on January 16, 1885, Franklin Sumner Earle read
a paper on the white rust and other diseases of strawberry. He
had been born at Dwight, Illinois, in 1856, and in 1886 he began
special work in mycology at the state university. Collaborating
with BurriU, he became a joint author of a report on The Ery-
siphaceae of Illinois.

Burrill's discovery of the bacterial origin of a plant disease
(1877-1882) plus Farlow's application of foreign culture methods
to the study of fungi (1875-1880) had encouraged the few Ameri-
can vegetable pathologists to believe that a new science of plant
pathology, embracing both pure and applied phases, was immi-
nent. American medical pathologists for some years had been
acquainted with the work of the great living physiologists of
Europe, Carl F. W. Ludwig and Claude Bernard.'^ In 1879 had
appeared in Paris Bernard's Legons sur les phenomenes de la vie
commune aux animaux et aux vegetaux^^~ which, as the title im-
plied, treated of the phenomena common to plants and animals,
and by the middle 1880's had greatly augmented interest in the
study of physiology, including plant physiology. Among the
plants which Pasteur studied experimentally at one time or
another were grape-berries. From a plant's sound interior, he had
extracted the juice, and, making sure that no surface bacteria
became commingled, proved the juice free from micro-organisms.
Flasks treated to washings from the grape-surface developed
"growths of some sort." In 1879-1880 Chamberland, working in
Pasteur's laboratory, demonstrated that beans taken directly from

^^ William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., 85. Concerning Bernard as France's
'■ greatest physiologist " and " founder of experimental medicine, i. e., the artificial
production of disease by means of chemical and physical manipulation," see F. H.
Garrison, Introd. to the Hist, of Med., op. cit., 544-545.

^'^ Annotated list of persons, Pasteur, The Hist, of a A\ind, op. cit., 325 (Lud-
wig), p. 339; Intro, to Hist, of Med., op. cit., 555-558. F. R. Lillie in Woods Hole
Marine Biol. Lab., op. cit., 139, characterizes Bernard's book as a culmmation of
knowledge in " general and comparative physiology." See also, J. M. D. Olmsted,
Claude Bernard, 55 ff, 122 ff, N. Y., Harper, 1938.

On Plant Pathology and Bactlriology 103

the interior of their pods were free from bacteria, that is, did not
contaminate culture-media wlien put into them.'' Tliese were
among the first experiments tending to establish the belief that
bacteria (excluding saprophytic bacteria) do not occur normally
in the interior of sound plants. Parasitic bacteria enter through
wounds or wilting of the plant.

During the 1880's a "new botany," featuring in the science's
extended orbit laboratory research in "vegetable diseases" and
the physiology of plants, was gaining headway in the United
States and Canada. Since the 1870's Goodale and Farlow had
been teaching natural history, including "vegetable physiology,'
at Harvard: at the botanic garden as a part of the undergraduate
instruction, and in the Lawrence Scientific School. The require-
ments for laboratory practice applied to undergraduates and ad-
vanced students. The instruction, biological and histological,
traced from the lower to higher plant orders, and considered in
the lowTr orders not only fungi but also bacteria.'* The main
botanical laboratory had been established at the garden and Gray
Herbarium in 1872, and during the 1880's the laboratory for
cryptogamic botany became well equipped quarters in the Agassiz
Museum.'' In 1883,'*" with the equipping of a laboratory for
plant physiology in Harvard Hall replete with new and valuable
apparatus obtained with the advice of Sachs, Pfeffer, Pringsheim,
Wiesner, Frank, and others, an unexcelled laboratory center for
research as wtU as instruction was available to American students.
Plant research, the nation over, began to emphasize the compara-
tively new subjects of plant physiology and plant pathology\

Farlow's laboratory became more and more devoted to research
in mycology and algology, although the earlier interest in pathol-
ogy was by no means lost sight of. Goodale's laboratory was
rated among, if not, the best in the United States for its purpose.
He had visited the model laboratories of Europe, brought home
laboratory exercises and technical equipment, but at no time

^•■' Erwin F. ?--:''li. Or. 'I:? suppo.^ed norm.-'I occurrence of bacteria in plants
Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases 2: 23, Carnegie Inst, of Washington, 1911.

"'Ernst A. Bcssey, c/'. cit., 16; Botany at Harvard University, Botanical Gazette
8 (4): 205, 1883.

"" J. C. Arthur, Some botanical laboratories of the United States, Botanical
Gazette 10 (12): 395-396, 1S85.

^"Botanical Gazette 8 (4): 213, 1883.

106 Early Work in North America

planned that it should do more than prepare advanced students
for work in Europe if they could go there. Every real American
student studied the texts and articles which came from the great
masters abroad. Each year during the first half of the 1880's, as
Farlow in the Smithsonian Reports ^' and other publishing media
evaluated the annual progress of botany, a "great activity in the
department of vegetable physiology" was observed. Only a
casual examination of these accounts is required to show the
strength of the European influence. If a year brought forth no
" especially striking discovery in regard to the physiology or
morphology of plants," the steady increase of other valuable
knowledge from the foreign laboratories made up for the tempo-
rary deficiency. So vast became the new learning that by 1883-
1885 some practical distinction between the " countless papers on
bacteria" had to be drawn: those discoveries "having a purely
medical bearing" and those more strictly allocated to botany.

Bacteriology was soon to gain a foothold in several universities.
For example, Trelease, before he left the University of Wisconsin,
had ordered from abroad research equipment to develop bacteri-
ological study there, and from the standpoint of botanical investi-
gation. When the apparatus arrived, the zoologist Edward Asahel
Birge, as a part of the regular curriculum of the university's pre-
medical course, added to the fundamental studies of chemistry,
physics, and biology, laboratory courses in comparative anatomy,
embryology, and bacteriology, and a lecture course in physiology.
Dr. Birge himself taught bacteriology and in one of his classes
was a young student, Harry Luman Russell. ^^ Born at Poynette,
Wisconsin, in 1866, Russell was graduated from the university in
1888; he was to be granted his Master's degree in 1890, and,
aware of the importance of the new research field in bacteriology,
persuaded his father to send him abroad to study in Koch's labora-
tory. In Europe he found plant bacteriology almost totally
unrecognized, and so, while on the continent he completed studies
in animal bacteriology, he returned to the United States to prepare
his doctoral thesis on bacteria in relation to plant tissue. Ameri-
can scientists, following Burrill, led in the study of plant bacteria,
and for reasons.

'^' For 1879-1880, p. 313 ; 1881, p. 391 ; 1882, p. 551 ; 18S3, p. 681.
"^^ Based on an unpublished manuscript (1942) hy Dean Emeritus Russell,
Getting started in Bacteriology, and an interview with him August 1947.

On Plant Pathokh.v and Bacti-riologv 1U7

In 1870 rdouarj Prillicux, "founder of phytopathology in
l-'rancc," ' ' had published on a bacterial disease t)f plants — his red-
rose, or micrococcus, disease of wheat kernels. Althout;h his
account of his microscopic examination was explicit and his
fii^ures "not obscure,"*^" he had not made any pure cultures or
inoculations. In 1880 a young pathologist, J. H. Wakker, then
working in the laboratory of Hugo de Vries at Amsterdam, Hol-
land, had begun, under a royal grant secured by the hyacinth
growers of Haarlem^ to investigate the yellow disease of hyacinths.
Publishing five papers on the subject between the years 1883-1888,
he established its cause to be of bacterial origin. "^^ Subsequent
study was to show him " entirely right in his main contentions." "-
But, though his studies attracted wide attention, scholars were
neglectful or skeptical of his conclusions. Methods of isolating
the causal organism thus far depended largely on direct infection
experiments. No standard form for describing an organism, of
course, had come into being, owing to the plausible reason that
no one knew^ exactly all of the characteristics requisite to establish
its pathogenicity. No studies, either to confirm or dispute Wak-
ker's findings, w^re made for some time.'"'^ Orazio Comes*'* of
Naples, Italy, was a widely known plant pathologist of this time.
Smith "^ regarded him as

one of the earliest workers in this field. He recognized bacteria in the
tissues of various diseased plants in southern Italy as early as 1880, and
published a number of papers on Bacterium gtnnmis, which he believed
to be a widely distributed parasite attacking many plants. He did not,
however, grow the organism properly in pure cultures and secure infec-
tions, nor describe it so that one can now be certain of its identity.

Burrill's studies of plant bacteria began in the middle 1870's,
preceded the work of all other students, and were slow to be fully

" H. H. Whetzel, Outl. hist, of phytopath., op. cit., 93-94.

"" E. F. Smith, Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 2, Carnegie Institution of
Washington, 1911, " Histor)'," p. 7.

"^ Idem, 7-8; "' Wakker's Hyacinth Germ," historical, Bulletin 26: 9-10, U. S.
Dep't of Agric, 1901.

""- Bact. in Rel. to Plant Dis., op. cit., 2: 7.

"* Idem, 335-353; E. F. Smith, The bacterial diseases of plants: a critical review
of the present state of our knowledge, American Naturalist 30: 797-804; 912-924;
1896; Wakker's Hyacinth Bacterium, Proc. Anier. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 46: 274, 1897.

"* H. H. Whetzel, O////. Hist, of Phytopath., op. cit., 96.

^'^ Bact. in Rel. to Plant Dis., op. cit., 2: 8.

108 Early Work in North America

recognized in Europe. In 1882 Dr. Robert Hartig, in his Lehrbuch
der Baumkrankheiten, expressed his doubt that any plant diseases
are caused by bacteria. Two years later, Worthington G. Smith,
in his Diseases of field and garden crops, omitted all reference to
bacteria as a cause of disease in plants. In 1884 Dr. Anton
DeBary, whom Erwin F. Smith believed "unquestionably one of
the most learned and critical botanists the world has ever known
and the foremost student of cryptogamic plants," ^"^ yielded some
ground on this point, but refused to go further than to admit the
rare occurrence of such diseases. In his Vergleichende Morph-
ologie, he said: "As Hartig has already pointed out, bacteria
living in plants parasitically have scarcely been observed. The
generally acid reaction of plant parts may be a partial explanation
of this. Recently, however, Wakker has described as the yellow
sickness, a disease of hyacinths in Holland, in which the char-
acteristic symptom consists in the presence of slimy yellow bac-
terial masses in the vessels, etc. . . . More exact investigations upon
this phenomenon must be awaited." " Even as late as 1885 in his
Vorlesiiugen iieher Bacterien, DeBary summarized: " According to
the present state of our knowledge parasitic bacteria are of little
importance as the contagia of plant diseases. Most of the contagia
of the numerous infectious diseases of plants belong to other
animal and plant groups, principally ... to the true fungi." *^^ He
still awaited " successful infection experiments and the exact fol-
lowing out of the life history of the bacterium " in the hyacinths
disease. BurriU's work on pear-blight and apple-blight was men-
tioned, but "without other comment," Smith later pointed out,
" than that ' in Europe this phenomenon, so far as I know, is not
known, or at least has not been carefully investigated.' " "" The
importance of Prillieux's micrococcus was doubted by DeBary.
"It may turn out," he said, "to be only a saprophyte appearing
in consequence of other injuries." DeBary mentioned also Reinke
and Berthold's wet-rot of potatoes and admitted that in excep-
tional instances potato tubers were shown to rot when the fungus
Phytopbthora infestans was not present and when healthy potato

®*The bact. dis. of plants: a critical review, Amer. Nat. 30: 626, 1896.

''''Bad. in Rel. to Plant Dis., op. cit., 2: 10.

•"^ The bact. dis. of plants: a critical review, op. cit., 626, n. 3.

""^ Bact. in Rel. to Plant Dis., op. cit., 2: 10.

On Plant Pahioiogv and I^acthriology 109

tubers were inoculated witli bacteria.'" " As a rule," he said/'
"saprophytic bacteria may, under speciiil conditions, attack, make
sick, and destroy livint; plant tissues as facultative parasites."

Burrill began to publish on pear blight in December 1877, when
as chairman of the Illinois State Horticultural Society's com-
mittee on Botany and Vegetable Physiology he presented a paper,
styled simply, " Pear Blight." '- Even his second paper on this
subject preceded Prillieux's first paper, and Burrill's study of
the disease, "extending over several years," had anticipated, in
fact searched for, an " entirely different kind of parasite " than the
fungi, or a " fungous origin of the malady." He did not call the
" very minute moving particles " he saw in the blighting tissue and
exudate bacteria. He was mindful of fungi which later appeared
in some of the blighted stems. In the cambium of blighted
branches and in the exudate he observed "very minute moving
particles, very similar to those known as Spermatia in fungi and
other low plants." But he left to future experiments the clearing
up of their origin, relationship, and development. "Are the two
in any way connected in origin or growth?," he asked. "Are the
later forms products, through germination or otherwise, of their
forerunners ? " He had observed the blight in winter and summer;
and he recommended the " careful removal and burning of every
dead limb or twig as soon as observed, winter or summer." '^

By the next year he was more confident of his conclusions. His
inoculation experiments yielding definite results, he ascribed the
cause of pear blight to bacteria — a conclusion confirmed by all
subsequent experimentation. Again in December 1878, he went
before the Illinois State Horticultural Society, meeting at Spring-
field, and presented a paper on " Fire blight of the pear." ^*

If wc remove the bark of a newly affected limb and place a little of
the mucilaginous fluid from the browned tissues under our microscope,
the field is seen to be alive with moving atoms known in a general way
as bacteria. Sometimes a thick, brownish fluid oozes from the bark of
dying limbs and spreads over the outside or falls in drops. This is appar-
ently made up of the living things, myriads of them are to be seen at once.

^^ The bact. dis. of plants: a critical review, op. cii., 627; also note 69-
" Bad. in Rel. to Plant Dis., op. cit., 2:11.

'-Trans. Illinois St. Hort. Sac. for 1877, 114-116, Chicago, 1878.
'^ Based on a memorandum prepared by Smith, perhaps for Bacteria in Relation
to Plant Diseases IV which was never completed.

''^ Trans. III. St. Hort. Soc. for 1878: 79-80, Chicago, 1879.

110 Early Work in North America

A particle of this viscous fluid introduced upon the point of a knife into
the bark of a healthy tree is in many cases followed by blight of the part,
but with me not in every instance. The result if such it be, is not so
uniform as the infection of warm milk; for this, however, there are very
possibly other explanations. It is not improbable that certain trees in
certain conditions are able to withstand the destroying influences of lowly
organized plant enemies. Plants and parasites are forms of vegetable life ;
in the struggle for existence one or the other is subdued and the van-
quished perishes. If we look once more to the affected branch we find the
disease spreads more or less rapidly from the point of origin, and upon
examination the moving, microscopic things are discovered in advance of
the discolored portions of the tissues, but not very far ahead — an inch per-
haps. Does it not seem plausible that they cause the subsequently apparent
change ? It does to me, but this is the extent of my faith ; we should not
say the conclusion is reached and the cause of the difficulty definitely
ascertained. So far as I know the idea is an entirely new one — that
bacteria cause disease in plants — though abundantly proved in the case of
animals. . . . The so-called germ-theory of disease in animals, especially
in infectious and contagious diseases, is rapidly gaining support and
credence. It is not impossible that we are now making a beginning of
the application of the theory to the diseases of plants which have hereto-
fore been mysterious and inscrutable.

In August 1880 Burrill went before Section B, the Natural
History division, of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science with a paper on " Anthrax of Fruit Trees: or the
so-called Fire Blight of Pear and Twig Blight of Apple Trees." "
In his second paper before the state society he had " clearly identi-
fied as bacteria [the] minute, moving things . , . detected in every
examination made";'*' and he now offered an explicit statement
on the morphology and pathogenic nature of the bacterial organ-
ism. The organism, he later wrote," " was compared with Bacillus
amylobacter ... of Van Tieghem, but was not otherwise named.
The name Micrococcus amylovorus first appeared in print in the
Eleventh Report of the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Industrial
University for 1882 in connection with a short but, as it has
proved, suflficient description."

" Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. for 1880. Salem, Mass., 29: 583-597, 1881. Smith
listed Burrill's papers on Bacillus amylovorus in the Centralblatt f. Bakt. II, 5(8):
276, 1899. See also Neiv York (Cornell) Agric. Exp't Sta. Bull. 329: 369, 1913.

'" T. J. Burrill, Bacteria as a cause of disease in plants, American Naturalist 15:
527-531, 1881.

''' Phytopathology 4 (1): 31, 1914.

On Plant PAriioi.or.v and l^ACTinuoi.oGY 111

Burrill continued his studies of pear blight and by 1883 '" was
"able to confirm the observation of Mr. Pieffer, of Wisconsin,
that bliqht may be introduced through the flowers and probably
without wound of any kind."

In the spring of 1884 J. C. Arthur, recently appointed botanist
of the New York experiment station at Geneva, began experi-
ments on pear blight which confirmed the work of Burrill. Dr
Bessey, his former teacher of botany at Iowa Agricultural College
and now at the Univjersity of Nebraska, may have suggested this
investigation, since on April 16 Arthur had written him:

I have hardly i:ot to work yet: of course there is no out of door work
yet. I am beginning some experiments on the absorption of oxygen by
germinating seeds and accompanying phenomena. I find I am free to
plan and execute any investigations I see fit, with the resources of the
station at my command. What I shall do in physiological botany I have
not determined, but have however concluded to look into the life and
habits of some of the plants that cause diseases of cultivated crops, such
as the rusts etc.

He told Bessey that he was very much pleased with his position
and would " be very glad for suggestions." On May 6 he again
urged Bessey to suggest " subjects for investigation. . . . My work
here," he wrote, " is strictly botanical, and I am at liberty to deter-
mine what fully nine tenths of it shall be." '"

On a visit that year to Dr. Farlow's herbarium, he had decided
to specialize in the rusts. In 1879 he had been an honorary fellow
at Johns Hopkins University and studied under Farlow who was
on leave from Harvard. Some work that year was also taken at
Harvard under Dr. Goodale.'*'* His doctorate in science, however,
was obtained from Cornell University and by March, 1886, he was
writing Bessey: "I am now making cultures of pear blight with
improved appliances and material and hope to have considerable
new matter for my thesis to be presented to Cornell University
in June."

On January 30, 1885, Arthur had written Bessey: " I have just

'*T. J. Burrill, Pear blight and peach yellows, Trans. III. St. Hort. Soc. for 1883:
46-49; see also American Naturalist 17: 319, 1883.

''* Letters lent author by Dr. Ernst Bessey.

*" Facts taken from memoranda by Arthur: (1) prepared at Lafayette, Indiana,
Feb. 15, 1916; (2) "The Purdue Herbarium basis of the Rust Project"; Arthur's
report as a member of the class of 1872, Iowa State College. Permission to use
given at the Arthur Herbarium.

112 Early Work in North America

begun the cultivation of bacteria on solid substratum and hope
soon to arrange culture tubes for their cultivation in fluids. I
only today planted my pear bacteria and so do not yet know how
I shall succeed with them." By August 17 he was announcing that
he would "present only one paper to the American Association,
which [would] be on the absolute proof that pear blight is due to
bacteria." This was entitled " Proof that Bacteria are the direct
cause of the disease in trees known as Pear Blight," ®^ and, being
read at Ann Arbor, supplied the basis for Erwin Smith's review of
"Recent Literature concerning Pear Blight."^" In 1884 Arthur
had found that he "could transfer the disease more certainly by
cutting up a little of a diseased limb in a small amount of water.
The water would become slightly milky with the liberated germs,
and to inoculate a limb [he} used a small drop of this milky
water." ^^ During 1885 he used " sterilized solutions of starch,
corn meal, etc." to grow the " micrococcus " and, after filtering the
culture liquid through porcelain, reproduced the blight with the
residue and not the filtrate.^* This artificial culture technique,
followed by pure culture experiments which as we shall see Smith
later believed were " probably " pure cultures, was the reason why
he believed that Arthur had "carried the work considerably far-
ther" than Burrill. Smith not only studied Arthur's paper but
also had "personal conversations with him" on the subject. In
January the New York experiment station botanist had visited
Professor Spalding's "good department" at the University of
Michigan; and he had written Bessey that Spalding was building
the department " in the right manner and in the right direction.
He intends," Arthur wrote, "to visit Europe in a year or so to
become more familiar with the German methods." ^'

On August 26, in University Building at Ann Arbor, Dr. Bessey
addressed the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science
on " The Demands Made by Agriculture upon the Science of
Botany." ^'^ Three coordinate extensions of laboratory research

^^ Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sd. 34: 295-298, 1885; Botanical Gazette 10 (9 and
10): 343-345, 1885.

""^ Michigan Horticulturist 1(2): 34-36, 1885.

"J. C. Arthur, Pear blight, Proc. Amer. Pom. Sac. for 1885: 44-47, 1886.

^^ E. F. Smith, Michigan Horticulturist 1(2): 34-36.

^^ Letter, Arthur to Bessey, January 30, 1885.

*^ Proc. 6th Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., of 1885, Manhattan, Kansas, 16-18,
1886.

On Plant Pathology and Bactlriology 113

were called fi)r: lirst, in nomciKlaturc and classification t)f culti-
vated and other farm plants of value, similar in scope to Real's
efforts to systematize the apples on the basis of their floral char-
acters and Sturtevant's enumeration and description of species of
Indian corn included in which were important beginning studies
of the origin and history of various cultivated vegetables; and
second and third, full-scale investigation in vegetable physiology
and pathology. "The vegetable pathologist," said Bessey, "must
build his science upon that of his fellow worker in vegetable
physiology, and the results of the labor of both must be laid
before modern agriculture for its use. That botany which hopes
to satisfy the demands of the advanced agriculture of today must
include a knowledge of pathology."

In September 1S84, following the annual convention of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, an official
committee had been appointed composed of Arthur, Bessey, Far-
low, Burrill, Beal, Peck, and Joseph Trimble Rothrock to secure
research and a nation-wide program within the United States
Department of Agriculture to study and treat diseases of plants.**^
The maintenance of a sound national economy was being en-
dangered by the increasing menace of diseases among agricultural
crops. Agriculture was still the nation's basic industry, and im-
mediate action was believed required because of the alarming
prevalence and severity of some diseases. The leaders of this
movement were Arthur and Bessey, but other members of the
committee were in full sympathy with the proposals of a formal
memorial presented from the Association to Commissioner of
Agriculture Norman J. Colman in the spring of 1885. By that
time Charles V. Riley had been added to the committee.

Rothrock, like Farlow, had been a student of Gray and DeBary.
He had returned from Europe imbued with the new methods of
botanical investigation and, appointed to a chair of botany at the
University of Pennsylvania, developed one of America's first im-
portant botanical laboratories.^^ He in his classroom instruction
and laboratory work, while not neglecting adequate fundamental
study in taxonomy, put forward research in plant physiology and

*' J. C. Arthur, History and scope of plant pathology, op. cit., 158-159.
** See, Botany in the University of Pennsylvania, Botanical Gazette 14 (1): 1-5,
1889.

114 Early Work in North America

anatomy patterned after his learning in Europe. His instruction,
while more closely linked to medical botany than other labora-
tories subsequently established in various universities of the
nation, helped to train not only medical students but plant pathol-
ogists also. A cryptogamic botanist like Farlov/, he early appre-
ciated the need for studies in forest mycology and pathology; and,
had not the forestry movement in Pennsylvania drawn him almost
wholly into its service, he might have gone far in this specialty.

Arthur reported to Bessey in May, 1885: "The avidity and
cordiality with which [the Commissioner] acceded to all demands
quite took my breath away, and I haven't yet recovered. He says,
' . . . I fully appreciate the importance of such investigation, and
heartily sympathize with the scientists of the country as to the
nature of the work. I have further to state that I have recently
appointed F. Lamson-Scribner to the position of Assistant Botanist
with special reference to this work.' " Arthur commented, " It
looks to me as if our movement was tabled. I have no hope that
any creditable work will be done. But I see no way to offer a
protest. Scribner is a good man, but I don't knov/ that he has any
knov/ledge of fungi or methods of investigation."

Scribner*^ had been born in Massachusetts in 1851. Early in
life, he had lost his parents and, being adopted into another
family, combined his real name Lamson with that of his adopters
Scribner. He was brought up near Augusta, Maine, and soon
manifested his inclination toward natural history and his special
interest in botany. At the age of eighteen years, he prepared for
the state board of agriculture an illustrated pamphlet on the
"Weeds of Maine." From 1870 until 1873 he was a student at
the agricultural college at Orono, from which institution he gradu-
ated. Dr. George Vasey was in charge of the federal Division of
Botany when Scribner was appointed assistant botanist, and the
New Englander's herbarium in grasses and other plants, later
acquired by Bowdoin College, was valuable.

In July 1885 Commissioner Colman assembled in Washington
a convention ^° of influential agriculturists; and, in his address,
made known his determination to encourage investigations by the
Department "into the health and diseases of plants." He com-

** Based on a biographical sketch of Scribner prepared by the Division of Records
and Editing, U. S. Dept. of Agric, March 29, 1894.
^"Botanical Gazette 10 (8): 325, 327, 1885.

On Plant Pati/oioc.y and Ba( ti;rioi.oc.y in

mented on the difficulties frequently encountered in distinguishing
betu'een fungi and bacteria as causes and not simply consequences
of diseases in the vegetable economy, notably diseases of the
peach, pear, and grape. Concerning pear blight, he said: "It is
well known that the profitable culture of some of our best fruits
is rendered very problematical on account of their liability to
fatal diseases. The pear blight is an example. Many apparently
conflicting opinions have been published from time to time in
regard to the cause of this malady, some attributing to it fungi,
and others to bacteria, but withal, no remedy is suggested by
microscopists so far as I am aware." Agricultural colleges, he
urged, could "do a noble work" by helping to determine the
causes and prescribing remedies for some of the perplexing mala-
dies: leaf blister of the peach; grape mildew for which as yet no
remedy was known except possibly to grow species resistant to the
ailment; and the w^hole fabric of blights, molds, rusts, smuts, and
other diseases of crops.

Congress appropriated monies " for the investigation of the
fungous diseases of plants, such as mildew, smut, blight, grape-rot,
Sec, and for experiments necessary to determine suitable remedies
for those diseases." ^^ Accordingly, in 1886, a mycological section
was organized within the Division of Botany, and Scribner, placed
in control of the section on July 1st, began investigating " diseases
of fruit and fruit trees, grains, and other useful plants, caused by
fungi." ®-

Bacterial diseases of plants were then scarcely known, and
viruses, as known today, were unheard of except in connection
with diseases of animals and man. Occasionally the word " virus "
appeared in the literature of plant diseases but its use was non-
specific and mainly as a synonym for poison. Burrill, for instance,
when writing on pear blight,^^ said: "The introduction of the
virus introduced the cause of the disease, and the potency of the
virus was quite positively due to the living bacteria." This was a
statement made in 1881 and he, during approximately a decade of
study in cryptogamic botany, had passed from a doubt whether

gi

92

Rep't of the Cornm'er of Agric. for 1886: 80.
Rep't of the mycological section, idepi, 95.

"^Bacteria as a cause of disease in plants, op. cit., 527-531; also, 10th Ann.

Rep't III. Indus. Univ., op. cit., 62-84.

116 Early Work in North America

fungi cause disease in plants to a belief that not only fungi, but
also bacteria, are "vegetable parasites" which cause diseases of
agricultural crops. Burrill's inoculum appears to have been the
"sticky, half-fluid substance" exuded from blighted branches of
pear and apple trees. In 1881 he reported that sixty-three per
centum of inoculated twigs became diseased in contrast to less
than two per centum when similarly punctured "with sterile
knife and solution." ^* The point of even greater importance than
his technique, whether with or without the use of pure cultures,
was that he had established that a bacterium, and not fungi in any
way, was the cause of pear blight.

Burrill, in ascertaining the cause of pear blight, had performed
a great service to his state and his nation. After his work, intelli-
gent restrictive efforts toward its control became possible. The
states immediately south of the Great Lakes were not the only
valuable fruit-growing areas to become affected. Later in Cali-
fornia economic losses from the malady were figured over a period
of years as in the millions of dollars.^' Smith believed'''*^ that
Burrill had proved

four things conclusively; 1) The absence of any fungus in the blighting
pear twigs; 2) The constant presence of a motile bacillus in enormous
numbers in the freshly blighted twigs, which bacillus, moreover, could
always be found pushing into the sound tissues some centimeters in
advance of the visible browning and death; 3) The infectious nature of
the freshly blighted material; 4) The identity of the blight on pear,
apple and quince.

Arthur in 1886, after his studies of pear blight were practically
completed, mapped the disease's distribution for Scribner's report
of the mycological section. Smith believed that not only was
Arthur's technique better than Burrill's but also that Burrill's stu-
dent, M. B. Waite, finally isolated and worked out the cultural
characters of the "right" causal organism.''" Arthur in 1899^^
found Smith's evaluation of his work an " excellent and discrimi-
nating statement. ... I have known for some time," he wrote,

" Charles F. Hottes, op. cit., 7.

*" E. F. Smith, An introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, 54-55, Phila. and
London, W. B. Saunders 1920.

^^ Centralbl. j. Bakt. II, 5 (23): 812, 1899; idem, 5 (8): 276-277.
*' Letter, Smith to L. R. Jones, February 24, 1914.
"^ Letter, Arthur to Smith, December 30, 1899.

On Plant Pathology and Ba(;tl:iuology 117

" that I had confounded in my published accounts a non-patho-
genic with the true pear bhght bacillus, but that chieily affected
the morphological part of my work. What you have said of my
work is certainly true, and could not have been better stated by
myself." Smith had written: "''

Dr. Arthur repeated Prof. Biirrill's experiments and carried tlie work
considerably farther. In 188-4, at the Geneva Experiment Station, in New
York, he made 121 inoculations into . . . pear, apple, quince, hawthorn,
June-berry, mountain ash, blackberry, peach, grape, etc. The infectious
material was obtained 'from freshly blii^hted twigs and fruits and con-
sisted at first of the extruded gum, and subsequently and in most cases of
drops of water which had been rendered slightly milky by cutting it into
sections of freshly blighted twigs swarming with the bacteria, the milki-
ness being due to the enormous number of bacteria held in suspension.
These inoculations were made in the station orchard under peculi;:rly
favorable circumstances, there being an abundance of material of all sorts
for experiment and scarcely any natural blight nearer than a mile and a
half. On the Station farm the only occurrence of blight on uninoculated
trees was confined to a few twigs of one of the quince trees and to a few
branches on a pear tree a half mile distant, which twigs and branches
were cut out promptly. Under these circumstances Dr. Arthur obtained
53 successful infections, the first symptoms appearing usually in 3 to 8
days, but sometimes in less favorable tissues not until after 10 to 23 days.
The failures were due to inoculations into too old tissues (old stems, leaves
and fruits), to unfavorable weather conditions, and to inoculations into
non-susceptible plants — peach, grape etc. ... At this time it was still
believed by many scientific men that infectious diseases were due primarily
to chemical substances and not to the bacteria which were associated with
the diseases. With this in mind. Dr. Arthur on six different occasions
separated the juice of blighted tissues from the bacteria by filtration
through unglazed baked clay cups. In every instance the filtered fluid
failed to produce the disease when inoculated into susceptible tissues. In
every case the same tissues blighted promptly when inoculated with a tiny
quantity of the bacterial residue. Subsequently he made pure cultures or
what he supposed to be such, and which probably were such, by inoculat-
ing tubes of sterile corn meal broth with bacteria from the interior of
freshly blighted tissues. When well clouded, a drop from one of these
tubes was transferred to another tube and so on through six tubes. Under
careful control conditions pear blight was twice produced from such
cultures.

In 1886 Arthur discussed ^"^ "preventives and remedies" for

"^ Cent. f. Bakt. II, 5 (23): 812-813, 1899; 5 (8): 276-277.
^""J. C. Arthur, Pear blight, Rep't of the Myc. Sect., Rep't of the Comm'er of
Agric. for 1886: 125-129.

118 Early Work in North America

pear blight, but admitted no " genuine remedies " existed. Germi-
cides and sprays were being experimentally investigated. Certain
pear varieties were known to be less blight-susceptible than others.
Immediate removal and burning of affected branches had been
early recommended, as well as clean orchard culture and other
practical measures. Smith accredited ^°^ both Burrill and Arthur
Vv^ith observing blossom-blight caused by the bacteria; and Arthur
suggested that the bacteria entered through the nectaries, a con-
clusion later proved by M. B. Waite when establishing the insect-
transmission of the disease. Smith's comparative account ^°" in
1885 of the work of Burrill and Arthur in pear blight conformed
substantially to his more elaborate description of fourteen years
later, when, to the contributions made by them, he added the
results obtained by Waite by 1899."^

In 1886 Burrill, with the use of pure culture inoculations, was
studying "A Disease of Broom-Corn and Sorghum." "* Interest
in this study is heightened by the fact that Waite assisted him in
part of the investigation. In July bacteria were believed found
associated with the tissues and in August some unsuccessful inocu-
lation experiments were performed. A pure culture of a bacillus
was saved and the next year Burrill believed that he had repro-
duced the disease with the artificial culture. With material from
diseased stalks Waite commenced experiments on young plants.
At the eighth meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Agri-
cultural Science, Burrill reported on the disease.

Waite graduated in 1887 from the University of Illinois and
spent a year as an assistant to Burrill. His work in pear blight
began later after becoming connected with federal agricultural
work. He made " successful inoculations of Bacillus amylovorus^
using modern methods and pure cultures obtained from poured
plate colonies. . . ." He and Smith became acquainted in 1888,
perhaps earlier, while both men were employed in the Section
of Vegetable Pathology of the United States Department of
Agriculture.

^"^ Centralblalt f. Bakt. II, 5 (8): 277, 1899.

^°^ E. F. Smith, Recent literature concerning pear blight, Michigan Horticulturist
1 (2): 34-36.

^°^ Centralb. f. Bakt. II, 5 (23): 813-814. Describes experiments begun at
Washington in 1894 and which Smith watched, inoculations and results.

"•** Proc. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 30-36, 1887, at p. 32.

On Plant Pmiiology and Bactiiriology 119

Waitc was an Illinoisaii In birth, as was another student of
forthcoming renown, Arthur IMiss Seymour, trained by Burrill
during this pioneering period of phmt pathology in America.
Seymour graduated in science in 1881 from the University of
lUinois and in 1S86 was given a Master of Science degree after
he had spent some time as an assistant at the Gray and Crypto-
gamic Herbaria of Harvard University. During 1879, and again
in 1881-1883, he had served as botanist of the Illinois State
Laboratory of Natural History. When William Trclease was
called to the Shaw School of Botany and Washington University,
St. Louis, he wrote to Gray, " After giving the subject a good
deal of thought, I have recommended Seymour for trial one year
as Assistant Professor for I have more confidence in him than in
any other available man." Seymour was placed in charge of the
botanical department of the University of Wisconsin during 1885-
1886, but in 1886 he again became an assistant to Farlow in the
Cryptogamic Herbarium of Harvard, and together over a period
of years, 1888-1891, they published their famous Provisional Host-
hid ex of the Fungi of the United States.

During the year that Erwin Smith was a student at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, the only plant pathologists who satisfied Pro-
fessor Spalding's definition of a professional investigator in the
subject were: Farlow and Seymour at Cambridge, Burrill of the
University of Illinois, Trelease of the Shaw School of Botany,
and Scribner of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Smith's name was the next to be added. Spalding did not include
himself.

September 27, 1885, Smith, still at Lansing, wrote to Mrs. P.
H. Worden of Scriba Corners, New York, " I leave on Tuesday
next for the State University, where I shall remain a year or two,
after which I hope to secure a chair of Natural History in some
first class institution." On May 18 he had advised Spalding that
he had

fully decided to enter the University this fall, and in order to get off the
regular work and confine myself to a specialty as soon as possible, I am
anxious to pass as many studies as I honestly can. I am deficient in
mathematics and will make up all that is required in that, but in the
natural sciences and the modern languages I believe I can pass off a
number of courses. Can you consistently pass me on some of the botanical
work? My plan is to spend three years at Ann Arbor, or so long as may

120 Early Work in North America

be necessary to secure my second degree, and then go to Germany. I
have not given up my first love, but propose to continue my botanical
studies. Will there be any opportunity to do any remunerative work in
the botanical laboratory, or in the herbarium.^

Once before he had taken and passed entrance examinations.
On June 2 he told Dr. Vaughan,

I prepared for the University and passed most of my entrance examina-
tions six years ago this month, securing advanced standing in some
branches. Circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to
give up my plans, for the time, and seek business which should at once
bring me money. I did not however give up my scheme, but have con-
tinued my literary and scientific studies.

He entered the university with advanced standing in English, Eng-
lish and American literature, the German and French languages
and their literature, the science and art of teaching, and the
natural sciences of zoology, entomology, botany, and probably
chemistry and physics. He had had the " prescribed elementary
course in physics," and his work with the federal weather bureau
and his years with the state board of health evidently gave him
advanced standing also in meteorology and sanitary science. His
years in school work were his qualifications in the science and
art of teaching.

During his first semester, he was permitted to substitute Latin
for the requirement of additional mathematics, and during the
year he had a semester's work in histology under Instructor
Howard Ayers. On November 5, 1885, he wrote Jay P. Lee, one
of his roommates while at Lansing and now a lawyer:

Trig[onometry} comes twice a week in the mornings. Advanced Physics
comes every day in form of lectures with written examinations once a
week. All the rest of the morning I spend in the Botanical Laboratory. I
have taken an interesting group of parasitic fungi and am learning all I
can about its members by microscopic examinations of fresh and alcoholic
material. The literature of the subject is mostly in French and German
and once or twice a week Spalding and I meet and read together. He is
the better German. I have the advantage in French. This work is very
agreeable and as I am the only one taking the course, I have things all my
own way, — something we all like, you know. What additional time I get
is given to that everlasting paper on " Sewerage and Death rate in Cities,"
which drags on interminably. . . . The members of the Faculty so far as
I have met them, are very pleasant, and the same may be said of the
people who frequent the Unitarian Church. The church is so pleasant and

Ox Plant Patiioi.ogy and Bacthriology 121

homelike, the people are so cordial, niui doctrine is so much to my liking
that I sh.dl go to church regularly.

The four members of the faculty with whom Smith was best
acquainted were Professors Vau<;han, Steere, Harrington, and
Spalding. For the purposes of this book, his work under Spalding
was, of course, most important. Burrill and Arthur had phiced
before scientists studies of not only pear blight but also of peach
yellows '^^ and other serious crop maladies. Smith soon knew
what his specialt)- in 'botanical research and his life work were
to be. He first finished the required courses for his degree, and
with the completion of the first semester he looked forward to the
end of the "' grind."

The "interesting group of parasitic fungi" which he studied
were the Peronosporaceae. At the twentieth annual sessions of the
American Pomological Society which had met in September of
that year at Grand Rapids, Bessey, Burrill, Arthur, and Riley had
discussed various aspects of plant disease research. Smith and
Spalding were acquainted with many of the delegates who at-
tended these meetings. Arthur, after he had returned to Geneva,
had written Smith on October 1 and expressed special interest in
his university studies. He or Spalding, Garfield, Bailey, Beal, or
Cook might have recommended the Peronosporas for study.

In December 1885 Smith published in the Mkhigan Crop Re-
port'''^ the results of his microscopic study of "The Potato Rot,"
caused by the fungus Phytophthora [Peronospora'] infestans. He
based his study of the fungus' life history on the work of DeBary,
and so "very carefully prepared and concise [was his] statement
of this disease, and preventive measures " he thought possible that
it was reprinted, at least in part, in the third annual report ^'" of
the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station where W. A.
Henry was now director.

^"^ See, T. J. Burrill, Bacteria as a cause of disease in plants, America?! Naturalist
15: 527, 1881. In this he added ""yellows' of the peach with much confi-
dence," admitting, however, that, as yet, the " full investigation " given to pear
blight had not been completed for peach yellows. Also J. C. Arthur, Pear bhght,
its cause and prevention," Proc. Neir Jersey State Hort. Soc. 11th Ann. Meet.,
Dec. 29, 30, 1885: 133-147, 1886. In a letter to Smith of December 4, 1890,
Arthur said that his and Goff's studies at Geneva of peach yellows were mentioned
at several points (pp. 44, 45, 51).

"" 50: 3-5.

'"' (1886), pp. 56-59.

122 Early Work in North America

The plant diseases caused by the Peronosporaceae were among
the most serious known at this time. About forty "members of
the small order "^°® were known to occur in the United States;
and, among the more important of the maladies, were the potato
rot and the grape-vine mildew caused by Peronospora viticola.
In New York State, during 1884, one- third of the potato crop had
been destroyed by the rot, and no positive remedy for the disease
was established. The grape-vine mildew had done "much injury
to the grape-vine in this country, and more recently to the vines
of Europe." ^°^ Since the 1870's"° Americans had been watching
with interest the efforts of the French nation to conquer the grape
phylloxera, and C. V. Riley, at the recent pomological society
meeting,"^ had told his audience that grape mildew due to
Peronospora was novv' regarded as more serious in France than
the grape phylloxera. It was hoped that the phylloxera would be
combatted by grafting certain American vine stocks resistant to the
pathogene onto the more susceptible European vines. An " im-
mense traffic" "" in American cuttmgs had resulted. But with the
shipments the Peronospora, until within the past few years un-
known to the grape-growers of France, had been introduced from
this country. ^^^

The hope for solutions of the Peronospora diseases of the grape
and the potato lay in studying out the life-histories of the fungi
and finding some point in their development-cycles when attack
by a fungicide or other remedy would prove effective. The Uni-
versity of Michigan had no college or department of agriculture.
Professor Spalding's idea of botanical research, however, was
broad and included investigations in plant physiology, plant
pathology, and mycology. By no later than October 9, 1885,
Erwin Smith, in the university botanical laboratory, was sowing
conidia of Peronospora viticola in water on a slide; and, after an
hour had gone by, was finding "what seemed to be, and un-
doubtedly were, swarm spores swimming in the water. At first
[he] saw only a few but in course of [the] next half hour saw

'"* F. L. Scribner, Rep't of the Comm'er of Agric. of U. S. for 1885: 83.

"■"" Idetn, 82-84.

^^'' Rep'ts of the Comm'er of Agric. for 1873: 160, 289, 389; for 1876: 81.

^^^ Proc. 20th Sess. Amer. Pom. Soc, for 1885: 52.

"' C. V. Rilev, Rep't of the Com7n'er of Agric. for 1884: 406. See also p. 288.

^^^ Proc. 20th Sess. Amer. Pomol. Soc. for 1885: 52.

On Plant Pathoixxiy and Ha(.ti:kk)i.ogv 123

many swimming about. At 10:20 [o'clock he] found a conidium
the protoplasm of which appeared to be segmenting." He ob-
served this conidium until 10:'S0 o'clock, made six drawings "of
the changes which occurred during this period. In five minutes
after 1 began to watch," he wrote in a memorandum, " all at once
one end of the conidium gave way and the swarm spores came out
rapidly one after another or two or three together. There were
11 in this conidium," and he drew

the appearance of the c-ell two minutes after the rupture. Four of the
swarm spores remained inside the conidium, and apparently could not get
out. The cell walls appeared to be elastic and by contraction of the rup-
ture so narrow the opening as to make escape impossible. The spores
moved about actively inside the cell for some time but did no[t} so crowd
or get into each other's way as to block the passage out. Several times a
spore was alone and actively moving at the ruptured end, but apparently
could not get out. The movement of the spores inside ceased in about
25-30 min[utes} after the rupture of the conidium. Those which escaped
soon became active and swam away. I could not see any movements of
cilia inside the cell before its rupture, as I was easily able to in a prior
observation.

On October 16 another adventure in research took place. His
memorandum read:

\Xhile examining Perotiospora found on my slide several fine patches
of 2o5gleas form of Bacteriuvi termo. At first all appeared to be motion-
less but in course of an hour several patches began to break up the indi-
viduals becoming very active. I several times fixed my attention on
motionless individual cells of the zoogleas mass and saw them become
detached after a time and begin actively swimming about. By the end of
an hour the field was full of actively moving figure-eights — thousands of
them, and some of the zooglea:; masses were half broken up.

On October 30 he sowed in a watch-glass of water " conidia of
Cystopus candidtis from Capsella Biirsa-Pastoris." This was
another species of fungus of the order Peronosporaceae and the
cause of the "white rust disease of cabbages." ^^'^ Again he took
data on time, temperature, the appearance of swarm spores, and
the break-up of conidia. This time he observed the protoplasm
break down

into an amorphous or slightly granular mass. . . . Another swarm spore

F. L. Scribner, op. cit., 85.

124 Early Work in North America

[he] saw come to rest at 10:20 gradually acquired a well-defined wall and
two large vacuoles with a thin central wall of protoplasm between them.
This cell remained nearly the same till about 11:00 when the protoplasm
gathered over to one side from which a small, short protuberance pushed
out. This protuberance enlarged slightly but showed no further change
up to 12:00 o'clock.

He found on November 2 in a petiole of Geranium maculatiim
great numbers of round crystals. Boiling in HCl [hydrochloric
acid] entirely freed the tissues of them. Treatment with strong
Acetic acid had no effect." He concluded " them to be oxalate
of lime."

Field, as well as laboratory, investigations were combined in
his investigations. Early the next spring Garfield wrote Smith and
offered to arrange to have published in August a paper by Smith
on the grape rot. Smith replied that it was " a difficult subject
and we shall not feel like publishing until we have gone to the
bottom of it if it takes two years." Their observations had begun
in October and he wanted to continue them at least until fall.

We find a half dozen or more sorts of fungi on the grape vine and
frequently several together on the same vine. The problem is to tell
which ones rot the berries i. e., to discriminate between the parasites and
the saprophytes which follow the ferment very closely. In due time I trust
we may be able to separate the sheep from the goats or at least to tell
them apart. We shall not be ready to publish till we have settled a number
of points now in dispute.

Three fungi were known to cause " rot " in grapes: Peronospora
viticola causing mildew; Glososporiiiin amelophagum causing
anthracnose, a malady studied by Burrill in Illinois and by others;
and Phoma uvkola, the cause of black rot. Smith discovered an
ascosporus form of Phoma iivicola, and this find was mentioned
that year by F. Lamson Scribner, chief of the Mycological Section
of the United States Department of Agriculture, in a paper on
"' Black Rot — Physalospora Bidicelin." ^^^ In grapes, destroyed
the previous year by black-rot, gathered from the vine, and kept
for a week in a moist chamber, Smith found "an abundance of
the ascosporus form," and Scribner said, " His camera drawings
also clearly show the presence of paraphyses, organs not observed
by Mr. [J. B.] Ellis nor myself."

""^ Proc. Ith Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sc:., 82, 87 footnote, 1886.

On Plant Pathology and Bactlriolocy 125

Trclcase in Wisconsin had also studied the causes of grape
rot.'"' More than studying parasitic fungi which cause diseases in
phuits, in 1884 his thesis for the doctorate at Harvard under
Farlow had been entitled " Observations on Several Zooglasa and
Related Forms" and involved a cultural and systematic study of
some bacterial forms on potato.''^ In 1888 he spent a summer in
study at Koch's laboratory in Berlin and obtained cultures and
apparatus for a class on bacteria planned to be given at the Shaw
School of Botany at St< Louis that autumn. We do not know that
the course materialized but we do know that, during the early
years of the school, Trelease held special classes and that this was
planned for young medical doctors and included within its scope
" the botany of the subject." "^

Be that as it may, the classical instruction of DeBary and Farlow
was reaching botanical laboratories of middle west United States
and interest in plant disease study was being stimulated among
both scientists and the public. Spalding lectured before the
Washtenaw Pomological Society on "The Potato Rot,""" and
v.hen this was published Smith added comments based on their
microscopic and statistical analyses.

Nearly all of Spalding's life had been associated with a farm,
and agriculture. Although he was born at East Bloomfield, On-
tario County, New York, his parents, when he was an infant, had
moved to Gorham in the same county, and there for fifteen years
his father owned and worked a farm. Volney attended a district
school and learned the rudiments of reading, writing, spelling,
arithmetic, grammar, and geography, and some "higher" learning
in history and algebra. In 1864, his father took his family west
and settled on a farm " within easy ear-shot " ^~° of the Ann Arbor
high school and university bells. Greek, Latin, Mathematics, some
study of English and modern languages, and sciences, were taught
young Spalding while in high school. Delayed from completing

"® F. L. Scribner, Rep't of Comm'er of Agric. for 1885, op. cit., 84, citing Trans.
Wise. State Hort. Soc. 15: 196.

"^ t/;//Y'. of Wisconsin Studies. Science #2: 10.

"'Letters, Trelease to Farlow, March 1, 17, August 23, 1888; December 7, 1893.
Found at the Farlow Reference Library of Harvard Univ.

"» Michigan Farmer, March 9, 1886.

^-° Taken from notes dictated by Spalding and transcribed by Mrs. Effie South-
worth Spalding January 1, 1918, and sent by Mrs. Spalding to Smith April 9, 1920,

126 Early Work in North America

his high school course by " hindrances due to the possession of a
large farm," he completed his pre-university work in 1869 and
entered the University of Michigan that year. After graduating,
he served as a high school principal at Battle Creek and Flint,
Michigan, and probably during these years had little to do with
farming. Two years later, he was called to the University of
Michigan, there to find the beginnings of a modernized instruction
in science. In high school he had studied " two or three of the
sciences, taught as ' information subjects.' " Greek, Latin, and
mathematics were then regarded the best preparation for " a
really substantial college course." Alexander Winchell, learned
in botany, zoology, and geology, did not leave the University of
Michigan to become chancellor of Syracuse University until 1873,
the year of Spalding's graduation. Consequently, Spalding's work
in natural history was mainly under Winchell, but also he took
advanced work in the sciences at Cornell, Yale, Harvard, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Late in the 1880's he spent a summer
at the Physiological Institute at Jena, Germany, under Professor
W. Detmer and still later in 1894 was to obtain his doctorate
in philosophy under Wiihelm Pfeifer at Leipzig.

University Hall, the well equipped "noble structure [which
stood} on the north side of the Campus," Spalding prophesied,
would " doubtless long stand as an encouraging reminder that
achievement is very largely a matter of keeping everlastingly at
it." Probably no one of the several university buildings, library,
museum, or other, housed in 1885-1886 any student and teacher in
whom mutual respect and esteem were stronger than between
Spalding and Smith. Spalding evaluated Smith's work at the
university thus:

I have never been associated with one who had more of the spirit of
investigation and whose results I would accept with more confidence. He
is widely and favorably known to the botanists of the country and in ail
cases I think has inspired the utmost confidence as the result of his patient,
thorough and conscientious treatment of every subject that falls into his
hands. . . . [H}e has devoted all the time that he could command to
[botany] for ten or fifteen years. He has, however, a practical knowledge
of entomology and has done some close and creditable work in histology.
In the other sciences he has done about what is accomphshed by our most
thorough students in physics, chemistry, zoology etc. He could not be
called a specialist in those branches, but has done his work in them well.

On Plant Faihologv and Bac;ti;kk)logv 127

He has a special interest in practical agriculture and all the questions per-
taining to it. The present year he has done some excellent work on the
potato rot and is now niakini; a special study ol the graix' rot. The State
Horticultural Society stands ready to print the results or this investigation
and to go to the expense of furnishing suitable plates. [He is] a rare
man, one of the very few genuine investigators who turn up in the course
of a decade who are at the same fime possessed of the other qualifications
so essential to the proper discharge of the duties of a university professor.
He is at heart and in bearing a ge)Ule7f]an in tlie truest sense. I would
trust him /'/; every particular as a genuine man. . . .^-^

Spalding believed 'that Smith's rare talents combined both
teacher and investigator. He was possessed of " a natural taste for
agriculture and a desire to study problems of practical utility such
as plant diseases and other related subjects." Most of all, he was
"" a ??ia}i of character and worth," and all these qualifications were
his " in an unusual degree, in a far higher degree than numerous
college professors. . . . He uses excellent English, reads French
at sight with a fluency rarely met with, knows and reads men as
one who has had the experience of a man of the world, and has
the instincts, the full feeling, the kindness of heart, the nobility
of purpose and the manly bearing that characterize a true gentle-
man." This was a letter of recommendation addressed to the
Trustees of the University of Georgia, located at Athens.

Smith applied for the chair of Natural History and Agriculture
there. He was aware that southen schools were known to prefer
southern men. The likelihood was that a man who knew practical
farming in the south and had been educated in a southern college
of agriculture would do better than one whose practical farming
experience was in Michigan. C. W. Garfield, secretary of the
American Pomological Society, addressed another recommenda-
tion. Smith was, he wrote, " an earnest worker, public spirited.
a careful student of Natural History, a candid practical man. I
can not tell how he would do in the place he seeks, but if any man
we have in Michigan would do well, I think he will." L. H.
Bailey, Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening at
Michigan Agricultural College, recommended Smith "as a young
man of unusual acquirements and singular natural ability in bio-
logical investigations. In all the range of my acquaintance," he
wrote, " I know of no one who could better fill the chair of natural

"' Letter dated May 24, 1886.

128 Early Work in North America

history and agriculture in your institution." An experimental
farm, maintained in connection with the University of Georgia,
Smith believed, would permit him an "opportunity for the study
of plant diseases and kindred topics of great interest." F. Lamson
Scribner interceded for him. " I wish to say," he wrote, " that
among the available men, I know of no one better qualified for
such a position. From a slight personal acquaintance I know him
to be a gentleman who will command the respect of his associates
and from his published papers I know him to be a man of high
scientific ability, eminently practical, and well able to impart his
knowledge to others. What he has done has been tuell done and
will reflect creditably upon any institution that may secure his
services." Other recommendations were sent from the editors of
The Saiiitary Neu>s, Professor of Agriculture Norton S. Towns-
hend of the Ohio State University, W. A. Henry, Dr. Cook,
Professor of Horticulture and Entomology J. Troop of Purdue
University, G. H. Failyer of Kansas Agricultural College, Dr.
Beal, M. W. Harrington, J. M. Coulter, C R. Barnes, and Lieu-
tenant John P. Finley of the United States Army Signal Corps.
Of course. Dr. Baker also recommended him.

At thirty-one years of age, Smith graduated with honors and a
degree of Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of
Michigan on July 1, 1886. In the same class Fred George Novy of
Ann Arbor was graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science
in Chemistry, and within two years he and Dr. Vaughan would
hasten to Berlin to take Koch's course in bacteriology and prepare
for the work of Michigan's new laboratory of practical hygiene.^"'

Smith did not go to the University of Georgia nor did he apply
for a position with any other state university or experiment station.
His plan was to remain at the University of Michigan and secure
a degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He still purposed to teach and
do experimental research.

In 1885 an agricultural experiment station had been organized
at Maine Agricultural College, Orono, under the direction of Dr.
William H. Jordan who later followed Dr. Sturtevant as director
of the New York station at Geneva and who before going to

^-- A Doctor's Memories, op. cit., 146-153; A. C. McLaughlin, History of higher
education in Michigan, Circ. 4, Bull, of Education, 86-88, Washington, Gov't Print.
Office, 1891.

On Plant PATnoLCKiv and Baltlriologv I2y

Maine was at State College, Pennsylvania. State organized
stations, moreover, had been established at Massachusetts Agri-
cultural College under Dr. Goessmann; at Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, New Jersey, under Dr. George H. Cook, leading
authority on soils research; at Ohio State University, Columbus,
under Dr. William R. Lazenby, professor of horticulture and
forestry; at Alabama Polytechnic histitute under Director J. S.
Newman; and in Wisconsin the university station under W. A.
Henry. State stations of independent status were maintained at
New Haven, Connecticut, under Dr. Johnson, professor of agri-
culture at Sheffield Scientific School; at Geneva, New York, under
Dr. Sturtevant; and at Raleigh, North Carolina, under the direc-
tion of Dr. Qiarles W. Dabney. All of the stations received,
directly or indirectly, appropriations from the states, and the
amounts ranged from $5,000 to $11,000 (New Jersey) and
$20,000 (New York). A license tax on fertilizers helped finance
work in the south. ''^ In December 1886 a station was founded
as a department of the University of Vermont at Burlington. In
1887 experiment stations would be established at Purdue Univer-
sity, Indiana, and at the University of Nebraska where Bessey, in
addition to being professor of botany, would be the station's direc-
tor and dean of the Industrial College, and, in the east, at Pennsyl-
vania State College. In 1888, the year a state organized station
would be combined with a station located at the University of
South Carolina in 1887, federal funds under the Hatch Act of
1887 were made available to each state for a station, and the
number of stations was increased to at least one, and in a few
instances two or more, in almost every state of the Union.

Since 1879 a privately supported agricultural experiment station
had been functioning at Mountainville, Orange County, New
York. By 1885, however, neither this nor any one of the state
stations had brought the movement toward scientific agriculture
into the prominence it achieved after the state stations became
nation-wide. By 1885 in most instances, the available land areas
were inconsiderable — five, ten, twenty, or thirty acres, although in
New York, Alabama, and Wisconsin, between more than a hun-
dred and two hundred acres were usable as experimental areas.

^" Agricultural Experiment Stations in America — Condensed Facts, 1885, Proc.
4th and 5th Meet's Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 95, 1885.

130 Early Work in North America

Some stations occupied laboratory rooms of the college buildings;
some, home dwellings made over for their purposes. Some pos-
sessed barn, office, greenhouse, and storage facilities. Nearly all
had a chemist and assistants, but only four — Massachusetts, New
York, Ohio, and Wisconsin — had botanists as such, unless the
director or other official was botanically trained. The botanist at
Houghton Farms was an official. Station bulletins, annual reports,
and pamphlets were recognized occasionally for the quality of
their research. Agriculture, nevertheless, was still largely a teach-
ing subject.^-* Instruction, and systematic experimental investiga-
tions, in agriculture, were also under way at Cornell University, at
the agricultural colleges of Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsyl-
vania, at the universities of Tennessee at Knoxville, of Missouri
at Columbia, of South Carolina at Columbia, of Georgia at Athens,
and of California at Berkeley.

Smith, however, did not apply to any other university during
the summer of 1886. He was living at Lansing in August when
Scribner wrote:

I should like to see your notes and drawings on the " Phoma " [Black
rot of grape], and should you have any notes or observations relative to the
fungus more than what I have made, or, if your observations may serve to
verify mine, I should be very glad to state the fact in a paper I am about
to publish on this subject. I saw Prof. Spaulding's letter to you and con-
sequently know that he touched upon the matter relative to your coming
to Washington to assist in the investigation of the fungus diseases of
plants under my direction. As the finances of this Section now stand, I
would not at present like to recommend the engagement of anyone for
the entire year, but I would be glad to secure your assistance for, say,
six months. The disease you mention, the plutn rot, should be followed
up and all possible knowledge gained respecting it. I want some one to
go to work on Entomosporium maculatum [Pear leaf blight] and Fusi-
dad'ium dendviticum [Apple scab] — fungi which cause the cracking of
the pear and apple. I haven't the time to give these the personal attention
required for their thorough investigation.

Immediately he procured Commissioner Colman's signature to
a letter which authorized Smith's employment for six months at
$1,000 a year; and by September 3 the offer was accepted and
Smith directed to report for duty.

^^* Agricultural Experiment Stations — Condensed Facts, 1885, op. cit.\ A. C.
True, Origin and development of Agric. Exp't Sta's in the U. S., op. at., 547-553.

On Plant Pathology and Bacti-riology 131

That year Scribncr in his (xipcr on "* Hlack Rot" '-' read before
the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science mentioned
Smith's work on the ascosporous form of the fungus. Smith, in
Washington, roomed at the home of Benjamin Pickman Mann,
assistant entomologist of the Department of Agriculture, a lin-
guist conversant with "as many as ten languages," ''° who knew
botany having taught the subject for a year at Bowdoin College
and at one time edited a catalogue of the phaenogamous plants of
the United States, and who later was an examiner of the federal
patent office. He was the son of Horace and Mary Peabody Mann,
a graduate of Harvard University, member of national and local
scientific societies of Cambridge and Washington, a bibliographer,
author, philanthropist, and Unitarian, whom Smith esteemed al-
ways as " an upright and useful citizen."

In the same home roomed a young doctor of medicine, Theo-
bald Smith, director of the pathological laboratory of the Depart-
ment's Bureau of Animal Industry. In 1881 he had been gradu-
ated from Cornell University with the degree of Bachelor of
Philosophy, and in 1883 obtained his medical degree in the city
of his birth at Albany Medical College. During a spring semester
while a medical student, he had studied in the biological labora-
tories of Johns Hopkins University; and, after securing his degree,
had taken some graduate w^ork at Cornell.^-'

At Johns Hopkins courses of instruction in biology and physi-
olog)^ were given by the able and distinguished English biologist,
Henry Newell Martin, a man imbued with the teachings of
Thomas Henry Huxley, and by William Keith Brooks, a graduate
of Hobart and Williams Colleges who had taken special work
with, among other eminent scientists, Louis and Alexander
Agassiz.^-^ W. T. Sedgwick'-^ was then an associate in the de-
partment. Going to Johns Hopkins with E. B. Wilson, each
having been granted fellowships, Sedgwick had been persuaded by

"° Black Rot — Physalospora Bidwellii, op. cit., 87, footnote.

^-« Smith's dian', March 23, 1926.

^" Hans Zinsser, Theobald Smith 1859-1934, Memoirs, Nat'l Acad, of Set. 17:
261-288; Circular, Johns Hopkins Univ., 48 (April, 1886), p. 78; also, data, U.S.
Dep't of Agric, Nat'l Archives, Washington, D. C.

^-* E. A. Andrews, William Keith Brooks, Leading American Men of Science,
438, ed. by David Starr Jordan, N. Y., Henry Holt and Co., 1910.

""A pioneer of public health, etc., op. cit., 15, 19, 28-30.

132 Early Work in North America

Martin to change from his plan to become a doctor of medicine
and be a teacher and investigator. While a Yale medical student,
he had taught physiological chemistry at Sheffield Scientific School,
and after the year of study in physiology at Johns Hopkins he had
purposed to complete his medical education at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.

Theobald Smith and Erwin Smith became acquainted, and may
have discussed the availability of advanced instruction in biology
along the eastern seaboard. In 1883 Sedgwick had been appointed
Assistant Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, and the course he planned for pre-medical and other
students included chemistry, physics, general biology, comparative
anatomy, histology, and physiology."" In 1884 Dr. Joseph Leidy,
the last of the great naturalists to cover the "whole field of
nature" in studies ranging from the Protozoa and Infusoria up to
man,"^ had been appointed director of the Biological Department
of the University of Pennsylvania."" At Harvard University, since
the middle of the century, the instruction of such men as Jeffries
Wyman in anatomy and physiology, Louis and Alexander Agassiz
in zoology and paleontology, and Asa Gray,"^ Goodale, and Far-
low in botany had been sustaining qualities of leadership. In
American science, the centuries-old supremacy of geology, chem-
istry, and other branches of the physical sciences was yielding with
every year to important gains being made by the biological
sciences. Theobald Smith's graduate study at Cornell had centered
largely around the increasingly important subject of histological
technique. In fact, his appointment to a position in Washington
had been to some extent due to his knowledge of physiology as
well as pathology. When Dr. Daniel E. Salmon, chief of the
Bureau of Animal Industry, had consulted Dr. Simon Henry Gage,
associate professor of physiology at Cornell, to recommend some-
one to help him in the laboratory to solve problems of some
seriously widespread diseases among domestic animals, Gage
recommended Theobald Smith. He, twenty-five years of age and

"" Idem, 29.

^'^ Henry Fairfield Osborn, Impressions of great naturalists. 155, N. Y. and Lon-
don, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928.

^^^ Joseph Leidy, A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy
of Sciences, 159, Washington, 1913.

^'^ Jeffries Wyman, Leading Amer. Men of Sci., op. cit., 178 (by B. G. Wilder).

On Plant PArnoi.oc;v anh Ra( rinuoi.or.v 133

knowing no bacteriology and little animal pathology, accepted the
position and began to study the subjects thoroughly. In 1884
reports were made of " important experiments and investigations
of the Veterinary Division.' " This report, treating of work done
before the Bureau of Animal hidustry was created by legislative
enactment, described pleuro-pneumonia, enzootics of ergotism and
"foot-and-mouth" diseases, southern cattle fever, and swine
plague. This, and reports of the next years, showed the strong
influence of work and discoveries from the laboratories of
- Europe."*

Statistical studies of the geographic distribution of domestic
animal diseases throughout the United States were being made.
Preventive, remedial, and control measures were being tried and
tested. The experience of other countries was being examined,
and the published writings of Pasteur, Koch, Loffler, Schiitz, Roux,
Klein, and many others were studied, their recommended pro-
cedures being applied when found effectual. Origmal investiga-
tions were started, notably that of contagious pleuropneumonia of
cattle under Salmon, one of the main reasons why the Bureau was
established."^ With Gage, Theobald Smith prepared some papers
on investigation techniques in pathology. As late as 1889, how-
ever. Secretary Rusk complained that, owing to inadequate labora-
tory facilities, modern scientific study of some diseases could not
be undertaken because of the danger of communicating the mala-
dies to employees of the Department. "The laboratories," he
said,'^'' " are not sufficiently isolated." Even so, animal pathology,
as a research science including the study of bacteria, gained sub-
stantial recognition in the work of the Department before vege-
table pathology became an important factor. Plant pathology was
still a field, rather than an indoor laboratory, science. In Wash-
ington a few small rooms in the spacious red brick building of the
Department was given over to the study of plants and plant
diseases. But the quarters, nearer the roof than the main floors,
were by no means commensurate with the needs.

During the academic year 1886-1887 the trustees of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore had granted permission to use the

"^^^Rep't of Comm'er of Agric. for 1884: 181-267; 1885: 431-521; 1886: 593-686;
1887:457-522; 1S88: 145-220.
"^D. E. Salmon, Yearbook U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 111-113.
'First Rep't of Sec'y of Agric. for 1889: 40 ff.

130

134 Early Work in North America

Pathological building, so-called, for instruction and experimental
research in pathology and bacteriology. W. H. Welch had been
since 1884 Baxley Professor of Pathology there, and was recently
home from study in Koch's iirst public course in bacteriology and
had been an attendant or auditor of other courses in the new
science, based on Koch's early instruction/^^

Welch's able associate at Johns Hopkins was W. T. Council-
man, and among the seventeen physicians enrolled in 1886^^® as
advanced students or special investigators in the laboratory was
Dr. G. M. Sternberg who in 1887 published in the American
Journal of Medical Science on the thermal death-points of patho-
genic organisms. While in Europe, Welch had learned much
about diseases of animals, and not infrequently he was consulted
by officials of the Bureau of Animal Industry to help diagnose
some of the more puzzling maladies or determine the efficacy of
some remedy.

In 1886 Theobald Smith was appointed a professor of bacteri-
ology in the Columbian (now George Washington) University,
and from this institution in 1890 would be graduated as a doctor
of medicine another graduate in science from Cornell University,
Veranus Alva Moore, who that year also began a fuUtime employ-
ment as an investigator of infectious diseases with the Bureau of
Animal Industry.

They were the men who in 1889 and 1890 were to help shape
the directions of research when M. B. Waite and Erwin Smith in
the Section of Vegetable Pathology would equip laboratories and
begin investigating diseases of plants in those cases where a bac-
terial origin either was proven or was suspected.

In 1887 Erwin Smith's paramount wish was to add " to the sum
total of human knowledge, and the world's progress," and to
make people happier. ^^^ His accomplishments in science were to
be the media by which to achieve these ends.

"^ W^/llia??2 Henry Welch, etc., op. cit., chap. VIII, pp. 139-147.
^""^ Johns Hopkins Circulars 51: 123, 18S6; 55: 64, 1887.
^^' Letter from Smith to Viola Holmes, January 23, 1887.

Chapter IV

VEGETABLE PATHOLOGIST WITH THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT

OF AGRICULTURE. FUNGOUS DISEASES OF PLANTS,

AND PEACH YELLOWS, HIS SPECIALTIES.

WITH THE YEAR 1887 was begun another decade of
sustained progress in the history of American plant pa-
thology— a period which Smith later described as one of " read-
justment and of taking stock of the new discoveries . . . also
of great research activity and there were distinct advances," he
said, " in several directions." ^

WTien Smith entered the United States Department of Agri-
culture at Washington in 1886, research in plant diseases " had
only recently been separated from the ordinary botanical work of
the department, which then consisted principally of answers to
correspondents, and species descriptions of grasses. At that
period, and for some time to come," he later explained, "we had
no laboratory facilities and scarcely any place we could call our
own. A little cubbyhole was apportioned off for the chief, Pro-
fessor Scribner, and his assistant," Erwin Smith, "was allowed,
by courtesy of Dr. Marx, the department artist, to occupy a desk in
his room. We had very few books, and nothing in the way of
apparatus beyond the simplest sort of microscopes. . . . The
amount of money appropriated by Congress for this line of work
in 1887 was $5,000. ... Of special journals devoted to plant
pathology there were none," " although in 1887 the Centralblatt
fiir Bakteriologie iind Faras'itenkuude was founded and after 1895
was to provide " a vast storehouse of the new knowledge." In
1883 the Berichte d. d. botanischen Gesellschaft had been started
and was affording " a mine of information on botanical subjects,"
in addition to DeBary's journal, Das Botanische Zeitung, which
had been in existence more than four decades. There were also
the Botanisches Centralblatt founded in 1880 and the influential
Annals of Botany begun in 1887. In 1882 Saccardo had begun to

^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 20.

* Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 606-607.

135

136 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

publish his Sylloge Fungorum, " destined," Smith said, "' to be a
summary of everything known about fungi," and in 1887 A.
Engler and K. Prantl "commenced their vast publication 'Die
Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien,' of service to everyone"^ and one
of the first great monumental works which sought, as the title
implied, to organize all of the families of plants into natural
sequences and orders.

While at the University of Michigan, Smith may have read with
Professor Spalding the Austrian von Thiimen's " little book on the
control (Bekampfung) of fungous diseases of cultivated plants,"
Die bekampfung der Piizkrankhehen unserer Culturgewachse,
published in 1886 at Vienna. It is, of course, also possible that
during the summer at Lansing, Smith read this book, which
Gardeners' Chronicle in England complimented as a bold attempt
to summarize the modest results thus far achieved in plant thera-
peutics. More likely, hov/ever, neither he nor Spalding studied
this book until, at least, the last months of 1886 or the early part
of 1887. Probably, furthermore, this book became available in
America about the time " the first and second volumes of the
greatly improved second edition " of Sorauer's Pjianzenkrankheiten
appeared, and which Smith praised as

a godsend to all of us who could read German. We had at this time in
English very few serviceable books. There were not many papers written
on plant diseases at that time, nor had we any journals. ... In English
there were few books of any sort, good or bad. I recall Berkeley's " Out-
lines," with a chapter on plant diseases which was good but old (1869)
and very incomplete, and Worthington G. Smith's " Diseases of Field and
Garden Crops," newer (1884) and more extensive but less dependable.
There was also a little book on " Rusts, Smuts, Mildews, and Moulds," by
M. C. Cooke (1865), which did service of a sort in default of something
really good. I used also a little German book by Georg "Winter (1878).
We had to be content with books and papers in Latin, French, and German,
and largely with systematic treatises on fungi. So we read Berkeley and
Tulasne, Corda and Fries, Montagne and DeBary, and all the older
writers. . . .*

After 1887 English and American plant pathology became
" more than a sublimated mycology."

Spalding referred to von Thiimen's book " as an illustration of

» Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 19, 21, 23, 24, 26.
Udem, 20.

Fungous Disfasi-s of Plants, Pi;a(h ^'i i.lows 137

'■he growth of definite scientific knowledge" wliich began soon to
displace "vague theories and uncertain experiments."

By 1886 the Department of Agriculture's herbarium was "one
of the largest and most valuable in the country, and contain [cd]
a representation of nearly" 12,000 native phaenogamous plants,
as well as large numbers from Mexico, South America, and other
countries.'' Smith had been reading about American and English
collections of fungi for many years. The Commissioner's report
for 1886 mentioned no such collection at the Department, but he
did announce that experimental investigations were under way to
study fungous diseases of plants. More than 200 species of fungi
were believed to attack the grape vine. Annual losses from dis-
eases of corn and wheat were estimated at approximately $200,-
000,000. Potato rot in wet seasons had been so destructive that
the loss in 1885 was placed at from ten to forty per cent of the
entire crop. Very serious crop losses were reported also for cotton,
orange, apple, peach, pear, plum, quince, and other industries.''

Scribner believed that the " most important work " of his section
that year had been the issuance of his and Smith's Bulletin 2?
His account of "Fungus Diseases of the Grape- Vine," occupying
practically one-half and the title of the bulletin, was to have such
a demand for copies that in 1890 he would publish a book ^ on the
subject, and in 1886 included in his report abstracts of the leading
topics: the downy and powdery mildews, black rot, anthracnose,
etc. So v\idespread and abundant were the inquiries that from
them in part the workers were enabled to map the distribution
and severity of the diseases. Professors S. M. Tracy had written
the Department concerning celery-leaf blight. This subject, to-
gether with material on orange-leaf scab and the potato-rot, a
summary by Arthur of his and Burrill's study of pear blight, and a
discussion by Trelease of an orchard grass spot disease, comprised
the main parts of the section's report for that year.^

In 1885 Scribner, while Vasey's assistant, had prepared for the
annual report of the Division of Botany a treatise of some twelve

'Report of the Botanist, Rep't of Comm'er of Art'ic. for 1886: 70.
' N. J. Colman, Comm'er, Rep't of Comm'er of Agric. for 1886: 28.
"U. S. Dep't Agric, Bot. Div. Bull. 2: 1-136, 1886.

' Fungus diseases of the grape and other plants and their treatment, J. T. Lovett
Co., Little Silver, N. J., 136 pp.
"Op. cit., 96-131.

138 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

pages on " Fungous Diseases of Plants," in which he outlined
several maladies and " the leading characters of some of the chief
groups or more destructive species of fungi." Remedies for some
were described. His footnote citations indicate that he profited
considerably from reports of studies made by Farlow, Halsted,
Trelease, Peck, Henry, William Saunders of the Department, and
other students of diseases of cultivated plants. He did some
experimental work. For instance, in his study of the downy mil-
dew fungus, he showed in 1886 that the most favorable tempera-
tures for the germination of its spores were between 25° and 35°
centigrade. At lower temperatures the germination was slov/er
and at 0° C. the vitality of the conidia was not destroyed. ^^

Erwin Smith had not been studying fungi many years; in fact,
on April 19, 1888, he wrote Farlow,

My attention has not been given to Fungi until within the last few-
years, and I have never published anything of any consequence. The year
of our great potato rot, at the request of the Bureau of Crop Statistics, I
prepared a brief account for his use. I have sent you a copy. This was
reprinted in the Trans[actions] of the Wisconsin Exp[eriment] Station
for 1885 or 1886, and somewhere in Canada. To Mr. Scribner's Report
on Fungous Diseases of the Grape Vine I contributed the Index and
Appendix [A]. I also translated Appendices C and D.^- ... To the De-
partment Annual for 1886, I contributed ostensibly two maps and a short
account ^^ of Phytophthora accompanied by a plate. To the Michigan
Farmer in 1885, I now remember that I also contributed some statistics of
the potato rot of that year, but have no copies left. For a special Depart-
ment Report ^* not yet published, I went over this ground much more

'■'' Rep't of the Covim' er of Agric. for 1885: 76-88.

^^Phytopathology 9 (9): 391, Sept. 1919.

^'U. S. Dep't Agric, Bot. Div., Bull. 2: 1-136, 1886.

Appendix A, 45-53, Synopsis of replies to a circular relative to grape mildews

and grape rot in the United States.
Appendix B, 54-63, Remarks on grape rot and grape mildew.
Appendix C, 65-118, Prevention of mildew — results of experiments with

various fungicides in French and Italian vineyards in 1885.
Appendix D, 119-121, Results of the Congress on Parasitic Diseases of the
Vine held at Florence, Italy, October, 1886.
^='The Potato-rot. Phytophthora infestans, De By. (Plate VII), Rep't of the
Comm'er of Agric. for 1886: 121-124. Maps showed the distribution of Perono-
spora viticola and black rot of the grape. See p. 122 concerning Smith's work on
tlie potato-rot report and other " valuable assistance " to Scribner on his annual
report of that year.

^* See, Special reports on peach blight and potato rot. Sect. Veg. Path., U. S.
Dep't Agric, 1889.

Fungous Dishasks of Plants, PnArn Yi;i.lows 139

exhaustively Mid prepared a map for the lithos^raj-ilurs showing the dis-
tribution of the potato rot. 'Ihc first from the figures of the Tenth
Census, the second from 2000 returns to a circular sent out by the Section
at my suggestion.

In 1886 Smith published also a " Partial list of parasitic dis-
eases observed in Michigan," '' chiefly in Ionia, Clinton, Ingham,
and Washtenaw Counties. Arthur compiled and published a
similar list of " Plant diseases. Observed at Geneva, New York." '°

Smith's translation of Appendix C, " Prevention of mildew —
results of experiments with various fungicides in French and
Italian vineyards in 1885," was very important. In it was pre-
sented Pierre Alexis Millardet's own description of his celebrated
discovery of Bordeaux mixture which was soon thereafter intro-
duced into the United States and from which sprang "probably
one of the most remarkable series of investigations and experi-
ments ever witnessed in this or in any other country. Fungicides
of many kinds," Galloway has said,^' " w^ere proposed and tested
on a large scale, and extensive lines of investigation were in-
augurated not only by the Department of Agriculture, but also by
private individuals in various parts of the country."

Millardet^^^ had studied botany with Wilhelm Hofmeister at
Heidelberg and with DeBary at Freiburg, and, while like DeBary
he obtained a doctorate of medicine, he chose to teach botany and
was a professor at Bordeaux when he and his co-workers made
their famous discovery. While studying Perojiospora viticola in
the " hope of discovering a weak point in its development which
might enable [them] to become master of it," ^^ he chanced to
notice that a mixture of copper sulphate and lime, at first sprinkled
on grapevines along a road to discourage the stealing of fruit, had
a prophylactic effect against the fungus of the downy mildew\ It
had been known for some time that copper in various forms
destroyed fungous spores. But this chance observation, made in
October 1882, in a vineyard of St. Julian in Medoc, was followed
by extensive experimental investigation, and by 1886 the United

^'■Report of the Mycological Section, Report for 1886, op. cit., 133.
^"Idem, 132.

^' B. T. Galloway, Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United States,
Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 195.

"H. H. Whetzel, Outline hist, of phytopathology, op. cit., 63-64.
'"'Appendix C, op. cit., 9: 94-96. See also, idem, 10: 97; 12: 108-112.

la

140 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

States Department of Agriculture was publishing not only transla-
tions of the papers by Millardet and others but also sending out
circulars to encourage trial experiments on the remedies for
Peronospora and black-rot of the grape in this country. Scribner
reported -° that the results in France from

the use of cupric fungicides for Peronospora viticola fully confirm previous
statements and experiments. Those detailed by Mr. Millardet in Joz/rfial
d' Agriculture Pratique, November 25, 1886, are especially interesting.
The experiments at Dauzac and Beaucaillou were conducted either by
himself or by Mr. David. Eighteen remedial mixtures, dry or fluid, were
tried very carefully with the necessary control experiments, and full memo-
randa were made from time to time of the condition of the various plots.
The experimental fields covered in all about 5 acres.

About this time Millardet was investigating another vine patho-
gene, the phylloxera. For this there was introduced American vine
stock, resistant to the disease, which, when grafted onto suscep-
tible European varieties, saved the vineyards and the industries
dependent on them."^ His Bordeaux mixture, however, which
"remained for a quarter of a century the most efficient and most
universally applicable fungicide known,"" became "a sovereign
remedy not only for the ravages of the grape Peronospora, but
also for many other diseases of cultivated plants, including black
rot of the grape and the devastating mildew [Phytophthora) of
the potato. This," Smith believed, ^^ "was the first great advance
in plant therapeutics." At one time this treatment was "hailed as
a general panacea for all plant diseases," and later it was used
effectively against other maladies, among which were leaf spot of
pear, and apple scab.^*

We do not know when Smith first became definitely interested
in European and American researches in rusts and smuts of grains.
His review "^ in 1889 of two new volumes of Oscar Brefeld's
Untersuchungen aus dem Gesammtgebiete der Mykologie. For-
setzting der Schim^nel tind Hefenpihe preceded by almost a year

'"Report of the Mycological Section for 1886, op. cit., 99-101.
" H. H. Whetzel, op. cit., 65.
'^lde?/2, 58-59; 63, quotation at p. 65.
'^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 19-20.

** Plant pathology: A retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 608; H. H. Whetzel,
op. cit., 59.

''^Journal of Mycology 5 (2): 98-102, 1889-

Fungous Disi:asi;s or Pi anis. Pi:a( h Yr.LLows l4l

his translation and publication of the Munich professor's address
in 188S on "Recent hivestigations of Smut Fungi and Smut
Diseases." *"

Brcfcld [he later wrote] has shown for many of the smuts that they can
vegetate for long periods in forms resembling yeasts. In a magnificent
paper on corn smut the same author has shown clearly that, unlike most
smuts, the pustules appear in about fourteen days from the time of infec-
tion, and that only young, actively growing tissues can be infected.

What seems to have interested Smith in the work of Brefeld
as much as anything, however, were his methods of culture study
and the comparison of his classification of genera, subgenera, and
species of fungi with those of DeBary.

In 1885 Jens Ludwig Jensen ^^ had begun in Denmark to investi-
gate smuts in cereals, and his blossom infection experiments were
of immediate value to workers in experiment stations of the grain-
growing states of the central west. In 1887 he treated oats experi-
mentally with hot water for five minutes at a temperature of
around 55° C. and discovered that, without damaging the oats'
germinating power, the smut was killed. This, Ravn has said,^®
was "the starting point for the development of the 'Jensen hot-
w^ater treatment,' " and soon the remedy was extended against
smuts in barley, Bromus, and other plants, and to prevent types
of damping off in sugar beets and mangels. In 1883-1884 he had
published his method for disinfecting seed potatoes by heat, but
the hot air, effective against the potato fungus, proved less so
than the hot water against the grain maladies. Furthermore, the
heat potato-treatment was superseded by Bordeaux mixture. It
had been known for a century that copper sulphate could be used
to free seed wheat from the germs of hard smut; but, when lime
w'as added, the danger of injuring the wheat foliage was reduced
and Bordeaux mixture became important in this connection, also.""

Jensen's paper, " The propagation and prevention of smut in
oats and barley," was made available to English-reading scientists

""^Jour. Myc. 6 (1): 1-8; (2): 59-71, 1890; 6 (4): 153-164, 1891.

"F. K(<lpin Ravn, Jens Ludwig Jensen, Phytopathology 7(1): iff., 1917; E. C.
Large, Danish hot water, The advance of the fungi, op. cit., 240-247; H. H.
Whetzel, op. cit., 81-85 (including an account of the life and work of the Danish
botanist Frederick George Emil Rostrup).

-^ F. K. Ravn, op. cit.

•"J. C. Arthur, Hist, and scope of plant path., op. cit., 160-161.

142 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

by the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and
a reprint was reviewed in America in 1889 by the journal of
Mycology.^° By 1890, at experiment stations in the importr.nt
grain-growing regions, workers were publishing studies on rusts
and smuts of cereals, and the Jensen hot-water treatment for smut
in oats and other grains was found preferable to other fungicides
for many purposes. ^^ Smith saw this demonstrated when he ex-
amined the experimental work against smut in wheat done at the
Kansas station^- and he believed"^ that Jensen's "experiments
were subsequently repeated, expanded and confirmed in this
country by [W. A.} Kellerman and [W. T.] Swingle" there.

Within the next decade, new discoveries of chemotherapeutic
remedies would be made. Formaldehyde, for instance, recom-
mended by Professor H. L. Bolley of the North Dakota Agricul-
tural College, would be used to treat several diseases of grains,
notably in wheat, oats, and flax.^*

Such remedies were not found, however, for every malady of
cultivated crops, and, occasionally, other procedures either supple-
mented or were the more important part of the work of prevention
or control. During the 1880's, when a leaf disease of cherry trees
menaced the German nation's sweet cherry industry, A. B. Frank's
discovery that an overwintering ascomycete was its chief cause
made possible the invention of a practical control technique of
stripping the leaves from affected trees during two seasons.^^
Or, in the case of black stem rust of wheat, when it was estab-
lished that alternate hosts, the common barberry and the wheat
plant, harbored the fungus, Puccinia graminis, at different stages
in its development, control-efforts were made by removing bar-

^°5 (1): 42-43; (3) 164-165 (by B. T. Galloway).

^^ See, W. A. Kellerman and W. T. Swingle, Prevention of smut in oats and other
cereals. Jour. Alyc. 6(1): 26-29, 1890; also, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 21.

'* See Chapter V. There was also work on diseases of cereals at the North
Dakota station under H. L. Bolley, at the University of Nebraska under Bessey, at
the Indiana station under Arthur, and elsewhere, much of it reviewed in the Journal
of Mycology: (Kellerman's, Swingle's preliminary report) 5(4) : 218-219, 1889;
(Arthur's "Smut of Wheat and Oats") 5(3): 165; (Bolley's "The Heteroecismal
Pucciniae") 5 (3): 167; as examples.

'■'' Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 608.

** J. C. Arthur, op. cit., 161; H. L. Bolley, Bull. 27, N. D. Agric. Exp't Sta.

*^ H. H. Whetzel, op. cit., 16.

FuNc.oi!s DiSLASiiS oi' PiANis, Pi:.\( n Vi:i.i.ows 143

berry bushes or forbidJinq by law their being planted near wheat
fields/"

Erwin Smith followed with interest the study made by Harry
Marshall Ward''" of a leaf disease of coffee trees on the island of
Ceylon. Ward was an honor graduate of Christ College, Cam-
bridge University, England, a science student of the Science and
Art Department at South Kensington, and a former student of
Sachs at W'^iirzburg and of DeBary at Strassburg. When he began
his investigations of the coffee disease, the losses were already
estimated in millions'of pounds sterling.^'' Year after year, this
ravage destroyed foliage on whole areas of coffee plantations, dis-
couraged planting, and threatened to change, as it finally did, the
center of the coffee growing industry from Java and the English
Indian Ocean Empire to Brazil and South America. ^^ Ward
proved that a fungus, Heniileia vastatrix, was the cause, and that
fungicides had to be applied to the foliage at a precise time antici-
patory of the fungus and its recondite development, to wit,

after the spore, germinating on the leaf -surface, had put out its delicate
germ-tube but before this germ-tube had time to penetrate through a
breathing-pore into the leaf-interior. "" The life of the parasite," [Ward
said} "is so arranged that as short a time as possible shall intervene
between the well-protected spore condition and the safely ensconced
mycelium." *^

Fungicidal treatments — lime and sulphur among them proved
efficacious — were applied so as to be " ' already on the leaves ivhen
the spores were germinating! " The next best method practically
available when the malady occurred was to plant the areas affected
with crops not subject to attacks from the fungus. Some control
was achieved by protecting cultivated species of coffee by natural
or artificial windbreaks, wild species being noticed to be compara-
tively unharmed and could form a barrier against "spore-laden
winds." Still another method used in Africa was to restrict coffee

'° B. T. Galloway, Progress in treatment of plant diseases, op. cit., 192 ; ]. C.
Arthur, op. cit., 153-155; E. C. Large, op. cit., 131-135.

"H. H. Whetzel, op. cit., 100-102; E. M. Freeman, Harry Marshall Ward,
Fhytopattoology 3 (1): iff., 1913.

'* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 19; also, E. F. Smith, The coffee disease of
Ceylon, Science 23 (575): 80, 1894.

^' E. C. Large, The advance of t/je fungi, op. cit., chap. XV, 196-208.

*" E. C. Large, op. cit., 205-206.

144 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

cultivation to particular altitudes and districts. But the remedies
were tardy and the losses enormous.

Ward's abilities as a pure and practical scientist were recog-
nized. In 18S9-1890 appeared the first edition of his text Diseases
of Plants. Dean Emeritus E. M. Freeman of the College of Agri-
culture of the University of Minnesota, one of Ward's students at
Cambridge and for several years with the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture in cereals investigation, has written of his
work: *^

From 1881, the time of his return from Ceylon, to 1888, Ward's con-
tributions dealt with a large range of mycological subjects, including
important results on the tubercle organisms of leguminous plants . . .
In 1888 he published his paper On a Lily Disease ■*- in which he seems
to have become fairly launched in what was probably the main problem
of his life work, the problem of parasitism. His attention was naturally
attracted to any association of plants in intimate relations of nutrition, and
his paper on the Ginger Beer Plant opened the way to new conceptions
of fungous nutrition.

Between 1886 and 1888, at the seventh, eighth, and ninth
meetings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science,
three papers were read in which directly or indirectly the root
nodules of leguminous plants and the atmospheric fixation of
nitrogen by certain bacteria were discussed. In 1886 Dr. R. C.
Kedzie in his address " Humus as a Source of Nitrogen for
Plants"*^ excluded considering "the recent announcement" by
Wilbur Olin Atwater of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment
Station that " under certain circumstances the free nitrogen of the
air is assimilable by plants." But, from the standpoint of agri-
cultural chemistry, he discussed other phases of his subject, and in
1887 Dr. B. D. Halsted, in his paper "A Hint as to Nitrogen
Appropriation in Clovers,"** alluded to Kedzie's summary of his
experiments on the '" different capacities of cereal and leguminous

*"■ Phytopathology 3 (l): 2, 1913.

*" See Envin Smith's review, A lily disease, Jour. Alyc. 5 (1): 46-48, 1889.
Ward's paper appeared in the Annals of Botany 2 (7): 319-382. Smith later (Plant
pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 607) called this "a remarkably fine
paper," ranking in importance with papers by DeBary, Woronin, Farlow, etc. on
the etiology of various plant diseases. The biology of the form-genus considered
was " a Botrytis of the Polyactis type."

^'^ Proc. 7th Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci. 37-41, 1886.

*' Proc. 8th Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci. 41-44, 1887.

Fungous DiscAsrs of Plants, Pj-ach Yhllows 145

crops for appropriating soil-nitrogen." The next year, Dr. G. C
Caldwell of Cornell University, reading a paper on "The Present
Aspects of the Question of the Direct Utility of the Free Nitrogen
of the Atmosphere for Plant-Food," ■*" reviewed the results of
study on the subject in England and continental Europe and said
of Halsted's paper:

lliere appears to be no doubt that there is a close connection between
these tubercles and bacterial life. Hellriegel says they are filled with bac-
teria. Dr. Halsted, in his excellent paper on this subject, read at the
last meeting of this Society, says that there is no question but that they
become centres of development of bacteria in the soil and that there are,
moreover, motile bodies within their tissues which are probably bacteria;
but as to their function he suggests only a possible participation in the
ordinary nitrification in the soil. That there is anything more than this,
or that these tubercles have anything to do with the fixation of free nitro-
gen in connection with the growing legumes must as yet be regarded only
as an inference waiting for substantial proof. ''^

H. T. Pledge, in his recent book Science Since 1500,^' says that

In 1866 certain nodules seen by Malpighi (1686) on the roots of
leguminous plants [had been] shown to contain bacteria. Ten years
later Berthelot took the subject up, and after a further decade showed
that certain bacteria present in the soil can fix nitrogen from the air. In
1887 it was shown that leguminous plants fertilise the soil by increasing
its nitrogen content, and in 1888 the Germans Helriegel and Wilfarth
showed that the bacteria in the nodules transform atmospheric nitrogen
into the nitrate form in which most plants take it up.

Strictly speaking, these phenomena are not parasitic.

The root-tubercle bacilli of the Leguminosae were believed,
during Smith's years of study, by some botanists to be parasites."*^
His bibliography on the subject" included for the year 1888 also
a paper by M. W. Beijerinck entitled "Die Bakterien der Papi-
lionaceenknollchen," ^° and of this paper H. A. Harding, Ameri-
can plant pathologist, in 1912 said: '' "We have added little to
our knowledge of the histology of legume nodules since Beijer-

*^ Proc. 9th Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Set. 21-24, 1888.

*°Uem, 23-24.

*'' Ministry' of Education, Science Museum, Philosophical Library, 256, 1947.

*' Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 64.

Ide7n, 239-240.

Botaitische Zeitung 46: coL 725-735, 741-750, 757-771, 781-790, 797-804, 1888.

The trend of investigation in plant pathology, Phytopathology 2 (4): 161 f.

49

BO

146 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

inck's paper of 1888." During the 1880's botanists were still
arguing the improbability of bacterial diseases of plants. A part
of their theory was that " the reaction of plant juices is acid and
bacteria grow only on alkaline media." Susceptible host plants as
well as parasites, however, were being investigated; and some of
the younger botanists were beginning to challenge points of view
of their elders.

In 1889 Smith reviewed in the Journal of Mycology ^'^ Dr.
Robert Hartig's Lehrhuch der Baumkrankheiten and observed that
the book went further than its title in that diseases and parasitic
fungi which attack grains, vegetables, and other herbaceous plants
were described along with diseases of forest trees. Occasionally
the reviewer met "a questionable statement" and his criticism
read:

Under Gymnosporcing'uim four species are mentioned — G. conkum
{juniperim/m) , clavariaejorme, Sabiuae {jus cum), and tre»ieUo!des. The
author thinks a further investigation of the forms thus far known and
described is desirable, as the results of some experiments instituted by him
do not agree with those commonly accepted. No mention is made of the
labors of Dr. Farlow or of Dr. Thaxter.

Under bacteria Dr. Kartig urges the commonly accepted view that the
acid reaction of most plants is unfavorable to their growth and develop-
ment, and evidently thinks they play a very unimportant role in the pro-
duction of plant diseases. They have been found as parasites, he says,
only in thin-walled, soft parenchymatous tissue, such as bulbs and tubers,
and here are often preceded by fungi. Even in Waacker's hyacinth disease
(the yellow, slimy bacteriosis) " the bacteria do not attack entirely sound,
well-ripened bulbs under normal conditions," but only those that have
been wounded or previously attacked by fungi ; especially by a hypho-
mycetous fungus, which is almost always associated with this bacteriosis.
In damp places the bacteria enter the wounds and cause the rot. The
following paragraph on pear blight will hardly pass muster, and was
certainly not to be expected in a handbook published in 1889. AH the
recent American publications on this subject, especially the papers by Dr.
Arthur, appear to have escaped the author's attention.

"" Recently a disease of pear and apple trees, called blight, has been
described by [T.] J. BurriU in Urbana, 111., the cause of which this investi-
gator ascribes to the invasion of a bacterium. The disease appears to bear
a resemblance to the tree canker {Baumkrebs) caused by Nectria ditissima,
and since in this fungus small bacteria-like gonidia are produced in great
numbers in the bark, it becomes necessary to inquire first of all whether
this disease has not been wrongly ascribed to a schizomycete."

5 (3): 174-177, 1889.

Fungous Disi;asi;s or Plants, I^i a( h \'i;i.lows M7

Mention is made of fifteen species of Exoasct/s, all of which produce
characteristic hypertrophies. Seven of these species also cause hcxfuhaeti
or witchbroonis, and tlicse peculiar t^rowths arc also induced by various
Uredineae, notably by the aecidium {Peridermium pint) of Coleosporiuin
seneciofj/s, and by Aeciditnn {Periderniitnn) ehit'ntiini.

The black-knot of the plum and cherry, Plnwr'ight'ui morhosa, is said to
occur only in North America, but the author thinks it may be introduced
into Europe at any time. This is quite likely and the wonder is that it
should not hxive occurred before, owing to the fact that it is found in all
our species of Prunus and is very destructive in many parts of the eastern
United States. . . .

In this review Smith did not mention Luigi Savastano's recent
assertion that Bacillus oleae had been found in Italy to cause the
disease known as tuberculosis of the olive. Preliminary pronounce-
ments on the organism's pathogenic nature had been made in 1886
and 1887." Either complete and positive proof, tantamount to
that available in pear and apple twig blight, had not come to
Smith's attention or he still indulged some skepticism. News of
new scientific discoveries in Europe were still slow in reaching
America. Smith's growing interest in plant bacteriology was still
mainly a reading interest. His account of this discovery was later
as follows: ^*

In 1886 Archangeli described the olive tubercle, giving the name Bac-
terium oleae to something observed in it but without what we should now
[1920] consider to be a proper description, i. e., it was named from the
microscope, without cultures or proofs of its infectiousness by inoculation,
and with the statement that it probably had nothing to do with the disease,
which was ascribed by him to other causes. Savastano's inoculation experi-
ments (1887-1889), repeated and confirmed by [Fridiano] Cavara, first
proved the olive tubercle to be due to bacteria, but neither of these men
described the organism sufficiently. Savastano called his cultures Bacillus
oleae-tuberculosis, but, following Trevisan, systematic writers generally
have spoken of Bacillus oleae (Arch.) Trevisan as the cause of the olive
tubercle.

Smith, during the 1880's, like most other American botanists,

^^ Nosologic vegetale — Lcs maladies de I'olivier et la tubcrculose en particulier,
Comptes rendus 103: 1144; Tuberculosi, iperplasie et tumori dell' olivo, Ann. R.
Sc. sup. PortJci 5, 4th fasc, 1887.

Proof of the bacillus was presented in, II bacillo della tubercolosi dell' olivo,
Rend, della R. Accad. del Lince't., 92, 1889.

^*' An introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, 389-411, at p. 394, Phila. and
London, W. B. Saunders Co., 1920. A whole chapter of this book is given to
" The Olive Tubercle " or olive knot.

148 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

was more absorbed in the study of fungous, than bacterial, diseases
of plants. In 1889 Dr. A. Heinz, director of the Botanical-Physio-
logical Institut in Agram (Zagreb), Croatia, described the bac-.
teriosis of hyacinths {^Bacillus hyancinthi septkus)^^ and his
paper, "Zur Kentniss der Rotzkrankheiten der Pflanzen," was
published by the Centralblatt fiir Bakteriologie mid Parasiten-
kunde in April of that year.^'' In December Smith reviewed in the
Journal of Mycology^"'^ J. H. Wakker's "Contributions a la Pa-
thologie Vegetale" and discussed his "additional light on the
gummosis of the hyacinth," his study of the fungus Peziza tuhe-
rosa and its relation to P. bidborum which attacks hyacinths and
related Liliaceae, and other matters. But Heinz's paper was not
reviewed, although in 1896-1897 when Smith would begin a series
of articles on "The Bacterial Diseases of Plants: A Critical Re-
view of the Present State of our Knowledge," ^^ he would follow
his examination of Wakker's study of the yellow disease of hya-
cinths {^Bacillus hyacintJoi, 1883) by an elaboration of Heinz's
Bacillus hyac'inth'i septicus. Smith then said that Dr. Heinz did
not regard his organism "as in any sense a variety of B. hyacintht
Wakker."

In 1886 there was published in Germany by Die Landwirth-
schaftlichen Versnchs-Stationem of Berlin Dr. Adolf Mayer's
account " Ueber die Mosaikkrankheit des Tabaks." ^° Owing to
the remoteness of its publishing medium, many botanists in the
United States, including Smith for several years, did not read
this important paper. In 1894, however, the subject having become
" one of much interest," he reviewed its contents in the Journal
of Alycology,^'^ and in 1892 wrote Mayer evidently to inquire
whether as yet he had isolated a pathogenic microorganism from
plants affected by the disease. A reply, dated July 23, 1892, was
written from the Proefstation der Rijkslandbouwschool at Wagen-
ingen, Holland, v/here Mayer was the director.

In 1879 he had there begun his study of the " variegated leaf
disease " v/hich had been troubling tobacco growers of the Nether-

^'° American Naturalist 31: 34-41, 1897.

"5 (16): 535-539.

"V, 4 (Dec, 1889), pp. 224-226.

"■^ Amer. Nat. 30: 797-804; 912-924, 1896.

'■'Land. Ver. Stat. 32: 451-467.

00

7 (4): 382-385, 1894.

Fungous Disi-asls of Plants, Puach Vlllows H9

lands for two decades. Extensive investigation, Harry Ardell
Allard lias since written."' proved the disease to be

communicable by artificial inoculation ; that the sap of healthy plants was
not infectious; that an incubation period of ten or twelve days preceded
the first observable symptoms; that the disease was persistent, appearing
ultimately in all immature growing parts of affected plants; that diseased
sap filtered once through filter paper still retained its virulence; that sap
sufficiently heated lost its virulence; and that the seed of affected plants
did not carry the disease to the next generation. Mayer failed to produce
the disease in other solanaceous plants. Further, he found that liming,
crowding the plants, sudden atmospheric changes, unfavorable conditions
of whatever sort afi'ecting the roots, i. e., mechanical injury, nematodes,
parasitic fungi, etc., were not in any way responsible for the origin of the
disease. . . . He recognized the sporadic occurrence of the disease in the
field, and finally concluded that its spread must be through the soil, both
in the field and in the seed bed. He recognized the fact, however, that a
transfer of the disease by means of the soil had never been proved.

During the 1880's the study of fungous diseases had dominated
research in plant pathology, and not infrequently maladies, later
shown to be caused by bacteria, were attributed to fungi. Slowly
now the study of bacterial diseases was beginning to gain the
ascendancy it attained during the next decade, and the basis for
a third major classification of plant diseases — those caused by
viruses — was beginning to acquire outlines. For years the failures
by research students to isolate specific pathogenic organisms from
virus plant diseases (that is, by pure culture, reinoculation into
healthy plants, and reproduction of the disease) had the effect of
discouraging study of these maladies: or, if studies were made
and no bacteria or fungi were found, of too often causing them to
attribute the disorders to physiological disturbances. Occasionally,
furthermore, these maladies were ascribed to a bacterial origin,
and this notwithstanding no parasite had as yet been isolated.

Tobacco mosaic is today believed to have been the first disease
in plants (or in animals for that matter) to be positively proved
to be caused by a virus. Mayer's conclusion, however, was that
It is of bacterial origin, and Smith's "rather literal rendering" of
the European's first points read as follows:

The " mosaic disease " of tobacco is a bacterial disease, the infective

" A review of investigations of the mosaic disease of tobacco, together with a
bibliography of the moie important contributions, Bull. Torrey Botanical Club
41 (9): 435-458, 1914.

150 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

organism of which has not yet been isolated so as to know its form and
mode of life. The infective power of the disease from plant to plant
under the artificial conditions of sap mixture has been established with
certainty. Under natural conditions there is no plain infection from plant
to plant. The seeds of diseased plants can produce sound plants.

From 1887 until 1894 Smith had been investigating peach
yellows, another disease believed today quite positively to be due
to a virus, and, although no parasitic bacterium had been isolated,
a theory of a bacterial origin had been studied. This will be
elaborated further. His interest in Mayer's study centered about
the iatter's efforts to demonstrate bacteria in accordance with
Koch's canons. None of the bacteria which Mayer found, when
inoculated into healthy plants, produced the disease. But the juice
of diseased plants, when inoculated, did so, and by

rubbing up a plainly diseased leaf in a few drops of water, taking up a
little of this thick, green emulsion in a glass tube drawn out to capillary
size, and sticking it into the thick midrib of an old leaf so that it remained
without reaching through to the back side, sound plants became badly
diseased in nine cases out of ten.

Filtration experiments indicated as possible causes of the disease
either chemical substances or "organized bodies small enough to
pass through the pores of the paper. A clear filtrate was finally
obtained by using a double filter," but, wrote Smith,*^- '" fluid passed
through this possessed no infective power. Evidently the cause of
the disease was filtered out and could not be a chemical ferment,
for it is opposed to all known peculiarities of enzymes to be
filtered out of solutions. The common method for the concentra-
tion of an enzyme, i. e., precipitation with not too strong alcohol
from the crude juice and re-solution in water, was tried. This led
to no substance which had infective power." Besides, that " an
enzyme multiplies from itself" was unheard of. Nor could fungi
be the cause since "they must assume at some stage some more
easily visible form " and are too large to pass through filter paper.

In 1892 D. Iwanowski of Russia demonstrated that the virus of
tobacco mosaic may be passed through a Chamberland filter with-
out losing its power to infect.*^^ By 1893 he had published at least
twice on his researches on this malady, but Smith mentioned
neither publication in his review of Mayer's work. By 1898

"''Op. at., 384-385.

"' E. F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. at., 21.

Fungous Diseasfs or Plants, Pi A(.n \'i:llo\vs 151

another plant pathologist of the Netherlands, M. \V. Reijerinck,
confirmed I\vano\vski"s filtration experiments and added knowl-
edge. He, Smith believed,"' "showed that the virus of tobacco
mosaic without developing any visible growth would pass in ten
days from the upper to the lower layers of an agar plate. He
ascribed the disease, therefore, to a ' Contagiiim v'lvum jluidinn: "
Beijerinck, AUard" said further.

found that diseased sap so filtered as to be entirely free from bacteria still
retained its power to infect healthy plants, in this respect confirming
Iwanowski. He showed that a very minute quantity of this filtered juice
produced the disease in immature, growing tissue. He held that dried
mosaic material retained its infectious properties for some time, and like-
wise, that it was not rendered innocuous by remaining in the soil through-
out the winter. Like Mayer and Iwanowski, he found that heating mosaic
virus to the boiling point rendered it harmless. He proved that the virus
traveled considerable distances in plants but produced obvious symptoms
only in immature tissues. Beijerinck claimed that the soil around diseased
roots may infect healthy roots and that plants in some instances appar-
ently reco\cred from the disease temporarily. Previous to the work of
Beijerinck all investigators were strongly inclined to establish a bacterial
origin for it, although at that time no direct proof had been obtained.

It must be remembered that as late as 1882 "most of the very
numerous papers on bacteria [had] treated the subject from a
purely medical point of view," and only incidentally had any
bearing botanically.^^ In America not until 1888 was the move-
ment to establish agricultural experiment stations brought to
full fruition. Adequate experimental laboratories and thoroughly
trained students for the study of bacterial diseases of plants
remained few until well into the 1890's, and few were the
specialists and number of facilities in Europe.

During the summer of 1887 Scribner, accompanied by Professor
Pierre Viala of Montpellier, France, author in 1885 of a special
treatise on grape diseases," visited the principal vineyard regions
of the nation and investigated various grape-vine maladies. In
1887 Scribner, by a paper, " On a new fungus disease of the
vine,"^' announced to the Society for the Promotion of Agri-

•* Uem, 27.
"^Op. at., 438 f.

" W. G. Farlow, Accounts of the progress of botany for the years 1879-1883,
Smithsonian Reports, 313, 1880; 391, 1881; 551, 1882; 681, 1883.
*' E. F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 21.
"Prof. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci. 8th meet., 74-76, 1887.

152 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

cultural Science their discovery of bitter rot of grapes. Their
field study was followed by laboratory investigations, by Viala
in France and by Scribner at Washington. In France for the first
time the mature stage of the fungus causing black rot of grapes
was found. Scribner obtained specimens from Vineland, New
Jersey, and Neosho, Missouri, and in 1888 in two more papers,
"New observations on the fungus of black rot of grapes"'''' and
"Successful treatment of black rot," '° he reviewed the results of
their studies, genetically connecting the "three stages or forms"
of the fungus of black rot, described the past efforts in placing
the forms in correct mycological systemization, and called attention
to the disease's geographic distribution " from Canada to Florida,
and west to Texas." He warned that the recent introductions of
vine stocks from the east to California to " avoid the ravages of
the Phylloxera" might take the fungus to the Pacific coast. The
important point was that in New Jersey a successful treatment for
the disease had been experimentally demonstrated by Colonel A.
W. Pearson, a special agent of the Department of Agriculture.
That confidence in the treatment was shared was shown in a letter
of December 14, 1887 to Charles Sprague Sargent from W. A.
Stiles who said: "The experiments of Scribner and Viala have
been pretty well ventilated. I mean the study of the downy mildew
and another kind [of grape disease] and its treatment with Copper
Sulphate, and also the trial of the Copper Sulphate as preventive
of black rot." During this year the control of black rot of the
grape and some " decisive results ... in controlling several potato
diseases " " strengthened the position of the federal government's
work in the study of diseases of agricultural crops.

In 1888 Viala and Ferrouillat prepared a manual on the treat-
ment of vine diseases.^" Sulphur and copper compounds and their
uses, together with various types of apparatus for spraying and
dusting, were described. Scribner told the Society for the Pro-
motion of Agricultural Science that year that " proper applications
of compounds having sulphate of copper for their base" would
combat the black rot of grapes. But he also advised that Bordeaux

"* Idem, 9th meet., 68-72, 1888.
" Idem, 72-73.

'^ B. T. Galloway, Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United
States, Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 195.
'^ Erwin F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 21.

Fungous Disuasi^s oi- Plants, Puacii Ylllows 133

mixture had given the best results, better than luiu celeste and
other compounds. Bordeaux mixture was found a dependable
remedy for potato diseases.

Throughout the lirst half of the year 1887 Scribner's assistant,
Erwin Smith, contemplated enrolling at either Harvard University
for further study of fungi or at the Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore for special biological study under Martin or Welch. In
fact, on April 5, 1887, he had gone to Dr. John S. Billings of the
Surgeon General's Office at Washington and obtained a letter of
introduction to President Daniel Coit Oilman of the Hopkins
University. In Jiine, however, Smith was ordered by Scribner to
complete his report on the potato rot, and prepare to take up a
commission as of July 1 to investigate a serious disease threatening
the American peach-growing industry — the yellows. Peach yellows
was a disease which had bafHed the scientific ingenuity of even
Thomas Jonathan Burrill and Joseph Charles Arthur.

Burrill's and Arthur's studies of peach yellows had been incom-
plete. Burrill in 1881, when he announced with "much con-
fidence" his belief that peach yellows, like pear and apple twig
blight, v/as of bacterial origin, cautioned his readers that he had
not given the "full investigation" to the peach malady as to the
pear disease."^ Arthur, whose budding and grafting experiments
w^ere made to reproduce the yellows in healthy trees and by
several years preceded the work of Smith, failed through no fault
of a proper scientific procedure but because, as he explained to
Smith by a letter of December 4, 1890, " the bud or graft died
before becoming fairly started." Arthur by 1891 regarded his
work at the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station as " so
diverted into the domain of vegetable physiology that pathological
subjects," he said,'* "have fared poorly for some time." He,
however, told Smith in his letter of December, 1890: " I am
delighted to hear that you are progressing so favorably with your
work on peach yellows. If you complete a full explanation of the
cause and conditions of the disease it will be a notable achievement
and a brilliant triumph for science."

In July, 1887, Smith v/ent into the field to investigate peach
yellows. On August 3, C. W. Garfield wrote to him:

""" American Naturalist 15: 527, 1881.
''* Letter, Arthur to Smith, May 14, 1891.

154 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

I am glad you are hard at it and I am delighted to learn of your progress.
At the peach meeting of our local society here [Michigan] the other day
one man reported several serious cases of yellows in his orchard. We have
but one form of the disease in our State and this is the virulent type.
Your description of tufts of wiry growth indicates that the trees were in
what we denominate the second stage of the disease, the first being that of
premature ripening. I am glad you are interesting Bailey and Troop.
I would be glad to assist you in any way I could but I have no peach trees
or seedlings on my place and could do nothing in the way of budding on
that account. I shall be greatly interested in your research in New
Jersey — where they have " resolved that the disease is not contagious."
That is like the resolution passed by the Farmers Club at the close of a
discussion on the Hessian Fly, " that the best way to manage was to sow
wheat early and have a frost occur early." Just how to manipulate the
frost king the record saith not.

I enclose you the announcement of our American [Pomological] Society
meeting in Boston. If in your investigation you run across some testimony
that can be concisely stated, will you not favor us with it. . . . We had
one man in west Michigan that did not believe the disease was contagious
and was so certain that he drew a tree condemned and hauled out, all
around among his trees. The next season a streak of yellows marked " the
path in which he trod." If the trees from which you take diseased pits for
planting have the genuine yellows as we know it the chances are that not
one in a hundred will grow. I wish you would crack open a lot of the pits
of diseased fruit and note the appearance of the seed and germ. We find
it true that the disease is worst on heavy strong soils. Be sure and note
the character of soil with reference to fertility, and especially whether
barnyard manures have been freely used.

We can control the disease perfectly among thrifty orchardists because
they will dig out every infected tree as soon as the disease develops. The
malady is not now spreading in our State on this account.

Smith began his studies of peach yellows in Michigan. While
there, he arranged with Bailey, who was still a professor at
Michigan Agricultural College, to bud trees with scion stock to
be sent him. Trelease, professor in charge of the Shaw School of
Botany at St. Louis, regretted that he could not undertake at that
time a series of experiments there. In August, Bailey suggested
that Smith enlist the research facilities of Professor William Rane
Lazenby of the Ohio State University at Columbus and Professor
L. R. Taft of the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Smith left Michigan and began to study the peach disease in
eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. In
September, Scribner was commissioned by the government to go
by way of Texas to southern California to study a new vine disease

Fungous Disi-asi^s oi- Plants, Pi-ach Yellows 155

which was doing serious damage to the vineyards there. Before
he left, he advised Smith that he and Deal had strongly recom-
mended him for membership in the Society for the Promotion of
Agricultural Science. Since the start of his field studies. Smith
had been sending to the Department at Washington specimens of
fungi, especially those concerned in diseases of cultivated plants.
In turn, he was furnished drying paper, alcohol, twine, and other
accessories to preserve his materials for future laboratory examina-
tions. Some of his fungous collections may have been made for
purposes of completing his report on the distribution and severity
of the potato rot.' He was still working under an order to place
in manuscript his deductions as to the history and development of
this malady and the results of his laboratory " observations on the
growth and development of the fungi upon the tubers." During
the previous spring, winter, and autumn, he had used a Zentmeyer
microscope, and now Scribner wanted to exchange this for a
Zeiss instrument which Smith had with him in the field.

Scribner did not always agree with Smith. But the chief allowed
his assistant freedom of choice in research. Scribner was skeptical
of whether Smith would find "a specific origin or cause for
'yellows,'" and Smith himself was not altogether convinced that
he would locate a parasite. He collected soil samples to study
peach fruit deterioration on the basis of a lack of proper nutrition.
Chemists of the Department were few. But Scribner promised to
secure, when possible, their services to analyze the soil and wood
samples which Smith submitted. Scribner approved Smith's plan
of " treating diseased trees with special fertilizers."

That autumn the chief ordered from him the completion of his
report on the potato rot and a report on the progress made in his
peach yellows investigations. Smith protested and won the privi-
lege of completing his yellows research as he had planned. Scrib-
ner warned that funds might not allow their completion. The
determined young research scientist, nevertheless, began systemati-
cally to examine at the microscope the interior structures of healthy
and diseased peach twigs. Memoranda of November, 1887, indi-
cate that he stained cross sections of materials and examined
carefully their tissue and cellular structures, especially those of
the cambium. All this was done, presumably, to locate a parasite
or explain the conversion from healthy into diseased activity,
once the malady had taken hold. That month, when Smith was in

156 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

the midst of this work, Scribner notified him that by March 1, he
would be expected to present

a full report on the subject of your present investigations — Peach Yellows.
The length of time you were in the field will enable you to minutely, or,
at least sufficiently, characterize the disease upon all the organs of the
tree, and your microscopical examinations of healthy and diseased tissue
will enable you to describe the essential characters or changes which take
place in the latter. The characters indicating the effects of the disease
must be familiar to you now, and if you have thus far failed to discover
anything of a definite nature (or fail soon to do so) which may afford a
basis for an investigation, or a clue to the cause of the disease, continued
examinations of tissues appear to me to be a needless waste of time.

Such chemical analyses as will show the difference in composition be-
tween the healthy and diseased tissues, will be made and the results
placed at your disposal.

In your report you will observe the following sequence of topics: (1)
Historical. (2) Characters. (3) Losses-distribution and effects. (4) Con-
ditions favoring the disease. (5) Conclusions.

It is hoped that your studies will enable you to suggest some rational
mode of treatm.ent, or, at least indicate what experiments may or may not
be tried with the view of preventing or curing the disease.

Smith agreed to prepare this report with the understanding that
he be permitted to "make necessary additions or corrections at
any time during the remainder of the fiscal year." August 24,
1887, Garfield had offered to write to Commissioner of Agriculture
Colman and commend Smith's plan of work, arguing, if need be,
that Smith " be continued long enough to carry th[ rough his}
investigation to a finality." He told of a Michigan nurseryman
who had performed some "careful experiments," growing trees
from yellows pits and " budded diseased buds into healthy seed-
lings." Trees, he said, may develop "unmistakable signs of
yellows before arriving at puberty." T. T. Lyon, the nation-wide
known Michigan horticulturist, a scholar whose acquaintance
Smith had enjoyed before leaving Ionia, had imported trees from
Georgia that had developed yellows the same season they were
transplanted.

September 5, 1887, Smith obtained from Dr. W. S. Maxwell of
Still Pond, Kent County, Maryland, permission to establish an
experimental orchard at the Point, a locality of rare beauty near
Chesapeake Bay. Two weeks later he received a letter from David
Pearce Penhallow, who, when botanist at Houghton Farm, New

Fungous Disi;asiis or Plants, Piiach ^'illows 157

York, and while at tlic Massachusetts Agricultural College and
experiment station at Amherst, claimed, with Dr. Cjoessmann, to
have discovered a cure for peach yellows. In fact, he told Smith
that at Amherst he would find " the original trees experimented
upon and cured."

Goessmann, it will be remembered, had read a paper in 1882
before the third meeting of the Societ)' for the Promotion of
Agricultural Science, "Observations regarding the Yellows of the
Peach," in which was projected a theory of a physiological dis-
order, a nutritional disturbance, induced by poverty of soil, some
lack of essential 'elements of plant food, or some injurious soil
substance. Samuel T. Maynard, Goessmann, and Penhallow had
participated in the research. The last named was a graduate of
Massachusetts Agricultural College. For a while after his gradu-
ation in 1873, he had studied in Japan, returned from there in
1880, worked for a brief time at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard,
was employed as botanist and chemist at Houghton Farm, and
then in 1883 went to McGill University where during many years
as professor of botany he took a prominent part in the scientific
research leadership of Canada, achieving renown as a paleobotanist
and plant physiologist.

During the summer of 1882 Goessmann had recalled him to
Amherst " to study the condition of the cellular tissues in branches
collected on the 11th of November, 1881, from trees thoroughly
diseased, and also from trees which were once diseased," but by
the time of Goessmann's address in August, 1882, were "in
good healthy condition." Goessmann himself chemically analyzed
mineral constituents of both branches and healthy and prematurely
ripened peach fruit. The theory of elaborating first causes
prior to fungous infestation attacted Smith's interest. To procure
pamphlets published by Penhallow while at Houghton Farm and
the results of his and Goessmann's analyses, Smith, on August l6,
1887, v/rote to Penhallow who replied six days later:

The methods of analysis employed by us were the same as would be
employed by any i;ocd chemist and vegetable histologist. If you instruct
the Department Chemist that you want certain elements determined in the
wood, he will be sure to give you an analysis that will compare with those
published by us and by others. Ihe elements you enumerate are those
which should be determined; others would be of little or no value. I
would suggest that you will find a soil analysis, however accurately made.

158 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

by no means a correct indication of the capacity of the soil in meeting the
requirements of nutrition. If you are to get exact data in this direction,
you will probably find it necessary to institute a careful series of feeding
experiments to compare with a parallel series of analyses of the wood and
fruit.

You are probably aware of the fact that our mode of treatment has been
tried in New Jersey for several years past, with a considerable degree of
success.

Penhallow accredited Goessmann with first advancing "the idea
upon which [their] final success was based." He later advised
Smith to prune his orchard in the autumn, being certain to cut off
ail conspicuously diseased wood; then, with the special treatments,
new and healthy wood might be formed. During both spring and
autumn, before and after leafing, treatments of Dissolved Bone-
black, Muriate Potash, and Keiserite were to be applied at least
a foot from the trunk, spread as far as the large branches extended,
and worked into the soil surface. The treatments were to be
mulched with sod and straw. Rain would bring the mixture into
direct contact with the roots. " Some effect may be noted the first
season," wrote Penhallow on September 19, "but more marked
the second." If the disease had not progressed very far, that is,
if the trees were not very far gone, two or three years would
probably complete the cure. But, to prevent recurrences, careful
treatments later would be necessary. Penhallow told Smith to
consult Dr. George H. Cook, director of the New Jersey State
Agricultural Experiment Station, located at Rutgers College, New
Brunswick, Mr. H. H. Appleton of Odessa, Delaware, and Dr.
Goessmann.

Smith, however, did far more. He sent out hundreds of letters
of inquiry, information blanks, and specially prepared forms. In
November at Washington he discussed the disease and its mani-
festations with Professor Viala. He gathered together every
available book and report on the subject he could find. He studied
the history of the peach-growing industry in the United States,
regionally ascertaining as best he could when the disease had first
appeared. He tabulated data on the effect of early autumn frosts,
of cold winters, excessive rain-fall, unfavorable moisture and
temperature conditions, and he analyzed in relation to the disease
such phases of cultural practice as neglect of cultivation, pruning,
and proper fertilizing. He did not constitute either Dr. Goessmann

Fungous Disi;asls oi- Plants, Pijach Viillows 159

or Dr. Pcnhallow his fiii.;! authorities on the matter of soil ex-
haustion or infertility, altlioui;h he spent mutii time stU(Jyinj[T their
conclusions and information sources. In the AniiUiil Report of the
Scitc/jry of the' Michigiin Stiite Po/fw/ogical Society for 1871, he
found that Dr. Kedzie and Dr. lieal had made and published some
chemical and microscopical examinations of peach yellows. Work
also had been done at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment
Station. He went among orchardists and nurserymen and discussed
such questions as to what influence, if any, excessive use of nitro-
genous manure had on producing or spreading the infection, what
degeneration of sfock could be attributed to continued propagation
by budding, and again and again he verified his belief that yellows
attacked seedling trees no less than budded ones even as it attacked
recently originated varieties and the older or oldest tree stock.
The disease attacked trees grown on land nearly exhaused by
cropping, and it was known to appear on trees grown on virgin
soil, that is, land cleared of its original forest within less than
a decade.

Smith admitted some validity to the claim that the disease was
propagated from imperfect or infected pits, but little exact knowl-
edge on this point was available because of a dearth of carefully
planned experiments. Arthur's experiment at Geneva, New York,
and those of Michigan nurserymen about whom Garfield had
written, and experiments in Pennsylvania and Maryland, had
yielded inconclusive results. So Smith had arranged with Bailey,
Troop, Taft, and other trustworthy horticulturists, to grow, under
controlled conditions, hundreds of budded and healthy trees to
study the origin and communicability of the infection, if found
contagious. Care, of course, was required to preclude the possi-
bility of introducing the disease in orchard areas not yet affected.
Smith, at his father's place at Hubbardston, Michigan, set out
several hundred trees. The experiments again proved inconclusive,
but years were required to settle the many points under investi-
gation. Bailey secured a field north of the Agricultural College
grounds and, with the help of C. S. Crandall, set out an experi-
mental orchard. He in 1888 offered Smith laboratory facilities
for his work with the microscope. Smith, aware that much further
field and laboratory research was necessary, advanced few definite
theories this year. But on this point he seemed rather sure:

160 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

There is undoubtedly some reason for believing that the disease is
propagated by diseased pits. I can not state positively that trees grown
from premature peaches will develop yellows, but I think it likely. There
can be no doubt that such seeds have an enfeebled vitality, and it is not
likely that they will give rise to robust trees. How great the danger may
be from this source I am unable to say. Some experim.ents of my own
lead me to think it is overestimated. Exact experiments to determine this
point have not been very numerous.

"When I began my field-work, in July, 1887," Smith confessed,
" I had no favorite theory to advance, but gave very careful
attention to [Goessmann-Penhailov^'s theory}, among others, hop-
ing, for the sake of the fruit-growers, to be able to confirm it." ^^
Peach yellows, with plenty of justification, was exciting alarm
throughout eastern United States. The public press and magazines
of nation-wide circulation, aware that whole areas of the peach-
growing industry already had been destroyed and more were
threatened, gave space to accredited treatments and supposed cures.
Smith personally visited the orchards where treatments or control
methods were believed to have been effectual. September 3, 1887,
he wrote to Scribner:

To settle more definitely pro or con the effect of mineral manures on
peach yellows, I would like to have carried on, at suitable places in Mary-
land, and Delaware or New Jersey, as may seem most advisable, a series
of four feeding experiments of one acre each (100 trees), reserving in
each case another acre in alternate strips for control experiments, making
in all 800 trees (8 acres) in localities, 400 being under treatment and 400,
equally sick over, being reserved untreated for comparison, the feeding to
continue long enough (two years at least) to reach well-defined results.
The remedy I wish to try is Penhallow's peach mixture, as recommended in
the Houghton Farm Bulletin. . . . The greatest uncertainty exists in the
minds of peach growers and such a series of experiments would be watched
with very great interest by peach-men from Connecticut to Georgia and
from Michigan to Texas. Peach growing on [the Chesapeake peninsula]
is in a bad way and unless something can be done to arrest "' Yellows " the
orchards will be swept out, as they have been largely already in Cecil
County, Maryland, and New Castle County, Delaware, and are now being
destroyed in [the Dover section] and north Kent County, Maryland. The
peach is the great money crop here, and the loss of the orchards not only
produces " hard times " but leads to a very general depreciation of real
estate. A farm on which peaches can no longer be grown is not worth
nearly as much as it was before.

" Peach yellows: a preliminary report, Bulletin 9, Sect. Veg. Path., U. S. Dep't
of Agric, 126, 143.

Fungous Dislasi^s of Plants, Pr.Ac;n Yhllows l6l

Thus were bei;un Smith's " Experiments with fertilizers for the
prevention and cure of peach yellows, 18S9-1892," the results of
which formed the materials of Bulletin 4 of the Division of
Vegetable Pathology of the same title, published by the Depart-
ment m 1893. In 1888, when he published his preliminary report
on peach yellows. Bulletin 9 of the Section of Vegetable Pathology
of the Botanical Division, Smith admitted he had not been able to
confirm the results of Goessmann's and Penhallow's experiments
and analyses. Formal authority to conduct the experiments was
not obtained until the autumn of 1887. February 17, 1888, T. T.
Lyon, president/ of the Michigan State Horticultural Society,
advised Smith that he felt " very sure that [he would] reach the
conclusion, at least so far as Western Michigan [was] concerned,
that soil starvation has little to do with the development of
Yellows. ..." Confidence in legislation which required the
removal and eradication of infected trees as soon as discovered
was being built up, since more and more this appeared to be the
inevitable and only solution of the peach yellows problem. Not
even the fact that the law would be enforced under official
government supervision minimized its importance to orchard
owners. January 13, 1888, Lyon described the history of the
Michigan law to Smith:

I drew the original " Yellows " Bill, which was enacted as drawn
although subsequently twice amended, and each time made less effective
by interference with its capacity for prompt execution. The scope however
is not changed. I (without consultation with others on this point,) in-
cluded the nectarine because it is in fact a peach; the only difference being
its smooth skin ; and for the reason that it is always budded upon peach
stocks. The almond was included not because I had known it to become
affected ; but mainly because it also is grown on peach stocks, which would
be liable to become diseased. The Almond also is in fact a peach, with the
seed developed instead of the pulp. I had some years since procured the
crop of an Almond growing at South Haven — yielding nearly a bushel of
seed, and planted this seed intending to bud the young trees with peaches,
as an experiment. During the spring these seedlings gave decided indica-
tions of disease, a great many failing to grow; while during that summer,
the parent tree developed the yellows. ... I have no knowledge respect-
ing the existence of yellows in California nor yet in the peach growing
regions of the eastern Continent. The occasion or cause must be more or
less climatic, even if the primary cause is in fact bacterial. . . .

Wesley Webb, editor of the Delaware Farm and Home,

162 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

requested the Department of Agriculture to send H. E. Van
Deman, noted horticulturist, or Smith, and both men if possible,
to attend a meeting of the Peninsula Horticultural Society to
be held at Dover on January 11, 18S8. In a letter to Smith of
December 26, 1887, he asked:

How are you coming on with microscopic investigations of Peach
Yellows? Have you yet seen the supposed bacterium that by excessive
multiplication turns this delicate tree to such a sickly hue, and fills our
Delaware peach growers wiih consternation dire? ... If you have come
to any definite conclusion and we can have the full benefit of your work
so far we shall be very glad to pay your expenses. ... Dr. Maxwell will
be here with a long paper on Pears. . . .

On January 22, 1891, at Easton, Maryland, Smith would address
the Society on " Peach Yellows," '" present his conclusions as to
the contagious nature of the disease, and announce that that year
Bulletin 1 of the Division of Vegetable Pathology would fully
treat the subject of its communicability. He described his inocu-
lation and excision experiments 1887-1888 and his reasons for
recommending legislation and " the ax and the fire-band " to check
the disease's spread. " In answer to a question," he said, " I have
isolated several organisms from the diseased tissues, but I am not
yet able to say whether any one of these is the cause of the
disease. This part of my investigation is not yet completed. . . ."
Webb invited Smith to attend the Chestertown meeting of the
Society January 28-30, 1890, and tell his " story about the fungus
that causes the [peach] rot."

In 1887 Smith had recommended that " the leaf curl, the rot,
and some other known parasitic and seriously injurious diseases
of the peach should receive attention " as a part of his investiga-
tion. Since 1888, however, many growers on the peninsula volun-
tarily had begun digging up their orchards on account of the
yellows, and at a meeting of the horticultural society a committee
had been appointed to secure passage of a law in Delaware and
Maryland to compel all orchard owners to destroy diseased trees.
In January, 1888, Webb again asked Smith whether he had found
bacteria in the diseased wood. On February 12 Dr. Maxwell told
him that he believed that the disease was caused by bacteria.
Smith refused to " make statements, until [he had] verified them

" TraKS. Peninsula Hort. Soc. 4: 55-61, and reprint.

Fungous Disizasfs of Plants, Pi-ach Yellows 163

beyond the possibility of a doubt." At some occasion between the
years 18SS and 1890, presumably in the state of Delaware, he
spoke his belief that the malady is contagious because, said he,"

// does not appear to be due to poverty of soil. Chemical analyses are
contradictory. They do not agree in showint^ a deficiency of lime, potash,
or phosphoric acid. Copious applications of these and other chemicals
have not cured or arrested the spread of the disease. Trees set in place
of those dug out on account of yellows are not more likely to contract
disease than others in tlie same orchard. // does appear to be a contagious
disease. My inoculations show that it can be conveyed from tree to tree
by budding, and it is therefore a foregone conclusion that part of it must
come from the nursery. The disease also appears to spread in the orchard
from tree to tree but in what way I do not know. Not all of it comes
from the nurseries, because old trees are not exempt from its ravages.

His effortsto establish the nature of the communicability of the
ravage were interrupted for a time. On February 20, 1888, Com-
missioner Colman wrote: "your services will be dispensed with
after February 29th instant." He asked that his report be com-
pleted immediately that he might " present to Congress additional
evidence of the importance of continuing the investigation."

Four days later there followed a letter from Scribner:

The circumstances which have necessitated my discontinuing the work
on peach yellows I deem most unfortunate for the Section, and I think I
can appreciate your personal feelings in being obliged to give up now a
w^ork which has so completely occupied your mind for the past 8 months.
You must certainly understand that this work would not be interrupted at
this stage in its progress were it possible to prevent it. When I proposed to
the Commissioner that this work be taken up, I recommended you as being
the man whom I thought best qualified to carry it on, and I look to your
preliminary report to convince him that I was correct in my choice. // is
imperative that this report be sent in on the first of March. The Commis-
sioner will doubtless continue the work with the beginning of another year,
when I trust we may be able to secure your services.

Charles W. Dabney Junior, President of the State Agricultural
and Mechanical College of the University of Tennessee and
Director of the state agricultural experiment station located at
Knoxville, had written Scribner on February 3 and asked him to
recommend "a worker in the botanical field for our Experiment
Station," who could also do some teaching in botany or horticul-

''"' Memorandum undated entitled " Synopsis of Address by Erwin F. Smith on
Peach Yellows " and found among his collected papers.

164 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

ture. Scribner recommended Smith; and on February 10 Dabney
invited Smith to apply for the position of botanist at the experi-
ment station. While research was to be foremost, the offer called
for Smith to teach a class in elementary botany and an advanced
class in either botany or agriculture.

Dr. Dabney had discussed this offer with Professor Spalding,
and it is likely that to obtain Spalding's opinion Smith went to
Ann Arbor. "Want of funds" was the only reason ascribed by
Scribner for discontinuing Smith's services. On October 31, 1887,
Dr. Beal, " as a friend of progressive agriculture [and] on [his]
own hook," had asked Smith whether he would accept an offer " to
work on fungi" at the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station
when, under the Hatch Act, that station should be fully organized
by February 21 with President Edwin Willits of the College as
director. L. H. Bailey also urged his friend and fellow-botanist
to investigate this position.

Moreover, an interesting communication from the state of
Delaware was received. On February 25, 1888, Wesley Webb at
Dover advised Smith: "Our college directors are looking for
a man to take charge of the Experiment Station. I wish you
would apply." This was from the peach yellows region where the
youthful mvestigator had done much of his field research. He
took this suggestion seriously, and again letters recommending
him for a position with another college went forward, this time
to J. Alexander Fulton who was chairman of the committee on
selection.

Professor A. J. Cook of Michigan Agricultural College wrote:

I learn that there is some thought of appointing Mr. Erwin F. Smith to
the Directorship of your Station under the Hatch Bill. Mr. Smith is one
of my students. I regard his as a very superior student, and as a scientist
of great merit. As a fungologist I doubt if he has a superior in some
respects in the Country. He could do exceptionally good work in Dela-
ware where the Yellows prevail. We tried to secure Mr. Smith for our
Station but failed.

Beal, Garfield, Barnes, Coulter, and others, sent letters which
Chairman Fulton found "highly creditable to [Smith] as a
scientist and gentleman." Arthur of Purdue University wrote his
recommendation direct to Smith:

Your practical knowledge of agriculture and horticulture, and your

Fungous Dishasks of Plants, Placii Yellows 165

trainini; as a stiuicnt and investigator of tlic sciences whicli underlie
these pursuits peculiarly ht you lor the position. I sliall take pleasure in
lending my intluence to secure your appointment, not only because 1 think
you will lind it a suitable place in which to exercise your powers, but
because I believe the interests of the state, particularly the fruit interests,
will he promoted by your appointment. Consider me at your service.

In the spring of 1SS8 Bailey, at first refusing the directorship
of the agricultural experiment station at Cornell University,
accepted an offer from there of the first American professorship
of experimental and practical horticulture. At Michigan Agri-
cultural College he had built and equipped, if not the first, one
of the first American experimental laboratories devoted exclusively
to work in horticulture. His ambition was to remain in research,
and on May 16 he wrote Smith his belief that any directorship
was not desirable for the specialist because of the excessive amount
of time required for "purely executive matters."

Nevertheless, Smith was interested in the Delaware position
because in March he had been advised by Fulton that the state
might appropriate special funds for an investigation of peach
yellows. As late as May he was not definitely sure that the federal
investigation would be resumed. Early in March he submitted to
Scribner a copy of his report " so far as written " and received his
general criticism that what was wanted was " an account of the
investigations [he] had made in the field and laboratory together
with a brief history of the disease." He learned from several
sources that Congress was being asked for funds to renew the
investigation sometime in the spring or at the beginning of the
next fiscal year. In fact, on March 30, Scribner requested from him
a special statement for Congress "as to what [he had] accom-
plished and the probability of reaching definite results within a
reasonable period." He returned to the Section of Vegetable
Pathology his microscope, note books, and a package containing
forceps, shears, and other equipment. But he retained his "dried
and alcoholic specimens, negatives and photos," probably to pre-
pare slides to illustrate his account of his histological examinations.

Since the spring of 1887 he had had in mind taking advanced
study in biology at Johns Hopkins or in fungi at Harvard. He
had done neither, and now with an opportunity before him he
had chosen to continue his orchard studies at his home at Hubbard-

166 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

ston and to complete his histological examinations at the botanical
laboratory of the University of Michigan.

On May 8 the Board of Trustees of Delaware College met and
elected a man other than Smith as director of their experiment
station. Frederick D. Chester, professor of agriculture, besought
Bailey to recommend "" a good man to act as Horticulturist to our
new Experiment Station to be organized under the provisions of
the Hatch Act. The horticultural interests of Delaware," he wrote,
" are very important, and this position is in my mind the most
important one on the station." Bailey forwarded his letter to
Smith. Wesley Webb urged Smith to seek "' an appointment as
special agent to investigate the yellows," and assured Smith that
" the fruit growers [would] raise money to pay [his] expenses."
But no final arrangements were ever made.

In June Smith received an inquiry of interest from Acting
Commissioner of Agriculture F. C. Nesbit: "Will you," he
demanded, "please inform this Department whether, from your
investigations of Peach yellows, you can assert that the disease is
or is not caused by a parasitic fungus."

On November 19, Burrill confided to Smith that he had " found
a living organism in the diseased bark but [was] sure of nothing
further yet." Smith had sent him some trees for planting and
observation but, despite good care, the young ones died, and those
of a shipment received in the fall grew, " showing characteristic
'yellows.'" He also sent a box of peach fruit, "exactly" what
Burrill wanted. Cultures were made at once. But on July 26,
1889, he wrote: " I am well convinced that there is no parasite
unless it is of the bacteria — or other micro-forms, but am not
certain that it will prove anychmg." On account of other work his
peach yellows research had been "comparatively resting awhile."
Smith answered immediately and on August 5 the Iliinoisan
explained that all he had found was " the organism which [he
had] supposed the thing before." He had uncovered no " positive
information of [the organism] in the fruit," was not confident of
the bacterial theory, and wanted specimens of inoculated trees,
promising in return a culture.

Where in the United States was there a reputable scientist v/ho
could have answered positively the inquiry of Acting Commissioner
Nesbit? Smith and Burrill, with their characteristic honest}' and
candor in science, could not. The most that they could have said

Fungous Disi:asI'S of Plants, Phac ii ^'ii.i.ows 167

was that each believed the disease to be of parasitic origin anil
caused, as Burrill said, by some "micro-form."

Some other scientists were doing some field study of peach
yellows. In April 1S8S, for instance, W. R. Lazcnby of Ohio had
agreed to take " about three hundred trees . . . 250 inoculated
and 100 unbudded," if desired. He was one of many American
scientists who protested the discontinuance of Smith's peach
yellows investigation. He wrote that there was "a demand for a
mycologist" at the Ohio experiment station and he was hoping
that within a few years funds would be provided. J. Troop at the
Indiana experiment station agreed to take seventy-five to one
hundred trees. L. R. Taft of the University of Missouri agreed to
take as many as Smith sent. But Smith and Burrill were the
acknowledged students of the malady and their research included
both held and laboratory examinations.

On March 7, 1888, A. N. Prentiss of Cornell University deplored
the suspension of Smith's investigation and promised that he
would "take pleasure" in endorsing him for any position. "It
is uncertain as yet," he wrote, " as to what will be done here in
the way of Bot[anical} work for the Ex[periment} Station. It
may possibly run in the line of mycology — but the salary thus far
contemplated — $750 — is quite too insignificant for any one who
has already done any work in the subject. I hope the right thing
will turn up for you speedily." Garfield advised: "I should not
sacrifice myself on the altar of Science were I in your place. If
a good place were offered in any other direction, I would drop
yellows or blues and delve in a field where payments would be
made for services rendered."

At the University of Michigan Spalding had placed Smith during
the second semester in charge of his department's " Microscopical
Laboratory." A class of t%venty-four students met on Mondays
and Fridays for laboratory or quiz and other days of the week for
regular laboratory work. He lived at Ann Arbor until June and
possibly until August. During May and June he lectured on
histological subjects, and his note book reveals a wealth of learn-
in £^ in morphology and physiology, and some attention given to
the histology of the peach. Most of the year 1888 was devoted
to completing his preliminary report on peach yellows, which was
submitted on November 10 to Beverly Thomas Galloway, the
newly appointed chief of the Section of Vegetable Pathology at

168 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

the end of October displacing Scribner who went to the University
and experiment station of Tennessee.

September 29, 1888, Smith jubilantly wrote to Farlow that
"Mr. Galloway talks as though he desires me to continue the
investigation." Farlow was then at work on his North American
bibliographies of mycological, and later phycological literature,
and Smith desired to obtain a copy of part I, Polypetalae, of his
and Seymour's Provisional Host-index of the Fungi of the United
States, part II, Gamopetalae-Apetalae, of which was to appear in
September, 1890, and part III in June, 1891. Sixteen months of
continuous research had gone into his preliminary report by the
time Smith completed it. Even then, he pointed out as many
matters which needed further study as those on which his mind was
fairly well made up. He adhered to his theory of a disease caused
by a microorganism. He believed he had clearly shown that the
disease was communicable and that other prevalently held theories
were at least in part discredited.

The spread of yellows from diseased buds to healthy stocks, which I
have carefully verified, points strongly to some contagium vivtim as the
cause. . . . Among supposed causes deserving further inquiry I should
place root-aphides and root-fungi. I am inclined to believe that neither
one is at the bottom of the trouble. ... I can think of nothing else but
micro-organisms. ... I write this paragraph with ease, but the work
itself is full of difficulties. Nature does not yield her secrets upon the
mere asking. . . ?^

February 1, 1889, Commissioner Colman commissioned him at
a salary of $1,800 a year " to continue his field and laboratory
investigation of peach yellows, and to prepare a special report on
which particular attention shall be given to the microscopic appear-
ances of healthy and diseased tissues, with a view to settle, if
possible, the parasitic nature of yellows."

Smith accepted this commission and early in August had
returned to Washington. He began to reside at 229 Eighth Street
Northeast and soon was busy at field examinations. Prentiss and
other botanists expressed their pleasure on learning of his reap-
pointment "to go on with the important work so promisingly
begun — on the peach yellows. I hope," wrote the Cornell pro-

''^ Bulletin 9, Botanical Division, Section of Vegetable Pathology, U. S. Dep't of
Agric, 179, 1888; see also. Report on peach yellows, by special agent Smith,
Report of the Comm. of Agric. for 1888: 393-398 at pp. 395-396.

Fungous Dishashs of Plants, Pf.ach Yhli.ows 169

fessor, " you will find no further interruptions, but that your efforts
to get at the bottom facts of this mysterious scourge may meet
with complete success."

On October 1 "S Spalding wrote: " I hope you will keep on with
the 'yellows' though it would be a gratification to have you
working here again." He was proud of his class of four students
studying fungi and twenty-six students in biology and advanced
Work. Smith and he exchanged some letters concerning a spot
disease of quince leaves. But the most important question in need
of immediate settlement was: how was Smith to complete his
work, already stafted, toward getting his doctorate in science at
the Universit)' of Michigan.^ In his preliminary report on peach
yellows he had described what investigations remained uncom-
pleted. He applied to the university faculty for permission to
combine the work toward his doctorate with this which was now
tantamount to an outline of his plans for the work of his new
commission. On Noverber 9, 1888, Alexander Winchell, professor
of geology and palaeontology, notified him that the faculty unani-
mously had granted him "permission to study in absentia."
Spalding's letter of three days before explained more fully. It
read:

Your letter came yesterday, just before faculty meeting. Dr. "Winchell
presented your case and after some explanation on my part as to the neces-
sity of your having an opportunity to conduct the investigation in the field
and to do a portion at least of the work in Washington, the faculty voted
to permit you to go on with the work /;; absejjtia and to present yourself
for examination in June next.

At the same time the feeling was expressed that it was desirable for you
to do a portion of the work if possible here, and from what you had
written I took the responsibility of saying that you would work here a part
of the year if you could. So the matter is left with you, but if things shape
so that you can be here for a semester, or for some time, it will be agree-
able to the wishes of tlie faculty. They are disposed to give you every
chance, but at the same time to hold to the principle that it is best in
almost all cases for the candidate to be on the groimd.

Now about the book. "We must go through with it and we shall find no
better time if we wait ten years. Let us make a break and do it even if we
come far short of our ideal. Even such a little book as Winter's, if illus-
trated and brought down to the times and with the ideas of Bekampfung
worked in, would be far better than to leave the thing any longer. Now
I propose this — My class will be working (I think) a good part of the
year on Peronosporeae, Ured'tneae, and Ustilaghieae. I ivill xvrite up those

170 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

groups and have them done by July 1st, if you will take the Ascomycetes
with the imperfect forms and get them done by the same time.

Spalding with the aid of his class already had commenced his
work on the book. He had urged that, unless a tempting offer from
the United States Department of Agriculture hove into sight,
Smith should return to the University of Michigan that winter,
work with the students on fungi, finish the book, obtain his degree
in June, and be prepared to accept a position as professor of
botany and horticulture for which he had been recommended by
President Angell and Dr. Spalding to Professor Scott of Rutgers
College. The university's botanical laboratory had undergone
some repairs, and a few improvements had been added. Spalding
had been bringing together a herbarium for mycology. Specimens
had been obtained from Smith and other botanists of the nation.
With Sanford's aid, drawings of species in Cystopus, Peronospora,
Puccinia, Ustilago, Ascomyces, Podosphaera, Uncinula, Sphaero-
theca, Fusicladium, Oidium, and other genera, had been made.
Materials had been photographed, notes taken on distribution.
Spalding valued his correspondence with Smith, since the latter
kept him abreast of the times by writing to him what diseases
were being given attention at Washington. " What you say about
the foot rot in Florida and the vine disease in California," said
Spalding on November 27, 1888,

makes me ache to have some one ready to take it up and if Galloway is not
in too much of a hurry I have little doubt that in due time he can be
provided with a trained man from our laboratory. . . . One thing we can
(Jo — wonder if it will not be worth while — we can put together our pieces
of special study some time during the year and let Mr. Galloway have
them for the next annual (or bulletin).

He made a specific offer:

Towards the end of the year I can give each of the class a species to
investigate and report on, or we may, perhaps, if we do not find it too
much of an undertaking prepare a joint paper on the Pathological Changes
induced by Parasitic Fungi. This you know is what is coming "' bye and
bye." We have done enough of it here already to see a little of its im-
portance and what an immense amount of work it is. . . . Do you know
what a pest the tomato rot has been this year.? I have alcoholic material
and want to get to work at it. Is there a lot of material at the dep[art-
men]t, or has no one sent it in? Then there is the melon disease. A
student from Ohio brought me a lot of material and reported badly

Fungous Disi;Asrs of Plants, Peach Yi-llows 171

daniaucd crops of melons last summer. Want to know all about it. I
should feci happier if I had just the class in fun^i and no otiier teai^hing
to do. . . .

Smith supp^licd Spaldini; with many specimens of diseased plants
for study. Desiderata from the professor sometimes listed as many
as a dozen and a half special requests, and the young Department
scientist advised him of newly discovered ailments. He sent to the
laboratory grape-vine stems and leaves from California showing
an " obscure " malady which Newton B. Pierce was to study. A. C.
rvclcshymer was to begin his important special study of Plas-
modiophora.'^ By the end of the year Spalding had prepared a
general account of Plasmodiophora, had finished numerous special
investigations, written up the Peronosporeae, and was starting the
Uredmeae. He wrote Smith December 27th, 1888:

The class in fungi are workers to the last degree. [Frederick Charles]
Newcombe will take up the Black Knot and carry on its study through
the winter, reviewing all of Farlow's statements and extending our knowl-
edge of the subject if possible. [N. B.] Pierce is working on germination
of Phytophthora and wiU continue for a time. There is reason to believe
that no one has ever given a full account of the extraordinary changes that
precede the formation of zoospores — and afterwards will probably study
the changes that pine wood undergoes in becoming " punky." Waples
is to study the germination of Puccinia graminis and the relation of this
fungus to its host, particularly the penetration of the wheat, the time of
germination, the capability of the uredo spores of functioning as resting
spores, whether the mycelium is perennial etc.

Already Spalding had seen one laboratory research produce still
further promising results. Physiological and anatomical study of
pine woods begun under his direction by Filibert Roth so interested
Bernhard Eduard Fernow, chief of the Division of Forestry of
the United States Department of Agriculture, that Fernow visited
Ann Arbor and authorized Roth to go on with the investigations.
"' rW]hat I did in the study of the quality' of coniferous woods,"
wrote Spalding to Smith, " resulted in Mr. Roth's taking up a
most important investigation." Spalding had begun the study of
the mechanical and physiological properties of economically valu-
able American timbers. Roth continued the work which formed
a basis for his later important timber physics research in the
Department of Agriculture.

''^ ]ournd of Mycology 7 (2): 79 et seq., 1892.

172 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

Spalding wanted Smith to remain with the United States De-
partment of Agriculture. He was aware of the gains to be realized
there. Yet, he informed Smith of opportunities in the state agri-
cultural colleges and experiment stations. In December, 1888,
B. D. Halsted was chosen, considerably because Farlow had
recommended him, for the position at Rutgers College and the
New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. This left a vacancy
open at Iowa Agricultural College, to which institution Halsted
had gone when a state experiment station had been established
at Ames under provisions of the Hatch Act. Spalding by letter of
January 11, 1889, told Smith: "Mr. Reighard spoke to me some
days ago about Dr. Halsted's place at Ames which it seems is
vacant. I thought you might like to try for it if there is nothing
definite yet at the Dep[artmen}t. If they do what is right for
you there, though, I hope you can stay and help bring up the work
as it ought to be." With the beginning of the second semester at
the University of Michigan, a place was open on the faculty of
Dr. Spalding's department. Promptly he offered it to Smith. He
could offer no more than a temporary appointment to " take charge
of two classes, the class of literary students corresponding,"
Spalding told Smith,

to the one you had last year, and the Junior pharmacy class (beginning the
last Monday in March) . The assistant will by this arrangement be obliged
to give instruction to two pretty large classes. All the work, however, can
be brought into the forenoons of the week, as it will not be expected that
any advanced students will receive instruction in that laboratory. This is,
from my point of view, a just and reasonable arrangement, and I intend
hereafter to have the elementary work in botany in both departments —
literary and pharmacy — done by the assistant, reserving for myself the
biological work and the special courses for advanced students. . . . You
are my first choice, and while there are a number who have either per-
sonally or through their friends signified their willingness to succeed to
Mrs. Stowell's position, you will have the preference. We can work with
mutual confidence and together do a good thing in building up the botani-
cal department. I should very much like to have your help.

Smith was to be privileged to build up a " special course" such
as they might agree upon. But since the Board of Regents would
not meet before the time when Smith would begin, and since
President Angell likely would not take the responsibility of assur-
ing a permanent position, while the offer appealed as a "chance
of a lifetime to take a position in the University of Michigan,"

Fungous Disuasi^s of Plants, Phacii Yhllows 173

Spalclini; could not promise it woulJ be a paying one and he
admitted the prospects were uncertain. Smith refused the offer,
and by letter of January 31 Spalding agreed Smith had "done
wisely. . . . Your estimate of the chances is correct," Spalding said,
" I should not come if I were in your place." Then, when Com-
missioner Colman commissioned Smith two days later to " continue
his iield and laboratory investigation of peach yellows," with
provision made for special microscopic analyses, which, most of
all. Smith had wanted, Spalding wrote: " I was heartily glad that
you were at last in a position to do a good piece of scientific work
in your own way :i/nd can hardly imagine anything better than the
way you are situated now."

March 7, 1889, J. M. Rusk assumed the duties of the newly
created oflke of Secretary of Agriculture. Early in February, the
federal Congress had approved legislation which raised agriculture
to department status, with a place in the cabinet, in the executive
branch of the government. Norman J. Colman served an interim
period as Secretary between the time his commissionership ended
and Rusk was appointed and qualified as Secretary when Benjamin
Harrison took office as twenty-third President of the United
States. Rusk immediately asked for "a laboratory to be erected on
the Department grounds, suitable for the purposes of important
investigations which [could] not now be undertaken." Chief
Galloway had prepared the report for the year 1888 of the Section
of Vegetable Pathology. Since his appointment had not become
effective until November 1 of that year, the work reported had
really been that of Scribner. Galloway had been brought to the
Department as an assistant pathologist in 1887 by Commissioner
Colman, both men being Missourians. He had been born at
Millersburg, Missouri, on October 16, 1863, and had graduated in
agricultural science in 1884 from the University of Missouri. Im-
mediately he had been constituted an assistant in the university's
horticultural department, a position which, because he showed
special aptitude as a viticulturist, he retained until Colman, in
search of a man of unusual capabilities to help Scribner in his work
on fungous diseases of grapes, induced him to accept a similar
position at Washington. Not only had Galloway's father been a
specialist in this field but also his university instructor had been
trained abroad, and MiUardet's discovery of Bordeaux mixture
brought the new treatment of viticultural diseases into the fore-

174 Pathologist U. S. Depahtment of Agriculture

ground of practical scientific work. When Galloway was promoted
to chief of the Section, he was also elevated to the rank of
pathologist.

In 1888 Merton Benway Waite, BurriU's student and assistant
at the University of Illinois, was brought into the employe of the
Section. On July 29, 1889, Galloway wrote to Smith, who was then
working at St. Joseph, Michigan: "Mr. [David Grandison} Fair-
child of Kansas was appointed an assistant in the Section on the
25th inst[ant}. He took the examination on the 23rd." Fairchild
that year had obtained his second degree, in science, from Kansas
State Agricultural College. He was the son of the college's
president, George T. Fairchild, who formerly had taught at
Michigan Agricultural College, in fact, young Fairchild had been
born while his father was professor of English literature and
librarian there and his birth had taken place in a home on the
campus. A student of William Ashbrook Kellerman in botany
and a nephew of Byron David Halsted, Fairchild had been urged
to accept employment at Washington by his uncle and by Galloway
who was visiting Halsted at New Brunswick when he met Fair-
child. By the summer of the year 1889, the Section of Vegetable
Pathology, under Galloway's direction, had four assistants: Miss
Southworth, Waite, Fairchild, and Smith.

In March the Section's bulletin no. 9, Smith's preliminary
report on peach yellows, was published, and the entire edition of
5,000 copies was almost used up within a month. Galloway
reported at the end of the year: *"

There have been nearly two thousand five hundred applications for this
bulletin in excess of the edition, and the plates used in illustrating it have
been purchased by a number of horticultural societies, their plan being to
publish extracts from it in their annual reports.

In the same annual report, Galloway included a summary of the
results of Smith's continued field examinations in Michigan, Mary-
land, and Delaware, and what disclosures BurriU could add July
1, 1889, to the special investigations he had undertaken in Illinois
since 1888 to ascertain the malady's cause. ®^

Many plant scientists wrote Smith and praised his report.

*" Report of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, First Report of the Secretary of
Agriculture, 397-432 at p. 397, Washington, Gov't Print. Off., 1889.
^^"■Ibid, All-All). See BurriU's letter, pp. A11-A15.

Fungous Diseases of Plants, Pi-ach Yi-llows 173

Lieutenant John P. Tinlcy, Professor Harrington, G. H. Failyer,
anJ others not directly connected with phint work, wrote also
appreciatively. During the spring of 1889, Smith began new
experiments to test the validity of the theory that peach yellows is
a nutritional disturbance resultini? from soil exhaustion or starva-
tion. He selected an orchard in the north part of Kent County,
Maryland, and, utilizing ten representative plats which were sub-
divided and treated with Kieserite. muriate of potash and dissolved
bone black, and ten equally representative plats for comparison
he launched the experiments which lasted over three years and
in 1892 were reported in detail to the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.^- These were not the most important
peach yellows investigations made by Smith. But these, together
with other studies of the disease, would have been sufficient to
make his reputation as a research scientist memorable in plant
pathology." On May 7, 1889, L. H. Bailey, professor of horti-
culture at Cornell University, advised Smith that his preliminary
report on peach yellows would be reviewed in Garden and Forest,
probably that summer. He wrote: " I am much interested in
your proposed experiments. You are doing the best, most practical
work on a plant disease of anyone in this country."

Smith was not made a member of the Society for the Promotion
of Agricultural Science until the year 1893. Although already a
member of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, his appearance at Ocala, Florida, before the American
Pomological Society February 20-23, 1889, to present the first of
his elaborate study of "The chemistry of peach yellows"®* was
an event of real significance. He had spoken before scientific
societies, but never with the same role of prominence as now.
Part II of his paper was presented two years later, September
22-24, 1891, at the twenty-third session of the Society, meeting at
Washington, D. C. By the time this study was completed. Smith
was maintaining that "we are to look for the cause of Peach
Yellows and the means of prevention in an entirely different
direction [from that of] the Goessmann-Penhallow method of

*- E. F. Smith, On the value of superphosphates and muriate of potash in the
treatment of peach yellows, Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 41: 226, 1892.

*^G. P. Clinton, Erwin Frink Smith, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Set. 70 (10)
577, 1936.

^^Proc. Amer. Pomol. Soc. 22: 38-41, 1889-

176 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

treatment." ^^ Professor Penhallow and Professor Maynard had
neither searched for, nor found, proof of contagion in this
disease.^*^ On the other hand, Smith's bulletin I of the Division
of Vegetable Pathology, published in 1891," "Additional evi-
dence on the communicability of peach yellows and peach rosette,"
had " v/ell-established [the] contagious nature of" peach yellows.
There remained the "middle ground" which Smith claimed was
now Goessmann's: " believing that whatever be the cause of
Yellows, [they could] enable Peach trees to resist it by giving them
a sufficient quantity of [plant] food." This Smith dealt with in
several papers: " On the value of wood ashes in the treatment of
peach yellows," ^^ presented at the forty-first meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science; several
articles of lesser value; ^^ and his important Bulletin 4, "Experi-
ments with fertilizers for the prevention and cure of peach yellows,
1889-1892."

Apparently by 1888 he was convinced that his inoculations had
demonstrated the communicability of peach yellows. He seems to
have been convinced that the disease is of parasitic origin. But
his utterances on these and other points were made with scientific
caution, and he urged the necessity of further research. Months
had been spent readmg the best available literature, sending out
inquiries, and visiting peach orchard regions to consult with owners
and nurserymen to get their opinions as to the nature of the
malady, its behavior, methods of control, et cetera. Often he
travelled from orchard to orchard in a buggy or by wagon. His
letters of inquiry went as far west as Kansas and as far south as
Georgia.

During the summer of 1887, he began to correspond with J. D.
Husted, president of the Middle Georgia Horticultural Society
and owner of the Midland Fruit Farm at Vineyard, Spalding
County. Their letters dealt mostly with peach diseases — leaf

^^ Proc. Amer. Fomol. Soc. 23: 21-26, 1891. Also a reprint, from which the
quotations have been taken, 16 pages, at pp. 14 for Smith's conclusions and 4 for
Smith's consideration of Penhallow's, Maynard's, and Goessmann's theories with
reference to contagion and the remedy therefor.

«" Ibid, 4.

*' 65 pp., 38 plates, U. S. Dep't Agric.

^^ Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 4l: 224-225, 1892. Abstract of paper presented
at Rochester, New York, August, 1892.

^" For instance, What to do for peach yellows, Jour, of Mycology 6 (1): 15-16.

Fungous Disi-ases of Plants, Phach Yhllows 177

airl, rot, and rosette — but diseases of (;rapc and plum were also
considered. Peach rosette, a disease similar to, yet distinguishable
from, yellows, was of more than usual interest.

In June 1889 Smith took his doctoral examination at the Uni-
versity of Michigan on his thesis subject, the peach yellows. Dr.
Spalding invited a pre-mcdical student, Lewis Ralph Jones, to
attend the examination and so inspired was he by " the significance
of and opportunity for research in the field of plant pathology " ""
that, after further conferences with Spalding, Jones decided to
make plant pathology his life work. Some of his undergraduate
years had been spent at Ripon College in Wisconsin, his native
state, but an interest in biological sciences had caused him to
transfer to Michigan. Smith's examination resulted, therefore, not
only in his receiving the degree of Doctor of Science but also in
attracting to the science Jones, another future leader.

Smith enjoyed more than one honor this year. The alumni of
Ionia High School invited him to present their annual address, a
distinction which, when he accepted it, was planned as the " one
great event" of the Commencement exercises.

While in Michigan, he may have consulted with F. G. Novy.
After securing a degree of Master of Science from the University
of Michigan," Novy had gone to Chicago to teach. August 16,
1887, while still there and just before he went abroad with Dr.
Vaughan to study with Koch and others, he informed Smith: " I
have resigned my western professorship and accepted, instead, a
position as instructor in Hygiene and physiological chemistry in
my own Alma Mater." Two years later he wrote again:

A copy of your report on Peach Yellows has been recently received. I
congratulate you, as a friend and a classmate, upon this highly creditable
production and feel confident that no matter how obscure the cause of
the disease m,ay be at present, you are the most competent person to carry
out the investigation to its fullest extent. I am surprised to see that so
little work has been done in regard to the possibility of the bacterial origin
of the Yellows. If I am not mistaken you, yourself, have not approached
that side of the question.

Mr. [Newton B.] Pierce has been recently appointed by the Department
[of Agriculture] to study the Vine disease of California. [He] has taken
a course in bacteriology in our laboratory and is enthusiastic on applying
that study in the investigation of vegetable diseases.

•°G. W. Keitt and F. V. Rand, Lewis Ralph Jones, Phytopathology 36 (1): 1-17,
at p. 2, 1946.

178 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture

March 20, 1889, Pierce had telegraphed to Smith the news that
"Mr. Galloway wishe[d} [him] to undertake [the] California
Vine investigation." Smith replied and urged him to visit him in
Washington before he left for California. "I am anxious to get
into the field," wrote Pierce on April 7, 1889, " for I believe every
week of growing weather will count with me in the study of the
disease." There would be investigations now in plant bacteriology
in the Section of Vegetable Pathology. Waite was beginning his
studies. Smith had been reading and learning on the subject.
Pierce would bring the latest knowledge from a university
classroom.

Chapti-r V

INVESTIGATIONS IN PLANT PATHOLOGY PLACFiD ON
A NATION-WIDE BASIS

DL'RING THE YEAR 1889 agents of the Section of Vegetable
Pathology were located in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland,
\'irginia. South Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michi-
gan, and California. Already several accomplishments were justi-
fying the work. A few years earlier, the nation-wide grape-
growing industry was believed threatened by abandonment of
whole areas. But the situation was more hopeful now. In 1887
the successful treatment of black rot and by 1889 promising
results from experimental treatments of anthracnose and downy
and powdery mildew had greatly encouraged growers. Several
potato diseases had been brought under control. Before 1887
few, if any, efforts had been made to control some serious nursery
stock diseases which damaged foliage and interfered with the
proper budding of fruit in apple, pear, plum, cherry, etc.; and
large amounts were rendered valueless. Experimental treatments
were started in 1888 and within several years it would be demon-
strated that some of the more destructive of the maladies could be
controlled.^

In 1889 Galloway said: ^

It must be remembered that the work we are engaged in is entirely new;
there is no beaten path of precedent to follow, consequently it is to be
expected that failure will sometimes follow our efforts. Heretofore the
work of this nature has been confined almost entirely to grape diseases,
since this year we have broadened our field, increasing thereby, as we have
good grounds for believing, the usefulness of our labors. . . . Plans have
been made for an extended series of experiments next season in the treat-
ment of peach-rot and blight, a disease which ranks next to yellows in its
destructiveness to the peach crop. We also propose to attempt something
in the way of combatting pear blight, a disease which has yet baffled every
effort at control. The work on apple-scab and other apple and pear
diseases will be extended, and special endeavor will be made to discover

^ B. T. Galloway, Report of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, for 1889, op. cit.,
399, 405 ; Progress in the treatment of plant diseases in the United States, Yearbook
of the U. S. Dep'l of Agric. for 1899: 195, 197-199.

'^ Report for 1889, op. cit., 419-420.

179

180 Investigations in Plant Pathology

a cheaper and more practical means of applying the remedies. The results
of the potato and tomato-rot experiments have encouraged us to give the
copper remedies a thorough trial for these diseases, and special attention
will be given to the comparative cost of the different preparations, the best
time to apply them, and the number of applications necessary. The grape
work will be continued, as there are yet many points in the treatment of
black-rot and anthracnose which need further elucidation. We have now
under way some experiments in the treatment of the diseases of cereals, this
work being chiefly confined to the smuts.

Aside from the grape maladies, the " principal diseases under
treatment [were] scab, rust, bitter-rot, and powdery mildew of
the apple; leaf-blight of the pear and quince; potato-rot and
blight; melon blight, strawberry leaf-blight . . . and peach yellows.
In two cases, namely, Michigan and Wisconsin," Galloway re-
ported,^ "we co-operated with the [state] experiment stations."
In the Journal of Mycology, " some of the more practical subjects
discussed [had been]: (1) Treatment of apple scab, by Prof.
E. S. Goff, of the Wisconsm Experiment Station; (2) treatment of
potato rot, by Clarence M. Weed, of the Ohio station; (3) peach
rot and blight, by Dr. Erwin F. Smith," due to Mouilia fructigena,
Persoon.*

The " first systematic attempt on the part of any station or
organized body in the United States " ^ to make " a thorough study "
of plant diseases had taken place at the New York experiment
station under Arthur. There, in four of its annual reports, he had
published on " a great number of important diseases," and while
the " keynote to the practical work of treatment had not yet been
struck" this was to follow "as a natural result of the studies"
made during these pioneering years. Even as late as the year
1885, Galloway pointed out,*' " there were only three institutions
besides the Department of Agriculture making an organized effort
in the way of teaching or in experimental work of this character."
Burrill's work in Illinois and Farlow's work at Harvard were the
two other principal research centers until the provisions of the
Hatch Act made possible the establishing of other centers in

* Idem, 399.

*ldem, 397. See, E. F. Smith, Peach-rot and peach-blight, Jour. Myc. 5 (3):
123-134, Sept. 1889; Peach blight, idem 7 (1): 36, 1891; also, Spotting of peaches,
idem 5 (1): 32-33, March, 1889.

^ Progress in the treatment of plant diseases, op. cil., 193-194.

• Idem, 199.

Placed on a Nation-widi- Basis 181

land-grant colleges where agricultural science was taught. In 1888
Arthur, America's fust statit^n botanist, went to Purdue University
to accept a, and prt)hably the first, professorship of vegetable
physiology and pathology in an American university, limmet Stull
Goff, the Geneva station's oflicial horticulturist, transferred to the
University of Wisconsin.

Golf in Wisconsin and L. R. Taft in Michigan made important
studies for the Department in, among other matters, fungicidal
treatment for apple scab [Fusicladiiim dendriticum, Fckl).^ F. S.
Earle, a Department agent located at Ocean Springs, Mississippi,
investigated treatrpents for blackberry rust, plum and peach rust,
strawberry leaf-blight, and grape powdery mildew. The work of
other agents was reported by Galloway in 1889. Elaborate space
was given to a first report on the work of Newton B. Pierce at
Santa Ana California, on the vine disease^ which was destroying
vineyards and beginning seriously to affect the raisin industry of
the state.

In May 1889 he had started his investigations, mapping the
disease's distribution and studying many environmental factors of
climate and soil: effect of pruning, irrigation, drainage, atmos-
pheric humidity, shading, land elevation, and other circumstances.
In trying to determine whether the malady is communicable, he
gave special attention to the point of temperature and the disease's
virulence, and to the malady's similarity to the Italian disease,
Mai nero. Scribner and Viala had arrived at no definite conclu-
sions as to its cause, and, by December 6, Pierce had "carefully
considered " most of the " non-parasitic agencies " which might be
responsible. He wrote Galloway: °

When considering the disease as due to parasitic or pathogenic organ-
isms, three lines of investigation have been pursued, viz: Entomological,
mycological, and bacteriological — the last as distinct from mycological work
mainly in the method of treatment. The work in these branches of the
investigation is in no sense matured. It should be followed by much careful
laboratory work.

During the late summer of 1889 Director W. A. Henry of the
Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, while visiting in Cali-
fornia, was requested by Galloway to call on Pierce and inform

■^ Rep't of Sect, of Veg. Path., op. cit., 405-412.

« Idem, 423-429. ' Idem, AlG.

182 Investigations in Plant Pathology

the Department at Washington what he believed of the progress
of the work. Henry was surprised that the disease had spread over
so large an area in so short a space of time. Vine growers in Los
Angeles and Orange counties were desolate, and discouragement
pervaded all viticultural regions. He found Pierce devoting him-
self most enthusiastically to his task and possessed of "' a great
deal of ability for this line of investigation." "As before noted,
we found signs of the disease in every vineyard, though the attack
is very recent," Henry reported.

Wherever we went, as soon as the people learned the objects of our
visit they gathered about us and asked many questions, all parties showing
deep interest and great anxiety, hi cases as soon as they were informed that
the disease seemed to be present., the next question was if the agent had
found a remedy. Naturally enough they care little for the name or history
of the disease; all they want to know is how to cure it.

In the light of modern knowledge, this disease, like peach
yellows, has been shown to be caused by a virus which is trans-
mitted by a leaf-hopper. The importance of Pierce's investigations
lies more in the evolution of field and laboratory technological
research than in the immediate consequence of his discoveries.
In his study of this disease, his exclusion of parasitic fungi as
causes, his examination of the possible connection of insects and
worms to the malady, his find of "bacteria-like bodies (AI/-
crococi?) in large numbers within the chlorophyllose cells of the
spongy parenchyma immediately surrounding the spiral vessels
supplying that region," and other of his proofs and procedures
were in keeping with the best laboratory practice, and reveal the
quality of his preparation at the University of Michigan. While
most of his study was performed at Santa Ana, some of the work
was sent to Washington.

That year work facilities of the Section of Vegetable Pathology
in the large red brick building of the Department of Agriculture
at Washington had been expanded. More room, some of it attic
or garret space, had been made over into small laboratories, and
improved apparatus had been procured. Galloway announced in
his 1889 report:

A bacteriological laboratory v.'ith all the modern improvements has been
fitted up, thus enabling us to greatly extend our field of research. A small
green-house has also been purchased and has proved very useful. For the

Placed on a Nation-widu Basis 183

work \vc arc cn^aqcd in a collection of funL;i is absolutely necessary;
realizing this, we have spared no elTort to make the herbarium what it
should be. Three years a^o the number of specimens in the collection did
not exceed three thousand; now there are somelhint; over fourteen thousand
named, labeled, and mounted on seven thousand herbarium sheets. During
the year a lart;e number of economic funt;i have been collected, one assistant
spending a month in the field engaged in this work.*''

Pierce explained why lie sent materials to Washington:

After a long series of observations, made on material from various
portions of the diseased district, which in no case failed to disclose the
diseased vines as swarming with these bodies in all portions where sap
had a ready flow, I believed it proper to undertake a series of experiments
to determine if these bodies, always present, bore any relation to the disease
as a whole. I had little doubt that they were microorganisms and gave to
the local spotting of the leaves their characteristically sharp outline.
Cultures from various parts of the vine were made in agar-agar and other
media. Three sorts of bacteria were found with enough constancy to
warrant further study, but I have not so far been able to determine whether
any of these are the cause of the disease. Healthy vines were procured,
set, and inoculated; but in due time I found both inoculated and control
plants showing signs of disease. Owing to our inability, thus demon-
strated, to make a fair test of the action of the germs in the infected district,
these and analogous experiments — such as grafting, the testing of hardy
stocks, etc. — have been inaugurated at Washington, outside infection being
carefully guarded against. ^^

Before Pierce concluded his first period of investigation in
California, he secured translations of foreign literature and studied
the similarity of other vine diseases: Mai nero, Folletage or
Apoplexie, and Oidhim especially. He soon established that
Phylloxera did not cause the disease he was studying. His study
of " every order of insect," several saprophytic and some parasitic
fungi, root fungi, termites, nematodes, and the many physical
factors investigated, were to be continued, including study of the
effect of long continued propagation of vines from cuttings. He
found "no good evidence that seedlings [would] exist longer
[against] this disease than vines long propagated from cuttings."
He appears to have early contemplated two possible solutions:
first, to import healthy cuttings from disease-free areas, and,
second, to attempt grafts of resistant grape species onto susceptible
varieties. On Muscat as well as Mission vines Bordeaux mixture,

^° op. cit., 420-421. " Op. cit.. All.

184 Investigations in Plant Pathology

and other fungicides, germicides, a powder recommended by local
individuals, and special substances were tried. Oidium, anthrac-
nose, and peronospora of the vine had been checked in Europe.
He saw no reason why with time and careful work this disease
also could not be understood as to cause and methods of prevention
and cure. He told Galloway: ^-

Observations of value have been made relating to resistant stocks, and
this feature of the work will be continued. Yet from what is known it is
probable that Vinifera tops can not be maintained on native roots in this
region in the face of the present prevalence of the trouble. The variation
in the hardiness of varieties is evident and many notes are in hand on the
subject. The effects of grafting on stocks of perhaps twenty different
varieties have been recorded. I have noted the effects upon the raisin
when considered from a market stand-point, the loss in productiveness of
vines, etc.

When M. B. Waite had arrived at Washington in the autumn
of 1888, he had found no laboratory equipment for research in
bacteriology in the quarters of the Section of Vegetable Pathology.
Further study of pear blight was contemplated. He gathered
together some equipment which could be spared from the labora-
tories of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and set up what he has
since described as " the first bacteriological laboratory for the
study of plant diseases at Washington or east of the Alleghany
Mountains."

" When Smith came in from field work in the fall of 1889,"
Waite has told/=^

he at once became interested in this bacteriological work and equipment.
He had read about these things, but had never had an opportunity to come
in contact with them, that is, with such problems as the making of cultures,
pouring of plates, isolation of organisms, sterilization and preparation
of culture media . . . Smith . . . was already becoming somewhat dis-
couraged by his inability to find any causal organism [of peach yellows}.
He said repeatedly that he envied me in that I had a specific disease widi
a disease-producing organism to work on — one that I could see with the
microscope, and cultivate, propagate, and inoculate and study. He stated
several times publicly that he watched the work with intense interest.
What started him was the desire to hunt for bacteria as the cause of peach
yellows, so he made up some culture media, including some neutral peach-
twig infusions.

'" Op. at.. All.

^^ Memorandum approved also by A. F. Woods of the Department.

Pi.A(:i:i) ON A NAiioN-wini-; Basis IS'i

In 1SS9 the Bureau of Animal Industry published its historically
famous bulletin, " prcjxired,'" Smith said," "in great part by
Dr. Theobald Smith," on "Hog cholera. Its history, nature, and
treatment." For several years, bacteriological investigations had
been in progress with reference to this disease.'* Years later, in
1903, DeSchweinitz and Marion Dorset of the Bureau proved that
this animal disease, hitherto ascribed to bacteria, was, in fact, due
to a filterable virus.'"

In the middle lS80"s swine plague had been differentiated from
hog cholera, and its specific organism discovered and described.
Proof of the infectiousness of these maladies and knowledge of
the conditions of 'their transmissions helped to bring about im-
portant preventive measures.'" During the next decade, serum
treatment would indicate as successful a "stamping out" of these
diseases as the eradication of contagious pleuropneumonia, one of
the work's great achievements. Before the end of the century, the
efficacy of a vaccine against "blackleg" or symptomatic anthrax
would promise to reduce to a minimum cattle losses from this
infection. Sheep suffering from scabies would have to be dipped
in prescribed mixtures and cured before or during shipment to
market.'^ Vigorous inspection, quarantine, disinfection, and
slaughter regulations were enforced against several diseases. For
instance, animal pens and freight cars were isolated, cleaned, and
disinfected to halt the spread of southern cattle fever. Subsequent
immunizing methods, moreover, proved effective.'^ Antitoxin,
serum, and vaccine therapy became a final goal in the experimental
study of animal diseases.

Pierre Paul Emile Roux, French physician, bacteriologist, and
pathologist, began to publish in 1887 on immunity against symp-

" Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit. 1: bibliog., 212.

"See Reports of the Comm'er of Agric. for several previous years; Report for

1887: 481-491.

"E. F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 31; T. Swann Harding, Two
blades of grass, A Hist, of Sci. Develop, in the U. S. Dep't of Agric, 153, Univ.
of Oklahoma Press, 1947; Gustav Seiffert (tr. by Marion Lee Taylor), Virus
diseases ;'// man, animal and plant, 180, N. Y., Philosophical Library, 19-14.

'^ V. A. Moore, The influence of animal experimentation upon agriculture, Proc.
Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 22-34, 1896.

^* G. F. Thompson, Administrative work of the Federal Government in relation
to the animal industry, Yearbook U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 452-455.

^' D. E. Salmon, Some examples of the development of knowledge concerning
animal diseases, Yearbook U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1899: 111-113, 124-134.

186 Investigations in Plant Pathology

tomatic anthrax. Two years later he and Alexandre Yersin estab-
lished the existence of a filterable toxine in diphtheria and
furnished the basis for Em:l von Behring's antitoxin, demonstrated
in 1891-4 and reported to the Budapest Congress. Following
Schiitz's discovery in 1887 of a coccus believed the cause of con-
tagious pleuropneumonia in horses, Roux and Nocard isolated in
1898 a very minute coccus-like organism from contagious pleuro-
pneumonia of cattle. In 1898 Shiga found the first known strain
of the dysentery bacillus, and Theobald Smith comparativelv
studied bovine and human types of tubercle bacilli. How one
find in p.ithology led to another always interested Erwin Smith.
" Following Koch's work," he observed,

tuberculosis was discovered in birds and in various quadrupeds, and follow-
ing Laveran's work malarial parasites were found in the blood of quad-
rupeds, birds, and reptiles. Coccidial diseases also were discovered in
man and in various animals. In 1890 Koch discovered tuberculin by
means of which early diagnoses of tuberculosis can be made [although]
the great hope of a cure from its use, which filled the public mind for a
time, was doomed to bitter disappointment. In 1890 te'anus antitoxin
was developed by Bchring and Kitasato. In 1891 Councilman and Lefleur,
at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, following earlier studies of Losch in
Russia (1875) and Kartulis in Egypt (1885), showed clearly that one form
of dysentery is due to an amoeba. In 1893 the plague appeared in Hong
Kong and in 1894 Kitasato and Yersin, independently, announced the
discovery of the plague bacillus. In 1892 Theobald Smith discovered
serum anaphylaxis and in 1894 the protozoan cause of infectious enterohe-
patitis in turkeys and the following year published a full account of it. . . .
In 1895 V. A. Moore differentiated infectious leukaemia of fowls from
chicken cholera. During this decade Pfeiffer (1892) isolated and de-
scribed the influenza bacillus. In this decade (1896) it was discovered
that immunity against typhoid fever could be induced by the inoculation
of sterilized cultures (Pfeiffer and Kolle).-°

Great names in plant pathology were still few. Great names in
plant bacteriology were even fewer. Secretary Rusk regarded the
work of the Section of Vegetable Pathology as " very important."
The fact that no successful treatment for the blight of the LeConte
pear, studied in southern Georgia by Waite during 1889, had been
found did not discourage him any more than that the cause of
peach yellows was not yet known. Peach yellows and the California
vine disease were believed caused by bacteria. The best knowledge

''" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 25, 26, 30, 31.

Pl.ACHD ON A NaTION-WIDF. BaSIS 187

today points to a virus origin of botli diseases, and that insect
vectors transmit eacli disease is now known. The early workers,
however, were confident, and rightly, tiiat each disease is caused by
a parasitic agency. Root-rot and rust of cotton, as well as a number
of diseases of grapes, pear, peach, and apples, had been shown to
be due to parasites. That remedies for each and every one had not
been discovered was disheartening only to the impatient. Experi-
ence showed many times that once the cause was known, the
remedy was soon found."' At least, a control measure was soon
devised. The important first conquest was to establish the cause
of each disease. /

Smith, by his peach yellows researches, was showing that the
disease wms not due to winter injuries. His field experiments were
proving that the malady was not due to soil exhaustion, and that
the disease was not transmitted through the soil. Budding and
grafting experiments were establishing that the disease is trans-
missable. Tabular data collected between 1887-1890 indicated the
disease occurred more frequently in dry than in wet summers."
Some truth seemed to lie in each element and in the older belief
that overbearing of the tree was connected. But the disease
attacked young and older, unfruitful as well as fruitful, trees.
Smith was seeking the real, as distinguished from interrelated,
causes. In Kent County, Maryland, and Kent County, Delaware,
he saw the disease

destroy many large orchards in seven to ten years from planting, whereas
50 miles away (Caroline County, Maryland) there were peach orchards
40 years old still entirely free from the disease but which subsequently
became infected. [He] also got, when set into badly diseased orchards,
what [he] considered to be a few undoubted cases in peaches worked on
plum roots. The tops came from trees that were outside of the diseased
area and that remained healthy. ^^

He had carried his peach stones to his doctoral examination at
the University of Michigan. One of the points proved was that
the disease was not carried on seed from diseased trees. Root
aphides had been a suspected cause of transmission. His notes
of January 7, 1890, show that on this day he received a specimen

21

First report etc., op. cit.. 22.
^^ Journal of Mycology 6(3): HO, January 3, 1891.

" " Synopsis of Researches," prepared by Smith, and published in the Nat'l Acad,
of Sci. biog. memoir of Smith prepared by Jones and Rand, op. cit., 18-19.

188 Investigations in Plant Pathology

of a " black peach aphis from Dr. W. S. Maxwell, Still Pond, Md.,
taken from [the] nursery of John Stokes." In Entomologica
Americana-^ he published his description of "The Black Peach
Aphis. A new species of the genus Aphis." His first account,
appearing in his preliminary report on peach yellows, had been
prepared before he had seen the winged form. If Smith did not
investigate the insect as an agent of transmission, he did study it
as a possible cause of the disease. In the continuation-^ of hfs
article, he said:

I first collected the winged viviparous form at Still Pond, Md., in
April, 1889. . . . This aphis has been called " The peach phylloxera,"
and the injuries due to it are very considerable. The " Yellows " itself
has been ascribed to it, but on insufficient evidence. On the whole, it is
more to be dreaded than the borer or the curculio.

Insecticides and spraying could rid the insects when above
ground. When, however, the insect was underground, unless
some preventive remedy applied to the roots before planting
could be devised, no certain method to destroy the insect was
known.

During these years, furthermore. Smith was devoting much time
to studying Monilla fructigena, the causal fungus of peach rot
and blossom blight and canker of the shoots and stems. His field
notes were filled with observations and experimental data on
many peach diseases: among them, leaf curl, brown rot, black
spot, mildew, rust, yellows, and rosette. -'' West, north, south, and
east throughout the United States, these notes and data were
taken. The Monilta "^ research, however, was important in that in
considerable part, both as to time and place, Smith's work of
describing the diseases and life history of the causal fungus
paralleled his experimental researches in peach yellows. Besides
showing that the fungus overwintered in mummied fruit and that
orchard hygiene was of more value than the few fungicidal treat-
ments known, he demonstrated his ability to conduct, side by side,

''*6 (6): 101-103, June 1890.

*°The black peach Aphis (Aphis persicaeniger n.sp.), Ent. Amer. 6 (11): 201-
207, 1890, quotation at pp. 204-205.

=» Field notes, 1890, Jour. Myc, op. cit., 6: 107-110; Field notes, 1891, Jour.
Myc. 7 (2): 88-94.

"Peach rot and peach blight. Jour. Myc. 5 (3): 123-134; Peach blight. Jour.
Myc. 7 (1): 36-38, Sept. 10, 1891. The first, Sept. 1889; the second, Sept. 1891.

Placi;d ox a Nation-wiih Basis 189

studies of a fungous disease and one of supposed bacterial origin.
Several years later J. B. S. Norton, searching the second rather than
first season of the fungus, found the Sclerotinial or perfect form
of the Monilia, st)mething for which Smith searched "in vain."'"*

During the spring of 1889, Smith gathered bark specimens
showing a brown spot, of a tree badly diseased with yellows,
from an orchard in Delaware. Preserving the material in picric
acid, he determined to infiltrate and imbed it in paraffin for section
cutting and examination according to a method of Dr. J. W. Moll
abbut which he had read in the Botanical Gazette.-^ Five and a
half pages of quo'ted notes had been culled from this article and
copied into his " Record Book of Culture Media."

The superior staining procedures applied in animal pathology
were making possible searching inquiries into the smaller bacteria
and higher fungi. But the technological advancements in the study
of plants were still slow. A dozen or more years had passed
since Weigert, Paul Iihrlich, and others had begun to utilize
anilin stains to demonstrate bacteria in animal tissues. Plant
scientists, however, were slower to ascertain the "best methods"
to stain bacteria in vegetable tissues. In 1905 ^° Smith suggested
as a reason the difficulty inherent in "the fact that the tissues of
the higher plants often take the basic anilin stains as readily as
the bacteria and retain them even more tenaciously."

Several hundred examinations of stained and unstained ma-
terials, made by Smith between November 15, 1889 and February
15, 1890, resulted in "only negative results. No fungi and no
bacteria could be discovered. Part of the sections," Smith ex-
plained, " w^ere infiltrated, embedded, and cut on the microtome.
The microscope used in all these examinations was Zeiss stature I,
Oculars 2, 4, and 8 (22.5 mm) and 18. (10 mm). Objectives AA.
D. F. and Aprochromatic 3 mm. Homag. in Apert. 1.30. Stand
with Abbe condenser." It was plainly disappointing that sections
cut through and in the vicinity of the small brown spot of the
bark, though infiltrated and paraflin-embedded according to Dr.
Moll's method, revealed no parasite.

February 17, Smith began another month of experiments. A
section, stained three days in Haematoxylin according to a formula

■^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 28. The year of Norton's discovery was 1902.

" 13: 5, Jan. 1888.

^'' Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: 29.

190 Investigations in Plant Pathology

of Ferdinand Hueppe, was washed out in 60 per cent alcohol and
mounted in glycerine. Smith had noted that Hueppe had said
that glycerine could be used only with the brown dyes, since it
extracts other anihn colors rather quickly. Five differing sets of
stained sections were examined that first day, but still no trace of
mycelium was found. While certam darkly stained rod-shaped
particles in the nuclei resembled bacilli. Smith believed these were
only parts of nuclear filament. A section stained five days in a
watery solution of Eosine, washed in distilled water, and examined,
again shovv'ed "no mycelium and nothing suggestive of bacteria."
Then were tried three sections stained five days in a concentrated
alcoholic solution of methyl violet diluted with distilled water.

Sections through the black pith of a yearling branch affected by
yellows were prepared, and stained, five sections with fuchsin and
six sections with iodine diluted; then tangential sections through
the inner bark of the same branch with fuchsin and iodine, gentian
violet, magdala, and safranin. March 7 found Smith studying the
gum pockets in diseased wood. J. H. Wakker had published a
method by which he had demonstrated gum in living cells, and
this Smith had copied into his notes. In an 1882 edition of a
book, Practical Microscopy, published in England, Smith found a
formula for picro-carmin staining of vegetable tissue. With slight
modifications the formula could be applied to wood sections. He
tried staining the gum pockets of diseased peach wood with
picro-carmin. Section were stained also with fuchsin, methyl
violet, gentian violet, iodine, and bismarck brown. March 10 he
thought he had a discovery. Cross sections showed " many small
dark bodies in interstices of tissue, but I," Smith wrote, "' cannot
determine them to be bacteria. They disappeared after washing
in acid alcohol, though much color still remained. These bodies
are smaller than pear blight, longer than broad, and more like
bacteria than any bodies yet seen." He manipulated the micro-
scopes with all the skill at his command, repeated the experiment,
but his examination ended again with " no trace of the bacteria-
like bodies." When he cut through the brown spot of the bark,
some mycelial fragments seemed to be in evidence, " some distinct
from tissue, others between cell walls." So he put these aside for
further study. March 11, however, his entry was concluded with
"" Uniform transparent brown stain. No trace of bacteria and
mycelium indefinite." March 14, he concluded that certain of the

Pi Aci^D ON A Nation-widk Basis 191

cells contained granules which had the appearance of bacteria.
Owing to their size, these could be mistaken for such, "but,"
wrote he, " they are not grouped in such a way as to make me
think they are. Moreover, I have never seen any breaking down
of cell walls or other tissues such as we might expect from their
presence." Full strength of Hueppc's haematoxylin formula dis-
closed: " No mycelial threads. Some clusters of granules scattered
about deep stained and resembling bacilli held together by some
intermediate substance. A very few of the cells show similar
bodies in place, but nothing distinct." Serial sections cut from pit
to skin of a premature peach were last studied. But on the final
day, March 17, Smith wrote, "Examined for bacteria. No trace.
Protoplasm especially of the nucleus is very granular — granules
are like bacteria, but are not."
Galloway reported that year:

Two suspected organisms have been isolated from the diseased tissues
grown on and in various nutrient media, and studied as carefully as time
permitted. Both are short rods {Bacilli) . Both were found in nearly
every diseased tree, but they appeared so rarely that grave doub'.s have
arisen as to their disease-producing nature. If the disease is due to a
microorganism it must be rather abundant, judging from the results of
bud inoculations. To complicate matters, three yeasts were also isolated
under conditions which render it almost certain that they came only from
the inner bark. These also were rare. At that time no peach trees
suitable for inoculation were at hand. These have since been £>rown from
seed procured in three localities free from this disease, and are now
ready tor inoculation.^^

Necessary field work, Galloway further said, interrupted the
progress of research in peach yellows. Smith, however, had
found time to consult some authorities with a view to perfecting
his technical proficiency, once his indoor laboratory researches
were resumed. Up to this time, he could not have had much
experiential knowledge of culture media and their preparation.
In a small note book, containing entries of both the years 1889 and
1890, appears a reference to "Culture Media. 1% agar agar or
10%. gelatin. Boil disc. 3-2-3 minutes each. lOO^C." References
to paraffin in turpentine, to anilin stains, to sticking slides on
covers, to oil of cloves, to useful formulae for methyl blue stain
and its preparation, to methyl violet stain and its utilization with

^* Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology, Report of the
Secretary of Agriculture for 1890, op. cit., 393-408, at p. 404.

192 Investigations in Plant Pathology

anilin by Koch when isolating the tubercle bacillus, to the fact
that fuchsin might be substituted for methyl violet, to projection
eye pieces and their most effective use, how to make holes through
glass, and such, appeared in his " Record Book of Culture Media."
By far the most important references were those to a formula for
preparing an "Agar Medium with Beef Broth," supplied to him
on February 26, 1890, by Moore of the Bureau of Animal Industry,
and another agar formula supplied by Dr. W. M. Gray, micro-
scopist of the Army Medical Museum at Washington, on March
25 of the same year. Smith chose his magnum opus, his monu-
mental three-volume work, Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases
(1905), in which to acknowledge his debt to Dr. Theobald Smith
and Dr. Moore. In its preface, he thanked each of these distin-
guished men for " friendly advice and helpful suggestions [given]
at a time when the writer was beginning his bacteriological studies
and was perplexed in many ways." ^"

Dr. Moore's formula for nutrient media read:

To each gram of ground or minced meat add 2 cc of distilled water. Set
away 18 hours, i.e. overnight, in ice box. Strain through a towel. If
necessary add enough water to bring the fluid up to the original amount
of water added. Add |% sodium chloride, and 1% of peptone. Add of
normal solLution] of sodium carbonate (53 grams flame dried salt per litre
of distilled water) . l^nough to render the acid liquid slightly alkaline. Boil
30-35 minutes on water bath. Filter.

The stock flasks not needed for immediate use may now be boiled 1^
hours on each of three consecutive days, and then set away.

To the flasks wanted for immediate use add 1% of agar, dry and cut
very fine. Boil briskly 2 hours on the covered water bath in Erlenmeyer
flask, keeping the water up to level of the fluid in the flask. Cool down
to 40° or 45 °C and add white of Qgg at rate of one white to each 200 cc
of the liquid. Mix thoroughly by beating with a spoon, or by pouring
from one dish to another. Again boil 2 hours briskly on the waLer bath.
Filter on hot water filter through 2 layers of Japanese filter paper (it will
not pass in any quantity through ordinary filter paper). Then fill tubes
or plates.

If rolls are made, the tubes must lie jiat and must be examined in that
position, as where the agar cools some water always exudes.

On July 8, 1885, Dr. William M. Gray had been appointed by
Dr. John S. Billings to perform some bacteriological analyses
incident to the work of the Army Medical Museum. A skillful

^^ Page V.

Plachd on a Nation-widi- Basis 193

microscopist and a photomicrographcr of note, he had distin-
guished himscll as a preparer of microscopic specimens, "the
best," Dr. BiUint;s had said, " in this country." ^' Smith surely had
used the splendid hbrary of the Museum and perhaps before this
time had visited the microscopical room located next to the
Museum on the third iloor of the building completed on February
1?, 1888. Pathologists occasionally gathered at meetings of, or
held in, the Museum. On at least one occasion Dr. W. H. Welch
of Johns Hopkins had attended. Men of the Bureau of Animal
Industry were interested in at least one of his investigations. A
preliminary account of his studies on hog cholera was published
in the first Johns Hopkins Bulletin of December 1889."*

In 1889 Smith may have visited, among other laboratories, those
of Dr. Prudden and Dr. Hermann Biggs in New York. Dr. Biggs
was a friend of Theobald Smith, and from him Smith may have
obtained his list of laboratories which included the Hoagland
Laboratory in Brooklyn where Dr. B. Meade Bolton was in charge
and where Dr. Sternberg in 1888 had given a lecture on the
" Bacteria." ^^ In his "Record Book," Smith wrote at some time:
"The first filtering of meat infusion, agar, etc., may be through
cotton. The results are very satisfactory. This methed saves much
time and is in constant use in Dr. Prudden's laboratory." He,
furthermore, in April 1891, wrote Galloway of a " very readable
article on bacteria " by Prudden in Harpers Monthly Alagazine.^^

Dr. Bolton in 1887 had been among those seventeen physicians
who had taken work as students or special investigators in
Welch's laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Councilman was then
Welch's associate and, among others enrolled, were such doctors
of future distinction as Franklin P. Mall, fellow, Alexander C.
Abbott, W. D. Booker, W. S. Halsted, C. A. Herter, and Stern-
berg."' That year Bolton assisted Welch in the bacteriological
instruction which included " methods of isolatmg and of culti-
vating micro-organisms and the morphological and the biological

"^ A history of tloe United States Army Medical Museum 1862-1917, compiled
from official records, by Dr. D. S. Lamb, pathologist of the Museum. A mimeo-
graphed original may be found at the Museum's library. See pp. 88, 95, 96, 103,
104, 107.

^* Dr. Harvey Gushing, The life of Sir William Osier, op. cit., 1: 322.

*^ Johns Hopkins Circular G9. 26, 1889. There the lecture was noticed.

=" Glimpses of the Bacteria, 82: 706-718, Apr. 1891.

"Johns Hopkins Circular 55: 64 f., Feb. 1887.

194 Investigations in Plant Pathology

properties of the most important species, particularly of the patho-
genic forms." ^^ By 1890 ^^ among twenty-eight medical students,
eleven were studying bacteriology under Welch and Abbott, and
Dr. William Osier, later a friend of Smith, had charge of the
medical department of the hospital.

Smith obtained from Dr. Gray in 1890 a formula for the
preparation of nutrient agar. His entry in his " Record Book of
Culture Media" read as follows:

Add to one litre of distilled water 1-2% of Agar and boil tivo days (not
necessary to boil at night). Add 1% of peptone; \% of Liebig's Fleisch
extract and whites of two eggs. |% of grape sugar may also be added, if
desired. Neutralize with carbonate of soda solution and filter. By boiling
two days the agar will readily pass through one thickness of filter paper,
and does not even require to be put on the hot water filter.

As a second paragraph. Smith added: "Dr. Gray showed me
many tubes prepared in this way and they were very clear and
satisfactory. He much prefers Liebig's extract to meat infusion
and says it gives just as good results." The work of preparing
nutrient media to cultivate and examine the growth microorgan-
isms make when infecting plants must have been thought of by
Smith as part of his regular duties. A list of subjects for special
study, prepared February 27, 1890, must have been planned for
hours outside of his laboratory. These were (1) photography
including microphotography, (2) drawing, (3) a review of
German grammar, (4) a review of botanical Latin (5), study of
the Italian language, and (6) razor honing.

During February, March, and April of that year, Waite, as a
part of held work in pear blight, went to Georgia to test a series
of fungicidal treatments in connection with this disease caused by
bacteria." This was the year when Galloway and Fairchild at
Vienna, Virginia, were to demonstrate that 93 to 99 per cent of
the grape crop could be saved from black rot by the use of copper
fungicides at a cost of 1 to 2 cents per pound of fruit." The

'^^ Idem 51: 123 f., July 1886;; also, idem 55: 64. Concerning Bolton's associa-
tion with Welch in bacteriological instruction, idem 60, Nov. 1887; 6A: 54, Mar.
1888.

""^ Johns Hopkins Bulletin 1 (8): 99, Nov. 1890.

*" Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology for 1890: 394.

" Erwin F. Smith, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 21. See also Galloway's
discussion, Treatment of black rot of the grape, Division's report of 1890, op. cit.,
394-396. Also Jour. Mycology 6(3): 89-95, Jan. 6, 1891.

Placf.d on a Nation-wide Basis 195

historic orchard of Dr. Maxwell near Still Pond, Maryland, more-
over, became the scene of experimental treatments for pear
Ieaf-blii;ht and scab."" August 6, Fairchild told Smith by letter,
" Tlie treatments were too late for a good result to be obtained
with the scab, and the Leaf-blight has not attacked the leaves this
season like it did last." Nevertheless, the results of the experi-
ment, he believed, would show "a good many things," and these
were incorporated in Galloway's ofHcial report for that year, as
well as made the second part of a series of three articles prepared
by Galloway and Fairchild, entitled, "Experiments in the Treat-
ment of Plant DiiSeases."

These dealt with grape rot, pear leaf-blight and scab, and the
results of other experimental work performed by field agents at
Greenville, South Carolina; Vineland, New Jersey; Neosho, Mis-
souri; Charlottesville, Virginia, and other special localities. In the
main, the program had to do with testing the efficacy of fungicidal
treatments. Each year official bulletins and circulars had been
issued by the Department, prepared by officials, assistants, or
agents of the Section (or Division as it became known in 1890)
of Vegetable Pathology, and, while grape diseases — black rot,
downy mildew, etc. — were most frequently published on, the work
of each year in diagnosis and treatment of fungous and other
classes of disease was annually summarized not only in these
publishing media but also in the chief's regular report made part
of the secretary's official report. Peach, pear, and apple diseases
received appropriate consideration. In 1889 circular 9 dealt with
"Root Rot of Cotton"; and in 1891 circular 10 elaborated results
of the important studies of " Treatment of Nursery Stock for Leaf
Blight and Powdery Mildew\" Several subjects were estimated in
special articles appearing in quarterly issues of the journal of
Mycology. Furthermore, wherever results of an especially valuable
piece of research were announced by officials or investigators of
state agricultural experiment stations, these, as far as possible,
were coordinated with the work of the Department. In other
words, a great service organization at Washington, though still
small in personnel and with a none too abundant annual appro-

*^ Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology for 1890: 397-
398. Also, B. T. Gallov.ay and D. G. Fairchild, Experiments in the treatments of
plant diseases, part II, Treatment of pear leaf-blight and scab in tlit ordiard, Jour.
Mycology 6 (4): 137-142, Apr. 30, 1891.

196 Investigations in Plant Pathology

priation, was seeking to be of use to the farmers and agriailtural
communities of every section of the nation.

Circular 4, a three-page pamphlet (1886), had made available
to farmers the best known, prescribed "Treatment of the Potato
for Blight and Rot." The several diseases to which tomatoes,
another basic crop of the agricultural economy, were found subject
were being investigated. Various state experiment stations,
ambitious to solve the problems of crop diseases within their
jurisdiction began to shape research programs of considerable
magnitude, workers of various stations collaborating in studying
various widespread diseases. By 1890*^ B. D. Halsted of the New
Jersey station, whose work served as a model on several subjects,
was calling attention at the Indianapolis meeting of the Society
for the Promotion of Agricultural Science to the need for study
in all affected regions of the sweet potato rots — ground rot, soft
rot, black rot, yellow or stem rot, and dry rot — diseases of real
interest to his state because of the industrial impairment being
suffered there. He was preparing his New Jersey station bulletin
76, " Some fungous diseases of the sweet potato," similar to his
bulletin 64 and 70 on fungous diseases of the cranberry and
spinach. Collaborating with Fairchild, the next year Halsted
would publish in the Journal of Mycology^* a quite important
study of the "Sweet-Potato Black Rot."

Since the start of its publication under government auspices, the
Journal of Mycology had been presenting reviews, written by the
chief and assistants of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, of
especially valuable articles published both in the United States
and abroad. In 1889 Fairchild added to this important service by
inaugurating in the Journal's first issue of 1890 a prepared " Index
to North American Mycological Literature,"*^ a stupendous task
when one considers that it was done in spare hours from his
regular duties and gathered from station bulletin and annual
reports, from botanical publications, and other sources of infor-
mation, eventually from publications the world over.

On October 18, 1890, Fairchild was directed by Galloway to go
to Lockport and other points in New York State to examine " a

*'' Report of the 11th annual meeting of the Society', August, 1890: 27-28.
**7 (1): 1-11, Sept. 10, 1891.

*^ The first series of abstracts was published in Jour. Mycology 6 (1): 42-44,
Mar. 1890, and were continued with quarterly issues of the publication.

Placho on a Nation-widh Basis 197

new disease of tlie grape, which [was] generally referred U) under
the name of ' blight ' or ' rust." " In tlie j()ur>hil of Mycology *'^ of
January 6, 1S91, was publislied I'airehild's first report on tiiis
and other grape diseases whicii he found there. Western New
York was a center of pomological industry. Scribner and Viaia
had made some of their most important studies there. Arthur,
Goff, and now William R. Dudley of the agricultural experiment
stations at Geneva and Cornell University had established investi-
gations in plant pathology on a state-wide basis. Soon the
celebrated work of M. B. Waite on the life-history of the pear
blight organism, ^nd its transmission, would culminate at Brock-
port. From experiments on flower buds of the pear, he would
prove that the germs, or bacterial infection, are distributed by
insects. ■*'

On April 12, 1891, Smith, at Dover, Delaware, reported to
Galloway that he was "in good season to study the effect of
yellows on the blossoming," and that he should make good
progress studying his mapped peach orchards. Again he was
delivering lectures before farmers' institutes and horticultural
societies. Scientific information concerning the disease, projected
remedies, and control by legislation were much under discussion.
Delaware had a law which applied to the lower half of the state.
In the January 1891 issue of American Gardening, the editor.
Liberty Hyde Bailey, had written an article, " Peaches and Yellows
in the Chesapeake Country," in which he commended and de-
scribed Smith's work. Bailey reminded his readers that Michigan,
New York, and Virginia had definite yellows laws. In Michigan
the value of required eradication, enforced by law, had been
demonstrated, whereas the absence of such legislation was pain-
fully evident when the havoc wrought by the disease in this
beautiful Chesapeake country was examined. The more important
was this since the region was regarded as part of one of the
w^orld's most productive peach-growing centers.

Soon after receiving Smith's letter of April 12, Galloway went
over to Dr. Maxwell's orchard at Still Pond, Maryland, and there
found Fairchild and P. H. Dorsett applying new fungicidal treat-
ments to pear diseases in the experimental area. Fairchild soon
left for Geneva, New York, and Galloway told Smith to send to

"6 (3): 95-99.

*^ Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology for 1891: 372-373.

198 Investigations in Plant Pathology

Fairchild diseased pear flowers and leaves that he might make
some cultures of a fungus and inoculate pear flowers there when
they opened. May 7, Fairchild, at Geneva, wrote to Smith, still at
Dover:

I have not yet had time to examine the pear blossoms, but will, of
course, attend to them this morning the first thing. I am very much
interested indeed in the disease, and have spent some time in growing it
in culture media. It seems to me possible that we can follow this fungus
through its whole life history, and perhaps find a number of very interest-
ing points in connection with it. I have just been looking at a culture
which I made of a fungus I found very abundantly, in fact almost uni-
versally, growing within the hairs situated just below the buds of apples,
especially the fruit buds. If possible, I wish to establish the connection
between this fungus and the scab beyond a doubt.

Director Peter Collier of the Geneva station had placed at
Fairchild's disposal the station's facilities, and he was inaugurating
some far-reaching experiments. The substance of these- — treat
ments of pear leaf-blight, cracking, and scab, treatments of
nursery-stock diseases of cherry, plum, quince, pears, apple, and
peach— would be reported, together with work on grape black
rot at Sterling, Virginia, some nursery work exammations at
Mullikan, Maryland, and results of E. S. Golf's experimental
studies of treatments of apple scab m Wisconsin, in bulletin 3 of
the Division, prepared by Galloway and styled, " Report on the
experiments made in 1891 in the Treatment of Plant Diseases." ^^

One Saturday night, on June 27, 1891, Fairchild, in a mood to
put aside his work for a while and chat with Smith, exchanged
congratulations. Some inoculation experiments which Smith had
started in Georgia the year before to study the new disease often
confused with peach yellows, peach rosette, had exceeded even the
fondest hopes. "Now for the specific germ of the trouble,"
Fairchild suggested.

When is it to be found and will it grow upon anything but living peach
tissue.'' It seems to me you are gradually nearing your goal. Smith, and
must corner the cause soon.

My indoor work has been spent mostly in studying upon the philosophy
of the fungicides. I find little has been done in the matter and find also
that the investigation of biological questions is no easy task.

Last week I spent several days at Cornell looking through the library

" Washington, Gov't Print. Office, 1892.

PLACliD OX A NaTION-W'IDI' BaSIS 199

there for material that other pcojile have tlone upon fiingicidcs but find
little. 1 played while- there a i^ame of tennis with Wrof[essor] Hailey one
evening and almost miraculously beat him.

The nursery experiment of 10,000 stocks is growing well and has
already received three sprayings. I hope notwithstanding the dry season
to show that spraying will keep the leaf blight off of pear, quince, cherry,
and plum stocks. 1 ha\c also an additional experiment upon large plum
trees, one on orchard quinces and another upon a different kind of plum.
I am trying the following mixture in a comparative way, all being made
up to a common strength of solution.

Very weak Bordeaux mixture

Copper acetate (two ditlerent strengths)
Potassium sulphide

Chloride of lime (three different strengths)
Glue mixture of CuSo4 & Na2Co3 & Glue
I also started in the green house a series of experiments to see if the
potting bed botrytis can be controlled. I put in eight different substances
into the soil, but so far they have turned out entirely negative.

But the hardest work I have to do, Smith, is to keep the nurserymen and
fruit growers alive to the importance of spraying and make friends of them
for the Division. So far I have not seen a single man who seemed dis-
appointed in the work, or who was really inclined to run down the Agri-
cultural Department. I have stirred up a few of the men to the importance
of a state law against black knot and would not be greatly surprised if a
law was passed next winter prohibiting the maintenance of such a disease
m the region. . . . Thaxter I see is studying the means of combatting the
trouble and I judge he intends to do it by some kind of spraying.

December 1888, Smith, then not acquainted with Thaxter, had
written Farlow for a copy of the latter's recent monograph on the
Entomophthoreae, and received a reply that Thaxter was '" now
connected with Connecticut Agr[icultural] Ex[periment] Station."
Farlow's assistant in biology at Harvard since 1886 and the
possessor of three degrees from that university, Roland Thaxter,
had been honored by being chosen the Connecticut station's first
official botanist, more precisely, its first mycologist. He remained
there but a short while, returning to Harvard in 1891 in the
capacity of assistant professor of cryptogamic botany, and became
a full professor in 1901 and professor emeritus in 1919- Although
his stay at the Connecticut station was brief, the breadth and
influence of his work were permanent, primarily because of his
skill as a research technician and the superiority of his exact
methods of studying, under controlled conditions, the crop diseases
he elaborated. In 1889-1890 Smith profoundly admired his de-

200 Investigations in Plant Pathology

scriptive work of downy mildew of lima beans, in 1890-1891 his
discovery and description of the cause of potato scab/^ and, even
more, his splendid work on the smut of onions, first written up by
him in the station's report for 1889 and of which Fairchild in his
first " Index to North American Mycological Literature " said,^°
" A most admirable treatment of the disease in which the botanical
history and origin as well as the practical points of inquiry are
well worked out." Farlow had commenced the earliest researches
in America on a number of plant diseases which Thaxter further
studied. William Codman Sturgis, also the holder of three degrees
from Harvard University, who became an assistant in the Harvard
Cryptogamic Laboratory during 1888-1889 and served as vegetable
pathologist of the Connecticut station from 1891 until 1901,
collaborated with Thaxter in studymg onion smut, and of their
work. Smith said: "

Thaxter and Sturgis demonstrated that onion smut was only communic-
able during the seedling stage of growth and that, if plants were grown for
a few weeks in healthy soil, they might be transplanted to fields badly
infested with this smut without danger of infection.

Thaxter's work on onion smut was notable for another reason.
At that time the disease was destroying nearly fifty per cent of
the crop in Connecticut. Director J. G. Horsfall of the Connecticut
experiment station wrote in 1941 of Thaxter's work: " Deciding
that the organism was soil-borne he designed a chemical treatment
in which he applied sulfur in the row with the seed and obtained
striking reduction in disease. This was a pioneer test of soil
treatment."

Henry Luke BoUey, a graduate and advanced student in science
under Arthur at Purdue University, also studied the potato scab
disease. In 1890 he joined the faculty of North Dakota Agricul-
tural College at Fargo as professor of botany and zoology, and
was also botanist and plant pathologist of the government experi-
ment station located there. G. H. Coons, in an article, " Seed

*® Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 2L As to potato scab, see discussion
hereafter.

^^ jour. Mycology 6 (1): 44, Mar. 1890. Notice also the references to Phytoph-
thora phaseolj, Thaxter, downy mildew of lima beans, and other onion diseases.

" Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 608, 1902.

Pla(;i;d ox a Nation-widl Basis 201

Tuber Treatments for Potatoes," '"' has compared the contributions
of Bolley and Thaxtcr thus:

When the potato scab was assigned to a bacterial cause by BoUcy in
1S90, this concept cleared away much of the confusion of the old literature
and pointed out a rational plan of treatment. In his first paper Bolley
sui:t:ested as a control measure the use of disinfectants such as used in
medical practice, rollowuig the work of Thaxtcr ["The potato scab,'
Conn. Agr. Exp't Sta. Rcp't 14: 81-95 (1891)} in which the causal organ-
ism of scab was isolated, there developed an extensive literature consisting
for the most part of detailed tests of various germicides, and as a result of
the great body of work, there crystallized out the detinite program of tuber
treatments which has been recognized by the Department of Agriculture
and all the Experiment Stations.

In 1890 Durrill associated Irish potato tuber rot with a specific
bacterium, which he claimed to have isolated in pure culture."
Bacterial origins for several diseases in other crops were being
urged that year, among them, Burrilhs bacterial disease of corn.^^
Smith that year was searching for a bacterial explanation of peach
yellows. But during the spring he had to leave these studies for
orchard work on the Chesapeake peninsula, and in the summer he
had to go to Georgia and Kansas for other field research. Some
time was spent also in Michigan and Illinois, and, for purposes
of preparing an exhibit, he may have gone in August to Minne-
apolis, Minnesota. His most important work was in Georgia
where, during June and July, at Vineyard, on the plantation of
J. D. Husted, he began experiments to bud and inoculate 125
peach seedlings and 56 cuttings of Marianna plum. He was to
demonstrate tor the first time the " dangerous, contagious nature "
of peach rosette, prevalent there and in Kansas. Dr. Kellerman
and his aide. Swingle, of Kansas State Agricultural College wel-
comed Smith when he arrived at Manhattan. Kellerman wrote
Smith at Hubbardston and urged the latter to schedule his arrival
in Kansas when he would be there. Smith visited for a time
Viola Holmes Greene of Stevensville, Kansas, the younger sister

^"^ Phytopathology 8 (9): 457, 1918; see also Rep't Conn. Exp't Sta., pp. 153-

159, 1891.

"'Preliminary notes upon the rotting of potatoes, Proc. llth Ann. Meet. Soc.
for Prom. Agric. Set. (August, 1890, Indianapolis), 21-22. The other diseases of
believed bacterial origins will be discussed at other points in this book.

'*3rd Ann. Rep't III. Agric. Exp't Sta., 1890; Bulletin 6; 165-175, August 1889.

202 Investigations in Plant Pathology

of his adored Ida Holmes of his boyhood years at Gilbert Mills,
New York.

Possibly v/hen first studying peach rosette, Smith visited Kansas
during the year 1889. Later when recommending Swingle for a
Harvard fellowship, he spoke in a letter of May 26, 1895 to
Farlow of first becoming acquainted with Swingle that year. But
also he refers to Swingle as having " recently graduated " and being
Kellerman's assistant. Swingle obtained his bachelor of science
degree from Kansas State Agricultural College in 1890. Whether
in'l889 or 1890, Smith thought well of Swingle's abilities as a
research worker. He told Farlow:

I saw more or less of him for a week or two, and set him down as one
of the brightest young men I ever met, and felt that we must certainly have
him in our Division if possible. Galloway met him the same summer and
was so favorably impressed that an appointment followed. Since then, as
you know, he has been connected with our Division. During this time
he has not published much but has been laying a broad and deep found-
ation for the best work. I have come to know him intimately and during
all these years have seen no reason to change my first judgment. He is
in many ways a remarkable man, — energetic, enthusiastic, critical, sym-
pathetic, the hardest kind of a student both in literature and in nature.
He is sure to achieve more than ordinary distinction. There is no man
in our Division, so throughly familiar with botanical literature Phanero-
gamic and Cryptogamic, no one who has such keen insight and goes so
surely and quicklyto the heart of a question. His mind works so quickly
and he has so many bright ideas and fertile suggestions that to a plodder
like myself, it is often positively painful to be much with him, and yet
I am never with him long without receiving some helpful suggestion. Of
course, much of what he knows about plants has been learned since leaving
school. During this time, however, he has also found leisure to master
French and German, and he also reads Italian and Russian so as to be able
to use both languages with aid of a lexicon. He has also done a good deal
of miscellaneous reading in philosophy, history, and general literature,
and is a well informed man on all general topics of conversation. More
than this, he has been a diligent buyer of the best botanical books and has
a library' unusually rich in" pamphlets and treatises on this special line
of study.

Swingle, together with Herbert John Webber, a graduate in
science under Bessey at the University of Nebraska, for a while a
graduate student under Trelease and an instructor at the Shaw
School of Botany at St. Louis, was to have charge of the Depart-
ment's sub-tropical laboratory founded in 1893 at Eustis, Florida.

Placud on a Nation-widi- Basis 203

Kcilcrman"s work in Kansas "upon smuts and breeding of
corn" was regarded in 1891 ■''' "as fnie examples of his many
important investigations beyond tlie Missouri." Smith's visit to the
Kansas State College and experiment station enabled him to
examine some of Kellerman's and Swingle's fungicidal treatments
for stinking smut of wheat. In the juunhil of Mycology'-"^ he
reviewed their bulletin 12 on their preliminary experiments and
said that in the main these were

a repetition and confirmation of those made in Europe by Jensen, Kiihn,
and others. . . . Ihc wisdom of the recent establishment of State experi-
ment stations by the General Government, has been called in question in
certain quarters. Ne\crthcless, the stations are here to stay, and their
public usefulness becomes more and more apparent, especially after reading
such a paper as this from the Kansas station. The results are striking
and conclusive; and worth more to the wheatgrowers of this country than
the cost of all the stations.

Kansas, however plenteous in some pomological crops, was not
regarded as a " ' first class ' peach country though," Kellerman told
Smith," "some peaches [were] raised [there] and very many
[were] produced in the southern part of the state." That year
one T. C. Wells, a Kansan, had sent Smith specimens of peach
rosette; and Kellerman and Swingle had carefully examined the
diseased orchard materials.'* In reply to a letter from Smith,
Kellerman said:

I cannot think that the peach trees here were affected with " Yellows."
Mr. Wells is of the same opinion, though Prof[essor] Burrill, to whom
specimens were sent by Secretary Brackett of Lawrence (who received
them from Mr. Wells) says the trouble was '" Peach Yellows." Whether
he made a careful examination or not I do not know. I had no corre-
spondence with him about it. I could not find any "' prematurely ripened
and spoiled peaches " though search and inquiry were repeatedly made.

No root lice had been seen, and Kellerman did not believe that
excessively hot weather of itself could account for the trouble.
This collaboration might have continued for some time had not,

^^ B. D. Halsted, What the station botanists are doing, Botanical Gazette 16:
288 f., Oct. 1891.

^^6 (3): 117-118, Jan. 6, 1891.

" Letter, September 30, 1889.

^* E. F. Smith, The peach rosette, Jour. Mycology 6 (4): 143-148, Apr. 30, 1891
(results of his 1890 investigations in Georgia and Kansas).

204 Investigations in Plant Pathology

on September 1, 1891, Dr. Kellerman resigned his position to
accept tiie chair of botany at the Ohio State University. On May
1, 1891, Swingle had accepted a call to the Division of Vegetable
Pathology of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Earlier, when he was informed by Galloway of Swingle's appoint-
ment, Smith rejoiced that "Swingle [was] now one of us." A. S.
Hitchcock, a graduate of Iowa Agricultural College and an as-
sistant in the Missouri School of Botany, took Kellerman's place
at Kansas. His interest was more in taxonomy and agrostology
than mycology and pathology. However, a very able graduate of
the class of 1887, Mark Alfred Carleton, was recalled by his alma
mater, Kansas State Agricultural College, from his position as an
instructor in natural sciences at Garfield University. His appoint-
ment as assistant in botany was to take effect for the year 1892.
At this time, Carleton was showing promising astuteness as an
investigator of the cereal rusts and smuts, at least, an enthusiastic
interest in their study, and, not many years hence, he, too, would
be summoned by Gallov/ay to the Department's service.

Throughout the year 1890, Smith, as he had promised himself
to do, did much with photography. In the autumn, he journeyed
to Griffin, Georgia, and photographed his inoculated trees, to-
gether with the controls, of the experiment. Twice he travelled
to Amherst, Massachusetts, discussed with Dr. Goessmann, and
Maynard, the results of his orchard experiments in peach yellows,
and, while there, became acquainted with James Ellis Humphrey,
vegetable physiologist of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experi-
ment Station. " Greatly " interested in Humphrey's work on black
knot, and knowing him to be a student of Farlow, Smith wrote
to Farlow to explain he regretted he had been unable to get to
Cambridge also and to praise Humphrey's work. As soon as he
returned to Washington, Smith sent Humphrey a specimen of the
black knot from Maryland. Harvard's Cryptogamic Laboratory
was now in its new building, and Farlow, replying there were a
"good many things to be seen," regretted, too, that Smith had not
found it possible to visit the Harvard campus. Smith had visited
the campus of Yale University, but never Harvard's. Smith
informed Farlow concerning the return from studies abroad of
Newton B. Pierce,^^ who, before studying plant pathology with

" Beverly T. Galloway, Newton B. Pierce, Phytopathology 7 (2): 143, Apr. 1917.

Plachd on a Nation-widh Basis 205

Dr. Spaldin£j at the University of Michigan, had pursued special
work in cntomolo<:v at Harvard. Smitli wrote:

Pierce, our special at^cnt at work on the California vine disease, has
come back Irom six months in the vineyards of Mediterranean hurope and
Africa — full of new tacts and interesting observations. Ihere was no
money available for investii;ation in foreign countries. So he \xud his
own expenses. He is now writing a preliminary report upon the California
disease. Until conversation with him this winter I had really a very
inadequate notion of its extent and destructiveness. It is worse even than
peach yellows in Delaware.

He, while at Naples, Italy, and Palermo, Sicily, had written to
Smith. Much he told of the agricultural practices of the regions
he had visited, even the practices reminiscent of those of the
ancients and still in vogue. Probably Pierce remembered Smith's
review °° of Felix von Thiimen's monograph, "Die Pilze des
Aprikosenbaumes [Anneniaca vulgaris. Lam.)," recollecting that
Smith had pointed out the treatise's importance to the apricot
industry of California, For, wrote Pierce:

Peach trees look well in Italy but, so far as my observations have
extended, are badly blighted by leaf-curl in France. The fruit is just
now coming into market here — probably from regions to the south of
Naples. Apricots are in the market constantly, but thus far will not
average up with southern California apricots. No peach yellows has been
seen, and I have been constantly on the lookout for it on your account. To
my mind, peach-curl does much more harm to the tree than people are in
the habit of thinking (?) Does not gummosis of the peach follow this
trouble .-'

I have had some decided compliments for your work on peach yellows —
please accept.

Cavara and Briosi are the best men met thus far in Italy — they are at
Pavia — and I spoke to them of our work. . . .

Thus far I have covered the leading vine regions of France and Italy,
have the situation very wx-U in hand as regards distribution of vines and
methods of culture, as well as much information relative to diseases. I
am not ready to speak yet relative to Mai Nero and our disease. First the
work in this Province and then of Catania in Sicily — the latter place being
where the disease did its worst work years since. . . .

A letter, written by Pierce at Rome, Italy, evidently has been
lost. After he had been at Catania, however, he sent his letter
from Palermo:

*°Jour. Mycology 5 (4): 222-223, Dec. 1889.

206 Investigations in Plant Pathology

I was glad to see that you had had a chance to go to the western and
southern hnes of the field of your labor. As you justly remark, it pays
to study these diseases and all the conditions possible. I am overjoyed
at my opportunity to study my matter in Europe, and I feel that I will
lose nothing in the end even if it will cost me about a thousand dollars
besides losing several months salary.

It gives one confidence in his opinion to know that he has seen and
studied his subject over as much or more of a field than have those who
have propounded their theories. I assure you this is a rich field for study
in our line. Everything in the Vegetable Kingdom is diseased here, and
many new forms of disease — so far as we are concerned. I have been
obliged to stay here much longer than I expected, but I have felt as you
wrote that I would regret it if I spared either time or money while here.
I have placed some material in alcohol for you from Syracuse and I believe
I have some dry material from one or two other points — I mean of the
peach aphis. I have some facts, material and photos, relative to peach
diseases here which will interest you, I am sure. No. " yellows " has
been seen thus far in any part of Europe. . . . Peach leaf -curl is very bad
in France but not so bad in Italy as Sicily.

Tuberculosis of the olive has given me a study of deep interest as it is
one of the few diseases which has been proven as caused by bacteria. I
have collected a considerable amount of good material. Have formed the
friendship of Dr. Savastano vv^ho did the work on this disease at the
Zoological Laboratory at Naples where there is a bacteriological outfit.
Savastano is a fine fellow and is located at the Agricultural School at
Portici, where prof[essor] Comes is, and where Dr. Giglioli is Director.

Pierce also used photography in aid of his studies in southern
France, Italy, and the eastern half of Sicily. Returning to America,
he immediately began to prepare his report on the California vine
disease,"^ and, since the olive industry was " becoming one of
importance on the Pacific coast," he prepared an article on " Tuber-
culosis of the Olive" which was published April 30, 1891 by the
Journal of Mycology.^- Bacteriological investigations of the Cali-
fornia vine disease *'^ — those performed by Pierce in California
and those done by Galloway at Washington— had yielded only
negative results; at least, thus far, no causal connection between
the isolated bacteria of the vine inner tissue and the disease had
been established beyond questioning.

One night, while at Washington during the period Pierce

" Bulletin No. 2, Division of Vegetable Pathology, U. S. Dep't of Agric,
Washington, Gov't Print. Otlice, 1892, entitled, The California vine disease. A
preliminary report of investigations.

"■6 (4): 148-153.

'* The California vine disease, preliminary report, 208.

Plachd on a Nation-wide Basis 207

worked on his report and made use of the Department's laboratory
facilities, he again wrote to Smith:

'Tis Tuesday cvcninq and I am at my room. Tired as usual at ni^ht.
Have been hard at the subject of Dematophora etc. at the Dcp[artmen]t
today. Ihank goodness I am now beginning to see daylight through the
other side of my report. If my nerves hold out I expect to complete the
ms. in two to three weeks. Have to consider noti-parasilic distunes, the
nature of disease, and methods of treat »ient tried. I have also to write
the opening chapter on the " situation." Probably may have to speak of
the hot house experiments also though that depends on Proffessor]
Galloway's ideas. I have said nothing of my experiments in California
along that line and don't care to until the work is more complete — hope
Mr. Galloway will think the same about the hot-house work as its results
were all negative. I hope you are doing nicely in your peach orchards
nowdays. I would like to drop in on you. . . . Swingle appears to be a
good fellow and smart as you said — good addition to the strength of the
Division. Waite is north spraying trees. He has made some good points
this spring I think. . . . Has demonstrated that crabs and pears may be
blighted through the flower without puncture, that the other flowers on
the same tree will be blighted without further inoculation — probably by
transfer of germs by insects, has captured insects and grown germs from
them, has shown on a small scale that the Bordeaux mixture will kill germs
in inoLula!:ed l^owcrs and also prevent the blighting the same. Good strong
points and valuable in my estimation.

Smith had already begun to gather literature on plant disease
dissemination. Pierce's letter was written on May 5, 1891, and
two months before, on March 5, Trclease of the Shaw School of
Botany had responded to a request from Smith for his published
writings, if any, on the subject, saying: " My lectures on dissemi-
nation were never published. All I had was a synopsis of topics,
distributed at the lectures, and no copies were saved."

Smith believed that the "greatest advance of this decade, prob-
ably, was the discovery that diseases of animals and plants may
be disseminated by insects and arachnids. This idea," he said,"*

did not come wholly out of the blue. Nothing ever does. Various persons
had ascribed Texas fever to cattle ticks. Arthur had suspected insects of
carrying pear blight and Carlos Findlay, of Havana, as early as 1881 had
suspected the mosquito of being the transmitter of yellow fever, and had
actually pointed out the particular one that does it {Aedes aegypti). But
these were happy guesses unlike a thousand others. There have been in-
numerable hypotheses on all sorts of subjects, some very clever ones, from

** Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., lA-l").

208 Investigations in Plant Pathology

the time of the Greeks, but we must carefully distinguish between hypo-
thesis and proof. What Arthur and Findlay and others suspected detracts
in no way from the honor due to the men who first experimentally demon-
strated the existence of carriers of diseases. . . . Merton B. Waite, working
on pear blight, proved conclusively the transmission of the disease by
bees, from whose mouth parts he again cultivated the parasite (1889-
1891). . . . Theobald Smith, working on Texas fever of cattle, discovered
the parasite to be a protozoan inhabiting the red blood corpuscles and he
and Kilbourn demonstrated that the carrier of the disease from infected
to healthy cattle was a blood sucking tick (1889-1893).

The search for intermediary hosts in the transmission of plant
diseases was not new. Recollect Farlow's work on the cedar ball
fungus which begins its life on cedars, spends its first year there,
in the spring emits gelatinous projections which when rain falls
becomes a mass, and from which spores, windborne, infect fruit
trees miles away with orchard rust, then in the late summer to
begin another life cycle. Recall the work of DeBary, Ward, and
others, tracing fungous life histories through developmental stages
and more than one host.

Proof of disease transmission by insects, however, was new.
Before the end of the century, an Englishman, Sir Ronald Ross,
would demonstrate that the mosquito, as an intermediary host,
transmits malaria. Others earlier had suggested this. But Ross's
work, supplying knowledge of the method of action of the trans-
mitting agency as well as the cause of the disease, made possible
a period of practical prevention and extermination of the malady
in seriously infected regions. *^^ He, for the value of his proof,
received one of the first Nobel prizes for medicine.

During the summer of 1889, to test the prevailing theory that
ticks caused southern cattle fever, Dr. F. L. Kilborne of the
Bureau of Animal Industry arranged at the Bureau's Washington
Experiment Station some preliminary experiments. In one en-
closure he placed North Carolina cattle with native cattle, and
picked off the ticks of all southern stock. This was done to prevent
any ticks from maturing or depositing eggs which might later
infect the animals. In another enclosure the ticks were not
removed from the southern cattle. Native cattle, mixed with these,
contracted Texas fever and died, whereas the cattle of the first
enclosure lived, unharmed by the disease. In September further

'^H. Gushing, The life of Sir William Osier, op. cit., 1: 274; 2: 164.

Placed ok a Nation-widc Basis 209

licld experiments were arranged: "one with southern cattle and
ticks, a second with southern cattle from which the ticks were
removed, and a third over which only adult ticks had been
scattered. ... In the first field no natives died,"' reported Dr.
Theobald Smith in his account of " Investigations of the Infectious
Diseases of Animals," published in the report of the Chief of the
Bureau for the year 1890."'" " but careful examination of the blood
by the writer showed Texas fever in an unmistakable manner. In
the ' tick" field one animal died of Texas fever, and the examina-
tion of the blood showed that most other natives in the field
were sick. In the, third field containing southern cattle without
ticks no disease could be detected." Confirmatory and further
experiments followed in 1890, during which " ticks were hatched
artificially and placed on cattle with the result that Texas fever
appeared in every case." ^'

Galloway, in his annual report as Chief of the Division of
Vegetable Pathology for the year 1891,''^ announced that Waite,
working mainly that year on the life-history of the pear blight
organism, had cultivated in the laboratory " the germ " on sterilized
nutrient media, and its life history, through culture study used in
field experiments, had been carefully examined, both at Wash-
ington and in orchards near Brockport, New York. Waite had
found that the

germs normally gain an entrance through the tissues of the nectaries. At
other points the germs gain an entrance through a puncture or injury to
the epidermis. The germs multiply in the nectar of the flowers, and are
carried by insects from one flower to another. Bags of paper, cheese cloth,
mosquito netting, or in fact anything keeping the insects out, will preserve
the trees from blight. Certain varieties of pear, the Bartlett among them,
failed to set fruit when insects were excluded. Others, such as the
Dutchess and Seckel, did not need insect aid.

More time and research would be required to transmute from
premise to conclusion, from observation to fact, another contri-
bution for which Waite is known— his concept of mixed plantings

""Pp. 105-110, at pp. 107-108.

"'T Smith and F. L. Kilborne, Investigations into the n.Uure, causation, and
prevention of Texas or Southern cattle fever, Bureau of Animal Industry, ^i^Jl/^'"
No. 1, 301 pp., 10 pis., 7 fifis., 1893. See also Experiment Station Record 4(9):
755-758, Apr. 1893, at p. 756.

"Pp. 372-373.

210 Investigations in Plant Pathology

in horticulture as indicated by the self-fruitfulness of some varie-
ties while others to set fruit require cross-pollination by insects.

Waite's carefully prepared bulletin 5, '" The Pollination of Pear
Flowers," a scholarly work, replete with the results of careful,
scientific, experimental study performed over two years, would
appear, published by the Division of Vegetable Pathology, in 1894.
Waite admitted that, while the work was not strictly pathological,
its origins had sprung from what was at first a pathological in:
vestigation. His conclusions, arrived at from extensive experiments
conducted at the Old Dominion orchard at Chestnut Farm,
Virginia, at the Smith and Slosson orchards at Geneva, New York,
in the Eilwanger and Barry orchard at Rochester and at Brockport,
New York, offered substantiated facts, valuable to advance pure
science in horticulture as well as practical rules which the farmer
should follow in planting orchards of mixed varieties.*'^

In 1890 twenty-nine botanists were employed at various agri-
cultural experiment stations over the United States. When Halsted
asked them to list what problems appeared most immediate in
their states, sixteen replied " fungous diseases of cultivated plants."
Studies of grasses and forage crops, weeds and their migration,
reforestation and forest trees, waste land planting, cross-fertiliza-
tion of plants, relations of climate and soil to vegetation, seed
testing, and allied subjects, were ranked in order next in import-
ance. One botanist, unnamed, considered bacterial diseases of
plants as among the more important research subjects. '° By 1893
thirty-two stations employed botanists. Fungous diseases of plants
and their treatment was still the favored investigation subject,
and, joined to this, was a growing interest in plant bacterial
diseases. Many botanists were yet preoccupied with systematizing
their native flora. A few were tracing life histories of fungi.
Some few had inaugurated physiological experiments.'^

George Francis Atkinson, who on October 1, 1892, had left
the Alabama station and been appointed cryptogamic botanist

** See pp. 80-82 of Bulletin 5. See also Waite's article, Treatment of pear leaf-
blight in the orchard, Jour. Mycology. 7(4): 333-338, Aug. 15, 1894, in which are
set forth the author's experiments carried on in the orchard of the Old Dominion
Fruit Co., on James River, near Scotland, Virginia, and elsewhere. Waite had
begun in 1890 at Thomasville, Georgia, to observe the role of insect visitors in pear
flowers. See Bulletin 5: 17. Fairchild performed the experiments at Geneva.

''"Botanical Gazette 15: 279, 1890.

'''■Botanical Gazette 18: 81, 1893.

Placed on a Nation-widi- Basis 211

in the college of arts and sciences at Cornell, compiled for
Scietice'- a review of station botanical work during 1892 similar
to that which Halsted had assembled for the Botatikal Gazette.''^
the preceding year. Atkinson found "one of the most unique
features of the botanist's work at the experiment stations is the
study and treatment of plant diseases caused by fungi and
bacteria." He, while in the south, almost alone, had placed on an
enduring basis the study of plant diseases according to crops. He
may have patterned his work after policies of the Division of
Vegetable Pathology. But the plan of his work influenced other
workers at experin;icnt stations in the south. On January 6, 1891,
Miss Southworth published in the jouruiil of Alyco/opy'* her
study of " Anthracnose of Cotton," and described the new species,
CGlletolrichiiim gossypii. After her work was completed but
before it was published, Atkinson read a paper on the same subject
before the American Association of Agricultural College and Ex-
periment Stations. During these early years of the science, more
than one study of the same malady was made by different workers.
Occasionally, the same disease was studied from different aspects.
Miss Southworth "cited Professor Atkinson's authority in regard
to the parts of the host plant attacked." Their work,, however,
was independent.

Atkinson, in his 1892 article on " Botany at the Experiment
Stations," commended the use of artificial cultures in studying the
life histories of parasitic fungi. " No other feature of botanical
work at the experiment stations, in my judgment," he wrote, "is
doing so much to lay the permanent foundations for a rational
economy in the treatment of plant diseases " as this. He listed
Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,
Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the New York stations at
Geneva and Cornell University, North Carolina, and North
Dakota, as stations where the cultural apparatus was more or
less complete.

At these stations, most of the workers, as Atkinson himself, had
been students of Farlow or had studied under someone who had
learned culture practice from him. On the point of station equip-
ment, not every botanist agreed with Atkinson. As late as 1894,

"Botany at the experiment stations, Science 20(514): 328-330, Dec. 9, 1892.
■'■''What the station botanists are doing, Botanical Gazette 16: 288, 1891.
'♦6(3): 100-105, Jan. 6, 1891.

212 Investigations in Plant Pathology

Louis Hermann Pammel of the Iowa station complained to Smith
that some of the station work in bacteriology was so careless that
he feared that it would discredit all American work. During the
school year 1885-1886 Pammel had been Farlow's secretary and
from 1886 to 1889 he had been Trelease's assistant at the Shaw
School. Before becoming professor of botany at Iowa Agricultural
College, he had done special work for the federal department of
agriculture. Particularly he criticized " some of the work done at
some of our Experiment Stations recently in which some of our
bacteriological diseases of plants are described and no attempt
made to cultivate the organism." Pammel had written a paper on
"Bacteria in relation to Modern Medicine, the Arts and Indus-
tries." Smith read it, sent a letter of appreciation, and on October
1, 1894, he replied that he had prepared the article "' to correct
the numerous statements that appear in our daily press as well as
some of our scientific literature." He believed that some of the
responsibility for erroneous statements was due to "some of the
work done by Americans on this subject."

In January 1889 Michigan's special laboratory devoted to teach-
ing and research in hygiene had been opened at the university at
Ann Arbor. Vaughan and Novy were justly proud of this build-
ing in which they were to teach the results of their study with
Koch and at other research places in their recent visit to Europe.
It was announced that all of the improved apparatus employed by
Koch was available for a three-months' course in bacteriology.'^

In 1889 Welch had arranged for a laboratory of hygiene for
the facult)' of medicine bemg organized at Johns Hopkins. Model-
led after von Pettenkofer's laboratory at Munich, this was to
supplement other laboratories and facilities for work in experi-
mental pathology, bacteriology, pathological histology, etc. In
1886 he had sent Alexander Crever Abbott, a graduate in medicine
in 1884 from the University of Maryland, to study with von
Pettenkofer and Koch at the universities of Munich and Berlin.
Abbott had returned and started the hygiene laboratory at the
Hopkins. But v/ithin a few years. Dr. Billings organized an
Institute of Hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania and Abbott
went there as professor of hygiene and bacteriology."" Billings had

''" Announcement made in the University of Michigan catalogue. See, William
Henry Welch etc., op. cit.. 342; also A doctor's ?nemories, op. cit., 146-149.
'"" William Henry Welch etc., pp. 341-341, 506, n. 1.

Placed on a Nation-wide Basis 213

lectured on hyi;icnc at JdIihs Hopkins since perhaps 1883. A
great School of Hygiene and Public Health at the University of
Pennsylvania would grow out of this histitutc, later Laboratory,
of Hygiene. On University Day, February 22, 1892, appropriate
ceremonies were held to dedicate its building on the university
campus. That year the first edition of Abbott's Prhiciples of
Bacteriology appeared. Further, when that year seven ships
brought into the port of New York almost a hundred cases of
cholera from Hamburg, Germany, where a severe epidemic was
in progress, ample justification for equipping the first municipal
bacteriological laboratory was seen, and Biggs, Prudden, and
Welch made the most of it. Already the distinctively American
achievement of establishing laboratories in conjunction with state
boards of health was under way. Public support of this first
municipal bacteriological laboratory in the United States was
enthusiastic when Dr. Edward K. Dunham, under Biggs' direc-
tion, made cultures of cholera bacilli which were confirmed both
in this country and in Germany, and, with the use of quarantine,
preventive, and other sanitary methods, pathologists and hygienists
were able to halt the spread of a dangerous disease."

In 1892 Dr. Councilman, also a graduate in medicine from the
University of Maryland and since 1886 associated with Welch in
pathology at Johns Hopkins, went to Harvard as Shattuck Pro-
fessor of Pathological Anatomy, and to his place was appointed
Simon Flexner, a young druggist from Louisville, Kentucky, who
had studied medicine at the university there, taught himself
pathology, and since 1890 been in Baltimore eagerly endeavoring
to study with Welch.'' George H. Falkiner Nuttall, a graduate
in 1884 in medicine from the LIniversity of California, who had
obtained his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees
from the University of Gottingen, was Welch's assistant in bacteri-
ology at the Hopkins. In 1893 the Johns Hopkins Medical School
officially opened its doors with its " Faculty par excellence," '^
comprising, of course, its great four, Welch, Osier, William S.
Halsted, and Howard Atwood Kelly, and eight professors. Four
of these professors held degrees from the University of Michigan

^^ William Henry Welch and the Heroic Age of American Medicine, op. cit.,
343, et seq.
"•^Idem, 160.
''"A doctor's memories, op. cit., 223, a quotation from Victor C. Vaughan.

8

214 Investigations in Plant Pathology

— Henry Mills Hurd ®° in psychiatry, William Henry Howell in
physiology, John Jacob Abel in pharmacology, and Franklin Paine
Mall in anatomy. Fielding H. Garrison has said of their work:

... its faculty soon established a well-deserved reputation, at home and
abroad, for original scientific work. In Welch's laboratory, Nuttall,
Flexner, Councilman, Mall, Abbott, Wright, Sternberg, Walter Reed, and
many others were trained, and out of it came his own original work on the
experimental production of diphtheria by its toxins, on the bacteriology of
wound infection, on the gas bacillus and the diseases produced by it, as
also the work of Walter Reed on the pathology of typhoid fever, of
MacCallum and Opie on the malarial parasite, of Opie on pancreatic
diabetes, of Thayer and Blumer on gonorrheal endocarditis. Reed, Carroll,
and Lazear, who discovered the causation and prevention of yellow fever,
were all pupils of Welch. From Osier's clinic came the extensive studies
of malarial fever by Thayer and others, of amoebic dysentery by Council-
man and Lafleur, of eosinophilia by Thayer and Brown, of pneumothorax
by Emerson.^i

For several years H. Newell Martin and W. K. Brooks had been
giving undergraduate and advanced laboratory and lecture in-
struction in biology. Research and learning in the phenomena of
living things were taught, and organisms from lower to higher
plant and animal forms were traced, including such genera as
Torula, Protococcus, Amoeba, Micrococcus, Bacterium, Spirillum,
PeniciUium, Mucor, Spirogyra, Nitella, and others.^' At Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology, Dr. Sedgwick had been developing
biological instruction, and graduating theses under him during
1887-1892 included examining water supplies, biological and
chemical characters of bacteria, life history of amoeba, physiology
of the sundew, and such other subjects of recognized value that by
1892 five men in addition to Sedgwick were required as depart-
mental instructors.^^

During the 1890's profound specialization began to characterize
the building of bacteriology as an exact science. Erwin F. Smith
regarded this as a milestone of progress. In various types of
investigation, specialists began to come forward. Along with
animal and plant bacteriologists emerged specialists in the grow-

*** Thomas Stephen Cullen, Henry Mills Hurd, the first superintendent of the Johns
Hopkins Hospital, 16 et seq. Bahimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1920.
'"'■John Shaw Billings, A Memoir, op. cit., 210-211.
^- Johns Hopkins Circular 58: 97, July, 1887.
*' A pioneer of public health, William Thompson Sedgwick, op. cit., 35-37.

Placi-d on a Nation-widh Basis 215

ini; licUs of water bacteriology, milk bacteriology, and soil
bacteriology. Not yet had the era of special societies devoted to
study of special diseases (for instance, tuberculosis) arrived fully.
The establishment of scientific journals, dedicated to advancing
special phases of bacteriological research, was not yet fully under
way. State and municipal health laboratories naturally were pre-
occupied with diseases to which the human body was subject,
furthering not only diagnostic aid to physicians but also immun-
ological and serological assistance in the forms of vaccines, anti-
toxins, chemotherapeutic remedies, and the like, and securing and
enforcing quarantine and sanitary regulations, sometimes with the
aid of the law. From an academic point of view, the differentia-
tions that developed may be illustrated by glrncing at a course
given by Sedgwick at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
which, in 1883 a course on germs and germicides, became by 1888
a course in bacteriology, from which eventually were split off
separate courses, sanitary biology m 1889 and industrial biology in
1896.*'* Pruddcn's early work in bacteriology of ice and air was
pioneering, even as was H. W. Conn's work at Connecticut
Wesleyan University in milk bacteriology. Probably no one Ameri-
can institution contributed more in the pioneering period of these
subjects and in microbiology of water supplies — water purification
and sewage disposal — than the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology. Its work, together with that of the Lawrence Experiment
Station founded in 1886 and the biological laboratory of Chestnut
Hill Reservoir, had begun "an important epoch in American
sanitation." Steadily the work had gone forward. Sedgwick had
graduated some brilliant students whose work from time to time
will appear in this story.

Among them was Edwin Oakes Jordan, '88, who after serving
as chief assistant biologist of the Massachusetts State Board of
Health 1888-1890 and lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology during his last years there, and after two years as fellow in
morphology at Clark University, went as an associate in anatomy
and instructor to the University of Chicago. In 1895 at this insti-
tution he became an assistant professor of bacteriology. Allen
Hazen, '88, George Chandler Whipple, '89, and George Warren
Fuller, '90, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

®* A pioneer of public health William Thompson Sedguick, op. cil., 40, 59-60, 64.

216 Investigations in Plant Pathology

became members of a celebrated firm of consulting engineers of
New York City. Whipple later was a professor of sanitary engi-
neering at Harvard University and his alma mater. Fuller, after a
postgraduate course at the University of Berlin and a period with
the Massachusetts Board and in charge of the Lawrence Experi-
ment Station, performed elaborate tests for the cities of Louisville,
Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, to determine the most feasible
method of purifying water, and in 1899 engaged in practice
privately as a hydraulic and sanitary engineer. Gary Nathan
Calkins, '90, was later a professor of protozoology at Columbia
University. The graduate who was to succeed Sedgwick as pro-
fessor and head of the department of biology and public health
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was Samuel Cate Pres-
cott, '94. In 1895 he became as assistant in biology, in 1896 an
instructor, in 1903 assistant professor of industrial biology and
bacteriology, in 1909 associate professor, in 1914 professor of
industrial microbiology, and in 1922 was placed in charge of the
department.

Plant bacteriology would not figure much in this work for many
years. By 1911, however, the research work of Erwin F. Smith in
the United States Department of Agriailture had so stimulated
Sedgwick's interest that he addressed a letter to Smith, as follows:

Plant pathology nowadays is a mighty interesting thing, and those of us
who twenty or thirty years ago undertook to say that there is really such
a subject as Biology, because of the close relationship and the analogous
behavior of plants and animals under various conditions, rejoice to find in
your work any justification that may be needed for their attitude.

In 1891, just two decades before, Harry Luman Russell, having
found the study of bacterial diseases of plants still conspicuously
lacking in Germany, had returned to the United States and regis-
tered as a graduate student in pathology and biology at Johns
Hopkins University. Even in Koch's laboratory he had found the
research interest almost entirely confined to infectious diseases of
animals and humans. Carl Fraenkel had been then in immediate
charge. Koch directed, supervised, and often worked in the
laboratory. Engaged there in study and research had been such
workers of distinction as Shibasaburo Kitasato, not yet forty years
of age, and Emil von Behring, who together had elaborated an
antitoxin for tetanus.^^ In 1890 von Behring, from the blood of

^'^ Douglas James Guthrie, A history of medicine, op. cit., 287.

Fi AC 11) ON A Nation-widi-; Basis 217

horses iminunizcJ aj^ainst diplithcria, had developed a diphtheria
antitoxin or scruin ov whali tlie human death rate from this
disease was definitely lowered. In 189-1 Kitasato would make his
discovery of the b.iLillus of plai^ue. liy 1891 he had founded, and
become director of, Japan's famous Institute for Infectious Dis-
eases. Six years he had studied under Koch.

In October 1890, while Russell was in Koch's laboratory, the
great master had startled and thrilled the world with the announce-
ment of his treatment, tuberculin, for human tuberculosis, a
remedy, which, while it proved disappointing as a "cure" for
pulmonary tuberculosis, was made use of later by Russell and
others as a diagnostic method of much value in detecting tuber-
culosis in cattle.®''

Charles Wardell Stiles, later an American authority on hook-
worm diseases, had been educated at Wesleyan University, Con-
necticut. While Russell was in Europe, Stiles was there, too,
studying at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. In 1892 he
would become professor of medical zoology at Georgetown Uni-
versity, and in 1894 a special lecturer on the same subject at the
Army Medical School and later Johns Hopkins.

Plant students had gone to Europe for advanced study. But,
during the early 1890's, their number was still few, and doubtless
far less than those interested in the animal sciences.

During the summer of 1889, Volney Morgan Spalding had
studied at Jena and been given such a welcome that he wrote of
it to Smith. Professor Detmer took Spalding into his home and his
private laboratory and permitted him every facility for some physi-
ological experiments, mostly on plant assimilation. Spalding
stopped at Bonn and heard the great Eduard Strasburger lecture,
enjoyed a pleasant chat with Schimper, examined the laboratory
and appliances there, learned more of microscopes and the camera,
visited Leipzig and its botanical institute, and on his journey
homeward spent some while at Oxford. At the University of
Michigan eight students by 1890 were in his class in plant physi-
ology. Among them and graduating that year, Frederick Charles
Newcombe, after doing some teaching at his alma mater, went
to the University of Leipzig and obtamed in 1893 his doctorate

*" Unpublished manuscript, In Koch's Laboratory when his "Tuberculin Cure"
was announced, prepared by Dean-Emeritus Russell.

218 Investigations in Plant Pathology

'n philosophy. But before leaving Michigan he and Spalding had
collected and studied many parasitic species. During the first
semester 1889-1890 the class in plant physiology under Spalding
had translated Zimmermann's Pflanzenzelle and the second semes-
ter read Sachs's treatise on physiology. Considerable time was spent
also with laboratory experiments and special reports. Later, on
an extended leave of absence, Spalding was to return to Europe to
study at Leipzig and other universities and botanical institutes.

What physiology and pathology Russell learned while in Europe
was more on the animal than plant side of biological investigation.
This was true of his friend Stiles who happened also to be in
Berlin. Stiles persuaded Russell to visit the famous Marine
Zoological Station at Naples where a research table for American
scientists interested in research was maintained. Russell travelled
in Germany and the Tyrol Mountains, stopped at Venice and
Rome, and, arriving at Naples, was invited by Dr. Anton Dohrn,
officer in charge, to stay. Russell's suggestion that he study
bacteria of the deep sea met with Dr. Dohrn's approval and he
was given laboratory quarters with two or three scientists who
were studying tropical diseases. Russell remained at Naples
seven months and, after further study at L'Institut Pasteur at
Paris, he had to choose whether to stay in Europe, or return to
the United States, to complete his work for the degree Doctor of
Philosophy.

He chose America. Bacteriologists, even in Europe, were still
preoccupied with studying bacteria as an adjunct or " anhang " to a
medical course. Russell was desirous of studying the non-parasitic,
more normal functions, and, in this, anticipated his future leading
role as a milk bacteriologist and student of fermentation. Many
European scholars had not begun to study bacteria in the light
of their productive functions in foods. Only one or two, Russell
found, viewed them as living organisms, and neither the Naples
institution nor the Pasteur Institute granted degrees. At the least,
he believed more was to be gained by taking advantage of '" the
broad educational outlook that was coming to be widely recognized
in the work of the Johns Hopkins University," which esteemed
research and graduate work as of special significance. From boy-
hood, plant life had always fascinated Russell. But how to study
plants and yet take work in Welch's laboratory seemed to present

Placi-d on a Nation-widii Basis 219

87

a problem until Russell conferred with Welch after some pre
Hminary correspondence. Russell has told what he told Welch:

I proposed to undertake a study of the bacterial diseases of plants, laying
down as my basic thesis, the idea that here was a relatively new field, one
wIulIi was then not recoi^nized as of any importance.

Bacteria in uentr.il live preferably on neutral or sliqhtly alkaline food;
funs^i, on the other hand, prefer acid substrata. It is for this fundamental
reason, that wc find many more diseases of man and animals caused by
bacterial parasites, while plant diseases are i;enerally caused by fungi. At
this time there were scarcely any workers in bacteriology who had paid
attention as to whether plants could become infected with bacteria. I
hoped that this point of view would appeal to the broad-minded Welch
who readily saw the relationship which existed between healthy and
diseased cells in the animal body. Much to my gratification Welch
instantly grasped the situation, saying he knew nothing about the pathology
of plants, but he saw no good reason why the same general basic principles
would not obtain with plant life as obtained with animal life. If I could
paddle my own canoe, i. e., develop the necessary technique that applied to
plant diseases, he would give me all the aid he could, which however he
said would not be much. . . .

No greenhouses were available in which plant experiments could be
carried on. The laboratory was reeking with the fumes of burning gas
making it impossible even to grow plants. Obviously I was handicapped
from the outset through lack of proper facilities. My laboratory colleagues,
all headed for M. D. degrees, wondered why I should hang around a place
like this. They thought I was wasting my time, after having the experience
I had had in the leading European medical laboratories. They advised me
to go into medicine and specialize if I wanted to on the side of animal
diseases. But it was worth much to me to have the opportunity of con-
tacting " Popsy," as he was lovingly called by all of his student worshippers.

Something, however, had to be done to make good the lack of reasonable
facilities where plants could be grown. Doubtless I could have turned to
the Botany department of the University, but even here the facilities for
greenhouse work were most meager, and the department was located on
the other side of Baltimore in the downtown district.

Russell turned to Secretary Rusk of the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture and was allotted space for his plants in the
Department's greenhouses. Commuting between Baltimore and
Washington, he began work on his thesis subject, "Bacteria in
their Relation to Vegetable Tissue," and thus became acquainted
with Galloway, Waite, Smith, Swingle, Fairchild, and others of
the Department. For the first time in American literature, all of

*^ Getting started in Bacteriology, op. at., and another unpublished manuscript
by Dean Russell telling of his work at the Naples Marine Biological Station.

220 Investigations in Plant Pathology

the known bacterial plant diseases were treated in a single docu-
ment. The work was divided into three classes: those diseases so
established that a causal organism had been isolated from the
diseased tissue, cultivated in pure cultures, inoculated into a
healthy susceptible host plant, and the disease reproduced and
an identical organism taken from inoculated vegetable tissue,
in other words, those diseases in which the celebrated canons of
Koch had been thoroughly satisfied; second, those diseases in which
specific organisms had been found, but the evidence was not fully
conclusive that Koch's canons had been strictly complied with; and,
third, Russell listed those plant diseases which probably were of
bacterial origin but not definitely proven.

Smith later praised Dr. Russell's experiments, especially their
" merit of being properly performed, i. e. with sterile juices and
pure cultures so that the conditions under which the experiments
were made [could] be reproduced by other investigators." His
praise was not unqualified,^^ and he found that Professor W.
Migula had reviewed the subject in 1892 " briefly but somewhat
carefully." Others ^^ had written on bacterial diseases of plants.
Julius Wiesner, a year after Russell's experiments were performed,
made some experiments as part of an attempt to classify plants,
but cultures were not used and the juices not sterilized by filtration.
During the spring of 1892, Charles O. Whitman, then recently
appointed professor of zoology at the new University of Chicago,
offered Russell the chance to continue his researches in bacteria of
the deep sea at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole,
Massachusetts, and in 1893 he was appointed fellow in bacteri-
ology at Chicago University. The environment was biological
rather than medical, and his thesis, published by Johns Hopkins
University in 1892, possessed the added distinction of being the
first submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under
Welch. Professors Martin, Brooks, and Welch conducted Russell's
doctoral examination, and Welch acquired a knowledge of plants
sufficient for the purpose from Dr. John P. Lotsy, a Dutch botanist,
who became a university associate in biology and was then domg
some studying in his laboratory. February 28, 1893, Russell sub-

««The bacterial diseases of plants: a critical review of the present state of our
knowledge, Amer. Naturalist 30(356): 629-632, Aug. 1896.

"Erwin F. Smith has reviewed the early works of writers on this subject,
Bacteria m relation to plant diseases 2: 9-12 ff., Carnegie Inst. Washington, 1911.

Placed on a Nation-widi-; Basis 221

mittcd his list of bacterial plant diseases to Smith for any cor-
rections or ideas he mit;ht wish to offer and to secure the benefit
of his experience and knowledge of the subject and its literature.
Smith for a number of years had served as secretary of the
Washington alumni association of the University of Michigan.
Whether in this capacity or while in Michigan he became ac-
cjuainted with Dr. Henry M. Hurd, superintendent of Johns
Hopkins Hospital and professor of psychiatry in the medical
sdiool, is not known. However, Dr. Hurd, no later than January
30, 1892, had become acquainted with Smith, for, on that date
Hurd wrote him th'anking him for his recent monograph on peach
yellows and peach rosette and for an "enjoyable evening in
Washington" when he had met many old, and some new, friends
"with a tie of common interest," which must have referred to an
alumni interest in the University. Dr. Hurd added to his letter:
"By the way John P. Lotsy a Fellow-by-Courtesy, a Ph.D. of
Gottingen, is to give some lectures in Dr. Welch's Pathological
Laboratory on Plant Diseases at an early day. If you come over
I shall be glad to send you a special invitation."

Lotsy published in June, 1893, " On the Toxic Substance of the
Bacillus Amylovorus, the Cause of Pearblight." ""^ Certainly, there-
fore, his lecture could have considered bacterial, as well as fungous,
diseases of plants and, if so. Smith must have attended, since by
the years 1892-1893 his research interests embraced every plant
disease including those caused by bacteria and fungi.

Field research in crop diseases of the southern states and around
Washington, including subsisting and new experimental work in
Maryland, absorbed his attention. During all seasons of the year
Smith's indoor laboratory work had been almost completely inter-
rupted. In 1891 he and Swingle had been sent to Georgia and
Florida. Before they went, however, Galloway had appointed
Lucien M. Underwood, (Professor of Botany at Syracuse Uni-
versity, and during other periods of time at schools in Alabama
and Indiana and at Columbia University, and then on leave of
absence and taking graduate work with Far low at Harvard), a
special agent for the Division of Vegetable Pathology, to visit
Florida and collect information concerning orange and other
plant diseases threatening the state's agricultural economy. During

''° Johns Hopkins Circular 106: 105, June 1893. The thesis wa.s daM April 18,
1893.

222 Investigations in Plant Pathology

February, March, and April 1891, Underwood had visited orange
groves and studied the methods of cultivation and treatment in
vogue, in the counties of Brevard, Citrus, Hernando, Lake,
Manatee, Marion, Orange, Pasco, Polk, St. John's and Volusia,
traversing, also, nme other counties during the winter. He pur-
posely did not report on all the diseases noticed. For instance, he
excluded diseases produced by insect pests, although he referred
to the presence of the long scale, red spider, rust mite, etc., and
such counteracting agents as lady bugs and uses of spraying and
proper cultivation. Underwood styled his report, " Diseases of the
Orange in Florida," ^^ and considered die-back and foot-rot, attri-
buting these probably to improper cultivation or fertilization;
blight, possibly caused by bacteria; scab and leaf spot, believed
caused by parasitic fungi; sooty mold, a malady reported on by
Farlow in 1876; and leaf glaze, attributed to a leaf lichen.

In May 1891 Smith was at Dover, Delaware, planning and carry-
ing out several series of peach yellows infection experiments,
to see what, if any, new knowledge concerning the disease's
transmission could be gleaned. He had his microscope with him,
and, along with his peach yellows infection experiments, he was
studying and making good drawings of the Monilia, evidently
aware of his lack of complete information concerning the life
history of the fungus. That spring he had arrived in the field
early enough to study the twig blight from its beginning and
experiment with treatments of Bordeaux mixture. Thus far,
fungicides had neither prevented nor lessened the blight, so far
as Smith could discern. He was trying to coordinate his studies of
peach yellows on the Chesapeake peninsula with his work on
peach rosette in Georgia which he had started the year before at
Griffin. "With a view to clearing up some mooted points in
connection with the Georgia Rosette," he told Galloway by letter
of May 10th, " I've also budded a good many plums and cherries
of different sorts, with buds taken from peach trees having yellows.
Many buds were put into each tree and if it is possible to induce
the Northern yellows in plums I shall do it."

Soon thereafter he went to Georgia to examine and, to his
delight, find that the results of his inoculation experiments of the
year previous were " astonishing and important beyond all expecta-

"'' Jour. Mycology 7(1): 27-34, Sept. 10, 1891.

Placi-d on a NATioN-wior. Basis 223

tion," so valuable, in fact, that he sent for Swindle or Cjalloway,
both if possible, to confirm his observations. Smith sent for the
noted horticulturist and nurseryman Berckmans of Augusta,
Georgia. Discovering a "new fact" — gummosis of the fruit —
Smith decided to make some sections immediately, and sent for
agar dishes for plate cultures with sterilized media, requested
Galloway or Swingle to bring a Hask of sterile gelatine, twent)'-
four empty plugged and sterilized tubes, a platinum wire, and
agar plates ready for use. Later he sent for a microscope, cedar oil,
and other equipment. Swingle arrived and the two men, with high
hopes and abundant enthusiasm, went to work, studying not only
peach rosette but also other plant diseases, including garden, field,
and forest crops. From Canada to Florida and from New England
to California, the Department had special agents in the field or
cooperative arrangements with experiment station workers study-
ing the more serious of the known diseases of agricultural crops.
Galloway in his annual report for that year described with justifi-
able pride many of the results thus far achieved. The public
response to the work was uniformly one of approval.

Smith's and Swingle's experiments awakened a wide interest
among the growers and many visited the nursery at Mr. Husted's
place. Smith delivered an address before members of the Middle
Georgia Horticultural Society. They recognized that the symptoms
of rosette w^re in points dissimilar from those of yellows; and
that eradication of affected trees, enforced by law if need be,
might prove to be the only solution. They believed that bacteria
might cause the malady. This, like peach yellows and another
disease which Smith studied later, " little peach," is today believed
to be caused by a virus. Scientific knowledge of parasitic organisms
in plant diseases, however, had then not progressed much beyond
a considerable knowledge of fungi and fungous diseases, and an
an initial acquaintance with bacteria and bacterial diseases of
plants. Many letters which passed between Smith, Swingle, Gallo-
way, and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Willits have been
preserved. These do not say as much as Smith's own final estimate
of his accomplishments. He said of his work: "-

In case of peach rosette, which is more southern in its distribution and
swifter in its action and was then a new disease, I showed how it difiers

Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 19.

224 Investigations in Plant Pathology

from yellows, proved that it could be spread in the same way by grafting
or budding, established that sometimes it did not occur in one side of a
tree when it was present in the other side although the following year the
entire tree became diseased, showed that when root grafts were made the
disease developed later on the top of the plant than when parts above
ground were budded with the diseased buds, found numerous gum-pockets
in the wood of the diseased roots (wood only of the season in which the
disease developed) and in the shriveling fruits, and showed that mere
contact of diseased tissues with wounds would not induce the disease but
that some fragment of the grafted wood or bark must heal on in order
to transmit the disease, although the tiniest bit was sufficient. There were
124 trees in my first budding experiment all but four of which contracted
the disease. The signs of disease appeared first around the inserted
diseased buds and a few months later the whole top became diseased.
These trees stood in two nursery rows and none of the several thousand
other nursery trees developed the disease. The cause of the disease was
not determined.

Smith may not have found the cause. But he established several
fundamental conclusions necessary to a later more complete study
of this disease. In America his was the pioneering study and
helped to prepare the way for the career in science which was to
bring him eminence. June 11, 1891, he advised Galloway:

Today I also discovered that certain cells of the phloem rays (in the
roots) are packed full of actively moving bodies 1 to ^/x in length. These
strikingly resemble bacteria and call to mind what we saw in the cells of
the carnation, but whether they are really germs remains to be seen. We
made cultures from the bark.

We have made 25 cultures from various parts of diseased trees, but
shall have to wait some days for definite results. Some of the agar proved
to be cloudy and has behaved very badly. We have two or three sorts of
colonies and apparently one germ which liquifies agar.

On June 13 Smith and Swingle notified Galloway that as soon
as their cultures would permit, they would go on, as instructed, to
Florida. They wished to complete, before leaving Georgia, some
inoculation experiments with bacteria they had found. They had
also some joint studies with the horticulturist of the " Georgia
Experiment Station." Swingle had become much interested in the
region's "vinifera" possibilities, and in certain fungicidal treat-
ments being tried against garden crop diseases, tomato, potato, egg
plant, sweet potato, in addition to other work. Early in the spring
Dr. J. C. Neal of Florida had sent the Department specimens of
the southern cabbage-worm {Plusia brassicae) affected with a

Placud on a Nation-widh Basis 225

disease. No fungus being found associated with the trouble,
bacteriological methods had been put to use in Washington.
Germs were grown on beef peptone, glycerine, potato agar, and
nutrient gelatine and broth preparations. But 200 inoculations
from pure cultures failed to yield any definite result.'"'"'' Swingle,
therefore, began to study this subject soon after arriving in
Georgia.. By letter of June 12 Galloway directed Swingle to gather
all the facts he could concerning the disease in Florida. On June
23 Swingle advised Galloway, " We start for Florida tonight.
Send plusia disease cultures to Lake City."

Smith and Swi/igle "' went via Jacksonville to Lake City where,
after an afternoon at the Florida Experiment Station examining a
peach orchard of two to three hundred young trees and coming
across a disease like yellows or rosette but believed neither, they
spent the evening with Dr. Neal. From Lake City they proceeded
to Palatka where more groves were studied, and then took the boat
on the St. Johns River to San Mateo where more disease specimens
were collected and preserved, particularly of scab and Mai di
gomma. By June 30 they were in Boardman where they came in
contact with the foot rot disease on lemons and orange blight. As
to the blight, Smith wrote in his note book, " This is the first place
where this disease has given us any satisfaction." Dr. G. C. Lamar
took them southwest to the hills, or high hammock land, and they
examined examples of a disease known as " Frenching." The next
day they were in Citra, a large shipping point of the Florida
citrous mdustry and near where orange groves sold at one thousand
dollars per acre, and there encountered the first undoubted cases
of the die-back disease. At this point, lemon scab was so serious
that growers were considering digging up whole groves. They
were now in the heart of the grove areas of the state, since, except-
ing along the ocean and gulf fronts, the entire state land area
south of Lake Okeechobee was still almost completely uninhabited.
Smith wrote in his notes: " Florida is a fiat land full of malaria,
mosquitoes, flies, and jiggers. It is inhabited principally by North-
ern people who have gone there to grow oranges or escape con-
sumption. Agriculturally it is poor but there are great possibili-
ties." Southwest from Citra they "went to Ocala, and thence to
Eldorado, a way station on the north shore of Lake Harris. Lemon

"^Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology for 1891: 361.
** This account is based on Smiths diary or book of notes kept on tlie journey.

226 Investigations in Plant Pathology

scab, orange blight and die-back for years had been doing damage
there.

July 4 they began to examine the important Piatt grove whose
owner for some while had been among those who had urged the
Division to work on citrous diseases. Since the Florida citrous
industry represented an investment of more than one hundred
million dollars and possessed 2,800,000 bearing orange and lemon
trees, according to the latest census, the Division had regarded-
with favor the many petitions and requests received, particularly
since by 1893 one disease — the so-called wilt or blight — during six
years would have destroyed more than a million and a quarter
dollars worth of trees. On July 7 Smith and Swingle found in this
sixteen-acre grove 100 cases of "wilt" already causing losses
which Smith estimated at $1,500. He was told that others had
lost more than this sum. Indeed, since the disease was spreading
and becoming more serious, threatened losses were large. Care-
fully he listed and described every symptom, because this new and
destructive disease was the real reason why Smith and Swingle
had been sent to Florida."' They came to no conclusion as to its
cause other than that the disease appeared to be undergound, and
merited further study.

Smith observed " no signs of insects and no fungi on parts above
ground. Symptoms are such as one might expect if tree were
deprived of its water supply but no lack of moisture in the soil "
could be seen. " Heavy rains," he further noted, " do not revive
such trees." Further notes of this and another disease "not in the
books " were taken, and on July 8, they left by wagon for Leesburg
whence Smith left for Palatka, from there planning to go to Como
to visit his high school principal of Ionia, Michigan, Anson P.
DeWolf, and another old friend. Swingle remained in Florida
and "completed," as Galloway reported that year, "the circuit
of the more important orange-growing regions. Groves were care-
fully examined and the orange growers interviewed at twenty-six
towns in fourteen counties."^ Smith continued to examine plant
diseases, finding on July 9 much genuine " die back " and at least

"^ Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 20. The statistical data are taken from a letter
from Galloway to Secretary Morton, April 1, 1893. Smith's studies during this
period of " gummosis of the peach " and of *' foot rot of the orange" made with
'' Comes' findings in mind " ended with the belief that neither disease was due to
bacteria.

""P. 373.

Placed on a Nation-widf. Basis 227

one new symptom of one of the diseases studied. DeWolf's
animated interest in the work must have been a happy source of
satisfaction to Smith. All along the way Smitii had enjoyed the
Florida llora and animal life. He thrilled to sec an alligator,
whose bellowintrs he had heard at ni<;ht and which was killed
when attacking a dog. The number of introduced plants intrigued
him, particularly the bamboos, some three to live inches in diameter
and sixty feet high. Everywhere the scenery was attractive and
beautiful and the visit with DeWolf provided a happy climax.
\\ ork awaited him at Washington, however. He little realized
he had participated in the preliminary reconnaissance which would
final ly culmmate, largely through the efforts of Swingle and
Galloway, in securing'the establishment of the Department's sub-
tropical laboratory at Eustis, Florida. Pierce may not have been
altogether conscious on his first journey to California that his
reconnaissance would lead to the establishment of the Pacific
coast laboratory of the Department at Santa Ana, California. Only
a few^ years would pass and these two laboratories would be
performing some of the Department's most important work.
Smith arrived in Washington on July 11, but within a few days
was again at work on the Chesapeake peninsula.

Chapter VI

EARLY STUDIES IN BACTERIAL PLANT DISEASES. FUSARIUM DISEASES
OF PLANTS, FLORIDA AND CALIFORNIA LABORATORIES

ON MAY 7, 1892, James W. Tourney, botanist and entomol:
ogist of the Arizona Agricultural College and Experiment
Station at Tucson, sent Smith " a small box containing cherry and
peach leaves which show[ed} peculiar circular holes and inden-
tations. Rose, peach, apricot, cherry and some of our native shrubs
and trees," said Toumey in his accompanying letter,

are affected in a similar manner. On some trees, this disease, if it may be
called such, is so bad that nothing is left of the leaves but midrib. The
tissue in affected leaves withers and dies in narrow circular streaks and
soon the intervening tissue or part of leaf drops out. The remainder of
leaf in all cases apparently is perfectly healthy. Whether this condition is
brought about by unfavorable conditions of growth, I do not know. J
would be pleased for any information in regard to it that you can give.

Toumey had graduated in science from Michigan Agricultural
College in 1889, and before obtaining his master's degree from
the same institution in 1895, spent part of the year 1893 as a
special student at Harvard. In his later prepared bulletin 33 of
the Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, "An Inquiry into
the Cause and Nature of Crown-Gall," ^ he stated that his atten-
tion was first called to another disease variously known as crown-
gall, crown-knot, root knot, root galls, etc., in 1893 from " many
observations . . . made in infested orchards in the Salt River
Valley." He examined the disease, its development, and possible
corrective measures. The next year was published his preliminary
report," the same year Smith's general account of " Stem and Root
Tumors " ^ from his " Field Notes, 1892 " reached mycologists
and pathologists. Smith said in part:

* April 13, 1900, Published accounts relating to crown-gall, 8.

' Bull. 12 Ariz. Agric. Exp't Sta., 1894.

^ Jour. Myc. 7(4): 376-377, Aug. 15, 1894. See also Bulletin of the Torrey
Botanical Club 20: 363 (proc. Botanical Club, American Assoc. Adv. Sci., Madison
meet., August 18-22, 1893, abstract or statement by Smith concerning his preliminary
microscopic examinations).

228

Floripa and California Laboratories 229

Tumors on the roots of peach trees have been found by the writer in
several localities during the past few years, and have been reported from
many parts of the United States. They occur on roots of all a^cs, and
vary greatly in size, the larqest ones bcin^ several inches in diameter.
Usually these tumors are several to many times the diameter of the root,
and are entirely unlike the small galls produced by nematodes. They also
occur on stems above ground, peach trees thus affected having been
received from Texas and Tlorida.

This disease occurs from New Jersey to Florida and westward to the
Pacific, but at present it is most prevalent in Texas and California, where
it is causing much anxiety. In California it attacks orchard trees as well
as nursery stock, and seriously injures both. . . .

It has been obsefved by the writer on the peach, plum, almond, pear,
and poplar, and it has been reported as occurring on the roots of other
trees and shrubs, e. g., apricot, apple, fig, walnut, raspberry, blackberry,
and vine, and root tumors of some sort certainly occur on these plants.

The inner tissues in young specimens of the peach and almond tumors
appear to be entirely free from nematodes and fungi, bacteria, and phy-
tomyxineae, and their cause is involved in uncertainty. The most probable
hypothesis is that they are due to some external irritant. Those who have
the opportunity to examine early stages of this disease should certainly look
for external parasites, especially animal organisms. . . .

Since December 1892, crown gall as a fleshly outgrowth on
roots of deciduous fruit trees had been described in the literature
of the state experiment stations. That year C. M. Woodworth,
in a bulletin of the California station, had called attention to the
disease. Edward J. Wickson, Professor of Horticulture of the
university at Berkeley, had written on it. Liberty Hyde Bailey,
in his Annals of Horticulture for North America during the year
1892,^ had referred to it in an article on " Plant Diseases and
Insects," and, with every year the literature grew until such leading
authorities as Atkinson and Bailey in New York, Halsted in New
Jersey, Taft in Michigan, Augustus Dawson Selby, botanist of the
Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, and others, had dealt with
it.^ During the year 1893 Smith corresponded on the subject with
John Scott, horticultural commissioner of the county of Los
Angeles, California, and received several lots of specimens of
the disease, representing different phases. March 3, 1894, Toumey
wrote again to Smith:

* New York, 1893, Rural Publishing Co., pp. 94-124. See also the Annals for

1891, p. 109.

° Published accounts relating to crown-gall, op. cit., 9.

230 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

More than a year ago I sent the Department of Agriculture specimens
of grape roots showing peculiar bunches or galls. This disease is known
throughout the Southwest as " crown -root gall " or root-knot. It is not
only found on the grape, but affects nearly every variety of fruit tree grown
in Arizona. It is especially injurious to the peach. The knots most fre-
quently form just below the surface and not infrequently grow to be two
or three times as great in diameter as the tree itself. They sometimes
appear, however, on all parts of the root, and even along the trunk a foot
or more from the ground. I have found them beginning to develop on the
roots of seedlings only two or three weeks from the pit. In a Nursery in'
Phoenix only a few weeks ago, several thousand one year old peach trees
were condemned and destroyed, all being affected with the root-knot.
After reaching a certain size, the knots seem to cut off the flow of sap to
the parts above, causing the side of the tree on which the knots develop,
to die. Even in the later condition, in walking through a peach orchard,
those affected by the root-knot are easily recognized by the dark, dull,
appearance of the bark, and the distorted buds. Six or seven-year old
orchards last year lost from ten to twenty per cent of the entire number of
trees, and from all appearances as many more will die during the coming
season. The old knots are brownish black and easily crumble in the
fingers; the young knots are white, soft and full of sap.

Knowing that you have been working on the peach for the last three
years, I thought likely your attention had already been called to this
disease, and that you could give me information regarding investigations
that have been made in the study of this knot. I enclose with this letter
a few specimens cut from peach roots.

Smith had wanted to renew his indoor laboratory investigations
of peach yellows and other diseases of agricultural crops. On
October 9, 1892, while at Still Pond, Maryland, he had written to
Galloway:

Am looking over the orchards once more, and for the last time I trust
to get the ups and downs of the disease by years, in varying seasons.

As soon as this year's field work is wound up, I want to begin in the
same thorough way on laboratory work, and as a preliminary, I made out
a list of lenses and other accessories which will be necessary as soon,
almost, as I start in on it, and which I wish you would order for me as
soon as possible, so that the whole winter may not be lost in waiting for
them. I want to study the diseased protoplasm and can't do much without
the best appliances. The mechanical stage is for photographing. With it
I can use my stand for that purpose.

Will try and get along with VanDieman's microtome, which I suppose
we can continue to use, but it will be necessary to have one or two extra
knives. We ought to have one at least which shall always be in good
order and never used on anything but sojt tissues.

Florida and California Laboratories 231

He furnished Clalloway with a list of needed apparatus, some,
if not most, of which was to be ordered direct from Zeiss, or
Zeiss' agent, timer ^: Amend. Cialloway had replied that it
seemed to him *' highly important to push the laboratory work
as rapidly as possible. Tiic investigations already made," he added,
" have paved the way for a very tempting field for research." At
this time. Swingle, who had completed his and Smith's 1891
Florida reconnaissance and in 1892 from March until late summer
reconnoitered the state again, studying orange blight during its
period of greatest prevalence and other diseases of agricultural
crops, had returried to Washington and was outlining with
Galloway a plan of work for the Department's new sub-tropical
laboratory at Eustis. His list of desiderata for the Eustis labora-
tory was combined with Smith's list.

On July 1, 1892, the annual appropriation for the Division of
Vegetable Pathology had been increased by five thousand dollars.
This, together with the generous offers of Florida growers to
place at the Department's disposal several large and small groves
in different parts of the state for investigational purposes, and,
more specifically, the offer of Eustis citizens to donate sufficient
grounds for experimental plats and to build under Departmental
supervision though at their expense the laboratory, had enabled
the Division's officials to grant the importunities of more than one
hundred petitions and resolutions of the Orange Growers Con-
vention and the state Horticultural Society. Swingle went to
Leesburg, Sanford, Altoona, and other important industrial centers,
became acquainted with many of the more progressive grove
owners, secured support for the appropriation from legislators,
returned to Washington when the appropriation was approved,
and, knowing that the laboratory would be authorized, w^ent again
to Florida to select the site and put to good use in his orange
blight investigation his knowledge of plant physiology and path-
ology. Botanists had recognized the significance of Kellerman's
and Swingle's corn breeding work at Kansas Agricultural College."
Frequently Swingle wrote to Smith and a letter of June 19, 1892,
written from Sanford, was of especial interest:

* B. D. Halsted, What the station botanists are doing, Botanical Gazette 16: 288,
Oct. 1891.

232 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

I have been stopping with . . . Lyman Phelps over a vi^eek. He knows a
great deal about Citrus and has many exceedingly valuable crosses. . . .
Probably has $15,000 worth of crosses. Has discovered that the bud taken
from belotv a crossed flower may show influence of pollen ! ! ! Showed
me influence of stock on scion and has often seen it. Will send you and
me boxes of crosses and teratological and pathological growths for study
next winter.

July 21 he told Smith by letter, " I have been offered trees to
bud (and have budded firm large ones with blight) . . .". Swingle
continued his studies of orange pollination, began budding and
grafting experiments, and now must have anticipated his famous
work in cross breeding and hybridizing of citrus. He chose H. J.
Webber to be his co-worker at Eustis. Webber, skillful in plant
physiology and pathology, was to become one of America's out-
standing authorities on plant breeding. Appointed to his position
on September 15, he was soon in Washington to receive his instruc-
tions. During the first weeks of October, they were " busy looking
up books, apparatus, and making plans " ^ for their laboratory.
Late that month they journeyed to Jacksonville, and thence went
by boat on the St. Johns River to Sanford, described by Webber
in a letter to Bessey as " the early seat of American Citrus culture
and at present probably the home of the greatest practical orange
grower in America." They arrived at Eustis on October 25, and
by November the citizens there were building their six-room
laboratory consisting of a library, culture room, dark room, and
three work rooms.

In May, Fairchild had written Smith and told how much he was
enjoying working at the Division's laboratory at Geneva, New
York, the " best laboratory room," he said, " I have worked in
by all means."

On July 31, Newton B. Pierce, again at Santa Ana, had thanked
Smith for a copy of his paper on the " Chemistry of Peach
Yellows." He had just completed typing " a translation of a
valuable paper on the hybridization of the vine, by Millardet.
Will probably present the same with my own observations on
Coulure," he wrote. " The almond disease which I did some work
on last fall has been conquered and I am now of the opinion that
the souring of the figs may in part at least be likewise mastered.

' Letter from May Varney to Smith, October 17.

Florida and C^AiiroRNiA Laboratoiuhs 233

Can I hut master that disease 1 shall feci as if I had done one of
the finest pieces of work done by the Department for some time.
It is a matter of vast importance to this section of the Union.
There are several other diseases which are receiving attention,"
but his main work then was on the ficr malady. Pierce had counted
on his " many and long letters " to Galloway to keep Smith advised
of his activities. Much interested in Smith's researches on peach
yellows and peach rosette, he had written from Santa Ana on
January 24:

I would like tO/lc.irn of the situation in Geors^ia respecting the disease
there. Smith, can it be possible that a ferment in a localized position in
a plant may set up a fermentation which may persist and become cumula-
tive.^ I look for some facts from your Georgia disease which will throw new
light on many plant diseases. Hope you may find them. It would please
me much to hear from you and learn what are the prospects along the line
of bacteriology in your two diseases. The fig disease I am working on is a
mighty interesting one, but I shall now have to drop it till another season
for want of fruit on trees to experiment on. If you know of any first class
v/orks on fermentation and ferments don't be bashful in telling me about
them. My chances to get hold of works out here are altogether too slim.

Pierce had returned to California in the summer of 1891 and
immediately taken up again his work on the California vine dis-
ease. En route to Los Angeles and Santa Ana, he visited northern
and central portions of the state: the Sacramento valley, the Napa
valley, the Sonoma valley, the Santa Clara valley, the San Joaquin
valley, and, in the course of his journey, had called on Hilgard
and Harkness at Berkeley. " The leading troubles to fruit in this
state," he reported to Galloway on July 30, 1891, "are scale
insects on the various trees. Phylloxera in the Napa and Sonoma
valleys as well as near Niles, and the disease I am at work upon."
On August 4, he reported from Orange:

I came down to Orange and through the Santa Ana valley Monday the
3rd. The old vines throughout this valley and in the neighborhood are
now nearly all removed. A great abundance for scientific work remain,
of course, but the majority of them are gone.

There are about Orange and Santa Ana — within a few miles of these
places — perhaps 25-30 small test vineyards now already started. These
comprise vines grown from cuttings and rooted plants procured from
unaffected districts and from other new vines of this district, set previously.
I have already visited seven of these new vineyards. The outlook is
good. . . .

234 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

I have run across an important disease of the almond and another of the
soft shelled walnut, and as time permits I hope to work them both up for
our ]ourj2al.^ ... I have already obtained the right to treat the affected
almond trees. They are losing their leaves now in midsummer from the
effects of the fungus. The black knot of the soft shelled walnut is now
becoming a serious matter, and I intend to start cultures in tubes at once
and see if the trouble be due to any fungus growth — for it certainly looks
much as if it were caused in that way. . . .

If the raisin grape is again grown with success, the country will be
made. . . .

Pierce's main address was still Los Angeles. He had not yet
located his laboratory at Santa Ana. Department officials were
experiencing such difficulty in supplying funds for his work that
for a while at least vouchers for his accounts were transferred to
the Botanical Division. On August 24, 1891, however, he in-
formed Galloway,

I have again located permanently at Santa Ana. I have looked over the
field with care and consider this best. Good quarters have been obtained
and I am fitting up a laboratory for immediate and future use. Bacteri-
ological supplies must come from the East I find, and I may order them at
Santa Ana as well as at Los Angeles. . . . [T]he former place is better
situated on account of the young vineyards and the field work.

Faces in the valley have shortened considerably since my last sojourn
here — even a smile may now and then be noticed. The healthful appear-
ance of young vines is the cause.

Residents of Orange sought to have him locate his laboratory
there. But he chose Santa Ana and by August 27 was ordering
peptone, agar agar, and gelatin, as well as test tubes, glass rods,
and other supplies. By October 11, he reported to Galloway that
he had occupied himself " mostly of late with culture work and a
disease of the almond [Cercospora circumscissa Sacc.) very injur-
ious to foliage in this region. The germination and morphology
of this form are of interest and its effects of importance to be
considered. The work has been largely laboratory work. . . ."

Pierce was pleased at the progress being made at Washington.
He learned that the Division of Vegetable Pathology was now
quartered in " rooms formerly occupied by the B[ureau of}
A[nimal} Industry. That must be much pleasanter for you in

^ Jour. Mycology 7(2): 66-76, March 10, 1892; 7(3) : 232-239, May 15, 1893
(concerning the almond disease and remedies therefor).

Floriha and C.Ai.ii-ORNiA Lahokatories 235

manv ways." he commented. " I have often wondered liow you
could work under the conditions of tlie past to any degree of
satisfaction to yourself."

In 1892 there was published an article on the " Mysterious vine
disease," ° which advanced Pierce's solution of using cuttings from
healthy vines and from regions where the disease did not exist.
This article gave wide currency in California to the practical results
of his investigations, and evidently was appreciated, since his
recommendation to start from perfectly healthy cuttings had given
the vineyardists their first real basis for hope of saving their
industry. At Wtishington, on June 15, 1891, Pierce had submitted
his preliminary report on the California vine disease, and in it
included a chapter on treatment. In this he had discussed matters
of cultivation, pruning, cutting back, seedlings, and the very
important topics of the hardiness of varieties and grafting resistant
stock. Yet, publication of the report w^as delayed, and, the vine-
yardists prodding, he, on October 26, 1892, addressed a letter to
Galloway to learn if possible when the report would be ready for
distribution. Said Pierce:

The people among whom I am working very naturally are surprised at
the delay in a report of the first moment to all this part of California. It
is a piece of work which will certainly give us strength with the vine and
fruit growers of this State, but this long delay in publishing is destroying,
beforehand, the interest which naturally attaches to the work, and will
detract materially from the credit which the Department should reap from
having conducted the work.

No one knows half as well as myself the intrinsic value to the vine-
yardists of this State of that report. TTie facts brought out in relation to the
transmission of the disease by means of cuttings alone are of sufficient
value to warrant as early publication of the report as possible. . . . The
season for making cuttings for the coming winter's setting is now almost at
hand, and I should expect that a loss of many thousands of dollars more
would result from the delay in the publication of that report if it is not
distributed here in proper season for its facts to be taken advantage of
for the coming season's work. There are also hundreds of facts there
which would help to guide in the selection of location for vines and the
care of the same which are of thousands of dollars value to the young vine
growers now about to start vineyards.

In his report he had stated: '° " The facts point to the present

"Rural Californian 15: 129, May 1892; see also California Fruit Grower 10: 154,

March 5, 1892. , . . ,. a ,• ■ . c ■ .■

^"Bulletin No 2 The Cahfornia vine disease. A prehminary report ot investiga-
tions, chap XI, p. 206, Washington, Gov't Print. Office, 1892.

236 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

existence of the inciting cause of the disease as either an external
parasite or as internal and cumulative." Therefore, how to elimi-
nate the parasitic cause? During the summer of 1892, Pierce
prepared a paper in the belief that the disease known as coulure
eventually would have to be conquered in the light of Millardet's
work on hybridization of the vine. He wrote Galloway to ask
whether he should not append a copy of the translation to his
paper. "As you of course know," he told Galloway, " Millardet's
work has been with the object of obtaining a vine or vines which
shall be resistant to the more important diseases and yet retain
good fruit-producing qualities. It is not at all unlikely that it will
be along this line that the trouble of coulure will eventually have
to be conquered. . . ." This letter was dated July 18, 1892. Gallo-
way read Millardet's paper, approved its translation, suggested
Millardet might revise and add to the text, sent a few references
on fertilization of grapes, explained that other Departmental pub-
lications than Pierce's vine disease report had been similarly
delayed, and that he, as much as anyone, awaited with pleasure
the printed volume. That summer Pierce gave much time to
studying the souring-of-figs disease. Alike for this and the grape
trouble he planned to go to Fresno. He was sure that in 1888
Emerich Rathay had published in Vienna a paper, " Die Gesch-
lechtsverhaeltnisse der Reben," which contained much valuable
information on vine fertilization and the vitality of pollen which
might prove helpful in his coulure investigation. He inquired of
Galloway whether there was a copy of it in the Department's
library or whether he would have to order it from Berlin. Ob-
viously, he was working on his valuable achievement of 1892 —
the production by hybridization of disease-resistant vines which
bore " superb bunches of fruit of excellent quality. Mr. Pierce's
first crosses," later ^^ wrote Smith, "were made according to my
recollection in 1892. Mr. Pierce also successfully crossed raisin
grapes to resist coulure, a disease which renders the bunches ragged
and worthless for market by causing the abortion of the whole or a
large part of the berries when they are very small."

Galloway reported in 1893 that Pierce had shown that coulure

^^ Plant breeding in the United States Department of Agriculture, Royal Horti-
cultural Society's Report of the Conference on Genetics — 1906, reprint, 303, 1907.
See also Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 22. In that address. Smith, without
qualification, gives the year as 1892.

Fl.ORlOA AND (^AI.irORNIA LABORATORIES 237

may be " largely prevented by grafting . . . susceptible varieties
upon more hardy roots." He also reported results on the crossing
of the Muscat of Alexandria with a good variety of raisin grape
not subject to coulure, and combining disease resistance with
desirable qualities of fruit. He revealed:

From the crossing of stocks the best results are expected. A vine known
in Calitornia as the Malaga, and usually grown as a raisin qrape, has been
selected to cross with the Ahiscat of Alexaiuiria. It embodies hardiness of
bloom, top, and root, and the qualities which appear desirable. A suitable
location for conducting the work was found in the Lucerne Vineyard at
Hanford, Cal[iforaia]. During the blooming season the crossing was
successfully accomplished, the Malaga beint; used as the pollinating
variety. As a result of this cross several hundred berries set and arrived
at maturity. It is hoped that plants grown from the seed of these berries
will possess most of the hardy qualities of flower, top, and root, so marked
in the Malaga. This view is based on the results obtained by Prof[essor]
Millardet in the production of over 10,000 hybrid vines.^-

Furthcrmore, it was announced that "A bulletin on coulure of
raisin grapes [was then] being prepared, embodying the results
to date. It will include a translation of a paper by Prof[essor]
Millardet on the hybridization of the vine." This work, begun
in 1892, began to attain flourishing promise by 1894. Pierce gave
some time in 1892 to completing a paper on " Prune Rust," ^^ and
by letter of November 20 Galloway praised his presentation of
this disease and its treatment. "' It is an interesting paper," he
wrote, " and will, I am sure, attract widespread attention. The
photographs are very striking. They were shown Mr. Willits, and
he seemed very much pleased with them. The results are especially
interesting to me because it is the first rust disease that has really
been presented."

Coulure claimed in 1892 losses of more than six hundred
thousand dollars ^' in the San Joaquin Valley alone. Pierce
realized that, to preserve the industry, he could not abandon his
efforts to solve this disease. Since his first years in California,
he had kept Smith advised of his progress. July 27, 1894, at Chico,

^° Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology for the year 1893,
op. cit., 273. At p. 273-274 appeared a statement of the work done thus far on
the California vine disease.

]our. Mycology 7(4): 354-362, Aug. 15, 1894.

1893 report, supra, 273.

It

238 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

he wrote of his work in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys,
and referred to his " nearly 1000 acres of raisin grapes in the
Lucerne Vineyard" at Hanford where he had spent some seven
weeks in very warm weather. " I made 10 new crosses among
the raisin grapes during my stay there," he reported,

which involved the emasculation of something like 16,000 to 20,000 grape
flowers. . . . But if we can only grow the vines from them I shall feel
abundantly repaid for this hard work. . . . The crossing of the raisin
grapes is a line of work very important to this portion of the world and
to all vine growing or rather raisin producing countries. . . . The whole
world does not contain more than 12 to 15 good raisin varieties, while
the good wine grapes may be numbered by the hundreds if not thousands — ■
and the table varieties are not far behind in number. This shows you the
newness of the field so far as raisin grapes are concerned, and I know of
no good reason why California should not be the birthplace of hundreds
of good raisin grapes especially adapted to its climate so as to hold their
fruit and be comparatively free from other troubles. As I have started
this line of work I think I will keep it up each spring. The field is
certainly a most fertile one and wholly unoccupied so far as I am aware.
The chances are all favorable to the production of most valuable grapes
for this region. The work has in direct view the prevention of Coulure
by the production of a hardy variety which will resist the unfavorable
climatic conditions as the Malaga now does.

Pierce had not conquered the California vine disease, although
Galloway reported in 1893 that during the " past season . . . the
disease [had] lost much of its virulence." ^^ He took its study into
his indoor laboratory, and, along with microscopical examinations
of Plasfuodiophora brassicae, persisted with this research which
he recognized to be on '"the very frontier of vegetable pathology."
He had no doubt that what he characterized as " constitutional
effects were physiological effects." He asked Galloway in a letter
of October 17, 1893,

Why are not the peculiar characters of this trouble showing in that
valley of 40,000 to 50,000 acres of Muscats and a large extent of wine
vineyards.^ Why does a perfectly ripened cutting from a diseased vine
produce a diseased vine in a region where this disease was never seen
before.? 160 acres of Muscat cuttings died with this disease in Arizona,
and still Arizona vines do not die with this disease so far as I am able to
learn.

If the disease was wholly a physiological trouble, he could not

" 1893 report, supra, 274.

FlOR11\-\ and CaIIIOIINIA LAlK)RAT(MUliS 239

understand " why thousands of vines of the most susceptible of
all the varieties, the old Mission, should prosper for a century
over all this vast region, mk\ why at present perfectly healthy
cuttings set out [there] grew with perfect health for one or
two years and then [contracted] this disease in all its strong
characteristics."

Like Smith in peach yellows, while he suspected a parasite,
cellular examinations made with the most advanced learning in
section cutting, staining, indeed, working up some new methods
of his own in studying the " living plasmodium," still failed to
establish any orj^anism positively proven to be the cause of the
disease. In his monograph, "Additional Evidence on the Com-
municability of Peach' Yellows and Peach Rosette," '' Smith had
spoken of a " germ or virus of some sort " transmitted from
diseased to healthy parts of a tree. This was a conclusion as to
peach rosette. As to peach yellows he had concluded, "Only a
very small amount of infective material is necessary, provided it
be in the forms of living cells, which can be induced to unite the
actively growing tissues of the tree." The problem of how the
infectious matter makes its entrance into healthy trees was still
unsettled, as were the disease's incubation period, the exact nature
of the contagium, and its method of spread other than by bud
inoculation.'"" Late in the year 1893, Smith, thanking F. H. Harper
of Still Pond, Maryland, for another prescription and claimed cure
for peach yellows, expressed the opinion that the disease, " not
being due to a root aphis, or, so far as I can make out, to any root
parasite," seemed best explained as " a something in all the juices
and tissues of the diseased tree, as shown very clearly by bud
inoculations." This was not his final writing upon the subject.
He had observed the seemingly varying degrees of resistance
shown by various trees and had not been unmindful of the pos-
sibilities of searching out the bearing which immunity might play.
But he had decided to put his " time on lines of work which
seem[ed] to promise better results."

On March 27, 1893, Acting Regent Thomas J. Burrill of the
University of Illinois had advised Smith that the large peach trees

"Bulletin 1: 54, U. S. Dcp't of Apric, Div. of Veg. Path., Washington, Gov't
Print. Office, 1891.
'" Idem, 44-45.

240 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

sent him were dead — two destroyed by careless workmen, and one
had died of tiie disease, its death hastened by freezing during
the winter of 1891-1892. Scions of the last tree had been saved,
buds taken and inserted in healthy stock, and the disease had been
communicated. BurriU regarded this as of sufficient significance
to report. By 1893 Michigan, New York, Connecticut, Penn-
sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and California had passed
yellows legislation applicable to parts or the whole of each state. ^^
Smith had continued his search for a parasite. But in 1893 the
most which Galloway could say " in his annual report was that
microscopic examinations of healthy and diseased tissues were
still being made.

Other workers were finding difficulty in solving fundamentals
of their problems. Some experiments to determine the efficacy of
methods to prevent wheat rust ~° had proved disappointing. In
1894 M. A. Carleton of Kansas Agricultural College would be
placed in charge of cereal crop investigations, including rust and
smut diseases. January 30, 1893, Pierce confided to Smith:

My work on the vine is not as satisfactory as I wish it could be. I find
it exceedingly hard to get down to it on account of the heavy load of other
work that I must do as I go along. There is hardly a day that I am not
called upon to work on some other disease — material coming to me from
all parts of the Pacific Coast. It is all work that should be done, but it
almost prevents me from working on my special subject. I have of late
found it necessary to add another room to my laboratory. I now have 4
rooms. An office, library and writing room combined facing the east; a
bed room back of the office ; a large room for a laboratory facing the west ;
and a room back of this for collections and a general storeroom. There is
a grate in the office, and the laboratory can be warmed with a gasoline
stove. This gives me east and west light and good rooms to work in. I
am getting a pretty solid hold in southern Calif[ornia}, and in fact all
along the coast, as is evinced by the letters of inquiry being received.

Swingle and Webber at the Subtropical Laboratory at Eustis,
Florida, had not yet solved, of course, the difficult orange blight
problem, although each was finding working with citrus delightful.
Morphological and histological investigations were in progress.
They were studying the transpiration of healthy and diseased

18

1893 report, supra, 275.
" Idem.

^"Additional experiments in the treatment of wheat rust, Report for 1893:
252-258.

Florida and California Laboratories 241

plants, and examining leaves and conducting tissue of healthy and
diseased limbs. On March 2\, 1893, Swingle had written to Smith
and told him of his orange grove pollination experiments. " Have
made a good number of cross pollination experiments," he said,
" and have studied the means by which it is accomplished in
nature." Swingle had closely observed the pollinating roles of the
honey and huriible bees, the humming bird, and he was interested
in the warbler and what it, as well as other birds, accomplished
in the process. Swingle was a man of far-sighted vision. Webber
believed that he possessed a true Darwinian zest for scientific
inquiry. Early he envisioned the possibilities of large scale plant
introductions, an " acclimatizing scheme " he called it in a letter
of May 5, 1893, to Smith, as a principal way of advancing the
state's industrial economy. Plant disease study was the other prin-
cipal investigational branch. By 1894 Galloway was reporting
that,

Sooty mold, a destructive disease of the orange and other citrous fruits,
has been successfully treated. Scab of lemon, another very troublesome
disease, has also been held in check by the application of fungicides. It is
believed now that with the increased knowledge as to the cause of these
diseases they may be held in check at comparatively small expense. The
more obscure diseases of the orange, such as blight, foot rot, and die back,
have been further studied and much additional information has been
obtained in regard to them.

Swingle and Webber did not confine themselves to citrous
diseases, but, like Pierce at the Pacific Coast laboratory, diligently
pursued laboratory and field examinations in a wide variety of
agricultural crops. An early prominent phase of inquiry was in
what Swingle described to Smith in 1893 as " fertilizer-in relation-
to-disease." On behalf of this and the so-called acclimatization
work Swangle appeared before the state horticultural society
meeting at Pensacola to inculcate further interest and secure special
appropriations in aid of the work. Both men became American
plant breeders of eminence. Webber, with special abilities as a
c)'tologist and a special interest in plant fecundation, extended at
Eustis his knowledge of the art and science of plant breeding.
The brilliant achievements of Swingle and Webber in citrous
hybridization will be considered at a point later. Now both men
were doing important work in plant pathology.

242 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

Late in the year 1892 Dr. H. L. Russell was offered a special
assignment at the Eustis laboratory to investigate the bacteriology
of citrous fruits. He, however, declined owing to the fact that
during the school year 1892-1893, as a part of the " Programme
of Courses in Biology " at the University of Chicago, he was
presenting a lecture course on " Special Problems in Bacteriology."
In September 1892 the Experiment Station Record ^^ had published
a strong editorial on the need of station investigations of plant
bacterial diseases made in strict compliance with the canons of
Koch. Russell had furnished suggested materials for the editorial.
" Four or more Lectures " were all that was promised in his course
at the University of Chicago. Knowledge of the bacteria which
cause diseases of plants was still immature. In 1892 William
Wood and Company of New York had published George M.
Sternberg's Manual of Bacteriology, a volume of 886 pages. Not
until the second revised edition issued in 1901, however, would a
chapter on plant parasites be included, and even then considera-
tion of the saprophytes would be altogether omitted. Sternberg
requested Smith to submit his publications for this chapter of his
volume which in 1896 became Text-book of bacteriology, a volume
of 693 pages.'- Observers, the editorial of 1892 said, had recog-
nized bacteria, and in instances the bacterial nature, of certain
plant diseases. Some students had transferred " bits of diseased
tissue containing bacteria from affected to healthy plants," and if
the disease was seen to " spread to any extent this ha[d} been
regarded as sufficient evidence that the malady was of a bacterial
nature. " Elaborate equipment was neither the test nor the pre-
requisite of good work in plant bacteriology since " pathological
inquiry from a medical standpoint call[ed} for more accurately
adjusted conditions than [was] necessary for the study of many
problems from an agricultural standpoint. Good work has and
can yet be done with but little other than the simplest appliance."
The editorial urged that " the general principles of the subject in
relation to agriculture need[ed} to be more thoroughly developed.
. . . Medicine ha[d] taken up the subject largely from the hygienic
standpoint and outside of pathogenic forms little ha[d} been
done on the general biology of microorganisms since the death

"4(2): 111-113.

^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., bibliog., 1: 204-205.

Florida and California Laboratorihs 213

ot DcBarv. The \vlu)k' doniaiii ot the physu)U)L;y of bacteria
otTer[ed] numerous prolilems of which " as yet little was known.
During the dry summer of 1892 a destructive disease of
cucumber, melon, and squash appeared near Washington. Pre-
occupied with the larger investigations of the California vine
disease, orange diseases in Florida, and fruit diseases in New
York, the half dozen workers of the Division of Vegetable
Pathology had not been able to give immediate close study to
each newly reported crop disease. Smith, while going to and from
Maryland in peach yellows work, may have discovered the wilt
disease of cucurbits. His attention may have been called to it,
while studying another malady. In the autumn of 1892, a destruc-
tive muskmelon disease, not before known in this country, was
found in southwest Michigan. Most of his study of this was done
in his Washington laboratory. After he had started his culture
examinations, he found early in 1893 a published article on it by
Dr. Victor A. Peglion of the Laboratorio di Botanica e Patologia
Vegetale of the Royal School of Viticulture and Enology at
Avellino, Italy. He had another Italian correspondent. In 1888
he had written to Fridiano Cavara of the Laboratorio Crittogamico
of the Royal Botanical Institute of the University of Pavia and
procured his publications on plant diseases, mostly diseases of
grapes. May 18, 1893, Smith told Peglion that, from his reading,
the disease he described was identical " with one which did con-
siderable damage in parts of the United States last season," and
he asked Peglion to send " specimens of the leaves showing spore
tufts," so that he might compare. June 28, he wrote again to
Peglion

Your kind letter, together with the specimens and pamphlets, came
soon after my second letter to you. I am greatly obliged, and when I have
studied your fungus a little more thoroughly I will write you again con-
erning it. At the present writing I have a number of plate cultures going
and it appears to be identical with the one which I have from this country,
but perhaps it is too early to speak positively.

Smith isolated the fungus, an Alternaria, in pure culture, made
many beautiful drawings and obtained " numerous beautiful infec-
tions by spraying pure sporulating cultures on the foliage." -^ He

*' Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 20; Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 22.

244 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

believed that an ascopore form of the fungus should be present
But this was not found at that time.

In August 1893, when Smith submitted at the Madison meeting
of Section G -* a paper on " The Muskmelon Alternaria," his work
on that new and destructive disease of cucurbits was fairly well
completed. Infections with pure cultures, however, had not as
yet been secured with reference to the disease of cucumbers,
cantaloupes, and squashes. Histological studies made in connec-
tion with its symptoms indicated its bacterial origin " almost
beyond doubt " and " almost certainly " its transmission by insects.
Some anatomical and physiological examinations had been made.
But the entire malady was to be restudied and the promised
printing of his paper by the Department of Agriculture never
appeared. It was at best a preliminary account; with improve-
ments made in his laboratory technique, his study of the bacterial
wilt of cucurbits would last many years. This subject will soon be
considered again more fully. An International Botanical Congress
was being held at Madison at the same meetings of the American
Association. Other important papers on diseases of plants were
presented before Section G. Swingle described briefly the " prin-
cipal diseases of citrous fruits " being studied at Eustis: blight,
mal di gomma, die-back, etc. P. H. Rolfs, a former student of
Pammel and now botanist and entomologist of the Florida station
at Lake City, presented a paper on "A sclerotium disease of
plants." ''

The World's Columbian Exposition was then being held at
Chicago, and the Department of Agriculture had an important
exhibit there. The Microscopical, Entomological, Pomological,
Vegetable Pathological, and other Divisions of the Department
had prepared elaborate displays befitting the Exposition's magni-
tude, and these, housed in the Government Buildings at Jackson
Park, required one or more attendants from each Division familiar
with the work. A strong interest in accomplishments from the
study of plant diseases was especially noticeable. By 1893 ^''
Bordeaux mixture had been successfully used against apple scab,

^* Prof. Amer. Assoc. Adv. of Sci., 42nd ann. meet., 258-259.
^^Idem, 260.

^'Report of the Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathohigy for 1893, op. cit.,
262-265. Fungicides, 262-263; Bordeaux mixture, 263-265.

rLORlHA AND CaLITORNIA LaMORATORII-S 243

bean anthracnosc, beet downy mildew, cherry leaf-blii^ht, currant
septoria, ^rape black rot, grape downy mildew, mignonette leaf-
blight, pear leaf-blight, pear scab, plum leaf-blight, plum leaf
rust, potato blight or rot, c]uince leaf spot or blight, raspberry
anthracnose, and strawberry leaf-blight.

In this list appeared also potato leaf-blight or Macrosporium
disease. On October 10, 1892, Galloway had written to Pammel,

We have obtained excellent results in the treatment of the potato macro-
sporium. Our crop has just been harvested and the results arc very striking.
The yield of the treated would have been much greater if the tops had not
been cut down by frpst. On Oct[ober] 3rd we had the temperature down
to 26° F. and of course everything was frozen. Tlie untreated tops at the
time of the frost were completely dead. I have been growing the Macro-
sporium for three or four months in various culture media and have
obtained some interesting facts in this way.

Before the fourteenth annual meeting, also held at Madison in
1893, of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science,
Galloway presented a paper on " The Macrosporium potato dis-
ease," -" which he had been studying, along with other potato
diseases, for, perhaps, eight years. At this meeting Smith, Pammel,
Jones, Goff, Bolley, Chester, and one or two others, were made
members of the Society. Each had promoted agricultural science,
and their work entirely or in part had been in plant pathology.

Pammel had been doing some especially important work. In
July 1891, Galloway had received from him a report of the Iowa
Agricultural Experiment Station on fungous diseases of plants
and told him that he was glad that Pammel was making mycology
such a prominent part of his botanical work. March 10, 1892,
Journal of Mycology -^ had published a paper by Pammel on
" New Fungous Diseases of Iowa " which divided the subject
according to forage plants and cereals, fruits and fruit trees, and
forest trees. Regarded as especially valuable were Pammel's
studies of root diseases. The life histories of Peziza sclerotiorum,
Rhizoctonia hetcie, and Cercospora het'icola were being traced by
him in 1892,-° along with some fungicidal experimental work,
some experiments in seed germination and crossing of cucurbits,

-' Proceedings of the Society, 46-58, 1893.

=="7(2): 95-103.

^" George F. Atkinson, Botany at the experiment stations, Science, op. cit., 329.

246 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

and of much interest were original studies of chromogenic bac-
teria of the Ames flora. ^°

G. F. Atkinson also had done some especially valuable work.
The scientific and practical worth of his bulletin 41, issued in
December 1892, from the Alabama College Station on cotton
diseases — yellow leaf blight or mosaic disease, f renching, damping
off, anthracnose, shedding of bolls, angular spot, areolate mildew,
leaf blight, and root gall — made it probably the most important-
plant pathological work thus far from the southern states. Imme-
diately on going to Cornell University he had begun to study
serious tomato diseases, and his bulletin, or part of bulletin, 53
of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station there on
" Oedema of the tomato," published in 1893, remained for years
a leading investigation on the subject. Smith later said of this: ^^

[In 1892-1893 Atkinson} experimented with the oedema of the tomato,
which is an intumescence and reached the conclusion that on susceptible
varieties oedema may be induced by insufficient light and bad ventilation
coupled with too much water in the soil, and a soil temperature too near
that of the air, leading to the accumulation of acids in the plant and to weak
cell-walls, easily stretched as water is imbibed. He says: ""When there is
an abundance of water in the plant these acids draw large quantities into
the cells, causing the cells to swell, resulting many times in oedema." . . .
" Ordinarily there is no increase in the number of cells."

Smith believed that his experiments should be repeated because,
first, those were few by which he claimed to have produced oedema
by forcing an excess of water into the plants, and, second, he
described no experiments which sought to determine the increased
acidity. Atkinson also in 1893 elaborated some pioneering studies
of carnation diseases, a subject in which others, prominently Arthur
and BoUey, had figured.^' Whetzel has classed two others of his
early studies at Cornell, " Leaf curl and plum pockets " (1894)
and " Damping off " (1895) as among Atkinson's more important
works.

Atkinson, while at Alabama, secured pure cultures of the causal
organism of Pammel's root-rot of cotton. Plant pathologists of

^" Pammel presented several papers at the Madison meeting of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science, see Proceedings, op. cit., 263-264.

'^^ Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 489.

•''" H. H. Whetzel, An outline of the history of phytopathology, op. cit., 104, n. 3.
See also, Bacteriosis of carnations, by Arthur and Bolley, Bulletin 59, 7 (March,
1896), Indiana Agric. Exp't Sta., and authorities cited.

Florida and California Laboratories 247

the state experiment stations confined their work to state boun-
daries less and less and collaborated in more than one plant disease
research. This was noticeable in the work of Halsted who, invited
to Mississippi, published at the agricultural college and experi-
ment station there his important bulletin 19 (1892) on tomato
and melon blight. In August 1891 he had read before Section F
a paper on a disease of melon, squash, and cucumber, believed
caused by bacteria, and a notice of this was published in the
Botanical Gazette.^^

Smith, during the years 189*^-1896, would re-study this work
for reasons to be explained more fully in Chapter VII. Suffice
it to say now that, not\vithstanding the excellent work of Waite,
plant bacteriology had not gained a strong foothold in the Division
of Vegetable Pathology. As late as March, 1893, Galloway told
Burrill that they had " very few^ specimens of bacterial plant
diseases on hand . . . pear blight, olive tuberculosis and perhaps
one or two other things."

In January 1893 Pammel published in the Botanical Gazette
what Smith later characterized as the "' first important paper " ^*
on the bacteriosis of rutabaga. This malady, in time, became
known as the "' Black Rot of Crucifers." The causal organism was
not named by Pammel Bacillus campestris until the year 1895
when he issued as part of bulletin 27 from the Iowa experiment
station a further consideration of this disease which, with
Pammel's knowledge and approval, other plant pathologists,
including Smith and Russell, restudied.

Whether workers in all quarters realized it or not, plant bac-
teriology as an exact laboratory science, requiring the services of
a leading American specialist and authority, was widening in
scope each year. In the September 10, 1890 issue of Journal of
Mycology ^^ Galloway and Miss Southworth had presented
" Preliminar}' Notes on a New Destructive Oat Disease," possibly
attributable to bacteria, and in August 1891, before Section F of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Gallo-
way read a paper which incorporated " Further observations on a

" 16: 257-258, Sept. 15, 1891.

^^Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 159.

^''6(2): 72-73; also Botanical Gazette 16(9): 257, Sept. 15, 1891. Report of the
Chief of the Division of Vegetable Pathology, for 1891: 361.

248 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

bacterial disease of oats." Galloway believed in plant pathology
and its future, combining exact laboratory research in bacteriology.

For adequate work in bacteriology, the Division's workers could
not depend on cooperative arrangements with the state experiment
stations. Duties in university administration often took Burrill
away from research. During 1891 and 1892 ^° he had continued
to study several diseases of plants believed to be of bacterial
origin. Students interested in the plant bacterial diseases, how-'
ever, were still very few, and even Burrill studied other subjects.
Excellent results were reported from the use of copper compounds
against grape rot, apple scab, and potato blight. Like many other
workers in experiment stations of the central west, he was inves-
tigating diseases of grains. 'Puccima ruhtgovera was found to
winter over in wheat leaves and in the spring produce rust spores
which grow on fresh foliage. He was studying also the economic
smuts, raspberry rust, and a disease of plum.

Early in 1893 Fairchild announced plans to spend three years
in study in Europe and in October he was appointed a special
agent of the Division to investigate plant diseases and scientific
agriculture there.

Smith and Waite were the two men of the Division now
qualified for the needed work in plant bacteriology. Waite was
studying pear blight and Smith realized that a study of the bac-
terial wilt of cucurbits would yield more definite results than
further investigation of peach yellows. He did not relinquish
entirely his field and laboratory studies of peach yellows. For
nearly two years, however, he had been gathering together and
reading everything he could find concerning laboratory apparatus
and methods of work. He had excellent advisers in Theobald
Smith and V. A. Moore of the Bureau of Animal Industry. He
read the Johns Hopkins bulletins. He wrote to Drs. Vaughan
and Novy and others familiar with the latest in research methods.
He read many new books on plant physiology and other subjects
of importance.

Erwin Smith was a far happier man than he had been for many
years. He was now married, and was beginning the new work
which was to test his high calibre as a student.

^* G. F. Atkinson, Botany at the experiment stations, 1892; B. D. Halsted, What
the station botanists are doing, 1891, works cited.

Fi.oRinA AM) (iAi.iroKNiA Lauouatorims 2-19

Near Easton, Maryland, at "Sunset Farm " on Miles River, he
had met Charlotte May Ikiltett, daughter of Dr. Lewis and Anna
Virginia Perry InilYctt. She had been born at Cleveland, Ohio, and
about 1887, when sixteen years of age, moved to Maryland. Gifted
with a love of nature and the beautiful, of literature, music, and
languages, interested in the sciences and poetry, she and he were
well-mated, and with her he found " deep sweet peace." " There
was nothing selhsh or petty in this woman's soul," he later wrote, ^^
" and to share her life as I did for thirteen years, was to dwell
continuously in the temple of God." Together they studied nature
and books, and li,ved the philosophy of life so well expresssed by
him as follows:

An intimate acquantance with any branch of nature naturally begets a
philosophy of life. We come to feel instinctively that certain concepts of
the Universe must be so, and that certain others cannot possibly be true.
To my mind this is one of the chief individual benefits arising from the
pursuit of science. The intellect is clarified; reason supplants impulse; and
superstition and dogma no longer sway feeling and mold action.

April 13, 1893, at " Sunset Farm," Reverend J. T. Sunderland,
editor of The Unitarian and pastor of the church at Ann Arbor
which Smith attended while a university student, performed their
marriage ceremony. Allen L. Colton, a college and fraternity
brother in Phi Delta Theta, friend at Ionia, and astronomer of
considerable prominence, served as best man.

Spalding, in the midst of preparing to sail for months of study
in Europe, sent them a letter of felicitation. He noticed that the
Department of Agriculture now^ had a new Secretary, the Honor-
able J. Sterling Morton, creator of the Arbor Day idea promul-
gated in his home state, and later adopted by practically every
state of the Union.

For several years Smith had been helping his teacher with
literary botanical work, and Spalding accepted his offer to read
proofs on a " little book " he was preparing. Already Smith had
submitted criticisms and suggested revision. D. C Heath and

^^ For Her Friends and Mine: A Book of Aspirations, Dreams and Memories,
privately printed, Washington, D. C, 1915, introductory note, wherein appears a
biographical sketch and intimate appreciation of Charlotte May Buffett sometime
wife of Erwin F. Smith, a volume of poems and commemorative tribute to her and
their years of happiness.

250 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

Company that year published Spalding's Guide to the Study of
Common Plants, An Introduction to Botany, which, as a laboratory
guide rather than general text-book, was well received, particu-
larly for instruction in high schools for which it was planned.
This book, Smith believed, exercised a strong influence in changing
the type of botanical teaching in our common schools. ^^ It was
in harmony with his own concepts of what modern university
botanical instruction should stress. He believed that " floristic
botany [had] dominated too long in this country," that emphasis
should be placed " on the more important parts of Botany where
it belongs, on anatomy, morphology, and physiology, until," he
said, " we have gone a little below the surface of things and have
the real basis for comparison of genera and species and the difficult
problems of geographical distribution and origin of species." ^^
But never once did he urge a departure in taxonomy from the
great botanical tradition represented in America in part by Torrey
and Gray. He knew that changed conditions and new or better
knowledge would make revisions necessary. But in the main he
was a conservative in this, and in Chapter VII we shall see that
he no longer regarded himself as a systematic botanist.

Part of Smith's literary work during 1892 and 1893 consisted in
preparing botanical definitions for Funk and Wagnalls' Standard
Dictionary of the English Language published from 1894 to 1897.
Frank Hall Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution had the
entire work in charge, and Smith's task, one of " midnight
hours," *" included definitions of mycology and plant pathology.
Some of the work was divided with W. T. Swingle.

Twice during the late summer and early autumn of 1893 Smith
had to go to southern Michigan to study diseases of plants: in
August to continue his investigations of peach yellows, and in
October to begin study of a new peach disease reported from
Douglas, Michigan, by William Alton Taylor, assistant pomologist
of the Department and a graduate in science from Michigan Agri-
cultural College. These journeys were important since for the
first time careful microscopic examinations and a field study of

^* Dedication, Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit. ; also, see
Botanical Gazette 18: 430, a review, 1893.
^^ Memoradum found among Smith's papers.
*" Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 22.

Florida and Cv\i ifornia Laboratories 251

symptoms were made of the new disease known as " little peacli."
At his liome at Huhbardston he continued his study of the bac-
terial disease of cucumbers, cantaloupes, .nid squashes on wliich
he had read a paper belore the recent botanical congress at
Madison. On September 3 lie wrote Galloway:

The cucumber blight is here in plenty on my father's squashes and I am
learning all I can about it. Tlic squashes are much more resistant than the
cucumbers and melons and hold out for several weeks — one of the
symptoms reminds one of the oranije blight, viz. the development of an
enormous number of flower buds on short branches. In a few cases the
vines seem to have partly recovered, having sent out very leafy side branches
which attain remind*? one of the orant^e blight.

He had been ordered to Michigan both times from Chicago'
where, at the World's Fair, he was one of several workers who
at various times had charge of the Division's exhibit on plant
diseases and their treatment. The farmers and fruit growers
showed a " lively interest in the problems [the Division was]
studying," '^ particularly in fungicidal treatments for disease-pre-
vention. So worn became the plates of " sprayed and unsprayed
pears " ''■ that new plates or additional specimens of pear varieties
had to be sent for; and to this v/as added a request for demon-
stration materials of " sprayed and unsprayed " grapes. Smith
wrote a special memorandum on potato disease treatments. This
read:

Within the last two years a distinct advance has been made in this
country in economic phytopathology by the discovery of methods for pre-
venting two widespread and destructive potato diseases — the blight and the
scab, both due to fungi. This was strikingly illustrated by two exhibits in
the united experiment stations' exhibit at the World's fair. Mr. L. R.
Jones of the Vermont station, who dealt with the blight, exhibited photo-
graphs of sprayed and unsprayed parts of fields, the vines covering the
ground [where] sprayfed] and almost totally destroyed [where not
sprayed]. Photos of the yield of tubers on sprayed and unsprayed parts
showed equally gratifying results. . . . The results were obtained by the
use of copper fungicides.

The other exhibit was from Professor H. L. BoUey of the North
Dakota experiment station and had to do with a remedy which
Smith described and of v/hich he wrote later: ''' " Bolley showed

" Letter, Smith to Galloway, September 18, 1893.
*^ Letter, Smith to Galloway, September 25, 1893.
** Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 608.

252 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

that the potato scab was frequently disseminated by seed potatoes,
and in such cases could be controlled very satisfactorily by soaking
the infected seed potatoes in a solution of corrosive sublimate.
This treatment is, however, not successful in case the fungus is
already present in the soil." By 1897 Arthur announced formalin
as a remedy against potato scab. Soon thereafter BoUey discovered
the fungicidal value of formaldehyde and advocated its use against
smut in oats.^*

During the early 1890's so many studies of various plant dis-
eases were being made at agricultural experiment stations over
the nation that workers began to specialize in different types of
investigation. The bacterial disease of cucumbers, cantaloupes,
and squashes provided Smith with his speciality. In July 1893 he
had photographed the disease through four stages in cucumber
plants located on a hill in Anacostia in the District of Columbia.
In August, when reading his paper before Section G, he had given
the results of his histological and anatomical examinations: the
disease's beginning in the leaf blade; the bacillus' entrance into
the stem through the spiral vessels; the organism's destructive
action believed to be mostly confined to the phloem part of the
bundle, the spiral and larger netted and pitted vessels filling with
bacilli, and the formation of cavities filled with bacilli in the
tissue around the spiral vessels. He had announced these and
his major conclusion that the sudden wilting is due to the filling
of the vessels and stopping of the plant's water current. Pure
culture infections as yet had not been secured, and positive proof
that the disease is transmitted by insects had not yet been
established.

He had brought the " cucumber germ " on potato from Wash-
ington to test in his father's garden whether the germ would
blight squash. A card-board memorandum indicates that several
hypotheses were in his mind. Some were " not tried," and some
yielded "' doubtful " conclusions, while to others the answers
was a final " no." His purpose seems to have been to test the
range of susceptibility among various crops and further to study
the areas of infection and the time required and mode of action

" See, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 27. Also, Bull. Ind. Exp't Sta. 65, and
unpublished memorandum by Arthur, already cited. See also, H. H. Whetzel,
Outl. Hist, of Phytopath., op. cit., 105-106.

Florida and Calii-ornia Lahoratorius 253

of the germ within clifTerent parts of the plant. He obtained
what he thoui^ht were infections, but the "' work of the first few
montlis was thrown away, principally because," he later said,**
"I did not know how to proceed, my technique beint; defective.
Up to November 24, 1893, I had isolated five or six organisms
. . . but had not obtained infections with any, and was very much
at sea after a great deal of hard work." On September 23, and
perhaps before, he had begun to keep carefully prepared memo-
randa of every investigational procedure. These show that he was
determined to study the disease, if at all, in accordance with the
canons of Koch. '

In December, at the regular meeting of the Biological Society of
Washington in Assembly Hall of the Cosmos Club, he presented
a thirty-minute paper " On a Bacterial Disease of Cucumbers, etc.,
working through the Fibrovascular Bundles; Probably Transmitted
by Insects," Immediately F. M. Webster, entomologist of the Ohio
Agricultural Experiment Station, inquired whether he planned to
publish it since he planned to begin work the next spring on the
entomological aspect of the problem. Two years before, Waite
had presented " good evidence " ■'*' of the insect-transmission of
pear blight. The completed demonstration that pear blight bac-
teria are carried from flower to flower by insects, furthermore,
nearly coincided in point of time with the confirmatory experi-
ments which established that southern or Texas cattle fever is
transmitted by a cattle tick {Ixodes bovis Ry.). Smith admitted
that these discoveries and their proof led him to search for proof
of his hypothesis that the plant bacterial disease he was studying
is insect-transmitted. We shall meet this point again later in this
book.

On January 6, 1894, before the Botanical Seminar, he presented
a " Synopsis of [J. R.] Green's paper on Vegetable Ferments,"
published in the March, 1893, issue of Aruials of Botany and a
review of which article, also prepared by Smith, was to appear
in Science'^' on March 2, 1894. With much reason it may be
questioned whether, in fact. Smith during these years could be
regarded as a deep student of vegetable ferments. That he was

*'■ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases op. cit., 2: 217.

*" E. F. Smith, Intro, to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 25, 30, and authority
cited.

*' 23(578): U6-U7, March 2, 1894.

254 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

zealous to learn of them, both from the available scientific litera-
ture and his own laboratory research, cannot be doubted. Every
bio-chemical laboratory technician and ardent follower of Louis
Pasteur watched in America with eager restlessness the accumu-
lating scientific progress being achieved by his disciples in the
Pasteur Institute and other of the great laboratories of Europe.
In 1877 Emile Duclaux had begun to assemble within the compass
of some pages for Dr. Dechambre's Dictionnaire des sciences
medicales a coordinated body of learning from scattered facts
concerning the enzymes.** In 1882 had appeared Duclaux's ¥er-
ments et Maladies, and in 1886 his Le Microbe et la Maladie.
We cannot affirm with certainty that Smith by the years 1893-1894
had studied these volumes. Most assuredly within a few years
he was acquainted with the work of Duclaux, and by the year
1894 had familiarized himself with the views of the German
Oskar Loew.

Among scientists, the view then, as now, was that certain of
the ferments of fungi and bacteria are enzymes. Throughout the
rest of the century. Smith, when describing a bacterial disease of
plants, listed the factor of enzymes among the fermentation pro-
ducts of the causal microorganism. Enzymes were believed to have
been isolated from a number of bacteria, and Smith now so stated
in his review of Green's paper. " Vegetable ferments," he said,

are readily destroyed by boiling, and are for the most part very sensitive
to acids and alkalies, a slight excess destroying them or stopping all action.
They are not readily identified in tissues by use of stains. Some are very
unstable. Enzymes have very slight power of diffusion. They can make
their way through cell walls, but not through the parchment walls of
dializers. They appear to act in an ordinary chemical way, causing hydra-
tion (myrosin excepted) and subsequent decomposition. Most of the
changes brought about by enzymes can be effected in the laboratory by
ordinary chemical processes. They are extracted for experimental purposes
by water, salt water, or glycerine, and are quickly precipitated by excess of
alcohol. One of their most striking peculiarities is the enormous power of
conversion they possess, a sample of invertase (which occurs in a variety
of vegetable substances, — yeast, bacteria, fungi, malt, buds and leaves,
pollen, grains, etc.) being capable of inverting 100,000 times its own
weight of cane sugar without injury to itself. The ferments of the fungi
and bacteria are also enzymes, and the old view of Naegeli that there are

** Erwin Frink Smith, Introduction, Pasleur, The History of a Mind, by Duclaux,
and translated by Smith and Florence Hedges, pp. xvii, xv and xvi.

FiORiDA AND (California Lahoratorii-s 235

two distinct classes of ferments, ori^anizcd and unorganized, is no loni;er
tenable. Enzymes have been isolated from a number of bacteria, and even
several from the same ori^anism, — in case ot tlie potato bacillus, 13.
mesentcricus vuli^atus, no less than five, viz., diastase, invertasc, rennet, a
protcohydrolytic enzyme and one destroying the middle lamella of vegetable
cells.

Smith acknow IcJ^cd that the " constitution of enzymes [was]
still in dispute. Loew," he continued, " as the result of analyses,
considered them to be proteids closely allied to the peptones, but
spectrum analysis and other evidence has now made this doubtful."
Recently in America, Loew's natural system of the actions of
poisons, establishing a physiological system and arranged according
to prevailing views and knowledge of elementary units of the
animal and vegetable body, had found favor. '^ This work, or-
ganized on the basis of extended, positive knowledge of the cell,
the constituents of protoplasm, and structural and physiological
properties of living matter, accomplished more than the older
studies, either in medicine or the pathology and physiology of
mammals, in that more known poisonous actions were included.
General and special poisons were described and classified. Loew's
" Ein naturliches System der Giftwarkungen," dedicated to von
Pettenkofer on the occasion of his fifty-years' doctor-jubilee,
had resulted in part from the author's own research. Reviewer
J. Christian Bay found more reason than ever to believe that time
had arrived to establish " a special general physiology of animals
and plants."

A year and a half later Science ^^ published Loew's study of
" The Synthetical Powers of Microorganisms." He, offering nu-
merous equations and formulas, analyzed not only organic and
inorganic chemical substances involved in microorganic activity
but also the synthetic products and by-products which the lower
organisms can form for life and death purposes. His interests were
in nutrients and the nutritive qualities of acids and other by-
products as much as in poisons and noxious elements, and he
examined the chemical activities of non-pathogenic as well as
pathogenic organisms. It was a work done principally from the

**J. Christian Bay, Missouri Botanical Garden, Loew's natural system of the
actions of poisons. Science 22(550): 93-94, Aug. 18, 1893.
'"I, 23: 35-36, Jan. 19, 1894; II, 23: 144, Mar. 16, 1894.

256 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

standpoint of physiological chemistry but the definition, for pur-
poses of experimental study, of the sources of such basic elements
as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, etc., and the various possible processes
of change and combinations of elements resulting from synthe-
sizing activities of such organisms had important bearings in
laboratory work of pathology and to some extent in field studies.

Early in 1893 Pierce agreed with Smith that they could not.
expect to " master all plant diseases the first time trying." He
wrote:

I feel well satisfied if one-fourth or one-third of those undertaken by
myself are handled satisfactorily. I much regretted that the fermentation
of figs could not be prevented by the use of sprays. The experiments
conducted in that disease the past summer were laborious and extensive,
but with no marked results so far as prevention is concerned. It is evident
that insects take the yeast to the center of the ripening figs, and all the
sprays in Christendom applied to the exterior won't save a fig. I was
greatly disappointed when I found this out, but what can a man do about
it except catch the 177 sects or stop up the jigs?

The souring ferment of figs was a disease of the internal parts
of the plant and, to this extent, similar to Smith's bacterial disease
of cucumber, cantaloupe, and squash. From his field research
Smith had soon learned that the wilting, the cucurbit disease's
most important symptom, was an internal phenomenon set up
after the germ had secured entrance, and this though the external
parts of affected stems appeared to remain uninjured. Quite
properly, therefore, he had not given his first attention to prophy-
lactic spraying remedies but studied the insects which possibly
transmitted the disease and examined the plant's physiology to
understand its pathology and the workings of the bacterium.

The significance of a prescriptive remedy, measured in dollars
and cents to growers, was not always proportionate to the com-
plexity of the achievement. Years of discouraging effort some-
times were spent by pathologists to arrive at a simple remedy,
which, however, when found, proved of great economic value.
From Chico, California, on July 27, 1894, Pierce wrote to Smith
of his " largest and most complete experiment " he had thus far
undertaken — namely that of finding a fungicide by which to
control curl leaf of the peach:

Florida and California Laboratorils 257

... as " bad luck " would have it, the disease did not develop in my
sprayed orchard this year, aUhout;h last year it stripped 40 acres of these
trees of all the leaves and fruit. Many of my experiments in other parts — •
where the curl developed — are coming out all rii^ht, but none of them will
compare with what my own would have been had the disease developed.
I have concluded not to publish but to give the work another year, and
within the past week I have made arrangements to repeat the spray work
on the same trees I Iiad last winter — the Hatch and Rock orchard at Biggs,
California, where there are 1600 acres of trees and where trees five years
old are so large that you cannot see between the rows although the trees
are set 25 feet apart! The orchard is by far the most beautiful sight I ever
saw, of its kind.

There are three o/:her fungous diseases in this orchard — a root fungus;
a shot hole fungus of leaf, stem and fruit; and a mildew of stem, leaf and
fruit. They are all serious diseases when developing under favorable
conditions. I have material for future study as well as good illustrations
of the work done by them. The root fungus is very common in California
and is causing much loss. The mycelium is like that of Agaricus nielleus,
but as yet I have been unable to determine if it be of that parasite, and
there are some good reasons for thinking, in fact, that it is of another
species and perhaps genus. It is destroying acres of fruit trees of various
kinds, and I am now trying to learn if there are any kinds which are
exempt — any root which may be grafted upon and prove resistant. The
other diseases will probably have to be handled with sulphur and copper.

I have seen an apple disease from Oregon which I believe does not
exist in the east. It is a scab quite unlike that we are acquainted with.
Then there is a disease of peach and apple trees which induces a sore-like
appearance, and the cause of which is not well understood if known at
all. Another disease affects the cherry when packed, and one in eastern
Washington is said to be bacterial in nature. This I hope to see.

On November 8 of that year, Galloway reported to Secretary
Morton,

It has been found that peach leaf curl, a disease which annually causes
many thousands of dollars damage to the entire country, may be almost
completely held in check by a simple and inexpensive winter or early
spring treatment. To test this remedy experiments were made at a number
of points on the Pacific Coast, as well as in the eastern part of the United
States, during the year. In all sections where the curl prevailed, the
treatment was highly successful.

Pierce was not without a bacterial disease of plants to study.
From Santa Ana, California, on January 19, 1896, he told Smith:

For spring work I have to plan and conduct a series of spraying experi-
ments on a disease of walnuts which is beginning to do considerable injury

258 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

to the industry here. Thus far it appears to be bacterial in its nature, but
as pure culture inoculation experiments have not been completed as yet
it is not settled beyond question. Inoculations from impure culture have
reproduced typical cases of the disease. It is a disease both of the nut
and tree — and the organism which seems to be the cause is a bacillus of
medium length. As it is an important matter I hope to give it special and
personal attention this spring.

Reports from Washington are favorable respecting the treatment of the
serious apple disease I worked on while north, and which was so beauti-
fully reproduced after my arrival at this laboratory a year ago. In due
time I will work this disease up for a special bulletin as it is of the deepest
interest both from a horticultural and a scientific standpoint.

The matter of olive culture has occupied my time of late — several
diseases are getting a foothold which may in time require more attention.
You will see what I have done on the olive after a time !

As the walnut trouble is a serious one and as it may be, and quite likely
is, a bacterial one I am interested to know what means Mr. Waite suggests
for the prevention of pear blight. I suppose it is the spraying of flowers
much as with codling moth, but do not know. What do you think of the
use of Lysol — the new French treatment.^ Some time when you can, write
me about Mr. Waite's treatment. I would like to try Lysol and Corrosive
sublimate in some form — though from the way the disease works I question
our power to control.

With a view to developing disease-resistant varieties, later on,
both pear and walnut varieties were sought to be introduced into
this country, and attempts, which met with partial success, were
made by hybridization to solve the economic problems of Pierce's
bacterial walnut disease, and pear blight.^^ In California, Pierce
obtained walnut hybrids with a fair degree of resistance to disease,
and in Oregon, F. C. Reimer, utilizing Asiatic species of Pyrus,
got good resistant pear stocks. Moreover, Waite, over a period of
years, presented knowledge which showed that, on trunks and
limbs of occasional trees, " hold over " patches, which ooze living
bacteria, last over winters in pear orchards. By thoroughly eradi-
cating these " hold over " spots so that bees cannot have access
to them and transmit the bacteria to new blossoms and shoots of
the following spring, a control method, tried both in Georgia and
California, accomplished real results."^"

^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. ch., 30, 39. Also, David Fairchild, Plant introduc-
tion for the plant breeder, Yearbook of the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture for 1911,
op. cit., 411-422, at p. 421. Also, V. B. Stewart, Notes on the fire blight disease,
Phytopathology 5(6): 327, Dec. 1915, and cited references to articles on the subject
by Reimer and N. E. Hansen.

^^ Erwin F. Smith, Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 68.

I'lorioa AM) CalU'Ornia Lamokatorihs 259

Smith, tOi;etlicr witli Secretary Morton, Galloway, and Ento-
moloi^ist C. V. Riley, had been invited to California in 1S93 to
attend the State Fruit Growers' Meeting held at Los Angeles
November 21-24 of that year. Resolutions of the State Pomo-
logical Society and Farmers" Institute had been received which
protested the withdrawal by the federal Department of Agriculture
from California of D. W. Coquillctt and Albert Kocbele and
requested that Coquillett be reestablished as field agent in eco-
nomic entomology in Southern California. Coordinate vegetable
pathological and entomological services maintained by the federal
government in conjunction with state agricultural agencies had
been much appreciated by farmers and fruit growers there in
" their warfare with insect pests." Certain scales infesting orange
trees, particularly San Jose scale, loomed as one of the most
difficult problems of California agriculture, and under Coquillett's
direction hydrocyanic acid gas, very effective when applied under
tents in orchards of oranges, was discovered to be an efficient
remedy, more so than lime-sulphur spray which was also used but
which injured the foliage. San Jose scale had been introduced
into California from eastern Asia and during the first half decade
of the new century became alarmingly prevalent in eastern United
States, too, its spread taking place on infested nursery stock
through carelessness or lack of scruples on the part of two eastern
dealers. ^'^ Smith, however, never visited California.

For months he had tried to secure pure culture infections and
isolate the bacillus of his bacterial disease of cucumbers, melons,
and squash. His career in plant bacteriology was definitely started.

January 16, 1894, his laboratory memorandum read:

In early stages of the disease the bacteria are confined almost exclusively
to the spiral vessels of the inner xylem. These seem to be the first attacked.
Bundles seen today in all stages of fullness. Some just commencing to have
vessels gorged, others in which every vessel is full but not yet broken
down; others full, structure not distinct as if vessels broken down. My
sections too thick to settle this point. This disease serves as additional proof

"Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 60R; Fifty vcars of
pathology, of), cit., 24; in the autumn of 1894 Messrs C. L. Marlatt and Coquillett
extensively tested washes in a scale-infested orchard in Maryland, among which was
lime-sulphur salt wash as used in California, and the Oregon wash, both used at
ordinary and double strengths. See an article by A. L. Quaintance, Lime sulphur
washes for the San Jose scale, Yearbook of U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1906: 429.
This gives a brief history of the various formulas used in the eastern states.

260 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

that the water passes through the bundle and to be more specific the
xylem part. ... It is important to make out clearly to what extent the
parenchyma is involved where the general wilt begins.

[April 14] This much seems clear, when the constitution[al} symptoms
first begin, i. e. the general wilt of the foliage, the clogging and destruction
of tissues is still confined to the inner non-lignified part of the xylem
portion of the bundle.

On February 11, after examining fourteen slides, Smith prepared
a memorandum " On Question of Infection of Phloem in Cu-
cumber." " Even where nearly all of the vessels in a bundle are
full," he noted, " and large cavities have formed in the primary
vessel parenchyma, the phloem is uninjured. Slides from two
stems. One bundle found with germs in one sieve tube. Six
longitudinal radial sections stained in haematoxylin were also
examined. No breakdown in phloem."

April 1, 1894, he spoke before the Biological Society of Wash-
ington on " The Length of Vessels in Higher Plants," the same
organization before which he had spoken on May 6, 1893, " On
the Symbiosis of Stock and Graft: A Digest of Recent Experiments
by Strassburger and [Hermann] Voechting." Smith's research
memoranda of these years reveal that on points of final study of
peach yellows and laboratory examinations of the cucumber germ
he reviewed his knowledge and the latest learning of vegetable
physiology. Four or five of Strasburger's writings published 1888-
1893 were probably acquired at this time. " Books to buy," a
small note book, lists several books by Europeans and at least one
work on the microtome.

During April 1894, Smith outlined the following research on
the cucumber study:

Notes (and drawings) on all my cucumber germ slides (parafine
sections) for answer to the following questions: (1) Are there any
cavities in the phloem? (2) Any bacteria in the phloem.^ (3) What
proportion of the xylem vessels are fuU.^ or contain some bacteria? (4)
Which vessels fill first after the spirals, i.e. where situated? (5) Where
are the cavities in the xylem? (6) Does the primary vessel-parenchyma
stain differently from phloem and rest of xylem ?

By May 5 he had evolved ^* a formula which would not only

^'■Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 117, where it is said,
"Long since (1894) the writer resorted to methyl violet, preceded by a bath in
tannin water to reduce the excessive stain of the host tissues in stems of cucumber

Florida and Calhorma Laboratorils 261

stain the germs in CLiciimbcr but also leave the tissues faintly-
stained, too. Tiic more important extensions and improvements or
plant bacteriological technique made in connection with research
on this disease were commenced, however, the following autumn
and winter, after Smith had spent a summer studying, and had
presented a paper before the August meeting at Brooklyn, New
York, of Section G of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science on, " The Watermelon Disease of the South," "
caused by a fungus which he provisionally named " Fusarium
niveum."

Smith himself can best describe his accomplishments in this,
another and next line of researches, which culminated in a still
more important address, " The Fungous Infestation of Agricul-
tural Soils in the United States,"'' read August 25, 1899, at the
Ohio State University before the Botanical Section of the Associa-
tion. During a period of sixteen years (1894-1910), together with
his epoch-making laboratory investigations of bacterial diseases of
plants. Smith devoted himself " to the study of the Fusarium
diseases of plants, a subject which was then very new. There
were," he has written,"

at this time in the United States a number of destructive diseases of
unknown origin, particularly on staple crops in the Southern States, in
which I found Fusaria constantly and suspiciously present. I studied and
made experiments with the Fusaria present in diseased melons, cotton,
cowpeas, potatoes, tomatoes, and cabbage. I isolated the fungus from the
interior of these plants in pure cultures derived usually from single conidia
and with it produced the disease abundantly in case of several of them,
thus showing it to be the parasite. I proved infections from the soil;
inability of the various isolations to cross-inoculate, e. g., on soil infected
with pure cultures of the melon fungus I grew, from seed, rows of water-
melons containing many plants, every one of which contracted the disease,
alternating with rows of tomatoes, none of which contracted the disease
although they were in the infected soil and only a few inches away from
the dying melons; showed that the melon Fusarium was still infectious
after being held dr}' in culture tubes for three years, and in case of the
cabbage disease that the organism causing it remained alive and able to
infect in soil from a diseased field which had been kept dry in the
laboratory for two years.

attacked by Bacillus trachetphilus. . . ." Smith's memorandum shows the date of
this as May 5, 1894.

" Proceedings, 43rd Meeting, 289-290, pub. March 1895.

'" Scientific American Supplement, no. 1246: 19981-19982, Nov. 18, 1899.

^■'Synopsis of researches of Erwin F. Smith, op. at., 20-21.

262 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

Of Smith's work on fungous diseases of plants caused by para-
sitic Fusaria, H. W. WoUenweber has said: ^*

The opening up of the Verticillium problem we owe to Reinke and
Berthold (1879), that of the whole Fusarium problem to Erwin F. Smith
(1899). The latter investigator obtained the first conclusive results in the
etiology of the watermelon wilt by securing 500 successful infections by
simply inoculating the soil with pure cultures of the vascular parasite.
He considered the organism a variety of the same species as causes cotton
and cowpea wilt. The parasite of watermelon wilt was not infectious to
cototn or cowpea, nor to tomato or potato, through soil inoculation.

Dr. Smith also discovered a very peculiar fact. A perithecial stage
(Neocosmospora) was frequently associated with the parasite on cowpea,
especially on parts already killed. In pure cultures derived from a single
ascospore, all stages (mycelium, conidia, ascospores) of Neocosmospora
redeveloped the ascus stage, and the conidia in subcultures of the fungus
were similar to the small conidia of the parasite. Cowpea inoculations with
the fungus derived from ascospores of Neocosmospora failed, however.
Since this failure might be due to the fact that the natural method of
infection had not been discovered, the author did not feel justified in
regarding it as proof of saprophytism. Therefore, he chose the hypothesis
that the vascular parasite and the ascomycete Neocosmospora were
identical.

Not until 1899 did Smith propose his new genus Neocosmo-
spora, and then he was unsure whether it was " one fungus, or
three." ^^ Nevertheless, he had '" opened up a new field of plant
parasitism," had been, he believed, the first to publish on " soil
infections due to Fusariums, some of which are as destructive as
Peronosporas," *^° and through his work " special attention [had
been drawn] to the fact that this form-genus, hitherto generally
supposed to be saprophytic, contained a number of very destruc-
tive soil parasities." ^^

On March 26, 1892, Smith had read before the Botanical
Seminar of Washington a paper on " Relations of the Soil to Plant
Nutrition." That year Milton Whitney had outlined an elaborate
plan of soils investigation in the belief that some clue would be
found which might help to solve the problem of peach yellows.
Whitney was in charge of a division of soils investigation at the
Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and later became chief

^* Studies on the fusarium problem, Phytopath. 3(1): 24-50, Feb. 1913, at 36.
" Bull. 17, U. S. Dep't Agric, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., 39, A6, 1899-
*" Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 22.
*^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 22.

FlORIPA ANI-) C^AIirOKNIA LAliOKATOIUHS 263

of a Division ot Soils in the Department of Ai;riculture. He had
studied in South Carolina diseases and insect ravages of the cotton
plant in relation to soil conditions, and his knowledge of agri-
cultural chemistry further qualihcd him for such an investigation.
Soils research was then emerging into more dehnite scientific
prominence. During 1892 the Expcrinie)it Stiition Record by
editorials *^- had recommended to students more research in plant
diseases caused by bacteria and also cooperative soils investigations
of the type begun by the Department of Agriculture and the
Maryland station a^id Johns Hopkins University under Whitney's
leadership.

Whitney offered to study with Smith a few Maryland localities
where healthy and diseased peach trees were in a close range of
proximity. Top-and-subsoils bearing diseased trees were to be
examined both in the orchard and from soil samples in the
laborator)'. The theory was that changes in the "texture of the
soil around a peach-tree might change the physical conditions of
growth sufficient to lower the vitality of the tree and render k
more liable to take the disease." Conversely, factors leading to
increased disease-resisting vitality were to be studied. Smith
believed that the contagious nature of the disease was now " well
established," *^^ and the results of his experiments with chemical
fertilizers were known to him, though not fully published. He
had not solved the problem and much work had been done. It is
likely that no collaboration ever took place. But, if it did, Smith
learned more of soil chemistry and soil physics and related this
knowledge to his interest in the nutritional requirements of plants.
In his study of the South Carolina watermelon disease, further-
more, he might have made some use of the knowledge.

On July 1, 1894, from Monetta, South Carolina, he advised
Galloway:

The watermelon fungus turns out to be one of the most interesting
things imaginable. ... It is no germ but a fungus! Of this I am now
certain, having examined 21 vines microscopically in a good many parts
of root and stem and having found this abundant in every case and in
the early stages of the disease, i. e., as soon as the leaves begin to wilt
and before stems or roots show any external signs of injury. The symptoms

'-3(10): 665-670, May 1892; 4(2): 111-113, Sept. 1892.
*' The chemistry of peach yellows, pt. 1, op. at., reprint, 14.

264 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

are much the same as in the germ disease, [cucurbit wilt} i. e., sudden
wilt and drying up of long shoots or whole vines. This comes about in the
same way too, i. e., by the mechanical clogging of the vessels. This I have
found most abundant in the stem near the root but also abundant in the
root itself and in many stem vessels 2 to 5 feet away from the root. At this
stage the injurious action seems to be chiefly mechanical but as the vine
begins to die the fundamental tissues are invaded. The fungus produces
colorless conidia in the vessels, and there is a pycnidial fruit occurring on
stem and petiole but I have not yet examined this closely enough to be
certain whether it is part of the life cycle. My belief is that the fungus
winters over in the dead vines. I am now looking for other spore forms in
trying to determine how it enters the plant. Think I have found the place
of entrance but am not sure and will not say anymore about it for the
present.

Two days later, believing that while there he could isolate the
fungus, he sent for litmus paper, more agar tubes, and sterile
petri dishes. Galloway remembered a bulletin by Atkinson on a
cotton disease which seemed similar and sent a copy. But before
the materials arrived, Smith had succeeded in growing the fungus
in agar and had pure cultures from single spores three days old;
he also had six tube cultures made by cutting out small segments
of infected stems.

For years, whenever he encountered a multiplicity of organisms
in his cultures. Smith had been skeptical of the value of his results.
In 1891 especially, when in Georgia preparing field cultures of
peach rosette in a make-shift laboratory, he had been conscious of
possible air contaminations and the wisdom of scrupulous care
and cleanly work. He, therefore, would not assure Galloway that
each of his field cultures made in South Carolina were " entirely
pure." Nor would he assure Galloway that in details his water-
melon Fusarium agreed with Atkinson's cotton disease organism
but admitted it might be the same. " Spores are larger in this
form and symptoms different," Smith wrote. But with the cultures
he possessed he " studied the growth from single spores (in agar)
round to the time when they have fruited again (less than twenty
four hours), and have some good camera drawings," he informed
on July 8.

This week I hope to start infection experiments with pure cultures but
there is so much of the disease here that these will have to be made on a
large scale to establish anything. Can you not have some watermelons
started at once in one of the Department greenhouses, preferably the

Florida and Calii-ornia LAiiORATORii'S 26'^

Pineapple house and at tlic same time in the open air, so that when I
return they will be big enous;h for inoculation? . . .

Smith sent for the experimental and systematic literature on
Tusarium, includint; that of Saccardo. He sterilized his old agar
dishes in the kitchen oven of the home in which he was living.
Days he sp^ent in the fields studying the vines and evenings he
spent with his cultures and drawings. July 15 he announced in a
letter to Galloway he had " made some discoveries which throw
a flood of light on the nature of the fungus. It is an active parasite
when the vines are young, damping them off in large numbers as
readily as a Pythium. This was a very unexpected result."

He explained a long, complicated series of investigation. He
was aware of the error of his first belief that " the fungus got in
above ground." He now believed that the Fusarium threads grow
through the tissues in every direction boring through cells, even
the parenchyma cells deep in the tissue, and fruit abundantly in
all parts and inside the cells, a dozen spores in a cell sometimes.
This discovery, he realized, made the possibilities of treatment
complicated. Spraying would not prevent the disease, even if any
vines were left for such trial experiments. He became satisfied
that the disease gels underground, and that the fungus entered
the plant through the root. Bordeaux mixture experiments, later
tried, further confirmed this. So, after following up several other
hypotheses and gathering together his carefully prepared and
saved materials for further work in his laboratory in Washington,
he, having spent almost two months in field work, returned to his
home. It is not impossible that he had made a hurried trip to
South Carolina in 1893. It is certain, moreover, he was to return
there in 1895 for extended researches in Fusaria-caused diseases
of cotton, cowpea, tomato, and other crops. His visits were
memoralized in a poem entitled "A Sunset in South Carolina '
and written in 1926:

As plain as yestcr-eve, burns through my head

The flaming glory of a sunset old,
Nor will it ever fade till I am cold,

For thirty years and more since then have fled.
At first the whole blue dome was overspread

With small torn clouds of silver and of gold
And then with crimson clouds 'twas flecked and rolled

In one vast canopy of blue and red.

266 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

Canaletto never saw diviner hues

Of silver, crimson, gold upon his blues,
Nor any other painter after storm!

Singing and shouting, beside myself with joy,
I walked the fields alone in the twilight warm,

All else forgot, and was again a boy.

Sometime during 1894 Smith obtained diseased cotton samples
identical with those described by Atkinson and determined to
investigate still further the question of soil parasitism. In 1895
a similarly caused cabbage disease reported from New York, and
found also in Maryland, stimulated him to renewed effort. Sweet
potatoes sent from Iowa to Washington disclosed a Fusarium
" plugging the vascular system," and Halsted worked on the same
or a similar disease in New Jersey.*'* Smith learned, likely from
Swingle, Rolfs, or Webber, of a tomato disease in Florida, also
due to a Fusarium, which practically put an end to tomato growing
in some places for early northern markets. During the period
1894-1899, Smith obtained more than 500 melon plant infections,
and in more than 400 of these demonstrated the presence of the
fungus within the vessels. More will be told of these researches
later. Years were spent in examining the action of three parasites
(or one) to solve the extreme puzzle how to place them in a
proper order of systemization. For, said he, " when I make cross-
inoculations, I cannot get any cross infections that would indicate
them to be the same fungus." •"' Some practical rules for the
farmer were early deduced. The prime rule was to keep out the
fungus and to this end care was recommended in the use of fungus-
free tools and appliances. Cattle should be kept from pasturing
in fields where soil was infested, thereby preventing spread of the
fungi and diseases on the cattle's feet. Good farming practices
were many which would aid in eliminating either origin or spread
of the infectious agency. Where soils became infested, either
complete abandonment of the field for a period of years or crop
rotations utilizing plant varieties not susceptible to the diseases
were indicated alternatives. It had long been good farming and
scientific practice to pull diseased plants and burn them. The
method of greatest scientific interest, however, lay in the later

°* The fungous infestation of agricultural soils in the United States, op. at.,
19981-19982.
^^dem, 19981.

Tloripa and ClAi.iroKNiA Lahokatokihs 267

development of technical procedures to produce disease-resistant
varieties by seed selection experiments, and by hybridization.

Smith, while in the south during these years 1894-18y'>», must
have become acquainted with cotton breeding there. Atkinson, as
early as 1892,'"' referred to crossing varieties of cotton at the
Alabama experiment station by Mell, botanist and meteorologist
in charge of phanerogenic botany. Whether such was aimed at
accomplishing directly or indirectly the object of disease resistance
cannot be stated with certainty. Galloway urged Smith to visit
the Alabama statign and Secretary Morton directed Smith on July
31, 189?, to visit points in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as
part of his study of cotton and melon diseases. Smith's diary to
be quoted later shows definitely that on July 24, 1895, at James
Island, opposite Charleston, South Carolina, he observed closely
cotton seed-selection work practiced over a period of three years
by plantation owners to prevent crop deterioration.

In November 1894 V. M. Spalding, home from study at Leipzig
with Pfetter and Detmer and planning to return to Europe soon
for further work, regaled him with a letter from Cambridge,
Massachusetts: " I feel like shouting vigorously with you," he
wrote, " over your discoveries in the case of the watermelon
disease. As a matter of fact I might just as well come down to
Washington to study fungi as to put in the time with Brefeld,
but I want to see how he does it, and then perhaps we can com-
pare notes later on." Smith recently had given much of his spare
time to reading and criticising Spalding's book then being pub-
lished. In reply to some criticisms on matters of plant physiology,
Spalding asked: " Is there anything fundamental in plant physiol-
og)' that you can think of that is really settled.^" He invited
Smith to visit him in Cambridge and together they might examine
the laboratories at Harvard and consult some of the distinguished
men of the university.

Smith must have immediately written him of his new inves-
tigations of the "germ" of the bacterial disease of cucumber,
melon, and squash. In September he had artificially infected
squash vines and three weeks later made cultures and found that
the organism grew readily in broths of beef, peptonized beef,

'* Botany at the experiment stations, op. at., Science 20: 329, Dec. 9, 1892.

268 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

cucumber, or potato. He may have told him of other experiments.
There were many during that month and October.^^ He had found
that the germ is acid-producing, grows in alkaline media, and he
wanted to know whether it could change the cucumber juice from
an acid to an alkaline content. He was trying to explain the
pathological condition once the germ had entered, and he was
experimenting further to see whether insects were the means of
the germ's entering. Whatever he wrote Spalding, his former
professor replied: "' Now you have made a discovery. ... I ven-
ture to say that you have made a most important contribution to
plant physiology and pathology. ... I congratulate you most
heartily on getting hold of a new thing under the sun, as it seems
to me it must be."

On November 3, Smith had planned a series of experiments to
determine the acid produced by the germ, its reaction on growth
media, and his first notation indicated a comparative study between
the anatomy and physiology of the cucumber plant in health and
the pathological changes which take place when the infective
action begins. In 1893 he had mapped the geographic distribution
of the disease. He had studied all the extrinsic aspects of the
malady he could think of; now he was carrying deeper his detailed
examination of intrinsic factors. He sketched the distribution of
the germ in various parts of the plant. He traced the spread of
the infection from organ to organ. His ultimate aim seems to
have been to examine the aspect of acidity under conditions of
disease, and to test the organism's growth on various culture
media, as well as in the plant, was part of this aim.

In September he had begun to distinguish between a primary
and a secondary wilt. By October his broth cultures had been
increased from four to nine. He found that the germ could live
on meat extract peptone agar twenty days. Later he discovered
that, under favorable conditions, the organism would live and
multiply for almost four months with the use of suitable media.
He next experimented with acidified broth cultures. At the same
time he maintained some thermal death point experiments. He
uncovered facts of especial interest while testing the germ's sensi-
tivity to organic acids — acetic, malic, citric, oxalic, and tartaric.

'■^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 219-233.

rj.ORiPA AND Calu-ornia Lauoratorif.s 269

Every experiment yielded up data of the organism's biology of
development and action. Culture media had four-fold uses: "^ to
isolate organisms from mixtures or directly from diseased plant
tissues, to grow organisms without loss of virulence over long
periods, to serve the purposes of differential description, and to
aid in chemical analysis. Smith, in " the first treatise of its kind
in the world," an introductory text book,"" not a monograph, on
bacterial diseases of plants, stated in 1915-1920 some objectives
he had maintained in differential descriptive cultural study for
more than a quarter of a century. Said he:

What we seek here are media that will bring out not necessarily good
growth, or any growth at all, for that matter, but differences in behavior
when a variety of bacteria are tested in it, that is, changes in gross appear-
ance, morphology, pigmentation, precipitates, pellicles, crystals, weak vs.
dense clouding, medium reactions (acid, neutral, alkaline), using neutral
litmus and phenolphthalein, etc. — and here a medium generally neglected
by bacteriologists may be just the one needed. . . . Often, when the
colonies of two organisms look exactly alike on plus 15 peptone-beef agar,
we try potato agar, prune agar, string-bean agar, starch agar, whey agar,
or some kind of gelatine medium, and find a difference.

By 1895 Smith found himself able to improve his technical
proficiency in the study of plant bacteria. It was perhaps as late
as November 1894 before he began to refer in his research memo-
randa to the cucumber " germ " as Bacillus tracheiphilus. During
this month he increased his acidified broths to at least five or six.
Really not until this month did he invent his own formulas for
beef and potato broth cultures. It was during this month that
he concluded that B. tracheiphilus " splits up glucose forming an
acid." As well as studying the organism's growth and behavior,
he was exploring its nature and needs, its range of tolerance to
acids, alkalies, salts, sugars, N-compounds, alcohol, et cetera.
In the year 1894 he completed his first technical description
of the plant pathogen B. tracheiphilus. At this time, he must
have believed that he had satisfied the requirements of Koch's
canons. But not until 1895-1896 did he prepare his last elaborate
outline of " Things which must be done before I can close out
my experiments on Bacillus tracheiphilus." One of the points for

°* Uses of culture-media, Intro, to Bact. Dis. of Plants, op. cit., 99-100.
^"Ibid., v-vi, 99-100.

270 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

verification and rechecking was then: " Determine what acid is
produced by the breaking up of the sugars." Second, " Repeat
experiments, growing bacillus in juice of parenchyma, to deter-
mine if the acid actually retards growth, comparing with cultures
in potato broth and beef broth. . . ." When repeating his thermal
death point experiments, he wanted to " determine whether heat
just below thermal death point only paralyzes or actually destroys
the majority of the bacilli."

From experiments and culture study made to see whether the
germ would grow only, or at all, on alkaline media, Smith later
evolved a theory of alkalinity of vessels. A memorandum read:

The fluid in each one of these six tubes is plainly alkaline to neutral
litmus although the media was plainly acid on the start. It is probable
that an acid is also present for on warming the blued litmus paper in
the bottom of a deep beaker over a gas flame the blue color quickly dis-
appears and the spots are then redder than the rest of paper as if from
presence of some acid. If this is true then this germ breaks up grape sugar
(muscle sugar) and will probably grow in closed end of fermentation tube.
Anyway the germ is a plain alkali producer and this alkali is readily
driven off^ by heat i. e. it is ammonia.

Dr. Smith has elaborated the vast detail of his many experiments
made with this organism.'" What is presented here indicates his
thoroughness and foresight in such investigations. On November
27 he observed under the microscope in a hanging drop from a
broth culture a number of rod-like organisms with rounded ends
and the " exact appearance of bacteria, but highly refractive,
like spores." He examined them with the polariscope. They
were not crystals. Arthrospores ? he asked. Settlement of this
question was the sixth among the thirty points before conclu-
ding his original studies of this disease. He restudied his notes
on the durability of the organism on various media. He inves-
tigated other species of plants susceptible to the malady. His
experiments were made under widely differing sets of environ-
mental conditions, all with a view to establishing the disease's
etiology. In 1893 he had noticed on diseased cucumber vines
several insects which might be carriers of the infection, and during
the next years he proved its transmission by the striped beetle
{Diabrotica vittata) . Many experiments involved also the squash-

^'^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 217-282, etc.

Florida and (^alitornia Lahoratorils 271

bug, Coretts tristis and the spotted beetle, Diabrotica 12-punctata.
He repeated, and extended, these. He rechecked his dessication
experiments. He retried some experiments to determine why he
had failed. The hist doxen points of his unfinished work read:

Repeat experiments with acids, detcrmininq just the amount of lactic,
oxahc, mahc, and citric which will inhibit growth when used in potato
broth or beef bouillon or Dunham, l-ilter a tlask of carbonate of lime potato
broth, beef bouillon, or Savory & Moore's Dunham solution (in which
i^erm has been growini^ two weeks) through a Chamberland filter. Divide
fluid into two parts, boil one and use other unhcatcd to determine if a
ferment destroyed by heat is present, using as proof small sterile uncooked
pieces of stem or fruit containing vessels, the walls of which should
soften or be dissolved in one and not in the other. Isolate this ferment if
possible and determine its properties more accurately. How are the sugars
broken up.' By another ferment. Collect into one place from notes names
of all species attacked. Inoculate basal leaf of large vines and determine
accurately the rate of progress of the bacillus through the tissues (a) when
plant is trailing on ground, (b) when trained upright. It is of special
importance to settle two points, viz: (1) Must bacillus be present in
clogging numbers in vessels of each petiole before leaf blade will collapse?
(2) How long a time after the bacillus has entered the stem (wilt of
first leaf up shows entrance beyond doubt) before presence of germs can
be detected in vessels in uppermost part of stem either by culture methods
or by microscopic examination of stained sections. If transpiration current
actually moves in the lumen of the vessels it would seem as if this actively
motile organism ought to find its way to extremity of plant, at least in
small numbers, in a few hours after it enters the stem. If not, why
not.'' More careful anatomical-pathological studies from paraffin sections.
[Secure] microphotographs. Did not the ropy potato broths again become
fluid.' Look up in notes. Growth in Dunham plus sugar in fermentation
tubes. . . . Get together from notes all that relates to growth on alkaline
media of various grades of alkalinity. What degree of alkalinity inhibits
growth.' My four grades of gelatin good for this. Grow in F[ermentation]
hibes in peptone water (Witte's plus) 1% C.P.G.

Two other points were included where the omission is noticed.
Smith planned to study the behavior of the organism on cooked
cocoanut and on stewed pineapple. More important, he planned
to repeat what he described as his " hydrogen experiment," using
sugar agar this time, and he styled this an experiment in " Facul-
tative anaerobism." On December 4 he had made what he called
an anaerobic or buried culture, that is, one flourishing w^ithout free
oxygen, and begun stiidying this on January 5, 1895 together with
pure cultures of Bacillus tracbeiphilus.

272 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

That same evening, before the Botanical Seminar meeting,
Smith presented his first technical description of the organism in
a twenty-minute address, entitled, " Bacillus tracheiphilus, new
species, the cause of blight in cucurbits." April 30, 1895, Central-
hlatt jiir Bakteriologie published his first real pronouncement in
plant bacteriology,, " Bacillus tracheiphilus sp. nov., die Ursache
des Verwelkens verschiedener Cucurbitaceen." "

This was published in the second, or Zweite, Abteilung. General
medical bacteriology had been given the first, or Erste, Abteilung
of the Centralblatt. Publications on diseases of plants, along with
those on bacteriology of the soil, . dung, milk, cheese, vine, and
chemical technology, were now, so far as this publication was
concerned, officially in separate status. Throughout the first
twenty-five volumes of the section devoted to plant bacteriology.
Smith was to serve as an associate editor of the journal. He had
not finished with the researches on Bacillus tracheiphilus. Years
later, he would devote the first of several chapters on specific
bacterial plant diseases in his famous text, Introduction to Bac-
terial Diseases of Plantsl^" to the cucurbit wilt. In the second
volume of his monumental three-volume work, Bacteria in Rela-
tion to Plant Diseases,'^ ninety pages were to be given over to a
consideration of the wilt of cucurbits. Furthermore, numerous
references and descriptions of the disease were to appear in other
less important articles and treatises.

In his investigation of the cucurbit wilt and the next plant
bacterial disease which he studied, that of tomato, tgg plant, and
Irish potato caused by Bacillus solanacearum new species, Smith
achieved several important extensions of laboratory technique.

After Smith had sufficiently completed his inoculation experi-
ments of pure cultures of Bacillus tracheiphilus in acidified and
alkaline broths to be satisfied with his conclusion that the germ
is sensitive to acid tissues of the plant and thrives on alkaline
juices, on January 5, 1895, he took potato broths mixed with
organic acids — malic, succinic, citric, tartaric, and oxalic — in pro-
portion of lOcc. broth to Ice. N/lO acid, which gave, he noted
in his memoranda, about the same acidity as unboiled juice of
the cucumber plant. These were steamed and sterilized, and a
precipitate formed in the oxalic filtered out. The results of these

"2(1): 364-373, 1895. ''-Op. cit., 132-145. " O/'. cit., 2: 209-299.

FlORIOA A\n (lAl.Il-OKNIA LABORATORIES 27^

were compared \\ ith the results of experiments which determined
the acidity of the ciKunihcr juice

by titr.Uinq ai^ainst N/ 10 caustic soda recently set from N/10 H[ydrogcn]
C[h}lLoridc], usinq Phcnolphthalin as an indicator after compar[ing]
this with antliocyan, methyl orange, and various other indicators. The
juice was obtained in quantity from the parenchyma of ^reen fruits from
the market, as many as possible of the large vessels being cut away,
[the] rest graded, juice pressed out and at once titrated. Samples, [he
found, from the} two ditfcrent sources gave [the] same results.

Smith wrote into his Ceutralblatt article his observations on
the alkalinity of vessels. He hesitated to publish more until he
had thoroughly checked the literature to see what already had
been written, and to test the matter of alkalinity through more
species of the cucurbits. In field research that year, using neutral
litmus paper from the Division of Chemistry, he began testing a
wide variety of plants to determine their alkalinity and acidity.
August 12, in a manuscript of about fourteen pages of rather
closely written matter, he announced, " This is the 6th genus of
cucurbits tested and the fluid in the vessels of each is strongly
alkaline." The point, he believed, was bound up with practical
methods of preventing the disease. A quotation will explain: '■*

The practical method of preventing the disease is to fight the insects
that feed upon the vines. Destroy them and you wipe out the disease.
At the same time all diseased plants should be pulled and burned, so that
the insect shall find nothing but healthy plants to feed upon.

I seem to hear some one ask: "' If these things are true, why does not
every vine become diseased and so it become impossible to grow cucumbers
or other cucurbits where the disease exists?" It also happens that I can
answer that question. The germ is peculiarly sensitive in certain ways, for
example, to dry air. Exposure to direct sunlight for some hours also kills
it. Moreover it is sensitive to the acid tissues of the plant and thrives
only on alkaline juices. In cucurbitaccous plants the green tissues are acid,
while the fluid in the water ducts is alkaline, hence we find it thriving in
the water ducts and choking them up, but if it were thrust by an insect
bite or otherwise into the parenchyma of the plant it would make a feeble
growth and if only a very few germs were inserted they might die. In
spite of these circumstances enough plants become infected to carry the
disease along and to do great damage to muskmelon, cucumber, and squash
fields.

'* Erwin F. Smith, Some bacterial diseases of truck crops, Trans. Peninsula Horti-
cultural Society. Meeting at Snow Hill, Marj-land, January 11-12, 1898, pp. 142-147,
at pp. 143-144.

274 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

In this address, the brown rot of potato and the black rot of
cabbage were also described. This was not a technical discussion
addressed to an audience of scientists. In 1893 Smith had pre-
pared for the Agriculture of Pennsylvania two reports made to the
state horticultural association on " Diseases of fruits and the use
of fungicides " and on " Peach yellows." '°

His bulletins and technical papers addressed to scientists usually
preceded discussions of a semi-popular nature. Those contained
" critical and detailed descriptions of the organisms respectively
concerned " and became " exacting models " '*' for members of
the profession of plant pathology, present and future.

About the same year that Smith began to study specific bacterial
diseases in plants, another able scientist had been added to the
working force of the Division of Vegetable Pathology. On
December 1, 1893, Galloway had recommended that Albert Fred
Woods be appointed to the position formerly held by Fairchild.

Mr. Woods [Galloway wrote] is about twenty-five years old, graduated
from the University of Nebraska in 1890, and was immediately appointed
professor in the department of plant physiology and pathology, a position
which he now holds. From all accounts [he} is thoroughly qualified for
the place, being a man of pleasing address, good executive ability, and
thoroughly trained in our special field of work.

He held a graduate degree from his alma mater, and had
established there the university's first separate laboratory of plant
physiology. In plant pathology he had specialized in a study of
mosaic disease of tobacco. At the University of Nebraska, under
the leadership of C. E. Bessey a botanical seminar had greatly
contributed to the advancement of scientific botany, especially in
meritorious work in plant physiology and ecology. H. J. Webber,
F. E. Clements, Conway MacMillan, Roscoe Pound, later Jared
Gage Smith, and other well known botanists of the period, had
been members. Woods brought to the Division of Vegetable
Pathology the high calibre of studious accomplishment of this
organization and the strong education in scientific agriculture
provided by Bessey.

Thus, with Waite as an authority on pear blight. Smith an

'''' Rep't. of the State Hort. Assoc, of Penna for 1893: 42-49; 54-58.
^*L. R. Jones, Jour. Bacteriology 15(1): 2, Jan. 1928.

Florida and California Laboratories 275

authority on peach yellows and bacteiial diseases of truck crops,
Swini^lc and Webber authorities on orange blight and other dis-
eases of citrous fruits. Pierce an authority on California vine
disease and other maladies more or less confined to the agriculture
of the Pacific Coast, Galloway an authority on all of the work,
and Woods his new assistant and an authority on mosaic tobacco
disease, the Division deserved its quickly won reputation of being
one of the foremost organizations devoted to the study of plant
diseases in the world. The work was producing not only valuable
results for science but also farming practice.

Smith immediately recognized Woods's abilities as a scholarly
plant scientist. His fifteen-minute address of April 21, 1894,
before the Biological Society of Washington on " The Calorific
Effect of Light on Plants " so stimulated Smith that he wrote of it
to Spalding who found Woods's work " most interesting and
suggestive," and added at the end of his criticism, " Mr. Woods
has done an admirable service in showing the insufificiency of the
traditional ' simple experiment.' The next thing is to turn on
the electric light and see what light without heat will do. Perhaps
it has been done. I do not recall a report of it." Mention has
been made of the use of hydrocyanic acid gas as a fumigant
against certain scales of orange trees in California. Woods,
collaborating with P. H. Dorsett, later would extend this treat-
ment against scale insects and aphides infesting hot-house plants,
and the treatment was to become standard practice in the control
of nursery stock diseases." In 1894'^ a preliminary notice was
published by Webber of the discovery in Florida of a fungus
parasitic on the w^hite fly, an insect w^hich infested orange trees
and excreted a honeydew which nourished the fungus of " sooty
mold." This was an important finding in line with a principle
of investigation being applied by entomologists and pathologists,
and which Smith in part described by saying:

Riley and others conceived the idc;i that the best method of controlling
certain scales would be by multiplyini^ their insect parasites, and the
threatened destruction of the orange orchards of California by the cottony
cushion scale was avoided in this way, viz., by the introduction of a

"^ Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, 608, 1902.

'* H. J. Webber, Preliminary notice of a fungous parasite on Aleyrodes Citri
R. & H., Jour. Mycology 7(4): 363, Aug. 15, 1894.

276 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases

lady-beetle from Australia. Giard, Snow, Forbes and others have experi-
mented with certain fungous parasites of crop-destroying insects, hoping
to spread epidenics among them, but thus far (1902) with only partial
success. The dreaded San Jose scale can now be held in check in this
country by insecticidal sprays.

Many disease-prevention principles were being invented or
developed. Smith mentioned others: one was the later discovery
by Halsted, and others, that heavy liming of the soil may partly
prevent club root of cabbage. Another was a hybridization tech-
nique. After the manner that Pierce had partly solved the
California vine disease problem by bringing in healthy cuttings
from disease-free regions, the Dutch in Java some years later
considerably checked the spread of Sereh disease of sugar cane
by importing healthy cuttings from the hills.

During Smith's lifetime, the cause of the Sereh disease remained
in doubt. But a control method was evolved which he regarded
as a "great triumph!" He said '^^ of this: "In 1923 Miss G.
Wilbrink in Java demonstrated that sugar-cane cuttings could be
freed from Sereh by exposure to warm water (30 minutes at 45° C,
followed by 30 minutes at 50° to 53°C). From Sereh-diseased
canes treated in this manner healthy plants can be grown."

One of Smith's main contributions had been his development of
a laboratory of plant pathology. His own work exampled a high
level of skill and efficiency and in it he perfected many important
techniques of investigation. In 1895 a convention of American
bacteriologists was held in New York City and, in the course of
its proceedings, a committee was named to promulgate a program
for the proper study of bacteria. In 1891 Paul Sorauer, as editor,
had begun to publish his Zeitschrift fiir Pjianzenkrankheiten and,
among its pages, occasionally appeared articles on bacteria. In
1892, in Edinburgh and London, The Journal of Pathology and
Bacteriology had been started. America in 1896, through the
editorship of Dr. W. H. Welch, was soon to have The journal
of Experimental Aledicine. Furthermore, in October 1895, the
Journal of the American Public Health Association published
several valuable papers on bacteriology. An opportunity loomed
to fit plant bacteriology into the advancements being made in
animal pathology, and of this Smith was not unaware.

"^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 37.

Ch A pti:r \U

RECOGNITION OF THE SCIENCE OF PLANT BACTERIOLOGY

IN AMERICA

o

N JUNE 22, 189^, Smith sent to Farlow a reprint of his
recently published paper on Bdcilhis iracheiphilus. " It is
the first plant disease I've ever been able to work out satisfac-
torily," he commented, " the yellows having thus far baffled me,
although I am not' yet ready to give up on that, but only resting
long enough to get a fresh start."

During this year he began to consult Farlow on the proper
classification, and points of his culture study, of the watermelon
fungus, Neocosmospora. Almost two years of " very hard work-
unravelling its life history " had not solved all of his problems,
although by January 6, 1896, he told Farlow in another letter:

I have now worked out the whole life history, and a good deal of
general interest concerning the physiology of the fungus, and if I could
only settle one way or other whether the three forms (on cotton, cowpeas,
and watermelon) are identical or different, I should be ready to throw
my two years notes into shape for publication. Here the investigation lags.

Smith continued his cross inoculation experiments during 1896
and 1897; and even in 1899 when his bulletin ' on the " Wilt
Disease of Cotton, Watermelon, and Cowpea " was published,
he did not regard his investigation as completed. He published
his " main facts," and expected to extend his ascospore inocu-
lations. But his last publishing on this subject took place in 1907 -
and represented not his own work but that of a colleague, William
A. Orton.

Early in 1896 Farlow congratulated Smith for his "excellent
reviews " of botanical literature in the American Naturalist. In
1895 Dr. Edward D. Cope, science editor of the Naturalist, had
given Smith " exclusive direction " of a department of vegetable
physiology to which he added pathology and morphology.

Smith told Farlow there were " very few men in the country"

* 17, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., U. S. Dept't of Agriculture.
^ E. F. Smith, The parasitism of Neocosmospora — inference versus fact, Science,
n. s. 26 (663): 347-349, Sept. 13, 1907.

277
10

278 Recognition in America

from whom he would rather have " encouraging words " than
from him, since, like his " old teacher and friend Spalding,"
Farlow knew " good from bad " work and did not " waste breath
on mediocrity. Frankly," wrote Smith, " I wish there were more
like you. There would be less slipshod, disgraceful work done."
Professors of botany were wanting in this country, especially those
who possessed " a proper knowledge of the subject " and who
" instilled into their students a love of truth for its own sake, and
an adequate conception of the dishonesty [in] doing any piece
of scientific work in a hasty, crude way, or in any way but
thoroughly." In fact, this had motivated his acceptance of Cope's
offer to edit a department of vegetable physiology and pathology
for the American Naturalist:

it was partly to show the young men of the country (such as read only
English) how botany [is] studied abroad that I began the series of
abstracts in the Am\_erican'] Naturalist. It is my intention to continue these,
noticing generally only what I consider the better class of papers, and
occasionally mentioning an American publication.

Farlow agreed the present status of botany in America was
"' unsatisfactory." But he and Smith took pleasure in the promise
of American students abroad. Some, like Farlow, D. H. Campbell,
B. L. Robinson, W. R. Dudley, W. F. Ganong, Humphrey and
perhaps others, had returned from their first studies there. By
1895, according to a letter to Farlow from H. M. Richards studying
at Leipzig, there were " at least nine Americans studying botany "
at Leipzig, Bonn, or some other university research center. Farlow
wrote Smith,

The advanced botanical students in German laboratories are nearly all
foreigners. The young Americans now abroad will find it hard work to
get places when they come back. They will however come back well
trained although not always in fields where there is a demand here. They
will, at least, be able to appreciate real work and will form a nucleus for
a higher group of workers than we now have. In fact, the standard of work
is beginning to rise already but for years to come we must expect more
of what we are now having.

Smith's important study, " The Path of the Water Current in
Cucumber Plants " ^ had been undertaken " to verify some of

^ Atnerican Naturalist 30:372-378, May 1896; 451-457, June 1896; 554-562,
July 1896.

Of the SciENCi- OF Plant Bacteriology 279

Strasburqcr's statements in his hook Ueher den Bau unci die
Vernchtiingen der Le'itungibabnen in den Pflanzen, and partly to
determine, as accurately as possible, the path of the water current
in Cucurbitaceous stems, subject to the attack of Bcicillus trachei-
philiis," The year before, from work of several Europeans inclu-
ding Gonnerman, Smith had prepared another principal article
m the nature of a review, on " Root tubercles of Leguminosae." *
Between 1892 and 1895 he had selected several important
research studies for reviews: among them, Dr. Alfred Fischer's
work on the " Phycomycetes " from Rabenhorst's Kryptogamen
flora '" and a later 'paper by the same scholar on the physiology
and morphology of the flagella, bacterial classification, and plas-
molysis of bacteria/' In 1893 he reviewed Dr. Wilhelm Zopf's
Die Pi/ze in morphologischer, pbysiologiscber, biologischer uud
systematischer Beziehung, for the general student " the best hand-
book yet published," and Dr. Oscar Kirchner's Die Krankheiten
tind Beschadigungen unserer landwirtschaftlichen Kulturpfianzen,
a practical, useful book for farmers and gardeners, " unique in
the literature of plant diseases." ' H. Marshall Ward's " Dis-
eases of conifers " and his study of the action of light on bacteria
were reviewed in 1894-1895.^ Experimental researches done in
German laboratories by W. Rothert and Rudolph Aderhold were
studied and written up in 1895.'^ The Dutchman Beijerinck's
method of detecting the enzym glukase by auxanographic methods
and T. W. Engelmann's results as to " Demonstration of photo-
syntax by bacteria," ^° were described the same year. June 22,
1895, Smith asked Farlow, " Have you seen Woronin's new paper
on Sclerotinia padi and S. aucupariae? Fine," he observed, " I like
all his w^ork," and then followed Smith's review, " Woronin on
Sclerotinia." ^^ Smith recommended for reading, among much

* Amer. Nat. 29: 893-903, Oct. 1895.

^ Jour. Mycology 7(2): 135-140, Mar. 1892.

* Amer. Nat. 29: 847-851, Sept. 1895. Fischer's name given as "Albert" in the
review. Smith, however, corrected this later. See Bact. in Rel. to Pi. Dis. 1: 264.

''Jour. Mycology 7(3): 282-283, May 1893.

^ Jour. Mycology 7(4): 396-398, Aug. 1895; Amer. Nat. 29: 671-674, July 1895.

* Uebcr das Schicksal der Cilien bei den Zoosporen der Phycomyceten (W.
Rothert), Amer. Nat. 29: 583, June 1895; Rothert on hcliotropism, At7ier. Nat. 29:
585, June 1895; Perithecial stage of the apple-scab fungus (Aderhold) Amer. Nat.
29: 583-584. June 1895.

^^ Amer. Nat. 29: 750-753, Aug. 1895.
^"^ Amer. Nat. 29: 749-750, Aug. 1895.

280 Recognition in America

else, F. von Tavel's Vergleichende Morphologie der Vtlze}"
Other works by Hermann Vochting, G. Haberlandt, H. Graf 2u
Solms-Laubach, Louis Mangin, Treub and Nawaschin, E. Kroeber,
Bokorny, and other Europeans were included in reviews. A few
works by Americans were also chosen, including that of Professor
J. M. Macfarlane on paraheliotropism and Thomas B. Osborne's
study of proteids of the rye kernel and barley and the chemical
nature of diastase/^

August 23, 1895, Pammel of Iowa Agricultural College con-
gratulated Smith:

I have just received your interesting paper on Bacillus tracheiphilus . . .
in Centralbl[att} f. Bakt[eriologie] u. Parasitenk[unde}. It is an excellent
paper. It seems to me you have adopted the proper vi^ay of describing species
of bacteria. No one will be able to recognize many species of bacteria
described by authors. ... I have sent a paper on certain gas producing
species to [the] St. Louis Academy [of Sciences] which will probably appear
sometime this fall. In this paper several species are fully described. . . .

That year, in bulletin 27 of the Iowa experiment station,
Pammel described the " Bacteriologists of rutabaga " and its causal
organism, Bacillus campestris. In May, under this title, he pub-
lished on it in the American Monthly Microscopical Journal.^'^
During the summer Pammel had " very little opportunity ... to
do Bacteriological work." He promised to send a copy or abstract
of his paper.

Smith in August 1896 began to publish in the American
Naturalist his critical evaluations of the present state of knowl-
edge of bacterial diseases of plants. ^^ Pammel on December 25,
after reading the first three or four of these, sent another
letter to Smith. First, he explained that he had lacked for many
months a place to carry forward his investigations in bacteriology
and could not furnish him cultures of Bacillus campestris. He
thought Smith's " scheme outlined in American Naturalist is a
most excellent one, and should be followed. This has not been
done by many of us," he added, " but what can be expected in

'''']our. Mycology 7(4): 389-396, Aug. 1894.

'^^ Amer. Nat. 29: 1100-1103 (Macfarlane), Dec. 1895; " Separation of enzymes,"
Anier. Nat. 29: 586, June 1895.

^* 16: 145 ff.

^^ The bacterial diseases of plants: a critical review of the present state of our
knowledge, Amer. Nat. 30 (356): 627 (first of series), Aug. 1896.

Oi- nil Scii-NCi-: of Plant Bacti;riology 281

the early days of the science. We should now start out in the
rii;ht way. " He liked Smith's treatment t)f " physiological charac-
ters." The reason why he could not furnish Smith with cultures
was that

everything ... in the way of cultures f liad been] lost last winter. I was
movint; about from place to place last year. I-irst in with the A^r[icultura]l
Chemistry dep[artmcn]t, then into an old building and finally into my
present quarters. I lost my Bacillus aromaticus as well. Russell wrote me
a few weeks ago for cultures but I was compelled to make the same state-
ment. . . . [N]o one regrets this more than I do. I don't remember just
the number of gelatin cultures ... I made a half dozen or so cultures in
gelatin but I cannot t;ive you the exact number. I did note this, a slight
liquefaction which I attributed to a foreign organism. I worked with
neutral or slightly alkaline media. I am inclined to think that many of
the species are variable when we come to consider physiological charac-
ters. ... I have some additional notes on other gas species which I may
send you in the course of a few weeks. . . . Are you making a collection
ot fungi of your own ? I shall in the course of a few months distribute a
first century of Iowa fungi and shall be glad to send you a set.

The black rot of crucifers was the third bacterial plant disease
which Smith studied. His work on this did not get fully under
way until 1897, although his preliminary investigations began
soon after reading Pammel's first papers. Halsted of Rutgers
College and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station had
congratulated him in 1895 on his investigations of his first bac-
terial plant disease studied: " It delights me," he wrote, '" to get
your paper upon Bacillus tracheiphilus. ... I am glad you have
gone to the bottom of the trouble and can show so clearly that
the ivilt is caused by a microorganism." When Pammel wrote on
Christmas Day, 1896, he had just received Smith's bulletin 12 on
Bacillus solanacearum, cause of a bacterial disease of tomato, tgg
plant, and Irish potato, and the second such disease studied by
Smith.

American botanical work, except in phanerogamic taxonomy
and to some extent in cryptogamic botany, was not fully recognized
in many centers of European scholarship. Inferior quality of some
American work partly explained this, but not altogether since some
very creditable work had been done here. Highly reputable
research in plant physiology and pathology still passed practically
unnoticed abroad. So valuable a bulletin as Waite's " The Pol-

282 Recognition in America

lination of Pear Flowers " (1894) was mentioned in an important
German journal/® But the reviewer had not studied the bulletin;
in fact, had learned of it only from a scant notice in Gardeners'
Chronicle. In 1894 Galloway had tried to bring American work
more to the attention of European scholars. He arranged with
editors of Just's Jahresberichte, Hedwigia, and Botaniscbe Cen-
iralhlatt to furnish abstracts of articles by Division members, and
placed Joseph F. James in charge of the abstracting, instructing
him to prepare his work in conjunction with the authors of the
articles. Scientists in America as well as in Europe had complained
that they had not received regularly or at all the publications of
the Division. Smith told Galloway:

The necessity for a wide distribution of our publications among scien-
tific workers in the same field can not be gainsaid. Science knows no
country or nation, but is broad as the world, and if we are to keep abreast
of modern scientific work in the line of plant diseases we must be in
constant touch and communication with workers in this field in all parts
of the world, and the only possible way by which this can be done is to
send our own publications promptly to these workers wherever they are
in the world so that we may receive in exchange their own publications,
many of which are of the utmost importance to our own work, and ulti-
mately to the fruit growing and farming population of the United States.
The scientific workers of the world as a rule are very willing to exchange,
but they can not be expected to give something for nothing. Neither are
we in condition to purchase all of their publications, even if we knew
when and where they were published.

Satisfactory intercommunication between research centers of the
world was needed in plant pathology and mycology. Fairchild's
indices to literature since 1892 had included foreign sources, and,
for a few years after 1886, Annals of Botany, of which Farlow
was American editor, had published valuable botanical bibliog-
raphies which included references to American work. Fairchild,
before he had gone abroad, had completed extensive work on
fungicides including bibliographical references nearly a century
old. His total number of references was estimated by Galloway
as " something over eighteen hundred." ^^ The Botanical Club,
or Section G, of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, at its Madison meeting, had appointed a committee

^* Material taken from a letter by E. F. Smith to Galloway, January 31, 1895.
^■'Letter from Galloway to Halsted, April 6, 1894.

Of THi; ScinNci- of Plant Bactfriology 28^

consistini; of Halstcd, Galloway, Atkinson, and Bcsscy, to study
and report on nomenclature of plant diseases. A preliminary
report, with a recommendation that the study be continued, was
presented at the Brooklyn meeting of August 1894.'' Leadership
in forwarding this was assumed by Halstcd who each year since
1891 had been publishing at the New Jersey experiment station
illustrated reports on diseases of plants.'" The committee con-
tinued its work in 189^. Hut at the Springfield Massachusetts,
meeting of Section G, plant physiology was the main topic. Dr.
Arthur spoke '" on its status and future in American and European
science. *

Since the Rochester and Madison meetings, newly promulgated
rules of nomenclature in phanerogamic botany and a proposed list
of plant names had been under discussion. The favorable action
taken toward these rules was regarded by Smith as not final. At
his own expense he published a vigorous protest.-' It is unneces-
sary in this book to deal with the major point of this controversy.
Suffice it to say that his protest was commended by many of the
nation's outstanding botanists. He saw^ no fundamental need
for nomenclatural reforms, however much some changes in rules
(priority, for instance) were approvable. In 1894 and 1895 he
had discussed questions of nomenclature before the Botanical
Seminar and the Biological Society of Washington. In 1894,
before the seminar, he had also read a paper on " Brefeld's
classification of fungi." He wanted permanence and stability in
nomenclature, especially plant names. But, even more, he wanted
botanists now to devote their energies to the " thousand and one
problems in bio-chemistry, anatomy, morphology, physiology,
ecology, cytology and ontology " of the " new botany." "' He
knew that to pursue his interest in the " biological side of botany "
frequently the correct plant name had to be ascertained. But
energies were not conserved for the more important tasks when
much time was wasted searching through various classification

"Prof. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci, 43rd meet., 296-297, 1894.

"Fifty years of pathology, op. cil., 21.

'" Development of vegetable physiology, Proc. A?Ker. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 44th meet.,
163-184, 1895.

-^ The Botanical Club Check List: a protest, privately printed, Washington, D. C,
July 22, 1895.

""'Idem. 2.

284 Recognition in America

schemes to determine what species was being studied. The " great
systematic botanists of the world " had established the current
botanical nomenclature. No " new lamps for old ones " were
needed. Whatever new interpretations of the existing code were
wanted could be made at an International Botanical Congress.

Many letters from leading botanists of various sections of the
nation attested to a widespread agreement with the stand upheld
by Smith in his protest. Farlow wrote on August 17, 1895, that
he had "' read with great interest your paper on nomenclature in
which you forcibly present the absurdity [of] the claim that the
Rochester Code and the List are accepted without question by
the majority of American botanists and is approved by European
botanists. . . . The policy of ignoring criticism from abroad and
opposition at home," he hoped, would " prove a boomerang."

Dr. W. C. Sturgis, mycologist of the Connecticut Agricultural
Experiment Station, congratulated Smith upon his " stand upon
the nomenclature question. ... I agree with you thoroughly,"
he wrote on August 17, " and congratulate practical botanists on
at last having the views of the majority on this matter so clearly
expressed."

F. C. Newcombe of the University of Michigan read Smith's
protest and, for the first time realizing " very clearly that the
methods of the [check list] reformers will disturb all of us as
well as agriculturists, pharmacists, et al.," hoped that " the battle "
would be fairly fought. " That incidental suggestion of yours,"
he continued,

that another journal might not come amiss, I would like to see pushed.
In the whole English language we have no journal like the Botanische
Zeitung or B. Centralblatt. The Annals is good for extensive articles, but
gives us no reviews. The Gazette gives us neither. Science does part of
the work; but I should like to see a journal combining both extensive
articles and numerous reviews. You have observed probably that Americans
furnish one-third or more of the copy for the Annals. I do not believe in
multiplying unnecessarily the journals; but do we not need an American
journal of botany? The number of real botanists is increasing in this
Country year by year. You can count from 12 to 20 now in this Country
who will be sure to publish year after year. I think I said the same to you
last summer. I would like to see Farlow take hold of the matter and put
some of his cash into it for a few years.

This letter was written on August 18, 1895. Approximately two

Of thi; SriPNCi- of Plant Ba( tf.iuoi.oc.v 285

decades later. The American Jour/htl of Botany, ofiicial publication
of the Botanical Society of America, and published by the Brook-
lyn Botanic Garden with Newcombe as its editor-in-chief, appeared
on the American scientific scene.

In American botany, the year 1895 was prophetic in another
particular. December 30 of that year, J. E. Humphrey, now of
Johns Hopkins University, soon to be promoted, and as part of
his work to deliver a course of eight public lectures on the history
and present outlook of Botany, addressed a communication to
Smith: ,

At a meeting of botanists present at the Philadelphia meetings -^ a
committee of live, comprising E. F. Smith, L. H. Bailey, [W. F.] Ganong,
Bessey, and myself, was chosen to canvass the botanists of the country,
especially of the east, for an expression as to whether they favor and will
actively cooperate in the organization of a botanical society to meet with
the several other scientific societies which meet during Christmas week.
We are also charged with getting suggestions as to the scope of such a
society, and, if the response is sufficiently encouraging, to make definite
recommendations for organization to the meeting next year, and to prepare
a program for that meeting. I hope you are willing to act as a member of
the committee and that you will agree to canvass the Washington botanists
thoroughly on the question.

At this time neither plant physiology nor plant morphology
were mentioned in the wording of this letter or in a printed form,
prepared June 1, 1896, by the committee, and circulated among
botanists. However, by letter of Janaury 3, 1896, Humphrey
advised Smith that if the latter had been present at Philadelphia
he " would have seen that the whole sentiment of the botanical
meeting was morpho-physiological." The prominent participants
in the meeting had been W. P. Wilson, Macfarlane, Ganong,
Miss Gregory, and H. W. Conn, who to Humphrey represented
bacteriology. Humphrey had begun to attend meetings of the
Washington scientific societies. In the autumn of 1896 he told
Smith that botanical work at the university had begun " with
distinct gains." He and Smith, however, did not agree wholly as
to the scope and purposes of the new society, although their
differences were chiefly whether the research fields of plant phy-
siology and morphology were sufficiently developed to warrant a
new society, and not whether each was needed. Plant physiology,

-'' Of the ArriQrican Society of Naturalists.

286 Recognition in America

as a fertile developmental branch of botany, was proving its
strength more with every year. Prolific in potentialities, objective
physiology was to widen the botanical research orbit to advance
the plant sciences both purely and practically and create whole
new interpretations from the older fabric, whole new branches
of science in organized forms — ecology, genetics, a " new phy-
siology," a "new pathology," an "experimental taxonomy," etc.
Years would go into the making. But the envisioned future was
in the minds of many of the most alert scientists. We do not
know what were Smith's ideas of the new botanical society. But
Humphrey's reply on December 20, 1896, was:

As to your scheme for a society, I think it quite impossible. Very many
of the men who have stayed out of the Bot[anical] Soc[iety of} America
have done so, on account of the size of the fees; and I would never join
a society of that sort, no matter how able I might be to do so, financially.
As to organs, we have too many already. I think it will not be many years
before we can worthily support a journal of the character of the Annals
of Botany, without editorials or reviews, filled simply with good papers.
But we cannot do it yet, and we want nothing else. I hope to talk it over
with you, sometime. But there is no hurry. There will not be more than
half a dozen botanists at Boston, and nothing is likely to be done.

December 30, 1896, botanists present at the Boston meeting
of the American Society of Naturalists and some residing in
Cambridge gathered in the Cryptogamic Laboratory of Harvard
University and heard the report of the committee of which
Humphrey was chairman. Those present were Farlow, Wilson,
Macfarlane, Emily Gregory, Benjamin Lincoln Robinson of the
Gray Herbarium, Thaxter, H. M. Richards, J. M. Greenman,
later of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Ganong, appointed
secretary of a " Committee on the organization of a Society for
Vegetable Morphology and Physiology to meet annually with the
American Society of Naturalists." It was understood and agreed
that

The new Society should conflict as little as possible with those already
in existence. There is no need for a new Society of general scope. Since
the interests of those most concerned in the movement are mainly in Mor-
phology and Physiology, the new Society should be limited in its scope
to them and to the broader aspects of Systematic Botany, while Taxonomy
and its dependent subjects, so amply provided for in the existent societies,
should be excluded.

Of thi- SciuNci- or Plant Bacteriology 287

February 1897, eleven other botanists were invited to join and
cooperate with the committee, each of whom accepted: George
Lincoln Goodale, Chira E. Cummings, D. I\ Penhallow, Cj. E.
Stone, \V. C. Sturgis, J. E. Humphery, E. A. Burt, Galloway,
Atkinson, Bailey, and Smith. December 27, 1897, the committee
met at Ithaca, New York, where was scheduled to take place the
sixteenth annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists,
in conjunction with meetings of the Association of American
Anatomists, the Association for Botanical Morphology and Phy-
siology, the American Morphological Society, the American Phy-
siological Societ)', the American Psychological Association, and
Section H, or Anthropology, of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. The committee resolved to " constitute
itself a society for the promotion of research in Plant Morphology
and Physiology, with the general understanding that it shall meet
with the American Society of Naturalists," and " that its name
shall be Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology!'

About thirty botanists were present at the Society's first meeting
and an equal number of papers was listed on the program.^*
Smith published abstracts of several of the papers: his own "Addi-
tional Notes on the Bacterial Brown Rot of Cabbages " and
" Occurence of Kramer's Bacterial Disease on Sugar Beets in the
United States," Albert F. Woods' " Variable Reaction of Plants
and Animals to Hydrocyanic Acid," one by Webber, two by
Swingle, one by Benjamin Minge Duggar, and one by Harper,
among them. Botanists elected to membership included Spalding,
Webber, Swingle, W. W. Rowlee, J. W. Harshberger, Fairchild,
Harper, Woods, A. J. Pieters, a graduate of the University of
Michigan and whom Newcombe had recommended for employ-
ment by the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology,
G. H. Hicks, H. C. Porter, Harriet L. Merrow, and Theo. Holm.
Farlow w^as elected the Society's first president; Macfarlane and
Atkinson, vice presidents; Ganong, secretary-treasurer; and Smith
was named chairman of the committee on membership for a period
of three years. Serving on the committee with him were Miss
Cummings, Fairchild, Spalding, and Bailey. In the forum dis-
cussion of the American Society of Naturalists on " The Biological

^* Erwin F. Smith, The first meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology and
Physiology, Amer. Naturalist 32 (374): 96-110, Feb. 1898.

288 Recognition in America

Problems of To-day," Dr. Trelease of the Missouri Botanical
Garden represented botany.

Noticeable was the number of members in the Society from
the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology. For several
years research in the physiology, as well as pathology, of plants
had been gaining. On June 21, 1895, Halsted told Galloway he
was " enjoying very much the growth your Division is making
and in particular along the physiological lines. I," Halsted said,
"" am getting interested in questions of soil water as related
to health of plants." When Smith had accepted editorship of a
department of vegetable physiology and pathology in the A?neri-
can Naturalist, Spalding in London on April 25, 1895, had written,
" I think you are right in feeling that one of the greatest services
needed at present is faithful and prompt abstracting and reporting
of monographs etc. where American readers can get their sub-
stance. I have for years thought of this as an important field
not properly worked in as yet."

American students were not always pleased with the quality
of their European instruction. With no known exceptions, students
from the United States held in high esteem the laboratory and
classroom instruction at the Botanical Institute in Bonn under
Eduard Strasburger. The privilege of study under Wilhelm Pfeffer
at Leipzig was also highly valued. But the great German au-
thorities, most of them, adhered tenaciously to their traditional
disbelief in bacterial diseases of plants. Oskar Brefeld was one.
Denial of this class of diseases tempered considerably the Ameri-
can students' confidence in the masters of fungology. Spalding,
while liking Brefeld as an individual, criticised his system as too
simple, his scheme of relationships of the fungi as laid in con-
ceptions " purely anatomical, and," wrote Spalding to Smith on
June 1, 1895, " from all he has said in his lectures it would be
difficult to assume that he really comprehends what phyllogenetic
relationship means." Fairchild, Harper, and Spalding had

been waiting patiently to see whether Brefeld would construct a gene-
ological tree and at least put on the terminal branches. This he ought to
be able to do if his system is what he believes it to be. But if he tried to,
I am afraid he would be sadly puzzled over some of those cross lines. . . .
Brefeld evidently knows a great deal less about the descent of fungi than
he thinks he does. ..." Our little systems have their day, They have their
day and cease to be."

Or Tin; SciENCU oi- Plant Bacthriology 289

Spalding also criticised Brcfcld's culture nictliDds as *' awfully
crude in the lij^ht of modern methods." Contrariwise, Swingle at
Bonn on December 26, 1893, revealed to Smith that " Strasburger
wears well — he is the most inspiring man I have ever seen. He
doesn't waste his time on methods or material— all he cares about
are results."

Spalding returned to the Botanical Laboratory of the University
of Michig'an and by January 1896 Smith was gratified to learn
that the department was functioning "' on a solid foundation."
He contemplated at this time'" associating himself with some
university to give as much of his time as possible to develop
research work and study in bacterial diseases of plants. He would
like to have gone to Cornell University since there his two close
friends, Liberty Hyde Bailey and Veranus A. Moore, were located,
the former in plant work and agriculture, and the latter still
studying diseases of animals as a member of the faculty of the
New York State College of Veterinary Science. Formal negotia-
tions were never commenced, although Smith consulted both
Bailey and Moore, and both men wanted Smith at Cornell.
Bailey was still professor of horticulture but facilities of his
department were not sufikient, especially in view of the fact that
the type of work which Smith had in mind w^as regarded there
as botanical, not horticultural. Not yet had the New York State
College of Agriculture been founded. It is not likely that Smith
turned to any other university, although in January, Spalding had
volunteered to say that with about one hundred literary students
and twenty-five to forty pharmacy students his department was
building up its work in anatomy, physiology, and the laboratory
side of the science. The laboratory was better equipped and the
teaching force was ample. Newcombe's excellent work in his-
tology and physiology was attracting advanced students. They
were " prepared to do good work in histology, physiology, mor-
phology of at least certain groups of cryptogams." Funds were
not sufficient. Li fact, Spalding was financing some items of
expense. An offensive was on with Professor Reighard to secure
a new building. Additions were being made to the herbarium.
Smith evidently had urged Spalding to employ Charles F. Wheeler.
Smith's and Wheeler's friendship had never wavered, and consis-

" Letters, Smith to Bailey and to Moore, and vice versa, December 1896.

290 Recognition in America

tently each had sought to aid the other. Not in the least had
Spalding's admiration for Smith's accomplishments diminished,
either. On August 7, 1896, he again praised Smith's work:

I most heartily congratulate you on the actual results you have been able
to attain. I set a high value on these accounts of your work, knowing as
I do that every bit of work you do is done with downright honesty and
done to last. . . . When your bacterial and physiological studies keep
coming to me, and [Douglas Houghton] Campbell sends me his work on
Archegoniata, and I call to mind the excellent work of still others who
used to have a place in the Michigan laboratory, I wonder what I have
been doing all these years ! I don't utterly give up hope of accomplishing
something yet, but you have conducted investigations enough to form some
conception of how rapidly such work would progress if you gave three-
fourths of your time and nine-tenths of your energy to teaching, organiza-
tion, university committees, and the administrative duties inseparable from
the direction of a laboratory that has had to be made almost de novo. At
present I must "" wait upon teaching ". . . .

Never once, however, during this or any year hereafter does it
appear certain that Smith consulted Spalding with reference to
employment for himself. Smith must have believed that his work
could be best furthered in a university where agriculture and
veterinary science, and medicine too, were taught, and experi-
mental laboratories and research in each provided.

March 11, 1896, Halsted communicated to Galloway news,
recently received from A. B. Seymour of Harvard, that his and
Farlow's " Index to the literature of North American Fungi "
was complete, containing something like 100,000 references. A
movement to have the work printed was now to be set in motion,
indicating the progress thus far made in the study of fungi. This
year Fliigge's Microdrganismen mit hesonderen Berikkskhti gung
der Aetiologie der hijektionskrankheiten in third edition, a work
of several authors, and describing l6l kinds of bacteria, appeared.
This showed, Smith later said,-"

to what extent pathologists and bacteriologists had already multiplied and
become interested in culture methods and classifications. Already 22 groups
of the rod-shaped bacteria were recognized, of which at least 16 groups
contained parasites; not to mention Coccaceae and Spirillaceae, in which
groups also parasites had been found ; not to mention also Protozoans. The
latter were divided into 4 main groups each containing parasites. Nothing,

^® Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 26.

Of thu Sciench of Plant Bactfriology 291

perhaps, in brief, skives a better idea of the progress of pathology . . . than
an enumeration of the then-recognized classes of the rod-shaped bacteria.
Fliigge's groups of these bacteria arc named from prominent organisms in
each group and those containing parasites arc as follows: The hay-bacillus
group, the anthrax group, the oedema bacillus group, the symptomatic
anthrax group, the tetanus group, the proteus group, tlie lluoreSLcnt bacilli,
the water bacilli (here plant parasites), the Bacillus aerogeues group, the
Bacillus coli and typhoid group, the hemorrhagic septicaemia group (here
mouse typhus), the Bacillus sputigenes group (here mouse plague), the
intiuenza bacillus group, the swine measles group, the glanders group, the
diphtheria group, and the tubercle group. At the end Fliigge has a catch-
all for diseases of uncertain origin, variously ascribed to bacteria, but all
imperfectly understood and requiring further investigation: such diseases
as rabies, smallpox, measles, typhus fever, whooping cough, yellow fever,
beri-beri, and trachoma.

As yet, no book had been writen on bacteria which affected
plants. In a prepared " Memorandum of things to do," of date
September 12, 1895, Smith listed as the second item, "Write a
book on Bacterial diseases of Plants." He began this by putting
in order for the American Naturalist his historic critical reviews
of the present state of knowledge concerning, first, diseases
of clearly established bacterial origin; second, diseases which
appeared to be constantly associated with bacteria and which were
believed probably due to some specific organism, but full proof
of which had not been furnished; third, diseases said to be more
or less closely associated with the presence of bacteria and ascribed
thereto, but in which little or no proof had been brought forward
to establish the causal relation; and, fourth, communicable dis-
eases which had been ascribed to bacteria but associated with
which no organism had been found and which were believed
probably of non-bacterial nature.-' Arranged according to hosts
and based on materials supplied so far as possible by the most
reputable authorities who themselves had studied and first pub-
lished on the diseases — for example, Wakker in yellow disease
(1883) of hyacinth — these studies, preceded in America only by
Dr. Russell's thesis on bacteria in relation to vegetable tissue,
represented the lirst real effort by an American scientist to evaluate
the existing knowledge on plant diseases caused by bacteria.

^■^ The bacterial diseases of plants: a critical review of the present state of our
knowledge, Amer. Naturalist 30 (356): 642, Aug. 1896.

292 Recognition in America

" The great development of modern bacteriology," Smith
affirmed,-^

is attributable largely to the discovery that human diseases are due to these
organisms, and to its consequent alliance with medicine, but there is no
reason why the same rigid scrutiny of methods and sharp calling in ques-
tion of statements which have led to such brilliant results in animal path-
ology in recent years should not be applied in the same way to vegetable
pathology. Accurate experimentation and trustworthy results are from a
purely scientific standpoint quite as desirable in one field as in the other.

This statement in considerable part became Smith's doctrine.
His own work began to prove what he thought possible for a
science of bacteriology in plants. L. R. Jones, receiving his
account of "A Bacterial Disease of the Tomato, Eggplant, and
Irish Potato {^Bacillus solanacearum new species)," '" wrote: ^°

It stands unrivalled as a thorough piece of work on bacterial disease
of plant. This together with your contributions in Am[erican} Nat[uralist}
should serve two purposes — first, to furnish an example and standard for
us '" yankees " to work to — second, to secure proper recognition of Ameri-
can work from Europeans.

In 1897 Smith read before the Biological Society of Washington
a paper on "A Bacterial Disease of Cruciferous Plants." ^^ But
his main publications on Pseudomonas campestris were in the
Centralhlatt fur Bakteriologie II ^^ that year and, after reexamining
and confirming the facts of this paper, in 1898 another paper in
the Zeitschrift fiir Pfianzenkrankheiten. Early in 1897 Dr. Paul
Sorauer of Berlin wrote for his reprints on plant bacterial dis-
eases. His work was recognized in America also. Among many
others, Dr. Henry M. Hurd of Johns Hopkins Hospital praised
the depth to which his study had gone.^^

In 1893 Dr. Russell had accepted a call to return to his alma
mater. The University of Wisconsin, as assistant professor of
bacteriology. By 1897 he had been made full professor of the
subject, and was in 1903 to be constituted director of the Wis-
consin State Hygienic Laboratory and in 1907 dean of the college

^ndem, 635.

'" Bull. 12, U. S. D. A. Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., Dec. 19, 1896.

^° Letter, Jones to Smith, February 20, 1897.

" Science n. s., 5: 963, June 18, 1897.

^" Bacteria in relation to plant diseases II: 333, bibliog.

''^ Letter, Hurd to Smith, November 13, 1897.

Of the SauNct oi- Plant Bacti-riology 293

of agriculture and director of the agricultural experiment station
of Wisconsin, llxpcritiicnt St.ition Record ''■' in 189-1 formally
noticed that he had

entered upon his work at the station in September and [wouKI] devote
himself almost wholly to the study of the termcntations of milk and its
products. By comhinini; his elTorts with those of Dr. Babcock the station
hope[d] to contribute materially to the knowledge of dairying. With the
coming of Dr. Russell the university offer [ed] an advanced course of dairy
instruction. ...

Dairy bacteriology, therefore, became Russell's specialty. In
1894-1905 he published Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology and in
1898 Agricultural Bacteriology. Some further work in plant dis-
eases, however, was also done, notably that in "A Bacterial Rot
of Cabbage and Allied Plants," with Harry Alexis Harding who
graduated in science from the university in 1896 and obtained
while serving as a fellow 1897-1898 his degree of master of science
in 1898. Harding studied for a while in Europe and at Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, became in 1899 bacteriologist of
the New York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, earned
his doctorate of philosophy degree at Cornell University in 1910,
and in 1913 was appointed professor of dairy bacteriology at the
University of Illinois.

In 1895, before Section G at the Springfield, Massachusetts,
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, Russell's preliminary notice of "A leaf-rot of cabbages " ^^
was read. Smith was in South Carolina when this meeeting took
place. His tvv'o papers on " The Watermelon Wilt and other Wilt
Diseases due to Fusarium " and " The Southern Tomato Blight " ^°
were read for him to Section G by Albert F. Woods. The cabbage
leaf-rot had been called to Russell's attention in July 1895.
Pammel three years before had discovered the organism which
caused this disease. Russell, however, believed that he had estab-
lished its pathogenicity only as to rutabagas and turnips and had
not connected it with other species of Brassica, more specifically,
the cabbage and cauliflower rot. Since the disease had been found

"5 (4): 443, 1894.

^^Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 44: 193, 1895. See also, H. L. Russell, A bacterial
disease of cabbage and allied plants, Proc. 11th Amer. Coll. and Exp't Sta., 86,
prepared for meeting of July 1897.

^"Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sc:. 44: 190 f., 1895.

294 Recognition in America

in Wisconsin, Russell began a study of several years which finally
culminated in his bulletin 65, "A Bacterial Rot of Cabbage and
Allied Plants," published in 1898 by the Wisconsin Agricultural
Experimental Station. In this he and Harding described the or-
ganism and its morphological, physiological, and cultural charac-
ters,^^ their experimental research, and their conclusions as to the
disease, its sources of infection, treatment, etc.

We shall consider Smith's researches on " Pseudomonas carri-
pestris (Pammel)" later. He evidently began his work after
Russell and Pammel had each started theirs. Samples of diseased
leaves were sent at about the same time by the same man to both
Smith and Russell; ^* and Smith published his paper ^^ on the
subject before Russell's and Harding's bulletin appeared. He
believed this his right. As his laboratory investigations of bac-
terial plant diseases went forward, he studied the new diseases
called to his attention and restudied and verified the work of
others. For instance, he " verified most of the statements of T. J.
Burrill, J. C. Arthur, Merton B. Waite and others, respecting
Bacillus amylovorus (Burrill) Trevisan, the cause of fire blight
of apples, pears, quinces and other pome fruits." *° As to his
study of Bacterium campestre (Pammel) Smith said: " Pammel's
work on turnips was extended to cabbages, cauliflowers, kale, rape,
mustard, etc., with many additions and much field, laboratory and
hothouse work." He proved infection through the plant's water-
pores and described the causal organism of black rot of crucifers.^^
Director S. M. Tracy of the Mississippi Agricultural Experiment
Station suggested that he work out the life history of the organism,
Bacillus solanacearum,^" the cause of a disease in tomato, egg-
plant, and Irish potato, and differing from Bacillus tracheiphilus.*^

" Wis. Bull. 65: 10 ff., Feb. 1898.

^® Idem, 11. Dr. Davis's letter, hereafter quoted, to Smith was dated September 30,
1896. In a research memorandum of September 19, 1896, Smith set forth another
and earlier letter from Dr. Davis dated September 16.

*" Erwin F. Smith, Pseudomonas campestris (Pammel). The cause of a brown rot
in cruciferous plants, Centralbl. f. Bakt. II, Abt. 3 (11/12): 284-291, July 7, 1897;
(15/16): 408-415, Aug. 8; (17/18): 478-486, Sept. 10.

'"' Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 41 f.

" Idem, 27.

*" Erwin F. Smith, A bacterial disease of the tomato, eggplant, and Irish potato,
U. S. D. A. Div. Veg. Phys. and Path. Bull. 12: 5 (note 1), 6, 9, 22-23, 25, Dec. 19,
1896. At pp. 10-19, description and study of organism.

*'' Bull. 12, op. cit., 25. See also Garden and Forest, Jan. 1897 (review).

Of thh Sciench of Plant Bactfriology 295

Rurrill in 1800-1801 had published '" Preliminary Notes upon
the Rotting of Potatoes " ■*' but, since the " origin of the material
[was] not given and the micro-organism [was] not described,"
Smith was not sure that this disease was the same as the one he
studied.-" Halsted, too, during the years 1891-1893 had presented
various papers on tomato and potato blights. But, since the dis-
tinct disease of the bacterial wilt of cucumbers and cantaloupes
appeared confused in these writings and since the results were not
based on pure culture experiments and not " very conclusive," "■•
Smith, in 1895, using diseased tomato plants sent from Mississippi,
began " an extensi\^e series of microscopic examinations, artificial
cultures, and plant inoculations ... in the laboratories and green-
houses "' of the Department. He isolated Bacillus solanacearum
but he accredited Halsted with being first to draw attention to
the disease of tomato and potato; and evidently he believed
Halsted's " aicumber and muskmeion disease . . . entirely
different " from the cucurbit wilt due to Bacillus tracheiphilus.

In Chapter VI we considered Smith's field studies of 1894
in South Carolina. These, continued in 1895 from July until
September on James Island and at Monetta, brought forth his
discovery that eggplant, as well as tomato and potato, is subject
to the bacterial " wilt " or brown rot of Solanaceae. Later, in
1908,^' he described the disease from tobacco, and he and other
workers would find the malady present in many other kinds of
plants. His studies of the organism and the various plant genera
affected by it would last until 1920 and extend to Euphorbiaceae
(Ricinus), Onagraceae (Fuchsia), Leguminosae (beans and pea-
nuts), and Compositae (Helianthus), etc.*^

In 1896, furthermore, he successfully infected potato by using
the Colorado potato beetle {Doryphora decemlineata^ ^^ as an
agent of disease-transmission. Thus, in a greenhouse under care-
fully controlled conditions, he arrived for the second time at proof
that insects play an important role in spreading maladies.

** Proc. nth Ann. Meet. Soc. Prom. Agric. Set., 21, 22, 1890; also, An additional
note on the rot of potatoes, ibid., 29, 1891.

*=^ Bull. 12, op. cit., 1.

"Bull. 12, op. cit., 5, 6.

*"The Granville Tobacco Wilt, Bull. I4l (11), Bur. of Pi. Indus., U. S. D. A.

** Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 26-27.

*• Leptinotarsa decemlineata. See Smith's Intro, to bact. dis. of plants, op. cit., 199.
Also, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 25. Bull. 12, op. cit., 22-23 for an account
of his investigations.

296 Recognition in America

In South Carolina also took place his discovery that cowpea is
affected by the same fusarium as that which causes watermelon
" wilt." There originated his belief that the fungus on melon,
cotton, and cowpea is " one thing " and there he discovered the
already mentioned ^° perithecial form which he saw " on agar,
infected with the mycelium from a single ascospore." ^^ Smith
also studied there " southern tomato blight," " potato rot," and
" Rolfs' sclerotium disease." Selection experiments for disease
resistance were not definitely in his mind at this time. But he
closely examined cotton seed-selection as practiced by the planters
there and wrote the following memorandum on July 24, 1895:

Great care used in selecting seed. One or two plants are picked out as
models, seed saved, and planted next year by itself and third year there is
enough to plant many acres. This selection is carried on year after year,
and when it is not done cotton is said to deteriorate. Cotton does not
follow cotton here, but the fields are allowed to rest a year or are planted
to other crops.

When he returned to Washington, he planned to " translate
and publish Von Tavel's Pilze," ^- something which he never did,
and to " write a book on Bacterial diseases of Plants." ^^ Educa-
tion in agricultural science was giving more attention to instruction
on diseases of plants. A " work on Plant Diseases," with Smith
as one of the authors, was evidently announced as in preparation.
Professor Kellerman on March 4, 1897, inquired of Smith whether
this would be a text book. At present he was giving lectures to
his students in the department of botany at the Ohio State Uni-
versity. By 1897 the University of Illinois and Purdue University
gave courses '^^ in bacteriology. As early as 1893, as part of a
special and winter course in agriculture at the University of Illi-
nois, George P. Clinton had presented a course in " Diseases of

'"' See Chapter VI, p. 262 of this book.

" Letters, Smith to Galloway, September 2, 8, 1895. An earlier letter, August 7,
told of planned cross-inoculation experiments, his discovery of the parasite on cow-
pea, and other points. Smith prepared elaborate memoranda, and also wrote letters
to Woods concerning some of his findings.

^- See Smith's review of F. von Tavel, Vergleichende Morphologie der Pilze,
Journal of Mycology 7(4): 389-396, Aug. 15, 1894. Smith must have started this
translation but in July 1896, Spalding, who had used the book in an advanced class,
somewhat discouraged its completion since the subject was vast and the book " a
work of moderate dimensions."

^* Quotations from a "Memorandum of things to do," September 12, 1895, pre-
pared by Smith. Points 1 and 2.

"■^ Botanical Gazette 23: 73, Jan.-June 1897.

Or iiii; ScinNCi- oi Plam Hactiriolocv 297

crops — rusts, smuts, mildews, and blii^ht," and Rurrill a course
in " Vegetable physiolot^y — life, nutrition, growth, and products
of plants." '"'' These, and otiier, similar courses added to plant
disease instruction, inaugurated some years earlier by Farlow,
Burrill, Rcssev, Arthur, Spalding, and others.

Instruction in plant bacteriology still was not academically
recognized except in courses on plant diseases, in uistances such
as Russell's lectures, or as a minor part of courses on animal and
medical bacteriology. Examples must have been few, since trained
bacteriologists seldom knew about plants and their ills. But a
rising new generation of students was beginning to create a
demand sufficient for Smith to take cognizance of a need for a
book on plant bacterial diseases.

Other brackets of Smith's " Memorandum of things to do " are
of interest:

Work out Cotton, Watermelon, Okra, and Cowpea wilt and publish an
illustrated bulletin. (Publish a short note on the Nectriella this fall).

Work out the Tomato blight and Potato blight and rot problems and
publish.

Work up a big paper on Parasitic Alternarias — including mine on melon,
Galloway's on potato, Waldron's on squash, the one on tomatoes, on cotton,
etc. Go over whole subject, make cross- inoculations, and let some light
into this subject. ^*^

If any vitality is left, take up again the Peach Yellows problem.

Smith might have carried out all of these resolutions had not
his other duties exacted so much study and diligent laboratory
investigation. To verify and, where necessary, extend the conclu-
sions of authors who had published on bacterial diseases of plants,
imposed a heavy responsibility, especially since these works formed
an important basis for his critiques of knowledge on the subject
for his series of articles in the American Naturalist.

An important literature in laboratory technology had to be read,
and its methods applied. In 1895 George W. Fuller's report on
standard methods '"' for making and adjusting beef broth, the

Exp. Sta. Record 4 (5): 451, Dec. 1892.

Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cil., 607. Smith mentioned
three species of Alternaria: Galloway's early blight of potatoes, Peglion's muskmelon
spot disease, and Dorsetts spot disease of violet (overcome later by breeding a
disease resistant variety).

"' Agnes J. Quirk and Edna H. Fawcett, Hydrogen-ion concentration vs. titratable
acidity in culture mediums, Jour. Infectious Diseases 33(1): 1-59, and reprint.
" Historical," at pp. 2-3. Intro, by Smith.

298 Recognition in America

fundamental culture medium of work in bacteriology, provided
such an instance. Smith estimated the several papers on bacteri-
ology which appeared in October 1895 in the Journal of the
American Public Health Association as valuable.^^ In the intro-
ductory article of his reviews of bacterial diseases of plants, he
cited as authority ^'^ Fuller's paper, " On the proper reaction of
nutrient media for bacterial cultivation." In this appeared a table
which illustrated " the effect on the growth of water bacteria of
comparatively slight changes in the reaction of gelatine," a point
having to do with the growth of organisms in acid media. This
was pertinent in that " Many bacteria prefer alkaline media, and
some are very sensitive to the presence of acids, while a variety
of bacteria commonly met with in water will not develop at all
if the medium is rendered strongly alkaline. Other organisms
grow well in acid media."

In 1896 Smith, with more than two years experience studying
plant bacterial diseases in his own laboratory, began full-scale in-
vestigation of the cultural characters of several bacteria pathogenic
to plants: Bacterium campestre. Bacterium hyacinthi (Wakker's
yellow disease of hyacinths), and Bacterium phaseoli (bean
blight) .*^° He redescribed the morphology and pathogenic prop-
erties of Wakker's organism in publications of 1897 ^'^ and 1901.°"
Securing repeated infection by pure cultures, he described in 1897
Bacillus phaseoli as a new species. Beach of the New York Agri-
cultural Experiment Station and Halsted of the New Jersey station,
from microscopic examinations, in 1892, had described the disease
as due to bacteria. °^ But Smith pointed out that the organism itself

^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., bibliography, 1:203. See
especially Fuller's report, Jour. Public Health Assn. 20: 381, 1895.

"^^ The bacterial diseases of plants: a critical review etc., op. cit., 1: 639.

^° Erwin F. Smith, The cultural characters of Pseudomonas hyacinthi, Ps. campes-
tris, Ps. phaseoli, and Ps. stewarti — four one-flagellate yellow bacteria parasitic on
plants, Bulletin 28, Div. of Veg. Phys. and Path., U. S. Dep't of Agric, Washington,
Gov't Print. Office, letter of transmittal by Woods Jan. 15, p. 2. See also, Synopsis
of researches, op. cit., 27, 28.

*^ Wakker's Hyacinth Bacterium, Proc. Am. Ass'n for the Adv. of Sci. 46: 274,
1897. In this Smith said that he took up the reexamination in 1896.

'^ The cultural characters of Pseudomonas hyacinthi etc., op. cit., supra.

'^ Erwin F. Smith, Description of Bacillus phaseoli n. sp., with some remarks on
related species, Proc. Am. Asso. for Adv. of Sci. 46: 288, 1897. Organism under
pure cultures had been studied for about 13 months. Beach's and Halsted's 1892
studies were: N. Y. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 48n. s.: 331; Kept. Bot. Dpt. N. J. Exp.
Sta. for 1892: 283-285. Smith cited these in his 1901 bulletin.

Of the Science of Plant Bacteriology 299

had not been described, nor had it been shown by means of pure
cultures and inoculations to what organism this disease of beans
was due.

Smith's research work m botanv and bacteriology was regarded
with such high favor by authorities of the New York Agricultural
Experiment Station at Geneva that in 1897, recommended by Fair-
child to whom the place was first offered, Smith, without receiving
a definite otler, was invited to submit credentials. Fairchild refused
the position, since, after completing studies in Europe, some plant
introduction explorations around the Mediterranean for the De-
partment, and his first world tour, he had obligated himself to
complete, as a special agent of the Division of Forestry under
Bernhard Eduard Fernow, a bulletin on" Systematic Plant Intro-
duction." "^^ Fairchild and Swingle, who had also returned from
studies in Europe, were envisioning, and had begun to plan with
other officials of the United States Department of Agriculture, the
program of world exploration and systematic plant introduction
which was to form one of the most valuable adjuncts of an
expanded Department of Agriculture. During years at the turn
of the century, this expansion characterized nearly every principal
departmental division connected with the scientific study of plants
Advancing the work of plant introduction was to lend impetus
to plant breeding for disease resistance, a branch of study for
which Smith in 1899 helped to secure special appropriations.

Smith was strongly urged by Veranus A. Moore of the Depart-
ment of Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology of the New
York State Veterinary College at Cornell University to accept the
position at Geneva. On October 25, 1897, Moore informed that
he had written Director Jordan " laying stress," he said, " on your
work in bacterial plant diseases. We hope you will get the place."
On the same day Bailey also advised Smith:

I have written to Dr. Jordan and have not been sparing in my encomiums
because I have written just what I feel. I sincerely hope that you may find
a foothold there. It is very probable that you could not get an outfit to
your liking at once, but if you once get established there, you could
[develop] a laboratory, which, I think, would be eminently worth your
while.

Other scientists, including Charles Wright Dodge of the Depart-

'* Bulletin 21, Div. of Forestry, U. S. Dep't of Agric, 24, 1898.

300 Recognition in America

ment of Biology of the University of Rochester, endorsed him for
the position.

On November 8, 1897, Smith's salary as an expert assistant in
the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology was raised
from $1,800 to $2,000 per annum. He remained with the Depart-
ment of Agriculture not alone because of the salary-increase but
because he believed that by staying he could accomplish " the
greatest good to the greatest number." ^^ The laboratory facilities,
good comradeship, and scientific inspiration in the Department of
Agriculture were still attractive to him.

Director Jordan asked Smith concerning the merits of two other
workers in the Department, but finally chose to " select a pro-
mising young man " for the work. " What is your opinion of
Stewart," he said, " not of what he has done, but what he may be
able to do.-^ "

On September 7, 1895, Fred Carlton Stewart, botanist since
December 1, 1894, at the Geneva station, and whose work until
about 1898 was mainly at Jamaica, New York, had written Smith:

At Springfield I heard your paper on the bacterial disease of tomatoes,
potatoes, etc. You were on the program for another paper on Fusarium
wilts but I did not hear that one. From this I learn that you have been
giving a good deal of attention to wilt diseases, hence I write you about a
potato wilt.

He described the disease found abundantly in southeast New
York, and asked Smith his opinion as to its cause. He was an
advanced graduate in science (1892-1894) at Iowa Agricultural
College. Early in 1893 Galloway had consulted Pammel to recom-
mend someone to take Fairchild's place when the latter had gone
to Europe. President W. M. Beardshear and Pammel recom-
mended Stewart as one of their " very best graduates [and] well
informed in regard to fungi, and botany in general as well as
horticulture," He wanted " a place where [he could] give [his]
entire attention to botany." His " considerable training in physio-
logical botany " made him " a very desirable man " for the
position in Washington. But several men were considered for the
place, and from them Secretary Morton chose Woods. Stewart,
meanwhile, had matriculated at Harvard for advanced study under

^^ Letter, Jordan to Smith, November 8, but obviously a reference to what Smith
himself had said. Other letters from Jordan to Smith were on November 19, 29.

Ol- 1111: ScUiNClli Ol- Pi ANT HACTliKlOLOGY 301

Farlow. Galloway told him to continue with his work at Cam-
brid£;c and hoped " that nothint; [would] interfere with [his]
future investigations in plant patholog)'. The subject,'" he said,
" is a broad and £;ro\\ ing one and in my judgment there is abun-
dant opportunity for voung men to come to the front in this
special field."

Stewart, after accepting a position with the New York station
at Geneva, corresponded on plant diseases with Smith, Waite, and
others of the Division. On August 14, 1897, he wrote Woods:

I wish to corii^ratulate you on your success in ferreting out the true cause
of Dr. Arthur's " Bactcriosis " of Carnations. "^^ ... I suspected that you
had discovered that the trouble is not due to bacteria at all. . . . One will
do well to be suspicious of bacterial diseases in which it is difficult to
isolate the germ and which do not respond readily to inoculation. It might
be well for me to take my own advice because I am working on a bacterial
disease of sweet corn which does not respond to inoculation as readily as
I would like to have it. I am also glad to know that you have gotten to the
bottom of the lily disease.^' ... In a separate package I send you some
geranium leaves which are affected with a spot disease.

He wished to know whether the disease was of fungous or
bacterial origin.

Three " plant diseases were first defined and brought to the
attention of the American scientific public " ^^ by Arthur. Two,
" stigmanose of carnation " and " curly top of sugar beet," were
admitted by him to have been " erroneously ascribed to bacteria,"
but the third, carnation rust,^® withheld the test of subsequent
investigation. The rusts were his specialty. Between the years
1882 and 1916, he published " over eighty papers " on these sub-
jects, and much other important work was done by him on the
plant rusts which he regarded as his " notable achievement."

Smith was one who restudied Arthur's " bacterial disease of
sugar beet," '" and, although he examined specimens sent by
Arthur in 1899, he was unable to obtain any results which estab-
lished a bacterial origin. Arthur in 1897 told Woods, " I am

""Bull. Indiana Exp'l Sta. 59, summary at pp. 37-38, Mar. 1896.

"'' Bermuda lily disease, prelim, rep't, Bull. 14, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., 1897.

** Unpublished memorandum, prepared by Dr. Arthur on February 15, 1916, op.
at. Quotations of this paragraph taken from this memorandum.

"Botanical Gazette 16: 321, 1891; American Florist 7: 587, 1892.

'* See, E. F. Smith, A bacterial disease of sugar beets (1892) by Arthur and
Golden, Amer. Nat. 30: 716-731, Sept. 1896, sub-section 3. Also, Bull. Indiana
Exp't Sta. 39.

302 Recognition in America

delighted that these subjects [including pear blight] are being
studied, if it can only be done thoroughly."

Early in 1897 when C. F. Wheeler, consulting botanist of
Michigan Agricultural College and Experiment Station, read a
reprint of Smith's '" Bacterial Disease of Tomato, Eggplant, and
Irish Potato," he wrote the Division of Vegetable Pathology and
thanked officials for " the finest bulletin yet issued from your
Department." He added, " It ranks with the best foreign work,"
and in a letter to Smith he called it " the best slice of ivork done
in this or any other country.''

On September 19, 1896, three months before his elaboration
of the cultural characters of Bacillus solanacearum was released.
Smith had begun to study Pammel's " bacillus in cabbage leaves."
His laboratory memoranda show that he thought that this was
" possibly " an organism which Dr. Russell had studied. Cabbage
leaves, however, had been received the day before from Dr. J. J.
Davis of Racine, Wisconsin, v/hose accompanying letter of Sep-
tember 16 read as follows:

I send by this mail some cabbage leaves, illustrative of a disease which
is doing much damage in this vicinity. I take it to be due to the small
oval micrococcus so abundant in the conducting tissue. Have you pub-
lished anything on this disease? If so I would be glad to receive a number
of copies for distribution to the growers here where the cabbage has become
an important crop. [On September 30, in another letter, he stressed that]
The trouble bids fair to check the cabbage industry here which has been
quite profitable through cold storage.

Smith, promptly after getting the materials, described the dis-
ease and started cultures. By November 20 his memorandum was
entitled, " Bacillus campestris Pammel. First set of Fermentation
tubes"; November 24, "First set of inoculations in Division's
Greenhouse "; December 8, " Gelatine streak cultures. Made from
fluid cultures started December 1 and all but one of which I have
already used for Thermal death point experiments of December 3,
B. phaseoli, B. campestris, B. tracheiphilus, B. hyacinthi." " First
experiment with sap from waterpores," dated February 19, 1897,
was preceded by a "" General note on infections occurring pre-
sumably as the result of visitations of slugs, flies, aphids, ants,
etc." and a special set of experiments and observations on the
" Natural method of infection." During this year he demonstrated

Of thh Science of Plant Bacteriology 303

that iiidHuscs sometimes transmit black rot of cabbage.'' Smith's
proof of water-pore infections in cabbage black rot, stomatal
infections in half a dozen diseases, and insect transmission of
cucurbit wilt, cabbage black rot, and potato brown rot, were
among the most noteworthy of his early contributions to plant
bacteriology. '■■ That his investigations were nation-wide in scope
was illustrated by his study of Biicilliis campestris.

April 1 4, Swingle sent a box of green cabbage worms. Smith
" set them to feeding on cabbage leaves and stems browned by
this germ," and began experiments to obtain " Infections by means
of larvae of Plnsia hrassicae."

During the summer Michigan Agricultural College forwarded
a request from Saginaw, Michigan, to investigate " on the ground "
a cabbage disease and other ills of cultivated crops. Wheeler was
appointed to make the study and invited Smith to accompany him.
Already Smith had published in the Centralhlatt, and Pammcl had
commended him for his " very excellent account so far as it ex-
tends " of the brown rot of cruciferous plants. Pammel, in a
letter of August 14, had told him he was anxious to see his
further studies.

Smith, en route to join Wheeler, attended the meeting an
Detroit of Section G of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science at which Farlow was elected president and Smith
secretary of the Section. There, Smith met, and had an interesting
chat with. Dr. H. Marshall Ward, who spoke at the meeting and
at the Toronto meeting of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science. While on this journey Smith frequently wrote
to Woods in whose care at Washington he had left some valuable
cultures. From one of these cultures it was found, as expected,
that a bacillus would grow in hydrogen, and also in carbon
dioxide, a result not anticipated. Presumably the organism was
Bacillus tracheiphilus. On August 19, 1897, from the Bancroft
House at Saginaw, Smith acquainted Woods with the results of
his further study of the cabbage disease:

Am up here looking at sick cabbage fields. Mr. Chas. F. Wheeler of
Michigan Agric[ultural] College is with me. We saw 200 acres of

'* Erwin F. Smith, A conspectus of bacterial diseases of plants, Annals Missouri
Botanical Garden 2: 377-401, at p. 390, Feb. -Apr. 1915.
"* Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 23.

304 Recognition in America

cabbages today on one farm and much of the bacterial cabbage disease.
The first time I have ever seen it in the field. I was more than right in
suspecting that the plants are commonly infected through the water-pores.
I counted 411 water-pore infections. . . . My bacterial disease of cucumbers
is also here — a new locality for it. Saw also Cercospora on sugar beets.
They are just commencing to grow sugar beets here on a large scale. The
cabbage industry here amounts to about 1,000 acres.

From Racine, Wisconsin, on September 1, Smith continued to
Woods:

I am still here studying the cabbage disease. It is very interesting and
I cannot help mailing you a bundle of leaves to show how well field
examinations bear out my hypothesis as to manner of infection. One
bundle of the leaves contains only marginal water pore infections. At
least 90% of the field infections are of this type. Another bundle contains
only middle leaf infections due to the gnawings of insects chiefly larvae
of Pieris ropae. Margins and bases still healthy. Stems and heads of
plants from which these two bundles of specimens come were still sound.
The third set of leaves represents a much later stage of disease i. e. the
disease has gained entrance to the stem and has worked its way out through
these leaves, the bundles in the base of the petioles being the first part to be
infected. By a little cutting with a sharp knife you will see that I am
right. ... I have heard of this cabbage disease at Clyde, Ohio, and near
Rochester, New York, and should like to stop at these places and see it
on my way back from Michigan. . . . The disease is likely to attract wide
attention in this country before many years and the Division ought to lead
the way. . . . Since coming here I have found the disease in the common
field mustard Brassica sinafistrum which is the showy yellow flowered weed
sometimes called charlock. I am now hunting for it on other cruciferous
weeds.

Smith exchanged a letter or so with Acting Entomologist F. H.
Chittenden of the Department concerning the cabbage weevil.
He was gathering material for the herbaria of the Division. Early
in September he received his authorization to study the cabbage
disease at Clyde and Rochester. On September 9, however,
William Alton Taylor, then at his father's home at Douglas,
Michigan, requested Smith to " come over to the peach belt for
a few days," since he found the " so called ' little peach ' disease
[was still} the topic of conversation among fruit growers."
September 24, Taylor, who had returned to Washington, wrote
again:

After one day spent in infected orchards in the vicinity of Douglas I am
satisfied that there is necessity for prompt and thorough work in the inves-

Of THi; ScuNCi: oi Plant Bactf.riology 30*)

tigation of the new peach disease if it is to be prevented from becoinin.i^
more rapidly destructive than yellows ever has been in that region. One
large orchard . . . between Douglas and I'ennville has already gone and
several others in the vicinity are almost annihilated while orchards nearer
the village and farther west show from a half dozen to a hundred cases
each and some cases of yellows. It is reported to have been found asso-
ciated with crown galls in some cases but 1 did not find any such.

More than this, in October, arrived a request from Halsted of
the New Jersey experiment station for Smith to visit " several
badly affected orchards " of a leading peach grower in Sussex
County to decide \vhether a disease, bearing the characteristic
attributes of yellows but believed not contagious, was in fact
yellows. Smith pronounced this genuine peach yellows, and when
Halsted thanked him he appended:

It is with pleasure that I find that my little contribution of diseased beans
{Bacterium phaseoli?'] serves to add another locality to your list of places
where the bacteriosis is known to exist. The black rot of cabbage is com-
plained of by some growers in New Jersey, and I will, as I go about during
the next six weeks from one end of the State to the other, make inquiries
regarding this trouble and gladly communicate any information that may
be" obtained upon it. Please accept my many thanks for the paper upon
the subject. . . .

Not until August and September of the next year was Smith
able to follow up his field investigations of the " little peach "
disease of Michigan. His duties as an expert diagnostician and
pathologist of plant diseases exacted much time in his laboratory
since specimens of many various maladies were being received
from different quarters of the nation. On August 4, the Ento-
mological Division of the Department sent him a few cotton bolls
received from Texas, a disease of which was ascribed to " insects,
bug or weevil " and " doing the cotton great damage." Two days
later Entomologist Leland O. Howard forwarded more specimens,
this time green cotton bolls showing the same disease, but from
Alabama. Examinations indicated a bacterial infection but since
at the time Smith " was too crowded with other work to make
cultures," his study of the bacteriosis of cotton and the insect
believed involved did not get under way for several days, and
then turned out to be a failure. Not until May 23, 1898, did he
make a second attempt to infect cotton bolls, and this time he
used " Sea Island cotton from James Island, South Carolina."

306 Recognition in America

Not until the first years of the next century, however, was his
study effective. Further on, therefore, will appear more on his
study of cotton diseases.

Smith's departmental work for the American Naturalist had
met with high favor, especially his writings on bacterial plant
diseases. On January 31, 1896, E. D. Cope had written that his
department was a " great success, and botanists [were] finding
that they must have it." He was advised that more lengthy
technical articles were not to be included, but rather, general
reviews, synopses, and important results of scientific work. In
June Cope accepted the first of his critical reviews of knowledge
concerning bacterial diseases of plants. It was " such as the
Naturalist desires for a leading article . . . eminently readable."
In July he wrote again: " The series you propose will make
leading articles, but will not replace the department of Vegetable
Physiology, as you have hitherto conducted it." He hoped to
" get another of your excellent contributions." Smith for the
most part adhered to " summaries of news and discovery." But
by August 1897 he thought of his department as in plant physi-
ology and morphology, or plant pathology. He told this to Farlow
when he also said that he was " especially anxious to complete
[his} series of critical papers on Bacterial Diseases of Plants."

Scientific journals in America thus far had fought bravely to
maintain standards of excellence. Experience had demonstrated,
however, that to publish articles of real value to science, yet to
attract a sufficiently wide reading public to obviate special outside
financing, required resourcefulness. In 1894 N. D. C. Hodges,
editor of Science, had told Smith that his journal, he believed,
had attained its maximum circulation, yet still was functioning
at a loss financially. He had found that as much or more attention
had to be given to financing, than editing, the publication. With
increased costs indicated, some gift solicitations had been found
necessary. In August 1897 Smith heard of " new plans " for the
American Naturalist. He wrote Farlow who replied that several
contributors, among them himself. Dr. C. S. Minot, and others,
had purchased the publication. R. P. Bigelow was to act as general
editor, and Farlow understood that Smith was "to be asked to
continue to take charge of the same subjects as previously."

Farlow had just learned that he had been chosen to preside

Of this SciENCi; oi Piani Bac.ti.riology 307

over the botanical section of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science durinj; the next year. He was " sur-
prised " since once before he had been presiding officer when it
was " the section of biology. " He suggested to Smith " to select
some vital topic of the day and have it the subject of one or more
sessions." '" Sexuality of fungi," or any subject important in
physiology, was recommended.

Fifty-six papers were listed, and forty-seven read, at the meeting
of Section G which took place at Cambridge the following August
22-25. Smith, as secretary, prepared for Science " an important
monograph entitlecT, " Botany at the Anniversary Meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science." Such
valuable papers as the following were abstracted by the authors
and included: Bradley Moore Davis, " The Carposporic Type of
Reproduction of the Rhodophyceae "; H. J. Webber, " Origin and
Homologies of Blepharoplasts "; H. L. BoUey, "Some Observa-
tions bearing upon the Symbiotic Mycoplasm Theory of Grain
Rust," including a consideration of Erickson's famous hypothesis;
B. D. Halsted, "Starch Distribution as affected by fungi";
Charles Orrin Townsend, " The Effect of an Atmosphere of Ether
upon Seeds and Spores"; Rodney Howard True, "The Toxic
Action of a Certain Group of Substances "; M. B. Waite, " Life
History and Characteristics of the Pear-Blight Bacillus"; S. M.
Babcock and H. L. Russell, " The Biology of Cheese Ripening ";
and many others. William B. Alwood of the Virginia Agricultural
Experiment Station and professor of horticulture and allied sub-
jects at Virginia Polytechnic Institute presented two papers, one
on " The Leaf-spot Disease of the Apple, Phyllosticta pirina, and
Several Unrelated Forms occurring therewith " and one " On the
Occurrence of a Yeast Form in the Life Cycle of Sphaeropsis
malorum." Since forest pathology represented a branch of science
inadequately studied thus far in America. Hermann von Schrenk's
" Notes on Some Diseases of Southern Pines " signified a formal
recognition of a new type of research in the United States Depart-
ment of Agriailture.

Smith reckoned von Schrenk's beginning in 1894-1895 to study
fungous diseases of forest trees in the United States as an event
of first rank in this nation's research in pathology.'^ Bernhard

"N. s., 8(202 & 203): 651-660, 690-700, Nov. 11, 18, 1898.

''*■ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 22. Von Schrenk, in conference with the

308 Recognition in America

Eduard Fernow, Filibert Roth, and others of the Division of
Forestry had recognized the need and worth of such study, and
had their scientific program of timber physics, wood chemistry,
and forest products investigation been brought to full fruition,
doubtless forest tree diseases would have been sooner more fully
investigated in this country.

Smith always had been interested in reforestation for Michigan ;
and in 1898 a review in the American Naturalist " of Roth's study
of " Forestry Conditions and Interests of Wisconsin " was further
proof of this interest. Ecological research, coordinated with the
study of plant physiology, was only being developed in this
country when he reviewed George P. Merrill's " Notes on the
Geology and Natural History of the Peninsula of Lower Cali-
fornia " "'^ and Milton Whitney's " Preliminary Report on the Soils
of Florida." ^^

In 1890 he had been told by Spalding that Roth had done " an
admirable piece of work on the Ascent of Water in the Stems
of tall trees." Under Spalding, Roth had studied not only plant
physiology but also fungous diseases of plants. Later he taught
diseases of forest trees at the New York State College of Forestry
at Cornell University.

Fernow and Roth encouraged vonSchrenk when he began his
studies of diseases of cypress and pine. At first, von Schrenk's
examinations were more mycological and descriptive than the
results of experimental investigations made in a laboratory espe-
cially created for the study of forest tree diseases. In 1893 he had
graduated from Cornell University where he had studied under
Atkinson; and the next year had secured a master of science degree
under Farlow who, it will be recalled, had published as early as
1879 on " Diseases of forest trees."

At Harvard, under the leadership of Charles Sprague Sargent
of the Arnold Arboretum, forest investigation attained promi-
nence during the 1880's owing largely to his important study of
American forest trees and forest-tree distribution for the Tenth

author, has revealed that he regards the beginning of his career as an American forest
pathologist when he pubUshcd his study, Note on Tubercularia pezizoidea Schwein.,
Bull. Torrey Botanical Club 21(9): 383-388, Sept. 20, 1894.

'^32(380): 603-604.

'^Amer. Nat. 32(380): 601.

'' Uem, 602-603.

Oi- THo Science of Plant Bacteriology 309

Census. When the first prospectus for the influential periodical,
Garden and Forest, was sketched, Sargent submitted it to Fariow
who was to have chart^e of cryptOL;amic botany. " Garden and
forest," this read, " will be devoted to Horticulture in all its
branches. Garden Botany, Dendrology and Landscape Art. It will
present the results of the latest studies on Plant Diseases and
Insects Injurious to Vegetation. It will give special attention to
the subject of Forestry."

After studying forest tree and other plant diseases with Fariow,
von Schrenk in 1893 went to Europe and studied with Robert
Hartig, " father of 'forest pathology." '* He returned to the
United States and became an instructor in botany at the Manual
Training School of Washington University and instructor of cryp-
togamic botany at the Shaw School in St. Louis. During the last
years of the century, when the federal department of agriculture
established its Mississippi Valley Laboratory at St. Louis, he was
appointed pathologist in charge, and his work included inves-
tigating timber diseases and timber preservation. Moreover, in
1898, at the university, he taught a course for civil engineers in
bacteriology, particularly as applied to water problems.

Smith's interest in forest pathology appears to have been first
expressed in 1892. He had read a paper by Fariow and on
January 5 wrote: " Your paper on Diseases of trees likely to
follotv Mechanical injuries is so good that it ought to have a
wide circulation. As a lover of trees it interested me greatly."
He wanted to arrange to have the Michigan Horticultural Society
reprint it.

His papers presented to Section G at the 1898 anniversary
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science were three: " Potato as a Culture Medium with some
Notes on a Synthesized Substitute"'^''; "Some Little Used Cul-
ture Media, which have proved valuable for Differentiation of
Species "; ^" and " Notes on Stewart's Sweet Corn Germ, Pseudo-
monas Stewarti, new species." ®^

■* H. H. Whetzel, Outl. hist, of phypath., op. cit., 11-1'). See also, Fifty years of
pat'iology, op. cit., 22.

'^Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 47: 411-412, 1898.

^° Proc. Arier. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 47: 412-413, 1898.

^^ Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 47:422, 1898. During this year Smith also
addressed the Saugatuck and Ganges Pomological Society on the " Little Peach "
disease of Michigan. Fen/nille Herald, Oct. 15, 1898 and reprint.

11

310 Recognition in America

This was the year when a committee of American bacteriologists
composed of J. George Adami, W. T. Sedgwick, George W. Fuller,
Charles Smart, A. C. Abbott, T. M. Cheesman, Theobald Smith,
and William Henry Welch, finally reported to the American
Public Health Association on procedures recommended for the
study of bacteria with especial reference to greater uniformity in
the description and differentiation of species. Although a report
to the Association's committee on the pollution of water supplies.
Smith regarded the pamphlet as of exceeding value, a model of
condensation, and considered that it " should be in very laboratory,
and in the hands of every student."

Laboratories of bacteriology at last had a manual of standard
practice. George W. Fuller's method of titration, his expression
in regard to acidity, and his 1895 method of preparing meat
infusion were merged with the report of the committee of which
Fuller was a member.^^

In 1899, at the Minneapolis meeting of the American Public
Health Association, another committee, consisting of Fuller, G. C.
Whipple, H. W. Clark, Edwin O. Jordan, H. L. Russell, J. W.
EUms, and Robert Spurr Weston, was appointed to study further
standard proceduies in water analysis, including bacteriologic
examination. This committee remained at work for five years,
issued progress reports occasionally, but its final report was not
made available until 1905. Procedures provisionally recommended
by the first committee for the study of bacteria were presented in
1897 at the Philadelphia meeting of the Association. Quite likely,
however. Smith did not attend this meeting, since, as yet, his
papers in plant bacteriology without exception had been given
before botanical societies, and, as far as is known, he had attended
no meetings of the American Public Health Association and no
convention of bacteriologists. He, therefore, quite likely did not
come into possession of the knowledge embodied in the recom-

*" Procedures Recommended for the Study of Bacteria, submitted at the Phila.
meeting, Sept. 1897, of Amer. Pub. Health Ass'n, The Rumford Press, 1898,
Concord, New Hampshire. Preface by Deputy Surgeon General Charles Smart.
Introduction by Wm. H. Welch. See, Hydrogen-ion concentration vs. titratable
acidity in culture mediums. Jour. Infect. Dis. 33(1): 1-59, July 1923, " Historical,"
pp. 2-7, concerning 1899 Assoc, meet, at Minneapolis, etc. Introduction by Erwin
F. Smith. The 1897-1898 recommendations were provisional. See, also, Public
Health Papers and Rep'ts of Amer. Public Health Assoc, 1898, for report of com-
mittee of Amer. bact. for this year.

Of Till- SciHNcn or Plant BactI'Iuoi.ogy 311

mended procedures until these were publislicd and distributed
in the year 1898. Standard bacterioloi^ical practice was under
discussion at meetings of scientific societies, inckiding Section G
and the Society for Phmt Morphology and Physiology. Further-
more, the work of preparing reviews for the American Naturalist
doubtless brought the report to his notice, if, in fact, the pamphlet
was not sent to, or obtained by, him directly.

In the January 1, 1896 issue of Aynerican Naturalist ^^ Smith
reviewed, under the title, " Relation of Sugars to the Growth of
Bacteria," the recently published and " most discriminating " paper
on this subject by Theobald Smith, " Ueber die Bedeutung des
Zuckers in Kulturmedien fiir Bakterien {Centrb. f. Bak. u. Par.,
iMed., Bd: XVIII, No. 1)." After serving more than a decade as
Chief of the Division of Animal Pathology of the United States
Department of Agriculture, Theobald Smith had resigned from
that position on May 15, 1895," to become director of the path-
ological laboratory of the Massachusetts State Board of Health,
and in 1896 professor of comparative pathology at Harvard
University.

In September 1896 Veranus A. Moore, after taking Smith's
place as chief of the laboratory of pathology of the Bureau of
Animal Industry, had also resigned his position to become pro-
fessor of comparative pathology, bacteriology, and meat inspec-
tion— later dean — of the New York State Veterinary College at
Cornell University. The rapid advances in exact knowledge of
animal pathology being achieved in veterinary science were
proving in this field the value of laboratories of experimental
research. Within six years after Salmon's famous 1884 experi-
ments on Barren Island, for instance, contagious pleuropneumonia
in cattle had been practically eliminated from this country, and
at a small expense when compared with the monetary savings
made possible. Glanders and tuberculosis, furthermore, could
now be accurately diagnosed; and the amount of each disease
in the United States had been greatly reduced by proper sanitary
measures. The terrors once held for anthrax and rabies had been
alleviated. Contagious maladies were being differentiated from

"30(349): 66-(>-^, Jan. 1896.

** Transcribed from the offiical documentary sources at the Agricultural Division
of the United States National Archives.

312 Recognition in America

those of non-infectious nature. Specific agents of a few well
recognized ailments had been found, and in some both cause and
method of dissemination were known. Ways to combat serious
diseases of fowl, sheep, swine, cattle, and horses were being
discovered. Practical study of dietary troubles had been started.®"*
Dr. Moore's department of comparative pathology and bacteriology-
became at once important, and by 1899 Erwin Smith would say ^°
of his Laboratory Directions for Beginners in Bacteriology: " Dr.
Moore's courses in bacteriology in the veterinary school . . . are
among the very best in the country, and this book is to be wel-
comed as an extension of the influence of a conscientious teacher
who is at the same time a competent investigator."

Both Moore and Theobald Smith supplied Erwin Smith with
materials for his laboratory, including cultures and criticisms of
work. Occasionally valuable suggestions and points of informa-
tion were received from others: for example, on January 7, 1895,
Dr. Vaughan told him how to prepare and use blue litmus solu-
tion diffused through gelatine as an indicator, and why litmus
paper should not be used for the purpose in mind. Dr. Welch
also supplied him with similar useful laboratory techniques. He
built his knowledge of laboratory practice from many sources.

Not the least of his sources was his reading, much of it done
for his reviews of scientific literature in the American Naturalist.
Frequently he detailed the results of carefully wrought experi-
ments, summarized conclusions of constructive importance, added
his own criticisms, and sometimes described methods by which to
improve laboratory and field study. His review " of the " second
improved edition " of " Saccardo's Color Scale " might be so classi-
fied. He recommended that this work by the " learned author " of
the Sylloge Vungorum be possessed by every botanist and especially
by every mycologist. If descriptive color terms in natural history
were to be used, reference to " some particular scale or standard '
was necessary. In this work was provided " a ready means of

^° V. A. Moore, The influence of animal experimentation upon agriculture, op.
cit.\ D. E. Salmon, Some examples of the development of knowledge concerning
animal diseases, op. cit. ; T. Smith, Investigation of infectious diseases of domesti-
cated animals, Rep't of tloe Sec'y of Agric. for 1893: 140-160; E. A. de Schweinitz,
iJem, 161-168.

''^ Af>:er. Nat. 33(385): 80, Jan. 1899.

"Idem, 29: 1009-1010, Nov. 1895.

Of Tin; S( ii-nce of Plant Bactfriology 313

determining in a thousand and one descriptions exactly what color
is meant," and for this reason it had a special value to mycologists.

hi 1896 Dr. B. M. Watson of the Bussey histitution of Harvard
invited Smith to lecture before the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society early the following year on the John L. Russell foundation.
He was asked to speak " on the latest discoveries of the connec-
tion of the fungi and horticulture," but the subject was " open to
the broadest interpretation " and his only restriction was that it be
" something on the economic side." He chose " The Spread of
Plant Diseases a consideration of some of the ways in which
parasitic organisms^ are disseminated." ^' His discussion included
bacterial as well as fungous diseases, and the occasion took place
on March 27. He was invited to visit Dr. and Mrs. Theobald
Smith at Jamaica Plain, and he arranged an appointment with
Farlow to secure advice on a point about which he brought
drawings and slides. So well received was his lecture that the
next year when, to attend the 50th anniversary meeting of the
American Association and fulfill his duties as secretary of Section
G, he again visited Boston, Dr. Charles O. Whitman invited him
to spend a day or two at Woods Hole and arranged that the next
year he should deliver a dozen lectures at the Marine Biological
Laboratory. Smith was a member of the Cosmos Club of Wash-
ington. In its assembly hall November 20, 1897, he lectured
before the Biological Society on " Bacterial Diseases of Plants."
January 1898, again he lectured on " Some Bacterial Diseases of
Truck Crops " '^^ to the Peninsula Horticultural Society meeting at
Snow Hill, Maryland. His career as America's outstanding spokes-
man on plant bacteriology began to take him away from his
laboratory often.

William Henry Welch, editor of The Journal of Experimental
Medicine and this year president of the Congress of American
Physicians and Surgeons as well as author of The Biology of Bac-
teria, Infection and hmnunity (1894) and Bacteriology of Surgical
Infections (1895), addressed an important letter to Smith on
November 22, 1897:

Thank you for your interesting letter regarding bacterial diseases of

*^ Printed by the Society, 1898; also, Trans. Mass. Hort. Soc. for 1897, part I,
117-133, 1898.

''''Transactions Penin. Hort. Soc. 11: 142-147, 1898.

314 Recognition in America

plants. I am glad to be reassured on the subject, although I had no doubt
of the accuracy of your own work.

[Alfred] Fischer's ipse dixit on the subject is calculated to exert an
unfortunate influence with those who have no special knowledge con-
cerning these investigations, as his book ^° is well written and on some
aspects of bacteriology it speaks authoritatively.

I have recently had occasion to look up the evidence upon the influence
of proper disposal of sewage upon public health and I came across your
valuable monograph in the Annual Report of the Michigan State Board of
Health. I am ashamed to say that I did not know of it before. It is a
most admirable and convincing presentation of the evidence up to the day
of its publication.

I shall be glad of the opportunity of studying the cultures which you
may send.

Twelve days earlier, on November 10, Welch had opened
correspondence with Smith:

Thank you for the reprint of your article on Pseudomonas Campestris,
which I am glad to have. I am much interested in it, as well as in what
you told me about bacterial diseases of plants on Monday last. I am sorry
that I was so busy with my class on that day, as not to be able to talk
more with you.

I do not know what to make of A. Fischer's position in his Vorlesungen
iiber Bakterien (pp. 131 and 132) on bacterial diseases of plants. He goes
so far as to deny the possibility even of such diseases and expresses utter
skepticism as to all observations supposed to demonstrate them, being
indeed quite sarcastic on the subject [Welch here quoted a paragraph from
Fischer's book]. As Fischer is a botanist, and I suppose of good standing.
I do not understand his position. I had supposed that the demonstration
of bacteria pathogenic for plants was no less conclusive and generally
accepted than that for animals.

Fischer, in his Vorlesungen iiber Bakteriau published in Germany
that year, not only denied that bacterial diseases exist in plants
but also argued their impossibility. The real causes of these dis-
eases, he believed, were of other origin. Bacteria could enter the
plant only through wounds. Stomatal infection was regarded
impossible. If the bacteria did get into the plant because of animal
injuries, frost, and other reasons, their development was stopped
by some formed cork substance. The contamination was sapro-
phytic; and genuine fungi accounted for many of the diseases of
plants now being attributed to bacteria.'

91

*" Vorlesungen iiber Bakterien, published in the last part of 1897 at Jena, Germany.
*^ See Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 15-16.

Or Till- SciHNCE OF Plant Bacteriology 315

Dr. Smith's " interesting letter regarding bacterial diseases of
plants '■ to Dr. Welch has not been found by the autlior. We must
be content, therefore, with the knowledge that his letter com-
pletely ■' reassured [Welch] on the subject." Tor many years he
had recognized the leadership and authority of German botanists,
and in his reviews of scientific literature in the American Natuntlist
he had shown no prejudice toward work by the Germans. In
August 1896,"' in his introduction to his critical reviews of the
present state of knowledge concerning bacterial diseases of plants,
he had advanced the opinion that "' there are in all probability as
many bacterial dis(?ases of plants as of animals." In February
1897 '•" his last critical review had been of Dr. Ernst Kramer's
study of the wet-rot of potato. Kramer was privat docent in the
technical high school at Graz, and his study of the bacteriosis of
fodder beets had been earlier reviewed."* During 1896 he had
three times ''"' reviewed the recent work of Dr. Oscar Brefeld on
the smut fungi. A recent contribution on " Water Pores " "*" by
Dr. Anton Nestler had also been reviewed as well as a paper by
Leopold Kny of Berlin under the title, " Function of Antho-
cyan." '" Under the caption, "' Nitrifying Organisms," "^ he re-
examined the discovery by Messrs. Burri and Stutzer of the agri-
cultural experiment station at Bonn of a bacillus, in many respects
like Winogradsky's organism and which was claimed to change
nitrites into nitrates and grow readily in bouillon and on gelatine.
This was followed in 1898 by a criticism of O. Zinsser's view that
" the root tubercle organism occurs outside of the tubercles in
various parts of the plant " ^" in Leguminosae and other important
conclusions from w^ork done on this subject at the Botanical Insti-
tute of Leipzig. Other reviews during these years of results
directly or indirectly attributable to German botanists might be
included. For examples, " Spore formation controlled by external
conditions," '"^ based on a Botanische Zeitiing paper by Johann
Bachmann, coincided in point of time with another review, " Ger-

^""Amer. Nat. 30(356): 627.

^Udem 31(362): 123-138.

'*Uem 30(357): 716 f.

"Idem 30(350): 137-132; (351): 224-226; (353): 408-409.

''Idem 30(351): 224. ''Idem 32(377): 365-369.

"Idem 30(351): 226-228. ^''° Idem 30(349): 63-64.

'^Idem 30(349): 65-66.

316 Recognition in America

mination of Refractory Spores," "^ culled from recent studies
made by Dr. Jacob Eriksson of Stockholm.

Smith reviewed the work of botanists from other nations. In
1896 he described the experiments of M. Gaston Bonnier of Paris
on " Changes in Structure of Plants due to Feeble Light "^°- and
on "Changes due to an Alpine Climate""^; and that year he
told of the find by Dr. F. A. F. C. Went, the Dutch botanist, of
an "Algal Parasite on Coffee," ^°* Cephaleurus coffeae. These
were three among many others.

During this period A. Engler's and K. Prantl's great work, Die
Natmiichen Pflanzenfa?niiien, was being compiled, arranging in
ordinal sequence the life histories of phanerogams, algae, fungi,
bryophytes, pteridophytes, etc. In 1899 Smith would review lie-
ferung 180, the first part of Fiinfstiick's account of the Lichenes,^"^
and more than pointing out that of 20,000 described species,
varieties or forms only about 4,000 were well known, he would
comment on points of classification. " It may be assumed," he
wrote, " that nearly every one knows that lichens are symbiotic
growths. It is now just thirty years since the publication of
Schwendener's memorable paper, and the matter was fought over
and settled in the seventies. In different lichens the relation
between the fungus and the alga is very different." He thought
of himself as a " non-lichenologist " but his interest in proto-
plasmic chemistry and sexual reproduction among the lower plant
orders caused him to study this new work with enthusiasm.
" Ripening of Fleshy Fruits " ^"^ was another review which clearly
showed an interest in the chemistry and physiology of his subjects.

In 1896 he had reviewed lieferung 129 of Die Natiirlichen
Pflanze}2fa??iilien. This was entitled "A New Classification of
Bacteria " ^"^ and had to do with an arrangement by Professor
W. Migula of Karlsruhe which was believed " more practical and
satisfactory than that of Alfred Fischer." This paper, Smith told
his readers, " ought to be in the hands of every working bac-
teriologist." He believed that the classification, appearing " to
have grown out of a long and wide experience in the laboratory,"

^"^ Idem 64-65.

^°~Idem 30(^53): 405-408. ^"^ Idem 30(349): 67.

^"Udem 30(349): 61-63. ^"Udem 33(390): 540-543.

'"'"Idem 32(375): 208-210. This was based on a study by C. Gerber (1898).

^"^ Idem 30(354): 490-493.

Of iHi S( iiNCE OF Plant Bactf.riology 317

was usable, " the best yet devised, and [would] probably come
into general use," among botanists. Another work which he
regarded " so very good that it deserves to find its way speedily
into every laboratory " was another German treatise, K. B. Leh-
mann"s and R. Neumann's Atlas und Grundrhs der Bakteriologie
jind Lehrbtich der speciellen bakteriologischen Diagnostik. On
March 20, 1897, he spoke about this before the Botanical Seminar
and in April reviewed it as current work in the Atnerican
Niiturn/ist.^''" This was "" a general work on bacteriology," he
said, " covering much the same ground as [C] Fliigge's D/c
Alikroorganisnien, but in a different manner. About 60 of the
more common animal pathogenic and saprophytic forms have
been studied more or less carefully and re-described according to
a pre-established scheme, so that their behavior on all the common
media may be readily compared."

Smith was still studying the technique of titrating culture media.
"Authors," he wrote,""

have used phenolphthalein for titrating media regularly since 1894 and
recommend it for general use. . . . All the bacteria figured in the Atlas
were grown on media slightly alkaline to phenolphthalein, and most of
the 60 sorts bore the extra 10 cc. of alkali and the 10 and 20 cc. of acid.
This seems rather surprising to the writer and certainly cannot be assumed
to hold good for all species. My experience would lead me to select for a
universal medium a grade of alkalinity considerably less than the zero or
neutral point of phenolphthalein, i. e., one neaxer the zero of the best
neutral litmus paper, as I am satisfied that some species will not grow on
media as alkaline as here recommended.

Since reviewing Theobald Smith's paper on the relation of sugars
to the growth of bacteria, he, presumably, had " given up . . . the
division of bacteria into acid and alkali producers." At least, the
distinction was not as hard and fast as it had been and he was
striving to improve his technical proficiency to study " the con-
ditions governing the production of acid " by each species. This,
in 1896.

When the foregoing of 1897 was written. Smith had published
on two parasitic bacteria of plants. Bacillus tracheiphilus and
Bacillus solanacearum. He was completing his work on Pseud o-

^"Udem 31(364): 312-314.
^"Udem, 314.

318 Recognition in America

fiionas cauipestris for publications that year."" His study of these
organisms was to continue for many years and in many particulars
he would perfect his technique. Workers then were often not
entirely confident of their conclusions and the correctness of their
methods of work. To illustrate: in 1894 he wrote of peach
yellows trees as " full of a virus readily communicated to other
trees by budding " "^ and of peach rosette as " a virus [requiring]
a period of some months to penetrate into all parts of a tree." ^^^
But he also allied peach yellows to variegation in plants, " a
disease manifesting itself in stunted growth, imperfect assimi-
lation, hastened development, and feeble vitalit}'. Moreover, in a
number of variegated plants, e. g., jasmines and abutilons, this
condition is transmissible to healthy stocks by budding or grafting,
in the same way as peach yellows. The difference in these cases
appears to be one of degree rather than of kind." Modern research
has brought forth much new knowledge concerning these two
diseases and little peach, all three having different symptoms and
caused by viruses. ^^^

During the 1890's there was much uncertainty about the knowl-
edge of bacterial diseases of plants. In 1892 W. Migula, writing
for the Middle Java Experiment Station, had concluded that five
from " about twenty " ^^* bacterial plant diseases mentioned in
literature were "clearly established." Sorauer, Comes, Russell,
Ludwig, and others, then recognized that bacterial plant diseases
existed, but agreement among them as to how many and what dis-
eases had been definitely proven to be caused by bacteria was
lacking. In his list of diseases of established bacterial origin,
Russell included pear blight, Wakker's yellows of hyacinths,
Heinz's hyacinth rot, tuberculosis of olive, and Kramer's wet-rot
of potato, among several others. By 1897 Migula had increased
his list from five to eight maladies proved to be caused by bacteria.
Nevertheless, leading text-books on plant diseases continued to

"" Centralbl. f. Bakt., op. at. ; The black rot of cabbage, U. S. Dep't of Agric.
Farmers' Bulletin 68, transmitted Dec. 16, 1897, published in 1898.

^^^ Peach yellows and peach rosette, U. S. Dep't of Agric. Farmers' Bulletin 17: 10,
May 1894. In 1895 Smith published also Farmers' Bulletin 33, Peach growing for
market.

112 pga(-j^ yellows and peach rosette, op. cit., 17.

^^* See, L. O. Kunkel, Immunological studies on the three peach diseases, yellows,
rosette, and little peach, Phytopathology 26(3): 201-219, Mar. 1936.

^^* See, Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 12-14. The facts of this
paragraph are taken from the more complete discussion of this subject by Dr. Smith.

Of rill ScioNcn oi' Pi ant Racthriology 319

be published in rnL^land, France, and Cicrmany, the rcjxitable
autiiors of each clingini^ to tlie prevail ini; insistent skepticism
and devoting but a comparatively few pa^es to plant bacteria.
Even Burrill's pear blij^ht was seldom accepted as definitely shown
to be caused by a bacterium. In 1S97 Migula in his System der
Biikterien included Smith's wilt of cucurbits as a bacterial plant
disease. Pear bliqht had been included in his early, and what
Smith believed " the best, paper of its time."

Migula's second volume, Specielle Systeniatik der Bakterien,
published in 1900, was still another book which Smith believed
" should be in every laboratory. No other general work," he
said,"^ "deals as carefully with morphology of the bacteria."
Designedly less .complete in cultural characters, the book was to
be regarded as one which described species rather than considered
their pathogenicity.^^" He chose Migula's scheme for classifying
bacteria, and explained thus: ^^'

On the whole, the classification of Migula, which was proposed in
October, 1894, and is outlined at length and applied to most of the well-
recognized forms, in his beautiful great work, '" System der Bakterien,"
appeals to me most strongly. Up to this time [1905] the writer has
followed this system in his own publications and will continue to do so,
with certain modifications, until some distinctly better system makes its
appearance. This system is based on the flagella and is much more work-
able than one based on spores, or on a combination of these two characters.
The presence or absence of flagella and their position on the body are used
by Migula as generic characters. In 1895 Dr. Alfred Fischer also pro-
pounded a new system of classification based on spores and flagella. This
system was republished in 1897, with material modifications, in his '" Vor-
lesungen iiber Bakterien," and is modified still further in the second
edition of that work.

The second edition of Fischer's work was published in 1903,
two years before the second volume of the third edition of
Sorauer's Handbuch der Pfianzenkrankheiten was made available.
Whereas in the first edition of his Handbook (1874) Sorauer had
not mentioned bacterial diseases of plants, many pages and seventy
such diseases, more or less, were considered in the later work.
" This purely didactic review published in 1905," wrote Smith,

118

^^^ Bad. in rel. to pi. cits., op. cit., bibliog., 1: 205.

^'^° Bact. in rel. to pi. dis., op. cit., 2: 17.

^'^'' Bact. in rel. to pi. dis., op. cit., 1: 157.

*"Bdf/. in rel. to pi. dis., op. cit., 2: 19.

320 Recognition in America

" contains the best summary in any general treatise on plant
diseases. . . . The statements in it, carefully as the literature
has been gone over by Dr. Lindau, show, however, perhaps as
clearly as anything, the great need for a reexamination of the
whole subject by some one experimentally familiar with it." That
year, 1905, Smith, after carefully working over " in the laboratory,
field, and greenhouse, as opportunity offered, all of the so-called
bacterial diseases of plants, submitting each supposed parasite to
all of the tests of modern pathology," ^^^ began to publish his
three-volume monograph Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases
in which he expected to treat or touch upon " more than 125
diseases . . . many of which [had] come under [his] own observa-
tion." In this he included an " outline of methods of work "
started several years previously and evidently first submitted for
criticism to Dr. V. A. Moore. He had profited from Moore's
booklet of laboratory directions for beginners in bacteriology.

Smith, all the while, studied fungous, as well as bacterial dis-
eases of plants. His review in the American Naturalist ^"^ of
" Chemotropism of Fungi," a study emphasizing the researches
of Manabu Miyoshi, a student of Pfeffer at Leipzig, on " the
behavior of fungi toward particular substances," was an illustra-
tion of what he estimated as of importance. In 1897 he presented
before Section G a paper on the " Nature of certain pigments
produced by fungi and bacteria, with special reference to that
produced by Bacillus solanacearumJ' ^^^

His tabular account of the " Sensitiveness of Certain Parasites
to the Acid Juices of the Host Plants," ^" given the next year
before the second meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology
and Physiology, was not confined to one organism and one disease,
but several, and was typical of the work of a comparative path-
ologist. Inoculating acid nutrient solutions with Pseudomonas
campestris, Pseudomonas phaseoli, Pseudomonas hyacinthi, Pseudo-
monas stewarti, Bacillus a??iyloporus, Bacillus oleae, and other
bacteria parasitic to plants, he demonstrated the wide difference
in their susceptibility to plant acids. The three yellow plant para-

^^^ Bad. in re!, to pi. dis., op. cit., preface, 1: iii and iv.

^'"31(368): 717-720, Aug. 1897.

^-^ Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 46: 288.

^^^Amer. Nat. 33(387): 208, Mar. 1899.

Of tuf. ScinNCF of Plant nACTHiuoLOCY 321

sites, Pseuclomothis cj/nfu'Slns, pkiseoli, and hyacinthi, were ob-
served to spread more slowly through the parcnchymatic tissues
of their host plants; and their action was compared with that of
parasites of more rapid spread within these tissues, to-wit, those
of pear blight, brown rot of potato, or soft white rot of hyacinths.
Hyperdermic syringes were sometimes used in parenchymatous in-
jections, and the exact acidity of each nutrient solution was ascer-
tained by titrating it with N/10 Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and
phenolphthalein." The conclusion was that " Two of these yellow
organisms are vessel parasites, their entrance into the plant being
favored by the alkaline juice of the ducts. In all three the
restraining influence was believed to be, in great part, at least,
the acid jiiice of the parenchyma." ^-^

" Gelatin Culture Media," '-'' his other paper presented at the
1898 meeting of the Society, offered reasons, illustrated by a chart,
photographs, paintings, and an accompanying plate showing the
" varying behavior " of Pseudomonas campestris in gelatin with
dift"erent quantities of caustic soda, why individual workers
studying the same organism with these media might reach differ-
ent results and conclusions. It was pointed out that

Working with gelatin of varying grades of acidity and alkalinity, pre-
pared according to Fuller's scale, . . . with interpolations and extension of
the scale, if necessary, it is possible to obtain curves of growth decidedly
different for different species, even those which are morphologically much
alike and which behave the same on nutrient agar.

Gelatin media, he said, should be rendered neutral to phenol-
phthalein, and he suggested several techniques usable and effec-
tive. He again cited as the " best paper in English " on this subject,
" On the Proper Reaction of Nutrient Media for Bacterial Culti-
vation," by George W. Fuller, then a resident engineer of Cincin-
nati to whom he had sent some of his reprints.

Fuller was particularly interested in Smith's list of " little-used
culture media " ^"° found valuable for differentiating species of
bacteria. He promised to use some as time allow^ed. This list,

^-* Details furnished by Smith in, Wakker's hyacinth germ, Pseudomonas hya-
cinthi. Bull. 26, Div. Veg. Phys. and Path., 1901. Preface says that paper was
prepared in August, 1897. Also, Bull. 28, The cultural characters of Pseudomonas
hyacinthi, Ps. campestris, Ps. phaseoli, and Ps. stewarti etc., 1901.

"*/1ffzer. Nat. 33(387): 214-215, Mar. 1899.

^^^Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Set. 47: 412-413. 1898.

322 Recognition in America

presented in 1898 before Section G as already stated, provided
ten formulas, some of them making use of " crude vegetable sub-
stances " having " very different quantities and kinds of nutrient "
capabilities. At the same meeting. Smith offered another paper,.
" Potato as a culture medium, with some notes on a synthesized
substitute." ^-^ In this he also described how to prepare another
medium which he called " nutrient starch jelly."

On May 13, 1898, another graduate of Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Samuel C. Prescott, wrote Smith for " cultures of
various organisms." He was then an instructor in Sedgwick's
department of biology and, while he had not studied " the bac-
teriology of plant diseases to any considerable extent," he appre-
ciated " how interesting the work must be." They were then
moving into their " new laboratory " and he was putting their
" cultures in first class condition."

In March 1898 F. C. Stewart, then at Ithaca, had sent a culture
of his sweet corn bacillus growing on potato agar and asked
Smith to " work it over and give the organism a name." In
December, in bulletin 130 of the New York station at Geneva,
he had published on the " Bacterial Disease of Sweet Corn." But
he wanted Smith to restudy it at the Department of Agriculture,
straighten out any possible confusion in synonymy, cultural charac-
ters, and other points. Smith carried the organism through many
cultures, compared it with other organisms, found it an undes-
cribed form, tabulated the particulars on which he and Stewart
were unable to agree, supplied sixteen points of additional data,
and a synopsis of characters. This research was the basis of a
third paper submitted in 1898 by Smith to Section G, and was
entitled, " Notes on Stewart's sweet-corn germ, Pseudomonas
stewarti, new species." ^'■'

Smith, in his last evaluation of his own study of this disease,
said: '''

The writer first described the parasite from cultures sent to him by
Stewart for that purpose and figured it as polar flagellate, but subsequent
studies in his laboratory showed this to be an error and the statements in
[Introduction to Bacterial Diseases of Plants ^^s] are more dependable as

"■^Udem, 411-412.

^" Idetn, 422-426.

^^* Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 29-30.

^^* Op. cit., 160-176.

Of thh SciENci: or Plant Bacti-riology 323

to morpholoi;)- and cultural characters than those in Volume III ui [Bjc-
leria in Rtl.uion to PLint Diwases *''"]. The ori;anisni is non inolile (Lucia
McCulloch) and only feebly active on potato starch. . . . The writer
obtained the first convincing infections with pure cultures in 1902, making
his inoculations by placinL; the organism on the tips of leaves extruding
water, i. e., in the seedling stage and transplanting to the held some weeks
later.

His " Completed proof that P. stcwarti is the cause of the sweet
corn disease of Long Island " was announced '" in 1903. Further
research under his supervision by Miss Hedges, Dr. Rand, and
other laboratory assistants, work extending over many years, estab-
lished that the disease is transmitted on the seed, appears con-
spicuously one to t\vo months after planting, and, among other
points, that infections are stomatal and probably also by way of
water pores. About 1923, after Dr. Smith's text book and his
evalution of his own work on this plant disease had been pub-
lished. Dr. Rand investigated the insect-transmission of the malady
by two species of beetles. This wall be considered in Chapter X.

At the beginning of the century, Dr. Smith's reputation as a
scrupulously careful, conscientious worker, one who went about
his work with endless enthusiasm, was w^ell established. That he
strove tirelessly to verify and re-verify every important conclusion
was known in many places.

Scientists at his alma mater were proud of him and his work,
hi 1897 F. G. Novy thanked him for reprints and added:

I have often thought how you as a botanist and I as a chemist have
drifted into the study of the '" definitely little." Originally I took up bac-
teria to aid me in my work in physiological chemistry and now the latter
is the handmaid of the former. 125 students in the laboratory in these
two subjects at one time strongly handicap individual work.

The next year he wrote Smith to inquire whether the Depart-
ment of Agriculture had " published a summary of known bac-
terial Diseases of plants " and for estimates of the annual losses
to American farmers from each malady.

Smith was also proud of his friendship with Novy. His demon-
stration in 1903 with McNeal of the University of Michigan that

"° Op. cit., 89-147.

'^^'^ Science 17(429): 457, Mar. 20, 1903. Vcrvollstaendigunp des Bevveises, dass
P Stewarti die Ursache der Suesskornkrankcit auf Long Island ist, Centralblatt f.
Bakt. etc., II Abt., 10(22/23) : 745-746, 1903.

324 Recognition in America

Trepanosoma lewisi from the blood of a rat and T. brucei from
the blood of a dog brought from Africa could be cultivated on
blood agar very much advanced the study of protozoan blood
parasites. Smith ''- classed this in point of time and comparable
importance with Negri's discovery of " bodies " present in hydro-
phobia in the ganglion cells, with DeSchweinitz's and Dorset's
proof that hog cholera is due to a filterable virus, and he ranked
Novy's and McNeal's work next in order, chronologically,- to
Welch's and Nuttall's description at Johns Hopkins of Bacterium
welchii, " their anaerobic gas oedema bacillus . . . type of a group
causing deadly wound-diseases."

In November 1897 E. O. Jordan, Assistant Professor of Bac-
teriology at the University of Chicago, T. M. Prudden of the
department of pathology at the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons, and E. C. Jeffrey of the biological department of the Uni-
versity of Toronto, each thanked Smith for a copy of his paper
on Pseudomonas campestris and each found its contents interesting.
On November 18 T. J. Burrill of the University of Illinois con-
gratulated Smith, and from him congratulations were a coveted
honor among plant scientists: " Please accept my thanks for your
Pseudomonas campestris paper. I have read the article with much
interest both on acc[oun]t of the subject matter and as an illus-
tration of good work well recorded."

In 1902, after Smith's address, " Plant pathology: a retrospect
and prospect," given as president of the Society for Plant Mor-
phology and Physiology, had been published, America's pioneer
plant bacteriologist paid Smith a higher tribute:

You have put things together and made a presentation of the subject
so that the position of American workers, individually and as a body, is
for the first time set forth. The progress which you show to have been
made is perhaps not wonderful when the conditions are understood, but
it seems to me that it is at least very creditable to those engaged in the
work. If this is true, I may add that to no one is the forward movement
due, and the presentation of the same in print, more directly traceable than
to yourself.

Burrill sent his " best wishes for [Smith's] future endeavors."
Roland Thaxter of the Farlow Herbarium of Harvard was " greatly
obliged [for Smith's] very interesting paper on Pseudomonas."

"- Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 31.

Oi THi- Science of Plant Bacteriology 325

December l^), IS97, Smith addressed a \'ery interesting letter of
thanks to Rudolph Adcrhold of Froskau, Germany, a letter which
evidently he regarded so valuable that he saved a written copy:

I luvc to thank you for a very excellent review of my Bulletin No. 12
on Bji/llus soLiniUWDion in a recent number of Bot^iUiische'] Ze/i[ung'].
My paper on PseuJonionas campestris was printed in 2 Abt. of Cf«-
lralb[Litf'] f. Bak^teriologie'] etc. this year but inasmuch as it is in English
it is still for many German readers only " half published," just as German
papers arc for most American and Englishmen inaccessible on account of
the ditliculties of the language. On this account I would be very glad if
you could also find time to review this paper for Botlaniscbe} Zeit\_utjg'].
Perhaps you woukNike to do this in connection with a second paper on
the subject which has just gone to press, and a printed copy of which
I shall hope to send you early in January. This is a Farmers' Bulletin to be
issued by the U[nited] S[tates] Dep[artment] of Agric[ulture]. It is not
a digest of the preceding paper but deals principally with methods of
prevention and is based on discoveries made this summer while I was
studying the disease in the field.

Your paper on Die Fusicladien tinsere Ohsth'dume has interested me and
I am now writing a review "^ of it for one of our journals. Along with
the paper on the cabbage disease, I venture to send you copies of several
other papers, bulletins, etc., in some of which you may, perhaps, be
interested.

Many of Smith's foreign correspondents have been mentioned.
In chronological order, some of them were Oskar Brefeld of
Munich (1890-1892), F. v. Tavel of Zurick (1894-1895), H.
Klebahn of Hamburg (1895-), E. Koehne of Berlin (1895-),
Dr. John Bolle of the Imperial and Royal Agricultural and
Chemical Experiment Station in Gorz, Austro-Hungary (1894 or
1896-) C. A. J. A. Oudemans of Amsterdam, Netherlands
(1896-), W. Migula of Karlsruhe, Germany (1896-), Wladislaw
Rothert of Kazan, East Russia (1896-), Dr. A. N. Berlese of
Milan, Italy (1897-), and the number increased after this year.
It is likely that Smith received letters from other foreign sources.
In 1895 he started a " Ledger " containing the names of all his
correspondents, both in North America and abroad, and the
reprints sent to each. By the end of the century three volumes
were required to incorporate the data. Foreign scientists w^ith
whom he began to correspond in 1895 were:

^^^ See, E. F. Smith, Perithecial stage of the apple-scab fungus, Amer. Nat. 29
(342): 583-584, June 1895; Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 27 (in this Smith
spoke of Aderhold's work as between 1896 and 1905).

326 Recognition in America

Th. W. Engelmann, Professor of Histology of the Physiological Labora-
tory of Utrecht, Netherlands.

Dr. M. W. Beyerinck of Delft, Netherlands.

Dr. Alfred Fischer of the University at Leipzig, Germany, later Basel,
Switzerland.

Dr. Alfred Moller of Eberswalde, Germany.

Dr. Hans Solereder of the University of Munich, Germany.

Dr. Karl Tubeuf of the University of Munich, Germany.

Professor Eugene Warming of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Professor H. Graf zu Solms-Laubach of the University of Strassbufg,
Germany.

Dr. Max Gonnermann of Danzig and Rostock, Germany.

Dr. Martin Mobius of Heidelberg, later Frankfurt, Germany.

Charles Joly of Paris, France.

W. T. Thistleton Dyer of Kew, England.

Dr. Antonio Berlese of Portici, Italy.

B. L. Ravaz of France.

Dr. Henry Tryon, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Dr. George Hieronymus, editor of Hedivigia, of Berlin, Germany.

Professor Gaston Bonnier of the Sorbonne, Paris, France.

Dr. P. A. Saccardo of the University of Padua, Italy. — the following,
1896 and after.

E. Krober of Germany. Johann Bachmann of Germany.

Dr. Jacob Eriksson of Albano, near Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. A. Zimmermann of Buitenzorg, Java.

Dr. W. J. Behrens of Gottingen, Germany.

Dr. N. A. Cobb, pathologist of the Department of Agriculture of
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Professor M. C. Potter, The Durham College of Science, Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, England.

Maxwell T. Masters, editor Gardeners Chronicle, London, England.

Burri and Stutzer of Germany (Breslau?).

Dr. Charles Schilberszky of Budapest, Austro-Hungary.

Dr. G. Lindau of Berlin, Germany.

Carl Wehmer of Hannover, Germany.

Dr. F. Ludwig of Greiz, Germany.

Dr. Oscar Kirchner of Stuttgart, Germany.

Dr. Karl Goebel of Munich, Germany.

Among the earliest of his foreign correspondents had been the
Italians, Peglion, Savastano, and Cavara, and the German, Paul
Sorauer. By 1897 the names of most of the important figures in
plant pathology were on his lists. The early students of plant
bacteriology were included, and many, many American and Euro-
pean botanists, especially those interested in plant physiology.
Woronin of Russia was an early correspondent. So was Francis

Of THi- SciuNCi- OF Plant Bactfriology 327

Darwin, Professor of Physiological Botany at the University of
Cambridge, and H. Marshall Ward of the same great place of
learning, luich year new names were added. Among the English-
men by 1898 were J. Bretland Farmer, Professor of Botany at the
Royal College of Sciences, South Kensington; Pdgar M. Oook-
shank. Professor of Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology, and
fellow of Kings College, London; Alfred J. Ewart and Percy
Frankland of Alason College, Birmingham. Among other Ger-
mans were V5chting of Tiibingen; W. Busse of Berlin; L. Kny
of Wilmersdorf bei Berlin; K. B. Lehmann of Wiirzburg; A. F.
W. Schimper of Bonn and later Basel, Switzerland; Oscar Loew,
then of Germany and later Japan; Rudolf Arendt of Leipzig;
A. Meyer and F. G. Kohl of Marburg; and O. Uhlworm. L. Errara
was from Brussels, Emerich Rathay from Vienna, and J. Costantin
from Paris. F. Noack was a Brazilian. Correspondents extended
to India, Java, Australia, Japan, and other countries. These were
scientists to whom Smith sent his papers,"* and many of them
began to write to him.

American teachers of bacteriology more and more requested
either his literature on plant bacterial diseases or cultures of the
bacteria he had studied. In 1898, for example, Mazyck P. Ravenel
of the University of Pennsylvania wrote Smith for literature on
this subject and root bacteria and their function in the fixation
of nitrogen. Charles Edward Marshall, bacteriologist of Michigan
Agricultural College, wrote for cultures. " Some of my students
would like to make a study of the bacteria " of plants, he said.

On December 24, 1900, Dr. Welch invited Smith to dine with
him three evenings later at the Maryland Club " to meet members
of the Bacteriological Society." Just a year past, at the Yale
Medical School, the Society of American Bacteriologists ^''^ had
been organized as an affiliate of the American Society of Na-
turalists, and its second annual meeting was being held in the
pathological laboratory of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. W. T.
Sedgwick was president of the society and on the evening of
December 27 he gave his address on " The origin, scope and
significance of bacteriolog)'." On the same day, at the medical

"* Based on Smith's " Ledgers."

^^° C.-E. A. Winslow, The first forty years of the Society of American Bacteriol-
ogists, Science, n. s., 91(2354): 125-129, Jan.-June 1940.

328 Recognition in America

school, the fourth meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology
and Physiology also took place, and among the important papers
were H. J. Webber's on " Loss of vigour in corn from inbreeding,"
H. von Schrenk's "A disease of the locust," and A. F. Woods's
on " The mosaic disease of tobacco." These were followed by
papers by George T. Moore of Dartmouth College on " Improved
methods for obtaining pure cultures of fresh-water algae," B. M.
Duggar and F. C. Stewart on "A second preliminary report upon
plant diseases in the United States due to Rhizoctonia" and M. A.
Carleton on " Notes on the life history of certain Uredineae."

A joint session of the Society for Plant Morphology and the
Society of American Bacteriologists was held at noon in the Phar-
macological Lecture Room. Erwin F. Smith, member of both
societies, presented a lecture, illustrated by stereopticon slides, on
"" The bacterial diseases of plants." Science ""^ noticed the lecture:

Three diseases were described, namely, the wilt of cucurbits due to
Bacilhis tracheiphilus, the brown rot of solanaceous plants due to Bacillus
solanacearum, and the black rot of cruciferous plants due to Pseiidomonas
campestris. Fifty-eight slides made from the author's clear and beautiful
photographs and photomicrographs were exhibited, showing symptoms,
location of the bacteria in the tissues, etc. Many of these illustrations will
be published in the near future in Centralhlatt jlir Bakteriologie.

On December 28, at the business meeting. Smith was elected
president of the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology
for the ensuing year. F. C. Newcombe and L. M. Underwood
were elected vice-presidents, and W. F. Ganong was continued
as secretary.

Woods's paper on tobacco mosaic ^^^ was important because of
his theory that the disease was due to an inhibitory action upon
starch hydrolysis and translocation, induced by an excess of oxi-
dizing enzymes."^ Mayer had proven the malady's transmissibility,
Iwanowski had transmitted the disease with filtrates of diseased
leaves, and thus offered to science the first proof of a filtrable
invisible virus,^^^ and Beijerinck had confirmed his filtration experi-

"•'N. s., 13(320): 249, Feb. 15, 1901.

^^' Science, n. s., 13(320): 247-248, Feb. 15, 1901.

'^^^ Phytopathology 5(2): 85, Apr. 1915 (statement based on Ralph E. Smith's
condensation of Woods's theory).

^^* Gustav Seiffert, Virus diseases in man, animal and plants, translated by Marion
Lee Taylor, 263, N. Y., Philosophical Library, 1944; E. F. Smith, Fifty years of
pathology, op. cit., 20, 21, and 27.

Or 11 in SciuNci- OF Plant Bactlriologv 329

mcnts. Woods believed that " under certain conditions " tobacco
mosaic was infectious, and he suggested that his explanation might
extend to peach yellows, the California vine disease, and die
back of the oran<;e. Smith the next year "" spoke of

a whole ^roup of diseases, the etiology ol which mere field study and the
ordinary ^laboratory methods do not appear to be competent to unravel;
tor example, the Calitornia (Anaheim) vine disease, the wilt of the orange,
the sereh disease of the sugar cane, gum diseases, the yellows and rosette
of the peach, the winter blight of the tomato, the internal brown spotting
of potato tubers, etc. ... A good beginning on this class of diseases has
been made by Beyerinck and\Voods' in the study of the Mosaic disease
of tobacco.

He was confident that " these obscure diseases will yield up their

full etiology to careful study at some time in the future."

At the Baltimore meeting (1900) of the Society of American

Bacteriologists, Smith presented experimental data tending to

establish that in bacteriological culture work the practice prevalent

then of using thymol and chloroform as antiseptics and germicides

was of limited value. He called attention to the fact that twelve

micro-organisms were known which grew readily in test-tube

cultures of milk or beef bouillon to which an equal volume of

chloroform had been added. Two organisms grew readily in beef

bouillon to which thymol had been added. '*' In discussing some

years later in his first volume of Bctcteria in Relation to Plant

Diseases the subject, " Reaction to Antisepics and Germicides,"

he said:

Some organisms will grow in a solution saturated with thymol (e. g., in
bouillon). Others will grow in the presence of chloroform (5cc. of
chloroform in test-tubes with 10 cc. of milk or beef-bouillon) . Ten
organisms have been found by the writer which, under the conditions
named, grew in the presence of chloroform and two which grew vigorously
in the presence of thymol. Russell reports one capable of growing in the
presence of sulphuric ether. It is, therefore, not always safe to depend
on these substances as antiseptics. Newcombe has made the same observa-
tion (Cellulose Enzymes, Annals of Botany, Vol. XIII, 1899, p. 60). In
the opinion of the writer the statements of physiologists respecting the

^'^ Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 611 (Smith's presidential
address before the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology, fifth meeting,
January 1, 1902, held at Columbia University).

'■^'' Experiment Station Record 13(2): 114; aXso Science, n.s., 13(322): 327, 1901;
also, ]our. Boston Soc. Med. Sci. 5: 375; also Centralb. f. Bakt., 1901, 1st Abt., 29:
445-446.

330 Recognition in America

existence of enzymes in the tissues and fluids of the higher plants and
animals must be taken with much allowance when chloroform, thymol, and
similar antiseptics have been depended upon to keep the solutions free
from bacteria. This has been the case very frequently, and in several places
in Greene's interesting book on Fermentations, published in 1899, it is
said or inferred that the addition of chloroform will prevent the growth
of bacteria. This might or might not be true ; much would depend on the
kind of organisms present. The medium to which chloroform or thymol
has been added must be shut in and shaken continuously if the full anti-
septic value of these substances is to be obtained. ^^^

Alexander C. Abbott, director of the Laboratory of Hygiene o£
the University of Pennsylvania, heard Smith's paper at Baltimore
and much interested in the communication placed a student in
his laboratory at work on the subject. Since 1897 Abbott had been
receiving Smith's publications. Indeed, since 1895, B. Meade
Bolton, now bacteriologist of the Philadelphia Board of Health,
had also been receiving reprints, and in that year, 1895, in the
American Naturaltst,^^'' Smith, under the title, " Bactericidal
Action of Metals," had reviewed Bolton's published study from
the International Medical Magazine (December 1894), "The
effects of various metals on the growth of Bacteria." Some of
the metals tested were copper, brass, silver, gold, magnesium, zinc,
cadmium, mercury, bismuth, nickel, and platinum. The bacteria
were any or all of Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus and the colon,
typhoid, cholera, and anthrax bacilli.

January 19, 1898, William Royal Stokes of the pioneering muni-
cipal health department of Baltimore thanked Smith for a copy
of " The Black Rot of Cabbage " and added, " I always read
your articles with great interest and envy you as working in a
field where the practical results are always of much great impor-
tance. I shall send you several reprints of some work of ours
as soon as they arrive."

In 1896 Dr. Simon Flexner of Welch's pathological laboratory
of Johns Hopkins had answered an inquiry from Smith for galac-
tose, and the next year Smith began sending to Flexner, Dr. W. S.
Thayer, House Physician of the Hospital, as well as Drs. Hurd
and Welch reprints of his publications. To E. B. Shuttleworth,
bacteriologist of Trinity College at Toronto, J. J. Mackensie,

"= op. cit., 74-75.

^"29(346): 933-936, Oct. 1, 1895.

Of THi: Scii-Ncr. or Plant Bactirioixx.y 331

bactcriolooist of the Provincial Board of Health of Ontario, Dr.
Wyatt Johnston, bacteriologist of the Quebec Board of Health,
and, very important, to Dr. J. Cieorgc Adami, professor of path-
ology at McCiill University, Montreal, he also sent reprints; like-
wise, to Dr. T. iM. ("hcesman, instructor in bacteriology at the
College of Physician and Surgeons, to J. Christian Bay of the Iowa
State Board of Health, and in 1898 to Dr. Jacques Loeb of the
Physiological Laboratory of the University of Chicago. Among
Washington correspondents to whom copies were sent were Dr.
Charles Smart, deputy surgeon-general, and Dr. J. J. Kinyoun of
the bacteriologicaP laboratory and Marine Hospital service of the
government. Many entomologists, horticulturists, and, of course,
many, many botanists received Smith's scientific literature. To list
the botanists would probably require repeating the entire distin-
guished membership of the Botanical Society of America. Not
unlikely, therefore, many members of the newly formed Society
of American Bacteriologists were familiar with the principal inten-
tion of Smith's botanical work during the years 1896-1898. As an
American leader in plant pathology,^" he was accepted into mem-
bership in the Societ}'. Many of the early members had been his
friends for several years: Sedgwick, Abbott, Conn, Fuller, Jordan,
Prescott, Adami, Johnston, Prudden, and especially Vaughan,
Sternberg, Welch, Moore, and Theobald Smith.

At the dinner of December 27 to which Dr. Welch invited him,
Smith saved a memento which indicates that he sat with Theobald
Smith, Flexner, Jordan, Harold Clarence Ernst, Edward Kellogg
Dunham, and one or two others. Dr. Welch was elected president
of the Society and Dr. Jordan vice-president. Little must Smith
have then realized how interested many of these men would be-
come in his work when, during the next decade, he would institute
elaborate studies of crown gall in plants, and reason, with authen-
tic proof, an analogy to cancer in animals and man.

On December 9, 1897, Dr. Thomas B. Carpenter, assistant bac-
teriologist of the Department of Health at Buffalo, had thanked
Smith for his reprints on bacterial diseases of plants and written
for " other studies." He was a doctor of medicine and probably
was acquainted with Dr. Roswell Park,"° Professor of Surgery

^** C.-E. A. Winslow, The first forty years of the Society of American Bacteriol-
ogists, op. cit.

"^ Charles G. Stockton, M. D., Roswell Park: a memoir, Buffalo Hist. Soc. Publ.

332 Recognition in America

at the University of Buffalo and for many years surgeon-in-chief
of the Buffalo General Hospital. On May 1, 1898, Dr. Park also
wrote Smith:

I wish to thank you sincerely for your kindness in placing our school
on your mailing hst, etc. I am happy to be able to state that our School
has just received an appropriation of $10,000 for equipping and main-
taining a " Laboratory for the study of Cancer," the first of its kind in
the world.

Dr. Park told Smith that he was " anxious not only to study
' cancer ' in trees [plants] etc., but [also to} collect the literature
of the subject "; and he bespoke their future interest in mutual
assistance which would " redound to our common benefit." " One
great aim of [Dr. Park's] life," Dr. Stockton has revealed ""^ was
" to know the nature of cancer. . , This led to the establishment,
first in the University of Buffalo, of the Gratwick Laboratory,
which became in 1911 the New York State Laboratory and Hos-
pital for the Study of Malignant Disease."

In 1893 Dr. Park had published on " The Parasitic Theory of
the Etiology of Carcinoma." "^ In 1889, at the Cleveland meeting,
a collection of fifty-four cultures of bacteria and moulds on agar-
agar prepared by him had been exhibited to the Botanical Club
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science."^
He must have known of Smith's early studies of stem and root
tumors of cultivated tree and vine plants. The two men, interested
in comparative pathology, began to exchange letters on occasions.
When later Smith's more important studies on the etiology of
plant tumors began to acquire significance in working out prob-
lems in the etiology of animal tumors, Dr. Park classed his work
among those from whom medical science might expect " light
upon the general subject of cancer." ^^^ The story of how and
why this became so will form a theme throughout the remainder
of this book.

22: 91-123, with bibliography. Paper read at a meeting of the Society on April 13,
1916.

'*" Op. cil., 108.

^*' Neiv York Med. Jour., March 4; Trans, of Med. Sac. of State of N. Y., 1893;
Med. and Surgical Reporter, Feb. 18.

"■^^ Botanical Gazette 14: 263, Oct. 1889.

^** Letter from Dr. Park to Smith, July 15, 1912.

Chapter VIII

SMITH CHIHF OF A LABORATORY OF PLANT PATHOLOGY.
RFCOGNITION OF PLANT BACTFRIOLOGY IN EUROPF.

DL'RING the decade 1897-1906 many plant pathologists, ento-
mologists, and animal pathologists were appointed at various
experiment stations/ One of the strongest centers for the study
of plant diseases wns that developed by L. R. Jones at the Uni-
versity of Vermont. He was offered a position with the New
York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva but he chose to
remain at Vermont where as botanist of the experiment station
and professor of botany in the university he had been contributing
since 1890 important studies in plant pathology." In 1898 he wrote
Smith that he believed his opportunity there " unequalled among
our Colleges and Stations." He was to have a " leave of absence
for study and investigation " of one-half of every other school
year. After considering advanced study at Harvard or in Germany,
he accepted Smith's offer to spend his first leave in his laboratory.
" Plant pathology and plant physiology are what I am most after,"
he wrote Smith on April 11, 1898, and he asked for " pure cultures
of some of your bacteria, pathogenic to plants especially your
Bacillus solanacearum and Pseudomonas campestris, also Bacillus
amylovorus if at hand. I should be glad of any others which you
can send of European or American origin." During September he
and his assistant, William A. Orton, sent Smith plant disease
specimens: an " aster trouble " suggesting "* the malformations
you figure as accompanying peach rosette and yellows," and
" some corn sheaths showing blotches which are, I judge," he said,
" the thing which Burrill attributed to Bacillus Serghi. . . . Have
you worked over this matter sufficiently so you are satisfied as to
the correctness of Burrill's conclusions regarding the bacterial
nature of the disease? "

Dr. Smith's " Record Book of Culture Media " shows that Jones

^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 28.

^G. W. Keitt and F. V. Rand, Lewis Ralph Jones 1864-1945, Phytopathology
36(1): 3, 4, and bibliography, 11-17, Jan. 1946.

333

334 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

began to study in his laboratory no later than February 7, 1899,
and remained there at least through June 12. Until the first week
in March he worked mainly on preparing culture media. He then
began a research, evidently his own choice, on the bacterial soft
rot of vegetables. On March 9 he began cutting cylinders from
roots of turnips, rutabaga, carrots, sweet potato, beet, radishes,
later also asparagus and onion. Each material, each staining, addi-
tion of materials, filtration, transfer, steaming, testing with litmus
and other tests, each result was described with the care and pre-
cision which characterized Smith's work. In one or another of the
laboratories of the Division, at informal luncheons, and seminar
meetings, members of the Division and guests discussed problems
of plant physiology and pathology. Dr. Woods has revealed that
the " discussions were chiefly along bacteriological and physi-
ological lines, and Jones was one of the leading spirits. He was
looked upon by the Department as a prize visitor. He brought to
the group the university point of view. Though he came for
further bacteriological training and experience as well as research,
he gave fully as much as he got. We were proud to have him
with us."

Out of these preliminary investigations grew " Jones' classical
papers describing Bacillus carotovorus and showing the mechanism
of its incitation of rotting by production of the enzyme, pectinase,
which dissolves the middle lamellae of the cell walls of the host
plant."

Dr. Smith's " Record Book of Culture Media " further shows
that by September 21, 1899, William A. Orton, who had graduated
in science two years before at the University of Vermont and while
earning his degree master of science served as Jones's assistant,
was in Smith's laboratory. September 21, the entry which appears
to have been written by him was entitled, " Nutrient Agar "; Sep-
tember 25, " Beef Bouillon "; October 2, again, " Beef Bouillon ";
evidently, however, he had been employed for a purpose other
than laboratory research. Since 1895, when Smith at Charleston,
South Carolina, had observed cotton seed selection practiced by
plantation owners to prevent crop deterioration, he had visual-
ized this as bound up with possible remedial measures to combat
fusarium-caused diseases. He, in his address, " The fungous infes-

*Keitt and Rand, op. cit., 5.

Recognition of Plant Bacti-rioi.ogy in Europi- 335

tation i)f ai;ricultuial sdiIs in the United States," •• read August 25,
1899, before the Botanical Section of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, referred to the careful cotton
breeding practice of the Sea Island growers. While he did not
recomniend that seed selection be experimentally investigated by
scientists to determine whether the technique might he applied
to breeding for disease-resistance, he later disclosed in an address,
" Plant Breeding in the Ignited States Department of Agricul-
ture," "^ presented before the third International Conference on
Genetics, that he realized that an assistant was needed to find " a
satisfactory remedy Jor the widespread " disease of cotton caused
by the " little fungus known as Fusarium," and

picked out for this responsible post Mr. William A. Orton, then a recent
graduate of the University of Vermont, who subsequently obtained most
brilliant results in o\ercoming the ravages of this disease by means of
selection. I might add in passing that Mr. Orton had never seen a cotton
field until he went South on this perplexing and seemingly well-nigh
hopeless mission. Very little was accomplished the first year. I well
remember a notable conference with Mr. Orton at the close of the first
season's work, when he was thoroughly discouraged and expressed himself
as feeling that the whole year had been wasted. I cheered and encouraged
him as best I could and advised him to continue. The key to the situation
was obtained the next year. Subsequently the work was carried out as
follows, Mr. Orton receiving great assistance from some of the growers,
particularly from Mr. Rivers, on whose plantation the very resistant " Rivers
Cotton " originated.

In fields much subject to this disease it was observed that here and there
a plant came to maturity and bore fruit. The seeds were selected from these
unusually resistant plants, and the following spring they were planted on
land subject to the disease. Many of the resultant plants contracted the
disease, but a considerable proportion remained free from it or practically
free. Selections this year were made from the most resistant plants, having
an eye to obtaining plants with other good qualities, such as productivity,
shape of boll, length of fibre, &c. The same method was pursued the
following year. In the course of four years plants were obtained with good
productivity, good quality of fibre, and marked resistance to disease. Such
plants stood up and bore a good crop on fields where the ordinary cotton
made a total failure. ...

Mr. Orton has also had charge of the work of obtaining resistant varieties
of watermelons to replace varieties much subject to a soil disease which

* Scientific American Supplement, no. 1246, op. cit., 19981, Nov. 18, 1899-

'" Reprint, from The Report of the Conference on Genetics, by permission of the

Council from the Royal Horticultural Society's Report, 301-303, London, Spottis-

woode & Co., Ltd., 1907.

336 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

I was able to demonstrate to be similar to the cotton disease, i. e., due to a
soil Fusarium. There are large areas in the United States (parts of Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, and Texas) where this watermelon disease has prevailed
to such an extent that the growing of melons on a commercial scale has
been abandoned. . . . The extent of infection in the melon rendered it
practically impossible to obtain any resistant plants by the process applied
to cotton, namely, by simple selection. Mr. Orton found, however, that a
plant known as the " citron " in the United States — that is, a vine with
deeply lobed leaves and a hard, striped, roundish fruit, not unlike the
watermelon, but inedible until cooked, when it is used for sweet pickles
and preserves— was quite resistant to the disease. He used this plant for
one of the parents and good varieties of watermelons much subject to the
disease for the other, making a number of crosses. The seeds from these
crosses when planted gave rise to about a thousand varieties of melons.
There were all sorts of fruits — long and short, round and crooked, smooth
and rough, plain, deep and pale green, and variously mottled and striped.
Of the thousand or more varieties which resulted from these crosses, quite
a good many proved resistant to the soil fungus, but only about six
varieties had other qualities such as to make them worthy of further con-
sideration. The seeds from these six plants were saved and planted the
following year on land much subject to the disease in order to test on a
large scale the qualities of the melons, and to learn more respecting their
resistance to the disease. All continued to be resistant, but only one of the
six proved to be a commercially satisfactory melon. The following year,
therefore, only this one variety was propagated, but on a large scale and
with excellent results. . . .

Orton' s employment with the United States Department of Agri-
culture had begun on June 1, 1899. Arriving early in July at
Edisto Island, South Carolina, he soon reported to Galloway that
he had been spending his time investigating " the circumstances
attending the spread of the cotton wilt, the gathering of informa-
tion regarding this and other plant diseases, and the inauguration
of some preliminary experiments in checking the disease." This
letter was written from James Island, and on August 4 Orton
thanked Galloway for " information regarding application of lime
and sulphur " and announced from Monetta, South Carolina, " We
have a field selected for experimental work with lime and will
start the work this fall." He, too, found that the cowpea was
susceptible to the disease and he was studying other crops.
August 22, however, he informed Galloway:

I believe that I shall within the next week have done all the field work
which can be profitably done here this season, and shall be ready to return

RECOGNiTiorsi OF Plant Bactlriologv in EUROFr. 337

to Washington before the end of the niuntli unless you have other plans
to be carried out.

It would i;ive me great pleasure to have an opportunity to visit the
Alabama Experiment Station as you sui^gested in your letter of the 8th,
but in case you should wish me to go there, I would like to know as much
as possible about the experiments which arc to be carried out there, in order
to do the work properly.

By September-October, and probably some while thereafter,
Orton was again in Washington and worked at least part of his
time in Smith's laboratory. That he advised Smith as well as
Galloway of his progress in South Carolina with reference to
originating varieties of plants resistant to fusarium-caused disease
was shown by his letter to Smith written on April 3, 1900, at Edisto
Island, South Carolina:

I ha\c just come here today from James Island where I had good luck
in starting my experiments. ... I find conditions here very interesting.
There is a marked increase in the amount of cotton wilt everywhere, but
the prospects of securing a resistant variety arc far more encouraging than
I hoped for, as we have a considerable number of such plants from which
to make selections.

In his address, " Fifty Years of Pathology," '^ Smith concisely
summarized the significance of these and another set of researches
having the same fundamental intention:

Bolley, Arthur's student, studied in 1901 the flax FHsar'nan in North
Dakota, and afterwards flax diseases in Europe, with money from my fund,
and W. A. Orton, working at first in my laboratory and afterwards inde-
pendently, overcame the Fusarium diseases of melons and cotton in our
southern states by hybridization and selection (1889-1906).

Already in this book we have referred to BoUey's pioneering
plant pathological work in North Dakota. In the autumn of 1890,
visiting at the home of Dr. Otto Lugger at the Farm School and
Experiment Station, St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, BoUey's atten-
tion was called to a destructive " blight " of flax which required
careful study. At once he started

structural and mycological and bacteriological studies based upon the flax
plant, its seeds and soils upon which infection occurred. But slight pro-
gress was made during a number of years until the use of the physician's
centrifuge was applied to the sedimentation of washings from flax-seed

" Op. at., 27-28.

338 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

in the spring of 1900. Certain conidial spores were quite uniformly
observed in the sediment from samples examined. These were none other
than the spores of a fusarium often previously observed upon the dead
roots and stems of wilted, dead, or dying flax plants and upon harvested
flax lying unprotected in the fields. A few days sufficed to produce dis-
tinctive cultures upon agar and later but a few weeks were necessary to pro-
cure pure cultures from the interior of the fibrovascular bundles of wilting
but living plants, and to prove the pathogenic nature of this fusarium to
flax seedlings by pure cultures applied to sterilized and virgin soil (Bulletin
50). In June of 1900, the regular rotation plot 30 of the department of
agronomy was assigned to the department of plant pathology. . . ."

July, 1900, Bolley took from " Plot 30 " his first pure culture
of the flax wilt fungus, Fusarium lin't^ and completed his infection
experiments in field and laboratory for purposes of his Bulletin 50
in 1901.

In 1903 he was sent to Europe by the college and the Depart-
ment of Agriculture. At various regions of the continent he
examined flax diseases, studied their origins, and secured new
types of flaxseed for cropping purposes in North Dakota and the
northwest. Bolley's bulletin 55, " Flax and flax seed selection,"
was published that year. Wilt-resistant flax varieties, originated
on " Plot 30 " during the next years, included N.D.R.-52, N.D.R.-
114, and Bison, Buda, and N.D. Golden.''

By 1904 Smith, with Deane B. Swingle of his laboratory, would
publish on " The Dry Rot of Potatoes due to Fusarium oxy-
sporum." " To his last years the senior author believed this to
be the " first good paper on this widely prevalent potato disease."
Unfortunately, an old name, Fusarium oxysporum Schlectendal,
" practically a nomen nudum," Smith said, was applied to this
fungus. But by the bulletin attention was called to

this black ring disease of the potato tuber which was then a new disease, at
least to scientific men, and while infections were not undertaken the
Fusarium was demonstrated to be the only organism constantly present

"' Foreword, Fungi of flaxseed and of flax-sick soil. Bull. 259, N. D. Agric. Exp't
Sta., 2, June 1932. See also, North DakoUn 19(6): 7, June 1944. Also, H. L.
Bolley, Flax wilt and flax sick soil, Bulletin 50, N. D. Agric. Coll. and Exp't
Sta., 36.

^ H. L. Bolley, Flax wilt and flax sick soil, op. cit., 'hi fir. T. F. Manns, Historical
sketch, Fungi of flaxseed and of ^ax-sick soil, op. cit., 3 ff.

* H. L. Bolley, Flax cropping, Bimonthly Bulletin, N. D. Agr. Exp. Sta. 3(6):
9-12, at p. 11, July 1941; Harry R. O'Brien, Plants that resist disease. The Country
Gentleman, Feb. 5, 1921; Yearbook U. S. D. A. for 1936: 745-784.

'"Bulletin 55, U. S. Dep't of Agric, Bur. of PI. Indus., February 16, 1904.

Recognition of Plant Bacteriology in Europe 339

in the diseased blackened vascular bundles and in tlie li,uht of the many
successful inoculations previously obtained on melon it was stated to be
the parasite (a conclusion since confirmed by the experiments of others).'^

Still later. Smith would establish a causal connection between
VuSitriuni ctibense EPS and a destructive banana disease of the
West Indies. ^-

L. R. Jones, after his half-year of study in Smith's laboratory,
had to devote most of the remainder of 1899 to university matters.
On July 1 he wrote to Smith, that he was " beginning to think
about bacteria and other work again. ... I am glad that you
have decided to print the ' Outline [of Methods.'} Shall try to
secure several copies for my students to wear out." During
December he wrote that, while he had prepared a paper or
Bacillus carotovorus, he was withholding publication until after
further culture study had been completed. He was moving into
his new^ laboratory which he expected " to use for both plant
physiology and bacteriology," three rooms w^ith adequate storage
space. During the school vacation, he worked over his cultures
and compared organisms obtained since his work on " soft rot
of cabbage and soft rot of stored celery. The most active organism
I have yet found associated with cabbage rot," he said, " is remark-
ably similar to the carrot rot organism and may prove to be
identical with it." He sent Smith some agar tubes for transfers
from some of the carrot rot tubes left at the latter's laboratory.

Jones attributed his election to the Society for Plant Morphology
and Physiology in part to Smith, and thanked him for his recom-
mendation. Either then or later Smith verified most of Jones's
statements on Bacillus carotovorus.^'^ In 1902 he described ^* the
Vermont botanist's paper on soft rot of the carrot and other
plants ^^ as " one of the best " of the recent papers on plant
diseases due to specific bacteria. It was this year that Spieckermann

^^ Synopsis of Researches, op. cit., 21-22; H. W. Wollenweber, Studies on the
fusarium problem, Phytopathology 3(1): 24-50, Feb. 1913.

^- Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 32. Erwin F. Smith, A Cuban banana disease,
Scietjce 31(802): 754-755, May 13, 1910.

^'Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 4l.

** Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 607; also, Fifty years of
pathology, op. cit., 27.

^° L. R. Jones, Bacillus carotovorus n. sp., die Ursache einer weichen Fiiulnis der
Mohre, Centralblatt f. Bakt. etc., II, 7(1): 12-21; (2) 61-68, 1901. See Smith's
literature citations and chapter VI, hitro. to bact. dis. of plants, op. cit., 223-252.

340 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

in Germany also published a paper on the bacterial soft rot of
vegetables.'" Another important event of 1902 was Zimmermann's
find of bacteria in the leaf nodules of Rubiaceae in the East
Indies/'

With the advent of the twentieth century, the literature of plant
pathology was growing abundant and extensive bibliographies
accompanied important articles and publications. Annually the
Department of Agriculture in its Yearbooks published lists of
plant diseases throughout the nation. Not often, at least not with
the frequency of later years, did the phrase " bacterial diseases of
plants " appear in literature. During 1898-1899 American path-
ologists and bacteriologists were still discussing details of proof
and priorities of discovery of several organisms in plant diseases
believed caused by bacteria. Smith encountered many of the
rivalries and disagreements while preparing his critical reviews
of bacterial diseases of plants for the American Naturalist. Such
severe charges as that he was attempting to preempt the field,
that he regarded his opinions as " apparently final," that his atti-
tude toward other workers was ungenerous, influenced him finally
to relinquish these articles in favor of preparing over many years
his three volume Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases (1905-
1914). The Botanical Gazette in February 1893 had invited " a
summarization of the present status of the subject," even without
the aid of critical laboratory study. Miquel and Cambier in their
large treatise on bacteriology (1902) complained that the mono-
graphy of the subject as to plant diseases had " regrettable la-
cunae " and that many of the species would have to be restudied
completely.'® One prominent American plant scientist, encouraging
Smith to continue with " what he [wanted] to and not confine
his work to some narrow province," urged, " We should all hail
with delight good work." He saw no reason why a "" board of
enquiry " should be necessary in plant pathology and bacteriology.
The circumstances argued the need of a great laboratory of plant
pathology in the federal Department of Agriculture.

Smith, in his studies, enlisted the aid of plant and animal path-

^* Beitrag zur Kenntnis der bakteriellen Wundfaulnis der Kulturpflanzen, Landw.
Jahrb., 31: 155, Berlin, 1902.

^~ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 28.

*^ Preface, Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 1: iii.

Recognition oi- Pi. am lUfTiniioi.oGY in Europi- 341

olo£;ists. In ISOS Vcranus A. Moorc sent to him the results of
his study of the " bacillus of the beet disease (IV Betae)" whicii
Smith had left with him. The next year Jones furnished by
rec]uest an opinion of a paper on " the beet organism . . . ema-
nating from Dr. Arthur's laboratory." Sturgis's recent paper on
"his R[acillus] hortulensis [appeared to be] interesting and a
good painstaking study." During the summer and autumn of 1900
Jones again wrote Smith concerning his researches and his paper
on Biicillus carotovorus. He completed part of his study at the
University of Michigan under Professor Newcombc, and in 1901
the Centrulblatt published his work. The year previously, H. A.
Harding, bacteriologist of the Geneva, New York, agricultural
experiment station, published, with bibliography, in the same
publication " the results of his study of the bacterial cabbage
disease, " Die schwarze Faulnis des Kohls und verwandter
Pflanzen, etc."

Smith's bulletin 28, " The Cultural Characters of Fseudomonas
hyac'nithi, Ps. canipestris, Ps. pbaseoli, and Ps. Stetvarti four one-
flagellate yellow bacteria parasitic on plants," '"° was published by
the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology on August 6,
1901. He enumerated and described " Other Species belonging to
this Group ": Ps. juglandis Pierce, " an economically serious dis-
ease in walnuts "; Ps. vascularum (N. A. Cobb), parasitic on sugar
cane in Australia and elsewhere; Ps. amaranti, new species,
occurring in Eastern United States on species of Amarantus, weeds
in fields; and Ps. malv ace arum, new species, parasitic on cotton
(Gossypium spp.) Arthur's and BoUey's Ps. dianthi, isolated from
carnations (Dianthus spp.), w^as listed, but no description offered,
since it was " now believed to be purely saprophytic," a conclusion
yet to be established by more thorough study of the cultural
characters. As to each of this list Smith said that " knowledge
of their cultural characters [was] more or less imperfect." Con-
cerning the two new species, he placed most of his confidence on
his description of Pseudomonas malvacearum. To this publication
he later attributed the naming of the organism.-^

His real study of the angular leaf-spot of cotton due to Bac-

^"Centr. f. Bakt. II, 6(10): 305-313.

*°U. S. Dep't of Agric, Gov"t Print. Office, op. cil., 153 pp.

'^^ Intro, to Bact. Dis. of Plants, op. cit., 339.

12

342 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

ter'ium f?ialvacearum EFS covered twenty years (1900-1920).
Although the disease had been first described in 1891-1892 by
G. F. Atkinson, Smith believed himself to have been " the first
to reproduce the disease on leaves and bolls of healthy cotton
plants (19OO-I905) with the true parasite isolated from capsule-
spots and leaf-spots. He was also the one who proved the stem-
blight known as black-arm and the angular leaf-spot to be due
to the same organism " (1905),"^ and he showed that " the cotton
gummosis of Asia Minor and the leafspot of South Africa are
due to it." -^ In 1920, in his text-book. Introduction to Bacterial
Diseases of Plants,-'^ was published his most complete account of
the disease and its organism, and of the literature on the subject.

In 1898 Smith arranged that a request for samples of gummed
sugar cane be sent by officials of the Department to Australia.
At that time cultural materials were not available to him in this
country, and several years, therefore, went by before he was able
satisfactorily to restudy Cobb's conclusions as to Pseudomonas
vascularum, a bacterium parasitic on sugar cane in Australia and
elsewhere. In 1903 he obtained his " first clean cut pure culture
inoculations . . . and subsequently worked out the cultural charac-
ters of the parasite." "^ His 1901 bulletin on the cultural characters
of the yellow Pseudomonas group was a carefully prepared, com-
parative study and included a designation of this species as well
as occasional references to other not closely related species such as
Bacillus arnylovorus, B. coli, and B. carotovorus. Indeed, his study
of Cobb's disease of sugar cane was started in part to determine
whether the " germ " {Pseudomonas stewarti) of Stewart's disease
of maize, which he was studying in 1898, is the same organism.

In 1898, when Smith began to wage his epoch-making contro-
versy with Dr. Alfred Fischer as to whether bacterial diseases of
plants actually exist, he selected six " genuine plant parasites," the
pathogenic nature of which had been established and reaffirmed
by subsequent investigation: (l) Bacillus amylovorus, BurriU,
Arthur, and Waite; (2) Bacillus oleae, Savastano (1886-1889);

"We;;z, 314-316.

^* Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 32.

I' Op. cit., 314-339.

"^ Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 28-29. Smith's study of Cobb's disease of sugar
cane began in 1901 and lasted until 1914. The cultural materials received were from
New South Wales.

Recognition of Plant Bac thrioi.oc.v in Euroim; 343

(3) Bacillus hyacinthi-septicus,Hcur/. (1889); ( i) Bjcillns tra-
cheiphiliis. Smith; (">) Bjcillus soLiHiicearinn, Smith; and (6)
Pseudofnouiis cunpcstris, Pammcl. In Fischer's Vorlesungen iiber
Bitkterien (Jena, 1897) had appeared statements " so contrary to
fact " that Smith soutjht, and obtained, space in the Centnilhlalt
to answer him."" He first disposed of the German's totally erro-
neous declaration that infections by water pores are impossible
and some equally false assumptions respecting wound infections.
" Instead of there being no plant diseases attributable to bacteria,"
Smith contended,

if the whole truth were known, there are probably as many plant diseases
due to bacteria as there are animal diseases caused by these organisms.
I made this same statement more than two years ago and see no reason
for retracting it. On the contrary, a wider outlook and a better grasp of
the subject lead me to reaffirm it. . . . Six diseases of cultivated plants
have already been referred to, viz. pear blight, cucurbit wilt, brown rot of
potatoes, black rot of cabbages, the yellow disease of hyacinths, and the
bacteriosis or water-spot disease of beans. I will add two other plant
diseases, viz. the soft rot of hyacinths and the olive tuberculosis. It has
been definitely settled that these eight diseases, not to mention several
others, are due to bacteria, and the evidence on which this opinion rests is
of the same sort and is just as conclusive as the evidence of the bacterial
origin of anthrax, glanders, symptomatic anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria,
hog cholera, typhoid fever, or asiatic cholera, eight well recognized animal
diseases due to bacteria, or at least to well known organisms commonly
classed as bacteria. ... I select these eight plant diseases because I am
familiar with each one, and know from my own experiments in six of the
eight that they are due to as many different bacteria. Each of these six
organisms I have studied in pure cultures and am familiar with their
morphology and cultural characters. The specific bacterial growth is con-
stantly present in each of these six diseases. . . .

Without known exception, Smith enjoyed the endorsement of
American scientists, once the controversy had assumed proportions
and it was realized that eminent German scientists remained
adamant and unmoved from the traditional position taken years
earlier by DeBary, Robert Hartig, and others. Dr. Farlow frowned
on the argument as undignified. But no rift between Smith and
Farlow followed. In fact, later Farlow helped to secure Smith's

"° Erwin F. Smith, Are there bacterial diseases of plants? A consideration of some
statements in Dr. Alfred Fischer's Vorlesungen iiber Bakterien, Centralb. f. Bukt. etc.
II, 5(8): 271-278, 1899.

344 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

invitation to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.
Farlow's letter of recommendation read:

Being at the last moment prevented from attending the session [April
22-24, 1913} of the Academy, I should like to say a word in favor of Dr.
Erwin F. Smith who is a candidate for election. Dr. Smith in my opinion
is one whose knowledge of the diseases of plants due to fungi [bacteria?]
is greater than that of any other investigator either here or abroad. His
work has not been confined to the practical aspects of the subject alone
but has embraced a study of plant diseases in their widest sense including
the higher scientific questions which they naturally suggest. I feel that his
election would add to our number a member whose reputation is recognized
by pathologists the world over.

Fischer's answer to Smith, " Die Bakterienkrankheiten der Pflan-
zen," "^ was immediate and published in the same number of the
Centfdhlatt. In 1899 the Centralhlatt -^ had published in German
Smith's paper on potato as a culture medium, " Kartoffel als Kul-
turboden, mit einigen Bemerkungen iiber ein zusammengesetztes
Ersatzmittel." He had begun his discussion, "Are there bacterial
diseases of plants? " by quoting directly from Fischer's book, and
the latter 's " antwort " was wholly in German. Smith believed this
answer, as far as the profession was concerned,

destroy[ed} itself and need[ed} no reply. Pathologists and bacteri-
ologists 2^ will accept it for what it is worth, and no more. The coming
years will also stamp their judgment upon it, and I have absolutely no
fear of what that judgement will be. The " Registrierung " of an error
by some self-constituted authority has sometimes, in the history of science,
prevented a knowledge of the truth for a few years, or even for a whole
generation, but it will not answer in this case. . . .

His reasons, taken together with the balance of the subject
matter of this reply and his earlier presentment of proof, supplied
science with a scholarly condensation of the established learning
on plant bacteriology at that time.

During the summer of 1899 Smith received an important
communication from Professor Emerich Rathay, director of the
oenologische pomological school of Klosterneuburg near Vienna,
Austria. Written June 18, this letter informed him that Rathay,

-'' Centr. f. Bah. II, 5(8): 279-287, 1899.

^^(3): 102-104; also, Proc. Am. Asso. Adv. Sci. 47: 411, 1898.
-*Dr. Alfred Fischer in the role of pathologist, Centr. f. Bakt. II, 5(23): 810-
817, 1899.

Recognition oi Plant Bacti^riology in Europh 345

now convalescing from an illness of several months, was again
taking up his studies

regarding a new Bacteriosis and hopc[d] to be able [to publish} a pre-
liminary [account of this in the proceedings of] the imp[crial] roy[al]
Academy of Science in Vienna.

I [wrote R.'uhay] am quite convinced, that there are Phytobacterioses
and that the objections of Prof. Dr. Alfred Pischcr concerning the existence
of them are not at all founded.

I have learned very much by studiing your treati[s]es and am very
grateful, that you had the kindness of sending me them.

I will only mention, that the Bacteriosis, which I found to be the cause
of the malady [disease] has the same colour of citron-yellow as your
Pseudomonas.

You may be sure, that I shall full enter in my treat[ise] for the existence
of Phytobacteriosis.

Smith received other letters from Europe during this year. But
none referred to the polemic with Fischer. December 2, 1899,
M. C. Potter of the Durham College of Science, Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, England, sent " an abstract of a paper on a Bacterial Dis-
ease of tlic Turnip caused by a Pseudomonas but evidently not
the same as P. cajupestris." November 22, 1899, Smith's bulletin
17, " Wilt Disease of Cotton, Watermelon, and Cowpea [Neo-
cosmospora nov. gen.) ," ^° was published by the Division of Vege-
table Physiology and Pathology. This publication contained a
bibliography of the previous writings on the subject by Atkinson
and Smith, and distinguished it from the wilt disease described
the cotton-root rot of Texas and another wilt of cotton, cowpeas,
etc., first described by Rolfs of Florida. December 1899, Dr. Franz
Lafar of Vienna, Austria, thanked Smith for his publication.
June 19, 1900, Dr. George Delacroix of the vegetable pathological
station of the Ministry of Agriculture of Paris, France, wrote con-
cerning a plant disease and referred complimentarily in his letter
to Smith's publications. The first preserved letter received by Smith
from Dr. Otto Appel of Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany, was
written in 1901 anci expressed great interest, without mentioning
Fischer, in Smith's studies. Recognition from Appel must have
pleased Smith, as also a letter of January 11, 1901, from F. Krai

" 72 pp. 10 pi., Washington, Gov't Print. Office, 1899.

346 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

of Krai's Bakteriologisches Laboratorium,^^ Prague, which read
as follows:

You had the kindness to forward me 6 phytopathogenic organisms,
whose cultures arrived in the best condition. These six species are of the
highest value for my collection and I beg you to accept my best thanks
for them.

I shall be happy to receive still other species from your laboratory, as
you kindly indicated in your letter of December 18th.

All species, microbes and fungi which I possess, are at your disposition,
you would oblige me by giving me the opportunity to send you what
interests you.

Smith received this letter on January 30. In the next two months
was published in three numbers of the Centralblatt ^^ his final
reply to Fischer, " Entgegnung auf Alfred Fischer's 'Antwort ' in
betreff der Existentz von durch Bakterien verursachten Pflanzen-
krankheiten." In the spring of 1900 Smith had prepared a memo-
randum, " Reasons for desiring to publish final reply to Alfred
Fischer," and with its use, "carried [his] point and published
[his] paper in Centralblatt fiir Bakt." It read:

Numerous specific charges have been made by Dr. Fischer against my
papers. He says he found them so full of mistakes that he was unable
to use them and cites numerous cases in proof. These charges I have not
met, but I have stated that I intend to do so. (1) What will be the result
if I do not reply.'' There is not a German from one end of the Empire
to the other who, in my position, would not reply, whether the facts
supported him or not. If I do not meet these charges the majority will say:
"' He evidently remained silent because he could not meet the criticism."
I know very well the habit of the German mind. This is what they will
think, and what they will say.

(2) When American workers have been attacked outrageously, myself
most of all, and when I have a full and unanswerable reply ready, why
should I pigeon-hole it, and leave one-half the world in doubt, — say
rather nine-tenths.^ To do this would be simply playing into Fischer's
hands. He could desire nothing better. In order to save himself, he has
tried in every possible way to discredit my work, and by implication that
of the Department. I have smarted under it and will not endure it. The
stealing of all my books or all of my money would have caused me much

'^ March 23, 1900, Decent Krai had written to Smith, "" In accordance with Prof.
Wehmer of Hannover (last number of the Centralbl. f. Bakt. II Abth.) I think it
would be of great interest for all European Phytopathologists to make Experiments
with the phytopathogenic Bacteria, described by you, Dr. Arthur, Savastano, and
(ithers. Would you be so kind and send me cultures of such bacteria you dispose of.' "

''7 (3, 4, and 5/6): 88-100; 128-139; 190-199; 11 pi., 1901.

Rl-COGNITION OF PlANT BA(Tr.RlC)1.0c;V IN I-IIROF^I- 3i7

less pain. I .iin not workini^ in tliis Department for money, hut tor other
ends. If I allow my work to be (JiscrecUlcd what is left to mc? I do not
care for any credit j/Zt-r / am dtuul. I want it now as I go along, and
abroad as tvell as at home. We cannot afford to let European workers
discredit our work when we have the full and satisfactory answer at hand.

(3) It should be remembered that very little good work has been done
in Germany on bacterial diseases of plants. Sorauer, who has never done
a stroke of good work on this group and who is a laughing-stock to bac-
teriologists, although a good pathologist as regards fungi, is almost the
only prominent German writer who has maintained the existence of such
diseases. On the other side was formerly DeBary, and until lu^ry recently,
Frank, and is now W'ebmer, Fischer and Hartig. In his last revised general
text book published tliis year, Robert Hartig takes substantially the same
ground as in his older work, /. f ., nothing established. Consequently the
bulk of German sentiment is against the existence of such diseases. How
should it be otherwise.^ When the blind lead the blind both fall into the
ditch.

(4) The time is ripe for such a defense as I am making. // is a defense,
not an attack. All the facts are in my hands ready for a knock-out blow.
The attention of the whole world is drawn to this controversy, owing to
the character of the disputants and the importance of the subject. There
is a better opportunity to make my influence felt than I have ever had
before, or probably shall ever have again. Every word I say now counts
and will have a dozen readers where I had one before. It is too late to
back out now. If I do, we shall have Wehmer and Frank, and Fischer,
and various other Germans, claiming that the matter is not settled, and
coming forward themeselves within the next decade with " new facts and
exact experiments " drawn from their own researches and then we shall
hear it said: "Ah, well, Americans, and Frenchmen, and Italians blundered
and bungled over this subject for a decade or two, but Fischer and others
showed that there was nothing in their writings, and it has remained for
Germans to settle this matter by bringing forward exact and fidl proofs."
They are already talking about the necessity of setting some one at work
to settle this thing experimentally, as if it were not already settled in that
way.

(5) Alfred 1-ischer is no mean adversary. He is a well-educated, well
trained man. He occupies the position of Assistant Professor in one of the
great German Universities, a position much more dignified than similar
positions in this country, and one which is the life-long aspiration of
hundreds of University graduates, who are willing to starve along for years
as privat Docents for the sake of attaining it. Fischer is in line of succes-
sion to the full Professorship of Botany in the University of Leipsic, which
has the finest physiological laboratory in Europe, and the greatest reputation
at home and abroad. Every year English and American students go to
Leipsic. Who comes to Washington ? He is the author of numerous books,
and of many papers in the best journals, all of which are frequently cited.
He is a good teacher and is personally popular in Germany. What chance

348 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

have I of making any headway against him unless I can show by an appeal
to chapter and verse that he is wrong? This I can do, most thoroughly!
(6) My final answer is ready. It is written for Europeans, not for
Americans, and that all his colleagues may read it I have put it into his
own tongue. It is dignified in tone. It is entirely free from personalities,
and best of all it is unansiverable! I wish to use it both for the sake of
my own reputation in Europe and for the sake of the dignity and honor of
the U[nited} S[tates} Department of Agriculture, and of American
workers generally.

Alfred Fischer never forgave Smith, but Americans were happy
to possess such courageous leadership. By letter, June 30, 1899.
F. C. Stewart had written Smith: " Yes, I have read your criticism
of Fischer and his reply. It is awfully discouraging to have a man
of Fischer's standing cast aside so lightly what we Americans have
thought to be heavy weight work on bacterial diseases of plants.'

For several years, Augustine D. Selby, botanist and chemist of
the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, had been exchanging
letters with Smith on problems of plant pathology. Soon after
getting Smith's first publication on Bacillus tracheiphilus, Selby,
also studying wilt diseases, asked him whether he would " be
averse to stating what culture medium or media are preferred
from your work on this organism (B. tracheiphilus) ? I am doing
some work on a greenhouse micrococcus, and have on hands an
investigation of a bacterial tomato disease near Cincinnati." A
few days later, June 22, 1897, Selby thanked Smith

for the suggestions concerning culture media. These will be serviceable
indeed. What you state concerning each one's working out his own
salvation, has been found true. The methods of manipulation for bacteria
pathogenic in animal organisms require a good deal of adaptation in the
vegetable world. I have been using beef broth and prune infusions as
nutrients for agar and gelatine — also potato and sweet potato slices.

Later that year Selby informed that he had " fair material "
for working out that season " the Calla bacterium." Selby, a
graduate in science at Ohio State University, later a student at
Washington University, St. Louis, the Shaw School of Botany,
and Columbia University, was to deliver on November 29, 1901,
an address as president of the Ohio Academy of Science on " The
Future of Vegetable Pathology." '" This, together with his work
at the Ohio station at Wooster, would place him in the front

■" Science n. s. 15(384): 736-740, May 9, 1902.

Rlcogmtion of Plant IUc;ti;rioi.(x,v in Europh 349

ranks of scientists in plant pathology anJ eventually culminate
in his being elected to the presidency of the American Phyto-
pathological Society in 1911. Smith in his address, " Pifty Years
of Pathology," ^* referring to several literary works which became
available in 1900 to American plant pathologists, included one
prepared by Sclby. Said Smith:

In 1900 Sturt;is published his " Literature of Plant Diseases." In 1900
Sclby published his condensed handbook of the diseases of plants in Ohio.
In 1900 appeared Liberty Hyde Bailey's mat;nificcnt " Cyclopedia of
American Horticulture " in 4 volumes, useful to everybody interested in
plants. That year appeared also the third edition of Hartig's "" Lehrbuch."

Selby took a strong interest in Smith's controversy with Fischer.
His letters were proof of his scholarship and thorough acquain-
tance with the historical background. Early in 1899 Selby read
Smith's article, "Are there bacterial diseases of plants?" and
Fischer's reply, and he hastened "' to give expression to [his]
interest in this matter and further to congratulate " Smith. Selby
reasoned that '" DeBary's sarcasm concerning what Dr. Burrill
holds for the cause of pear blight, has served as a text for nearly
all subsequent German authors who have treated the subject of
plant diseases." Much other criticism of Fischer's answers was
set forth. May 22, 1899, Smith thanked Selby for his letter, and
with characteristic resolution, added,

I am not yet through with the discussion and when I have finished he
will certainly be very sorry for what he has written. As 1 have facts on
my side and he has only assumptions on his, the matter will, I judge, make
rather spicy reading. . . . His reply is that of a special pleader, who is
interested in bolstering up his own case rather than in finding out what is
the truth. . . . DeBary was certainly wrong, but at the time he wrote,
things looked very different in respect to bacteriological diseases of plants
than they do at the present time. On the whole I have the greatest respect
for the works of Anton DeBary. He is certainly one of the greatest
German botanical writers of this century, if not the greatest.

Smith said more in his letter, but substantially what has already
been set forth in his memorandum, " Reasons for desiring to
publish final reply to Alfred Fischer." Selby did not wish Smith
to interpret falsely what he had said about DeBary. In a letter
of May 25, Selby urged, " I wish to make myself perfectly straight

'^ Op. cit., 2^.

350 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

on the subject of DeBary. I would, in no wise, reflect upon the
work of that great botanist, but I would call attention to this,
that so many German botanists, since his time, feel impelled to
repeat the particular mistake he made as to bacteriological diseases
of plants."

Again, despite his strong feelings, Smith endeavored to remain
aloof from personalities, and stress that the main motivation of
the discussion was the search for truth. When the year 1901
arrived, he received many more letters on the subject from
American scientists. Dr. W. C. Sturgis, botanist of the Connec-
ticut Agricultural Experiment Station, by letter of March 4, 1901,
summarized the situation rather fully:

In view of the ascertained facts regarding B[acillus] amylovorus, I have
never considered it worth while to repeat cultural work with it or to
attempt infections. My work with it has been entirely of a preventive
character.

I have not seen Delacroix's work on carnation disease, to which you
refer. I am never surprised by ignorance, on the part of European inves-
tigators, of work done in this country. The Centralblatter and other
Reviews pay little attention to American publications in general, and, with
some show of reason, practically none at all to Exp[eriment} Sta[tion]
Bull[etin]s and Rep[ort]s. These are apparently not classed as scientific
publications worthy of note.

However, there is a good deal of excuse for Delacroix this time, inas-
much as my own work on the carnation-Fusarium consisted merely of a
few trivial observations published in a Station Report which he probably
never saw, while Stewart's work on it was equally inaccessible.

I am about getting out another edition of my Bibliog[raphy} of Fungous
Diseases and I purpose distributing it pretty freely among European
botanists so that there may be less excuse for ignorance regarding work
done over here.

I have been following with extreme gratification your controversy with
Fischer. He knows perfectly well he is wrong and his cumbrous attempts
to hedge are most amusing. He is so badly whipped that it seems almost
cruel to continue the fight.

April 23, 1901, L. R. Jones, then at Ann Arbor, Michigan,
congratulated Smith:

I was much pleased with the appearance of the Centralblatt article and
am glad that I followed your advice in so publishing.

Permit me to congratulate you upon your bulletin 26. Also your recent
reply to Fischer. I doubt if he ventures to say anything more and so

Recognition oi I^i.am I^ac iliuolocv in I-uroft. 351

thorout^hly convincing a presentation of the matter must close the mouths
ot other critics as well. I have been asked by Dr. Spalding to occupy an
evening — probably May IJth with reviews (before botanical seminar
here) of recent literature of bacterial and enzymal diseases of plants.
I shall qive your two publications a prominent place of course. It has
occurred to me that possibly you miyht be willing to aid so good a work
by permittini; copies to be made for me of some of your lantern slides —
providing you have an assistant capable of dong the photographic work.
I could then illustrate the review. . . .

I am getting along pretty satisfactorily with my work on the B. caro-
tovorus enzym. Have succeeded in isolating the enzym by precipitation
methods and also in sterilizing the broth cultures without destroying the
enzym. Have done tlit latter by chemical agents — and more satisfactorily
by beat. The latter method has I think never heretofore been employed
and is a \^ry neat one. I heat tube cultures at 55° C for 10 minutes. This
temperature sterilizes them and leaves the enzym pretty active since that
does not weaken much until 58° C. But " don't say anything about it
yet " — I quote that as one of the things I learned at Washington.

I have enzym action that far exxeeds that described by Potter in speed.
For example — sections of carrot immersed in the enzym solution show
distinct swelling of the walls of the cells within two minutes (instead of
12 hours as with his) complete swelling and solution of the middle
lamella within 20 minutes so that in less than a half hour the cells lose
their cohesiveness — i. e. the tissues have passed through all the charac-
teristic stages of the soft rot.

Regarding oxalic acid, I have as yet failed to detect a trace of it in my
cultures but have not completed the search. The above action is in
absence of any free acids — neutral solution — hence I doubt if the presence
of such acid plays so prominent a part as Potter concluded. But I shall
know better about that before I am through. . . .

R. A. Harper, Professor of Botany at the University of Wis-
consin and possessor of a doctorate of philosophy from the
University of Bonn, wrote:

You do up Fischer in great shape. If he would do a little work of his
own in one line or another his judgments would be safer and gain more
attention. He has been trying to convince us for many years that we don't
know how to study nuclei but until he contributes something himself on
the subject he will continue to pass for a mere theorizer.

The Canadian botanist A. H. Reginald Buller's inaugural dis-
sertation on " Die Wirkung von Bakterien auf tote Zellen " had
been done at the University of Leipzig in 1899. From Munich
he congratulated Smith " upon the manner in which you have

352 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

maintained your position. I do not think anyone will have the
hardihood to repeat Fischer's Vorlesungen statement again." ^^

The polemic with Fischer was subordinate in importance to the
larger consideration of Smith's scientific proofs and completeness
of presentation. On August 20, 1901, G. W. Fuller of the New
York firm of hydraulic engineers and sanitary experts, Hering
and Fuller, thanked him for " a copy of Bulletin No. 28, describing
the cultural characters of four bacteria parasitic on plants. It is
certainly a very comprehensive piece of work," commented Fuller,
" and I desire to congratulate you upon this important addition
to our literature on this branch of bacteriology."

The next day Dr. V. A. Moore sent congratulations, saying,
" You certainly are getting much on your side by way of research
work." This was written of Bulletin 28 and he liked also " the
excellence of Bulletin No. 26" ["Wakker's Hyacinth Germ"},
concerning which he had written on March 8: "You are doing
good work and I guess it is well you did not leave to take a place
elsewhere." Dr. Moore was then working on his book, planned
to be " valuable for students of comparative pathology," on The
PatJjology and Differential Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases of
Animals (1902) . His Laboratory Directions for Beginners in Bac-
teriology had gone to a second edition and been marketed, he told
Smith, " the last of October. ... I am under many obligations
to you for the success it is having."

Theobald Smith, from his laboratory of comparative pathology
at Harvard, wrote on May 16, 1901: " I am glad you took A[lfred]
Fischer by the ears. I have the reprints on my table to read as
soon as my course at the Med[ical] School is over, so that I can
read without interruption. I had a similar bout about ten years
ago. I believe the time, on the whole, well spent, although very
irksome to the writer." Practically a decade had passed since he
and Kilborne had proved that Texas cattle fever is transmitted
by a tick; and now the principle of their work, aside from the
insect transmission of plant diseases, was being applied in ques-
tions of the spread of human diseases. In 1899 the Johns Hopkins
Hospital Report ^^ published G. H. F. Nuttall's voluminous study

«^ Letters dated July 8, 1901 (Harper), August 16, 1901 (Buller). E. M. Wilcox,
G. J. Peirce and other American botanists wrote Smith during this year.
^"8(1-2): 1-154, with bibliography, 1899.

Recognition of Plant Bacti-riologv in Europi- 3'>3

"On the Role of Insects, AracliniJs ;uk1 Myriapods in the Spread
of Bacterial and Parasitic Diseases of Man and Animals."

Ervvin Smith's vigorous publications on pathogenic bacteria in
plant diseases were also being read by pathologists in medical
schools. Philip Hanson Hiss of the department of pathology at
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia thanked
Smith on September 13, 1901, for his "valuable paper on 'The
Cultural Characters of Pseudomonas Hyacinthi, Ps. Campestris,
etc.,' . . . Some of the sections," he said, " are of particular interest
to me, especially those relating to fermentation tests." Dr. William
George MacCalium was then an associate professor of pathology
at Johns Hopkins. In 1909 he was to be honored by a professor-
ship at tiic College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in 1917, after
his text-book on pathology had been published, was to return to
Johns Hopkins as professor of pathology^ and bacteriology. On
July 6, 1901, he sent Smith his " best thanks for your most
interesting papers on the bacterial diseases of plants " and added:
" I was especially interested in what you say as to the sharp
specificity of these bacteria. Have not any of these bacteria the
least pathogenic activity for animals?"

Smith was known at Johns Hopkins not alone for his work on
plant bacterial diseases. At least once he had helped to diagnose
a disease of humans caused by a parasitic fungus. In 1898 the
Johns Hopkins Bulletin '■"' published Benjamin Robinson Schenck's
study, " On Refractory Subcutaneous Abscesses Caused by a Fun-
gus possibly related to the Sporotricha," and, in the paper, Smith's
work on " many of the points relating to the morphology and
development of the organism," especially " the more difficult and
obscure points pertaining to its life history and classification,"
was acknowledged. Since the specimen submitted to Smith proved
to be only a " conidial fructification " and not " the perfect spore
form," he had been unable to determine the species and to which
of three possible form genera the organism belonged. But he
believed that the description fitted " best into Sporotrichum." On
April 18, 1898, Dr. Flexner and Schenck thanked him for his
"very full report" and Schenck planned to "work over some
of the points which [Smith] suggest[ed]." Dr. Welch was " much
interested " in Smith's letter on the subject. That year Schenck

»'9(93): 286-290, Dec. 1898.

354 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

received his degree of doctor of medicine and became resident
gynecologist of the hospital, later instructor in gynecology in the
university. He may have continued to study sporotrichosis, for,
Smith, later speaking^* of this work, said:

In 1900 a fungus, identified by the writer as Sporotricum, was found,
by Schenck of Johns Hopkins, to be the cause of chronic human abscesses,
and since that time several hundred cases have been observed and a con-
siderable literature has developed, mostly American and French. The
parasite enters through wounds, often very slight ones, and the remedy is
heavy doses of potassium iodide. Many other fungous parasites occur on
man and other vertebrates, and they are nowhere studied at present (1926)
as they should be. Thaxter has monographed those occurring on insects
and arachnids (the Laboulbeniales) .

On April 20, 1901, Dr. H. M. Hurd, superintendent of Johns
Hopkins Hospital, wrote Smith: " I think your researches in Plant
Pathology throw a great deal of light upon pathogenic bacteria;
at least they have illuminated the subject in my mind more than
anything else which I have read, and I congratulate you upon
your thorough and successful work."

Smith always had wanted to study bacteriology under Dr.
Welch. In 1902 a special reason was indicated why such further
special study was desirable and, writing the great teacher, he
received the following reply:

You are welcome to anything we can offer you, and so far as my lectures
are concerned you can attend them without charge. But I do not believe
that you would find anything worth coming here for. I teach very little
by lectures, almost entirely by laboratory work. The arrangement is this:
From October to Christmas we give the laboratory course in bacteriology.
I usually give one or two lectures a week in connection with this course
on infection and immunity, taking up particularly topics not sufficiently
dealt with in the students' text-books. From January first to June is the
course in pathology, consisting of three half days' laboratory work a week.
Before each exercise either one of the assistants or I give a brief talk —
fifteen or twenty minutes usually — on the topics to be studied that day in
the laboratory. ... I give, therefore, no systematic course of lectures on
pathology, and I do not think that you would find it to your profit to
attend the scattered, irregular ones I give to supplement the laboratory
work. If you cared to take the laboratory course, the one given by one

*® Fifty years of pathology, op. cii., 31. See also, Science, August 15, 1947, on,
The differentiation of the pathogenic species of Sporotrichum, by H. L Lurie, where
it is said that the tendency now is to regard all such species pathogenic to man as
one species.

Recognition of Plant Bacti-rioi.ogy in Europe 3')'>

of the assistants during M.iy aiui June is the only one at present open, as
every place in the under t^radiiate course is occupied by the regular students,
and they arc crowded as it is. It may not be so another year, as our nresent
second year class is unusually larL;e. But I hardly suppose you would have
time for the laboratory course. Moreover, I expect you could be[neritj us
more than we could you.

Since new laboratories were to be established in the Department
of Agriculture and Smith was to be the chief of one, he doubtless
felt the need of the latest in learning on pathology and bacteri-
ology. In 1901 Theobald Smith had written:

What you say of the reorganization of the work and the new laboratory
sounds very promising and I have no doubt that the prospects in Govern-
ment service are destined to grow steadily better and that the work will even-
tually outstrip the work of our Universities in scope and thoroughness. . . .

University laboratory botanical instruction for several years had
been completing a period of first growth and then transition.
December 14, 1898, Professor F. C. Newcombe of the University
of Michigan, in a letter to Smith, searchingly presented a problem
gaining in proportions with every year: what, after all, was to be
the fundamental function of university botanical laboratories?
To teach, yes, but that was not the full answer; to teach what —
pure science or practical science, or both ? Around these inquiries
clustered discussion which probed the bottom of classroom and
laboratory policy. With humor but also an undercurrent of
seriousness, Newcombe wrote:

Your letter of invitation to attend the coming meeting of the Socleity']
of Plant Morpb[ology'] and Physiol[^ogy'\ came when I was in the throes of
helping prepare a program for the annual meeting of the State Horti-
cultural Soc[iety] 'VC'hat do you think of that? To such things have we
come. On the one hand are the allurements of so-called pure science who
glances casually and perhaps too often disdainfully toward the practical
barbarians, while on the other hand stand the regents, urging us to talk,
talk, talk. We say "What shall we talk?" and the regents answer not.
We say, " If you want the University to be represented in all sorts of state
organizations, would you not better employ a few men for that work? "...
Are wc an agricultural college, or shall we eschew agriculture, or shall we
divide our energies between agriculture and pure science. . . . But really
I believe in the organization most thoroughly. In a few years it ought to
be the society. . . .

February 16, 1898, Pammel had informed Smith that he was

356 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

" drifting out of bacteriological work," although still teaching the
subject. October and November 1899, Hermann von Schrenk at
St. Louis requested of Smith that cultures of pathogenic bacteria
and fungi be sent to him. At his Mississippi Valley laboratory of
the Department he had " such a fine opportunity for making green-
house experiments " that he wanted some of his men to " work out
the history of some of the pathogenic bacteria " and study things
at first hand wherever possible. He was hoping to " get into the
apple orchards this week to work on the root fungus."

In May 1899, Lilian Wheeler, daughter of C. F. Wheeler, who
now was assistant professor of botany and forestry at Michigan
Agricultural College, applied, at Smith's suggestion, to Secretary
of Agriculture James Wilson for a position in Smith's laboratory.
Effie A. Southworth some years before had left the Department,
for a while taught at Barnard College until becoming the second
wife of the M^dower V. M. Spalding, and in November, 1898,
Spalding exuberantly had written from San Bernardino where,
after some time spent in New Mexico, they had gone to enjoy
California's " paradise of palms and olives, oranges and fig trees
. . . multitudes of roses in full bloom . . . long avenues of
eucalyptus and pepper trees and yards full of green shrubs and
trees most of which were new to " them. To have an assistant
as well as many improved facilities in the laboratory heartened
Smith.

In 1900 Spencer Ambrose Beach, acting for the American Asso-
ciation of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Station, invited
Smith to present " a paper on the progress and present status of
our knowledge of bacterial plant diseases. At this, the last meeting
of the Association in the nineteenth century," Beach said, " it
seems fitting to set a stake showing the progress of investigations
along certain lines during the closing part of the century. When
this subject of bacterial plant diseases came up it was at once
decided that Dr. Smith was the man to present the topic. No
one can do it so well. ..."

Smith already had proved his fitness to lecture on this subject.
During the previous July, 1899, he had delivered at the Marine
Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole the course of lectures
arranged for the year before. July 12 he wrote to Galloway: " My
lectures did not begin until Monday. Today I give the third.

Ri( ocN'iTioN oi- Plant H.\rT!-Rioi ocv in Eukopf. 337

It is new business for inc and rather hard, the more so as I found
lu) time to prepare tliem in advance."

The following year, in July, Smith was again at Woods Hole,
but as to whether he lectured on cither plant pathology or plant
bacteriology or both is wot known. On August, 1901, however,
again there, he wrote to Woods:

We have now been here a week and are well into the spirit of the place
and of the season.

The summer school doses Tuesday next, after which there will be an
exodus and then the place will be quieter. The laboratory season has been
prosperous. 285 people eat at the mess table. How many are actually
registered and doing '^v'ork in the various laboratories I have not enquired.
Zoology get the major portion of the students, but in the Bot[anical]
Iab[oratory] I counted 23 at one of [Rodney H.] True's lectures. Next
year [Bradley Moore] Davis wishes to have the Bot[anical] Lab[oratory]
enlarged. This needed improvement will cost about $1600. There have
been four teachers this year — Davis, True, [George T.] Moore, and Shaw —
the latter, one of MacFarlane's students, has conducted the class in ecology.

Lectures have been fewer than usual this year. Generally there is a super-
fluity. I have heard three — two by Dr. Parker of Harvard on the sense
perceptions of Crustaceans — very interesting, and one by Dr. Reighard of
University of Michigan — a lantern slide lecture on the breeding habits, nest
building, care of young, etc. of certain fishes — viz. Lamper eel, sun fish,
and dog fish — also interesting.

My own lecture (the lantern slide one on bacterial diseases of plants)
closed the season. Had a good audience, and apparently an interested one.

I have been so busy getting started in my own work that I have not been
around much and don't yet know all of the Zoologists, who are teaching
or at work here. I have met Whitman, Loeb, [Caswell] Grave (of Johns
Hopkins), Bigelow (of Boston), Lillie,^^ and two or three others. In the
Fish Commission Laboratories there are fewer special workers than last
year. Generally these laboratories have been overcrowded, partly, no doubt,
owing to Dr. Bumpus' very attractive personality. I miss his genial presence
about the Fish Com[mission] buildings very much. He is now director in
chief (practically at least) of the Natural history museum in New York
and is probably so tied by executive duties that he will never find time to
come here any more. He will do great things for the Museum, however.
Dr. Hugh Smith, of Washington, who has taken his place as Scientific
Director of the Fish Com[mission] work here, is interested in the work
and very nice, so far as I have observed, but he is very reserved and quiet,
too much to be popular. By his invitation we have been out once on the

*' Frank R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, 35-52, Univ.
of Chicago Press, 1944. Much of the material of the next paragraph has been based
on this book, some chapters of which Edwin Grant Conklin, professor-emeritus of
biology of Princeton University, wrote.

358 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

Fish Hawk dredging, and have been out once with Swingle and Moore on
the Sagilta up the coast for lupins. The Fish Commission tanks here are
full of interesting things and new strange creatures are added every few
days. . . .

Woods Hole was to Smith more than a place where scientific
research was pursued. He and Mrs. Smith enjoyed there some of
their happiest days, weeks, and months. In this region he was
inspired to write some of his best poetry and to investigate some
most difficult problems in science. Much of his best scientific
writing was done there. The Marine Biological Laboratory stood
for the highest ideals of scientific scholarship. Being of a national
character, its direction had sought to cooperate with all scientific
organizations, universities and colleges, and avoided " any one-
sided alliances that might alienate large numbers of scientific
men." With all scientific agenices interested in research in biology,
the laboratory was to work and with none was it to amalgamate.

Situated on Cape Cod where one of the nation's first large scale
experiments in forest tree culture was pursued by J. S. Fay,
Woods Hole, when Smith first visited it, presented a picture
which contrasts interestingly with the scene of today — a region of
fashionable summer resorts, a town of many beautiful homes built
among hills, fronted by Buzzard's Bay, Vineyard Sound, and the
Atlantic Ocean, in full view of several beautiful islands, and on
the mainland scientific laboratories which resemble more the
buildings of a great university or research center of modern pro-
portions. On July 12, 1899, Smith described Woods Hole to
Galloway:

The place is small and crowded (about 200 people here at the laboratories
and for pleasure) and hardly even a room to be had now. The one I vacate
is already engaged. Farther up the coast, I suppose there must be many
[cottages], there are so many sea coast summer resorts — Falmouth, Vine-
yard Haven, Cottage City, Sconset etc.

Woods Hole is an old fishing village, inhabited by three classes: first,
the natives, a curious lot; second, the rich summer residents who own
extensive grounds and have built large fine houses facing the shores and
go about in yachts and steam launches, and are said to regard the rest of us
as intruders on their peace and quiet ; and, third, the college and university
people who come here for a brief period in the summer and who are known
locally as the " bug hunters." Much of the land is owned by a few rich
men, and although there are many good sites for inexpensive cottages the
building of such is discouraged. There are . . . very few bathing houses

Recognition of Plant Bacturiology in Europf. 3^9

and none now to be rented — all taken. . . Toilay it is warm in the wind-
sheltered places, but cool near the water, which is very beautiful in clear
weather and dotted with ships lar^c and small.

The thini^s drcdi^ed out ot the sea are also very curious and interesting.
Boats iio out every day, and each brings back strant;e animal and plant
forms.

The Marine Biological Laboratory had rescued and resurrected
the region's great scientific inheritance bequeathed by Louis
Agassiz from his historic Anderson's School of Natural History
on nearby Penikesc Island. While not a direct descendant of
Agassiz's institution,'" the Laboratory was, nevertheless, an heir
to the great tradition of scientific instruction and investigation,
and had added much in branches of study. Invertebrate zoology
established in 1888, marine botany at least half of which con-
sisted of algal studies and commenced about 1890, general physi-
ology started about 1892, and embryology about 1893, had each
been kept in the foreground of research and instruction. About
1892 studies in the medical as well as biological '^ sciences became
more prominent, although for a while these consisted mainly of
physiology, biochemistry, and embryology. Whereas in 1892 but
five investigators were registered, by 1902 the number aggregated
fourteen and by 1906 twenty. Among them were Councilman
(1893), Flexner (1894-1895), F. P. Mall, Jacques Loeb, J. P.
McMurrich, Ludvig Hektoen (1900), A. P. Mathews, E. P. Lyon,
W. E. Garrey, Leo Loeb, A. J. Carlson, Hideyo Noguchi (1902,
1907), and C. R. Stockard. Some of this work had a definite
significance from the standpoint of comparative pathology. In
the next decades medical research workers as well as preclinical
and scientific students ambitious to study medicine increased
numerically.

That Smith arrived in time at Woods Hole to help further
botanical interests at the Marine Biological Laboratory is indi-
cated by two letters of the years 1899-1900. December 23, 1899,
Bradley Moore Davis of the Department of Botany of the Uni-

*" Frank R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Alarine Biological Laboratory, op. cit., 15-23.

" Idem, 87-88, where it is also said that the course in general physiology was the
first of its kind, not only in America but in the world. It was a prime factor in the
rapid development of the subject in the universities. Concerning the researches in
botany, pp. 144-145. Concerning the researches and investigators in medicine, pp.
146-147.

360 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

versity of Chicago, later of the University of Pennsylvania, and
still later of the University of Michigan, promised to send to
Smith

in a day or two the program of Botany for next season at the Marine Bio-
logical Laboratory. You will see [wrote Davis] that we have made some
advance but not as much as we had hoped. A course in plant physiology
is added to our program but we have not been able to introduce ecology
for lack of room.

We hope to have an addition to our building soon and then can add
this subject which is very appropriate for our conditions at Woods Hole.

You remember your promise to bring up before the proper persons the
proposition to have the Dept. of Agric. subscribe for one or two rooms to
be reserved for members of the department and where they might work
during the summer in a comfortable climate and pleasant surroundings.
Have you taken this matter up yet and if so how far has it progressed 7

July 30, 1900, Galloway addressed a letter to Smith at Woods
Hole, part of which read: "All arrangements have been made
for the laboratory facilities at Woods Hole, so that you can feel
perfectly free in the matter now."

In 1902 Smith was to be honored by being elected a trustee
of the Marine Biological Laboratory and was to retain this
position for twenty years or until 1921.*"

The year 1901 was a triumphant one for him in many ways.
July 17 of that year, H. C. Ernst, bacteriologist and editor of the
Journal of Medical Research, writing from Manomet, Plymouth
County, Massachusetts, invited him to submit to the journal the
results of his further investigations on diseases of plants. So
pleased with his articles already published was Ernst that he was
re-reading them carefully, and he assured Smith that the Journal
which was just then being started had the support of " many of
the best men in the country." Dr. George M. Sternberg, by letter
of May 7, requested Smith to send him " the publications con-
taining an account of the bacteria pathogenic for plants, which
you have described. I wish," said the Surgeon-General, " to
introduce a brief description of these bacteria in a revised edition
of my Text-Book of Bacteriology, which I am now at work upon."

March 29, 1901, Professor Doctor Beyerinck of the Bacteri-
ological Laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute of Delft, Holland,
" respectfully and obediently " thanked Smith very much and with

*^ Frank R. Lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, op. cit., 255.

Recognition or Plant BACTr.Rioi.oGY in Europi- 36l

pleasure for his " intcrcstiiii; paper on Wakkcr's hyacinth disease,
this day received."' Further recognition came from Europe; Lafar
of the bacteriological laboratory of Vienna, Alfred Moller of
Ebcrswalde, Germany, Luigi Savastano of the Royal School of
Agriculture of Portici near Naples, Italy, and by 1901 practically
every world known botanist, bacteriologist, and many eminent
medical authorities and hygicnists were among his correspondents.

Among other letters from foreign scientists during this year,
F. A. F. C. Went, another pathologist of the Netherlands, for a
while located in Java and later of the University of Utrecht,
informed by letter t)f July 21, 1901, that he was at Paramaribo,
Dutch Guiana, South America. Under orders of the Netherlands
government, he was inquiring into agricultural conditions in the
Dutch West hidian Colonies and making " some researches about
diseases of Theobiama Cacao and the Sugar-Cane. For this end,"
he wrote, " I will be staying here till the middle of October, then
proceed to Georgetown (Demerara), Barbados and Trinidad,
thence to Curasao and the smaller Dutch Antilles." He wanted
to learn about the cultivation of sisal hemp in Florida, and on
November 22 announced that he would arrive in Washington by
way of either Florida or New York from the Bahamas and several
of the West Indies island possessions of the Netherlands.

Early that autumn Smith had received a letter from N. A. Cobb
of the department of agriculture at Sydney, New South Wales,
concerning the gumming of sugar cane disease. He had promised
" at the proper season to secure for [him] some further specimens "
of the malady, enclosed a copy of his article on the subject,
and added the important information that his recommendations
had " resulted in quelling the trouble so completely " that speci-
mens were now not easy to secure. Dr. Went had written that
the disease was not in Java and that, while in the West Indies,
he had visited many sugar producing colonies and spoken with
scientific men and not located it. Cobb wrote that he had been
" busy on other lines since [his] return " from the United States
where he had met Smith at Woods Hole. " The bacteriologist of
the Linnean Society of N[ew] S[outh] W[ales]," he believed,
was " doing some excellent work with pure cultures of the microbe,
but [had] published nothing as yet." Other workers may have
begun studies.

362 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

At the next meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology and
Physiology, Smith reported that Cobb had " pointed out a way to
avoid the gumming of sugar cane . . . viz., by the selection of
healthy cuttings. This practice [had] greatly reduced the amount
of gummed cane in New South Wales."'*' Smith's study, " Ur-
sache der Cobb'schen Krankheit des Zuckerrohrs," ** not published
until 1904, noticed the prior work of the Australian Greig Smith
and Cobb, verified and extended Cobb's conclusions, and for
years Went and he exchanged letters on the subject. His study
was a reason why Went visited him at Washington, and, since
later he wrote on the disease in his three volume monograph,
it and other studies were probably among the reasons why Smith
in 1906 arranged to visit Went in the Netherlands.

The establishment of research centers of plant pathology in
tropical countries was an advance of first magnitude. On July 15,
1901, Paul C. Freer, of the United States Philippines Commission
and recently appointed superintendent of laboratories, asked Smith
to recommend some properly qualified, " bright and energetic
young man," capable of performing research in plant pathology.
Buildings were being planned, equipment provided, and a staff
selected, for laboratories being created in the Islands to promote
research and economic progress in public health, forestry, agri-
culture, mining, and customs. " I have read with interest your
article in regard to bacterial diseases of plants," Freer wrote Smith,
" and I am sure that you can help me better than any one else. . . .
As certain plant diseases, especially one of the coffee plants, are
prevalent in the Islands, one of the first things to undertake is to
find some means, if possible, of combatting these conditions."

The year 1901 was significant in Smith's life for a still more
important reason. On July 1, in accordance with the authority
and directives of a Congressional enactment, the United States
Bureau of Plant Industry, as one of four Bureaus of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture, was organized to bring together under one
unit the allied work of plant physiology and plant pathology,
botany, pomology, grass and forage plants, and experimental
gardens and grounds. By executive order and Congressional
approval the Arlington experimental farm, investigations in the

*^ Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 608-609.
'^ Centralblatt f. Bakt. etc., II, 13(22/23) : 729-736, 1904.

RlX.OGNITION OF PlANT BaCTHRIOLOGY IN EUROPK 363

production of domestic tea, the office of foreign seed and plant
introduction, and the Congressional seed distribution, were added.
B. T. Cialloway was appt)inted chief of the Bureau which now
had more than two hundred efficient workers. A. l\ Woods was
in charge of the office of vegetable pathological and physiological
investigations. F. V. Coville remained as botanist in charge of
botanical investigations and experiments. F. Lamson-Scribner who
for nearly eight years had been agrostologist of the Department
was appointed chief of the insular bureau of agriculture of the
Philippine Commission,^'' and William Jasper Spillman, since 1894
a scientific agriculturist with the Department, was made agros-
tologist in charge of grass and forage plant investigations. G. B.
Brackett continued to serve as pomologist in charge of pomological
investigations. L. C. Corbett was placed in the position of horti-
culturist of the Bureau.

Smith's work in plant pathology and bacteriology had merited
recognition for several years. This now came, not simply as
another increase in salary, this time from $2,000 to $2,500 a year.
A Laboratory of Plant Pathology was created and placed in his
immediate charge. Its importance as a scientific research unit
within the Bureau was not to be exceeded by any other, although,
of course, the equally important Laboratory of Plant Breeding
placed in the immediate charge of H. J. Webber represented a
similar recognition. Webber in 1899 had been the Department's
official representative at the first International Conference on Hy-
bridisation and Plant Breeding which was held at Chiswick
(London), Fngland.

In 1898, when the full amount of a requested appropriation for
plant breeding experiments was not granted. Woods and Webber
refused to be discouraged. Woods wrote Smith, "A good deal
can be done with $5000," and the work continuing, within three
years such valuable cotton improvements had been secured by
Webber and Orton that the former on September 4, 1901, urged
Woods to seek a $40,000 annual appropriation for plant breeding.

Smith took an active part in obtaining increased sums of money
for " experiments in the breeding of orchard fruits, cereals,
tobacco, and other plants to secure improved varieties and varie-

*^ Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1901, op. cit., 525.

364 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

ties and stocks resistant to disease, and for the investigation of
the physiological principles underlying plant breeding." **^ In
1898, when the Secretary of Agriculture approved $12,000 for
the study of tobacco problems, Woods called on Smith, if he
could find time, to prepare " a brief article of four or five hundred
words stating what [was] known of the relation of bacteria to
the fermentation and curing of the tobacco leaf " in compliance
with a request from Orange Judd of the American Agricultunst
and Neiv England Fanner.

Smith's estimates of monetary losses suffered by different regions
from crop diseases always proved helpful in convincing Congress-
men and the public why appropriations for the Bureau of Plant
Industry should be increased. The losses were enormous and the
work's value obvious. Especially plain was the urgent need of
more research. At one time he estimated that losses in the west
during two seasons from sugar beet diseases had been more than
a million dollars. He ardently worked for the passage of a bill
in Congress which would increase appropriations sufficiently to
permit further study of the Michigan little peach disease. Special
investigations were still wanted for peach yellows, bitter rot of
apple, and other diseases of orchard, field, and garden crops.

Since 1897-1898, appropriations for the Department of Agri-
culture had steadily been increased. That year the figure was
$3,182,902. In 1898-1899, the total sum was augmented by
$326,300; in 1899-1900, by $216,820; in 1900-1901, by $297,478;
and by 1901-1902, by $558,920, until the allowance was $4,582,420.

September 12, 1901, Woods wrote Smith, then at Woods Hole:

The new laboratory building is very nearly completed and we expect to
get into it at an early day. . . . The estimates are in and we have asked in
them for about $125,000. It may be we can get it up to $143,000. This
is what I want and what I think from developments last year, we will cer-
tainly get, — possibly an even $150,000.

Webber is having great luck with his cotton, — has one of the finest long
staple uplands in existence. Orton's resistant cotton is resistant again this
year. He has a resistant cowpea and Webber has found that the cowpea
resistant to wilt is also resistant to Nematode. This is fully as important,
as the cowpea cannot be used in the peach orchards in the south, you know,
on account of the danger from Nematode to which the cowpeas are usually

^^ Quotations and facts based on memoranda and letters found among Smith's
papers.

Recognition of Plant Bactfriology in Europh 365

so subject. Carkton's mac.ironi wheat is booming. I think we arc going
to make a big hit in this industry.

Smith regarded Carlcton's work as of great value. Of liis
wheat introductions and breeding work which like Webber's and
Orton's cottons added millions of dollars to the American economy,
Smith said: *'

In 1898 Carleton made his first trip to Russia, bringing back the Kubanka
durum wheat, resistant to heat and cold and to rust. In 1900 he went to
Russia again, bringing back the KarkotT red winter wheat and various other
valuable'cereals. In 1899 his bulletin " Cereal rust of the United States "
was published.

The second International Conference on Plant Breeding and
Hybridization, held September 30-October 2, 1902, in New York
City, heard an address by Orton " On the Breeding of Disease-
resistant Varieties." •" In this, he explained the experiments from
which his Sea Island cotton, cowpea, and watermelon wilt resistant
varieties resulted. Accomplishments of the Division of Vegetable
Physiology and Pathology since 1898 '^ had been notable.

For the southern states, the value of the new hybrid cold-resis-
tant oranges, developed by Swingle and Webber at Eustis and
Miami, was being demonstrated. European table grapes were
now being grown for foreign markets. At Summerville, South
Carolina, the Department maintained a factory and a one hundred
acre tract for tea growing, and near Charleston one thousand acres
of tea had been started on rice lands. In Texas and Louisiana
the Department's work had augmented by many millions of dollars
the invested capital and income from the rice industry. New
cottons were being secured for distribution, and Egyptian cotton
was being grown and proving valuable for crossing with other

*'' Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 27; M. A. Carleton, Macaroni Wheats, Bull. 3,
Bur. of Pi'. Ind., Dec. 23, 1901.

*^ Experiment Station Record l4(3): 212, Nov. 1902.

" A. F. Woods, Work in vegetable physiology and pathology, Yearbook of U. S.
D. A. for 1898: 261-266; W. T. Swingle and H. J. Webber, Hybrids and their
utilization in plant breeding, Yearbook for 1897: 383-420. Concerning plant breeding
work, B. T. Galloway, Industrial progress in plant work. Yearbook for 1902: 219-
239; Willet M. Hays, Progress in plant and animal breeding. Yearbook for 1901:
217-232; H. J. Webber and Ernst A. Bessey, Progress of plant breeding in the
United States, Yearbook for 1899: 465-490; H. J. Webber, Improvement of plants
by selection. Yearbook for 1898: 355-376; A. F. Woods, The relation of nutrition
to the health of plants, Yearbook for 1901: 155-176, especially those portions dealing
with diseases of plants.

366 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

varieties. A new method of securing pastures of Bermuda grass
from seed had been shown to be of much value in the south. The
possibihties of growing rubber, coffee, banana, and cacao were
indicated, and methods for cultivating many other tropical pro-
ducts were being improved.^" Pineapple culture was being studied.
Hundreds of crosses for vigor, quality, largeness of fruit, and
disease-resistance, had been made.^^ These were a few from many
other examples.

Among the western states, the value of Pierce's hybrid disease-
resistant grapes had been demonstrated in California. New
varieties of prunes had been introduced along the Pacific Coast.
In the arid southwest dates from Egypt and Algeria were being
planted and grown. The introduction of many new, or the amelio-
ration of many old, horticultural products in states of the far and
central west was transforming agriculture from a condition of bare
subsistence in many places to one of abundance or at least a
promise of plenty. The demonstration of the practicability of
growing macaroni wheat, the extensive importation of seed, and
the establishment of factories made possible competition with the
foreign product and saved the nation millions annually.

Improved hops and barley were imported and disseminated.
New forage crops were secured for the entire country. The dis-
covery of new methods for growing nitrogen-gathering bacteria
made practicable the cultivation of leguminous crops in many new
regions. Western ranges were being improved. American-grown
clover had been shown to be superior over seed from foreign
sources. Blue grass seed was harvested and handled by new
methods, and the crop's value enhanced from thirty to forty per
cent. Better transportation facilities for fruit and perishable pro-
ducts were being enlarged and quickened, and the way opened
to cross-continental and European markets. Each advancement
meant money and better practice in the many various plant indus-
tries, but with each extension new problems beset the plant
pathologist.

Smith's new laboratory of plant pathology was not only to share
in saving crops from partial or total destruction but also to assist
in the work of crop amelioration for quality and quantity yields.

^° Scope of work, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Dep't of Agric, 4 pp.
■^^ Work in vegetable physiology and pathology, op. ch., 266.

Recognition of Plant Bacti-rioi.ogv in Europe 367

The introduction and brccdint; of discasc-rcsistant plants were
always encouraged and aided by him. This branch of research,
however, was never his specialty. His was the pioneer laboratory
of the Department in economic plant pathology, and when it was
created the imperative need was for standardized methods of inves-
tigation and thorough studies of all the bacterially caused diseases
of plants. During his lifetime, approximately one-half of the
known bacterial plant maladies would be discovered and worked
out in his laboratory. Extensive additional investigations, further-
more, would be made of a large percentage of the other one-half
of those diseases tlren recognized as serious. Some idea of how
widely Smith covered the held of bacterial diseases among agri-
cultural crops may be gathered from the following list, prepared
in 1926,'' each of which was " studied in detail, the causal or-
ganism determined and in many cases means of prevention and
control established:

1. Truck crops: tomato, potato, tobacco wilt diseases; lettuce leaf and
stem rots and spots; bean leaf, stem, pod and seed diseases; cucumber,
melon, pumpkin and squash leaf and wilt diseases; sugar beet leaf spot;
cabbage, cauliflower, turnip, mustard, kohlrabi rots and leaf spots; cotton
boll rot, black arm and leaf spot.

2. Cereal and forage crops: sugar-cane, sorghum and broom corn dis-
eases; sweet corn wilt; millet leaf spot; wheat, oats, barley and western
wheat grass diseases of leaf, stem and kernel ; Kudzu, soy-bean leaf spots ;
alfalfa and clover leaf and stem spots and root rots.

3. Fru/f diseases: crowngall infecting the majority of large and small
fruits, vegetables and ornamentals; coconut bud rot; stone-fruit leaf and
fruit spot; mulberry leaf spot.

4. Miscellaneous: florists' troubles, gladiolus bulb rots; nasturtium wilt;
calla soft rot; iris soft rot; hyacinth and other lily rots; leaf spots of nas-
turtium, gladiolus, delphinium, canna, geranium, martynia; lilac blight;
castor bean wilt.

5. Plan( tumors other than crowngall: olive (bacterial), apple (?), ash
(bacterial), sugar beet (bacterial), citrus (fungus), sapodillo (fungus).

6. Non-bacterial plant diseases: garlic rot, oat blast, Smyrna fig rot (in
California), sweet pea fasciation, banana wilt, cotton, cowpea, watermelon
and tomato wilts, geranium stem rot, snapdragon wilt, dry rot of potato.

From this laboratory, altogether about 180 publications would

"' Found among Dr. Smith's paper. Prepared by request of A. F. Woods as to
Scientific work in the Department and addressed to Dr. W. A. Taylor, chief of the
Bureau of Plant Industr)'. Transmitted to heads of offices, memorandum 249,
October 1926.

368 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

be issued. Add to this the regular diagnostic and remedial services
furnished plant growers from every state of the Union, and one
comprehends in brief compass its contribution to plant pathology
and bacteriology during Smith's tenure. During these years, crop
losses from bacterial and fungous diseases ranged from two to
ninety-five per cent annually. First, the etiology of these maladies
had to be understood, and proof of how infections start and are
transmitted were often necessary preliminaries to working out
methods of control or prevention, and remedies. If infections
were transmitted by insects or through soils or on the seed, it
was often as valuable to know these facts as to know the path-
ogenic organism responsible for the malady. Fundamental, never-
theless, was the isolation by pure culture technique of the organism,
and each disease was studied from every available aspect.

In 1902-1903 ^^ Smith found on Japanese plums in Michigan a
disease which he proved to be caused by Bacterium pruni EFS.
He worked on this disease for twenty years, yet never published
a full account of the organism. His first paper, entitled the same
as his preliminary note in Science, was presented before the sixth
meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology.
Dr. Spalding was then its president. At this meeting Smith offered
also his " Completed proof that Ps. Steivarti is the Cause of the
Sweet Corn Disease of Long Island." At the December 1903
meeting of the Society he began to discuss the bacterial origin and
the parasite of the tumor of " The olive tubercle," ^* due to Bac-
terium Savastanoi EFS, the results of study begun that year with
James Birch Rorer.

In 1903 Smith published his Bulletin 29, " The Effect of Black
Rot on Turnips," '^'^ a series of photomicrographs accompanied by
an explanatory text.

For the next several years he studied mainly bacterial diseases
of plants, work aimed at preparing to place in written form
various portions of his three-volume monograph. Bacteria in

^^ E. F. Smith, Observations on a hitherto unreported bacterial disease, the cause
of which enters the plant through ordinary stomata, Science n. s. 17(429): 456-457,
March 20, 1903; Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 31-32; Fifty years of pathology,
op. cit., 29; Beobachtungen ueber eine bis dahin unbekannte, durch Bakterien
verursachte Krankhcit, die durch die gewohnlichen Stomata in die Pflanze eindringt,
Centralhlitt f. Bakt. etc., II, 10(22/23): 744-145, 1903.

''* Science n. s. 19(480) :4l6, March 11, 1904.

" Issued Jan. 17, U. S. Bur. of PI. Ind., pp. 9-20.

Recognition of Plant Bacthrioi.ogy in Europh 369

Relation to PLint Diseases. Amon^ the organisms studied were
Bacillus dclpbini^"' Ixnterium amiropogoui EPS or stripe disease
of broi)m corn and sorglium (190-1-1922)," Bacterium mori
(Boycr and Lambert emend, EPS) or mulberry blight (1905-
1921),-'* Bacterium lachrymans Smith and Bryan or angular leaf
spot of cucumber (1906-1915),'" and Bacterium syringae (Van
Hall) EPS or lilac blight (1906-1907)/'" In 1903 Otto Appcl in
Germany described a destructive bacterial potato rot due to
Bacillus phytophthorus. Smith regarded this "' masterly paper "
as letting" a flood of light into an obscure situation," ''^ and soon
Appei's and trvvo or- three similar organisms were found in the
United States by Smith and others. To study this disease, black-
leg of potato, and its distinction from Bacillus solanacearum.
Smith in 1906 would make his first journey to Europe.

In 1902, before the fifty-first meeting of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science, B. T. Galloway, vice-
president and chairman of Section G for 1901, commented in an
address, "Applied Botany, Retrospective and Prospective," °^
" Probably in no other field of botanical science has the applied
work been of more value to mankind than in bacteriology, surgery,
and sanitation. . . . Bacteriology, in its relation to surgery and
sanitation, has passed out of the field of applied botany, but
problems will still arise. . . ."

Galloway spoke truthfully, and perhaps more wisely than he
knew. October 10, 1901, Dr. Harvey Russell Gaylord of the
Cancer Laboratory of the New York State Department of Health
had addressed a letter of uncommon interest to Smith. It read:

Prof[essor] Welch of Johns Hopkins suggested that you might be able
to assist mc in a matter relating to the research which we are carrying on in
Buffalo on carcinoma. You may possibly have seen an article by v. Leydcn
in the Zeitschrijt fiir klin\^ischer'\ Aledizin, vol. 43, page 5, in which he
describes having found organisms in the peritoneal fluid of a case of carci-
noma, the description of which is very much like our own experiments. He

"•Bacterial leaf spot diseases, Science n. s. 19(480): 416-418, March 11, 1904.
"■^ Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 33.
" Ibid., 30.
=» Ibid., 33.
""Ibid., 34-35.

"^ Introduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 264 ff . ; Fifty years of
pathology, op. cit., 29.

"- Proc. Am. As/n for Adv. of Sci., 463-480, at pp. 469-470, June-July 1902.

370 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

likewise describes the appearance of these organisms in the tissues, and we
find that they are practically identical with the so-called "' Plimmer's
bodies," with which we have been engaged.

V. Leyden compares them to an organism, the Plasmodiophora brassicae
Woronin, which is described by Navachine ^^ in the Russian Archiv for
Pathology, 1900, vol. 9. Dr. Welch was kind enough to send me Nava-
chine's article, and a comparison of his illustrations with our own speci-
mens leaves no doubt that the organism which he has studied possesses a
morphological appearance scarcely distinguishable from the bodies which
we have found in epithelium in carcinoma. There has likewise appeared,
in volume 27 of the Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie, by Podwyssotzky an
article dealing with the same organism, which he has injected into animals
and which there produces mesoblastic tumors. Dr. Welch suggested that
you might possibly be able to put us in the way of getting some material
from which we could work up this side of the question. The organism, as
described by Navachine, produces tumor-like formations in cabbages. . . .

Dr. Gaylord had graduated in medicine in 1893 from the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. From 1895 to 1898 he had been an assis-
tant in pathology at the University of Gottingen, and in 1899
become professor of surgical pathology at the University of Buffalo
and director of the State Institute for Study of Malignant Disease.

On April 15, 1901, at a meeting of the Johns Hopkins Medical
Society, Dr. Gaylord had spoken on " The Parasite of Cancer." '^*
Dr. Welch, then president of the Society, introduced him, and,
after Dr. Gaylord had presented his demonstration of materials,
Welch complimented him for his work by saying:

Dr. Gaylord has brought before us something more than the mere
description of the so-called cell-enclosures observed in hardened specimens
of cancer. Of the enclosures hitherto described in preserved material the
only ones which present anything like a definite organization and which,
it seems to me, have not been altogether satisfactorily explained are the
bodies first accurately described by Tlioma and Sjobring, and subsequently
noted by most of those who have studied this subject. These bodies in
English and American writings are often designated without much pro-
priety as "" Plimmer's bodies." No conclusive evidence that these bodies,
still less that any other of the various enclosures, are parasites, has been
furnished, and it now seems evident that no further progress in the search
for parasites is likely to be made by the examination of hardened material
with our present methods.

" See also, Dr. S. Nawaschin, Beobachtungen iiber den feineren Bau und Um-
wandlungen von Plasmodiophora brassicae Woron. im Laufe ihres intracellularen
Lebens, Flora, 86: 404, 1899.

^' Bull. Johns Hopkins Hospital 12(126): 295-296, Sept. 1901.

Recognition of Plant Rac:tiirioloc.y in Turopf. 371

UndcT these circumstances it is important to turn to tlie examination of
fresh material and to make attempts to cuhivate parasitic organisms, pro-
videci such exist in cancer and other malignant tumors. This direction of
study has therefore been followed in recent years by several investigators,
and it is especially his results along these lines which Dr. Gaylord has
reported to us this evening.

Dr. Welch welcomed studies which shed light on " cellular
degenerations and metamorphoses " in cancer. Until, he said,
" we are in possession of more evidence than has yet been fur-
nished in favor of the parasitic hypothesis " of the origin of
cancer, research wofkers would have to be prepared for much
skepticism following the announcements of their results. He
recognized that, as yet, there was

not much agreement among the different observers either in the description
or the interpretation of the various bodies regarded by them as parasites
to be seen in fresh cancerous material or fluids, or in such material kept
free from bacterial contamination, whether mixed wMth some cultural fluid
or not. Dr. Gaylord lays especial emphasis upon the presence in cancers
and other conditions of homogeneous, yellowish, spherical bodies resem-
bling droplets of fat but without the usual reactions for fat, and he
considers that he finds evidences of multiplication of these bodies and of
their passing through a definite cycle of development which he describes.

Of Dr. Gaylord's experimental results in reproducing malignant
tumors. Dr. Welch concluded: " Dr. Gaylord has presented an
instance of multiple nodules in the lungs of an adeno-carcino-
matous nature following the intravenous injection of cancerous
ascitic fluid. With this exception and one or two more doubtful
cases, his experimental results . . . are, like those of other inves-
tigators in the same line, negative."

Nevertheless, when Welch read Nawaschin's article describing
Plasmodiophora brasskae, he forwarded it to Gaylord and must
have suggested that, in view of the similarity between the parasitic
organism which " produces tumor-like formations in cabbages "
and "" the bodies w^hich [Gaylord had] found in epithelium in
carcinoma," vegetable material might be obtained from Smith to
study the parasitic aspect of the question.

Welch urged thorough "microscopic examination of fresh,
macerated, and preserved cancerous material. ... As regards
artificial cultures," he also said.

372 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

it is certain that no forms of bacteria demonstrable by existing methods are
directly concerned in the causation of cancer, and, notwithstanding the
stronger claims made in behalf of Blastomycetes, I am glad to learn that
Dr. Gaylord rejects these claims and takes a position in this regard opposed
to that of San Felice, Roncali, Plimmer, Leopold, and others. He interprets
as Protozoa the bodies which he regards as parasites.

In 1901 Smith had not really begun to study the physiology
and pathology of plant tumors, the mechanisms involved in -the
formation of pathogenic overgrowths in plants. He furnished
specimens of Plasmodiophora brasskae to more than one specialist
in human cancer research; and, years later, in his textbook Intro-
duction to Bacterial Diseases of Plants ^^ referred to a period when
much study was "put upon the club-root of turnips and cabbages
(due to Plasmodiophora brassicae) by various persons who thought
they saw in it certain resemblances to animal cancer." Club-root
of cruciferous plants, he pointed out, is attributable to a myxo-
mycete and, while cell hypertrophy and more or less cell multi-
plication are characteristics, among other differences the over-
growth is not an active hyperplasia.

Nothing preserved among his laboratory memoranda shows that
during the years 1901-1903 he was studying either this subject or
crown gall in plants. If he did study either, the research was
more incidental than primary, and what, if any, crown gall study
was made was doubtless confined to investigating another plant
disease of possible bacterial origin. This does not seem probable,
however, since crown gall at that time was not thought to be
caused by a bacterium, and Smith himself affirmed 1904 as the
year when first he and his laboratory assistants began the real
investigation which led to the discovery and isolation of Bacterium
tumefaciens Smith and Townsend as its cause. He said:

60

My first acquaintance with this disease was on peach trees from Cali-
fornia and the South in 1892-3, at which time an effort was made, chiefly
by means of the microscope, to find in the galls a fungous or plasmodial
parasite. As nothing constant of this nature was discovered and bacteria
were not then in mind the subject was dropped. It was taken up again in
1904 on Paris daisies received from New Jersey with bacteria definitely in
mind because the overgrowths superficially resembled olive tubercle '''■ in

"6»p. cit., 551.

*® Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 39.

*' See Smith's and Rorer's Bull. 131, iv, "Recent Studies of the Olive-Tubercule

Recognition of Plant BArTFRioiOGY in Europi- 373

which I was then intcrcstcii aiul knew Iroui inirc (.ulturc inoculations to be
due to bacteria. . . . Marlier than any positive work in the United States
Department of A^ricuhurc, Cavara in Italy studied the disease as it occurs
on grapes, isolated a white organism and with it produced a few tumors,
but of this I knew nothini^ until I began gathering together the literature
references for

Bulletin 213 of the Bureau of Plant Industry which recorded the
history of the early work on crown gall of plants.

Crown gall research seems to have been recognized by authori-
ties of the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Pathology as
principally the work of J. W. Tourney, biologist of the Arizona
Agricultural Experiment Station. He, in 1900, had published his
bulletin 33,''* "An Inquiry into the Cause and Nature of Crown-
Gall," which tabulated accounts of other studies made of the
disease and presented the results of his own work. At the conclu-
sion of his inquiry, he compared his results with those of some
recent investigations made of Plasmodiophora brassicae. Among
these were the recent studies by Dr. S. Nawaschin (1899).

During 1897-1898 Tourney had been director of the Arizona
station and from 1898 to 1900 superintendent of tree planting in
the Division of Forestry of the United States Department of Agri-
culture. By 1900, however, when the Yale Forest School was
founded, he was chosen to be an assistant professor of forestry
and for the remainder of his distinguished career as an American
scientist he was at this school, becoming in 1909 professor of silvi-
culture and in 1910 its dean and director.

Since 1892 he and Smith had had some correspondence on plant
diseases; and in 1900 they evidently exchanged letters concerning
a microscope to be used by Toumey presumably for some research
on the physical properties of timber. On November 13, 1899,
Toumey had written Woods:

You remember when I was in Washington I had one or two talks with
you regarding the crown gall of the peach and allied trees. Since my return
to Tucson I have been giving my entire time to the further investigation

Organism," May 13, 1908, Bur. PI. Ind., U. S. D. A. This study was based on
materials from California and Italy. Bacillus oleae tuberculosis was described and
previous work in Europe and the U. S. considered. Also, E. F. Smith, Some observa-
tions on the biology of the olive tubercle organism, Centralb. f. Bakt., II, 15: 198-
200, 1905.

Publ. Univ. Ariz. Agric. Sta., April 13, 1900, pp. 9, 39, 63.

13

68

374 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

of this disease. You might be interested in knowing that I have well
developed specimens of the gall produced by inoculation since I returned
to Tucson the 25th of last month. What is more, I have finally run down
the organism that causes the disease. It is a myxomycete, something that
we have all been looking for for several years. One of the most interesting
things regarding it is that it evidently only infests the gall as a plasmodium.
Under certain conditions the plasmodium creeps to the surface of the gall
and forms amoeba-like bodies which escape into the soil. From my inves-
tigations so far, I find two kinds of these amoeboidal bodies, namely, a
large one, and another that is very minute. I believe these two forms fuse
as they escape from the gall and after a time the resulting amoeboidal mass
comes to a resting condition. As yet I do not know the result of this
resting condition, but I presume that after a time it breaks up into minute
amoeboidal bodies, which, finally reaching other plants, enter them and
producing plasmodia and the resulting abnormal tissue. I have traced out
the life-history of the organism, with the exception of one or two breaks,
which I hope to complete within the course of the next two or three weeks.

He sent for literature on the myxomycetes and other subject
matter which might help him in this study. In his published
bulletin, '^'^ he admitted:

I fully recognize the incompleteness of this investigation and the uncer-
tainties regarding certain portions of the work, but, as other duties make
it necessary for me to lay aside the work for an indefinite period, I believe
it best, on account of the great economic importance of the disease, to
publish the results that I have obtained without waiting to make additional
spore inoculations or to complete certain cytological investigations which
I have in view and hope to make as opportunity permits.

Crown gall was to be studied by Smith and his laboratory
assistants for many years and in many genera and species of
plants. He had never planned to devote his laboratory researches
to purposes other than investigations in pathology directly or
indirectly pertinent to agriculture and the study of plants. But,
while studying crown gall, he discerned an analogy between plant
teratoid tumors and tumors of animals and man, and, while no
complete analogy was ever claimed to be established, he offered
his authenticated proofs of resemblances to scientists in the hope
of aiding medical research to solve the difficult problem of human
cancer. He often consulted pathologists in medical science but
at no time claimed to be a medical pathologist. Throughout his
career he remained a plant scientist and, by his studies, established

Rl-COGNITION OF PlANT BaCTURIOLOGV IN EUKOPli 373

that cancer, or a disease in points quite similar to cancer, exists
in plants. In so cKmiii;, he evolved a loL;ical theory of cancer
development.

hi plant bacteriolop' Smith occupies " a position comparable
witii that of Koch in the held of medical bacteriolog)'." ^° The
foremost importance of his work on crown gall, furthermore, may
be said to have been his study of this as a disease of plants caused
by a bacterium. His background in pathology and bacteriolog)',
however, had been closely linked to research in sanitation and
hygiene, public health, and medicine, and medical research men
gradually became interested in his crowngall-animal cancer analogy.
Dr. Gaylord was among the first to recognize its importance from
the standpoint of fundamental biology, perhaps even from its
indicated values to the knowledge of cellular physiology and path-
ology. He called on Secretary Wilson and persuaded him to
allow Smith sufficient latitude in his study of plant overgrowths
to include the animal cancer analogy. Great economic and scien-
tific importance to agriculture attached in solving the problems
of this and other similarly destructive diseases of plants; and
during the century's first half-decade Smith was almost totally
absorbed with studying diseases of plants as such. But after 1907,
for reasons yet to be divulged, the work as to crown gall began
" to offer a clue which might lead to the solution of the greater
and very obscure problem of the origin of malignant human and
animal tumors." '^ Dr. Gaylord interested other medical scientists
in Europe as well as in America in Smith's work. Other doctors,
leaders in the field of cancer research and among them Dr. James
Ewing," we shall see encouraged Smith to elaborate the analogy
on the basis of a fundamental study of pathological growth.

In October 1901, Smith began to move his laboratory into the
larger quarters in the Department's building situated in the 1300
block on B Street — two large rooms on the third floor which were
far more spacious and adequate than the quarters of the dwelling
on 13th Street Southwest. In these years, the Department of Agri-

■"^ Arthur T. Henrici (revised by Eriing J. Ordal), The biology of bacteria, 353,
Boston, D. C. Heath and Co., 1948.

"^ E. F. Smith, Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, Proc. Amer. Philos. Sac. 56:
437, 1917. Address read April 13, 1917.

'^ A. J. Riker et al. Some comparisons of bacterial plant galls and of their causal
agents, Botanical Review 12(2): 59 (as to Dr. Ewing), Feb. 1946.

376 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

culture was scattered over an area covering several blocks and
was housed in several buildings, the most important of which
was the Administration Building of red brick which faced north-
ward and was surrounded by a beautiful horticultural park called
the Agricultural Grounds. Some of the laboratories, including
those of vegetable physiology and pathology, had been located in
nearby dwellings.

During the years 1901-1903 several very able plant scientists
came into the employment of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and
with the selection of some of them Smith had considerable to do.
For instance, Rodney Howard True," after an exchange of letters
with Smith, was appointed plant physiologist for, among other
studies, drug plant, poisonous plant and fermentation investiga-
tions. For four years, 1895-1899, True had been a member of the
faculty in pharmacognosy at the University of Wisconsin, and
from 1899 to 1901 had lectured in Radcliffe College and Harvard
University. He hesitated before accepting the position. Plant
physiology was his preference, he told Smith in a letter of March
12, 1901, but he was not sure that his present interest in toxi-
cological science would fit into the work as planned for him.
The two men had been acquainted since the Madison meeting in
1893 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
and, as True has revealed in his biographical sketch of Smith
many years later/* his interest in Smith's work had heightened
when at the University of Leipsig he had attended Alfred Fischer's
lectures in bacteriology and heard " him mention an American
named Smith who claimed that bacteria could grow in plants, that
they did so grow and produced diseases in them as in animals.
The naturally rather bitter tongue of Fischer," True told, " denied
this claim and laid Smith's ' blunder ' to a dirty technique in terms
that an American present felt were intended to reflect rather
broadly on the state of science in Smith's country. This was an
episode in that most significant polemic in which, like Pasteur in
his day, Smith fought and fought strenuously for his glimpse of
a very important truth."

"H. L. Shantz, Rodney Howard True, Science n. s. 92(2398): 546-547, Dec. 13,
1940.

'^Rodney H. True, Erwin F. Smith, Phytopathology 17(10): 675-680, quotation
at pp. 675-676, Oct. 1927.

Rl-COGNITION OF PlANT RACXnRIOLOGY IN EUROPI: 377

Dr. Cialloway, dnci oi the lUucau, and Dr. Woods, in charge
of invcstii;ations in phmt physiology and pathology, consulted
Smith, Webber, and other ollicials when choosing new scientific
talent. In 1901 George Thomas Moore, a graduate in science
from Wabash College^^ possessor of three degrees from Harvard
University, for a while assistant in cryptogamic botany at Harvard,
who had taught botany both at Radcliffe College and Dartmouth
College, accepted a position as physiologist and algologist of the
Bureau and in 1903 was to be placed in charge of the Department's
Laboratory of Plant Physiology.

Karl Frederic Kellerman was a son of Dr. W. A. Kellerman.
He was a former student of the Ohio State University, a graduate
in science at Cornell, and during 1900-1901 an assistant in botany
there. In 1901 he was appointed an assistant physiologist in the
Bureau. During 1905-1906 he was to have charge of the labora-
tory of plant physiology and then be physiologist in charge of
investigations in soil bacteriology and water purification. In 1902
W. T. Swingle took charge of investigations in crop physiology
and breeding. With such leaders in American botanical research,
the Department's working force in plant physiology was composed
of able men.

Smith interested himself in building up the research personnel
in plant patholog)^ On March 19, 1901, he had addressed a letter
to Dr. Thaxter of Harvard in w^hich he asked the learned associate
of Dr. Farlow to suggest students suitable for scientific aides who
would accept positions with the Department " in the nature of
fellowships." Thaxter replied that he could think of no one at
that time who was "" in a position to take such a place," but he
promised to advise Smith should he learn of any. The new chief
of the laboratory of plant pathology may have sent similar letters
to other American botanists, and he corresponded with some
botanists with a view to employing them for general or special
reasons.

In 1898 he had helped Charles Orrin Townsend secure his posi-
tion as professor of botany at Maryland Agricultural College and
as state plant pathologist there. In 1884 Townsend had graduated
from Michigan State Normal School and obtained in 1888 and
1891 his bachelor and master of science degrees from the Uni-
versity of Michigan. After periods of teaching at St. John's

378 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

College, Annapolis, and at Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia,
he had specialized in botany and plant physiology, studying in
1897 at the University of Leipzig. In April, 1898, while filling
a temporary position as instructor of botany at Barnard College,
Columbia University, he inquired of Smith whether he knew of
a vacancy " in teaching, experiment station, or U. S. Dep't of
Agriculture."

Townsend accepted the offer from Maryland Agricultural
College. But he left there a few years later to take a position
with the Department of Agriculture to investigate sugar beet dis-
eases. J. B. S. Norton became professor of botany and vegetable
pathology at College Park, and state pathologist of Maryland.
" If I take up the study of sugar beet diseases," wrote Townsend
to Smith on March 9, 1901, " it will probably be necessary to do
considerable in the way of planning experiments before July 1st.
My year here closes June 30th." That summer he began work in
Smith's laboratory of plant pathology and studied, among other
things, a blight in cherry, a disease of seed onions from Bermuda,
and beet diseases. He canvassed beet sugar factories for informa-
tion regarding beet diseases he was to study: damping off, curly
top or blight, leaf spot, leaf scorch, beet scab, rhizoctonia rot,
root gall, etc." Soon he was to begin a journey to the west to
investigate diseases in the field. The beet sugar industry had
expanded more rapidly than perhaps any other in the United
States, and was exacting much attention from agriculturists.'*^

The demand for American cotton had been increasing of recent
years, and the cotton-growing industries more and more were
being extended to Texas and other southwestern states.'^ On
April 24, 1901, Benjamin Minge Duggar announced that he had
accepted a position with the Department, his work to be in part
to investigate cotton diseases in Texas and the southwest, and by
August he was planning a reconnaissance to his investigation-field.
He had studied under Atkinson and Farlow, and at one time
worked with Forbes's Illinois natural history survey. Before and
after taking advanced work at the University of Leipzig, he had
been a graduate instructor and assistant professor of plant physi-

'^ See, C. O. Townsend, Some diseases of the sugar beet, U. S. Dep't of Agric.
Report 72: 90-101, Aug. 30, 1902.

"•^ Yearbook U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1901: 487.
""Idem, 196, 203, 205.

RlCOGNITlON OF PlANT lUCTI-RlOLOCiY IN EUROPl- 379

ology in the College of Arts and Sciences of Cornell University.
"As you know," he wrote Smith, " 1 have always devoted a con-
siderable part of inv time to pathology; but during the past two
years, particularly, 1 have given much attention to physiological
matters, and certain problems are now under investigation which
have a distinct pathological bearing."' He believed that the cotton
disease research would "' undoubtedly well repay study," and on
August 9 wrote Smith of his preparations: " 1 have been looking
up the soils of Texas and the distribution of cotton areas with
reference to the probability of disease." He promised to send any
specimens of Rhizoctonial disease he might find in the southwest.

On July 8, 1901, Dr. R. A. Harper, Professor of Botany at the
University of Wisconsin, expressed satisfaction that one of his
students, Deane B. Swingle, had been appointed to a position.
" He is a good worker," '' wrote Harper, " and will push things,
I think." By August he was at work in the laboratory, and during
the middle of the month Randolph E. B. McKenney arrived as
another assistant. He was a former student of W. P. Wilson,
had been an assistant in botany under Macfarlane at the University
of Pennsylvania, and came from a position as a teacher of biology
at the Santa Ana, California, high school.

Smith was alw^ays proud that he had been first to recommend a
woman for scientific work in the Department. " The first research
woman in the Department of Agriculture," he later said,'^ " was
Effie A. Southworth [later Mrs. V. M. Spalding], appointed in
1887 and I am proud to say at my suggestion. Since then there
have been many, especially in the Bureau of Plant Industry." They
had " demonstrated marked ability in pathological research, not
only in [his] laboratory and other laboratories in the Department
of Agriculture, but elsewhere." In July 1901 Dr. Galloway em-
ployed Miss Agnes J. Quirk and she became an assistant in Smith's
laboratory. In school she had not been specially prepared for the
work, but he recognized her ability as a student, prescribed a

"Swingle by 1903 had prepared B. P. I. bulletin 37, Formation of the spores in
the sporangia of Rhizopus nigricans and of Phycomyces nitens ; by 1904, with Smith,
bulletin 55 on Dry rot of potatoes due to Fusarium oxysporum; and in 1904 they
made '" more than 100 freezings of various bacteria in liquid air, and in salt and
crushed ice, showing that the critical temperature is around zero Centigrade and
that repeated short freezings and thawings are much more destructive than a single
longer freezing." See, Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 21.

'" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 45.

380 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

course of reading and study, found her proficient, and we shall
see that eventually she capably assisted him in some of his most
valuable work. Until her retirement recently, she has been in the
employ of the Bureau, and for years was herself in charge of
one of its main laboratories.

Dr. Smith had several women scientific assistants. On September
24, 1901, Dr. Spalding asked how he should " advise a graduate
student who thinks of preparing for work in your department:
Miss Florence Hedges, from Lansing, Mich[igan], graduated last
June from the U[niversity} of M[ichigan}." He recommended
her as " a really bright, strong woman " whose " work in botany,
plant physiology, and ecology was a good deal above the average."
If she were to teach he planned for her " certain research work in
ecology." But if she were to prepare for work in the agricultural
department, which she rather preferred, he thought it " best for her
to study fungi with [him], bacteriology with Novy, enzymes etc.
with Newcombe," and whatever other subjects Smith suggested.

In 1902 Miss Lilian Wheeler resigned from her position to
marry. Spalding again recommended Miss Hedges and she was
employed that year for work in the laboratory of plant pathology.

Smith also employed Lloyd Stanley Tenny, a University of
Rochester graduate where C. W. Dodge was a member of the
faculty. Tenny had been prepared in botany and biology, and
was to achieve in several capacities an illustrious career in
American agriculture.

Two other men of future prominence in agriculture of the
Americas who soon became assistants in the laboratory were James
Birch Rorer, a graduate at Harvard in 1899 and for two years
while earning an advanced degree an assistant in botany there,
and John R. Johnston, also from Harvard, who later did important
work as pathologist for the United Fruit Company and in charge
of their investigations of economic plant diseases.

Still another botanist of the laboratory who was employed
during this period was Miss Alice Haskins.

The work of the three main laboratories — physiology, path-
ology, and breeding — was supplemented by nation-wide field
research. In many states where the Department did not have
branch facilities, cooperative investigations with local agricultviral
experiment stations were in effect. Recently, in 1901, under P. H.

Ri ( ocMTiON OF Plant Bacti-riology in Europf 381

Rolfs's direction, the new Sub-tropical Laboratory at Miami,
Florida, had been established. True, in 1902, for drug and
medicinal plant investigations, had located in Vermont and else-
where experimental plantations which included the growing of
plants in alpine regions. Fungicides and insecticides were still
being discovered. During the decade the self-boiled, so-called,
lime sulfur mixture came into usage as a fungicide to control
without injuring foliage a number of diseases, and later, replacing
the liquid, the use of dry sulphur in restricted application.

At this time, in^the central west, the disease known as bitter
rot of apples, occasioning enormous losses, was being investigated
at the iVIississippi Valley laboratory and several state experiment
stations. Smith later said of this: '"

In 1905 Scott, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, had remarkable success
in preventing bitter-rot of the apple by use of the Bordeaux mixture. This
disease which caused losses estimated at $10,000,000 in 1900, and very
great losses in the years immediately following, was controlled in his
experiments to the extent of 93 to 98 per cent. Expressed in bushels, the
sprayed trees (those that received 5 or more treatments at the proper time)
yielded 50 to 60 bushels of sound apples, while all the apples rotted on
the control trees, that is, A bore 1 sound apple, B, 6 sound apples, and
D, 2 sound apples. Tlie fungus Glowerella, cause of this rot, was exten-
sively studied by Hermann von Schrenk, later by many others.

Among others, Cornelius Lott Shear, a plant pathologist of the
Department, contributed very valuable studies on Glomerella.
L. L. Harter, another Department plant pathologist, also was to
contribute very valuable work on sweet potato diseases.^' Smith
continued to hold in high esteem the work done in breeding dis-
ease-resistant plants. Full discussion of this subject belongs to a
later period. Yet, to illustrate, it may be pointed out that in 1896
asparagus rust swept over and alarmed large sections of the
nation, and by 1913 and before then J. B. Norton of the Bureau
of Plant Industry had bred plants ^^ resistant to the destructive
fungus. Smith's work mainly was now in indoor laboratory

*" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 29. Concerning lime-sulfur and self-boiled
hme-sulfur as a.remedy against apple scab, peach leaf curl , brown rot of peach, etc.,
see H. H. Whetzel, Outl. Hist, of Phytop., op. cit., 112-113.

" Idem, 33. Smith said of this: " In 1913 Leonard Lee Harter described foot-rot,
a new disease of the sweet potato, and in 1913, 1914, and 1915, he published ori
stem rot of the sweet potato." See, T. S. Harding, op. cit., 81 for an account

^^Idem, 33.

382 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

research. He seldom did field research at a distance, although he
continued to direct field investigations the nation over. His real
speciality now was, as it had been for several years, plant
bacteriology.

Perhaps this was the real reason why in 1904 he found it im-
possible to give the address on plant pathology before the Congress
of Arts and Science held at St. Louis as a part of the Universal
Exposition. ^^ When Dr. Simon Newcomb, president of the Con-
gress, received his refusal, he asked Smith to suggest " three or
four men eminent in this line who might be asked to deliver the
address in question." Waite presented an address on " Vegetable
Pathology, an Economic Science," and Arthur gave an address on
" The History and Scope of Plant Pathology." Several American
scientists discoursed before this conference. Duggar, now Pro-
fessor of Botany at the University of Missouri, spoke on " Plant
Physiology — Present Problems"; Theobald Smith, on "Some
Problems in the Life-History of Pathogenic Microorganisms";
and in E. O. Jordan's address on " Relations of Bacteriology to
Other Sciences," special attention was drawn to the " new division
of technologic science," including now bacteriology of the soil,
dairy, barn-yard, tan-pit and canning factory. Jordan did not fail
to mention other advances made possible by bacteriology including
new knowledge of diseases of domestic plants and animals, and
advances in public hygiene. Similar to the past warfare of man
against malaria and typhoid fever, the recent movement to study
and suppress tuberculosis had become " one of the first attempts
to apply bacteriologic knowledge in a determined and radical
way to a problem of public hygiene." Furthermore, and some-
what indicative of future research in animal and plant bacteriology,
the " study of the ultramicroscopic, or perhaps more correctly, the
filterable viruses, [was] being prosecuted with great energy and
in a sanguine spirit. The extension of bacteriologic method into
the field of protozoon pathology," constituted, Jordan said, " one
of the latest and most helpful developments in the study of infec-
tious diseases." Included in this last was " renewed study of the
remarkable protozoa called trypanosomes." Indeed, so great had

®^ Volume 5, edited by Dr. Howard J. Rogers, op. cit., in which each and all of
the following referred to addresses and quotations may be found. The quotations
from Dr. Jordan's address may be found pp. 208-214.

Recognition oi Plant Bacteriology in Europe 383

the achaiKcs in bacteriology been that the comparatively new
science had Mitually appropriated the field of microbiology.

A second reason wliv Smith may not have found it possible to
deliver the address on plant pathology at the International Con-
gress of Arts and Science was that he was completing the first
volume of his treatise. Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases.
January 2^, 1904, Secretary Charles D. Walcott of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington had informed that the executive com-
mittee had agreed to publish the monograph and requested " a
statement of the ejctent of text and illustrations." June 6, the day
Smith sent to Newcomb his refusal of the honor of the address,
Galloway recommended to Secretary Wilson that Smith's pub-
lishing arrangement with the Carnegie Institution be approved
since the work would " be a valuable addition to our knowledge
of bacteriology, and [would] place before the world very fully
the advances that have been made, especially by this Department,
in the last fifteen years."

Dr. Ira Remsen "" grilled " Smith on the subject matter and
Smith believed that the outcome of this conference secured the
executive committee's approval. His friend, Dr. Robert Simpson
Woodward, was not yet president of the Institution. Before the
interview with Dr. Remsen, the author had conferred with Dr.
Osier, Dr. Welch, and others of the Johns Hopkins Medical
Faculty, and, perhaps, with Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Billings, and
others influential in medical bacteriology. November 6, 1903,
when Smith had appealed to Farlow to help him find a publisher,
he had examined experimentally and photographed forty-eight of
the one hundred and twenty-five bacterial diseases of plants to
be dealt with in the work. Part of the material had then been in
manuscript for four years. His desire then was to publish all in
one, or several, volumes; at least, to publish parts and at regular
intervals. For some years he had planned to include an outline
of laboratory methods, and upon the history and growth of plant
bacteriology he had written and spoken. By 1904 he possessed
about five hundred illustrations, most of these original and unpub-
lished, and an uncompleted text of some two thousand typewritten
pages. So pleased had Dr. Welch been with his work he at first
suggested that Johns Hopkins University might publish it. " I am
contemplating a trip to Europe next year," Smith told Farlow in

384 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

1903, " in the hope by personal observation of clearing up much
that the literature of particular diseases has left in doubt."
Farlow answered promptly:

I am very glad to hear that the work on bacterial diseases of plants on
which you have been engaged so long has now reached the stage of pub-
lication. Such a work is very much needed and I am sure that there is no
one so competent as yourself to treat the subject. . . . [T]he work is sure
to be of such a character as to be not only a credit to the [Carnegie]
Institution . . . but also a boon to those numerous botanists, vegetable
pathologists and scientific agriculturists who, without such a compendium
of the results of modern investigation, have at present to derive their
information from an endless number of scattered papers in different
journals and publications of different societies.

Farlow characterized the prepared material as a " very valuable
work." During these years plant pathologists were adding several
systematic productions to the accumulated literature of the science.
Such a volume as H. W. Conn's Agricultural bacteriology, pub-
lished in 1901 and reviewed in the Experiment Station Record ^^
as " one of the first books in the English language that covers the
whole range of the relation of bacteria to agriculture in its broadest
sense," was a " good general treatise on the subject." Later, Smith,
in his second volume (p. 18) of Bacteria in Relation to Plant
Diseases, would notice that but " 5 pages out of 419 " in this
work were devoted to the bacterial plant diseases. More technical
and restricted in purpose were several other important literary
works. In 1904 Klebahn published Die Wirtswechselden Rostpilze
which Smith regarded as an " important book on the rusts that
have more than one host." ^^ That year, also, appeared Clinton's ^'^
" North American Ustilagineae." Furthermore, several important
papers on the parasitic Gloeosporiums were coming out of Europe
from various authors. From the standpoint of North American
mycological science, however, the most important literary appear-
ance of these years was in 1905 when the first and only installment
of Farlow's Bibliographical Index of North American Fungi was
published. By 1919, the year of Dr. Farlow's death, approximately
300,000 references were indexed and available.

Not until 1909 would a comprehensive American textbook on

^' 13(7): 623, 1902.

•^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 29.

^* Charles Thorn and E. M. East, George Perkins Clinton, Nat'l Acad, of Set. Biog.
Mem. 20: 183-196, 1939.

RcccxiNiTiON OF Plant BactiiRiologv in Europi- 385

plant diseases be published — Vn>ii^()us Diseases of PLmts, by B.
M. Dui^Ljar. This hook would appear almost two years after the
first departments of plant pathology in American universities had
been created — at Cornell University under H. 11. W'hctzcl, author
in 1918 of An Outline of the History of Phytopathology, and at
the University of Minnesota under E. M. Freeman, author in 190*^
of the pioneering work, Minnesota Plant Diseases. On February
1^ 1910, L. R. Jones would establish at the University of Wisconsin
one of the leading and, in instruction and research, most influential
departments of plant pathology in any American university. The
creation of this department would be practically contemporaneous
with the founding of the American Phytopathological Society and
precede -by less than a year issuance of the first number of the
Society's journal, Phytopathology. Smith would find ^^' Duggar's
book compared " very well indeed " with the standard European
literature and manuals of plant pathology by Tubeuf, Sorauer,
Kirchner, and Frank in Germany; Prillieux and Delacroix in
France; Comes in Italy; and Ward of England, whose new trea-
tise, Disease in Plants, was published in 1901. Whetzel began
his instruction in diseases of plants, both in the college of arts
and sciences of Cornell and in the department of the New York
State College of Agriculture, with the use of mimeographed sheets
prepared by himself from Kiister's Pathologische Pfianzenanatomie
w^hich in first edition was published in 1903. Sydow began this
year his Annales Mycologici, and about this time Willam H. Park's
Bacteriology in Medicine and Surgery and the great four-volume
work on infectious diseases of man and animals by W. KoUe and
A. Wassermann, unter Miticirkung von 34 Fachmcinner. Hand-
buch der pathogenen Mikroorganismen (1902-1904), were making
their appearances.*^

At the Washington meeting in 1902 of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, the mycologists present
gathered and discussed forming a permanent organization. The
response being favorable, an arranged meeting to organize was
held the following year on December 29 at St. Louis. Dr. Arthur
was temporary chairman and Dr. F. E. Clements secretary. Arthur

87

Science n. s. 32(810): 56-58, July 8, 1910.
** Fifty years of pathology, op. c'tt., 30-31. See also Bacteria in relation to plant
diseases 1: 206, bibliography.

386 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

recently had been president of the Botanical Society of America
and the subject of his address as retiring president was on " Prob-
lems in the Study of Plant Rusts." Farlow, at the St. Louis
meeting, was elected president of the American Association. He,
therefore, could not accept the presidency of the newly organized
American Mycological Society. Dr. Thaxter became president.
Dr. Earle vice-president, and Dr. Clements secretary-treasurer.^^
This year Dr. Thaxter had resigned as president of the Society
for Plant Morphology and Physiology, and his " presidential
mantle," so he wrote Smith on July 22, 1903, had fallen to Conway
MacMillan. Mycologists and plant pathologists were now to have
separate organizations, although many were to be members of
both the mycological society and the American Phytopathological
Society when at the Baltimore meeting of the American Associa-
tion (Dec, 1908-Jan., 1909) the Phytopathological Society was
organized on a preliminary basis and held its first annual meeting
at Boston the following December.^"

Until 1904 not many papers concerned with study of bacterial
diseases of plants had been presented before the American Society
of Bacteriologists. At its third annual meeting, held at the Uni-
versity of Chicago in 1901,^^ and over which Dr. Welch presided,
every paper had either a medical or milk or water bacteriological
significance, or some other special phase of research in bacteria
other than plant diseases.

Before the sixth annual meeting of the Society of American
Bacteriologists, held at Philadelphia December 27-28, 1904, Smith
presented papers: one, "The Effect of Freezing on Bacteria,"®"
the results of more than one hundred experiments using about a
dozen different bacteria — saprophytes and plant and animal patho-
genic forms. These experiments tended to confirm and extend the
researches of Prudden, Park, Sedgwick, and Winslow, and were
performed with Deane B. Swingle. Six conclusions were set forth
with the added deduction that " Probably an enormous number of

*"• The American Mycological Society, Jour. Mycology 10(69): 46-47, Jan. 1904.

"" C. L. Shear, First decade of the American Phytopathological Society, Phyto-
pathology 9(4): 165 ff., Apr. 1919- See, also, H. H. Whetzel, Outl. Hist, of
Phytop., op. at., 110-111.

^^ H. W. Conn, American Society of Bacteriologists, abstracts of papers presented,
Science n. s. 15(375): 361-379, March 7, 1902.

""■Science, n. s., 21(535) : 481-483, March 31, 1905.

Ri-ccxiNiTioN OF Plant Bacthriology in Europi- 387

bacteria arc destroyed by every winter, and those wliich survive
come throu^li in the form of endospores or some other resistant
shape." Smith also submitted before the meetin^^ an " Exhibition
of Cultures on Starch Jelly and on Silicate Jelly." "'' Nutrient
starch jelly had been described in 1898 at the Boston meetint;
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
and the second, to appear more fully in the first volume of
Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases,^* represented an exten-
sion of his earlier paper, " Some little-used culture media which
have proved valuable for differentiation of species." More than
once he combined the subject matter of his papers with materials
for the text of his monograph. His paper, " Growth of Bacteria
in the presence of Chloroform and Thymol," ^^ first given at Balti-
more before the Society of American Bacteriologists in 1900, was
elaborated more fully several years later in the first volume of his
text.

In 1904, at Philadelphia, Smith presented before the eighth
meeting of the Society for Plant Alorphology and Physiology
three papers: one, results from experiments continued in 1904 on
stomatal infections of black spot of plum; another, on " Burrill's
Disease of Broom Corn," ^^ results of continued study that summer
with Miss Florence Hedges on one of the Department's farms at
Washington; and, third, the results of his studies at Baracoa,
Mata, and Yumuri in eastern Cuba of "" The Bud Rot of the
Coconut Palm in the West Indies." ®' In the spring of that year
he and Rorer had journeyed via Miami to the Bahamas and Cuba,
and studied the disease in April.

April 26, 1902, W. A. Kellerman, announcing to Smith that he
was '" arranging to take up again the Journal of Mycology, and
make it a Quarterly to represent all phases of the subject, except
the purely economic side," asked Smith for a list of his recently
published writings. This scholar was preparing " a Bibliography
and Index (author and subject — also host index of new species)

•» Idem, 482.

•*0p. cit. (starch jelly), 50, 196; (silicate jelly) 36, 198. See also, Proc. Amer.
Assoc. Adv. Sci. 47: 411-412, 412-413, 1898.

^^ Science, n. s., 13(322): 327, 1901; Bacteria in Relation to Plant Disease, op.
cit., 1: 74.

"^Science, n. s., 21(535): 502-503, March 31, 1905.

*'' Idem, 501-502.

388 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

of North American Mycology for the year 1901." He asked Smith
not only for the list but also for something written to be published
in the second number of the Journal. " I wish to include the
botanical side of Bacteriology," said Dr. Kellerman, " and will
be pleased to have your assistance along this line from time to
time." In January of the previous year, James McKeen Cattell of
the editorial department of The Popular Science Monthly had
asked Smith to supply " some notes on botany and especially on
physiological botany." Smith already had more work than he
could do with the thoroughness and exactitude which characterized
his every effort. Each year his work had increased, not lessened.
Because of many things to do in his laboratory, aside from com-
pleting the manuscript material for the first volume of Bacteria
in Relation to Plant Diseases, he had to refuse some offers which
a few years before might have been esteemed as opportunities.
Bacteriologists encouraged Smith to complete his " very valuable
work."

June 28, 1905, Smith's salary was increased to $2,750 per
annum. September 22, he addressed a letter to Farlow:

It is with mingled feelings that I am sending you the first volume of
my new book. I hope that at least some things in it will meet your approval
and seem to you to have been worth the doing. I have made quite a
number of changes in generic nomenclature, but have at the same time
tried to be conservative. If I were to do the book over again I think
I should enlarge some portions and restrict others, but good or bad, it is
too late for any regrets of that sort. The printers were unconscionably slow
and the thing has been running through the press for 15 months, but I am
in hopes we can make shorter work of the remaining volumes.

I did hope to get up into New England this summer, but the time
has passed, and every minute of it was very fully occupied here in
Washington. . . .

Dr. Farlow was pleased with the volume. Dr. Kellerman wrote
that

It is a splendid work, gotten up in nice shape, and as useful as attractive.
Such work as this is certainly most creditable to American mycology — I will
not say bacteriology, because the botanists who work in that field will not
object to being called mycologists. Your illustrations are as good as illus-
trations can be made to-day. I wonder if the next generation can possibly
laugh at the work we are issuing to-day, that is to say, particularly the
illustrations that we regard as almost perfect !

Rl^COGNlTION OF PlANT BaCTI-RIOLOGY IN EUROPH 389

\'our bibliourajihy will be most useful to everyone — as I know the
remainder will be to those who work with bacteria.

I have in mind to issue a number of the Mycoloi^ical Bulletin devoting
the entire space to bacteria. ... I would like to have this number refer
mainly to your splendid volume.

C. E. Bessey, " very much pleased with the new book," announced
that he would have it reviewed in Science by himself or a friend
in bacteriology. P. H. Rolfs, pathologist in charge of the Sub-
tropical Laboratory at Miami, called the book " an epoch making
one in plant bacteriology." He was sure " that the vegetable
pathologists [would] feel very grateful to [Smith] for bringing
together this immense amount of material." L. H. Pammel offered
to review it in the American Naturalist or the Centralblatt. He
congratulated the author "on this important monograph, certainly
the most complete monograph on bacterial diseases of plants
published anywhere and a work which will rank foremost in
bacteriological lines of investigations. You have, indeed, pre-
pared," he wrote, " an excellent manual." L. H. Bailey believed
that the work would " place the subject of the bacterial diseases
of plants on a safe and rational foundation " and showed good
judgment in its presentation.

L. R. Jones described the volume as a " magnificent work."
Recently he had published in the Centralblatt ^^ his " Studien liber
die cytohydrolytischen Enzyme, die durch die Bakterien, welche
weiche Faulnis bewirken, erzeugt werdcn." At the University of
Vermont, Warner Jackson Morse, assistant botanist of the experi-
ment station and assistant professor of bacteriology, was " just
starting a dozen enthusiastic bacteriologists off in lab[oratory]
work," and they were monopolizing the laboratory equipped for
the study of plant bacterial diseases.

In the first years of the twentieth century had appeared two
epoch-making discoveries in science, both great biological classics
of all time. Hugo de Vries, scientific genius of the botanic garden
of the University of Amsterdam, Holland, led by a bibliographical
reference appended to L. H. Bailey's published lecture, " Cross
Breeding and Hybridizing" (1891-1892), had discovered a paper
of tremendous potential value to evolutionary understanding. This

'"Centralb. f. Bakl. II, 10: 746-747, 1903, Abstract, Proc. Soc. Plant Morphology
and Physiology.

390 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

was the monk Gregor Mendel's celebrated study of " Plant hy-
brids," a paper submitted without ostentation and printed in
1865, without any recognition of its substantive worth, in the
proceedings of the Society of Natural History of Briinn (Brno) ,
Austria (now of Moravia,, Czechoslovakia) .

De Vries, himself at the time perfecting his celebrated mutation
theory based on years of experimental study of Oenothera la-
mar ckiana, the evening primrose, was enabled thus in 1900 to bring
Mendel's famous paper into widespread scientific notice by announ-
cing its discovery together with his first elaboration of his own
similarly famous hypothesis. His mutation theory and the theory
of genetic inheritance implicit in Mendel's hybridization results
provided science with not merely an extension of Charles Darwin's
theory of natural selection but really a new theory as to the origin of
some species. Experimental research workers were, therefore, soon
at work investigating the genetic truth of each theory. At about
the same time that De Vries became aware of the extraordinary
value of Mendel's paper, two other European botanists of world
renown, C. Correns and E. von Tschermak, properly evaluated its
significance. De Vries because of his mutation theory, however,
became the dominant figure of the scientific world. His work had
strengthened the Darwinian theory of evolution by adding a pro-
found, new, and fundamental truth: at least, an hypothesis to be
investigated by scientists for many years to come. In 1904, invited
by the Carnegie Institution of Washington to give the dedicatory
address of the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring
Harbor, Long Island, he visited America, lectured at several uni-
versities and institutions of science, and was a principal speaker
and attraction at the Congress of Arts and Science of the Universal
Exposition held at St. Louis.

At the Missouri Botanical Garden then, Frank N. Meyer, once
a gardener at the botanic garden of Amsterdam and a plant
explorer for the Department of Agriculture, was working under a
part-time employment secured perhaps through a recommendation
from Smith to Trelease. He kept Smith advised as to De Vries's
movements in this country, and it is probable that at St. Louis,
Washington, or some other point, De Vries and Smith became
acquainted. On November 20, 1905, De Vries sent " a photograph
of Wakker in his earlier days " and added:

RECOGNITION OF PlANT BACTERIOLOGY IN TUROPl- 391

Some days ai^o I received your m.iunilKent volume on the IJaeteria in
relation to Plant Diseases. I iiavc- studied it in a preliminary way and with
much interest, and find that it contains many points which will be useful
even to those who sutler from plant diseases, although they are no[t]
bacteriolos;ists as is my case. I intend to give it to one of my students
[ ] to thoroughly study it with him ami have him work on some bacterial
disease of our garden according to your methods. I think that by this
means he will be able to bring quite a useful contribution to your Science.
Kindly recommending myself for the second volume and wishing you all
the success you so well deserve, Yours truly Hugo de Vries.

Savastano, Pcglion, and other important European students of
bacterial diseases of plants reviewed Smith's volume in scientific
journals which accorded the work the highest recognition.

Henry Kraemer, editor of the American Journal of Pharmacy,^^
wrote: " I have not seen a book in some time that pleases me
like your book. It is in my judgment a most needed work and
if the other volumes are like this it will be the most important
contribution yet made to the study of bacteriology."

A reviewer in the Plant World '°*' spoke of Smith as " the
foremost American student of phytopathological bacteriology',"
and in The Nation '"' plant physiologist G. L. Goodale welcomed
his volume as " a treatise on the right use of the necessary appli-
ances " and methods of investigation for " professional workers "
in the " comparatively new field " of " plant pathology and thera-
peutics." N. A. Cobb, director of the division of pathology and
physiology of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association's experi-
ment station at Honolulu, wrote that he had grown mentally
since perusing Smith's " beautiful w^ork on Plant Bacteriology."
Oscar Loew of the Imperial University of Japan thanked Smith
for his " splendid and comprehensive w^ork." They had been
correspondents for many years, both before and after Loew had
participated in this country in a tobacco improvement program
sponsored by the Department of Agriculture. While his work
had been some highly specialized investigations in plant physi-
ology, his results had had important bearings on morphology and

" Published by authority of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. 78(2) : 96-98,
Feb. 1906, contained a review of Smith's volume.

^°°8(12): 307, Dec. 1905. Francis E. Lloyd, editor, publisher, and presumably
the reviewer.

^°^ 83(2162) : 493, Dec. 6, 1906. Review was not signed by Dr. Goodale but
Smith knew that he had prepared the review.

392 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

pathology. He wrote of the book: " It is a capital standard work,
for which please accept my heartiest thanks! " Many letters of
appreciation from American and European botanists attested their
high estimate of the volume's value.

Since 1899 Dr. James Ewing had been professor of pathology
at the Cornell University Medical College in New York City. His
degree as a doctor of medicine had been obtained at the College
of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and at that
institution he had been a tutor in histology and an instructor in
clinical pathology. He was a holder of a bachelor and a master
of arts degrees from Amherst College. Throughout his entire
career he was one of America's leading medical pathologists and
bacteriologists. He wrote Smith on September 26, 1905: " I am
delighted to see your magnificent volume on the Relation of Bac-
teria to Plant Diseases. I have often wanted to know something
about plant pathology and the chances of learning now seem much
brighter." He and Smith had had at least one consultation, and
Dr. Ewing promised that all of the publications of the medical
college would be sent him.

Dr. Simon Flexner of the newly established Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research, located at 50th Street and Lexington Avenue,
placed a copy of the volume in the Institute's library and wrote
that he was "confident that it will be of great value to workers
in bacteriology." He asked for a copy of the second volume when
published and invited Smith to visit the Institute.

From Harvard Medical School, Dr. W. T. Councilman of the
department of pathology thanked and congratulated Smith on his
" admirable work " which, he believed, " will form one of the
most useful books in our laboratory." To Dr. Theobald Smith
the volume invited " thorough study and the illustrations pro-
mise[d} to be very helpful." He hoped to read it carefully since,
he said, " I am very much interested in the phenomena of para-
sitism and intend to learn something of the work among plant
parasites. It is a monumental piece of work. Your kind reference
in the preface is scarcely deserved, but it is accepted with due
appreciation of the good will which prompted it."

Dr. Sternberg found it a " valuable work . . . evidently very
complete."

Dr. V. A. Moore wrote: " I am satisfied that you have done an

Recognition of Pi.ani IUcteriology in Europe 393

excellent piece of work and that it will result in much credit to
you and the qooel of the cause."

Since 190-1 Dr. William Osier had hccu Regius Professor of
Medicine at Oxford Unversity, Tngland. He, who with Welch,
Halsted, and Kelly had formed the great four of Johns Hopkins
Medical School, sent a letter on November 21, 1905: "Dear
Smith: — Congratulations on your superb volume which arrived
last week. It will be an enduring monument to your fame. How
splendidly, too, the Carnegie Trust has published it. I hope you
are not workinsz too hard."

That year on December 28 Dr. Smith presented before the
ninth meeting of the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology
a paper on " Channels of entrance and Types of movement in
Bacterial Diseases of Plants." ^"- Most of his papers on plant
bacteriology before this society had dealt with specific diseases as,
for example, his papers at the sixth meeting on Bacterium pruni
and on Ps. Stewarti, at the seventh meeting on the olive tubercle
and on bacterial leaf spots, and at the eighth meeting on Burrill's
bacterial disease of broom corn. At the fifth meeting he was
scheduled for a twenty-five minute paper on "' The Destruction of
Cell walls by Bacteria." '""

His paper, " Effect of Freezing on Bacteria," before the sixth
annual meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists, had
considered a general subject, and before the seventh meeting of
this societ}' he offered no paper at all. This meeting took place
at Ann Arbor on December 28 and 29, 1905, and coincided with
the ninth meeeting of the Society for Plant Morphology and Phy-
siolog)\ At this time these organizations were still affiliated with
the American Society of Naturalists, and Smith, evidently because
of his paper on " Channels of entrance and Types of movement
in Bacterial Diseases of Plants," had to attend the meetings at
the University of Michigan rather than go to New Orleans during
convocation week to preside as chairman over Section G of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. In his
stead, S. M. Tracy and B. L. Robinson served as chairmen of the
meeting of the botanical section at New Orleans. Smith attended
the meeting at Ann Arbor of the Society of American Bacteri-

^"^ Science, n. s., 23(585) : 424-425, March 16, 1906.
^"''Science, n. s., 15: 405, 1902.

394 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology

ologists and in the new university medical building was elected
president of this society for the year 1906. He followed in that
office Edwin O. Jordan who on October 4, as an editor of the
Journal of Infectious Diseases, had thanked him for his " fine
monograph on the Bacterial Diseases of Plants " and said: "It is
this sort of work that gives dignity and standing to American
scholarship." Other officers elected were: F. P. Gorham, vice
president; S. C. Prescott, secretary-treasurer; W. T. Sedgwick, P

delegate to the American Association for the Advancement of
Science; and members of the council, Jordan, Vaughan, Flexner,
and Joseph McFarland.

CHAPTIiR IX

FIRST UUROPHAN JOURNCV. PLANT BRHIIDING AND TUll THIRD
INTERNATIONAL CONFURENCI- ON GENETICS. STUDIES ON CROWN
GALL OF PLANTS AND THE ETIOLOGY OF PLANT TUMORS. RECOG-
NITION OF ITS IMPORTANCE AS AN AID TO MEDICAL RESEARCH ON

ANIMAL CANCER

ON MARCH 1,-1906, Smith closed up his laboratory work,
bade farewell to his co-workers, and the next morning he
and Mrs. Smith sailed from New York for Naples on the North
German Lloyd steamship. Princess Irene. He took with them his
manuscripts, photographs, and drawings for the unpublished
volumes of Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases, his camera
and microscope, many small sterile Petri-dishes, and a large sack
of culture media — nutrient agar in small 6 c.c. thick test tubes.

On the journey across, he enjoyed discussions on questions of
patholog)' with Dr. David I. Wolf stein of Cincinnati and Dr.
Albert Vander Veer of Albany who was on his way to attend the
International Medical Congress at Madrid. They landed at Naples
and t\vo days later Smith went to the University and spent an
afternoon with Professor Fortunato Pasquale who immediately
began to acquaint him with facts of Neapolitan agriculture.

He visited the Zoological Station in the morning of March 19,
and that afternoon, invited by Pasquale, visited Portici. Pasquale
taught systematic and pharmaceutical botany, however, and it was
not until the next day that he began to become acquainted with
European plant bacteriologists and study their work.

He visited the more than a century old Botanic Garden where
he met Dr. Fridiano Cavara who had just been appointed director
of the garden and professor of botany in the university. He
showed Smith through the buildings and grounds, and it was
arranged for him to return later.

The next day he again went to Portici and this time met Dr. O.
Comes, director of the R. Scuola Superiore d'Agricoltura. A
class of twenty-six students, introduced to Smith as a " very dis-
tinguished scientific man " from the United States, stood and

395

396 First European Journey

bowed. Comes showed him his botanical collections and presented
him with almost enough of his papers to make a full set of his
writings. He regarded himself as " the earliest man in the field "
of plant bacteriology, or at least " as early as any, the contem-
porary of Burrill." ' His assistant took Smith through their
chemical laboratories where he met Dr. Giacomo Rossi, a bac-
teriologist, and his assistant — " younger men," Smith commented,
" and better equipped intellectually than Dr. Comes for the solu-
tion of problems involving the culture of bacteria. They showed
[him] their Bacillus Comes'i which destroys the middle lamella
of various plants, leaving only the framework of leaves, etc. It
grows copiously on potato as a gray-white, pitted layer. The
organism produces spores and some gas. At the end of two years'
cultivation it loses its power to disintegrate parenchyma, or at
least," he added, " this is what I understood." He then sketched
the organism when stained gentian violet and as seen under an
oil immersion objective.

Smith had a slide of Bacterium pruni, a stained section of a
green plum. He regretted that he had not brought more slides.
But he conducted his conference as best he could, and Rossi gave
him reprints. His assistant told Smith that " much gummosis of
the vine " could be found on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. He
hoped to get specimens of this disease for " sections and cultures."

On March 22, at the agricultural school at Portici, he became
acquainted with Savastano who was preparing for the Milan
exposition an exhibit of photographs on Italian arboriculture.
He spent several days with this scientist who reminded him some-
what of Dr. G. M. Sternberg and became one of his most valued
correspondents. A son of the noted authority on olive tubercle
would study in Smith's laboratory at Washington before going
to one of the California experiment stations to complete his
research training in America.

At the Naples zoological station, Smith twice encountered some
American students, one or two of whom were from Johns Hopkins.
He enjoyed meeting members of the staff there, and might have
stayed longer at Naples had not Vesuvius erupted and compelled
them to move several miles distant to Sorrento.

^ Facts and quotations taken from Smith's unpublished journal of this trip.

Studii-s on Crown Gall of Plants 397

By imJ-April thcv were in Rome where lie spent some time
with Giuseppe (AiU)ni. director of the R. Stazione di Patologia
ve^i^ctalc. He found his aide, " Dr. Lioncllo Petri, at the Museo
Agrario was very agreeable." Peglion and Brizi were pupils of
Cuboni. Smith learned of " a new disease of oleander, supposed
by Peglion to be bacterial." He wrote,

He has published a short paper on it. Petri gave me cultures of it.
Cuboni showed me rogna of the vine, the tubercles of which he says con-
tain bacteria, although I could find none in the sections I cut and examined.
The vine stem was enlarged to two or three times its natural diameter over
a length of two feet and was very warty and much fissured. Cuboni is well
informed as to literature; has a good card catalogue, takes and reads foreign
publications and seems to be a very capable man. The laboratory is not
well equipped but has all the absolutely necessary apparatus for ordinary
pathological and bacteriological work. Petri showed me stained sections of
Dac//s oleae, a dipterous insect in which he has found enormous masses
of bacteria in the head, thorax and abdomen. He thinks it may be a case
of symbiosis as he says the flies are not injured. His sections were well
made and the bacteria well stained. Cultures of the organism on agar
looked liked a yellow Pseudomonas or Bacterium. He said, however, that
the organism was peritrichiate.

While in Rome, Smith met the distinguished English chemist,
Sir Henry E. Roscoe, " known the world over. He is a man ot
very simple ways and charming speech," he observed,

just as approachable as most truly great men are, and as all should be.
I was delighted to meet him. He is here to attend an international con-
ference of'chemists. People with them told me that Lady Roscoe is very
fond of flowers and is a diligent gardener. Sir Roscoe asked me to call
on him in England and promised introductions to various people. He is
much interested in the new Lister Institute of which he is one of the
trustees. He spoke of [John Bretland] Farmer's - studies of cell develop-
ment in Cancer, and of Dr. William Osier, whom they have recently put
on their advisory board.

Farmer's statements and similar statements made by English
students of malignant animal tumors later suggested to Smith
certain studies in peach, onion, and Paris daisy to determine
whether " chromosomes undergo any change in number or loca-
tion in the rapidly dividing cells of crown-galls and similar plant
tumors." ^

^ Professor of the Royal College of Science, London, an outstanding authority on
botany and q'toiogy.

'Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 2: 93, 1911.

398 First European Journey

From Rome Dr. and Mrs. Smith went to Florence, and there
he found in several centers " a good deal of scientific activity."
On April 26 he began several conferences with Dr. Pasquale
Baccarini at the R. Istituto di Studi Superiori, " the most suitable
place for research work [he had} seen," the building devoted to
botany being new and the equipment consisting of a very large
herbarium, suitable rooms and good apparatus for laboratory
work, extensive preserved materials and collections, and a botanic
garden and hothouses showing capable gardening care. The
director of botanical investigations and his assistants were always
" very courteous and friendly," as was also Stephen Sommier,
systematic botanist and author of many papers on the Italian flora.
Dr. Baccarini gave Smith reprints of his papers on mal nero and
other subjects, and offered his aid to secure material of "' a lemon
spot disease from Catania. This," Smith wrote, " he has described
as due to bacteria. His description suggests the lemon-spot disease
of California which has proved so serious in recent years and the
cause of which is still somewhat uncertain, but with the prepon-
derance of evidence at present in favor of a fungous origin.* In
California the lemons on the lower part of the tree are the ones
principally attacked." At the natural history museum Dr. Antonio
Berlese showed him " an elaborate work," being published in
parts, on anatomy of insects. Dr. Giacomo del Guercio, another
entomologist, showed him the museum's '" library, collections,
apparatus, etc and promised to send [him] material illustrating
certain bacterial diseases, one of grapes, and one of olives. He
desires," noted Smith, "Aphides, especially gall-forming species."
The medical school laboratories and clinics there were also visited,
and their treatments for lupus by Roentgen's rays and otherwise
v/ere among the many points of special interest to the American
scientist.

At Pisa Smith met Dr. Giovanni Arcangeli, another able sys-
tematic botanist, who showed him about their herbarium which
was " of considerable size and in good condition " and their botanic
garden which, while less attractive than the garden at Naples, had

^ In 1926, in his address, Fifty years of patiiology, op. cit., 29, Smith said: "In
1906 Ralph E. Smith, in California, described a brown rot of lemons due to a
peronosporaceous fungus, called by him Pythiacystis nov. gen. but said by Leonian
to be only another Phytophthora." In his journal, however, E. F. Smith did not
mention R. E. Smith's description of that year.

Studies on Crown Gam. oi Plants 399

" some extremely interesting old trees '" and a plantation of about
1.600 species arranged according to natural orders and in such a
way as to remind him of the Harvard Botanical Garden. For Dr.
To\vnsend"s sugar beet investigation work, Dr. Arcangeli promised
to send seeds of a wild beet.

On May 18 at Bologna, Smith found Dr. Victor Peglion at the
Scuola a Gradia Superiore " just fitting up a bacteriological labora-
tory [with] some good new apparatus." Peglion's school work
had just been completed and he was living at Ferrara as a
travelling inspector of vineyards and other crops. European studies
m plant pathology during the past decade had been " largely
devoted to fungous diseases of plants," ' But from him Smith
began to iearn anew concerning the research status in Italy of
several crop maladies believed possibly due to bacteria. Peglion
suggested that the tubercle disease of oleander " might perhaps
be caused by the same organism as the olive knot," but this Smith
thought " unlikely " however possible it was that the malady might
prove bacterial. The youthful and able Italian scientist promised
to send material of a bacterial disease of hemp in the region.
Brusone on rice was believed caused by root-asphyxiation and not
a bacterium. A leaf-spot of Trifolum was also believed by Peglion
to be non-bacterial in origin. So was a disease of strawberry
though this was believed by at least one authority to be bacterial.
Smith learned that " everyone smiles a little when [Gomes'] Bact.
giwnnis is mentioned, Peglion included." They discussed olive
knot and one or two other diseases. The plant pathologists of Italy
were "good men," Smith was told, especially Savastano, "a very
capable man." Funds, however, were lacking, and Peglion ended
their conference by saying, " Your Bureau of Plant Industry is a
model."

En route to Milan, Dr. and Mrs. Smith stopped at Modena
where at a technical school he consulted Professor Luigi Macchiatti
and went on an excursion with Professor C. A. Marozzi to examine
rogna of the vine. This malady was believed by Peglion to be due
to bacteria. But, since he had not studied it and Baccarini said
it was distinct from mal nero. Smith interested himself in the
subject. He found the disease unlike anything he had seen on
vines in the United States, and he secured a promise that fresh

° Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 29.

400 First European Journey

material be sent him in August. Marozzi described its symptoms,
and Smith photographed one specimen " seriously diseased from
the level of the earth to a height of about seven feet. . . . The
signs," he wrote,

are great numbers of rough tubercular swellings accompanied by deep
fissures. These are generally first on one side but the vines are finally
girdled or otherwise exhausted and killed, death occurring in about four
years. ... I searched in vain on many vine stocks for living tubercular
tissue. . . . The tubercles when fresh are said to be soft, pale reddish
externally and white within.

Professor Macchiatti showed him slides of mal nero and a rot
of grape fruits, and on close study under good light Smith con-
cluded that neither malady was a specific disease due exclusively
to bacteria, although in mal nero some evidence of " mixed infec-
tion " was present and in the grape fruit rot " little oval or ellip-
tical red bodies " were " sparingly " seen in various cells. These,
he thought, were " possibly proteid bodies . . . normal constituents
of the tissue," and " almost certainly . . . not bacteria." Nothing
was decided definitely as to any one of the diseases. At the
Stazione Agraria, he examined Professor Gino Cugini's " bacterial
rot of grape flowers " (1891) and " a bacterial soft rot of fennel "
which resembled bacterial celery rot. But he saw no indications
of cultures, or inoculations, and, more than discussing these and
one or two diseases from materials available with Professor Cugini,
no further study was made.

" The most intellectually active scientific man in Modena,"
Smith decided, " is the director of the Botanic Garden, the well-
known algologist. Dr. G. B. de Toni." He was in Pavia, but a
gardener showed Smith about, and late that day Dr. de Toni called
at his hotel. He was reading proof on the seventh volume of his
Sylloge Algarum, and next morning in his work shop he showed
Smith one hundred bound volumes of separates relating to algae,
" a rich collection and one any algologist would give much to
possess. He has also," commented Smith,

many other rare and expensive systematic works, and a large herbarium of
algae, together with another representing other groups of plants. He works
entirely, he said, on " pure science." On leaving he gave me his inaugural
discourse delivered at the Royal University of Modena, November 4, 1905,
entitled " Di una interessante scoperta del Modenese Giambattista Amici

Studihs on Crown Gall of Plants 401

e dc' suoi prourcssi." .i paper describing modern discoveries concerning the
part the nucleus plays in sexual reproduction in plants, foreign workers
(Ikeno. Hirase, Webber, Davis, etc.) being cited freely. Amici discovered
the pollen tube growing through the stigma and style into the micropyle.

Dc Toni"s list of American correspondents began, Smith noticed,
"" with the good Dr. Asa Gray."

At Milan Smith went to the International Exposition grounds
and tried unsuccessfully to locate Dr. Ugo Brizi. He would have
gone again but Mrs. Smith, suiTering from rheumatic fever, had
to be taken to Varese near Lake Maggiore and placed under the
care of a physician. Days passed into weeks and Mrs. Smith began
to show enough improvement to permit Dr. Smith again to visit
the International F.xposition at Milan. He found the plant path-
ological exhibit prepared by Giovanni Briosi of Pavia " the only
one of any importance. Much care," he wrote in his journal, " has
been taken in its preparation and installation. It proved so instruc-
tive that a trip to Pavia w^as undertaken at once to talk over
matters with him and his assistants," especially the illustrations of
" the obscure and wide-spread Italian rice disease concerning the
origin of w^hich there [were] at least three distinct hypotheses:

(1) Voglino's, ascribing it to a bacterial infection of the roots;

(2) Brizi's, ascribing it to asphyxiation of the roots; and (3)
Garovaglio's, ascribing it to a fungus, Pleospora oryzae." He saw
also a jar labelled " Bacteriosis del Gelso " which showed mulberry
stems bearing leaves. He wrote of it: " The stems are not attacked,
neither are the petioles but only the blade of the leaf in numerous
irregular small yellow or brown spots, discrete or fused. It looks
unlike our bacterial disease of mulberry, which kills the stems
after the manner of pear blight."

At the Orto Botanico of Pavia, " a place," Smith said, "' where
they get work done," he interviewed Briosi who told him that at
the University of Pavia he has " sometimes as many as 200 students
including medical and pharmaceutical students." He met also
Rodolfo Farneti who had most of the work in pathology, privat
docent Luigi Montemartini who edited Revista d'l Patologia
Vegetale, Pollaci, and others. Briosi was still publishing with
Cavara their Fungi Exsiccati, and Smith heard with interest how
for ten years he had been trying to get an appropriation for a
bacteriological laboratory.

402 First European Journey

Smith arranged that gifts of his first volume of Bacteria in
Relation to Plant Diseases be sent them who had not received the
work. Cavara had " no sufficient words " to thank him. He called
it '" the most accurate monography on the bacteria which interest
the agricultTire. . . . No one better than you could develope such
an object of t[h]eorie and practical bacteriologie. ... I hope,"
he added, " that you will continuate the great works that you
have undertaken so to give us also the special division with the
description of all species till now described of bacteria injurios to
our cultivated plants." He supplied Smith with a bibliography
of his writings and invited him to visit them again at the R. Orto
Botanico of the University of Naples.

Smith was cordially received everywhere. Not less his volume
on bacterial diseases of plants than his eminence as a plant path-
ologist obviated the necessity of letters of introduction. Before
he had left America, Savastano and Peglion had written letters
of appreciation for his valuable work. Professor Dr. M. W.
Beyerinck, whom Smith esteemed as " the most distinguished
bacteriologist in Holland," had, as director of his laboratory at
Delft, thanked him for his " most admirable book on bacterial
Plant-Sickness " and sent a paper of his work on gummosis.
Dr. Carl Wehmer of the Technische Hochschule of Hannover,
Germany, had sent a card of acknowledgment; W. Busse of
the Phytopathological Institute of Berlin, a letter; Dr. Alfred
Moller of Eberswalde, a letter; also, Dr. Rudolph Aderhold,
director of plant pathology in the Imperial German Board of
Health, the highest position of its kind in Germany, so Smith
believed. Furthermore, Smith exchanged letters with S. Wino-
gradsky of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Dr. Galloway had directed Smith, while in Europe, to visit
places in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, and
other parts of western Europe to make " further investigations of
the diseases of bulbs, potatoes, vines, rice, olives, and other fruit
and crop plants which are introduced into the United States,"
and also to inspect the equipment in the laboratories of the
countries visited.

Duggar in 1901 had conveyed to Delacroix and Prillieux of
France Smith's requests for materials of a bean and a grain dis-
ease. From Paris on December 1, Duggar had informed: " Dela-

STUDiiis ON Crown Gali oi Plants 403

croix has a bacterial disease of potato stems which lie thinks may
not Lx^ the same as your B[acillus} solanacearum( ?), for he finds
some important dilfercnccs as to the form of the organism in the
plant. He will write you concerning it, and if possible I will get
some material before leaving Paris. Delacroix," he added, " was
able to help me greatly with Rhizoctonia. In all I secured about
ten specimens from him, representing two species and about six
host plants."

Smith, tiierefore, had reasons of his own for visiting France
and possibly also England. On July 12, 1902, M. C. Potter of the
Durham College of- Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, had thanked
him for a copy of his " most interesting review " of " Plant
Patholog)-: a Retrospect and Prospect." He had promised to send
soon his " paper extending [his] w^ork on the action of Pseudo-
viouas on living cells," and at that time said that he regarded
his study of bacteria as his more important work. Smith knew
other scientists in England, too.

England was not included on Smith's proposed itinerary when
on the morning of June 13 he left his " wife miserably ill with
intercostal rheumatism in the Albergo del Europa at Varese and
started for Berlin. " It was hard to tear myself away," he wrote
in his journal, " and only necessity forced me to it. She has now
been confined to the hotel for two and one-half weeks and the
prospect of an early release is poor indeed, although I am hoping
for the best."

What was to have been one of the high points of their journey —
the trip through the Alps — turned out to be a lonely, heart-
breaking experience. Delight was found in the landscapes of
Switzerland, along the valley of the Rhine from Basel to Frank-
furt-am-Main. Early in May, he himself had been ill for a week.
His worry and anxiety, his sadness and, indeed, moments of frenzy,
over his wife's condition had not helped to restore his usual vigor.
Since 1904 her strength had been declining, from childhood having
courageously fought the effects of an illness from arthritis. To
look on her delicate beauty, one could scarcely realize the full
extent of her valiant struggle against a weakened heart and
stiffening joints. She was always gentle and kind, ever resolute
and sensitive to goodness, never complaining, and never prone
to affectations.

404 First European Journey

Smith had seen one advantage in making the journey alone to
Northern Europe. While in Berlin, he might consult specialists
for himself and at the same time determine whether his wife's
ailment was being treated properly. By mid-June he was in Berlin,
had secured lodgings, and located Dr. W. D. Miller, an American
dentist who in 1882-1884 had " associated bacteria with dental
caries and subsequently called repeated attention to the danger
of systemic infection from neglected teeth." ^ Dr. Miller intro-
duced him to Dr. John H. Cleves Symmes, an American physician,
who, after an hour's conference, pronounced Mrs. Smith's treat-
ment in the main correct. The suggestion that a majority of prac-
titioners were adhering to a belief that possibly rheumatism was
due to an organism of some sort encouraged Smith to believe
that a cure would be ultimately effected. But the next day he
learned from a highly reputable German doctor that he himself
might have to undergo surgery. This, however, never proved to
be the case.

Smith wrote in his journal much about medical practice and
diseases of current prevalence. For instance, in Italy, the situation
as to malaria fever interested him and he gathered facts con-
cerning it. On this journey, however, he was preeminently a plant
bacteriologist and pathologist. Pages of his journal were devoted
to describing the cities he visited, their art galleries, and beautiful
public buildings. Pages were devoted to describing beautiful
landscapes and the vegetations of the various regions seen. Often
he listed the plants of unusual interest observed in gardens.
Indeed, wholly separate volumes could be prepared from the
pages of his journal which dealt with his artistic and literary
appreciations. But art and literature remained avocations while
science was his foremost business. He found beauty in the study
of microorganisms and glory in the conquests of disease they
cause. His highly specialized, intellectually rigid, technological
work required some freedom of mind. His escapes from its
exacting disciplines, when he needed any, were the enjoyments of
poetry, music, literature, and art, and these served him well when
later grief invaded his well ordered life.

' Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 18. Smith had met Dr. Miller in Washington
the year before and in his journal he characterized him as a " dentist and student
of dental caries."

Studii-s on Crown Gall of Plants ■10'^

Some years Lxforc. lie IkkI lost his father. Only a year or so
past, Louisa Frink Smith, his mother, had died in her son's home
cared for by an afTectionatc dauj^hter-in law. T.rwin Smith had
centered all of his love in one '" luminous and beautiful person-
altity. ... Of all the women [he had] known and reverenced,
this woman best satisfied [his] ideals, and of all her traits," he
said, " that which deepest impressed itself upon [him] was her
divine simplicity, a characteristic of all really great souls." And
now she lay ill a far distance away.

Smith continued with his work as he was sure she wished him
to do. On July 12, 1906, a letter arrived from H. J. Webber of
the Laboratory of Plant Breeding of the Department at Wash-
ington. He wrote that it would be impossible for him to attend
the International Conference on Genetics to be held in London
late that month. He asked Smith to attend and present a state-
ment of the plant breeding work of the Department in his stead.
He explained in a letter of July 28 that Mrs. Webber was ill.

Dr. Smith had planned to go to the Netherlands and so he
accepted the honor of addressing the conference. He wrote
Webber: " Next to my own work in the Depart[ment] I am
most interested in yours, and I think I can interest the Conference
for a half hour at least." Webber thought so, too. On July 28
he told Galloway: " Dr. Smith understands the breeding work of
the Department sufficiently well so that I think he can represent
us intelligently and aid the Department by an explanation of the
knowledge of its work."

Scientists in Berlin had been cordial to Smith and he had visited
many points of interest. Soon after his arrival, he had enjoyed
" an hour or more talking plant pathology and kindred subjects "
with Dr. Paul Sorauer. A few days later they strolled through
the new botanic garden " inspecting first the plants arranged in
families on the south side of the grounds and then those arranged
geographically on the north side near the new buildings." Smith
believed that this garden would " soon become the most famous
in the world." He saw there " many interesting plants " and
particularly commended Dr. Engler's " efforts to show the flora
of a given region (alpine plants, etc.)." Sorauer and he spoke
in German and, in contrast to his experience in Italy, he found
no difficulty in understanding him. Sorauer told him that his " new

14

406 First European Journey

edition of his ' Pflanzenkrankheiten ' was his ' testament.' His
whole soul," Smith observed, " is wrapped up in getting this last
work well done. He brought me a good review of the first volume
of my book which he had just printed in his ' Zeitschrift.' "

Dr. O. Uhlworm was " equally friendly " and Smith's visit with
him led to a dinner invitation, at which occasion the American
met Dr. Friedrich Ldffler. He was in Berlin to attend a meeting
of the Imperial Board of Health, and Smith and he talked of
Koch's Institut fiir Infektionskrankheiten. Loffler told stories of
his student days in Berlin, invited Smith to call on him at Greifs-
wald, inquired of his work, and accepted with pleasure the promise
of a gift of Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases. Smith liked his
familiarity with literature.

Soon thereafter, Dr. Rudolph Aderhold, director of the Biolo-
gische Anstalt of the Imperial Board of Health at Dahlem, enter-
tained with a dinner in Smith's honor. Berlin had early appealed
to Smith as " the most interesting city of [his] acquaintance." He
enjoyed its cleanliness, its buildings, parks, gardens, and forests
of pine, birch, and beech. On a walk through Grunewalde with
Dr. Aderhold and his son Hans, Smith had been told to visit the
much older forests at Eberswalde. This he had done and while
there tried to call on Dr. Alfred MoUer. Later a day had been
spent at Liibbenau, a small village on the edge of the Ober Spree-
wald and in the midst of a famous trucking region, to study
cucumber diseases. But no bacterial diseases or any other maladies
of consequence were found. So, after visits to several new points
of interest around Berlin including forests of pine, oak, birch,
and various other tree species. Smith centered his attention on the
work of the Biologische Anstalt and Koch's Institut. Dr. Koch
was away from Berlin in the heart of Africa on Victoria Nyanza
studying with half a dozen assistants " the terrible sleeping sick-
ness." But Dr. Aderhold and Smith became close friends, and
later the American plant pathologist met and spent about half
an hour with Dr. Gaffky, director of the Institut.

At the dinner in Smith's honor was Dr. Otto Appel who was
studying among other subjects Fusarium in all of its forms and
had about seventy sorts under cultivation in Erlenmeyer flasks on
strips of filter-paper soaked in synthetic media. He promised Smith
cultures of his Bacillus pbytopJothorus and photographs of the

Studif-s on Crown Gai.i. of Plants 407

bacterial potato disease, Sch\varx.beinigkeit (black Ic^), due to
this organism — a subject wliich was one of the main reasons why
the journey to Berlin had been made. Also guests at the dinner
were several of Aderhold"s assistants and Dr. Russe whose work
was then sugar beet diseases in Germany and tropical diseases in
the colonies and Dr. Maassen who had worked with Dr. Petri,
was now studying " diseases of bees and honeycomb, fowl brood,
black brood, etc.,"' and whose papers and acutcness of observation
Smith highly respected. Smith consulted these men in their labora-
tories several times. He gave Busse a serial slide of " stained
sections of a green- plum fruit attacked by Bacterium pruni . . .
one fairly illustrative of an early stage of the disease." A few-
days later Smith secured four " usable negatives and prints "
which admirably illustrated Dr. Appel's work on black leg of
potato. He had sent Dr. Aderhold a culture of Bacillus amy-
lovoYUS and was pleased to learn that not only was his culture
in the Anstalt's pathological museum but also that Aderhold
recently had secured with it " very interesting infections on green
pear fruits."

Smith heard with interest their account of how much difficulty
they had experienced in isolating their Bacillus spongiosus from
diseased cherry stems. He was reminded of his years of trying
to isolate in pure culture Bacillus tracheiphilus, cause of cucumber
wilt. Furthermore, he was told that Bacillus spongiosus, isolated
from gummy cherry trees, " had no effect on the green pears,
neither would it blight green pear shoots in an earlier test. Dr.
Aderhold," wrote Smith,

showed me a very instructive photograph of a youni^ pear tree with two
shoots, one inoculated with the Bacillus ainylovorous of my sending and
the other shoot with a young culture of his cherry organism; the former
shoot was killed in the course of a few days, the latter was not in the least
injured. There are some other interesting differences i. e., B. spojtgiosus
forms in gelatin plates (agar do. ?) very typical, and curious buried colonies,
" spongelike," Dr. Aderhold called them. It is a white organism making
a copious sirup on sugar agar. I saw plates under a low power of the micro-
scope. Tlie body of the colony produces curious involutions or twisted
folds, so that the main lines of growth or laminae of the colony are turned
in different directions as one lowers or raises the objective slightly. He
showed me cherry trees inoculated for some weeks and with no very
definite signs of disease beyond a little gum flow from the wound which
is not specific, but symptomatic of many things. I saw in the Museum

408 First European Journey

other cherry trees inoculated for half a year or more, with large branches
destroyed by the bacteria. It is a slow disease. I believe I have seen the
same thing in the United States on cherry branches sent to me some years
ago from the Northwest Coast (Oregon and Washington). Bacteria were
present in the tissues in great numbers and were recognized as such, but
I did not attempt to cultivate them, having at the time more than I could
do with other things. Dr. Aderhold has promised to furnish me photo-
graphs and other material for illustrating this cherry disease.^

The building of the Biologische Anstalt was " new, large, and
admirably adapted," Smith believed, " to the needs of the station.'
Its hothouses and experimental grounds were adjacent; the equip-
ment " admirable," and its pathological museum was " extremely
interesting," supplying him with ideas for the new Department of
Agriculture building at Washington. He saw " a large copper
apparatus in compartments with an ice tank above . . . designed
for study of organisms at various low temperatures. The com-
partment temperatures ranged from 1.5°C at one end to 16°C at
the other. Such an apparatus," he decided, " would be very useful
in my laboratory." He called on shops and dealers in bacteri-
ological apparatus and got new ideas concerning laboratory equip-
ment from them as well as from other sources.

He visited the extensive laboratory of bacteriology and the
animal houses maintained by the Imperial Board of Health, and
at Koch's Institut Dr. Claus Schilling, in charge of the division
of tropical diseases, showed him " very thoroughly " through
their main building and animal houses. The very complete Koch
collection in the museum and library was examined; and Dr.
Schilling and he discussed for a while Fritz Schaudinn's (and Hoff-
man's) recent discovery of a flagellate protozoan, Treponema
pallidum,^ " the real cause of syphilis."

At a botanical meeting of about twenty persons, presided over
by Dr. Engler, Smith became acquainted with, among others, Dr.
Hugo Fischer, a bacteriologist interested in soil organisms. Dr.
Gustav Lindau, mycologist, systematist of higher plants, and a
pupil of Schwendener and Brefeld, and Dr. Georg Volkens, who
had charge of plant introduction and disease investigations for

''See Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 2:69, 1911. Also, Introduction to
bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 474.

® See, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 31. There Smith also mentioned Castellani's
discovery (also 1905) of a flagellate protozoan, " the cause of that dreadful tropical
disease ' Yaws ' " and its distinction from syphilis.

Studii;s on Crown Gall of Plants 409

the German colonies, were at this meeting, and Smith interviewed
them both in their work rooms a few days later. He also chatted
for a half hour or more at the Dahlem school for gardeners with
Dr. Carl Miller who served as secretary of the meeting. He called
on Dr. Oskar Brefeld but the aging and almost blind German
scholar was not at home. During his homeward journey, he
received a letter from Dr. Karl Goebel who wrote to thank him
for a copy of his " magnificent book " on bacterial plant diseases.
Berlin had been a veritable feast of science.

On the morning of July \C\ Smith left Berlin to go by way of
Hannover and Essen t© Utrecht, the Netherlands, where he arrived
that night. There he saw the botanic garden, and immediately
went on to Amsterdam. Since 1902 when he had entertained in
Washington Dr. F. A. F. C. Went, professor of botany in the
University of Utrecht, he had been invited to visit there, and
had written the professor of his plans to be in Europe this year.
Dr. Went, however, was in the Hague for two weeks and had
not been able to reach Smith by letter to arrange a later time for
the visit. Smith spent many days at Amsterdam, Haarlem, Hille-
gom, Leiden, and other places of interest. At the University of
Amsterdam he visited the laboratory of Dr. Hugo de Vries. At
Haarlem and Hillegom he collected diseased bulbs of hyacinth
yellows, dissected them, and confirmed his earlier work. Ob-
serving that in some growers' bulb catalogues varieties were
designated as susceptible or resistant to the disease, he discussed
with them the matter of varietal resistance and how, if at all,
disease-resistant varieties could be obtained by hybridization.^ A
" glorious display of hybrid Gloxinias " and a " good collection of
single and double, extraordinarily large-flowered tuberous-rooted
Begonias," obtained by crossing and selection, were among the
many floral displays he examined. But his most important study
began when he started bacterial cultures at the Phytopathologisch
Laboratorium of the Willie Commelin Scholten of Amsterdam,

'In his Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 2: 95-96, Smith recommended sys-
tematic cross-breeding experiments in many pLints for resistance to bacterial disease:
" These should be taken up as a part of the regular work of Departments of Agri-
culture and Experiment Stations and carried on without interruption for a long series
of years — long enough to insure good hybrids of fixed quality. In some cases
systematic selection within the limits of susceptible varieties might lead to useful
results." Practically the same as this statement was written into his diary at this time.

410 First European Journey

of which Dr. Johanna Westerdijk, a former student of DeVries
and Goebel, was director. With pure cultures, by which he was
" the first to obtain typical infections," ^° he began to study the
blight of lilac caused by Bacterium syringae (C. J. J. van Hall)
EFS.

In 1905 Dr. Went, recently President of the Faculty and then
Rector of the University of Utrecht, had told Smith of the Dutch
government's plans to open at Wageningen the next year a labora-
tory of plant pathology, with Ritzema Bos as director. From Bos
he had received another letter of thanks for his " magnificent
book " on bacterial diseases of plants. Plant pathology, as a
laboratory science, was gaining in importance. Within the past
few years. Smith had been consulted with regard to laboratory
equipment for work in Mysore, Bangalore, India, and, to supply
a trained scientist for the position, he invited into his laboratory
Leslie C. Coleman, honor graduate of the University of Toronto
and later Director of Agriculture for the government of Mysore.

Smith probably visited the laboratory at Wageningen. But he
did not go again to Utrecht, probably planning this for after his
return from England. He may have wanted to study, from Went's
materials, two or three sugar-cane diseases. In 1904, reading
Smith's article " Ursache der Cobb'schen Krankheit des Zucker-
rohrs " in the Centralblatt, Went had written him of this and
other diseases of sugar-cane which he had studied in Java: Sereh
disease, " top rot," and Cobb's bacterial malady.

Dr. Went did not return to Utrecht until the last of the month,
and on July 30, 1906,, Smith left via Rotterdam for London. In
his journal he professed a strong interest in plant breeding,
especially in " that phase of the subject which relates to the pro-
duction of races of plants resistant to disease."

On July 30 the Third International Conference on Genetics
began, and Smith's address, " Plant Breeding in the United States
Department of Agriculture," " was presented at the fourth session
on the morning of August 2. Six days later he reported to
Galloway:

"^^ An hitroduction to bacterial diseases of plants, op. cit., 35.

" Rep't Third Int. Conf. on Genetics, 1906, 301-309, ed. by Rev. W. Wilks, M. A.,
Sec'y, London, Print, by the Royal Hort. Soc. Also reprint by Spottiswoode & Co.
Ltd., London, 1907.

Stiidii-s on Crown (i,\i i. oi Plants -111

I attended the nieetinqs of the Int[ernalional] Conference of Plant
Breeding held under the auspices of the Royal Horticultural Society and
spoke for about twenty five minutes. . . . The speech was well received and
very many nice things were said about the proL;ressive spirit of our Depart-
ment whiLh I wish you and the Secretary could have heard. They seemed
to be so genuine. They admitted freely that wc arc far ahead of the Ent;lish
in all sorts of experimental work for the benefit of ai^riculture, that we put
more money and more men into it, all with astonishingly good results,
which makes them ashamed of the little England is doing. " When will
our own country wake up to the necessities of the case.'' " seemed to be their
common cry. They also praised the generosity of the Department in fur-
nishing information and publications for all who would be benefited,
irrespective of nationality. Sir Daniel Morris ^'- and Mr. Pawcctt of the
West Indies praised us'particularly for the courtesies we have extended
to them.

Tlie Royal Society ended by drawing up a resolution which has been
transmitted to our minister here to be forwarded through the Secretary of
State, thanking the President of the United States and Secretary Wilson
for sending me over! I had nothing to do with it, and don't know what
the resolution is like but should like to sec it if it comes into your hands.
I was treated with great courtesy. . . .

Morris read an important paper on hybrid sugar canes, ^^ some of which
might be useful to our Louisiana planters. He said their best seedling
cane was No. 208. This is very resistant to disease. It is a large yellow cane
and yields three tons of sugar cane per acre in the Barbados. He stated that
the sugar industry in the Br[itish} West Indies would have gone to the
wall during the last eight years from diseases, but for these new canes
which they have been able to produce by hybridization and are now in
general cultivation.

The most important paper ^* of the Conference was by Mr. Biffen i"'
who has found a perfectly rust resistant wheat which he calls x, having
been unable to determine its name. This when crossed with Michigan
Bronze, a variety which rusts with him very badly every year, gave a certain
portion of hybrids entirely free from rust. The patch as a whole appeared

^- Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture for the West Indies.

^^ The improvement of the sugar-cane by selection and hybridisation, Rep't Srd
Conj. on Genetics, op. cit., 310 ff. Note appended that seedling canes mentioned
had been grown successfully in Louisiana: announced since paper was written.

** Rowland H. Biffen, Experiments on the breeding of wheats for English con-
ditions, Rep't 3rd Conj. on Genetics, op. cit., biy^ll. See also, E. S. Salmon, On
raising strains of plants resistant to fungus disease, idem, 378-382. At p. 382,
susceptibility to, and immunity from, at least rust were said to have been shown
by Biffen's work to be Mendelian characters transmitted as regards inheritance in
accordance with the ratios enunciated by Mendel in his paper on " Plant Hybrids,"
supra.

^^ University Department of Agriculture, Cambridge, England. Sec Bacteria in
relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 3: 154, where Smith told of a conversation in
1906 with Biffen concerning a disease of mangolds and sugar-beet on which the
latter had published in 1901.

412 First European Journey

to be "" swamped with rust " but when he came to examine it plant by
plant 07ie plant in four was entirely free from rust. There were several
hundreds of these plants "' without a pustule on them." He thinks that in
a few years we shall be able to breed wheats with any quality of grain and
productivity we desire and at the same time have them absolutely rust
resistant. Please show this to Mr. Carleton. I shall try to get some of the
X wheat for him to experiment with.

You will find a report of the Conference in Gardeners' Chronicle for
August 4th and 11th. I go back to Amsterdam for some weeks tomorrow.

Smith, aware of the " three and one " ratio significance of
Biffen's discovery in plant inheritance, attempted no evaluation
or prognostication of its future value to plant breeding or plant
pathology. This had been done by other speakers at the Con-
ference, by Biffen himself and by Dr. E. S. Salmon of the South-
Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, Kent, and the addresses were
to be published.

The next year when Smith saw a note on a bacterial mangold
disease published by Biffen, he sent for material, and again asked
for " the wheat in question." The English scientist promised to
send the material and, as to the wheat, said that it "is immune
only to P[^uccima\ glumanim as far as I know. P. graminis," he
wrote, " is far from common here and rarely appears on my plots,
but late in the season flecks of it appear on the wheat often mixed
with P. dispersal

Biffen's honors were many. He was knighted for the achieve-
ment, and in 1908 was appointed professor of agricultural botany
at Cambridge University. He prophesied to the Conference that
plant breeding thenceforth would be " conducted on the lines
which Mendel once for all laid out," that it would become highly
specialized, and be placed on " a fresh and a practical basis."
He exhibited hybrid wheats and barley,^" and Salmon, believing
it " impossible to overestimate the importance " of his discovery,
thought that " in those cases, as, for example, in the mildews, the
rusts, and probably many other diseases, where the place of the
decisive conflict between parasite and host is intracellular," he
had answered the important question whether the inheritance is
" determined by the ' constitution * of the plant " and, if so,
whether the constitutional characters, especially with reference to
susceptibility and immunity, are " Mendelian " in the ratio of

'^^Rep't 3rd Int. Conj. on Genetics, op. cit., 33-37.

Studifs on Crown Gam, or Plants 'in

their transmission. In breeding for disease-resistance against rust,
this appeared to be now cstablislicd.'^ That year Bil'fen received
from the Royal Horticultural Society a gold medal for his wheat
variety resistant to rust.

Several years before the Conference, the Englishman William
Bateson, the Canadian William Saunders, the Americans L. H.
Bailcv. W. J. Spillman. H. J. Webber, and other authorities on
hybridization and plant breeding, had begun to reinterpret the
literature and experimental knowledge of the subject in the light
of an improved science fraught with vast potentialities for agri-
cultural advancement. In fact, Bateson, in his address "^ as pre-
siding officer of the Conference, introduced the word, " Genetics,"
to define the basis for a new science, that sphere of scholarly
research " devoted to the elucidation of the phenomena of heredity
and variation: in other words, to the physiology of Descent, with
implied bearing on the theoretical problems of the evolutionist
and the systematist, and application to the practical problems of
breeders, whether of animals or plants."

Since their first conference in 1899, much of the " bewildering
complexit)'," he said, which characterized their early deliberations
had been dispelled, and the science now was destined " not merely
to add new regions to man's knowledge and power, but also to
absorb and modify profoundly large tracts of the older sciences."
Hybridization and plant breeding were no more to be " a specu-
lative pastime to be pursued without apparatus or technical equip-
ment in the hope that something would turn up," but " a developed
science," ^° based on order and system, a new craft with terminol-
ogy, tools, and other accoutrements of an exact science. Geneticists
would probe deeply into the fundamentals of plant and animal
life, study the mechanisms involved in breeding, and improve and
extend the practice. Results of the earlier and late research on
the DeVriesian mutation hypothesis were before the conference.
Its report ■" published a letter written by Gregor Mendel at Briinn
May 4, 1868, to Carl Niigeli in which he told of his change from
a " hitherto humble position as a teacher of experimental physics "

'' Idem, 382.

" The progress of genetic research. An inaugural address to the Third Conference
on Hybridization and Plant-Breeding, Report etc., op. cit., 91.
^*Idem, 91.
■" Idem, 89.

4l4 First European Journey

to a sphere strange but dear in which he was continuing his
" experiments in hybridisation." Perhaps Mendel, like others of
the science who followed him, was content to explore only the
specialized and outlying functions involved in plant hybridization.
He may have realized, but not placed in written form, the theory
of heredity deducible from the results obtained with his plant
hybrids. The body of doctrine was there, however, and great
minds of the twentieth century — preeminently, DeVries, Correns,
and Tschermak, and also, Bateson and Saunders — gave form to
the primary, central, and all-controlling function of heredity on
which the specialized and outlying functions depend.-^ Smith met
many notable men of the Conference. Tschermak he found a
"' very energetic man," and his address on " The importance of
Hybridisation in the Study of Descent " pleased him. W. Johann-
sen of Copenhagen was also there and read an address, " Does
Hybridisation increase fluctuating Variability?" an extension of
his famous theory, based on experiments with beans, of breeding
pure line species. Smith knew Bateson. Once, when the great
Englishman was visiting in America, he and Smith enjoyed a stroll
together at Woods Hole.

Smith followed on the program Miss E. Saunders of Newnham
College, Cambridge, England. That he was acquainted with recent
progress in plant breeding in America, especially that of the
Department of Agriculture, was demonstrated by his address, part
or all of which was given from memory. He chose to start with
the breeding objective with which he was most familiar and on
which he had been a consultant. He illustrated breeding for dis-
ease resistance by narrating the story of Orton's (and Webber's)
South Carolina work originating " from rare mutations," " seed
selection, and/or hybridization, the now famous wilt-resistant Sea
Island cotton. Upland cotton, cowpea, and watermelon. Nor did
he forget Pierce's earlier California hybrid grape vines resistant
to the Anaheim disease so-called, and his crosses of raisin grapes
to resist coulure. Breeding for resistance to frost and cold was

-' W. Bateson, op. c'n., at p. 97.

■^ W. A. Orton, pathologist in charge of cotton and truck diseases, Bureau of
Plant Industry, The development of farm crops resistant to disease. Yearbook of the
U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1908; op. cit., 453-464. A list of examples of disease
resistance was given at pp. 463-464; also, a consideration of " Mendelism " and
Biffens's discovery at p. 463.

S'lLiDiriS ON Crown Gma. oi Plants -115

illustrated by Walter T. S\vint;le's and Webber's crosses in citrous
fruits, especially the orange. These had been reported by Webber
at the first or 1899 conference on hybridization and cross breeding,
so Smith focussed attention on the progress since that time. Under
the sub-title, breeding for greater productivity and for quality in
edible fruits, foliage, fibers, etc.. Smith described Webber's and
Swingle's cross-breedings to improve the pineapple not only for
increased resistance to disease but also for increased vigor, absence
of spininess in the foliage, medium size, shallow eyes, juiciness,
better flavor, absence of hard core, attractive top, good shipping
and keeping qualit)-, and other desirable attributes which made
for increased marketability. Webber's long staple cotton strains,
their increased length of fibre one-third more than the ordinary
and bearing twq or three times the amount of fruit, provided an
excellent example of breeding for greater productivity and im-
proved quality. Likewise, A. D. Shamel's cigar-wrapper tobacco
improvements by breeding and selection begun in the autumn of
1903 in the Connecticut" River valley.'^ Or, Willet M. Hays's
" blue stem " spring wheat in Minnesota, the yield of the best
strains. Smith said, increased two to five bushels an acre by simple
selection. A Departmental program of corn improvement had
been in effect now several years and was adding some results to
the state experiment station work in this regard. Breeding for
increased vigor, better productivity, and improved quality were
time-honored objectives industrially, and the utilization of plant
introductions both foreign and domestic in aid of the work had
been approved practice for many, many years, not only among
nurserymen, orchardists, and horticulturists, but also within the
Department itself since the 1860's when William Saunders had
inaugurated the work.^'*

Achievements in breeding for disease and cold resistance were
to be extended gradually. Although Smith in his address did not
mention this, Townsend in 1902 had begun selecting sugar beets
for resistance to the curly top disease, and in 1907 would report

" A. D. Shamcl, The improvement of tobacco by breeding and selection, Yearbook
of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1904; 435; New tobacco varieties, idem, for 1906;
387 ff.

"* William Saunders, by the editor. Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Aerie for
1900: 625-630.

4l6 First European Journey

some evidence of progress."^ The etiology of several diseases of
plants, now known to be of virus origin, was being studied. But
many of the problems were not understood. Curly top has been
shown to be a disease caused by a virus, and an insect vector — the
beet leaf hopper Eutettix tenellus (Baker) — has been demon-
strated to be the agent which transmits the virus. The develop-
ment of a resistant variety awaited, therefore, more complete
understanding of the disease and further perfection of technique
in selecting and breeding for disease resistance. In the next decade
of the century, L. R. Jones and others of the faculty and grad-
uate personnel of the University of Wisconsin would brilliantly
control Fusarium disease of cabbage, cabbage yellows so-called,
by breeding and selecting plants resistant to this " seriously
prevalent " disease. These skillful men obtained by " further
hybridization and selection excellent commercial varieties of cab-
bage perfectly developed in fields where all the common sorts
died from the attacks of Fusarium congliitinans!^ Smith would
praise their " beautiful photographs, showing long rows of well-
headed and healthy cabbage plants surrounded by thousands of
dead and dying ones." -^ For several years Jones's and his co-
workers' reports of progress would be among the most important
papers presented at meetings of the American Phytopathological
Society and published in the society's journal, Phytopathology.
Eubanks Carsner, later a student of Jones and prominent as an
originator of varieties of sugar beet resistant to curly top,-^
modeled his breeding for disease-resistance after the work of
Jones. Carsner's work will be mentioned further later.

At Cornell University, in coordinate work of the departments
of plant pathology and plant breeding at the New York State
College of Agriculture, Walter H. Burkholder would explore the
incidence of the Mendelian " three and one " ratio in disease
resistance and susceptibility, while seeking by selection and hybri-
dization to obtain an anthracnose-resistant white marrow bean.
Burkholder's accomplishment was accounted by Smith an out-
standing event of the half century of American pathology. By

^^ Technical Bulletin 360: 4, U. S. Dep't of Agric, May, 1933; also U. S. D. A.
Bur. PI. Indus. Bull. 122, 1908, 37 p., illus.

^'' Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 33,37.

^'^ Eubanks Carsner,, Curly-top resistance in sugar beets and tests of the resistant
variety U. S. No. 1, Tech. Bull. 360, U. S. D. A. May, 1933, 68 pp., illus.

Studihs on Crown Gall oi Plants 417

1918, when Innkholdcr annouiKcd tins in P/.)yto(hi/bology,-'* a
multiple factor hypothesis would have found its way also into
the literature, and more than the two factors of resistance and
susceptibility would be necessary to explain all of the phenomena
in breeding, at least to the minds of some authors. By 1918 Phyto-
pittljology and other journals would have published many articles,
abstracts, and notes relative to breeding disease-resistant plants.
Smith estimated as of especial importance J. A. McClintock's study
of " Spinach blight." -" He said of this in his address, " Fifty
Years of Pathology: " '" "' In 1918 McClintock and L. B. Smith
published on a destructive mosaic blight of spinach and showed
that it is not only transmitted by aphids, but also from one
generation of aphides to another. L. B. Smith (1920) bred spinach
resistant to this, disease."

Not less irnportant than breeding for resistance to disease and
cold and for increased productivity and improved qualit)' was
breeding for resistance to alkali and to drought. To illustrate
the Department's work, Smith at the Genetics Conference of 1906
selected alfalfa and wheat as the crops and described first the
program of bringing into cultivation western areas of alkaline
lands by introducing " certain types of leguminous and other
plants " more tolerant of alkali than ordinary plants. Part of
this work w^as in charge of one of Dr. Webber's assistants, T. H.
Kearney, known also as an agricultural explorer and for valuable
cotton importations from Egypt. Next Smith told of the nation's
westward extension of its wheat belt into areas formerly pasture
or unoccupied lands, plains, or deserts by introducing durum
v.heats from Russia. This was the triumph of Mark Alfred
Carleton, in charge of the Department's office of cereal inves-
tigations. In semi-arid states of the central west and west where,
though soil was adapted to wheat-growing the rainfall had been
insufficient to bring winter and spring crops to maturity, the
drawback of climate had been overcome, and immensely valuable
industries, including the famous macaroni wheats, been either
established or extended. Again without sacrificing scientific con-
tent or permitting his audience to go unacquainted with the facts

" 8(7) : 353, July 1918, and authorities cited; Fifty years of pathology, op cit., 37.
" Phytopathology 8(2): 74, Feb. 1918.
" Op. cit., 37.

418 First European Journey

of Carleton's foresight, explorations, v/orkmanship, and struggles
against strong opposition, Smith told almost in the form of a
story how one man's vision became a reality and thus westwardly
extended " our wheat belt several hundred miles over many
degrees of latitude. . . . The end is nowhere in sight," he
prophesied.

From small beginnings six or seven years ago the durum wheat crop of
the United States has increased steadily until last year [1905] it amounted
to twenty million bushels, and this year to fifty million bushels, largely
grown on semi-arid land where ordinary wheats will not grow. ... In
passing it is interesting to note that some of these wheats are also very
resistant to rust {Fiiccinia graminis, Puccinia Rubigo-vera) ; one variety is
absolutely resistant.

Smith regarded this as " one of the most brilliant of [the
Department's} economic achievements." This was saying much
since some of its foreign plant introductions — grasses and forage
plants, rice from Japan, cotton from Egypt, the Smyrna type
fig, dates, vegetables, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat, and many
other crops — had either established whole new industries or so
revitalized and expanded existing industries as each of them-
selves to reimburse for their importation cost, some to pay for
the cost of the entire work of the office of seed and plant
introduction. Chief Jared Gage Smith of this office in 1900
volunteered the opinion that from Turkey wheat from Russia,
the Washington navel orange from Brazil, or sorghum and
Kafir corn from Africa and China, so many millions of dollars
had been realized as to be sufficient to defray " the cost of the
whole work of the Department of Agriculture since its incep-
tion." ^^ The Swedish Select oat proved to be of outstanding
value at one time. Wheats were imported not alone from Russia,
but from Hungary, southern Europe, Australia, and the Orient as
well. Carleton's macaroni or hard wheats were, however, the
most valuable. This work, and that of reclaiming large areas of
otherwise unusable lands by crops resistant to alkali and drought,
proved abundantly beneficial to the national economy. Another
such crop which Smith mentioned was the date palm, imported
for the Department by Walter T. Swingle and at that time

"^ Commercial plant introduction, Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1900:
131-144, at p. 133.

SruDins ON Crown Gall of Plants 119

" t^roNvint; satisfactorily in several places in Aii/.oiia and (.ali-
fornia." Since 1902 Kearney, agrostologist, botanist, and physi-
ologist, had been physiologist in charge of alkali and drought
resistant plant investigations. Experiments with several crops
including alfalfa were then under way. Smith eagerly awaited
their outcome and, after describing them, urged his audience to
watch for the results when announced. When Smith concluded
his address, the president of the Conference thanked Smith and
said: " I regret that Dr. Webber has not been able to attend this
meeting, but I know that we will all agree that Dr. Smith has
been an excellent substitute."

Neils E. Hansen, professor of horticulture at the state agri-
cultural ' college and experiment station at Brookings, South
Dakota, also attended the Conference from the United States.
At the time in the employ of the Department of Agriculture as
an agricultural explorer, he was making a six-months exploration
tour around the world through Lapland, Finland, Russia, Siberia,
Manchuria, and Japan.

August 17, from the Willie Commelin Scholten at Amsterdam,
Smith addressed a letter to Woods concerning the Conference:

Yours of July 24 was awaiting me on my return from London. The
plant breeding conference was one of the most delightful events I have
ever been a part of. There were quite a good many foreign delegates and
the English bestirred themselves to do everything possible for our pleasure.
They entertained royally. Only this great Society with 10,000 members,
a big building free of encumbrance, a great prestige, and a big bank
account could do what they did. They gave two or three stand up
luncheons in the building, a great banquet one evening in the Exhibition
hall, to which about 200 persons sat down, a trip on omnibuses to Kew
and South Kensington, and two elaborate luncheons (dinners really) at
two great country estates. The first was at the home place of Sir Trevor
Lawrence, president of the Royal Hort[icultural] Society. This is about
25 miles south of London in Surrey. For this trip they provided a special
train of twelve railway cars to take and bring us back. Music for the occa-
sion was furnished by the crack band of the Royal Something (Artillery
I believe) . The tables were spread under a big green and white tent on
one side of the spacious lawn. After which we looked through the orchid
houses and strolled on the lovely grounds. The rich English certainly love
lawns and gardens and know how to make good ones. I considered my-
self very fortunate in having the opportunity to see such good examples ot
their horticulture and landscape work. The second luncheon was given by
the millionaire banker and stock broker, Leopold de Rothschild, at one of

420 First European Journey

his country houses near London. Here we were treated in princely fashion.
Wittmack of Berlin was called on to thank Sir Trevor Lawrence for his
luncheon and I to thank Mr. de Rothschild on behalf of the foreign dele-
gates. It was a tough thing in prospect, but I got through it all right.
I knew it was coming for two days but like an idiot, I could not tell what
I should say until just before I began to speak! Before and after the
luncheon we saw his lawns, gardens, hothouses, lily ponds, fountains, etc.
His lily pond is very extensive, perfectly free from weeds, has an excellent
setting of shrubs and fine old trees and containing many choice hardy lilies
(tender sorts hybridized on the English water lily) . These were in blossom,
in clumps with much clear water between. The effect was remarkably good.
It is the first lily pond which has appealed to me from [a] landscape point
of view. Most are too small, too dirty, and too crowded for good effects.

Some of the attendants were the Vilmorins (Maurice and Phillip) from
Paris, Plate and Wittmack from Berlin. Tschermak from Vienna, Cuboni
from Rome, Lotze and others from Holland, Morris and Fawcett from the
West Indies, the Director of the Botanic Garden at Buenos Ayres, who
knows Fairchild, Francis Darwin, Carruthers, Elwes, Masters, Rich, Salmon,
and Bateson who presided etc. I was much interested in an exhibit of pico-
tees and other sorts of carnations by one of the leading English hybridizers
of carnations. He had many odd colors, but most of his flower stalks
branched and have several flowers sprawling out very awkwardly. There
was not a single variety which in my judgment an American grower would
look at! Afterwards I talked with Mr. Scott of New York about it and
he quite agreed with me. The English and American carnation growers
must have quite different ideals, and ours is the better With his permission
I carried off as many of the sorts as I liked to the ladies at the boarding
house (quite a handful), and I had to break off the side flowers to get
any sort of decent looking bouquet.

I am planning to sail from Genoa, Italy, on September 20 by S. S.
Princess Irene, North German Lloyd line, if I can get enough money raked
together to buy tickets. My wife is still quite ill arid is anxious to return
and I shall have had enough of it by that time. Already I am beginning to
want to see the Stars and Stripes, but not the customs house officials in New
York. ... I have bought altogether less than the permitted amount, but
have many little things and all my apparatus (camera, microscope, etc.)
clothing and other stuff ... 3 trunks and 7 hand bags ... I will get
some resistant rice if any is to be had. I leave here for Italy about the
time you will receive this letter.

Early the next week Smith began work at the Phytopathologisch
Laboratorium. A memordandum indicates that he took notes on
seven agar stab cultures of Bacterium hyac'mthi. He wrote ^- of
his study of lilac blight:

«^ Journal, August 20, 1906.

Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 421

Today I m.ulc my first inoculations of the greenish fluorescent organism
(which I isolated from the Roozeword lilacs) into leaves and shoots of
lilacs in Mr. Scholten's garden using pure cultures grown ^ days in nitrate
bouillon. The tubes w^^re inoculated from agar stab cultures made from 9
poured plate colonies. Two varieties of lilac were tested but owing to the
lateness of the season and to consec]uent inability to find much growing
tissue, most of the pricks were made on one plant, Marie Legary. Nine
colonies were tested on leaf blades, petioles and soft shoots by a few
needle punctures into each. In all about 30 inoculations were made.

That eveninj^ a distressing telegram from Varesc brought news
that Mrs. Smith's condition was "' much worse." Immediately he
left Amsterdam for -Italy, and Director Westerdijk reported by
various letters on the lilac inoculations, each of which showed a
good bacterial growth. Later this work was re-checked by Smith
in the United States. Miss Westerdijk expressed her pleasure that
he had worked at the laboratory since from him, she said, she had
learned much. He found Mrs. Smith seriously ill but recovering
from a partial paralysis induced by a small brain clot.

Weary and worried, Smith wrote to Haven Metcalf, now a
pathologist with the United States Department of Agriculture,
and he showed Smith's letter to Dr. Woods, who responded with
instructions to " let Department matters rest for awhile. . . . Don't
worry about things here," Woods wrote, " give your attention to
your wife . . . cable us if there is anything we can do. All
your friends here love you both dearly and we don't want any-
thing to happen to you."

Metcalf in 1907 was to be placed in charge of forest pathology
in the Department but at this time was working in Smith's labora-
tory. In 1901- 1902 he, a Brown University graduate who had
studied also at Harvard, had taught bacteriology at the University
of Nebraska and while a fellow in botany there had secured his
degree of doctor of philosophy. Of him Dr. Bessey had written
to Dr. Woods in October, 1901, concerning his good training in
animal bacteriology and his growing interest in the study of " bac-
teria causing pathological conditions in plants." Bessey had
suggested cooperative bacteriological investigations in sugar beet
diseases. The next year, however, Metcalf had become professor
of botany at Clemson Agricultural College, South Carolina, and
there, interesting himself in rice and other crops, had learned of
several Italian varieties of rice resistant to the disease known as

422 First European Journey

brusone. He had written to David Fairchild of the office of seed
and plant introduction and distribution v/ho in turn had written
to Smith to secure samples. Metcalf, by letter of August 17, 1906,
replying evidently to a still earlier letter from Smith, described
more fully the rice disease as he understood it, asked Smith to
visit the Italian rice fields, and said that everything was " going
smoothly in the laboratory." John R. Johnston, he informed, vv^as
" working on the potato material, and also on the cultures- of
Appel's organism, of which cultures were received apparently
from Aderhold. We have as yet no results from the oleander
inoculations. ... I have examined the rice material from Farneti
with a great deal of interest, and so far as I have examined it,
it seems to be the same as what I have gotten in South Carolina."
Hemp leaves also had been received from Peglion.

When Smith had hastily left Amsterdam, he went directly to
Varese and omitted all of his planned conferences with scientists
in Holland, France, and Belgium. It is possible that, after con-
sulting with the doctor, Mrs. Smith insisted that he complete his
work before their departure, and that then he went to Montpellier,
Nancy, Paris, and other places in France, indeed even again into
Holland to visit the station at Wageningen and other points
which he had planned to visit. Most surely he had planned to
confer with J. Ritzema Bos, H. M. Quanjer, Beyerinck, and others
in the Netherlands, and in France, with Delacroix, Prillieux,
and others at Paris, Boyer and Lambert at Montpellier, and many
other pathologists, whether students of animal or plant diseases.
Foremost a plant bacteriologist on this journey, he certainly must
have already either met Wakker or satisfied himself as to his
inquiries before he began his already mentioned culture studies
of Bacterium hyacinthi. No later than 1896 Wakker, that year
in Java, had written Smith about his papers on this subject.

He visited the Italian Lakes and Venice. But most of the
remainder of his stay in Europe was spent v/ith Mrs. Smith. What
was to have been a happy ending was converging on tragedy,
although she had not allowed him to believe that any real danger
was imminent. Financially the trip had been exceedingly expen-
sive, especially in view of the costs of Mrs. Smith's illness, for
one of so modest a salary as Smith's. In a small note book he
tabulated the name of almost one hundred plant pathologists of

Studies on Crown CIaii (^i- Plants 423

France, Germany, Austria, Holland, England, Russia, and the
Scandinavian countries. Beneath the names of each he listed the
plant diseases on which he knew or was informed each had
material, or had worked, and was an outstanding authority.

On the day before their scheduled sailing from Genoa, objec-
tions were raised to Mrs. Smith as a passenger because of her
illness. Dr. Smith and her doctor telegraphed the American
Ambassador at Rome who, in turn, communicated with the
American Consul-Gcneral, and officials of the North German
Lloyd Company were assured that she was suffering from a non-
contagious ailment, dironic rheumatism. On September 20 they
sailed on the steamship. Princess Irene, and voyaged by way of
Naples and Gibraltar to New York.

That year Smith could not attend the meeting of the Society
for Plant Morphology and Physiology. He had been present at
every meeting of this society, served once as its president, and
nearly if not always presented one or more papers.

Nor could he enjoy his second presidential distinction and
preside at the meeting of the Society of American Bacteriologists.
Its eighth annual meeting was held during convocation week at
the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research. Formal ceremonies opening the laboratory
of the institute ^^ had been held on May 11, 1906, while he was
in Europe, and Dr. Welch had been a principal speaker of the
occasion.

The first session of the annual meeting of the Society of
American Bacteriologists was held at the College of Physicians
and Surgeons. There the papers more strictly treated topics of
morphology, physiology, and other aspects of the science. But at
the second session held w^ith Section K of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science the papers were of interest
to bacteriologist, pathologist, and chemist, and were largely given
over to researches in sera, toxins, and the biology of pathogenic
bacteria and other organisms. This joint session met at the
Rockefeller Institute, and on Saturday morning the Society again
gathered at the College of Physicians and Surgeons to consider

^^ Science, n. s., 24(601): 1-18, July 6, 1906. See also, S. and J. T. Flexner,
William Henry Welch etc., op. cit., chap. XIII: 269-296, at 284-285 (account of
the founding of this and other American medical research laboratories).

424 First European Journey

laboratory procedures, bacterial cultivation methods, milk bac-
teriology, and other branches. A brilliant Canadian bacteriologist,
Dr. James Carroll, was elected to Smith's place as president of
the society. Smith was chosen the society's delegate to the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Sciences.^*

Carroll was the survivor of an heroic experience. He and Dr.
Jesse W. Lazear, with Dr. Walter Reed and Dr. Aristides Agra-
monte, had been members of the United States commission or
army board which had demonstrated that the mosquito, Aides
degypti, transmits intermediately the organism which causes yellow
fever. Voluntarily Carroll had permitted himself to be invalided
by the disease. He recovered and returned to the United States.
But Dr. Lazear, one of several truly great martyrs of American
experimental science, lost his life in Cuba.^^

Samuel C. Prescott of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and secretary of the society reported to Smith, "We had a very
good meeting, the only drawback being that you were not there
to officiate." Smith had not prepared a presidential address or
presided at the meeting because on December 28 Mrs. Smith had
died. He had fought valiantly to save her life. He himself
examined the cultures made from her blood. From a culture of
the streptococcic infection. Dr. Rufus I. Cole, resident physician
of Johns Hopkins Hospital and later director of the Hospital of
the Rockefeller Institute, evidently prepared a vaccine. Dr. W. S.
Thayer wrote Smith after the end: " You have been so brave
throughout it all and it has been such a hard fight. But one thing
I think I may say. It was I fear a losing fight from the beginning.
The outlook in such cases is desperate and I fear that our hopes
were too much raised by the first improvements."

In February he began to assuage his grief by writing his
" Reflections and Memories." His haunting fear that death ends
all cast heavy shadows on these pages but by April he was
believing, " If any human love can survive death I believe hers
will do so." By 1912 he concluded this " book " with a triumphant
resolution: " I have begun a memorial of her. It is to be verse
and prose. I have written 104 sonnets and various other poems."

^^ Science, n. s., 25(647): 805-806, May 24, 1907.

'° See also Charles Morrow Wilson, Reed of Virginia, Ambassadors in White,
The story of American tropical medicine, 98-124, N. Y., Henry Holt and Co., 1942;
concerning Carroll and Lazear, pp. 102-120.

Studies on Crown Gall or Plants 425

He found prose more ditficult than verse to write, and lie secured
the well known medalist and sculptor, Victor David Brenner, to
make a " beautiful low relief of her face " in bronze. He designed
the reverse of the medal of her, and chose its inscription. He
was conhdent

Her pure sweet deeds will ever wider tlow. In other li\es unceasing live
and ijrow. As priceless part of earth's great heritage . . . Nature and Art,
twin goddesses fair. Walked with her, my beloved, everywhere. Unfolding
the beauty in common and lowly things, Till the varied earth, inwoven
with mystic light. Darkened and gleamed, a haunting loveliness of form
and tone. Proclaiming in rapturous hours the Master Will, The indwelling
Soul, whose law unto love is wed. Oh would I could know if the heart's
sweet music ends with the broken strings. Or sings to a lordlier harp
beyond our mortal sight! With the clogs of the mortal body forever shed.
Somewhere I trust, in the cosmic vastness, she liveth still, Wiser and statlier
grown, more beautiful there, But finding still in the good of others her own.

For Her Friends and Aline, a volume of 380 pages of beautiful
poetry, was privately printed and distributed in 1915. In English
literature few more exquisite and appropriate poems have ever
been written by a scientist, or by a husband, to the memory of
his wife. These verses were proof of his genius, and of his
ability to wTite poetry expressive of a scientist's view of life and
nature. He also employed the prominent sculptor, U. S. J. Dunbar,
to prepare a bronze bust of her, and concluded his description of
her with the quotation, " Earth changes, but thy soul and God
stand sure." Pursuant to her request, Mrs. Smith's body was
cremated and her ashes scattered along the shore at Woods Hole.

Smith promised Farlow that " after a while " he would " get
to work " again, since he knew that was " best " for him. One
of his accomplishments in 1907 was the preparation of a chart or
" society card," a standard form for describing and classifying
species of bacteria, which was approved that year by the Society
of American Bacteriologists.^*^ Since 1903 he had been working
with F. P. Gorham and F. D. Chester as members of a committee
to study the problem of classification.

Frank R. Lillie, assistant director of the Marine Biological
Laboratory and professor of zoology and embryology at the Uni-

'" Agnes J. Quirk and Edna H. Fawcett, Hydrogen-ion concentration vs. titratable
acidity in culture mediums. Jour. Infectious Diseases 33(1): 4, July 1923, and
reprint. Introduction written and contents approved by Smith.

426 First European Journey

versity of Chicago, wrote Smith in February he was " grateful "
that once again he was interesting himself in the Laboratory and
that the Department of Agriculture would probably again take a
room for research during the approaching summer. Soon after
Smith had been elected a trustee of the Laboratory, the corpora-
tion had undergone a crisis in its affairs but had emerged stronger
than ever with its traditional policies intact." During 1903, 1904,
and 1905, the corporation of the Marine Biological Laboratory
had been enjoying an annual grant from the Carnegie Institution
of $10,000 for the privilege of using twenty tables at the Labora-
tory. In 1906, however, this annual grant had not been available
by reason of the Carnegie Institution's plans to establish its own
department of marine biology, which became located at Tortugas,
Florida. Smith, therefore, in 1907 arranged, as he did at least
once before, for the Department of Agriculture to have a room
at the Laboratory and probably with a view to pursuing some of
his own researches there that summer. For, on August 11, 1907,
in one of a series of letters which told of his plans and activities
and which were written at Woods Hole, he said: " I brought
many notes and manuscripts relating to scientific things, for I hope
to finish, or nearly finish, the second volume of my book while
here this summer and autumn," ^^ Bacteria in Relation to Plant
Diseases.

Other laboratory facilities away from Washington and devoted
to plant science investigation were offered him that year. March
17, 1907, Hermann von Schrenk at St. Louis had invited Smith
to be a visiting scientist at the laboratory there. Von Schrenk, in
the sixteenth Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden,^^
had published in 1905 on " Intumescences formed as a result of
chemical stimulation," a research some of the experiments of
which Smith later repeated to study the effect of ammonia, in
addition to various copper fungicides, as causes of intumescences
in some plants.*"

*' F. R. Lillie (and E. G. Conklin), The Woods Hole Marine Biological Labora-
tory, op. cit., 50-59, and Smith's collected materials.
^^ For her friends and mine, op. cit., 43.
^»St. Louis, Mo. (May 31, 1905), pp. 125-148. Also, Science, n. s., 17(424):

*" E. F. Smith, Mechanism of tumor growth in crowngall, Jour. Agric. Res. 8(5) :
171-172, 181, Jan. 29, 1917; Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, Proc. Amer.
Philos. Soc. 56: 445-444, 1917; An intro. to bact. dis. of plants, op. cit., 483,572.

Studies on Crown Gai i, oi Plants 427

Dunui; the suninicr or early autunm of iy07, Smith visited the
new laboratory of tlie Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
located at 66th Street and Avenue A m New York (^ity. From
Washington, on November 20, 1907, he addressed a letter to the
director, Dr. Simon Flexner:

I was niiKh pleased at what 1 saw duriiii; my brief visit to the Rocke-
feller histitute. It seems to me quite as good a place to work as Koch's
establishment in Berlin. I hope, if it would not inconvenience you in any
way, that you will some time let me come and work in the institution for
two or three months, so that I may get somewhat better knowledge of
animal tumors for purposes of comparison with those on plants which
I am now working with.

Flexner answered immediately: " I should regard it as a most
flattering distinction to have you come to the Institute to work,
for as long or as short a period as you choose, on the subject of
tumors in animals, and I should put the facilities of the Institute
wholly at your disposal." We do not know if or when Smith
studied at the Institute; but that he often consulted research
authorities there is sure, and it is quite likely that at some time
he made use of the facilities to study animal tumors.

He was asked to recommend someone for an assistant professor-
ship with " much time for research " which might soon become
available at Harvard. He received a letter from Theobald Smith
of the Laboratory of Comparative Pathology of the Medical School
that, as a part of a reorganization of the work of the Bussey
Institution, vegetable pathology and bacteriology, both in teaching
and research, was planned to be included in the curriculum.

T. J. Burrill expressed to Smith his " admiration for your mag-
nificent introductory volume on bacteria in relation to plant
diseases. It is by far the best thing of the kind ever published
and is bound to be a classic upon the subject. I congratulate you
heartily in its production, and hope you may succeed as well
with what is to follow." Within a year Howard Spurr Hammond
of the department of botany at the University of Illinois was
using the volume " extensively in some research work [he was]
carrying on in connection with some of the graduate work."
L. R. Jones wrote that he had been using the volume and that
his " satisfaction in it increase[dl with time and usage. I hope,"
he said, " that you appreciate, in some measure at least, how

428 First European Journey

valuable this has proved to us in our Station work and in the
class room, and also I hope that your courage is holding good
for the pushing of the work upon the subsequent parts." ''^

On April 26, 1907, Dr. Smith and Dr. C. O. Townsend of the
office of sugar beet investigations published in Science ^' their
very important announcement of "A Plant-Tumor of Bacterial
Origin." They said:

The number of vegetable galls known positively, /. e., by exact experi-
ment, to be due to bacteria, is not very great. The discovery of a new one
of undoubted bacterial origin is, therefore, of considerable interest to plant
pathologists, and may be some interest to animal pathologists, especially
to those interested in determining the origin of cancerous growth. For two
years the writers have been studying a tumor or gall which occurs naturally
on the cultivated marguerite, or Paris daisy. It has been difficult to isolate
the organism and to demonstrate it unmistakably in stained sections.
Recently the bacteria (seen in small numbers in the unstained tissues on
the start) have been plated out successfully. With sub-cultures from poured
plate colonies, thus obtained, the galls have been reproduced abundantly
and repeatedly during the last few months, the inoculations having been
made by needle-pricks. . . . The organism attacks both roots and shoots.
It frequently induces abnormal growths on the wounded parts of young
cuttings. Its power to produce hyperplasia is not confined to the mar-
guerite. Well-developed small tumors have been produced in a few weeks
on the stems of tobacco, tomato and potato plants and on the roots of sugar
beets. More interesting economically is the fact that galls closely resem-
bling the young stages of crown-gall have been produced on the roots of
peach trees by needle-pricks, introducing this organism. In eighteen days
these growths have reached the size of small peas, the checks remaining
unaffected. It is too early, perhaps, to say positively that the cause of the
wide-spread and destructive crown-gall of the peach has been determined
by these inoculations, but it looks that way. Of course, the most that can
be affirmed absolutely at this writing is that we have found an organism
which when inoculated into the peach produces with great regularity galls
which in early stai^es of their growth cannot be distinguished from the
crown-gall. The matured daisy galls also look astonishingly like the peach
gall. Numerous experiments which ought to settle the matter definitely in
course of the next three months are now under way.

During 1892-1893, when Smith first studied this disease, he had
not really begun his work in bacterial diseases of plants. Under
the microscope and with the use of culture media, he had examined

*^ Burrill's letter was written February 6, 1907; Jones's, December 19, 1907; and
Hammond's, January 14, 1908.

*=N.s., 25(643): 671-673, Apr. 26, 1907.

Stupii-s on Crown C.ai i or Pi ants 429

specimens of crown i^all of the }X'ach. but only for plasmodia or
funi;i as parasitic causes of the mahidy. Since tlien, other able
scientists, among them, X^'aite, von Schrenk, P. J. O'Gara, and
George Grant Hedgcock, had made some study of the disease
but never discovered its cause. Hedgcock was a graduate of the
University of Nebraska and since 1901 had been with the Depart-
ment in several capacities as a plant and forest pathologist.

Tourney's " Inquiry into the Cause and Nature of Crown-Gall " "
had been principally concerned with the disease as found in
almond trees, and its causal organism, he believed, was myxomy-
cetous in nature. Dendrophagus had been chosen for the name
of his proposed new genus "' to suggest the cancerous character
of the gall tissue," and globosus was suggested for the species
because of " the form of the mature sporangium." He regarded it
as " a specific organism, belonging to the slime-molds, or Myxo-
mycetes. Altogether," he said,

about 200 species of slime-molds have been published as occurring in
North America. Of this large number but a single species is known to be
parasitic, and this is considered by some authors as a doubtful Myxomycete.
The parasitic species heretofore described is the common Plasuiodiophora
briusicae, which causes the disease known as "' club-root " in cabbage and
allied plants.

Smith had " never seen anything on or in crown galls which
ha[d] in any way led him to think that Myxomycetes have any-
thing to do with their production. Phenomena," he wrote in
1911,'*^ " similar to that described by Toumey were seen inde-
pendently by the writer as long ago as 1893 in cells of the crown
gall of the peach, and after six months' work upon the subject,
the conclusion was reached that the appearances were artefacts
and not living slime molds." He had seen and studied Toumey's
slides, but had never been convinced that the organism described
and figured by him " had any connection whatsoever with the cell-
changes in the gall also described and figured by him. . . . But
even granting Toumey's interpretation as correct," he wrote
further,

*^ op. cii., Bulletin 33, April 13, 1900, publ. of Univ. of Arizona Agric. Exp't
Sta., 64 pp. See pp. 14, 21, 25, 26, 39, 55.

"E. F. Smith, Crown gall of plants. Phytopathology 1(1): 7-11, Feb. 1911;
quotation taken from concluding note, pp. 10-11, at p. 11.

430 First European Journey

the etiological significance of the plasmodium has not been made out, since
all sorts of non-parasitic soil organisms are likely to occur in galls when
they are of some size. Toumey inoculated only ten plants altogether and
obtained successful infections on three only of the ten.''^ The inoculations
were made in a country where the disease prevailed extensively and with
spore material taken from the cut surface of the gall. The Dendrophagus
spores, therefore, would be liable to contamination with anything occurring
on the cut surface, especially the virulent schizomycete which can be demon-
strated to be present in such galls and with which in pure sub-culture the
disease can be reproduced, if the plants are in a young and actively growing
condition, 100 times out of 100.

Drs. Smith and Townsend in their preliminary announcement
of "A Plant-Tumor of Bacterial Origin" (1907) proposed for
" the organism causing these tumors the name Bacterium tume-
faciens," new species, " a schizomycete causing rapid multiplica-
tion of the young tissues of Chrysanthemum fnitescens. Primus
per ska, etc." At that time their experiments on crown gall of the
peach were not completed; but they mentioned Toumey' s work
as not clearly establishing that it was due to a myxomycete. They
admitted that " the cause, in spite of much study by many persons,
[was] still in dispute," and acknowledged that the disease had
been proved to be communicable by the experiments of Thaxter,
Halsted, Selby, Toumey, W. E. Smith, von Schrenk, Hedgcock,
and others. When minced galls were buried in the earth near
the roots of sound trees, crown galls developed.

Sometime between February, 1904, and March, 1906, Smith had
examined fresh, unstained, thin sections of undecayed galls, pre-
pared by Townsend. He had detected bacteria in the interior of
the gall material but was never thereafter prepared to say that
these were actually the bacterium later isolated. Seeing bacteria
in small clumps so positively, he (or Dr. Townsend) directed
Miss Haskins " to make agar-poured plates from the interior of
suitable galls; and with the bacteria so obtained, inoculations on
healthy daisy plants." *®

The work proceeded for " many months without positive
results." ^''

^^ An inquiry into the cause and nature of crown-gall, op. cit., 63.

** E. F. Smith, N. A. Brown, and C. O. Townsend, Crown-gall of plants: its
cause and remedy, U. S. Dep't of Agric, Bur. of PI. Ind. Bull. 213: 22 (issued
Feb. 28, 1911). Miss Haskins's work summarized, pp. 20-25.

^'' Idem, 22.

Studies on Crown Gai.i. oi Plants 431

Other workers contribukd " licrc and there, — cultures set, sec-
tions cut, llai;elhi stained, chemical analyses made." '•*' But for
two years Miss Haskins was the laboratory assistant, she pre-
paring in all several hundred plate cultures. To Smith she had
been recommended as a research worker in 1903 by her professor
of botany, W. F. Ganong, of Smith College.

On February 21, 190 i, tlic Department had received from one
of the large commercial plant growers in New Jersey white and
yellow marguerites or Paris daisies {Chrysanthemum frutesceus)
infected with rrall-likc growths on the stems and leaves, and it
was stated that tlie galls appeared, without evident cause, on
plants grown in the open in summer and under glass in winter.""
Inability to secure the gall with regularity prompted Dr. Townsend
to abandon for a while the theory that the cause was bacteria
and to explore the effects of mechanical injuries on young and
old plants. In May 1906, however, after Dr. and Mrs. Smith had
sailed for Europe, one of the workers, presumably Dr. Townsend,
observed, while studying microtome sections stained with anil in
compounds having a strong affinity for bacteria, that although
" no distinct bacteria could be made out, nevertheless, that part
of the section lying deepest, i. e., bordering on the sound tissues,
took the stain much heavier than the rest of the gall as though
the living bacteria might be lodged most abundantly in this
portion. It was suggested, therefore, that for the next series of
plates deeper tissues should be used." New cultures were pre-
pared and in four from six groups of plates a yellow organism
developed; and in five from the six series " a few small, round,
white colonies appeared in each plate. . . . Slant agar and potato
cylinder cultures were made from both the yellow and white
colonies, also cultures in litmus milk." "' During June young
healthy daisy plants growing in the greenhouse were inoculated
with each of the four organisms at the top, middle, and base of
their stems. At least two sets of inoculations were made. On
June 18 knotty growths were visible and later developed into
" considerable size " in some of the pricked spots.

Dr. Smith, before his departure, wrote in his journal: " Dcane

'"E. F. Smith, Crown gall in plants, Phytopathology 1(1): 7, Feb. 1911.
** E. F. Smith, The discovery of cancer in plants, Nat'l Geof^raphic M.i.^jzine 24
(1): 57, Jan. 1913; Crown-gall of plants: its cause and remedy, op. cit., 21.
''"Crown-gall of plants: its cause and remedy, op. cit., 23-25.

432 First European Journey

Swingle, my assistant, now in California assisting Merton B. Waite
in his effort to exterminate pear-blight and save the orchards of a
great state, is to be married in June to Miss Alice C. Haskins, who
was formerly in my laboratory and who now works with Dr. C. O.
Townsend. . . ."

Galloway wrote:

You probably know by this time that Deane Swingle has decided to
leave the Department, having accepted a place in Montana [at the agri-
cultural college at Bozeman}. . . . From the fact that at the last session of
Congress a bill was passed giving each experiment station $5,000 addi-
tional last year, $10,000 the present year and $15,000 next year, the
stations will be in a position now to compete with us for men. We are
already beginning to feel the effect of this; and several of our men have
had offers. In three years, therefore, all the stations will be provided with
$30,000 annually for their work instead of $15,000. The man who was
responsible for this measure, Mr. H. C. Adams, Member from Wisconsin,
has been a very good friend, not only of the stations, but of the Department
as well.

The crown gall cultures and inoculations throughout most of
that summer, as a consequence, were not cared for properly, and
some of the labels on Miss Haskins's work were lost. In September
Miss Nellie A. Brown, one of America's ablest women scientists
and whose work in this connection deserves special recognition,
became employed by Dr. Townsend's ofhce of sugar beet inves-
tigations. She had been graduated at the University of Michigan
under Spalding and Newcombe, and had studied at Dr. Rolfs's
and the Department's sub-tropical laboratory at Miami. Dr. Town-
send told Miss Brown to continue the work. She plated the
bacterium with the use of suitable media, grew the germ and,
with subcultures from poured plate colonies, reproduced galls on
plants repeatedly. On November 27 she made

28 inoculations into marguerite daisies, using 4 different organisms plated
from a daisy gall found in the greenhouse (probably produced by one of
Miss Haskins's inoculations — labels lost off) . Inoculated each organism
into 7 different daisy plants at the tip. The cultures were 2 days old.

Result — December 12: All 7 plants inoculated with the white organism
(designated B) had knobby outgrowths. No protuberances were visible on
plants inoculated with the other organisms.

December 18: Galls formed on all those plants inoculated with B. The

Studii^s on Crown Gall of Plants 433

same ort^anism (B) was isolated by poured plates from one of the ,t;alls
and its infectious nature proved by [subsequently described] inoculations."^

On February IS, 1907, Smith began experiments to verify and
extend what had been done. His memoranda read:

Four vigorous plants of white flowered Paris daisy and 6 similar plants
of the yellow-flowered Paris daisy were selected. Each plant of the white
variety branched at the base into two et]ual shoots; 7 of these shoots were
inoculated and the eighth was held as a check. On the inoculated shoots
also check pricks were made .m inch or two above the places where the
infected needle entered. All of the inoculations were made by needle pricks,
usin£j a slant clyccrine-a^^ar culture, 7 days old, which had been streaked
from another slant at;ar culture. The ori^anism was derived from a strain
which had been passed twice through the daisy by Miss Brown with the pro-
duction of tumors (the organism designated B). It was probably a third or
fourth subculture from the colony. Four of the inoculated white-daisy
shoots received 3 needle pricks each; two received 1 prick each; one
received 50 pricks. . . . Result — February 23, 1907: There was distinct
evidence of infection on each of the 12 shoots at the end of 5 days, the
protuberances on some being nearly a millimeter high.

During and from July, the " plants were removed at the end
of 1 month, 2 months, and later, with well-developed tumors.
Galls formed only where inoculated. The 122 sterile (check)
punctures healed normally. Every infected prick resulted in a
larger or smaller tumor." By November 25, he added, " During
the summer some of the plants developed many secondary infec-
tions (metastases) ." "''"

This appears to have been his first experiment using the daisy
organism on daisy, and on February 18 he started other similar
experiments using the daisy organism on tomato and tobacco.
Experiments with the daisy organism, and with schizomycetes
from galls on other plants, would be made on a wide variety of
cultivated plants. Hard and soft galls would be studied according
to t)'pe, distribution, cause, technique in study, cultural characters,
histology, transmission, variability, etc. The work would bring

^^ Crown-gall of plants: its cause and remedy, op. cit., 25. Miss Brown's sets of
inoculations here referred to were started on January 8 and 18 and Februar>' 6, 1907.
Scientists interested in this subject should read the description of the technique
applied by Miss Haskins (pp. 22-25) and compare this with pp. 25 et seq.,
" Further inoculations by [Smith, Brown, and Townsend] made with the daisy
organism and with the same or similar bacteria plated from galls on other host
plants."

^* Crown-gall of plants: its cause and remedy, op. cit., 26-27.

434 First European Journey

about modifications in nursery and orchard practice, and lead to a
rigid system of crop shipment inspection. ^^ Later when Smith
would prepare his text, Introduction to Bacterial Diseases of
Plants, several of the photographs used to illustrate the chapter
on " Crown Gall " would be taken from pure culture inoculations
made during these first years, 1906-1907.^*

Smith did not present the discovery in 1907 before the Society
of American Bacteriologists. At one of the sessions of the Society's
meeting of December 29-31, 1908, however, he addressed the
Society on " The Etiology of Plant Tumors," illustrating his lecture
with a series of lantern slides, numerous stereopticon photographs
of inoculated plants of various species and of widely different
families. Science s ^^ abstract of the address reported that

Hundreds of pure culture inoculations [had] been made. The organism
cultivated from the Paris daisy has been inoculated many times successfully
into the same and also into the peach, rose, hop, sugar-beet, white poplar
and other susceptible plants. That from the crown gall of the peach has
been many times successfully inoculated into the peach, and also into the
Paris daisy, sugar-beet, hop and other plants. The schizomycete from the
hop has been inoculated successfully into the hop and into the Paris daisy,
sugar-beet and other plants. One of the astonishing things about this
crown-gall organism is the number of families which are subject to infec-
tion ; in other words, the very simple and generalized nutritional needs of
the parasite. In some ways it resembles the root-tubercle organism of Legu-
minosae, but is not identical. It has been inoculated into clovers with the
production of knots. Quite recently from the hard gall of the apple
(selected by Dr. Hedgcock) we [Smith, Townsend, and Brown] have
isolated an organism which appears to be like that occurring in other crown
galls, and with this, hard galls have been produced upon the Paris daisy.
A similar if not identical organism has also been isolated from the hairy
root of the apple and successfully inoculated into the sugar-beet, i. e., with
the production of similar root-tufts at the point of inoculation. There is
now little doubt, therefore, that the hairy root of the apple is also of bac-
terial origin.

Metastatic growths occur on these plants, but up to this time we have
not definitely determined the channels of infection from the primary tumor
to the secondary ones. These are easily discovered in the case of the olive-

^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 32.

" Op. cit., 413-432.

^^N. s. 30(763): 223-224, Aug. 13, 1909- Abstracts of three other papers pre-
sented to the Society of American Bacteriologists by Smith also published were: Seed
corn as a means of disseminating Bacterium stewarti ; The occurrence of Bacterium
pruni in peach foliage; and Two sources of error in the determination of gas-
production by microorganisms.

Studii-s on Crown Gall of Plants 435

tubercle, but arc not readily fouiul in case of these crown galls. The same
remark is true respecting the bacteria in the primary tumors. They are very
abundant and easily discovered in the olive-tubercle, but not readily
detected in the crown gall, although obtainable therefrom in Petri dish
cultures on agar.

The abstract, probably prepared by Smith, suggested a possible,
but unestablished, theory:

It is still too early in the course of our studies to make positive statements
respecting the likeness or unlikeness of these growths to malignant animal
tumors, but it is proposed to continue this phase of the inc]uiry. There is
in these grov.-ths a very rapid multiplication of parcnchymatic tissues with
reduction and distortion of the firm conductive tissues of the plant and the
final decay and sloughing otT of the spongy tissues, leaving open wounds,
on the ma'rgins of which fresh developments of the tumor may appear.

Smith's and- Townsend's article, "A plant-tumor of bacterial
origin," described the schizomycete Bacterium tumefaciens and its
pathogenic properties; and was published in Science, and in the
Centralhlatt fiir Bakteriologie II ^'^ with some additional data. The
organism's description followed the provisions of the chart of the
Society of American Bacteriologists, and its group number became
212.2322023.^' These were the first of many important statements
on this subject addressed primarily to plant pathologists. In 1922 ''^
Dr. Smith presented a general summary, or outline, of the work.
This read as follows:

The general outcome of these researches, continued for many years and
still going on, has been an entire revision of views as to the nature of the
disease and as to sanitary measures necessary for its restriction. We now
know not only the morphology and biology of the organism causing the
tumors but also that the type of the tumor varies with the part infected,
that there are several strains of the organism and probably many, that
isolations differ in virulence, that some colonies which look all right have
no virulence whatever, that on culture media and probably in the plant
some strains lose virulence much sooner than others, that isolations are
cross-inoculable to a very surprising degree, i. e., to plants of many families,
that some plants, immune or nearly immune to certain strains, respond
vigorously to other strains, and that some species are resistant to all strains
so far tested, e. g., olive, onion and garlic.

*" 20(1/3): 89-91, 1907.

" Erwin F. Smith, Nellie A. Brown, and Lucia McCulIoch, The structure and
development of crown gall: a plant cancer, U. S. Dep't of Agric, Bur. of Plant
Industry Bulletin No. 255: 16, issued June 29, 1912.

^* Synopsis of researches, op. cit., 39-40.

436 First European Journey

Things not yet determined are the number of strains, the extent of cross
inoculabihty, the cause of resistance, the reason for loss of virulence on
media, the nature of certain beet tumors and the question whether right
looking but non-infectious colonies from such tumors and occasionally from
other tumors are really the parasite deprived of infectious powers by sojourn
in the plant under unfavorable conditions or are only deceiving sapro-
phytes, extent of variability of the organism on culture media and in the
tumor, production of metastasizing tumors in animals, etc.

Smith would spend many years trying " to think out the rationale
of what goes on in the cell following the introduction of the
crowngall organism. What we see is excessive and abnormal multi-
plication of the tissues resulting in a tumor, a hyperplasia," he
would say ^^ in 1917. "What we would wish to know is the
mechanism of the growth— that is, the chemical or physical
stimulus behind the observed phenomena — since, if we can com-
prehend it in the plant, we may be able to apply our knowledge
to the understanding of similar phenomena in man and animals."

He admitted that at first he thought of " the crowngall pheno-
mena as much more complex than it really is. . . . In the beginning
I had," he wrote,

what I now believe to be a wrong conception of growth. I looked upon it
as something that an outside substance could directly stimulate into develop-
ment, but probably it is not that (Weigert, Ribbert, Loeb) . Growth is the
normal function of cells. They are always multiplying when they are not
inhibited by one thing or another. Growth, then, if this view is correct,
comes about not by the direct application of stimuli, but indirectly by the
removal of various inhibitions. ... In crowngalls the removal of growth
inhibitions is brought about, I think, by the physical action of substances
liberated within the tumor cells as the result of the metabolism of the
imprisoned bacteria.

From that time his use of the word " stimulus " was to be con-
strued as " the remover of an inhibition."

He became a student of plant tumors and their etiology. He
found indicated analogies in structure and function between the
higher plants and animals in health and disease.*^*' He approached
his comparison between crown gall and sarcoma with " mental
reservations." He was more confident of his analogy between
crown gall and " a nontypical epithelioma or carcinoma." *'^ Crown

'^" Mechanism of tumor growth in crowngall, Jour. Agric. Res. 8: 165-167.
*" The structure and development of crown gall, analogies, op. cit., 53-57.
"^Idein, 54.

StudiI'S on Crown Gam. of Plants 437

gall, where occurring, he said, is a plant cancer, structurally
" unlike that of dub-root of cabbage, which is a hypertrophy rather
than a hyperplasia." "'-' The olive tubercle {Bacterium savastatwi)
was "' an excellent example of atrophy.""^ In suggesting resem-
blances in crown gall of plants to malignant animal tumors and
certain malignant neoplasms in man he hoped to aid animal and
medical pathologists in solving problems of the more obscure
higher animal malignancies including human cancer. It is true
that he consistently favored the view that in certain types of
human cancer a parasite would be found involved, indeed the
cause. But in his 1912 bulletin, "" The Structure and Development
of Crown Gall," he made it plain that nothing therein should be
construed to indicate that the authors, Smith, Miss Brown, and
Miss McCuUoch, believed that " the organism causing crown galls
is able also to cause human cancer, but only that [they believed]
the latter due to a cell parasite of some sort . . .," *'' and the
possibility of a virus origin of human cancer was not excluded.
If a tag must be affixed. Smith preeminently was a physiologist
in plant pathology or a pathologist in plant physiology, interested
in studying the life processes and structures, and the existent
analogies, between created living forms, the intention being to
help solve the problems of disease. He grew bolder as he grew
more convinced. But in his first appearances before the American
Association for Cancer Research, he maintained little more than
his fundamental contention: that crown gall of wild and culti-
vated plants, while proved conclusively to be of bacterial origin,
is a tumor growth, comparable to certain malignant animal tumors.
February 22, 1909, William Carpenter MacCart}% associate path-
ologist of the laboratory staff of the Doctors Mayo, Graham and
Company — the renowned Mayo Hospital — of Rochester, Minne-
sota, addressed a letter to Smith:

Your letter of February 18th and reprints were received and thoroughly
appreciated.

My scientific career was started as a botanist, and I therefore seek on
every occasion to connect histological botany with histological pathology.

I have for some time wondered whether there could be any facts con-

'^^ Idem, 57, fact 5. See Resume, pp. 57-60; 38 facts summarized.
"B^f/. in Rel. to PL Dis., op. cit., 2: 92.
" Op. cit., fact 38, p. 60.

15

438 First European Journey

nected with pathological growth in plant life which might throw some
light on the many pathological conditions which we find in animal life.
While with Dr. [Walter Bradford Cannon, professor of physiology of
Harvard Medical School] I mentioned this subject to him and he imme-
diately referred me to you. I shall read the reprints with great pleasure
and hope that I may find something in them which I can apply to my work.

If at any time I can be of service to you in supplying you with path-
ological material, I shall be only too glad to send you what I can. Our
material is very extensive and more than we can really handle, and we will
be very glad to turn anything over to you which might be of service. ■

If I should find any connection between the new growths in plant life
and animal life I shall immediately communicate with you.

On March 30, a little more than a month after Dr. MacCarty
had written, Dr. Gaylord, now director of the Cancer Laboratory
of the New York State Department of Health, sent Smith some
references to literature on tumor transplantation, accelerated growth
in mouse tumors, and other topics. A second paragraph of his
letter extended a cordial and significant invitation:

I find that I shall be in Boston for the meeting. We will meet on April
8th and if you can find it possible to be present at the meeting and present
your material it would give us the very greatest pleasure. As secretary of
the society, I extend to you an invitation to present your material at that
meeting. I expect to be in Washington on Wednesday or Thursday and
will try to find time to discuss the matter further with you.

During 1909-1910 Dr. Gaylord served as president of the
American Association for Cancer Research. Such interest was
aroused at the Boston meeting by Smith's lantern-slide illustrated
address that he was invited the next year to appear before the
Association at its spring meeting in Washington. At this time
Smith exhibited specimens of crown gall. Still again, and for the
third time, he addressed the Association at its Buffalo meeting,
April 13, 1911, on " Crown-Gall and Sarcoma," ^'^ in which he
stressed likenesses, developmentdly, between crown gall, a plant
cancer, and certain malignant neoplasms in man. He called atten-
tion to " the method of action of the parasite on the cells of the

'^^ Zeitschrijt fur Krebsjorschung 11, Bd. 1. Heft., an abstract of this address.
See also Circular 85, Bur. PI. Indus., U. S. Dep't of Agric, issued June 20, 1911,
4 pp. In his address, On some resemblances of crown-gall to human cancer. Science,
n. s. 35(892): 161-162, Feb. 2, 1912, Smith spoke of this as his "third address
before the American Association for Cancer Research, an abstract of which was
published by the Department of Agriculture as Circular No. 85 . . . and in Zeit-
schrijt f. Krebsjorschung, 11 Bd., 1 Heft."

Studii-s on Crown Gai.i. of Plants 439

host." He realized that superficially crown t;all *' i^rowths are like
those due to various fungi, to gall insects, to Phisnioiiiophora bras-
sicae, or to tiie olive-tubercle organism, hut structurally," he
argued, " they are different. Their manner of growth and their
histology strongly suggest certain malignant animal tumors." ""
He was discussing only resemblances, facts of an analogy ad-
mittedly incomplete as yet, between crown gall of plants and
malignant animal tumors, and his discovery in 1911 that a distinct
strand of tumor tissue could be traced from primary to secondary
tumors lent credence to his point of view. But he qualified the
proposal:

There is perhaps no metastasis, in the strict sense of the term, but so
far as regards the mechanism of tumor development it is a matter of minor
importance wheUier the migrating tumor cells separate themselves entirely
from the parent mass or remain connected with it by means of a tumor
strand. The plant body favors the latter method of development, whereas
the rapidly circulating blood stream in animals favors the former, i. e., the
dislodgment and distribution of cells. The matter of chief importance is
the method of action of the parasite on the cells of the host.*'^

It was a worthy faith, but Smith advanced no more than a hope,
that " some light " on the origin of malignant human tumors
might be disclosed from his researches. That the light began to
have faint glimmerings around the world was in part due to Dr.
Gaylord. fn October 1910 he attended the International Cancer
Congress at Paris and heard Dr. C. O. Jensen of the Serum
Laboratory of the Danish Veterinary and Agricultural School at
Copenhagen address the conference. When Dr. Jensen expressed
a belief that his experimental tumors on beets were probably
non-parasitic in origin, Dr. Gaylord informed him of Smith's
discovery and isolation of the parasite Bacteritwi tinnejaciens.
Jensen procured a copy of Smith, Brown, and Townsend's bulletin
213, "Crov/n-Gall of Plants: Its Cause and Remedy," and, after
studying its contents and himself performing further experiments,
began to share the view, quoting him, " that ' crown-gall ' is a
new formation which (irrespective of the cause of its formation)
can be placed side by side with the real malignant tumor-forma-
tion in the higher animals. . . . Through all these properties thi<

"E. F. Smith, Crown gall of plants, Phytopathology 1(1): 10, Feb. 1911.
•■^ Crown-gall and sarcoma, Cicular 85, op. cit., 1-4, at p. 1.

440 First European Journey

tumor shows very considerable points of similarity with the animal
malignant tumors, especially with the carcinoma." ^^ And Dr.
Jensen enjoyed a world wide prestige as a student of animal
cancer !

Since 1906 Dr. MacCarty had been with the Mayo Clinic as a
specialist in surgical pathology and biopathology. Graduating in
science in 1900 from the University of Kentucky, he had obtained
his degree of doctor of medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1904 and
then gone to the Koenigin Hospital, Berlin, Germany, for further
study specializing in surgical pathology. Returning to the United
States, he had planned, together with teaching pathology at Wash-
ington University, to practice medicine in St. Louis. But Dr. Welch
recommended him for appointment as a full time pathologist on
Director Louis B. Wilson's laboratory staff, with facilities at St.
Mary's Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota, and under the celebrated
surgeons and brothers. Dr. William James Mayo and Dr. Charles
Horace Mayo.''^ For a year while at the University of Kentucky,
Dr. MacCarty had taught botany and was, therefore, admirably
fitted to collaborate informally with Smith in the latter's new work.
Dr. Gaylord for several years had made plain his certain interest
in Smith's analogue of crown gall and human cancer. April 19,
1911, Dr. Roswell Park, reading Smith's monograph, "Crown-
Gall of Plants: Its Cause and Remedy," sent him an immediate
card of thanks and said, "As I have glanced over its pages it
becomes more and more evident to me that the work on Com-
parative Pathology needs to be written and needs you for a
collaborator."

At McGill University, Montreal, Canada, where Dr. William
Osier had taught before going to the University of Pennsylvania
and Johns Hopkins, the great English born pathologist. Dr. John
George Adami, now professor of pathology of the Department
of Pathology and Bacteriology of McGill, on March 8 of the same
year had written to Smith:

I have read with intense interest your monograph on Crown-Gall of
Plants, and congratulate you most cordially upon it, and upon the results

'^ See a translation of a paper by Jensen in Smith's address, Twentieth century
advances in cancer research, Jour. RcuJ/ology 4(9): 299, Sept. 1923.

*■* An interesting book on these two great men has been written by Helen Clape-
sattlc, The Doctors Mayo, Minneapolis, Univ. of Minn. Press, 1941. In this appears
many references to Dr. MacCarty and his work at the Mayo Clinic.

StUDIILS on (]R()\\N CiAI.I, Ol- Pl.ANTS 44l

you have achicvcJ. It seems to me a most valuable contribution to the
study of Neoplasms. If you know the chapters on Neoplasia in the first
volume of my Principles of Fatholoi^y, you will uiulerstaml that I am of an
open mind on the subject of the relationship of microbes to the origin of
tumours. I am wholly ready to accept what you have shown, namely, that
there are bacteria of such a qradc of virulence that they initiate cell pro-
literation rather than cell destruction. I rather incline to the belief, however,
that those having initiated proliferation, the cells then acquire the " habit
of growth " and may continue to proliferate in the absence of the primary
stimulant. Tims I am not a little interested to sec that in the older growths
you note the dilliculty in obtaining cultures. Is it your opinion that these
growths continue developing actively for months after the germs have
practically disappeared.^ There is a method, by the by, worked out by
Duval, which is very- successful in staining refractory bacteria in animal
tissue. I cannot at the moment put my hands upon the reference. It might
be worth your while to write to him at Tulanc University, New Orleans,
for the technique.

Lastly, looking at your admirable and abundant photographs, I am im-
pelled to ask you whether you have one or two examples of these galls that
you could spare for our Museum.

June 20, 1911, the United States Bureau of Plant Industry
published a four-paged circular, number 85, prepared by Smith,
and entitled, " Crown-Gall and Sarcoma." Receiving a copy of
this in England, Dr. William Osier, Regius Professor of Medicine
at Oxford, quickly expressed to Smith his considerate encourage-
ment: " What a suggestive paper on Crotvn Gall and Sarcoma\ "
he exclaimed. "Most interesting in every way!" Since this
communication was written on July 4, 1911, Dr. Osier might
have had before him a copy of Smith's address, " Crown Gall and
Sarcoma," presented on the April 13 previous before the American
Association for Cancer Research, meeting that year at Buffalo,
New York. Proceedings of the Association that year were pub-
lished in the Zeitschrtjt flir Krehsforschung of Berlin, and reprints
of the substance of Smith's main points and the discussion which
followed were made available.

In this presentation, Smith called attention to the subject matter
of his bulletin, " Crown-Gall of Plants: Its Cause and Remedy,"
and to three new and added facts:

1. When a stem-tumor produces secondary tumors in a leaf, the struc-
ture of the leaf-tumor is like that of the stem.

2. In a certain proportion of the cases (I do not know yet whether in

442 First European Journey

all) there is a deep-seated strand of tumor tissue extending all the way
from the primary tumor to the secondary.

3. The bacteria accompany the secondary tumors the same as the primary
tumors, and apparently in about the same abundance, that is to say,
scarcity.'^''

Five years of experiments were required before a method was
believed to have been found to stain the organism within the cell
structures, that is, with the exacting technique necessary to com-
plete elucidation. Many stains had been used. But to differentiate
lignified from nonlignified tissues, the method recommended by
Charles Joseph Chamberlain in his Methods in Plant Histology
(pp. 49, 68), "a prolonged stain in methyl green followed by
a short exposure to acid fuchsin," "^ had proved best. Further,
by impregnating with gold chlorid. Smith, Brown, and McCuUoch
had been able to demonstrate " that the bacteria are not abundant
in the tissues, that they ocair inside the cells but outside the
nucleus, and that Y-bodies and variously branched forms are
common."

At the American Association for Cancer Research meeting.
Smith exhibited both photographs and specimens, and announced
that another bulletin setting forth the additional facts was being
prepared. In answer to a question from Dr. Frank Burr Mallory,
associate professor of pathology at Harvard University, as to
whether or not he could stain the organism, Smith answered,
" Perfectly well. The organism is rare however. These organisms
secrete acetic acid and this causes them to quickly go into involu-
tion forms." And in answer to a question from Dr. Beebe, " Is the
actual division of the cell due to stimulation by these organisms? "
Smith replied, " The cells divide by mitosis and the organism is
in the tissues."

If the discussion was completely abstracted, little or no definite
notice was taken of Smith's announced discovery of a paren-
chymatous tumor strand found in inoculated Paris daisy plants
connecting the primary stem tumors with deep-seated secondary

""^ Zeitschrijt jiir Krebsforschuiig 11(1), 1911, Berlin, and reprint.

'^ The structure and development of crown gall: a plant cancer, op. cit., 23-24;
22. In 1914 Smith made a "Statement" before the Committee on Agriculture of
the House of Representatives, which said on this point: " it required five years of
experiments before we were able to find a method of staining [the organism] inside
of the cells." Presumably what was seen was mitochondria. Intro, to bact. dis. of
plants, op. cit., 419-

Studies on (jiown Ciai.i. oi Plants '1-13

tumors which liad dcvckopcd in tlie leaves some weeks after tlie
stem inoculations. These secondary leaf-tume)rs were shown to
be possessed of stem structure, that is, to have the structure of the
primary tumor, and thus to suggest a simihirity following " the
law of cancer in man and animals." '■ Dr. William Bradley Coley,
famous New York physician and surgeon, told the meeting that
he believed Smith's work "' extremely valuable." That he adhered
to this opinion was borne out by letters written years later to Smith.
Dr. Coley was not only professor of clinical cancer research in
Cornell University Medical School but also surgeon-in chief, con-
sulting or attending surgeon at several hospitals, including the
Memorial Hospital of New York where some of the earliest and
most valuable cancer research in connection with a hospital was
done in this country. For a number of years Dr. James Ewing,
also a participant in the discussion and wdiom Smith always held
in high esteem because of his sincerity of beliefs and devotion to
truth, directed this cancer research. At the Buffalo meeting he
stated his view that, while he found " certain aspects extremely
interesting," he believed, " We are making a great mistake in
calling carcinoma one and the same disease. Cancer in man is
different from cancer in animals." In a letter of May 31, 1916,
Dr. Coley encouraged Smith by telling him that he had sent extra
copies of Smith's papers to men who he was sure w^re " especially
interested in the subject. Most of the pathologists that I have
talked with, are still very skeptical about the possibility of being
able to draw an analogy between plant tumors and human tumors.
Needless to say I am not in accord with such views. I am a firm
believer in applying the rules of logic in the field of Medicine as
well as in other fields of science." June 25, 1916, Dr. Coley again
congratulated Smith " upon the convincing and lucid arguments
you so ably presented [in another article by Smith entitled " Fur-
ther Evidence that Crown Gall of Plants is Cancer." '^} I have,
for 25 years, in season and out of season," he continued,

held the same views, and in spite of the advice of my friends, the path-
ologists, that I would lose "" caste " if I published them, I have kept on
expressing my opinions. Each year has brought firmer conviction of the

""^ Erwin F. Smith, Further evidence as to the relation between crown gall and
cancer, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sciences 2: 446, Aug. 1916.
'" Scietice, n. s., 43(1121): 871-889, June 23, 1916.

444 First European Journey

truth of my opinions, with larger cHnical experience. I am surprised that
men who profess to monopolize the " scientific " shrine in Modern Medicine
should be so unscientific as to " stand pat " upon Cohnheim's theory of the
origin of cancer, a theory without any basis in clinical facts, and frown
upon any attempt to learn more about the possibilities of a parasitic origin.
The lack of agreement among pathologists as to the classification of tumors
and the hopeless confusion that now exists in classification has already
forced the clinician to lay less and less stress upon the pathological diag-
nosis and more and more upon the clinical. I believe you have inaugurated
a new era in Cancer Research. ... I shall do all in my power to help
along researches in the lines you have so splendidly started.

Not only were the older great physicians, surgeons, and teachers
of Baltimore medical circles following Smith's work with interest,
but younger doctors were also being attracted to his new offerings
of scientific knowledge. Dr. Thomas Stephen Cullen, Baltimore
surgeon and professor of clinical gynecology at Johns Hopkins,
had attended the Buffalo meeting of the American Association for
Cancer Research and been so enthused by the disclosures made
by Smith in his address that immediately following the meeting
he had telegraphed Secretary of Agriculture Wilson and con-
gratulated the Department of Agriculture on having so able a
man. Receiving a copy of bulletin 213, " Crown-Gall of Plants:
Its Cause and Remedy," he again wrote to the Secretary on October
29, 1911,

I have been greatly interested in a recent monograph appearing from
your Department, namely, " Crown Gall " by Dr. Erwin F. Smith. The
results in this work are truly remarkable. Recently I have had the oppor-
tunity of seeing many of the photomicrographs showing the finer structures
of these tumors. This work is of such a high scientific value and the photo-
graphs he has made so clear and convincing that I take the liberty of asking
you to urge him strongly to publish his results most fully and with plenty
of his photographs reproduced in the best possible manner. It will not
only reflect great credit on the department of agriculture but add materially
to the prestige of American Scientific work. I have been particularly
interested in the subject of cancer since taking charge of Gynecological
Pathology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital eighteen years ago and conse-
quently feel sure you will make no mistake in urging him in doing this.
It will redound greatly to the credit of your department.

Dr. Cullen had received part of his education at the Collegiate
Institute, Toronto, Canada, and in 1890 his M. B. degree from the
University there. First he had specialized in abdominal surgery

Studies on Crown CiAll of Plants 445

and then accepted the chair of chnical gynecology at Johns
Hopkins University in the capacity of visiting gynecologist of the
Hospital. Smith cordially welcomed so eminent and able a con-
feree near him. June 20, 1911, he invited Dr. Cullen to examine
some of his materials.

In working over sections of some fish, which I inoculated three years
ago with Bjcteriuni tuviejaciens from daisy, I have come across some
phenomena which I cannot interpret very well. I should like very much
to have you see some of the slides. If you are over here some afternoon,
can you not run in for an hour or two and look at them? My room is 301
West Wing, Department of Agriculture. . . . Some of the things I have
may be simple inflammation, but other phenomena seems to me a good
deal like a sarcoma. Of course, I am not saying on the strength of two
series of experiments that I produced what I have got, and when I first
concluded the experiments I was so much discouraged that I did not cut
any sections of them for a good while. If you come over here, I could
show you some very pretty slides of plant diseases.

Again by a letter of October 17 Smith invited Cullen to examine
some slides and photomicrographs which were nearly finished.
The result was Dr. CuUen's letter to Secretary of Agriculture
Wilson.

Secretary of Agriculture Wilson had become much interested
in Smith's researches. Honored and respected by all of his co-
workers, Dr. Albert F. Woods had left the Department the year
before to accept an appointment as Dean of the College of Agri-
culture of the University of Minnesota and director of the state's
agricultural experiment station. For some time Dr. Galloway's
health had not been strong. During the first half of the year 1911
he and Mrs. Galloway had taken a trip to Europe. Smith wrote
him of his visit to Minneapolis to attend the annual meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of what
progress Dean and Director Woods had already made, of what
great and promising plans he had for the future, and that the
next meeting of the Association was to be held in Washington.
"About a month ago," he said,

I went up to Buffalo at the request of the Academy of Medicine to give
a talk on crown-gall, showing some lantern slides. They paid my expenses.
The crown-gall bulletin [" Crown-Gall of Plants: Its Cause and Remedy "]
which has been under way so long was published at about that time. The
Secretary got interested in the matter and rushed it through. I have sent a

446 First European Journey

copy of it to you at Marseilles. We are still working on the subject, because
there are a number of very interesting points in connection with it which
are not yet settled. I have been crazy over the subject for a half year or
more, because I think it is related to malignant animal tumors in its method
of growth and development. . . . There is a very interesting tumor on pine ■
trees in south France, not very far from Marseilles. It has been reported
from Coarze near Hyeres, but I fancy it occurs in quite a good many
localities in the Departments of the Maritime Alps and Var. It looks some-
what like Peridermium galls. There has never been any good work done on
the disease. I have been anxious for years to get hold of it. I got it once
from Paris, but the thing was old and dead and I could not do anything
with it in the way of cultures. If you come across any tumors on pines in
southern France of such description I wish you would gather a lot of them
for me, especially the younger living ones. Tubeuf in Munich has recently
published a paper on a bacterial gall of other species of pine which he
found somewhere in Germany, and I suspect they are identical, but no one
can say.

Smith, therefore, must have delivered an illustrated lecture on
crown gall of plants before the Buffalo Academy of Medicine
prior to addressing the American Association for Cancer Research.
But at each event he had been preeminently a plant pathologist
and plant bacteriologist, and for good reasons. The work in his
Laboratory covered a range of investigational materials — forest
and cultivated tree species, garden and farm field crops, orchard
and greenhouse materials, wild plant species — in such numbers
and from all parts of the world that probably no similar laboratory
of the North American continent, perhaps of the world, approxi-
mated it in scope and influence.

At the Boston meeting of the Botanical Society of America in
1909 Smith had been elected president of the society for the
ensuing year of 1910. This was the year when as another affiliate
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science the
American Phytopathological Society " held its first annual meeting
in cooperation with the Botanical Society and Section G of the
Association. Dr. F. C. Newcombe congratulated Smith. " If you
live a little longer," he said, " we shall have to form a new society;
otherwise the field of presidencies will be exhausted by you. But
do not let this remark bother you. I know you can be just as

■'^ C L. Shear, First decade of the American Phytopathological Society, Phyto-
pathology 9(4): 165-170, Apr. 1919.

Studils on Crown Gall t)i' Plants 447

good private as general, and you are all the same to us whether
you are the one or the other."

Newcombe had collected funds from former pupils of Dr.
Spalding to erect the memorial tablet which in the Natural
Sciences building of the University of Michigan honors the work
of this great teacher. Spalding, interested in applying modern
investigation tecliniques of plant physiology to ecology, had
resigned from liis university professorship and become a resident
investigator at the Carnegie Institution's Desert Botanical Labora-
tory at Tucson. Smith's continued interest in ecology was shown
in 1906 when in Berlin he sought out Georg Volkens, author of a
" beautiful ecological paper on the Egyptian and Arabian desert,"
a study which had excited his admiration and " greatest interest "
and which he thought " a model in its way." In 1906 Smith had
something to do with honoring an American botanist who had
helped to coordinate research in plant physiology and ecology —
W. F. Ganong. That year the Society for Plant Morphology
and Physiology was being merged with the Botanical Society of
America, and E. C. Jeffrey, retiring president of the former
organization, asked Smith, on behalf of its members, to present a
silver cup to Ganong in appreciation for his many years of service
as their secretary-treasurer. Farlow was first asked, but neither
Smith nor the first president of the organization could attend the
meeting at which the presentation was made. Dr. Ganong subse-
quently was elected president of the Botanical Society of America,
and Smith followed him in office.

In 1910 Smith, as president of the Society, arranged a sym-
posium on plant pathology for the Minneapolis meeting of that
year. As an ex-officio member of the sectional committee, he was
requested by Dr. H. C. Cowles of the department of botany of
the University of Chicago to suggest " topics and participants "
for the program of Section G.

L. R. Jones agreed to open the discussions at the symposium
on plant pathology. He had served as the first president of the
American Phytopathological Society and, following him, Frank
Lincoln Stevens, professor of botany and vegetable pathology at
the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts,
was to preside at the Society's second annual meeting, also to be
at Minneapolis. In 1912 Stevens was to go to the University of

448 First European Journey

Puerto Rico as dean of the college of agriculture and mechanic arts
there, and in February 1914 he would become professor of plant
pathology at the University of Illinois. By this time, T. J. Burrill
had retired from active duties with highest honors from his uni-
versity and the scientific world generally.

Jones's letter to Smith was written as professor and head of
his new department of plant pathology at the University of
Wisconsin. He was equipping and moving into a new laboratory,
and another " small laboratory [was] in process of construction,
opening into [his] new greenhouse quarters." This department
was a part of the college of agriculture, and C. R. Orton and
F. J. Pritchard were his assistants.

At the Minneapolis meeting the American Phytopathological
Society voted to establish its official journal. Phytopathology, and
Jones, Shear, and Whetzel became its first editors. Associate
editors were G. P. Clinton, E. M. Freeman, H. T. Giissow of the
Dominion Experimental Farms, Ottawa, Canada, F. D. Heald, H.
Metcalf, W. A. Orton, W. M. Scott, A. D. Selby, E. F. Smith,
Ralph E. Smith, and Roland Thaxter. Donald Reddick was
business manager.

Plant pathologists had been appointed at more state agricultural
experiment stations. Their science was a part of the course of
instruction and research in botany at several universities. For
years their science had been acquiring independent status and
now, with their own society and journal, an established profession
was more than ever evident. In America, during Erwin Smith's
lifetime, workers in the science had increased from a very few to
numbers in the hundreds. Already mention has been made of
three university departments which were among, if not, the first
established exclusively (or primarily) for instruction in plant
pathology: at Cornell under Whetzel, at the University of Wis-
consin under Jones, and at the University of Minnesota under
Freeman. The title of the Minnesota division of plant pathology
included also botany but the division was created on August 1,
1907, with work in plant pathology as the object in view and,
being in the agricultural college, was distinct from the botanical
department of the college of science, literature, and the arts.
Freeman, a former pathologist in the office of cereals investigation
at the United States Department of Agriculture, a University of

Studii;s on Crown Gall of Plants 449

Minnesota alumnus who had taken a year's graduate work with
W^ird at the Ihiiversity of CaniLMidi;c, in addition to securing a
doctorate of philosophy from his alma mater, specialized in
plant pathology. In his Outline of the History of Phytopath-
ology:'" Dr. Whctzel has said, " The lirst distinct department of
plant pathology to be established, so far as I know, was the one
at Cornell University in the autumn of 1907. Shortly thereafter
(1909) the one at the University of Wisconsin, with Professor
Jones at its head, was announced." Whetzel, as also Jones, had
taught plant pathology before their respective departments were
established, Jones -ever since he had gone to the University of
Vermont and even more after his half year of study with Smith
in 1899. When the department of plant pathology was created
at Cornell University, Bailey was dean and director of the New
York State College of Agriculture of which the new unit became
a part. Whetzel as assistant professor, Donald Rcddick as instruc-
tor, and Mortier F. Barrus as an assistant comprised the depart-
ment. Whetzel immediately began consulting Smith. His first
letter thanked Smith for some cultures of B. mnylovorus and
suggestions as to culture media:

I am inclined to think that so far as we are concerned we shall follow
your methods of making culture media since much of the work on the
cultural characters of bacteria causing plant diseases has been done in your
laboratory. Moreover, I find in attempting to follow the recommendations
of the American Public Health Association that they are more or less cum-
bersome and unsatisfactory as compared with the methods which you
recommend.

I have a letter from my man Mr. Reddick saying that he has had the
pleasure of meeting you, and he has no doubt told you that I expect to be
in Washington next Saturday and Sunday and part of Monday. It is not
just the best time to be in Washington but seems to be the only time when
I can get away. I hope that I may have the pleasure of meeting you and
seeing your laboratories.

Before going to Cornell University in 1902 to be an assistant
in George F. Atkinson's department of botany in the college of
arts and science, Whetzel had earned two degrees at Wabash
College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. His professor in botany had
been Mason B. Thomas who was also dean of the faculty there

" Op. cit., 109.

450 First European Journey

and who on March 6, 1911, also wrote to Smith congratulating
him

on the great work on Crown Gall which ha[d] just come to [him] from
[Smith's] laboratory. I hope you will know how much botanists in general
value your convincing solution of this problem but better than this I want
you to know how valuable it will be to teachers, as an example to their
students who are preparing for the profession of botany. The influence of
this is more than you can imagine. I hope to see you at Woods Hole next
summer.

October 18, 1910, Carlton C. Curtis of the department of botany
of Columbia University informed of his " desire to establish
[there] within the next year a course on straight plant pathology "
and asked Smith to send plant disease materials, particularly of
" many of the common bacterial diseases." His second paragraph
was of interest:

You must feel very much encouraged that so great an interest is being
developed in your line of work. I have not had an opportunity to carefully
examine Stevens' and [J. G.] Hall's [D/seases of economic plants '*^], but
I feel that this work and Duggar's work [Fungous Diseases of Plants']
are bound to give great interest to the work in this country.

He concluded by telling how much they used his book, Bacteria
in Relation to Plant Diseases — " you must take great satisfaction
in contemplating this splendid piece of work," he added. Within
another year and a half, in May, 1912, there came to Smith
a more positive suggestion from Bessey of the University of
Nebraska.

I have had it in mind a number of times, and yesterday I was urged by
one of my assistants — therefore I will do it — that is, I will tell you that it
has seemed to me for a good while that you should prepare a textbook on
Plant Pathology. I think I told you this once before, but I wish to say it
again still more emphatically. No man in the country I think is as able to
prepare such a textbook as you are. I mean the right kind of a textbook.
Almost anybody can write a book in which he enumerates the fungi or
other things that bother plants, and in this way he can bring together a
great deal of material and issue it as a book on Plant Pathology, but you
have taught us in the two books on bacteria in relation to plant diseases
that there is a better and higher ideal to be attained in Plant Pathology.

'"' Published by the Macmillan Company, 1910. In the Botanical Gazette 52: 155,
July-Dec, 1911, this was reviewed together with George Massee's Diseases of
cultivated plants and trees, also published in 1910 by the Macmillan Company.

Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 451

Why can't you qivc us a textbook? Pcrh.ijis llic best ihinn would be to
give us an elementary work at first, so as to teach us all what Plant
Pathology actually is or should be, and then give us finally another one
which goes to the very bottom of things as you are able to sec them.

An instructor of plant pathology at the university had told
Bessev that Smith's two volumes were " the best ever published
on plant diseases of any kind."

In December 1911, in the first volume of Phytopathology,''''
L. R. Jones had reviewed Smith's second volume on Bacteria in
Relation to Plant Diseases and concluded that " Certainly nothing
comparable to this-as fundamental work in plant patholog)' has
appeared in this generation." The following year, also in Phyto-
patholagy,'^ appeared an article by H. A. Harding of the New
York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, " The Trend of
Investigation in Plant Pathology," in which was stated:

If there is a doubt in the mind of anyone as to the objective point toward
which the development of plant pathology is tending let him read the
second volume of Erwin F. Smith's " Bacteria in Relation to Plant Dis-
eases." There he will find two hundred pages devoted to the presentation
of the science of plant pathology and its form of presentation is almost
identical with that current in animal pathology. Whenever this is possible
the terminology of animal pathology is applied to the corresponding tissue
changes in plants. It is entirely natural that this growing correlation be-
tween animal and plant pathology should be most evident in the treatment
of bacterial diseases since many of the bacteriologists, in the nature of the
case, have come into closer touch with animal pathology than have the
students of fungi. . . .

The present trend of investigation in plant pathology may be charac-
terized as an effort to follow animal pathology in recognizing the host as
the focal point of study and to consider the relation of the host to its
environment in a comprehensive way.

On December 28, 1911, when Smith gave his address as retiring
president of the Botanical Society of America, " Some Resem-
blances of Crown-Gall to Human Cancer," "^ members of other
affiliate organizations of the American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science — Section G, the Society of American Bacteriol-
ogists, and the American Phytopathological Society — were present
by invitation. He had been pleased with the accomplishments of

'' 1(6): 204, Dec. 1911.

'*2(4): 161-163, Aug. 1912.

-■^Science, n.s., 35(892): 161-172, Feb. 2, 1912.

452 First European Journey

the Minneapolis meetings the year before, especially that between
fifty and seventy botanists were in attendance. The charter mem-
bership of the American Phytopathological Society numbering
about one hundred and thirty plant pathologists now exceeded .
two hundred. That Dr. Farlow " received twice as many votes
for president (of the Botanical Society of America) as anyone
else " also pleased Smith. Programs of three societies of botanists —
Section G, the Botanical Society of America, and the American
Phytopathological Society — was " an embarrass de richesses,'^ he
jubilated to Thaxter. Smith had two leading articles in the first
issue of Phytopathology, one on Anton de Bary and the other on
"" Crown Gall of Plants," and the next year he would contribute
several more to the journal, one on '" Woronin," another leading

article.

In 1911 Peyton Rous published in the Journal of the American
Medical Association ''' upon the " Transmission of a malignant
new growth by means of a cell-free filtrate." Up to this time,
pathologists had been agreed

that only by means of living cells can neoplasms be transferred from one
animal to another. This observation discouraged completely all idea of a
virus, for if one did exist it should be separable from the cells under suit-
able conditions and tumors should therefore be transmissible with filtrates.
But all such attempts failed until 1911, when Rous transferred in this way
a sarcoma of the breast muscles in a Plymouth Rock hen . . . Rous's first
papers aroused little interest, and as the infection hypothesis had always
been vigorously opposed the general attitude was one of skepticism.^^

At first, Smith's " idea that crown gall of plants resembles
malignant human tumors and [could] be made to throw a flood
of light on the origin of the latter [had] received only a cool
welcome." ^"

But by 1911, when Smith, Brown, and Townsend's bulletin 213,
" Crown-gall of plants: its cause and remedy," was published,
the theory began to receive " respectful attention." One reason
appears to have been a revival of interest in the parasitic theory
and virus hypothesis of the origin of cancer. Smith recognized

*" 56: 198.

^^ Charles Oberling, M. D. (translated by William H. Woglom, M. D.), The
riddle of cancer, 130, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1944.

^^ E F. Smith, N. A. Brown, L. McCuUoch, The structure and development of
crown gall: a plant cancer. Bull. 255, U. S. D. A. Bur. of PI. Ind., 11-12.

Studils t)N Crow N CiAi.L of Plants 453

at once the sit^niticance of Rous's research achievement, especially
after he read in the Jointud of Experimental Medicine what
seemed " ample proofs of this contention " and still more so after
April 4, 1912, when he heard Rous address the American Asso-
ciation for Cancer Research.*'-' Smith, in his address " On some
resemblances of Crown-gall to Human Cancer," gave his estimate
of the value of Rous's discovery. Further, in his introduction to his,
Brown, and McCulloch's bulletin 255 on " The structure and
development of crown gall: a plant cancer," he listed this as first
of three points which '" tended strongly to unsettle the crystallizing
belief in the nonparasitic origin of cancer."
In his address, he said:

Having: found no parasite in the cancer cells, a majority of the animal
pathologists have given up the idea that cancer can be of parasitic origin.
For a generation the research workers fell back upon Cohnheim's hypo-
thesis that cancers were due to the development of small fragments of
tissue cut off from the parent layer during embryonal growth, to be
enclosed in other tissue and lie dormant until acted on abnormally later
in life by some unknown stimulus. But while studies of the animal body
show that such separation of small portions of tissue from the germinal
layer is not uncommon, research workers on cancer are now generally
agreed, I believe, that there are many phenomena connected with the
development of cancer for which this hypothesis of Cohnheim offers a
wholly inadequate explanation. Moreover, what induces these dormant
cells to develop was never determined. A very favorite theory with cancer
specialists has been that the cancer cell is the only parasite, and that no
infections could be obtained on animals unless the living cancer cell were
present. This hypothesis must now be abandoned owing to the discovery by
Peyton Rous (1911) that sarcoma of chickens may be produced in the
absence of cancer cells, /'. e., by cancerous fluid filtered free from all traces
of living cancer cells. So far as I know he has not expressed any opinion
as to the nature of the infection which has been separated from his ground
chicken sarcomata by centrifuging and also by filtration through Berkefeld
bougies, but in the light of the evidence we have secured from plants
I believe you will agree with me that it can be nothing else than a living
microorganism, minute enough to pass through the walls of the rather
coarse filter. s*

Francis Peyton Rous, Baltimore-born and educated at Johns
Hopkins University and Medical School, during 1905-1906 had
been resident house officer of Johns Hopkins Hospital and then

^Udem, 11.

'* On some resemblances of crown-gall to human cancer, op. cit., reprint, 4.

454 First European Journey

become an instructor in pathology at the University of Michigan.
By 1912 he was an associate member of the research personnel
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. After Smith
had heard his address at the American Association for Cancer
Research, he sent Rous a letter of congratulations:

I found your paper of tremendous interest and wish to congratulate you
on the beautiful results you are obtaining. Whatever people may have said
in the past about the possibility of some living cells of the chicken sarcoma
passing through the filter or escaping into the fluid which has been centri-
fuged, there can be no dodging the fact that the tumor tissue dried for six
months is as dead as a door nail.^^

To Smith, Rous had not only shown that " a chicken sarcoma
is inoculable in the absence of living chicken cells, i. e., with fluid
freed from the ground sarcoma by centrifuging, and also by filtra-
tion through moderately coarse Berkefeld bougies," but further
that " tumor material dried for six months is still infectious." ^°

Smith recapitulated in his address of 1912 the evidence bearing
out his resemblance theory of crown galls and malignant animal
tumors. In crown gall were to be found:

the cell itself a disturbing force, i. e., an enormous multiplication of cer-
tain cells of the body without reference to physiological needs and in
opposition to the best interests of the organism; a non-capsulate tumor,
with absence of abscess cavities and of plainly visible parasites ; peripheral
growth and a well-developed stroma consisting of vessels and fibers ; from
this primary tumor the development of strands of tumor tissue upon which
secondary tumors develop; in the secondary tumors a strong tendency to
take on the structure of the organ in which the primary tumor has
developed ; frequent if not necessary origin of the primary tumor in bruises,
wounds, or irritated places; complete recovery if all the tumor tissue is
extirpated, failure if it is not; in some cases spontaneous recovery. The
chief difference so far made out is that in case of cancer cells we know
nothing whatever as to the cause of the abnormal growth, whereas in case
of these overgrowths on plants we have definitely proved them to be due
to the presence of an intracellular schizomycete which we have many times

^^ Written May 16, 1912, after the cancer research association's Philadelphia
meeting. University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Zeitschr. fur Krebsforschung
12: 430 ff., 1912. Rous, et al's paper, 430-431; Smith's paper, 435-436.

*" The structure and development of crown gall, op. cit., 11, introduction. A
decade later, Smith again reviewed the work of Rous and his co-workers on Filter-
able virus chicken sarcomas. For this purpose, he read twenty-five of his papers.
See, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, by Smith, Jour. Radiology 4(9),
pt. Ill: 301-303, Sept. 1923.

Studii-s on Crown CIaii. oi Plants 455

isolated and rcisolatcd in pure culture and by means of which wc tan
produce the disease at will.

Again he answered the reply of certain cancer specialists that
crown galls are evidently a granuloma and not a true tumor,
citing in his discussion tuberculosis and syphilitic gummata as
instances of granulomata and differentiating malignant animal and
human tumors. In part, the difference was, as he viewed the
problem, that in granulomata the parasite migrates whereas in
cancers the cancer cell itself migrates, that is, " some of the body
cells which under some unknown stimulation have been taken out
of the physiological -control of the body and have become thus,
as it were, parasites on their fellow cells." In plants there is no
rapid bloc:)d stream, such as animals have. How, then, was the
tumor strand and its propagation to be explained.^ The strand
had been discovered in the inner wood next to the pith between
a secondary and a primary tumor and near the primary tumor,
and, further, it was found to be not merely local but traceable
for some distance and occurring with regularity in the normal
tissue bet\veen the primary and secondary tumors. Smith exhibited
lantern slides showing cross and longitudinal sections of such
strands from inoculated plants. On this strand had been found
developed secondary tumors. " In the Paris daisy, when the
primary tumor is on the stem," he explained,

secondary tumors often develop on the leaves, and strands of tumor tissue
have been traced in numerous instances all the way from the primary
tumors throui^h the stem into the leaf, and all stages of the development
of the secondary tumors observed on many plants. This tumor strand
boring its way through stems and leaves appears to be as much a foreign
body as the roots of a mistletoe or the mycelium of a fungus. From these
strands and from these secondary tumors we have isolated the same micro-
organism that occurs in the primary tumors and with subcultures from such
bacterial colonies have reproduced the disease. The discovery of this strand
affords a satisfactory explanation for the fact that the morbid growth
usually returns after excision.

The second striking fact to which I wish to call your attention is that
when the primary tumor occurs in the stem and the secondary tumor in
the leaf the structure of the secondary tumor is not that of the leaf in
which it is growing, but of the stem from which the strand was derived.

The Bulletin de I'lnstitut Pasteur reviewed this address, and on
June 22, 1912, Smith thanked Dr. Weinberg. He promised to send

456 First European Journey

a copy of his bulletin 255 which contained photomicrographs
illustrating and confirming his statements. Since the address he,
Brown, and McCuUoch had stained,^' they believed, the organism
within the cells. Of the " intracellular bacteria," he added.

They are not very numerous, and have the same forms as in our flask
cultures, growing under unfavorable conditions, i. e., they are club-shaped,
y-shaped, and variously branched, just as they are in the old flasks, and in
young test-tube cultures when exposed to dilute acetic acid, where- also
they are either dead or develop slowly on agar plates just as they do in a
large proportion of the cases when plated out of the tumors.

In his address he had pointed out that,

Various researchers on cancer have mentioned finding rod-shaped and
Y-shaped bodies in cancer cells. For example, Dr. Borrell, of the Pasteur
Institute in Paris, and Dr. Reese, working in the cancer laboratory at
Buffalo.

In 1912 the Ambassador of the government of France invited
the United States Department of Agriculture to send Smith to
Paris to address the first International Congress of Comparative
Pathology. He did not attend the congress, which convened
October 17-23, but sent an address which was presented, " Le
Cancer est-il Une Maladie du Regne Vegetal ?"^^ Dr. Borrel
addressed the meeting on " Le Cancer " and recognized Smith's
crovvm gall research as etiologically significant in the problem of
cancer origin. Borrel, the proponent of the ingenious hypothesis
of the carcinogenic virus as the cause of cancer in animals and
perhaps man, said of Smith's work on " cancer " of plants: " Voila
le premier cas d'un cancer veritable repondant a la definition du
cancer et cause par I'inoculation directe d'un microbe; une tumeur
de la betterave inoculable a la betterave par grefife et inoculable a
la betterave et a beaucoup d'autres vegetaux par des cultures."

Dr. Charles Oberling, chief of the Experimental Department of
the Cancer Institute in Paris, in his recent book. The Riddle of
Cancer ^'^ describes the " classic infection hypothesis " as " imagi-

*'' Erwin F. Smith, The staining of Bacterium tumefaciens in tissue, Phytopathology
2(3): 127, June 1912.

^^ Compt. Rend. ler Congr. Internal. Path. Comparee (17-23 Oct., 1912) 2:984-
1002, 1914. Also, reprint, Paris, 1912, 19 pp. Borrel's address, Smith's quotation
therefrom: ler Cong. Int. Path, comparee, 1(2): 640-641.

**'' Lectures, Cancer Institute of the Fac. of Med. of Paris and Fac. of Med. of
Teheran, transl. by Dr. W. H. Woglom, 67, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1944.

StudH'S on Crown Gall of Plants 457

ning " the cause of cancer to be " a microbe or protozoon or, in
other words, an organism of very small size in comparison with
the cell that it was supposed to infect."' He says,

Tlic possibility of a lari^cr parasite, belongint; to a liit;hcr species, was
never seriously taken into consideration and it is not surprising, therefore,
that Borrel's first communication on a sarcoma in the wall of a parasitic
cyst of the rat's liver should have fallen Hat. But no neglect could dampen
his ardor, and with all his characteristic enthusiasm he threw himself into
a search for parasites in tumors. Other rat sarcomas were discovered,
identical with the first and all in the walls of cysts enclosing a Cysticercus
fiisciolaris, the lar\al form of a cat tapeworm. Taenia crassicollis. Acarids,
or mites, were found^in the milk ducts about mammary cancers in mice
and another, Deiuodex jolliculorum, a common inhabitant of the hair
follicles and sebaceous glands, around, or even within, cancers of the skin
in man.

For Borrel there was now no shadow of doubt whatever ; to him the
intervention of a parasite was obvious, though he did not assign it a direct
role in causation. Cancer being due to a virus, an opinion that Borrel never
relinquished, the parasite must act merely as its inoculator. Chance bearer
of a carcinogenic virus, threading its way through the tissues, it infects in
its progress whatever cells happen to lie in its path.

This brilliant hypothesis had the misfortune to be announced at a time
when it still lacked any scientific foundation and the idea of a carcinogenic
virus seemed the purest fantasy, for although it was supported by an
observation or two here and there these could easily be explained away as
coincidences ; no experimental demonstration had yet been provided. Then,
too, the role of Demodex in cancer of the skin seemed more than prob-
lematical, for the parasite occurred with equal frequency in cancers and in
normal skin.

Discredited from the first by this medley of findings, true enough, to be
sure, but unverified, and by more than questionable inferences, the para-
sitic hypothesis had httle to commend it. It fell into complete obhvion,
therefore, from which it could be rescued only by such dramatic testimony
as that of Fibiger.

In 1913 Professor Johannes Fibiger, pathological anatomist
and director of the Universitetets patologisk-anatomiske Institut of
Copenhagen, after years of unwearied research, was to announce
that by feeding nematode-infested cock-roaches to rats he had
secured several cases of cancer,®" at least changes in the stomachs
of rats which appeared to be " true cancerous growths." The
nematodes had been taken from muscles of a cock-roach: and the

*° See a statement in English by Fibiger concerning his early work in Smith's
address, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 303-305. Quota-
tions of this paragraph from this.

458 First European Journey

studies continuing and more cancers resulting, Smith read his
" lucid papers ... as fascinating as a romance," " By these inves-
tigations," Fibiger claimed in 1913, " carcinomatous tumours
giving rise to metastases were produced experimentally for the
first time, and the hypothesis put forward by Borrel and Haaland
was thus verified, as it has now been proved that nematodes play
a causal part in the development of cancer in rats."

In 1912 in his address, " Le Cancer," ^^ before the International
Congress of Comparative Pathology, Borrell considered in support
of the parasitic hypothesis of cancer his own researches and con-
clusions, Rous's transmission of sarcoma in chickens by direct
inoculation with a cell-free or virus filtrate, and Jensen's con-
firmatory work of Smith's main conclusions of the comparison
of crown gall and malignant tumor formation in animals. The
next year Smith, in an address ^" before the seventeenth Inter-
national Congress of Medicine, would quote from Borrel's esti-
mate of his work and the intimation that he. Smith, had been
" the first one to produce a cancer by inoculation with pure
cultures of a micro-organism, and the first one to furnish proof
that it is actually a symbiosis."

On November 23, 1912, Dr. Louis B. Wilson, director of the
Laboratories of the Mayo Clinic, invited Smith, on the behalf of
a committee, " to have at the Scientific Exhibit of the American
Medical Association in Minneapolis next June as large a number
as possible of pieces of research which shall be demonstrated by
the men who have done the work. We will have," he explained,

the exclusive use of the new building of the Department of Anatomy,
which contains an amphitheatre and two large lecture rooms besides
numerous small rooms. We shall place the exhibits around in the smaller
rooms (all of which are connected) and provide for a regular program
of lantern slide demonstrations in the lecture rooms. Last year at Atlantic
City we did something of the sort and the men who were on the program
were much pleased with it. Several of them, in fact, said it was the best
opportunity they had had to present their material to the sort of an audience
that they most desired to reach. Besides general research, I am particularly
interested in that on cancer and should like if possible to have an " exhibit

^^ See an excerpt of three paragraphs from Borrel's paper in Smith's address,
Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 299.

®- Cancer in plants, Proc. 11th Internat. Cong, of Med., Section III, General
Pathology and Pathological Anatomy, reprint, 18. Citing Borrel's paper, Le cancer,
ler Cong. Int. Path, comparee 1(2): 640-641.

SruDiiis ON Crown Gai.i. oi Plants 4*^9

symposiiiiii " on tlic most recent work. Can you not brini; im enough
m.itcrial to illustrate thoroughly your studies on tumors of nlants and,
perhaps with an assistant from your laboratory, be on hand to demonstrate
them? We will provide space and light, plenty of microscopes, a projec-
tion lantern and give you as much time as may be necessary for a lantern
slide demonstration in an audience room that will seat one hundred people.

At the Mayo Clinic, Dr. MacCarty had reported at a hospital
stafT mcctini? on Smith's recent discoveries. So interested was Dr.
William J. Mayo that he wrote both Smith and Dr. CuUen. He
told the latter: " I will be glad to help Dr. Smith in any way
that I can and would like to see him have an opportunity to
develop this wonderful work he is doing." He read some of
Smith's papers and wrote him: " I will be very glad indeed to do
anything I can to help out with this splendid work you are doing."

Smith attended the Minneapolis meeting of the American
Medical Association, evidently as planned presented his lecture
and demonstration, and was given a Certificate of Merit in recog-
nition of the value of his work on crown gall in relation to
human cancer.'*^

Just before this meeting, he had been advised of another extra-
ordinary honor. On April 24, 1913, Arnold Hague, home secretary
of the National Academy of Sciences, notified him of his election
to membership in the Academy. His election had taken place on
the occasion of the Academy's semi-centennial anniversary which
was held in Washington from April 22 to 24 of that year. One
hundred and twenty-five scientists, ten or twelve of them botanists,
were now members, recipients of this highly coveted distinction.
The botanists were D. H. Campbell, J. M. Coulter, Farlow,
Goodale, Harper, E. W. Hilgard, Sargent, Thaxter, Trelease,
David White, and Smith."' DeVries and Pfeffer were among the
foreign associates. Many of Smith's friends from the medical
profession were members: Billings, Councilman, Flexner, Prudden,
Mall, Ira Remsen, Theobald Smith, and Welch among them, and
such eminent scholars in biology as Conklin and Jacques Loeb.

In the year 1913 the Academy's semi-centennial celebration took
place ancl Frederick W. True's History of the First Half-Century
of the National Acadefny was published. Erwin Smith was elected

93

Phytopatl?oloRy m):2')i.
'* Idem, 194. White was known as a geologist but he was also a paleobotanist.
Hilgard was an agriculturist but he was also a botanist.

460 First European Journey

as a plant pathologist and his candidacy was sponsored by Farlow
who addressed to the members his already quoted letter. Home
Secretary Hague announced to Smith his election to membership
as an expression of the Academy's " high appreciation of [his]
services to science." For three years the honored plant pathologist
served as chairman of its botanical section.

Another honor may have been Smith's this year. Neither he nor
any official of the Department of Agriculture announced this.
But in May, 1913, newspaper accounts of the country disclosed
that at a salary of $10,000 a year he was offered a position with
the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

In April 1913 Dr. Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute
contemplated appointing a plant pathologist in his department
of the laboratories for the year 1913-1914. Minutes of the Board
of Trustees of the Institute confirm this, and also that in 1920
the matter of forming a department of plant pathology was con-
sidered, each time Dr. Flexner consulting Dr. Smith. The latter's
diaries of later years reveal that at some time an offer was made
to him and that for the same reason he had refused other offers
to remain with his Laboratory of Plant Pathology he declined this.
This offer could have been either in 1913 or 1920, perhaps both,
but as to the year 1913, the matter was settled by an exchange
of letters in June. On June 30, Dr. Flexner advised Smith that
the staff of the Institute was made up for the year 1913-1914 but
that he would " probably have to call upon [him] again." None
of the correspondence confirms the $10,000 figure as to salary
mentioned in the newspaper article published over the country.

Smith may have also been considered for a professorship at
Harvard University. In 1909 he appears to have had a conference
with Dean Wallace C. Sabine of the Graduate School of Applied
Science concerning a teaching appointment and perhaps to have
recommended Dr. L. R. Jones for the position. Smith wrote Jones
who answered on April 13 " that if their school is to accomplish
the things that they wish in the large way you are the one man
essential to them. If then, they can afford two men I believe I
could help in certain ways."

Harvard's courses and laboratory research in all branches of
cryptogamic botany had maintained under Thaxter and various
assistants the standards of excellence set by Farlow during his

Studies on Crown CJai.i. oi- Plants 461

years of active teaching from 1874 until about 1896. The valuable
Contributions from the Cryptogdniic Laboratory of liiinuircl Uni-
versity had reached by 1896 thiry-seven, with many unnumbered,"'
papers and many of them were of fundamental importance to
plant pathology and its allied branches of science. By 1909 the
number of Contributions had been increased to sixty-five papers
and the list of graduates from the university and laboratory, or
who had done special work there, included such men as G. F.
Atkinson, C. E. Bessey, E. A. Burt, G. P. Clinton, B. M. Duggar,
J. H. Faull, J. E. Humphrey, J. R. Johnston, G. R. Lyman, L. H.
Pammcl, L. \V. Riddle, J. B. Rorer, F. C. Stewart, W. C Sturgis,
R. Thaxter, W. Trelease, L. M. Underwood, and H. von Schrenk.
About this time H. P. Barss and H. S. Jackson did work there.
Most of these men became important figures in plant pathology
in America, and from this laboratory had graduated such very
important algologists as W. A. Setchell who graduated also from
Yale Universit)' under Daniel Cady Eaton, and Kingo Miyabe of
Japan. Furthermore, such noted American botanists, leaders in
the fields of physiology, genetics, cytology, taxonomy, or other
branches, A. F. Blakcslee, B. M. Davis, G. T. Moore, G. J. Peirce,
B. L. Robinson, J. J. Wolfe, and others, had taken their under-
graduate and/or graduate work there, at least in part. Bruce Fink
and others had studied lichenology with Farlow, and among
Farlow's and Thaxter's many correspondents from all parts of the
world were many leading students of plant pathology, physiology,
C)'tology, and genetics, as well as the outstanding mycologists,
algologists, bryologists, and students of other phases of research
among the cryptogamia. Pertinent also is the fact that among
their many other students were men who went into zoology,
biology, and medicine.

At Harvard in 1909 W. J. V. Osterhout was appointed an
assistant professor of botany and assumed mainly the work in
plant physiology formerly taught by Dr. Goodale. Evidently an
expanded program of teaching and research at the Bussey Insti-
tution, one to include experimental investigations in plant path-
ology, was contemplated but did not materialize perhaps because

"W. G. Farlow, A sketch of cryptogamic botany in Harvard University, 1874-
1896, printed pamphlet, 16 pages; also, a valuable article on the work of the
department of cryptogamic botany under Farlow and Thaxter, W. H. Weston, Jr.,
Dr. Farlow's influence on mycology, Farlouia 2(1): 85-95.

462 First European Journey

Jones went to the University of Wisconsin and Smith's ambition
was not to teach but remain with the Department of Agriculture.
E. M. East was appointed assistant professor of experimental
plant morphology and began his noted work there in genetics. .
But that Dean Sabine was interested in Smith's work seems
undoubted. On July 11, 1912, after he had read the latter's
bulletin 255 on " The structure and development of crown gall,"
he wrote: " Your comparison of the Crown Gall to Sarcoma and
animal tumors has interested me for several years past. I am very
glad indeed to have this exact statement of the parallelism."
Furthermore, Dr. Milton Joseph Rosenau of the department of
preventive medicine and hygiene of the medical school congratu-
lated Smith and his co-workers on July 31 on " this splendid piece
of work."

By 1912 Jones's department at the University of Wisconsin
consisted of five persons: himself, I. E. Melhus, Freda M. Bach-
man, A. G. Johnson, and R. E. Vaughan. On July 11 he wrote
Smith:

Again I must congratulate you upon your Bulletin 255. I need add
nothing to what I have said before in order to assure you that I am con-
vinced that you are, in these contributions on crown gall, not only giving
a stimulus which must be powerful in its influence upon human cancer
research, but pointing to the highest plane yet attained in Plant Pathology.
I wish you continued success along these lines for the sake of our science
as well as for your own satisfaction.

American botanists were uniform in their high praise of Smith's
work. Professor Whetzel — his department at the New York State
College of Agriculture now composed of two professors, one
assistant professor, four instructors, one investigator, five assistants,
and seven fellows — called bulletin 255 " certainly a crowning con-
tribution to [Smith's] many wonderful studies of this disease.
While I fear," he wrote to Smith on July 15, 1912,

that the edition is so limited that I can hardly hope that you can help me
out in my request, still I shall appreciate it very much if in any way you
can make it possible for me to get ten or twelve copies of this for our
classes in Plant Pathology. I am planning to give a course in Pathological
Histology next winter and this would be one of the best things I could
put in the hands of my students as a model of accurate work along this line.

Walter G. Sackett, bacteriologist of the Laboratory of Bacteri-

Studios on Crown Gall of Plants 463

oloi^y of tlic (A)loraJt) A^iKulturc Iixpcrimcnt Station, on the very
next day styled the bulletin " certainly a most inspiring treatise,
and I," he confided to Smith, " am sure that all plant pathologists
envy you the success which you have achieved along this particular
line. Vou have opened up a most suggestive field along the line
of cancers and tumors, and I sincerely hope that you will be able
to connect up the relation between plant and animal Carcinomas
in the very near future." Professor T. D. Beckwith of the depart-
ment of bacteriology of Oregon Agricultural College and Experi-
ment Station characterized the publication as "magnificent";
Hermann von Schrcnk, " a very extraordinary contribution " and
he sent his "very best felicitations"; and P. J. O'Gara, now
pathologist and entomologist for Rogue River Valley, Medford,
Oregon, another scientist who when with the Department of
Agriculture had done some work on crown gall, confessed in 1911
that if he ever returned to the Department Smith's Laboratory
would " probably hold out the greatest inducement." When B. D.
Halsted had read Smith's bulletin 213 and his article on crown
gall in Phytopathology, by a letter of March 6, 1911, he heartily
congratulated Smith " upon reaching, through many years of
splendid research work, the clear-cut conclusions set forth in the
bulletin. It must be a great satisfaction to be able to so completely
settle many of the points of greatest importance concerning the
Crown-Galls. If there is more to be done with them," he said
complimentarily, " and doubtless you see more unsolved problems
than any one else, — the foundations of fact have been so securely
laid and the methods so fully worked out, that others can attack
them in a rational manner." Halsted, too, had at one time written
on crown gall.

Many other botanists and bacteriologists congratulated Smith.
David Fairchild arranged for Smith to prepare for the National
Geographic Magazine "" an article on " The discovery of cancer
in plants. An account of some remarkable experiments by the U. S.
Department of Agriculture." Fairchild wrote to Smith, " I want
to congratulate you on the production of such a remarkable piece
of work. It has taken a great deal of your life but I am sure
the world will be glad to honor you for what you have done."

'"'24(1): 53-70, 12 pis., Jan. 1913.

464 First European Journey

The world's senior plant bacteriologist, Thomas Jonathan
Burrill, reading the second volume of Smith's Bacteria in Relation
to Plant Disease, addressed two letters to Smith within the month
of February 1912. "I cannot express in words my appreciation
of the way you have done this work — let me say the admiration
I have for the notable accomplishment," he said on February 17.
" I know nothing anywhere like it in botanical literature that can
be called its equal. We will wait now with great expectations
for what is further to appear." And on February 9 he had written,
"' Permit me to say that I am very greatly interested in your revela-
tions concerning the similarity of crown gall and cancer in the
animal body."

Dr. William Osier found the second volume of Bacteria in
Relation to Plant Diseases of " the greatest interest," so much so
that he passed it on to a very close and " great friend " in the
Agricultural Department of Oxford. "What an extraordinary
amount of work it represents," he uttered with characteristic spon-
taneity, "" and in such a new and encouraging field. If you ever
come over here, let us see you."

Dr. Adami of McGill University on May 22, 1912, sent Smith,
" Heartiest congratulations over your continued good work with
the Crown-gall organism." Reading Smith's The Structure and
Development of Croivn Gall, he rejoined, " It is a triumph to be
able to demonstrate it within the cells."

Dr. Edwin O. Jordan, professor of bacteriology at the University
of Chicago, in 1912 rated the whole work in crown gall as " one
of the most important and fundamental contributions of recent
years, and," he told Smith, " I heartily congratulate you on your
really splendid success and on the far-reaching results that I
think will flow from these discoveries."

" Please accept my most sincere thanks for this valuable con-
tribution to the etiology of malignant tumors — Bulletin No. 255 —
which I have just received," wrote A. F. Coca of the department
of experimental pathology, Loomis Laboratory, of Cornell Uni-
versity Medical College on July 8, 1912. " The plates are wonder-
ful. It is a handsome piece of work. I heartily congratulate you."
Coca had obtained his degree of doctor of medicine from the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, had studied at the University of Heidel-
berg, Germany, spending two of the years 1905-1909 at the Cancer

Studies on Crown Gall of Plants 465

Institute tiicrc, and in I') ID hcLOinc an instructor in pathoK)^y and
bactcriolos^y at Cornell. June 30, 1911, Dr. Coca had congratu-
lated Smith on three other publications and exclaimeil, " Who
would have looked for studies on Sarcoma and Bacillus Coli from
the Department of Agriculture. Please accept my very warm
thanks for these interesting and important works." Moreover,
R. Weil of the department of experimental medicine and of the
same laboratory and medical college planned, he wrote Smith, to
" undertake the inoculation of your plant tumor cultures into
various species of animals," and asked Smith for culture material
if Smith wished this-done. Other medical laboratories similarly
sent for culture materials. Also a number of prominent medical
doctors.

Not only medical colleges and doctors of eminence sent
interesting letters, but also public health laboratories, biological
laboratories of private companies, and scientific research institutes
public and private the world over from Norway and Canada on
the north, Brazil and Argentina on the south in the western hemi-
sphere and the Union of South Africa and Mysore, India, in the
eastern hemisphere. M. A. Barber of the Bureau of Science of
the Philippine Islands reviewed the work before its Science Club,
and the university medical school. On September 28, 1912, the
British Aiedkal Journal "' recognized the work, not in complete
agreement with Smith's claims, but with full acknowledgment of
its value as " thoroughly good " research stimulating to other
workers to " enter upon this field of investigation." During 1912
William B. Brierley, lecturer on economic botany at the University
of Manchester, whose principal work and interest was the study
of plant diseases, wrote he considered it a privilege and pleasure
to come in contact, " however remote, with one to wdiom the
Science of Plant Pathology is so deeply indebted and for whose
Scientific work I and all botanists have the greatest respect and
admiration." " Those [papers and bulletins] dealing w^ith Crown
Gall and Human Cancer," Brierley wrote in his second letter of
1912,

I found of such extreme interest, that I presented them before a meeting
of Botanical Teaching Staff and Researchers today. Dr. C. Powell White

"'P. 811.

466 First European Journey

who at present is working in the Cancer Research Lab[orator}y in the
University was also present. Text and the beautiful series of plates were
discussed in some detail, our seminar lasting well over three hours.

Many research workers from various countries sent for experi-
mental materials. One was M. Haaland, who for some years had
worked at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund of England and was
now with the pathological institute of Bergen, Norway. He had
been shov/n by Jensen beet-root tumors produced by a daisy strain
of Bacteriimi tumefaciens from Smith's laboratory. He wished to
make a study of the subject, sent for cultures, and promised to
review Smith's Bulletin 255, " The Structure and Development of
Crown Gall: a Plant Cancer," in one of the medical journals of
Norway.

CllAl'TLR X

SECOND EUROPEAN JOURNEY. INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF

MEDICINE. FURTHER RESEARCH ON PLANT DISEASES, ESPECIALLY

THE PLANT TUMOR AND VARIOUS COORDINATE PROBLEMS.

WHEREAS Smith's first journey to Europe in 1906 had been
to study and gather materials to complete his second
volume of Bacteria J)i Relation to Plant Diseases, his second
journey in 1913 was planned with the same purposes in mind
for the third volume of this epoch making work. Another reason
was to deliver at London his address, " Cancer in Plants," before
the seventeenth International Congress of Medicine to be held
in August 1913. This was regarded by him as an " English equi-
valent " of his address of the year previous at the first International
Congress of Comparative Pathology held at Paris. He had not
been present at the Paris Congress, and so far as is known no
exhibits were sent over with his paper. Since that occasion, how-
ever, he had prepared an elaborate exhibit of his crown gall
materials for the Minneapolis meeting of the American Medical
Association and substantially the same together with some new
demonstration exhibits were taken with him to London. Sunday,
August 17, from the Charing Cross Hotel, he wrote to his
Laboratory co-workers:

My dear friends. It is eight days and sixteen hours from New York
to London via Dover on S. S. "" Lapland." . . . The sea was calm as an
old pond all the way. There was singing and dancing and card playing
and the usual ship amusements and toward the end of the trip I became
acquainted with many of the passengers. This had its inconveniences for
I then had to hide away to get any reading or writing done. Some of the
persons I met proved very pleasant, e. g. Dr. and Mrs. [Lewellys Franklin}
Barker, Dr. [Harvey] Gushing, Dr. and Mrs. Adolph Meyer, Dr. and
Mrs. [John Alden] Lichty, and the charming young girl Dorothy, their
daughter, Dr. Dana, Dr. Bosworth, Dr. Cunningham, Dr. [George Linius]
Streeter, Dr. and Mrs. Foster. Later I met Dr. and Mrs. Murphy. All
from Baltimore, New York, or Boston except the Lichtys who are from
Pittsburg and the Murphys from Chicago (.^) Dr. M[urphy] is the big
surgeon who said, " We are all proud of you." There were twcntyone
doctors on the ship, most of whom I met and all of whom asked to see
my exliibit.

467

468 Second European Journey

That Smith made favorable impressions on these leaders in
medical science even before they heard his address was further
shown by letters later received. For instance, on May 25, 1916,
Dr. Harvey Gushing, surgeon-in-chief of the Peter Bent Brigham
Hospital, Boston, and famed as one of the great surgeons of all
time on the brain, congratulated Smith, not as a friend of Dr.
William Osier, of whom Dr. Gushing was later his authorized
biographer, but because of his own estimate of the value of
Smith's contribution to pathology. " I cannot tell you how pleased
I am," he wrote, " to have received your papers on your most
admirable studies. I remember with the greatest pleasure crossing
with you at the time of the Gongress in 1913, and have always
hoped that I might have an opportunity of calling on you in
Washington." Dr. Gharles Loomis Dana was professor of nervous
diseases at Gornell Medical GoUege, and author of a textbook on
nervous diseases and psychiatry. Dr. Adolf Meyer was psychiatrist-
in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and perhaps the greatest
American authority on combined neurology, pathology, and psy-
chiatry. On March 5, 1917, he thanked Smith for his " very
interesting and splendidly illustrated study of the crowngall " and
remembered " with much pleasure " their voyage across the
Atlantic.

That Smith adhered rigidly to his role as a plant pathologist
was indicated by his description of his activities at the Gongress.
" The great XVIIth hiternational Medical Gongress has come and
gone," he wrote on August 17. The Gongress was

voted by everybody a great success. There were general sessions, twenty
two sections for the reading of papers, a scientific exhibit, dinners, teas,
excursions, and all sorts of functions, all of which I cut out. I attended
none of the general sessions, and only one section meeting, that of General
Pathology, one p. m., to read my paper — the English equivalent of the
French paper — and did not go on any of the excursions.

My exhibit was accorded ample and very satisfactory space in the
middle of one of the great exhibition rooms, close to Dr. Bashford's ^
than which it attracted much more attention. Indeed, many distinguished
surgeons and physicians visited it and said it was "" the most noteworthy
and interesting of all the exhibits." I demonstrated it about 7 hours every
day to whomsoever would listen. Some nights I was talked out. Last of all

^ Of the Imperial Cancer Research FunJ of England.

Rnsi-ARCH ON Plant Tumors 469

came Mr. Makins,- the i;reat surueon and Dr. [Sir Tliomas] Barlow,
president of the Congress. Some men I hoped mii;ht see it did not come,
e. g. Dr. Osier and Dr. \\\ J. Mayo, but there were too many thini^s to
see and do and the time too short. The scientific exhibits, as a whole,
were exceedingly interesting but tailed largely of their juirpose owing to
the multiplicity of other things going on at the same time. One day in
the middle of the Congress should have been set aside for this and called
" Exhibit Dav." ... At least one third of my visitors were Frenchmen
and Germans and Russians, there were many of the latter, also some
Japanese, who mostly spoke German. The Russians spoke German and
French indifferently. I got along very well with these people, but could
have done nothing in English. I put up also an Italian sign over my show,
but Italians were scarj:e. I did not meet any, but some Spaniards. The
newpapers gave short notices. . . .

Tuesday evening, August 13, Dr. Osier sent Smith a note saying
he was " desolated not to have seen you but I," he explained,
" have been tied to my section every day. I hear your demon-
stration was wonderful." Dr. W. J. Mayo also sent a letter of
explanation, saying:

Our stay abroad was of necessity very brief as we arrived in London
on Monday evening and sailed from. Liverpool the following Saturday,
August 9th. I am sorry I did not have opportunity of again seeing your
excellent exhibit, as would liked to have brought in a number of English
friends who also are very interested in work of this character.

I am still calling attention of the profession at various times to the work
in connection with the cancer question.

Among the many, many honors heaped upon this eminent
graduate of the University of Michigan, his election to the presi-
dency of the American Surgical Association was his latest.
Already he had held the high honor of president of the
American Medical Association in 1905-1906, and besides having
served in 1895 as president of the Minnesota Medical Society
he had occupied the same office of distinction during 1911-1912
in the Society of Clinical Surgery.

The plea of Smith's address, " Cancer in Plants," to medical
scientists was presented near its conclusion. " I am persuaded,"
he affirmed,

that malignant human and animal tumours must be due to some kind of
micro-organism occurring within the cells, and driving them into division
through its action on the nucleus, in other words, that cancer is not a cell
anarchy, but a cell symbiosis, " the incestuous product of the parasite and

" George Henry Makins of England.
16

470 Second European Journey

its host," as Borrel paraphrases my thought. And this is what I would ask
all cancer workers to reconsider, namely, whether in malignant tumours of
man and animals it may not be possible that there occurs a concealed para-
site, which, from its vantage ground within the cell, stimulates the nucleus
into abnormal division, and passes over into the daughter-cells during this
division, and so on, ad infmitum, as is the case in crown-gall.

No harm will be done if my hypothesis is found not to have any founda-
tion in fact, but if I should happen to be right, then great results must
follow. For, once the cause of cancer is ascertained, better methods of
prophylaxis will immediate suggest themselves, and the remedy may even-
tually follow. 3

Crown gall was believed to be a cancer in plants and Bacterium
tumejaciens its parasitic cause. He had supplied cultures of this
organism to European and American scientists, some of whom
had reproduced the disease on sugar beets and other plants:
Jensen of Copenhagen, Peklov of Prague, and von Dungern of
Heidelberg. Dr. Peklov had sent him " a photograph of an inocu-
lated sugar-beet, on which [was] shown as typical a tumour as
any we have produced in the United States," Smith said. " Others,
following my directions, have isolated the parasite for themselves,
and with it have reproduced the disease, e. g. Clayton Smith in
California, J. Bolle in Austria, and Pole Evans in South Africa."

He realized that the history of cancer research was strewn
" with wrecks of parasitic theories." But the difficulty, he believed,
had been that " substantial proof " upon an experimental basis
under an adequate hypothesis of cancer development had been
lacking. A fundamental study of pathological growth, made in
plants of tumors in plants, was offered to medical science in the
belief that experimental research in animal cancer might benefit.
Plants were more abundantly available and easier of manipu-
lation than the higher animals. " Cancer," he said, " has stood
for many years a great sphinx-like problem of pathology, defying
solution. Indeed, now that the aetiology of syphilis is solved, we
may say it is the last great problem of human pathology to remain
in a cloud of uncertainty."

In 1911 Hideyo Noguchi, youthful and distinguished Japanese
pathologist working at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research, had isolated in pure culture from the brain and cord
Treponetna pallidum, cause of syphilis. He made possible

^ Proc. 17th Inter. Cong, of Med., London, Aug. 1913, and reprint, p. 17

RcsoARcn ON Plant Tumors 471

iniprDvcincnts in tluii;iu)sis and dcinuiistialcd the organism's
connection with general paresis and locomotor ataxia/ In 1909-
1910 Paul Ehrlich's discovery of the organic arsenic compound,
salvarsan or " 6O6," had proved remedial, at least in part.'"*
Smith knew of other recent medical research triumphs. Drs.
Simon Flexner and Lewis, at the Rockefeller Institute, in 1909,"
" by intracranial inoculation of tissue from diseased spinal cords
[had] produced infantile paralysis in monkeys and transmitted
it from one monkey to another through a long series. Eighty-one
monkeys were infected with the virus and the average incubation
period was 9-82 days." New discoveries have been made since
this list was prepared in 1926 by Smith. By 1913 Flexner and
NofTuchi had " cultivated from the brains of children dead of
infantile paralysis a very minute, filter-passing, coccus-like or-
ganism, about 0.2/i in diameter, with which they reproduced the
disease in monkeys from the brains of u^hich they reisolated the
organism." Moreover, in

1910, in the Philippines, by inoculating diseased material containing the
Treponema perteuue, Henry J. Nichols [had] produced Yaws in a monkey,
and from this monkey transmitted the disease to three generations of rabbits.

In 1909 Harold Taylor Ricketts [had] discovered the cause of the Rocky
Mountain spotted fever, isolating the organism since known as Rickettsia
from man and from the ticks which he had previously proved to be carriers
of the disease, also from the eggs of the ticks.

In 1911 McCoy, in California, [later] Director of the Hygienic Labora-
tory in Washington, discovered Bacterii/m tnlarense in ground squirrels
dead of an epidemic disease resembling plague, which he was then studying.

[And in] 1913 Yamagiwa and Itchikawa, in Japan, produced cancer in
the ears of rabbits by repeated tar-paintings.

Smith, in his address, " Cancer in Plants," offered the following
in support of his analogy between tumor strands in crown gall
which connect primary and secondary tumors and those malig-
nant animal and human tumors which " show^ a marked tendency
to reproduce themselves at a distance from the primary tumour
by means of migrating portions of their ow^n tissue," either inde-
pendently or by a chain of tumor cells: " MacCallum, from the

* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 34; see also Smith's translation of P.isteur,
the history of a mind, op. cit., 341-342, Annotated list etc.

'' Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 34 ; also, John Drury Ratcliff, Yellow magic.
The stor}' of penicillin, 26, 27, N. Y., Random House.

* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 34-35.

472 Second European Journey

Johns Hopkins Hospital, lias reported a malignant growth of the
testicle which he traced out of the scrotum and through the vena
cava, in a continuous chain of tumour cells, as far as the dia-
phragm. The animal pathologists have drawn, I believe," he
suggested,

too sharp a line of demarcation between malignant tumours on the one
hand, where the cells of the host-animal, acting under some unknown
stimulus are responsible for the tumorous growth, and granulomata- on
the other hand, such as tuberculosis or actinomycosis, where a visible para-
site is responsible for the presence of the primary tumour, and the direct
migrations of this parasite for any secondary tumours that may appear.
At bottom, I think the distinction between such a disease, for example, as
tuberculosis or leprosy and the malignant animal tumours is not as sharp
as some of the histolo<rists have been inclined to believe, but this is aside
from the question at issue, and only a note by the way. The host-reaction
is prominent in both.

In this, Smith came close to venturing a purely medical opinion
but he remained a pathologist in the study of plants, interested
in galls and overgrowths of plants, a subject, he believed, " well
worthy the profound attention of animal pathologists, because
plants, after all, are not fundamentally different from animals,
and the study of their tumours may well prove just what is neces-
sary to throw light on the aetiology of cancers in man and the
lower animals." To this end, he discussed various kinds of bac-
terial plant diseases and infection, galls and overgrowths due to
insects, fungi, and other causes; and among the fungous galls
considered was " the cause of the West Indian fungous knot of
citrous fruits, recently worked out in [his} laboratory." After he
had returned to America, Dr. Peyton Rous, exchanging reprints,
wrote: " I see by the medical journals that your work has made
a deep impression on European observers and wish that I might
have been in London last summer to hear your paper."

Paris and Vienna were Smith's two principal destinations for
scientific research. At Paris he visited the Pasteur Institute and
became acquainted with Dr. A. Besredka and Elie Metchnikoff,
the latter the celebrated discoverer of phagocytosis and vice-
director of the Institute. Besredka, himself an immunologist
and pathologist of illustrious calibre, was to become one of Smith's
closest friends and admirers among his foreign correspondents.
The great Dr. Pierre Paul Emile Roux, director of the Institute,

RrsFARni ON Plant Tumors 473

was in southern France or northern Africa. Ret^rcttably wc do
not know more of what took pUice on this first of Dr. Smith's
visits to tliis world famous institution."

About 1908," in a C^icrman catalogue of second-hand books, he
had seen the title of a book, Pasteur, histoire d'un esprit, by T^mile
Duclaux. Straightway he had ordered it, because of its subject
and its author,' and was puzzled, since the book was published
in France in 1896, why he had never come across it in any
library or literary review or known any fellow scientist who had
read it. A book on Pasteur! That was of utmost importance.
And by Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute from 1895
until his death in 1904 and closely associated with the institution
from its beginnings in 1888! His name was enough. Smith
"' devoured page after page, marveling more and more at the
wonderful breadth and perspicacity of the presentation. Pasteur
seemed alive in its pages, and Duclaux not less alive. No book
about a scientific man ever interested him more, or could be
written, it seemed, with a more appreciative and discriminating
touch." When finished with his reading, he wTOte on the margin
of its last page, " The most useful book I have read in a long

time."

While at the Institut Pasteur, Smith obtained permission from
the Institut and Madame Emile Duclaux to translate into English
Pasteur, histoire d'un esprit. Madame Duclaux, herself a figure
in English and French literature as a poetess and writer of prose,
had been Mrs. James Darmesteter before her marriage to Duclaux,
and her maiden name had been Agnes Mary Robinson. An author
of many books, she had written in 1906 a book on her husband's
life. La vie de tmile Duclaux. This book, out of print by the
year 1920 when Smith's and Miss Hedges' translation, Pasteur,
The History of a Mind, w^as published, was made the basis of
Dr. Smith's study of the life and work of Duclaux, which study
comprised the " Introduction " to the translated volume on Pasteur.
Madame Duclaux in 1913 presented Smith with a copy of her
book.

The other scientific institution which Smith visited while in
Paris in 1913 was the French government's Laboratory of Plant

^ These facts are taken from Dr. Smith's Journal of a third European trip 1921
* Introduction, Pasteur, The history of a niiud, op. cit., v-vi.

474 Second European Journey

Pathology, 11 bis rue d'Alesia. There Smith studied the identity
of the American and French mulberry blight.® There also he
examined, though hastily, materials of Delacroix's so-called bac-
terial wilt-diseases of tobacco,^" for purposes of his third volume
of Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases. There also, through
the courtesy of Director Etienne Foex, he carefully examined the
matter he had wished to study at Paris in 1906 — whether Dela-
croix's B. solanincola was a third organism different from Bacillus
phytophthorus and Bacterium solanacearum and the cause of the
French disease, brown rot of solanaceae. Delacroix had said in
1901, " This bacterium seems to me not different from the Bacillus
solariacearum of Erwin F. Smith. Its cultural characters are the
same; the signs of the disease observed in the United States on
the potato, tomato, and egg-plant are exactly those I have myself
seen."

Smith collected data and, after returning to the United States,
revised his manuscript to include a footnote descriptive of his
studies at the Station of Vegetable Pathology in Paris.^^

From Paris, Dr. Smith went to the Flemish cities of Antwerp
and Ghent. He attended the International Exposition of that year
where he found the English exhibit on tropical diseases, prepared
by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine " very full and
creditable — on cholera, typhoid, plague, beri beri, sleeping sick-
ness and half a dozen other diseases." Literature in all branches
of pathology had been increasing enormously during recent years.
Delacroix and Maublanc had published not only their Maladies
parasitaires des Plantes cultivees (1908-1909) but also their
Maladies des Plantes cultivees dans les Pays cbauds which Smith
had accepted as the first handbook of tropical plant diseases. ^^
This appeared in 1911 and two years later Melville T. Cook's
The Diseases of Tropical Plants. New editions of older works
and some first editions of important manuals and textbooks in
bacteriology had been published, though Smith's three-volume
monograph was being received as the standard work on plant

^Phytopathology 4(1): 34, Feb. 1914. See also Smith's article, Bacterial mulberry
blight, idem 2(4): 175, Aug. 1912; also. Bacterial blight of mulberry, Science 31
(803): 792-794, May 20, 1910.

^"Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 3: 266-267, 263, 1914.

'■'^Idem, 214-215.

^- Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 32-33.

RusiiARCH ON Plant Tumors 47'>

bactcrii)K\uv. Contrasting Smith's two jxiblishcd, and the pro-
mult;atcd third, vokimcs of Bdctcr'nt in RcLifiofi to Plant Diseases
with the total knowledge of micro-organic pathology as shown
by W. Kollc's and A. Wasscrmann's Hdndhuch der pathogenen
Mikroorganismen, plant bacteriology as a growing science was
developing commcnsurately. In 1907-1909 two supplementary
volumes to the original four of the great Hancihuch had been
published, and in 1912-1913 a new edition by Kolle and Abel-
eight volumes in all— had made its appearance." Plant pathology
and bacteriology as experimental sciences were scarcely a half-
century old; some might say, scarcely little more than a quarter
of a century old.

At the French exhibit of the International Exposition, Smith saw
some " cultures of cheese and butter organisms from the Pasteur
Inst[itute] on which [he] made some notes for Thorn." Charles
Thom w^as at that time a mycologist in cheese investigations of
the dairy division of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United
States Department of Agriculture and in charge of cooperative
work in soft and fancy cheesemaking w^th the Storrs Connecticut
Agricultural Experiment Station.

Investigation in microbiology for many years, of course, had
figured prominently in the work, and the Bulletin, of the Pasteur
Institute. In America, many microbiological investigations had
taken place but had been known under the broader titles of dairy
bacteriology, vegetable patholog)', mycology, or various branches
of medical science. Gradually, however, microbiology, as an
organized segregate of experimental inquiry, w^as being recog-
nized. In 1914 Dr. Thom, authority on the physiology and classi-
fication of the economic molds of the genera Penicillium and As-
pergillus and at one time a student in Smith's laboratory, was to be
placed in charge of a Microbiological Laboratory in the Division
of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture. In 1911 Charles
Edward Marshall, professor of bacteriology and hygiene at
Michigan Agricultural College, had edited, wqth many scientists
collaborating, an important publication, Microbiology, and the
next year he had gone to Massachusetts Agricultural College as
director of the graduate school and professor of microbiology.
In 1914 he became president of the Society of American Bac-

"Uem, 34-35.

476 Second European Journey

teriologists; and his continued interest in Smith's work was shown
by a letter of 1912 praising one of his papers on crown gall, " On
some resemblances of Crown-gall to Human Cancer."

During recent decades, microbiology and its branches of science,
have been greatly expanded and become far more specialized.
In 1947, at Copenhagen, a fourth International Congress for
Microbiology was held, attended by more than eleven hundred
persons, eighty-seven of whom were Americans representing var-
ious segments of study. Recently at Rutgers University was estab-
lished an institute," an outgrowth of a department, of micro-
biology under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Selman A. Waksman,
a former student of Dr. Halsted. At the Copenhagen congress
Waksman was the first American scientist to receive the Emil
Christian Hansen prize for microbiology.'' His most famous dis-
covery has been the antibiotic, streptomycin. Since then, among
other discoveries of importance, there have been two which
approximate in value and, as remedies against several serious
diseases, may prove of comparable worth with the first great
antibiotic, penicillin, and with streptomycin. Aureomycin,'^ now
introduced into medical practice, was discovered by B. M. Duggar,
emeritus member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin.
Chloromycetin, the utilization of which is now being investigated,
was the original discovery of Paul R. Burkholder of the Osborn
Botanical Laboratory, Yale University. He isolated the Strepto-
myces species from a soil sample collected in Venezuela."

Dr. Smith, while on his European journey of 1913, was interested
in microbiology, but mainly those aspects which pertained to the
study of plant diseases. Not until 1915 would the English bac-
teriologist, Frederick William Twort, announce in the Lancet his
discovery of the bacteriophage. This, as a product of the bacterial
cell, was a decade and more later to figure in studies of cancer
viruses," and assistants in Smith's laboratory would publish on
the influence of bacteriophage on Bacterium tumejaciens}^ In

^* S. A. Waksman, An institute of microbiology — its aims and purposes, Science
110(2845): 27-30, July 8, 1949. Six main research fields described.
"5f/V«fe 106(2734): 339, Oct. 10, 1947.
''"Science 110: 305, Sept. 23, 1949.
^^ Science 106(2757): 417, 418, Oct. 31, 1947.
^^ British Medical Journal, London, 515, March 26, 1949.
^* N. A. Brown and A. J. Quirk, Influence of bacteriophage on Bacterium tume-

Researc;!! on Plant 'Id mors 477

Vienna he bought "" one new book " and '" a \ery iniportant one
for our work," he wrote to his laboratory co-workers.'^' This was
Microchemie der PjLinzen, by Dr. Hans Molisch, " tlic leading
botanist here in Vienna. . . . The book," he explained, " has
soniethint; in it on the alkalinity of protoplasm and especially of
that of the nucleus, and gives some tests which we may able to
apply to the tissues of crowngall i. e., to determine whether my
theory that the nuclear contents of the daisy is alkaline, as I
suppose." His plan was that, if a chemist could be associated
\\ ith them, they might translate the book into English. " It would
prove very useful nof only for us in the doing," he said, " but for
many English reading students," and he was very much pleased
when in July, 1921, he received from Molisch a second edition
of it. . '

Dr. Molisch himself had shown Smith a copy, and they had
" a delightful visit of a couple of hours." Then most of his time
that week was " spent at the K. K. Oenologisches und Pomolo-
gisches Institut at Klosterneuberg about twelve miles north of
Vienna near the Danube," where Felix von Thiiman, the mycol-
ogist, had been, and where Dr. Linsbauer was now director of
the Lehr-Anstalt. There he examined the materials of Emerich
Rathay on a bacterial disease of orchard grass. -^ Before leaving
for Europe, Smith had received from Denmark specimens of a
disease of orchard grass which resembled a description by Rathay
in 1899 of "a bacteriosis of Dactylis glomerata." hi 1911, on
Maryland carnations, he also had found what seemed to be this
same disease. He, therefore, had prepared for Science " an article
entitled, "A New Type of Bacterial Disease." In this malady
the chief growth of the parasite appears on the surface between
closely appressed organs. The question yet remained, however,
whether the Danish and Austrian diseases were one and the same.
In oak woods on the Kahlenberg v^'here Rathay had collected his
material. Smith found fragmentary specimens, and brought them
back to America. In a hot house in Washington a diseased plant

faciens, and some potential studies of filtrates, Jour. Agric. Res. 39(7): 503-530,
1929 (considers work 1921-1922 etc. of F. D'Herelle on the bacteriophage).

■"Letter written at Vienna November 1, 1913.

"^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases 3: 160.

"N. s. 38(991): 926, Dec. 26, 1913. Also, Introduction to bacterial diseases of
plants, op. cit., 48, and authorities cited.

478 Second European Journey

produced fifteen flowering healthy shoots the next year.^^ Sub-
sequently, O'Gara discovered a similar disease on Agropyron in
Utah and Hutchinson on wheat heads in Punjab in India.

The Laboratory's scientific study of many of the plant diseases .
dealt with in the third volume of Bacteria in Relation to Plant
Diseases had been performed in Washington, and little or no
work on these by Smith was required in Europe. A few examples
were the corn studies including further work on Stewart's disease
of sweet corn, and the Grand Rapids tomato disease, wilt diseases
of tobacco, vascular diseases of banana, etc."* After returning to
America, he exchanged letters with A. Spieckermann of Munich
who, with Kotthoff, described (1914) their bacterial ring disease
of potato. But he did not go to Munich. In early November he
was in Vienna and by the middle of the month in Bologna and
Milan, preparing for visits to Genoa and San Remo and to sail
for the United States in the not distant future. He wanted speci-
mens or information about the oleander gall, the pine tumor of
southern France, and other things of value or interest in his work.
Although he regretted that he had not put over his sailing to a
later time, he made his scheduled reservation and returned home
on the same ship on which he had crossed, the Lapland. One
day out of New York he was asked to present a lecture, and he
sketched the material progress made by research in pathology
since the early work of Pasteur and Koch and the major technical
advancements in bacteriology since then.

Dr. Smith, soon after his arrival from his second European
journey, married on February 21, 1914, Miss Ruth Warren at the
home of her uncle and aunt in Springfield, Massachusetts. She
was the daughter of Josephine Hopkins and Wilmot L. Warren,
and her father and her uncle, Edward F. Hayes, for many years
had been leading editorial writers for the Springfield Republican.

'^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 3: 160 n.

°* Corn: Erwin F. Smith and Florence Hedges, Burrill's bacterial disease of broom
corn, Science, n. s., 21(535): 502-503, March 31, 1905. See also, Erwin F. Smith
and Charlotte Elliott, A bacterial disease of broomcorn and sorghum. Phytopathology
14(1): 48, Jan. 1924.

Erwin F. Smith, Seed corn as a means of disseminating Bacterium stewarti.
Science, n. s., 30(763): 223-224, Aug. 13, 1909.

Tomatoes: Erwin F. Smith, A new tomato disease of economic importance, Science,
n. s., 31(803): 794-796, May 20, 1910.

Potatoes: Erwin F. Smith, Bacillus phytophthorus Appel, Science 31(802): 748-
749, May 13, 1910. Also, Phytopath. 2(5): 213-214, Oct. 1912.

Ri-SEARCH ON Plant Tumors 479

Left an orphan at the a£;c of fourteen years, she had lived with
members of her family and with her brother. Her education had
been received in ihe Springfield schools and at Smith College,
and her degree of master of arts hud been obtained in Latin and
Greek at Columbia University. She was a linguist of unusual
ability, conversant with several modern as well as the classical
languages, a student of literature and art, and had taught these
subjects in several of the best private schools of the east. She
and Dr. Smith read together of evenings the best books, and over
more than a dozen y^rs were very happy, their mutual interests in
languages, literature, and art providing them with an abundant
basis for. calm, quiet satisfaction and joy. His diaries again and
ajiain reveal this..

The year 1914 brought new honors to Dr. Smith. On May 13
he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. On April 24 he was invited by Director F. R. Lillie
of the Marine Biological Laboratory to participate the following
July 7 in a series of evening lectures on general biological science.
On April 17 President Charles R. Van Hise of the University of
Wisconsin wrote him that, on recommendation of their faculty,
the regents w^ould confer on him at their next Commencement
the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. Because of a necessary
journey to the Pacific Coast, Dr. L. R. Jones could not be present
at this ceremony but he wrote: "It is not necessary to add the
very great pleasure it gives me that the University of Wisconsin
could thus honor itself while honoring you by aw^arding you
this degree."

On August 4 Smith announced to Thaxter: " The third volume
of Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases, w^hich has been grinding
through the press for 18 months, will be published this week."
V. H. Blackman, professor of physiology and pathology of the
Imperial College of Science and Technology at South Kensington,
England, was among the many who sent letters of appreciation.
" May I congratulate you," he wrote, " on the publication of the
third volume of your great work on bacteriology. The appearance
of these fine volumes is eagerly welcomed by many botanists in
this country." Jacob Eriksson of Stockholm ordered a copy of the
" imposing w^ork." Savastano of Italy sent for this and any other
volume of the set which he did not possess. Ernst A. Bessey of

480 Second European Journey

the department of botany of Michigan Agricultural College found
the work " excellent, thorough and basic." Among the other
Americans who wrote Smith, V. M. Spalding, now retired, living
at Loma Linde, California, and proud of his student, said: "' What
a satisfaction it must be to you to bring this great work to a con-
clusion and still have years — I trust — of fruitful investigation in
which at least some of the problems that you have met may be
settled. Your studies of cancer in plants for years past seem to
me of extreme interest and value, to mention one out of much
more." Smith planned to visit California the next summer. But
his hopes to renew acquaintance with his venerable professor were
not to be realized. The next year his researches in crown gall
required his presence in his laboratory, and on November 12,
1918, Dr. Spalding died.

In 1913 David Franklin Houston had been appointed United
States Secretary of Agriculture. B. T. Galloway had been pro-
moted to Assistant Secretary, and W. A. Taylor had been made
chief of the Bureau of Plant hidustry. Secretary Wilson had
retired and, to honor him, a farewell reception at the United
States National Museum had been held on March 7, 1913. Dr.
Smith had delivered the farewell address, and presented duplicate
larger than life portrait bronze busts of the Secretary, one to him
and one to be placed in the library of the Department " to show
the coming generations what manner of man he was who wrought "
the great work of advancing agriculture on a nation-wide basis
during his administration. Smith had originated the idea of the
bust, persuaded the Secretary to sit for the sculptor whom Smith
picked, collected the funds from employees of the Department,
and in the course of his presentation, said:

You have been with us as Secretary of Agriculture for sixteen years, a
longer period than any other man has ever served in a Cabinet position in
this country. Rarely in any country has a man been so honored. In the
sixteen years we have grown from less than twenty five hundred persons
occupied with problems for the betterment of agriculture to nearly fourteen
thousand workers. We then expended less than three million dollars per
annum on our work. The bill that has recently passed Congress directs us
to expend nearly eighteen millions. Sixteen years ago we had very little
influence at home and none abroad. To-day there is not a civilized country
in the world that does not speak with respect and envy of our Department

Ri;si;arch on Plant Tumoiis 481

of At;ri(.ukurc, and as lor our staiuiini; at home one has only to ask any
well educated farmer anywhere in this broad country, -in Maine or
Missouri; New York or Minnesota; liie Gulf States; the Carolinas or
California.

■^'ou have been a part of all this vast i^rowth. To you, more than to any
other one man, all this is due. Your lars;e foresight and wise administration
have made it possible. . . .-*

Before his retirement. Secretary Wilson had recommended to
the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives
certain additional monies which, had these been approved by the
committee on agriculture, would very considerably have enabled
Dr. Smith to extend his laboratories and field investigations in
plant pathology. The recommended appropriation had also been
approved by Secretary Houston and to secure favorable action
thereon Smith in 1914 appeared before the house committee on
agriculture."*'

Introducing himself to the committee members unacquainted
with his work, he pointed out that he had been w^ith the Depart-
ment for twenty-seven years and during this time

revolutionized the study of bacterial diseases of plants . . . discovered a
new type of fungous diseases of plants (the Fusariums) of wide distribu-
tion and great economic importance . . . demonstrated that a wide-spread
bacterial tumor on plants (grape vines, roses, peaches, pears and many
other cultivated plants) is a genuine cancer in its method of growth and
[had] rendered it extremely probable that cancer in man and animals is due
to a similar organism.

For the work on cankers and tumors of plants, he suggested
that the Department " might well put an additional $10,000 into
this one subject." In the autumn of 1914 the Department had
launched a large scale campaign, cooperating with states around
the Gulf of Mexico, to eradicate the serious and widely dissemi-
nated canker disease of citrus fruit and trees. A scientific paper,
prepared on this subject by Miss Clara Hasse of the Department,
announcing discovery of the cause to be a bacterium, Bacterium
citrj, was more proof the next year of the tremendous economic
good realized from investigations in plant pathology and bac-

-* Typewritten copy of his address found among collected documents and papers ;
also, his diary, 1920, p. 239.

" Statement of Dr. Erwin F. Smith before the House Committee of Agriculture
1914, op. cjt.

482 Second European Journey

teriology. Miss Hasse's treatise, Smith believed, would remain a
classic upon the subject. The fact that within less than a decade
at a cost of about half a million dollars this disease was brought
" very well under control " whereas when the campaign was started
the disease already had seriously reduced the industry in some of
its best and most productive regions exampled another among
several instances where plant industries had been saved from
serious curtailment or total extinction as later did happen to
industries connected with the chestnut due to its bark disease."'

Smith wanted more funds to study also bacterial diseases among
vine stocks, bacterial oat diseases and various other leaf-spot bac-
terial diseases of plants. His major emphasis, however, v/as
directed to the need of field and laboratory investigations in
tobacco, potato and tomato, and corn diseases. In recent years
these situations had become so threatening that Smith pleaded,
" If we could cut these diseases in two or even reduce them one-
tenth part, we could save the country every year more than the
cost of the entire Bureau of Plant Industry."

Several bacterial diseases of the tomato and potato were causing
" immense losses, north and south, east and west, some part of
which," he urged, " we ought to be able to cut out by further
researches." The bacterial canker of tomato, first called " The
Grand Rapids disease " [Science 31: 794) after the locality from
which it had been first sent to him, had been described by him
in 1909 as a phloem wilt disease caused by a yellow schizomycete,
Aplanobacter michiganense. This was one. In I9IO Smith had
published {Science 31: 748) his verification of Appel's work on
black-leg of the potato, due to Bacillus phytophthorus. This was
another widespread and destructive disease. To the " several bac-
terial diseases " of tomato and potato Smith had " personally
given much attention." But, he argued, " I cannot cope adequately
with them without further assistance." At least four more labora-
tory assistants were needed.

In I9O8 he had determined that the " Granville tobacco wilt,"
(Bulletin l4l, part II, Bur. PL Industry) was due to Bacterium
solanacearum. In the southern states this wilt disease in tobacco

^''Report of the Secretary, Yearbook of the U. S. Dep't of Agric. for 1918: 43.
See also, Fify years of pathology, op. cit., 33, 38. Also, W. A. Taylor, Gimpaigns
against plant diseases, in A Quarter Century of Service, found in report of the Chief
of the Bureau of Plant Industry for 1926, and reprint, pp. 2-3.

Ri-si;ARCH ON Plant Tumors 483

and the tomato had now made it impossible to grow tliese crops
on many tields. Smith cxphiined to the House of Representatives'
agricultural committee:

There is a bacterial tobacco disease in Nortli Carolina and I-lorida of
such magnitude and destructive power that if it continues to spread
unchecked for the next 25 years we may confidently expect the tobacco
industry of the United States to be practically wiped out. 1 know the cause
of this disease. I wish to study further the habits of the parasite, hoping
to find some way of attacking it. I think we ought to be able to find a way
to cultivate tobacco again on the badly infested lands, something which is
not now possible, as the organism persists in the soil.

As to diseases of corn, he stated his

wish to continue my studies of bacterial diseases of corn, broom corn and
sorghum in the field, and to study critically the causes of the molding of
corn in freight cars and elevators. The losses are now very great and if
they could be eliminated, which seems to me quite possible, the price paid
to the producers in our central and western states could be increased several
cents a bushel, the prices now paid being made low enough to recoup all
losses in transit.

In the West Indies, also, serious curtailment or perhaps eventual
destruction of profitable plant industries was threatened by dis-
eases. Two such which Smith had studied, determined the cause,
and for which he was still seeking a remedy or control method
were the bacterial bud-rot of the coconut palm (1905) (Science
21: 500) and the banana disease, due to Fusarium cuhense {Science
31: 754) which by 1926 " belted the globe."

October 16, 1914, at the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of
the Missouri Botanical Garden, Smith by invitation read a paper,
"A Conspectus of Bacterial Diseases of Plants," "^ a scholarly con-
densation of principles and knowledge, and the substance of which
formed the basis of the first chapter of his textbook, An Intro-
duction to Bacterial Diseases of Plants, published some six years
later. Paragraphs and some revisions in the light of new knowl-
edge were added when the textbook was prepared. One paragraph,
in connection with methods of control, should be regarded pro-
phetically relevant to modern science today: " One of my fancies,"
Smith wrote in 1920,-® " is that plant pathologists will eventually

■^Annals of the Mo. Bot. Garden 2: 377-401, Feb.-April 1915.
-^ Intro, to bad. dis. of plants, op. cit., 74.

484 Second European Journey

discover competing saprophytes which when sown on infected
soils will overcome and render harmless certain of the bacterial
parasites present in them. We have some evidence that nature
does this, and man working toward a definite end should be able
to improve on nature."

Smith in 1914 placed conjfidence in the " rapidly increasing
knowledge of the biological peculiarities of the parasites causing
these diseases, and of the ways in which they are disseminated. . -. ."
His hope for the future was in wider application of control-
methods already found, and in the discovery of new rules experi-
mentally worked out by plant pathologists and based on " indi-
vidual peculiarities of the parasites." That this hope was not
yielded during his lifetime is shown by an utterance formally
made in 1926 near the close of his life: " We know as yet,"
he said,^° " very little about bacterial symbiosis and antagonism
in relation to disease, but beyond doubt there is a great deal to
learn."

In the second volume, indeed in all three volumes, of Bacteria
in Relation to Plant Diseases, he suggested to plant scientists
some " wholly unworked " fields for future investigation. This
he did in many of his most important scientific writings. If the
field was not wholly unworked, he suggested subjects which he
confidently believed would yield more valuable results and subjects
which he was sure should be studied and investigated further.
Among wholly unworked fields, he suggested plant studies in
acquired resistance to, and immunity from, disease.^^

Originating valuable disease-resistant strains of plants by selec-
tion or hybridization, and this included the newer resources being
discovered by research in genetics, represented a type of future
investigation v/hich he was sure would be still more useful in
solving problems. Much of his writing had important bearings
on animal and medical pathology, yet were based on results exclu-
sively from the study of plants. It took scholarship of high order
to answer such a question as, "Are any bacteria known to cause
disease in both plants and animals?" and adduce his answer
from available experimental data the world over resulting from
inoculations of plant parasites into animals and animal parasites

^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 40.

^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 93-96.

Ri-snARCH ON Plant Tumors •iR'i

into plants. Likewise, lie had to know his subject thoroughly to
elaborate summary research results from the comparatively un-
explored lield of plants as carriers of disease.

It was as late as 1912 before the existence of the first vitamin
was definitely proved — " as a something, a quality, a property,
or perhaps a substance, which some foods had and others did not.
Other vitamins," Leonard A. Maynard ^- has pointed out, " became
thus recognized in succeeding years, but it was not until the organic
chemist commenced to give these " somethings " attention that
the field really moved. It was over 15 years after the first vitamin
was discovered tlwt the chemical nature of any of them was
definitely established. In the succeeding years, isolation, determi-
nation of structure, and, frequently, synthesis followed increasingly
closely on the biologists' discoveries." In 1912, radiology, emerging
from the discovery of " X-rays " so-called in 1895 and the discovery
of radium in 1898, was comparatively still an infant science.^^

Smith admitted ^* that a more thorough knowledge of bio-
chemistry and biophysics greatly would have helped him: " Handi-
caps have been," he confessed, " first, insufficient mathematical
physics; second, insufficient biochemistry. But perhaps if I had
specialized on these subjects, I should in the end have been like
one of my teachers w^io decided he would be a naturalist but must
first get a good ground-work in Latin and Greek. The result was
that he never passed on into a study of nature but became a
teacher of the classics. Moral: There is not room in one short life
for everything." Dr. Smith considered that, after all, his " most
important work [had] been the stimulating of other persons to
undertake researches first in [his] own laboratory and then
through [his] wTitings and teachings in many other laboratories."

This was written in 1922 and he lived only five more years.
The search for chemo-therapeutical remedies against disease had
been started many years before, but was chiefly a work of medical
research. Smith's interest in the causes of diseases, human, animal,

'" Director of the School of Nutrition, Cornell University, A chemist's view of
nutrition, Science 105(27): 399-403, Jan.- June 1947. Address given before the New
York Section of the American Chemical Society, December 6, 1946. The discovery
of vitamins by Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins of England traces to the year 1906
(T/we, May 26, 1947 issue).

^^ Douglas James Guthrie, A history of medicine, op. cit., 384-385.

^* Synopsis of researches, o[). cit., 45-46.

486 Second European Journey

or plant, was always accompanied by an equally strong interest
in remedies or control methods. In 1919 Noguchi had isolated
from yellow fever cases a flagellate protozoan, Leptospira icter-
o'tdes. Smith believed this to be " the probable cause of the
disease." In the early 1920's, Drs. G. F. Dick and G. H. Dick,
American medical scientists of Chicago, found a streptococcus in
scarlet fever. Smith believed this " probably " the disease's cause,
since the streptococcus was shown to be unvaryingly present and
its behavior indicated it as the cause.^^ This discovery led to the
elaboration of a susceptibility test for scarlet fever comparable to
the Bela Schick susceptibility test for diphtheria.^* E. C. Rosenow's
studies of facial infection, endocarditis and arthritis during this
decade 1917-1926 also interested Smith.^'

Experimental research in antibiotics emerged into definite notice
after Sir Alexander Fleming observed in 1928 that when a culture
plate fluid containing staphylococcal colonies was contaminated
by spores of a species of PeniciUium {Penktllhim notatiwi), the
staphylococci near the mold began to show signs of dissolving.
For years botanists had noticed that when a bread mold culture
was introduced on a seeded plate of bacteria a clear area around
the mold colony often resulted. In 1877 Pasteur and Joubert had
suggested a possible therapeutical importance from their observa-
tion that the growth of certain air-borne organisms inhibited the
growth of the anthrax bacillus. John Tyndall had mentioned an
observed " struggle for existence between the Bacteria and the
PeniciUium" in his 1881 Essays on the Vloating Matter of the
Air in Relation to Putrefaction and Infection.^^ Yet the production
of the therapeutical medicine or drug, penicillin, eluded mastery
until after Fleming had investigated this " new bacterial inhibitor "
further. Fleming's initial report was not published until 1929, two
years after Dr. Smith died. After the report a decade of more
studies by other workers, especially research in the clinical uses
of the isolated product penicillin, followed before the medical

^® Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 41.

^^ Justina Hamilton Hill, Germs and the man, 34 ff., 96. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
1940.

" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 41.

^*H. Landsberg, Prelude to the discovery of penicillin, his 40, pt. 3(121): 225-
227, Aug. 1949.

RnsGARCH ON Plant Tumors 487

drui; was manufactured and marketed.'" Durini; his lifetime other
outstanding achievements in medicine were announced and made
available. "' One of the great advances of human medicine in this
decade," he said in 1926,'" " has been the preparation of insulin
by Banting and Best, of Toronto, from animal pancreas (1922)
for the treatment of diabetes."

Smith seldom studied experimentally questions of antagonism
among the bacteria, although while studying soil parasites he
became aware of great possibilities from such study. Often sym-
biotic diseases, Ardisias, Pavettas, etc., interested him. The era of
sulfanilamide and sulfa drugs post-dated his life. Nevertheless,
in direct and incidental ways, he contributed knowledge which
has proved valuable in modern antibiotical research. We shall
consider some instances soon, and much of the rest of this book
will show some of the groundwork that was prepared.

While discussing acquired resistance to, and immunity from,
diseases in plants, he had written on " antibodies," and called the
subject of extreme interest theoretically and an almost wholly
unworked field. Whether an attack by a disease confers immunity,
in plants as in animals and man, was negatived by him, although
he illustrated from his studies of crown gall and olive tubercle
some conclusions which pointed to a " supposed " increased re-
sistance after repeated inoculations. He admitted that another
explanation was plausible. The observed phenomenon might also
have been due to a loss of virulence by the parasites."

In 1909 he and Miss Hedges had published on a " Diplodia
Disease of Maize," ■*- caused by a soil organism like the fusarium.
The fungus and its manner of infection were studied, and they
suggested that it might be the

cause of the so-called "" cornstalk " disease prevalent among cattle in the
west. It is also possible that to Diplodia should be referred the great
numbers of deaths of negroes in the south during the past three years from
the so-called pellagra, following the consumption of moldy corn-meal and
moldy hominy. This fungus {Diplodia) is also a cause of moldy corn in
Italy. The only other fungi we have reason for suspecting in this connec-

'* S. Epstein and B. Williams, Miracles from microbes, The road to streptomycirj,
99 f., New Brunswick, Rutgers Univ. Press, 1946; J. D. Ratcliff, op. cit.
*" Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 41.
" Bact. in rel. to pi. dis., op. cit., 2: 93-94.
^'^ Science, n. s., 30(758): 60-61, July 9, 1909.

488 Second European Journey

tion are species of Aspergillus. The writers would be very glad to receive
for study samples of hominy or corn meal suspected of being the cause of
pellagra.

The pathology of pellagra as a disease of humans was not
studied by the Department, but the agricultural aspects of the
problem were. From 1909 until 1912 the department's annual
reports " referred to the work. Secretary Wilson's comment in
1911 was significant: "The question of spoiled corn and its
relation to pellagara has been under investigation, the agricul-
tural side of the problem only being considered. Toxic substances
have been isolated from cultures of organisms occurring on spoiled
corn and some new constituents have been isolated."

December 16, 1910, Carl Lucas Alsberg and Otis F. Black,
chemical biologists of drug-plant, poisonous-plant, physiological
and fermentation investigations, published their Bureau of Plant
Industry bulletin 199, " The Determination of the Deterioration
of Maize, with incidental reference to Pellagra." In this appeared
a reference to a determination by Dr. Smith of a mold growth on
corn, found by him to be " spores of Aspergillus jtimigatusy
Other molds observed to discolor corn kernels were believed to
include " members of the genus of mold known as Penicillium."
In this bulletin were described procedures to determine toxicity
and to test for micro-organisms and for a tendency to become
moldy. It was said: **

The test for micro-organisms and the tendency to become moldy involves
the quantitative determination of the number of organisms in the suspicious
sample compared with a sound sample. The methods hitherto proposed
for this purpose do not seem to be adequate. To devise improved ones and
to determine the nature of the organisms present is beyond the limits of
the present problem. This has been undertaken by Dr. Erwin F. Smith . . .
and he will no doubt report in due time.

Dr. Alsberg was to become Chief of the Department's Bureau
of Chemistry in 1912. Since 1908 he had been with the Bureau
of Plant Industry as a chemical biologist, for two years before
then serving part time as an investigator with the United States

^^ Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture for 1909: 75; for 1910: 60; for
1911: 60; for 1912: 78; and also as to investigations of transmission of pellagra,

for 1913:' 38. . ^ . . , . .

** Examination of whole corn by mspection, lA et seq.\ Determmation of toxicity,
jind Test for micro-organism and for a tendency to become moldy, 30-31.

Ri-SEARCH ON Plant Tumors 489

Bureau of fisheries. In 1896 he had graduated (rum Cokimbia
llnivcrsity and obtained in 1900 liis master's degree from the
university and his degree t)f doctor of medicine frt)m the College
of Physicians and Surgeons there, also during the next three years
taking post-graduate study at the German universities of Strass-
buri; and Berlin. I'rom 1902 until accepting a position with the
United States Department of Agriculture, he had been an assistanc
in physiological chemistry and an instructor in biological chemistry
at Harvard University. Smith thought so well of him that he
helped to secure his appointment as Chief of the Bureau of
Chemistry succeeding to the place left vacant by the resignation
of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. In an entry of his diary of January
10, 1920, Smith reveals: "' I first called the attention of Sec[retar]y
Ja[me]s Wilson to Alsbcrg as a suitable man to fill the place
made vacant by Dr. Wiley's resignation and my letter to Prcs[i-
dent] Taft by advice of the Scc[retar]y w^as what set the ball
rolling and led to his appointment. He has made good here."
In 1913, Bureau of Plant Industry bulletin 270, " Contributions
to the Study of Maize Deterioration. Biochemical and toxicological
investigations of Pe/ncii/ium puberuhnn and PeniciUiinn stoloni-
jerinn,'' also by Alsberg and Black, was issued. This was submitted
first to Dr. R. H. True, physiologist in charge. Dr. Galloway,
when he transmitted it to Secretary Wilson, called attention to the
discovery that one of the molds, Fenkillhim puberulum, had been
shown " to develop toxic substances in maize." The research was
believed to have demonstrated primarily that the two organisms
" have specific physiological properties," and that Smith performed
some fundamental work in the study is undoubted. Alsberg and
Black at page 11 of their bulletin said: " For this investigation the
genus Penicillium was chosen, because it is well systematized in
the recent monograph of Thom.^^ Five species inhabiting spoiled
maize in the United States were obtained from Dr. Thom and
cultivated separately by Dr. Erwin F. Smith. Without such help
this investigation could hardly have been undertaken." Further
it was said that from samples of deteriorated maize, Dr. Smith
" isolated two species of Penicillium. One of these species was

*^ Charles Thom, Cultural studies of species of Penicillium, Bureau of Animal
Industry bulletin 118, U. S. Dep't of Agriculture, 1910.

490 Second European Journey

identified by Dr. Charles Thorn, of the Storrs Agricultural Experi-
ment Station as P. stoloniferum Thorn."

The antibiotic, penicillic acid, was derived from Penicillium
puberulmn Bainier. This was proved to be capable of inhibiting
to some extent the growth of yeast and quite effectively to inhibit
the growth of Bacillus coli.*^ It seems a fair inference to say that
Dr. Smith participated in this research which brought forth the
announcement of what has been described as " the world's second
recognized antibiotic." *' He himself claimed no credit for the
discovery, at least if he did this author has never found that he
placed such a claim in writing. Alsberg and Black in their intro-
duction stated the purpose of the research: "Whether molds or
the products of their growth have an injurious effect on animals
is a question which has not been conclusively settled," and in their
summary their results were announced: " Of six species of Peni-
cillium from maize examined, only two elaborated substances toxic
to mice. Two of these species, one toxic, the other non-toxic,
were studied in detail." Penicillium stoloniferum Thom was the
organism found to be nontoxic.

The following was said under " General Considerations ":

Since it has been definitely shown in the present paper that a distinct
species of Penicillium produces a substance of moderate toxicity, the ques-
tion very naturally arises, has it any pathological significance? At present
it can only be said that it is too early to answer this question. . . . [R}esults
of this investigation of PeniciU'uim puhenihnn indicate the possibility of
acute intoxication by moldy food. As already stated, the different species
of Penicillium differ radically in their biochemical behavior. If there is so
much difference in the ordinary products of metabolism, it is altogether
likely that a series of toxic substances may be produced by different species.
Some of these substances might very well be far more toxic than penicillic
acid.48

Penicillic acid, albeit, was found " not sufficiently toxic " to
strengthen materially the " maize theory of the etiology of pel-
lagra." Investigations were planned to extend to other species of
Penicillium; and the " finding of penicillic acid indicate[d] that

*" Samuel Epstein and Beryl Williams, Miracles from jnicrobes, op. cit., 69. Also,
Bull. 270, Bur. PI. Indus., U. S. Dep't of Agric, 26-27, 1913.

*■' S. Epstein and B. Williams, op. cit., 69. See also, A. L. Baron, Handbook of
antibiotics, 182-183, N. Y., Reinhold Publ. Corp., 1950.

** Bull. 270, op. cit., 7, 40, 47. Penicillium puberulum Bainier, it was said, was
originally isolated by F. D. Heald.

Rl-SEARf H OX Fl AM- 'rUMOHS 491

the relation of moldy corn to pellagra deserve[d] renewed atten-
tion." The Bureau's microbiological laboratory under Thorn was
established the next year. Special inquiries and requests for cul-
tures and other materials were referred by the Laboratory of Plant
Pathology to this and other laboratories. For instance, Thaxter in
December, 1914, requested cultures of Citrornyces citric us. Smith
suggested that he apply to Dr. C-E. A. Winslow, curator of public
health of the American Museum of Natural History of New York
or Miss Westerdyk of the Willie Commelin Scholten of Amster-
dam. Since, however, word recently had come that, owing probably
to World War I, the latter's cultures had been lost, he doubted
whether such could be obtained from there or from Wehmer.
" The .bother of keeping organisms going," Smith explained,

is so great that in recent years I have limited my efforts principally to those
I am specially interested in and even these disappoint me frequently. . . .
Before sealing my letter I thought best to make some inquiries of other
laboratories in the Dept[artmen]t. No one has C. citrictis, or any other
Citromyces unless some citric acid producing sp[ecie]s of Penicillium are
that.

Thom who has studied in Wehmer's laboratory recently says W[ehmer}
told him that he had found other fungi producing citric acid and that his
generic distinction based on this character '" would not hold." ... I under-
stood Thom that W[ehmer] now thinks there are many species of C[itro-
myces] and that he [Thom] on the contrary doubts if there are any, i. e.,
any distinct from Penicillium. The Dep[artmen]t has species of the latter
that produce citric acid and these I can get for you, I think, if you wish.
They were isolated from Am[erican} soil by Thom and seem to come near
to W[ehmer}'s citromyces. They have been sent to W[ehmer] and
received by him, but he has not yet worked them over.

Should anyone doubt that Smith was familiar with technical
principles involved in the study of bacterial antagonism, that
person should examine his treatment of " Mixed Cultures and
Mixed Infections " in the first volume of Bacteria in Relation to
Plant Diseases.'*^ There he cited in the text a reference to the
" interesting paper on Antagonism " by William Dodge Frost of
the faculty in agricultural bacteriology of the University of Wis-
consin. Dr. Frost's article had been published in 1904 in the
first volume ^° of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, and Smith
described his " two new methods of studying this subject, viz., the

" Pp. 72-74. " Pp. 599-640.

492 Second European Journey

divided-plate method and the agar-block method." Still another
method by Frankland and Ward was described. This author,
however, doubts whether it may be said that Smith made any
direct contribution to modern research in antibiotics. A recent
Handbook of Antibiotics, already cited, lists nearly two hundred
" antibiotic-producing organisms " and compiles and describes far
more than half that number of antibiotics. Among the earlier
substances announced, each discovery, like that of penicillin, either
post-dated his years of research or became known after his work
was mainly on crown gall.

In December 1915, at the seventh annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Phytopathological Society," Dr. Smith was elected president
of the organization for the coming year. In 1916 he was made a
member of the American Philosophical Society. Plant pathologists,
and American scientists generally, recognized the importance of
his work on crown gall.

In 1917, The Plant World a journal of general botany asked
" some fifty American botanists what they consider[ed] to be the
one or two most important botanical contributions of the last three
years." Within a month and a half, Smith's " work on crown gall
[had] received at least twice as many votes as any other important
work." ^"

Dr. Thomas S. Cullen requested Smith to send copies of his
crown gall papers to President Nicholas Murray Butler of Colum-
bia University. This was done, and Dr. Butler thanked Smith by
a letter of May 17, 1915:

My own interest in this particular subject is very great, not only because
we administer here a large fund for cancer research [George Crocker
Special Research Fund], but because, purely from a layman's point of
view, I suggested several years ago that comparative studies be made in
animal and plant pathology with a view to ascertaining whether some of
the parasitic growths, commonly observed in connection with plants, might
not throw light on cancer research.

During the winter of 1915-1916, Dr. Smith discovered some
" further evidence " ^^ which he believed pointed to the cancerous

^^ 7th ann. meeting, held in the Botany and Zoology building of the Ohio State
University, Columbus.

^-Letters written by Forrest Shreve, managing editor, Feb. 23, Ap. 7; see also,
Plant World 20(8): 264-265, 1917.

^'^ Further evidence that crown gall of plants is cancer, Science, n. s., 43(1121):
871-889, June 23, 1916, and reprint.

Ri-si;ar( n on Plant Tumors 493

nature of crown j^all. He experimentally sexiireJ in plants a series
of results of " embryonal teratomata " which he believed tended
to correlate " the most diverse forms of neoplasm " and removed
one of the strongest objections to regarding crown gall as a cancer
in plants."

The facts of his discovery were described '''' in part as follows:

[U]p to the winter of 1915-1916 I do not recall that I ever saw a bud
or shoot on a gall known definitely to be a crown gall. Early in our study
of this disease, however, we demonstrated by cultures and by inoculations
on apple, quince, and sugar-beet that a root-disease of the apple charac-
terized by small flat tumors out of which grow tufts of flesliy roots and
which was supposed 'to be a disease of non-parasitic origin, was actually
due to bacteria scarcely distinguishable morphologically and culturally from
those causing the ordinary crown gall. I was then inclined to assume com-
plete identity of the organisms and to ascribe the difference in the pheno-
mena, i. e., plain galls, or root-bearing galls, to fundamental diflPerences in
the tissues which happened to become infected, since the parasitic bacteria
were not found in the new roots but only in the flat and often scanty tumor
from which they originated. . . . Clusters of roots were also obtained on
the stem of a collard plant which was inoculated with the crown-gall
organism plated from a tumor on poplar, which tumor did not bear roots.
To this extent only had I seen formed organs develop out of experimentally
produced tumor tissue. Now I have seen much more, to wit, imperfect and
fugitive leaf -buds and flower buds also developing from crown galls pro-
duced by pure-culture inoculations, using the hop strain of Bacterium
tumefacieus. These were first observed January 8, 1916, in shoots of red-
flowered Pelargonium inoculated in the growing point, five at least out of
six plants showing the phenomenon. . . . More recently by bacterial
inoculation restricted to the region of dormant buds in leaf axils, I have
obtained the same phenomena on tomato and tobacco plants, on orange
trees, on castor oil plants, and again on Pelargonium. Still later, on a
tobacco plant by direct inoculation, i. e., without the intervention of a
tumor-strand I caused a shoot to develop out of place, i. e., beloti/ a leaf
rather than from the axil above it — an unheard of phenomenon !

The discoveries of January 8 had been made soon after Dr.
Smith had addressed,"*^ at the invitation of the Surgeon General,
a meeting of the second Pan American Scientific Congress. On
January 6 he had presented a lantern-slide demonstration of
" Plant Tumors " before a joint session of subsection E of the

'^* E. F. Smith, Studies on the crown gall of plants, its relation to human cancer,
Jour. Cancer Research 1(2): 231-309, at 243, and n. 3, Apr. 1916.

" Ue?n. 241-242, and n. 2.

^^ Second Pan Amer. Set. Cong. The Final Act, 279, Washington, Gov't Print.
Office, 1916. Surgeon General Wm. C. Gorgas was chairman.

494 Second European Journey

Section on Public Health and Medical Science and the American
Association for Cancer Research. Immediately he sent brief notices
of the discoveries to Science ^^ and the journal of the American
Medical Association/'^ He included the above-quoted materials in
an article ^^ sent to the Journal of Cancer Research, nev^, official,
publishing organ of the cancer research association. On April 18,
1916, he read before the National Academy of Sciences a paper
entitled " Further evidence as to the relation between crown gall
and cancer." *^° After this occasion, " many individual members
[visited the} hot houses to look at [his] inoculated plants." ^^

April 29 Smith reported to Dr. MacCarty of the Mayo Labora-
tories:

You will be interested to know that I had a string of distinguished
zoologists and physicians to look at my inoculated plants during the
meetings of the National Academy of Sciences in the week following your
visit here, and all of them expressed themselves as greatly interested, and
some of them went much further than that. . . .

The inoculated plants bearing teratoids have developed considerably
further since you saw them, and a number of them are now dying with the
disease. I had half a dozen photographs of these plants made today and
will have about as many more made on Monday, to use as slides before the
Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research,
which begins here in Washington at the Willard Hotel on Monday, May 8,
1916. . . .

Something quite interesting is now visible on the inoculated plants of
Ricinus which was not visible when you saw them. The tumors in the leaf
axils have in a number of instances stimulated the neighboring glands on
the leaf stalks so that they have become cancerous and have enlarged 100
times or more the normal size of the glands. This is extremely suggestive
of what I saw in your laboratory in cancer of the rectum, namely, the
marked enlargement of the intestinal glands 3 or 4 inches away from the
tumor. This phenomenon is visible on as many as six of my plants. I have
had sections made of one of these enlarged glands and they are now in
the process of staining, but not yet ready for study.

I feel confident that I shall be able before very long to show on plants
by the use of this one microorganism {Bacterium tutnefaciens) all the
leading types of cancer as it occurs in man, exclusive, of course, of Glio-
mata and the like.

Please show this letter to the good Doctors Mayo, and give them my
kindest regards.

"43(1106): 348, March 10, 1916.

''March 11, 1916, p. 833.

"^^ Studies on the crown gall of plants etc., op. c'lt. (March 5, rec. for pub.).

^^ Proc. Nat'l Acad. Set. 2: 444-448, Aug. 1916.

"^ Letter, E. F. Smith to Thaxter, April 20, 1916.

RiiSLAKLii ON Plant Tumors 405

That botanists as well as zoologists and physicians saw Smith's
experimental materials, and were impressed, seems evident from
a letter written h\ John Merle Coulter to Smith after the meetings
of the National Academy:

It was a great pleasure to meet you aqain in Washington, and particularly
to see your material. I did not get in to iicar you present it at the meeting,
chiefly because I had had a more satisfactory demonstration in connection
with the plants themselves. I heard, however, that the fifteen minutes left
at your disposal were about the best received fifteen minutes of the program.

The elderly Dr. William Williams Keen, president of the
American Philosophical Society, author of the six — later eight —
volume Keen's System of Surgery, and one of the truly great
figures of medical history, wrote on May 29, 1916:

Thank you for supplementing my very interesting thoucjh too brief visit
with you recently in your greenhouses. The work that you have done on
the pathology of cancer in plants is very extraordinary.

I shall hope very sincerely that our Committee may be able to arrange
with you for a paper at the General Meeting of the American Philosophical
Society next April when you would have an audience of about one-hundred
scientists from all over the country. A paper at that time I should hope
would contain the tjetf matter that you have accumulated of late as we
always desire, of course, for the these General Meetings in April papers of
original research as far as possible.

Smith replied on August 10: "I am finding my experiments
so interesting this summer that I doubt if I shall be able to get
in a vacation until some time in the fall. I am obtaining very
wonderful results with the teratoids and also by direct chemical
stimulation. I now think I shall be able to demonstrate chemical
stimulus."

He enclosed a photograph of a tumor " produced in the top
of a tobacco plant by a pure-culture inoculation (needle pricks
only), the top being cut off in the middle of an internode and
the pricks made into the cut surface. An irregular tumor covering
the whole top [had] developed and out of this dozens of young
leafy shoots [were] growing." Except when inoculated, such cut
stems never developed growths. " If the inoculations are made
toward the base of the plant," he said further, " I get only leafy
shoots; if they are made well toward the top of the plant just
before blossoms develop I get tumors containing both leafy shoots

496 Second European Journey

and fugitive blossom buds." It was possible, furthermore, " to
inoculate tobacco plants so as to obtain tumors with no shoots."
On August 9, Smith answered a letter from Dr. Charles H.
Mayo:

Permit me to congratulate you on your election to the presidency of the
American Medical Association. It is a high honor and one well deserved.
I am getting some wonderful results this summer with my teratoid crown-
galls, photograph of one of which I enclose. The needle pricks were made
in the cut end of the stem (main axis of the plant) and you will see that
a good sized tumor has developed, covering the whole top of the plant,
and sprouting from various parts of it are dozens of embryonic fragments
(diminutive tobacco plants). ... I have a dozen other plants in the houses
at the present time with tumors as strange as the one shown. ... I am
working mainly at present with tobacco, castor oil bean, and the common
red house geranium. The same sort of tumors can be produced, as I now
know, on many other plants. I am slowly gathering material in the shape
of notes and good photographs for a special paper on atypical teratomata
in plants due to bacterial inoculation. I am working also on the chemical
end of the subject this summer and have obtained some quite interesting
and very striking results, which will I hope form a basis of another
paper. . , .

In June 1917 Dr. Mayo, in his presidential address,^- gave Smith
the following splendid recognition: "We are proud of our agri-
cultural department and its investigations as to the causes, control
and cure by serums of the diseases of animals and the destruction
of parasitic hosts. The work of Erwin F. Smith on plant diseases
is monumental, especially his discoveries as to the causes of certain
plant tumors. . . ."

One month before, April 1917, in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences,^^ had been published Smith's communication
of the previous January 26 to the Academy, entitled, " Chemically
Induced Crowngalls." In the January 29 issue af the Journal of
Agricultural Research " had appeared Smith's even more important
study, " Mechanism of Tumor Growth in Crown Gall." Previous
to these, moreover, in the October 27, 1916, number of Science *'^
Smith's report on plant tumors formed by products of bacterial
growth, '" Tumors in plants," had excited wide attention. Reprints

^' Jour. Amer. Med. Ass. 68(23): 1675, June 9, 1917.

'^3: 312-314, Apr. 1917.

^*S0): 165-184, Jan. 29, 1917.

«' 44(1139): 611-612, Oct. 27, 1916.

RosnAR( n .)n Plant Tumors ^97

of another paper published in Science,"'' originally an address
delivered before the Washington Academy of Sciences on May 11,
1916, had been circulated. Smith had said that the full title of the
last paper should be " Further Evidence that Crown Gall is Cancer,
and that Cancer in Plants because of its Variable Form and its
Bacterial Origin offers Strong Presumptive Evidence Both of the
Parasitic Origin and of the Essential Unity of the Various Forms
of Cancer Occurring in Man and Animals." Any one of these
studies may have been read by Dr. Mayo and evoked his tribute
to Smith's work. But, since on February 15 Dean and Director
A. F. Woods — soon jo be President Woods of the Maryland State
College of Agriculture — informed Smith that he planned to be in
Rochester, Minnesota, the following Saturday and would take with
him a copy of a recent paper by Smith and present it to Dr. Will
Mayo, probably the study which Dr. Charles Mayo had read was
" Mechanism of Tumor Growth in Crown Gall."
In this study, Smith had concluded that

it would seem . . . that in local osmotic action (possibly in some stages
chemical action also) of various substances (aldehyde, acetone, alcohol,
acids, alkalies) thrown into cells and diffusing from them in various direc-
tions, as the result of the metabolism of a feeble intracellular parasite or
symbiont together with the resultant counter movements of water and food
supply we have, in crowngall at least and presumptively also in animal
neoplasms, the explanation of tumor growth — that is, of that extensive
multiplication of cells in opposition to physiological control which has so
long puzzled pathologists and all students of overgrowths.

In crowngalls, [he began by saying (pp. 167-168),] the removal of
growth inhibitions is brought about, I think, by the physical action of sub-
stances liberated within the tumor cells as the result of the metabolism of
the imprisoned bacteria. ... If the cell proliferation in crowngall is due
to substances liberated within the cell by the parasite, as it seems reasonable
to suppose, they must be substances either identical with or at least not
differing greatly in their physical or physiological action from those acting
on the non-parasitized cell during normal growth and division. ... In our
search for tiie direct exciting cause of tumors we need consider only the
excretions of known tumor-producing organisms; but since little or nothing
is known concerning the growth-exciting substance, or substances, produced
in animal neoplasms, or liberated in plants by the various gall-forming
fungi, or by gall flies and gall nematodes, we may for the present confine
our attention exclusively to the bacterial tumors of plants. This narrows
down the problem to a few species of bacteria and even some of these —

"43(1121): 871-889, June 23, 1916.

498 Second European Journey

that is, Baclerjum savastanoi (the cause of olive tubercle) and Bad. beticola
(the cause of beet tubercle) — are negligible so far as the purposes of this
paper are concerned, because I regard the tumors they produce as granu-
lomas, not neoplasms. In fact, thus far in seeking for the physical-chemical
origin of neoplasms I have sought only for answers to the following
questions:

(1) What are the products of the bacterial metabolism of Bact. tume-
jaciens . . . ?

(2) Are any of these products capable of inducing cell proliferation
when injected into the growing plant?

(3) If so, is this substance a sufficiently common product of other
bacterial and nonbacterial tumor-producing parasites so that it may be
regarded hypothetically as produced by all of them and consequently as
the exciting cause of all bacterial, fungus, nematode, cynipid, and other
vegetable galls, or must we suppose that various chemical growth excitants
exist?

(4) And finally to what extent can these facts be supposed to apply to
human and animal neoplasms ?

His answers or hypotheses were drawn from a wide range of
experiments and included comments on plant diseases " of undeter-
mined origin but suspected of being due to parasites " (p. 183)
such as curly top of sugar beet, mosaic of tobacco, and other dis-
eases today attributed to viruses. At one point in his paper he
said that his recent experiments with crown gall teratoids had led
him to " believe that not only the origin of fasciations but also of
many other duplications is to be sought in local and feeble infec-
tions by a variety of deep-seated microorganisms" (p. 181).

While the origin and growth of tumors, benign or malignant,
was regarded by Smith as more than a chemical phenomenon,
he detailed many experiments making use of chemicals to trace
the sources of tumor inducement and growth. Especially was this
so when describing his experiments made to ascertain the nature
of the action and changes wrought in plants by chemical by-
products of the bacterial metabolism of Bacterium tumefaciens.
Experiments were made with and without the use of the crown
gall organism, sometimes only with the use of chemicals to study
the phenomena. But the mechanism of tumor formation and
growth was found, amid the complex of causes and conditions,
to be fundamentally osmotic rather than chemical. Local osmotic
pressure was believed to be the beginning of all tumor growth
(p. 175). Cell proliferation is caused by something more than

RnsHARCH ON Pi ANT Tumors 499

bacterial infLxtion. The jMant tuinDi of Bacterim)! tuniejac'tetis
was more than the wilt of cucurbits (^Bitcillus Irdcheil^hiliis) and
the softrot of potato {Biicillns phytophthorus) . A physical-
chemical action was necessary to explain tumors, and Smith
believed

that any soluble substance whatsoever, except .1 killini;, a plasmolyzing, or
an oxygen-absorbing substance, if continually liberated in excess locally in
tissues would be competent to induce tumor formation. . . . [D]ilute
ammonia causes intumescences and [it also seemed] probable that ammonia
liberated within the cell in small quantities by the imprisoned bacteria must
be one of the causes of the excessive and abnormal cell proliferation in
crowngall. Probably amin compounds also help to determine it. Since an
acid and an alcohol are likewise produced by the crowngall bacteria and
this alcohol and this acid (as well as many other acids) in pure dilution
and also in combination with ammonia caused galls or intumescences in
my experiments; the acid (or acids), the alkalies, and the alcohol must,
I believe, act together in producing the tumors, and osniotically rather than
cheiuically. . . . [Cjhanges in stimulus can produce changes in struc-
ture. . . . (pp. 177, 183)

Smith's study of " Mechanism of Tumor Growth in Crowngall "
must have been one of his papers of this period which prompted
Dr. Mayo to say to the American Medical Association:

Tlie work of Erwin F. Smith on plant diseases is monumental, especially
his discoveries as to the cause of certain plant tumors which show again
that our bacteria and insect chemi[cals] are the prime offenders through
the development of their varying acids, which may be stimulating or des-
tructive to other cell life, causing tumors or decay. We should appreciate
and aid the work of these departments.

Dr. MacCarty had kept Smith's work before the laboratory staff
members of the Mayo Clinic. In a letter of July 4, I916, he told
Smith he had had lantern slides made of Smith's photographic
illustrations. The impression made had been " very good indeed.
What you are doing with plants, I have been doing with animal
tissues," MacCarty wrote, " and I feel that we are presenting a
correct, modern and scientific conception of neoplasmata and
their biological position. ... I feel that we are on the right
track so far as the histogenesis of neoplasmata is concerned. I also
feel that you have made great strides in the field of etiology."

The year 1916 had been a banner year for Smith in his research
work on crown gall. He apprised Thaxter of this in a letter of
October 21:

500 Second European Journey

This year's work on crown gall has been more interesting to me than
work of any previous year for two reasons. First, I have found a new type
of the tumor full of abortive sprouts, and second, I have been able to
produce small tumors with by-products of the bacterial growth i. e. by
chemicals, the bacteria being absent.

This summer I have obtained many fine teratoid tumors on tobacco and
on Pelargonium by inoculating the crowngall bacteria into the cut end of
stems (middle of internodes) and some of these internodal tumors have
given 500 separate buds. The thing is so astonishing that I would not have
believed it possible.

Plant anatomist Irving W. Bailey of the Bussey Institution for
Research in Applied Biology had begun to exchange scientific
materials and papers with Smith. Physiologist W. B. Cannon of
Harvard Medical School continued to express his appreciation.
Dr. Adami, novv^ with the medical service of the Canadian armed
forces overseas, sent an " Hurrah! I am sure that you are on the
right track and to me it is peculiarly delightful that this experi-
mental confirmation is obtained in a sister science." June 22 he
had writen again that Smith's papers were

extraordinarily interesting and [he had} read them with intense apprecia-
tion, more especially as these teratoid studies seem to support my view
that it is not so much the presence of the actual irritant or stimulant within
the cells that is to be regarded as the essential factor as that, to employ
your words, the changed stimulus (which may, as in your cases, be of
microbic origin, or in other cases may be of other nature) induces the
growth habit, which once properly started, continues with the development
of a tumour mass. I am glad to see in your Journal of Cancer Research
paper, page 253, that your observations are leading in this direction. I do
most heartily congratulate you. These teratoid Crown Galls are a splendid
advance forwards.

Chemist Jerome Alexander of New York City, pioneer worker
with the ultramicroscope in America, in June 1916, believing that
Smith was opening up a new way toward solving the cancer
problem, offered to cooperate with him in examining specimens
with the use of the ultramicroscope. M. C. Marsh, biologist of
the New York State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease,
located at the Gratwick Laboratory at Springville, where Dr.
Gaylord was still director, read Smith's article in Science, " Fur-
ther evidence that crown gall of plants is cancer," and was moved
to write on July 16, " That paper I hope and think is a beacon
light in circumambient darkness. My congratulations. I have been

Research on Plant Tumors 501

trying for U/i years to start cpitlulial (inaiiiinary) growths in
mice with something besides tumor cells. Results not yet much,
but not completely negative."

Leo Loeb, of the department of comparative pathology of
Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, seeing Smith's
" interesting papers " in Sciefice and the journal of Cancer
Research, sent a collection of their more recent publications. As
has been pointed out, Loeb's transplantation to laboratory animals
of a rat thyroid sarcoma had preceded the experimental work of
even Jensen in Denmark.''" In his address, " Further Evidence that
Crown Gall is Caneer," '-' Smith had ventured the opinion that
heredity is not a sufficient cancer explanation. " The same thing
was said repeatedly," Smith argued,

of tuberculosis prior to 1884. Now we see that heredity furnished the
canvas but could not paint the picture. Miss Maude Slye's work on heredity
of cancer in mice is astonishing and praiseworthy, but I do not feci sure
that a similar picture could not be obtained by breeding together tubercu-
lous animals, indeed I am quite certain that the results of such experiments
would be a vastly increased number of tubercular animals, and if we knew
no more about the cause of tuberculosis than we do about the cause of
cancer, the interpretation of the results would be entirely wrong, ;'. e., they
would be ascribed wholly to heredity, whereas we know that two factors
are involved: (1) heredity; (2) infection. I do not think Miss Slye has
established the fact that cancer follows Mendel's law.

Loeb had not only taught pathology and experimental pathology
at the University of Illinois and the University of Pennsylvania
but during 1902 he had been an experimental pathologist with
the New York State Pathological Laboratory at Buffalo and until
1915 had been for several years director of the department of
pathology at the Barnard Skin and Cancer Hospital of St. Louis.
Accompanying his collection of publications, he sent a letter to
Smith, written on July 3, 1916:

I was not sure that you had seen our communications dealing with the
heredity of cancer, inasmuch as you mention in your resume in Science
only Miss Slye's papers. I believe that I was the first one to undertake and
to publish extensive studies on the heredity of cancer in isolated strains in
animals of the same species, following them through a series of generations,
establishing the tumor incidence and tumor age on a large scale.

Erwin F. Smith, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 291.
Op. cit., reprint, 4.

17

502 Second European Journey

After I had begun my work in Granby, Massfachusetts], in conjunction
with Miss Lathrop, I went to see Miss Slye who I knew was at that time
carrying on investigations on heredity of characters other than tumor inci-
dence, in the Department of Zoology under Doctor Tower. I suggested
that her's might be suitable material for studies of heredity in cancer, and-
proposed joint work.

I believe that our methods are not the same. While Miss Slye publishes
isolated family trees, Miss Lathrop and myself give the history of suc-
ceeding generations of whole strains. Our conclusions are not entirely
identical, although her results confirm the great importance of hereditary
factors.

I think it very probable however, as I expressed in my paper in Science,
that given a large quantity of external stimulation — microorganisms may
supply under certain conditions this stimulation — hereditary factors may be
dispensed with.

I am looking forward with much interest to your further publications.

Smith's position on heredity in cancer would be more fully
elaborated later. He was not presuming to be an authority on
medicine or animal pathology but a plant pathologist. His interest
in this question was evident. He believed there were hereditary
aspects. But his papers argued, from the standpoint of general
or comparative pathology, the infectious nature of malignant
tumors and that crown gall should be recognized as a neoplasm
in plants. From its study light could be derived on the infectious
nature and action of animal and human neoplastic growths.

Many surgeons, physicians, and teachers encouraged Smith to
continue his studies. Dr. Robert Holmes Greene, surgeon of New
York City and author in 1917 of a text book on surgery and in
1918 to publish a volume on Cancer, its nature, causes, diagnosis
and treatment, wrote:

You have presented a strong case in favor of the infectious nature of
cancer. On the other hand, Miss Maude Slye and Dr. Leo Loeb in their
work strongly favor the theory of inheritance. It is indeed very interesting
to see how the different experiments work out in their results. My own
experience would seem to indicate that cancer is both hereditary and
infectious.

Dr. Willy Meyer, another New York surgeon, widely known
for his method of radical operation for carcinoma of the breast
and other important contributions to surgical practice, wrote
Smith on May 13, 1916,

RnsHARCH ON Plant Tumors 'S03

Permit nic to thank you once more ... for the great courtesy shown me
in conjunction with the colleagues who visited you on Tuesday afternoon.
I was more than pleased to meet you again and see your wonderful speci-
mens and convincing results in producing tumors in plants. I have no
doubt that the future will prove the microbic origin of malignant tumors
also in the human being. I h.ive been looking for such proof for many
years, and am delighted that it has now been definitely found as far as
the vegetable kingdom is concerned. One's gratitude goes out toward the
man who, by persistent and painstaking work, has succeeded in proving
this contention.

Smith's papers had strengthened more the beliefs of Dr. W. B.
Coley who, through Jiis official capacity as chairman of the Archer
M. Huntington Cancer Research Fund, was still rendering aid
and encouragement. He wrote on May 24: "I agree with you
that we are on the eve of important discoveries in the field of
etiology of malignant tumors in man. For many years I have
been absolutely convinced that such tumors are of extrinsic origin
due either to the same, or slightly different varieties of micro-
organisms, ^'our wonderful work has brought the origin of these
tumors nearer solution. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated
your kindness in letting me see so much of your work while in
Washington." On November 21 he sent for cultures of Bacterimn
tumejaciens " with the idea of taking up a series of experiments
with them on animals. . . . Our Huntington Fund," he advised,
" is now in a position to take up this work and we should very
greatly appreciate any suggestions from you with regard to how
to go about it."

Founded in 1899 by Caroline Brewer Croft, the Cancer Com-
mission of Harvard University was a part of the medical school.
At least, the commission, directed by Dr. E. E. Tyzzer, was made
up of representatives from the fund, the college, and the medical
school. Drs. Theobald Smith and W. T. Councilman represented
the medical school. On January 24, 1918, Dr. Councilman sent
Erwin Smith some constructive criticism, having to do evidently
with the latter's monograph, " Embryomas in Plants. (Produced
by Bacterial Inoculations),"'''' an expansion of an address given
on December 18, 1916, before the Johns Hopkins Medical Society
and entitled, " Is there any real relation between crown gall of
plants and cancer?" Said Dr. Councilman:

^"^ Johns Hopkins Hospital Bull. 28(319): 277-294, Sept. 1917.

504 Second European Journey

I have read your monograph with very great interest and think it a
valuable contribution to the subject of growth, but you will forgive me if
I fail to see the exact relation to tumors. The fact that growth can be
stimulated in various ways, both mechanical and chemical, or possibly the
mechanical would resolve itself ultimately into the chemical, is a very
important fact. There is such an enormous difference between the multi-
potent tissues of the plant and that of the animal. The explanation of
tumors, when it comes, must take in all cases, the congenital and the senile
tumors, as well as those in between. I feel that the senile tumors, which
are more prominent in animals than in man, play a very great part, asfor
instance in dogs, where we get a general tumor formation which affects
the tissues generally it is true, but certain tissues very much more, and
where the tumors are never unicentric but multicentric. I think, however,
that you should follow out your work continually, and that it does throw
light on tumors in enabling us better to comprehend the essential factor
which is growth.

In 1924 Smith and Councilman would meet in Rome, Italy, and,
with crown gall photographs and actual tumor specimens from
live oak trees before them, plant pathologist would explain more
fully to medical pathologist the points of analogy between plant
and animal tumors. '°

From Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and many other cities
over the country highly reputable surgeons sent Smith letters
expressive of interest in, and appreciation for, the value of his
research disclosures. A few may be listed: Dr. Herman Morris
Adler, Dr. Henry W. Abelmann, Dr. M. G. Seelig, Dr. Solomon
Solis Cohen, Dr. Henry W. Stelwagon, Dr. Arthur A. Eisenberg,
Dr. Bradley M. Patten, Dr. Andre Crotti, Dr. RoUin Howard
Stevens, and many others whose letters or work will be considered
elsewhere in this book. Dr. Adler wrote: " Together with all the
pathologists of the world, I have been extremely interested in
your work." Some of these doctors, interested in research, began
experiments of one sort or another making use of the crown gall
organism. For instance. Dr. Stevens obtained cultures of Bacter-
lum tumefaciens, transplanted them several times on plain agar,
and inoculated several red geraniums, all with a view to studying
the effect of X-ray on the viability of the cultures, the tumor pro-
duced, and on immunity of the plant. He called to Smith's
attention a recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical

'•"See p. 610 of this book.

RiisiiAiu H ()N Pi. AM Tumors 503

Association '^ which elaborately described and characterized his
wc^rk as bringing forward " iinjx)rtaiit cvkK ncc in favor of the
parasitic theory " of cancer etiology.

Once before, the jo//n/j/,'- in an editorial, " Is Cancer of In-
fectious Nature?" had mentioned Smith's work. One of the
conclusions was that he was making out " a very strong case in
favor of his view, and . . . that the view of the infectious cause
oi cancer in general [was] strengthened by his work."' The
" absence of complete analc-)gy between the structure of plants
and that of animals (and the fundamental difference in meta-
bolism)" still held in abeyance the question whether crown gall
was cancer in plants. Nevertheless, his studies of plant tumors
were being considered, among other points, together with the
experimentally induced tumors in animals (chicken sarcoma)
announced by Peyton Rous. Rous during 1917 sent Smith two
letters, one of which said: " You seem to go on gaining new and
important facts all the time. Best wishes for those yet to come! "

During this period. Dr. W. J. Mayo sent Smith several com-
plimentary letters. So did Dr. E. O. Jordan of Chicago University's
department of hygiene and bacteriology. He believed Smith's
work " most suggestive for its bearings on human pathology."
Several workers at the New^ York State Institute for the Study of
Malignant Disease — Dr. Marsh, biologist, Dr. John A. P. Millet,
internist, and Dr. G. H. A. Clowes, biological chemist, aside from
Dr. Gaylord — consulted Smith, especially in those instances where
plant tumors were being studied comparably with animal tumors
in matters such as conductivity and permeability determinations of
normal and diseased tissues. Copies of Smith's crown gall papers
were distributed through the Institute by Dr. Marsh, and a set
sent to Dr. Gaylord who for a while was with the United States
armed forces. Dr. Millet, planning experiments with animals
similar to Smith's experiments chemically inducing crown galls on
Ricinus, cauliflower, and other plants, wrote on March 29, 1917:
" I have felt more and more since being here that we must look
to some physical, or possibly physico-chemical explanation for
tumor growth, and I therefore found much encouragement in
reading your own beliefs." In 1918 Smith and his laboratory

'* 67(2): 123-124. Dr. George H. Simmons, editor of the fourn.il.
"59: 448, Aug. 10, 1912.

506 Second European Journey

supplied Dr. Clowes with tumor and gall materials on sugar
beet, Pelargonium, tobacco, and hop. An exchange of letters
indicates that these plant materials were used in experimental
work aimed at " determining the relative permeability of the
tumor and normal tissues under normal conditions and under the
influence of the various agents brought to bear on them." Dr.
Clowes explained on April 2 that he was " making conductivity
and permeability determinations on the materials ... in com-
parison with cancerous and normal tissues derived from mice and
human beings. Also the influence of electrolytes on the equi-
librium of the tissues in question." Many doctors, students of the
cancer problem in one capacity or another, sent Smith letters
assuring him of their interest in his studies and the high value
they placed on his research results. Students of such calibre as
Dr. J. Collins Warren, professor emeritus of surgery at Harvard
Medical School, Dr. Douglas Symmers, pathologist of Bellevue
Medical College, Dr. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, pathologist and bac-
teriologist, Dr. Theodore C. Janeway, physician-in-chief of Johns
Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Walter C. Burket of Johns Hopkins Medical
School, and Dr. John J. Abel of Johns Hopkins's department of
pharmacology were among many others and reveal the range of
various scholarly work to which the studies had some pertinence.
Such leaders as Dr. Flcxner, Dr. Hurd, Dr. Keen, Dr. Cushing,
Dr. Prudden, and Dr. Cullen continued to express their apprecia-
tion and belief in the value of Smith's studies. Indeed, Dr. Warren
wrote that the crown gall studies were " of the greatest interest
to those engaged in the cancer problem," and Dr. Burket told
Smith, " as Pasteur approached the question of infectious diseases
thru fermentation so you may approach the great problem of new
growth and cancer thru your studies in plant tumors."

Biologists also were interested. In 1916 Director C. B. Daven-
port of the department of genetics of the Carnegie Institution
and the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor
read Smith's " Studies on the Crown Gall of Plants its relation to
human cancer " and began an exchange of letters. In February
1917 he answered a letter from Smith and expressed his delight
that he had " succeeded in producing the small plant tumors in
the absence of many of the bacteria. This brings," he said, " the
phenomenon in plants in closer relation to that in animals." The

RESEARCH ON Plant Tumors 507

next dav he read " Meduinism oi tumor t;m\vth in crown ^all,"
and wrote again: " It seems to mc tremendously important that
you can bv opposing the action of the growth inhibitor thru
ammonia and various diverse organic acids encourage cell pro-
liferation and produce curious races." Geneticist F.. M. East of
the Bussey Institution for Research in Applied Biology wrote
Smith the following year after reading his paper, " Tmbryomas
in plants," and congratulated him on " getting results of the
greatest interest and importance."

The month April 1917 was distinguished by two addresses given
by Smith before important gatherings of scientists, and at each
he spoke on the subject on which he was now an authority. On
April 13, reading a paper before the American Philosophical
Society on " Mechanism of Overgrowth in Plants," '•' he reiterated
his view that

the growth in crown gall [is] due primarily to a physical cause, viz., to an
increase in the osmotic pressure due to the heaping up locally of various
soluble substances excreted by the bacteria as a result of their meta-
bolism. . . . The reason I have for thinking the phenomenon of plant
overgrowth is primarily physical is the fact that it can be obtained by a
great variety of substances not the products of parasites, anything in fact,
which disturbs tissue equilibriums without destroying cells, seems to be
capable of causing overgrowths, which cease, of course, as soon as the
stimulus is exhausted. . . . The first crown galls I studied seemed to me
to be overgrowths of the conjunctive tissues and most of our many inocu-
lations up^to the end of 1915 produced that type of tumor which corre-
sponds, I believe, to overgrowths of the connective tissue of animals and
which I have called plant sarcomas. We had found indeed, as early as
1908-9, and had produced by bacterial inoculation, plant tumors bearing
roots, but the full meaning of this discovery, as related to cancer, did not
occur to me until early in 1916, when I found crown-gall tumors bearing
leafy shoots on some of our inoculated hothouse geraniums. Beginning
with this discovery I made numerous inoculations in the leaf axils of
various plants which resulted in the production of leafy tumors, and sub-
sequently 1 produced them freely on leaves and on cut internodes where
no buds occur normally. Tumors bearing roots have also been produced
by us on the top of plants, and in one cut internode of tobacco I succeeded
in producing a tumor which bore flower buds. Thcsg perishable root-
bearing and shoot-bearing tumors I regard as plant embryomas and have
so described them."'

'''' Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 56: A^l-UA, 1917.
''* Idem, quotations at pp. 441-442, 442-443.

508 Second European Journey

When Director V. A. Moore of the New York State Veterinary
College had read in 1916 Smith's paper, " Further Evidence that
Crown Gall of Plants is Cancer," " he was " much interested in
the statement relative to the variety of lesions due to the same
organism. There is," Moore wrote, " some analogy between this
statement and the one made by Vaughan in regard to the poison
group of the protein molecule." Smith's concluding plea in his
paper then had been: " Cancer, according to my notion, is a
problem for the experimental biologist and the bacteriologist.
The morphologist has gone as far as he can go and the energy
of cancer research from now on must, I believe, be turned into
new channels, if we are to expect results commensurate with the
needs of humanity. . . . Whatever else may be denied," he had
said in his discussion, " the bold fact now stands out de?nonstrably
that all the leading types of cancerous proliferation can be pro-
duced in plants with one 77jicroorganism " and the '" four principal
groups " were, as Smith viewed the problem, the sarcomas, the
carcinomas, the so-called mixed tumors, and the embryonal tera-
tomas. In his paper, " Embryomas in Plants," "*^ he said: " Whether
epitheliomas and carcinomas can also be produced in plants by
bacterial inoculation remains to be determined, but I believe they
can be," and, while admitting that this subject was for " further
experiment," he seemed to have no doubt of the validity of what
he called " plant sarcomas " and " plant embryomas " and of his
view that " the kind of tumor depends on the type of cells
stimulated." " This subject will be discussed further in Chapters
XI and XII.

What was more important than Smith's classifying of various
types of tumors in plants, during this period, was his splendid
work on the mechanism of tumor growth in crown gall. Dr.
Moore believed his paper on this subject " most excellent work.
... It seems to me," Moore wrote in February 1917, " that you
have clinched your points so thoroughly that future investigations
cannot overthrow your deductions." Professor of Physiology
Jacques Loeb ^^ told Smith, " You have unquestionably opened

'^Science, n. s.. 43(1121): 871-889, June 23, 1916.
''" Op. cit., recapitulation, point 14.
'^ Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, op. cit., 442.

''^ Of the University of California but letter written on stationery of the Rocke-
feller Institute for Medical Research.

Ri-siiARCH ON Plant Tumors 509

up a most intcrestii^t; field for further research." In his paper
Smith acknowledged that had he read, when it appeared in 1913,
Loeb's " latest remarkable book," Artijuicil l\trthc)inge>icsis atid
FertiUz.ition, his work would have been advanced by " at least
two years." Loeb"s '" many positive and splendid results with acids
on animal eggs " were correlated with his work more explicitly
in his paper, " Mechanism of overgrowth in plants." ^^ His first
illustrative slide showed "chemical findings" and on this slide,
he pointed out,

I have starred the substances with whiih I have now produced over-
growths in plants and'have italicized those which Dr. Jacques Locb had
previously found in his experiments on animal eggs to be most effective
in causint; unfertilized eggs to begin to grow. That there should be so
many of these egg-starting substances excreted by a tumor-producing para-
site is not only*^ astonishing but extremely suggestive. All of them are
substances which pass readily through protoplasmic membranes.

TABLE I. Showing Products of Bacterium tumejaciefjs.

* Ammonia Alcohol *Formic Acid

* Amines Acetone Carbonic Acid {}) [supplied by Smith for
*Aldehyd ''Acetic Acid reasons given]

Smith directed attention " especially to the substances the names
of which [he had] starred as compounds with which to experi-
ment singly and combined, and in a great variety of dilutions.
With each one of these substances, in the absence of bacteria,"
he said, " I have obtained on suitable plants decided overgrowths,
growths which I think I am warranted in designating as incipient
crown galls." He showed slides presenting results obtained with
ammonia, dimethylamine, formaldehyde, acetic acid, and formic
acid. He reminded his audience of Von Schrenk's intumescences
on cauliflower from copper salts, and he explained in some detail
Dr. Bernhard Fischer's overgrowths of epithelium in rabbit's ears
(1906) caused by injections of scarlet red and indophenol. Other
substances than these wdiich can cause overgrowths were now
known, substances some of which were known to be products
of tumor-producing parasites. The new investigations were a

challenge.

On April 19 Smith participated in ceremonies which dedicated

" 0/'. cit., 439-440.

510 Second European Journey

the laboratory building and plant houses of the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden. The topic of his address was " The Relations of Crown-
Gall to Other Overgrowths in Plants." ^° " My own belief,"
he said, " is that all overgrowths are correlated phenomena, are
the response of the organism to essentially similar (but not neces-
sarily identical) stimuli, the visible difference in response when
brought about by parasites being due to number and location of
the parasites, age and kind of tissues invaded, and volume, direc-
tion, and velocity of the stimulus exerted." He admitted that
" our work on crown gall has opened up more problems than it
has settled," but out of it all would come " an eventual better
understanding of the whole mechanism of overgrowth." He told
of recently producing " galls with diluted crown-gall products,"
a procedure which suggested " a new method of attacking gall
problems in general, especially those in which the gall parasites
can be cultivated pure in sufficient quantity for chemical analysis,
e. g., various fungi. . . ."

This technique, he believed, might be extended to the study of
plant disorders other than galls. He suggested that

the application of chemical substances in various dilutions to growing
plants or plant organs, such substances in particular as are known or
suspected to be produced by living organisms, or are present in soils as a
result of decomposition, may prove to be a hopeful way of attacking
certain unsolved and difficult problems in plant pathology, e. g., the
aetiology of the mosaic diseases, the cause of various growth limitations,
etc.

In his address before the American Philosophical Society, he
urged research " on the origin, through absorbed poisons, of
certain plant diseases whose etiology [was] very obscure, such as
peach yellows, peach rosette, and the various mosaic diseases."
His discoveries in crown gall, he believed, might have " interesting
bearings " on still other points of research: on the origin of insect,
nematode and fungous galls; on the formation of thyloses in
vessels; on the origin, through absorbed poisons, of various plant
and animal monstrosities; on various problems of modification
by slight changes in environment; on the possibility of normal
wide distribution of dormant germ-cells among somatic cells; and
on the etiology of various human and animal tumors. ^^

"Brooklyn Botanic Garden Memoirs 1:448-453, 1918.
^ Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, op. cit., AAl.

Ri;si:ARCH ON Plant Tumors 511

By this time it had been shown tliat the causal agents of virus
plant diseases " pass filters having pores so minute that they held
back the smallest bacteria,"' "- and virus diseases of plants were
being dillerentiated from those believed due to bacteria. By 1936
more than three thousand papers, exclusive of short reports and
casual references, would be published on these subjects, and about
two-thirds of them would "' deal with the virus diseases of the
following six plants: potato, sugar cane, tobacco, tomato, sugar
beet and cucumber." '' By 1926 Smith would say ^'^ of the work
on these maladies:

Known first from tobacco, they have been discovered in the potato and
in a great variety of cultivated plants where they had hitherto been over-
looked oi- had attracted but little attention, probably because they were
not then so prevalent. They are now recognized as amoni:; our worst plant
diseases and the obscurity of their origin renders them doubly interesting.
. . . Up to this time the cause or causes remain in doubt, but much has
been learned respecting signs of these diseases, host plants, and methods
of transmission.

In Connecticut the further work on tobacco mosaic by G. P.
Clinton " and at the Bureau of Plant Industry by H. A. Allard
of the olBce of tobacco and plant nutrition investigations had
added much to the knowledge of this disorder, -° the virus of
which in more recent years has been isolated at least in the form
of crystal protein by W. M. Stanley and his co-workers at the
Rockefeller Institute.*' More recently, too, the very important
work of Allard (and W. W. Garner) on the phenomena of
"' photoperiodism " has tended to overshadow the former's defi-
nitely valuable work on mosaic disease of tobacco. Smith, how-
ever, believed that the word of Allard, Schultz, and others on virus
plant diseases had made the Bureau of Plant Industry one of the
five principal research centers for their study in America. The
other four were the work of Doolittle, Johnson, and others at the
University of Wisconsin, the work of Eubanks Carsner in the far

*' L. O. Kunkel, Virus diseases of plants: twenty-five years of progress 1910-
1935, Brooklyn Botanic Garden Memoirs 4: 51-55, May 7, 1936.

^^dern, 51.

** Fifty years of pathology, op. cil., 35-36.

^^Conn. Agric. Exp't Sta. Kept. 6: 4l6 flF., 1914; Charles Thorn and E. M. East,
George Perkins Clinton, Nat'l Acad, of Sci. Biog. Memo. 20: 183-196, 1939-

*® See the Journal of Agricultural Research and Phytopathology (1915-1917).

*^ G. Seiffert, Virus diseases in man, animal and plant, op. cit., 34 flF.

512 Second European Journey

west, the work of B. M. Duggar at the Missouri Botanical Garden,
and that of L. O. Kunkel at the Boyce Thompson Institute for
Plant Research at Yonkers, New York.^^

Kunkel, a graduate of the University of Missouri and the Shaw
School of Botany, had secured in 1914 his doctorate of philosophy
degree under Dr. R. A. Harper at Columbia University. Granted
a scholarship, he had spent the next years in graduate study at the
University of Freiburg, Germany. The comparatively new subject
of virus plant disease research had attracted him, and, when an
opportunity with the Bureau of Plant Industry was offered, he
accepted. While at Columbia he had been a research assistant,
and at the University of Missouri he had been an assistant in
botany.

His first work as a pathologist with the Department of Agri-
culture was on potato diseases. In 1913 W. A. Orton had
published ^^ on "Leaf roll, curly leaf, and other new potato
diseases " among which a mosaic disease similar to the mosaic
of tobacco, tomato, and other crops was mentioned. Kunkel,
beginning his work under Dr. I. E. Melhus and Orton, spent his
summers in Maine and his winters at Washington. In one of his
first interviews with ofHcials of the Department, he had told Dr.
Charles Brooks that he wanted to study peach yellows, and in
the autumn of 1914 he became acquainted with Dr. Smith. So
commendable was his work regarded by Smith that in 1916-1917
he recommended Kunkel to Dr. Van Hall of the Instituut voor
Planten-Ziekten en Cultures for an appointment at Buitenzorg,
Java. World War I made it impossible for Kunkel to accept this
appointment. But early in 1919 Smith again recommended him
to Dr. H. A. Lyon of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Experiment
Station and persuaded him to accept the offer to go to Hawaii
and study mosaic disease of sugar cane. Kunkel left the Bureau
and went to Hawaii in 1920.

Mosaic disease of sugar cane recently had been found in
Louisiana and other southern states, and since the middle of the
decade had caused severe lossess in parts of Puerto Rico. E. W.
Brandes, formerly pathologist of the Puerto Rico Agricultural
Station at Mayaguez and now in sugar-plant investigations with

""Fifty years of pathology, op. cil., 35-36.
^"'Phytopathology 3(1): 69, Feb. 1913.

Rfsfarch on Plant Tumors 513

the Department at \\'ashini;ton, had published "" in 1919 on " Tiie
Mosaic Disease of Sugar Cane and Other Grasses." In 1917 he,
while of the department of plant pathology of Cornell University,
had submitted to Smith his description of l^usar'mm cubense Smith,
cause of the banana blight in Puerto Rico. He gave a short account
of his " experiments proving [its] pathogenicity " and its seeming
identity with " the ' Panama disease ' of other tropical American
countries." Smith had studied it from Cuban material."' At the
Washington greenhouses, Brandes also proved that mosaic disease
of sugar cane is transmitted by the corn aphis, Aphis Tuaidis, and
his work was followed by field studies in Puerto Rico."'

On October 9, 1918, J. B. Rorer, mycologist and secretary of
the Boa-rd of Agriculture, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, wrote Smith
that he was returning to Ecuador "perhaps for good. At any
rate," he said, " I am going for a year and if things work out all
right I will probably stay on. The cacao association wants me to
start a station for the study of cacao diseases following the recom-
mendations I made to them in my report last year." In November
1918 ^^ J. R. Johnston, also formerly of Smith's laboratory and
now with the United Fruit Company in charge of their work in
the study of tropical plant diseases, reviewed Rorer's report to
commend its subject matter and " emphasize the necessity for more
pioneer work in plant pathology and economic entomology in trop-
ical American countries." Sometime, a month or so later, was made
known Rorer's acceptance of a position as mycologist of the
Association de Agricultores del Ecuador at Guayaquil. '^^ Johnston
in 1916 had published an article in Phytopathology ^^^ on " Phyto-
pathological Work in the Tropics," in which was outlined the
efforts being made by several inadequately equipped but func-
tioning laboratories: two in Puerto Rico and one each in Surinam,
Demerara, Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica. A station in Mexico
was also in existence but practically inactive. A privately main-
tained station had been located in Costa Rica. Johnston's article
was sent from the Estacion Experimental Agronomica Santiago
de las Vegas, Cuba. Despite the difficulties of pioneering work,

•"Bulletin 829, U. S. Dur. of Plant Industry, professional paper, Oct. 29, 1919.
" Letter, Brandes to Smith, Feb. 6; see also. Phytopathology 9(9) : 339-389, Sept.

1919.

"-Phytopathology 13(1): 24 ff., Jan. 1923. '^ Idem, 9(1): 48, Jan. 1919.
"ndem, 8(11): 550. "6(5): 381 flF., Oct. 1916.

514 Second European Journey

some of the accomplishments of scientists in these laboratories had
been of value. But the field was large, and workers few in com-
parison with the magnitude of the task.

Rorer and Smith in 1904, while in the West Indies — Cuba and
the Bahamas — to study the coconut bud rot, had visited the
Harvard University Station for Tropical Research and sugar cane
investigation on the Atkins estate at Soledad, Cienfuegos, Cuba.
There Smith studied for the first time specimens of sugar cane
imported from Java and infected with the Sereh disease. About
this time American botanical research, including the study of
plant diseases, had been extended to several points in the tropics.
The New York Botanical Garden had negotiated an agreement
with the colonial government of Jamaica to maintain as a botanical
laboratory and in conjunction with the government's department
of public gardens and plantations the famous Cinchona Botanical
Garden there. Nor were the extensions confined to experimental
research laboratories and agricultural stations. After serving until
1906 as plant pathologist in charge of the Department's sub-
tropical laboratory at Miami, Florida, and until 1921 as director
of the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station and dean of the
college of agriculture of the University of Florida, P. H. Rolfs, was
selected to locate, organize, and conduct an agricultural college
for the State of Minas Geraes, Brazil. Other South American uni-
versities were founded which attached especial importance to
investigations in plant pathology. More and further each year,
plant pathology, as a working science and reality, was being
extended internationally.^'^ Research in disease of plants had made
great strides in Japan,"' in the Philippines,^® and some very im-
portant work was being done by Smith's former laboratory and
scientific assistant, Leslie C. Coleman, in Mysore, India.

In Canada a phytopathological society would be organized.
Sectional societies in the United States would be established. In
England, the laboratory of plant pathology, formerly located at

*" January 2, 1913, at the Cleveland, Ohio, meeting of the American Phyto-
pathological Society, a symposium on International Aspects of Phytopathological
Problems had been presented by C. L. Shear, L. R. Jones, and W. A. Orton. See
Phytopathology 3(2, 3): 77, 143 ff., 1913.

*^H. Atherton Lee, Plant pathology in Japan, Phytopathology 9(4): 178-179,
Apr. 1919.

"* Otto Reinking, college of agriculture. University of the Philippines, Philippine
plant diseases. Phytopathology 9(3): 114-140, Mar. 1919-

Rfsearch on Plant Tumors 515

the Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, would be transferred iii 1919
to Rothamstcd Experimental Station, Harpenden, and an Institute
of Plant Patholot;y, with W. h. Brierlcy in charge of a mycological
department, be created. July 15, 1919, Brierley would write to
Smith,

Crown Gall as described in your investigations has had practically no
attention paid to it in this country and in consequence 1 have asked Dr.
Henderson Smith to carry out some experimental work upon it. Dr. Smith
is a medical patholoi^ist of some eminence and was until lately in charge
of the bacteriological department of the Institute of Preventive Medicine.
He is now devoting himself to the study of bacteria in relation to plant
disease and in future will be working here with me.

Brierley sent for both cultures and literature.

In 1915 ^" Ralph Eliot Smith, professor of plant pathology at
the University of California, had written: " It is scarcely twenty
years since Erwin Smith challenged the skepticism of the European
world in regard to the existence of bacterial plant diseases. Still
more recent has been most of the development of knowledge of
protozoa, spirochetes, sporozoa, and filterable viruses in animal
pathology. With these examples before us," he asked, " who
shall say that organized living parasites of wholly unknown types
do not exist .'^ "

Insisting that our " knowledge of parasitism, either in plants
or animals, is by no means exhausted," he maintained that " In
the present status of plant pathology the following broad principle
cannot be denied: ' There is no single instance of a positively
demonstrated inciting cause of any specific plant disease except a
parasite.' We have theories, indications, appearances, and effects
which point otherwise, but of proof we have none in any case."

His real plea was for renewed investigation of many of the
obscure " physiological " plant diseases on the basis of their
cytology and histology, all changes of structure as far as possible
detected from the disease's inception and followed through its
effects. "Animal pathologists long ago," he urged,

arrived at cellular pathology as the last resort in diagnosis, and the plant
pathologist can do no less if he would solve his most obscure problems. . . .
Let one read the recent edition of Mallory's Pathological Histology, written

"The investigation of " physiological " plant diseases, Phytopathology 5(2): 83,
87, 90, Apr. 1915.

516 Second European Journey

from the standpoint of human pathology, and he will realize the value
of such knowledge and its deficiency in plant pathology. Let him study
Erwin Smith's (1912) photomicrographs of crown gall. . . .

Erwin Smith's work in crown gall was already being accepted
as a model for research in plant pathology. But no parasite in
peach yellows had ever been cultivated on artificial media and
the disease reproduced by reinoculation in accordance with the
" standards " set by his work in crown gall. Nor has this been
done even today.

L. O. Kunkel in 1933 established that peach yellows is trans-
mitted by an insect vector, Macro ps is trhnaculata.'^^° Heat treat-
ments for the cure of peach yellows and other virus diseases of
peach have been found effective,"^ although as yet no way of
practically applying the knowledge in large or even small orchards
has been worked out. Research has been in keeping with the most
exact standards. But any " organized living parasite " remains
unproven.

Smith attached special value to his laboratory's work in " deter-
mining methods of transmission of various bacterial diseases.
I have myself," he v/rote Paul Moore in 1923,^°'

worked out the dissemination of two bacterial diseases by insects and Dr.
[Frederick V.] Rand of this laboratory has confirmed and extended my
work on one of the diseases (cucurbit wilt)i°3 and now recently has
shown conclusively that a third disease (Stewart's disease of maize) ^04 jg
transmitted by a beetle. This is an entirely new and extremely interesting
discovery of which no one had the least suspicion when he began work.
This makes two bacterial diseases of plants that we now know to be
carried in the bodies of Diabroticas. Most of the beetles of these two
species, Diabrotka vittata and Dicibrotka duodecempunctata, after eating
the diseased material, evidently soon throw off the organism but in a certain
small proportion it persists in their bodies for a long time and they serve
as the spring starters of new infections.

^""Insect transmission of peach yellows, Contr. Boyce Thompson Inst. 5: 19-28,

1933.

^"^ L. O. Kunkel, Heat treatments for the cure of yellows and other virus diseases
of peach, Phytopathology 26(9): 809-830, Sept. 1936; also, abstract, Phytopath. 25:

24, 1935.

^°- Letter November 7, 1923, to Moore of the National Research Council.

^"^ F. V. Rand, Dissemination of bacterial wilt of cucurbits, Jour. Agric. Res.
5(6): 237-260, Nov. 8, 1915; hh?n. 6: 4n-434, June 12, 1916; also, with Ella M.
A. Enlows, Bull. 828, U. S. Dep't Agric, 1920.

^°* F. V. Rand et al.. Insects as disseminators of plant diseases. Phytopathology
12(5): 225-240, May 1922.

RiiSUARCH ON Plant Ti'mors 517

Modes of overwintering by disease-producing organisms and
their transmission by living carriers iiad for many years been
investigated in animal and plant pathology. These studies almost
invariably had practical bearings, since by eradicating the over-
wintering agency and by exterminating the insect carrier effective
weapons against the malady's spread were provided. For example,
S. P. Doolittle's discovery that wild cucurbits harbor the virus of
cucumber mosaic and that the striped beetle transmits the mosaic
virus enabled workers to attack this virus disease in part by
destroying wild cucurbit vines and by exterminating as far as
possible the beetle transmitter.'""'

Smith, in his address " Fifty Years of Pathology," '°'"' after
devoting considerable attention to carriers of human and animal
diseases (to be quoted in Chapter XI), expressed his belief that
there

are also many carriers of plant parasites, as many as of animal diseases,
and as in animals there are some very striking adaptations, for example,
the relation of the striped beetle, Diabrotica vittata, to the bacterial wilt
of cucurbits, worked out in detail by F. V. Rand in my laboratory. Here
all the beetles, apparently, transmit the disease in the summer, but only
a small proportion of those that have wintered over are able to do so,
that is, those only whose intestinal juices have not been able to destroy
the ini^ested microbes. From the feces of these individuals come the first
spring infections. In other words, these particular beetles behave exactly
like human typhoid carriers. Rand lists nearly 50 plant diseases known or
suspected to be transmitted by insects.

In 1920 Rand and W. Dwight Pierce published in Phyto-
pathology ^°' a study entitled "A Coordination of Our Knowledge
of Insect Transmission in Plant and Animal Diseases."

In his letter to Moore, Smith told also that " recently Dr. Harry
Braun of this laboratory has devised a new seed treatment wdiich
bids fair to be of great importance in controlling various seed-
borne diseases." In his Introduction to Bacterial Diseases of
Plants,^°^ he had said that by Braun's discovery "(1919) . . .
injury to seed-wheat, which is considerable when formalin solu-
tions or copper sulphate solutions are used, is eliminated by

^°^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 37. At p. 36 Smith also mentioned I. C.
Jagger's transmission of cucumber mosaic diseases by rubbing crushed leaves of
diseased plants on healthy plants (1917).

"■"^Op. cit., 42. '" 10(4): 189-231, Apr. 1920. "« Pp. 71-73.

518 Second European Journey

soaking the seed in water for 10 minutes and then keeping it
moist for 6 hours before treating it. This," he explained,

allows it to absorb sufficient water to become resistant, since most of the
injury is caused by the formaldehyd that is carried into the grain along
with the imbibition water. It is then soaked in one part of formalin to
400 parts of water for 10 minutes, drained, and covered for six hours to get
effective action of the remaining aldehyd vapor on all the parasites, where-
upon it is dried and planted. His work, repeated many times on different
varieties of wheat and to some extent also on other grains, shows nearly
as full germination and quite as good growth in the treated plots as in the
control plots. In fact, growth from the treated seed is stimulated a little.

Seed disinfection, as a practical investigation technique to com-
bat diseases of plants, had been studied by Smith for many years.
In 1914, for instance, one of his reasons why he requested an
appropriation to study further a corn bacterial disease was because
he had learned that the malady " is distributed on the kernels and
[could] be overcome largely by proper disinfection of the seed-
corn, at slight expense." "^

In 1917 Smith published preliminary announcements"" on "A
New Disease of Wheat," black chaff. A careful study of it was
being made in his laboratory " to determine the biology of the
parasite and whether it is actually transmitted from the seed to
the young plant and so again to the seed," as he suspected. During
several years this seriously prevalent trouble was studied on this
continent and in Europe. Smith negotiated a cooperative arrange-
ment with workers at the Kansas and Wisconsin experiment
stations. Drs. Jones, A. G. Johnson, and C. S. Reddy in Wisconsin
were studying a bacterial disease of barley, and evidently one of
the points to be settled was whether the barley was the same as
the wheat disease. The organism finally described was Bacterium
translucens var. undulosum n. var.,"^ and of this Smith said in
1926: ^^~ " The parasite is carried over on the seed from one crop
to the next and seed grain should not be obtained from diseased
fields."

^"^ Memorandum presented before an agricultural committee, House of Repre-
sentatives.

^^^ Jour. Agric. Res. 10(1): 51-53, July 2, 1917; PLvit Disease Bulletin 2, Sept. 1,
1917. Samples of the disease from various localities requested.

"^ Smith, Jones, and Reddy, The black chaff of wheat, Science 50(1280): 48,
and literature cited, July 11, 1919.

^^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 56-57.

Rrsi^ARcn ON Plant Tumors 519

" How much my work has directly profited agriculture and horti-
culture,'" wrote Smith to Moore, " I have no means of knowing.
It has Ix^en largely a breaking of new ground for the benefit of
other workers. Some practical procedures have been modified as
a result of it, e. g., inspections for certain diseases," and this held
true from the start of his work on peach yellows through his study
of crown gall, especially as to rules of orchard and nursery prac-
tice and of inspection of shipments. In 1926,"^ for a descriptive
study of various types of work done in the Department of Agri-
culture, Smith placed at a half a million dollars the estimated
annual saving made possible to the nation by the work of his
laboratory. This, he believed, was probably a conservative esti-
mate, a:nd, compared with the annual sum of (until then) less
than one-tenth that amount received for his laboratory from the
total appropriation for federal agricultural work, its value was
easily demonstrated. "About half of the bacterial diseases of
cultivated plants now recognized as serious," he said in this
report, " have been discovered and worked out in his laboratory
and extensive investigations have been made of the greater number
of the remainder." There was, furthermore, the work in fungous,
virus, and other types of plant disease research.

On March 9, 1920, Robert S. Woodward, president of the Car-
negie Institution of Washington, wrote Smith that "" the two works
published by the Institution which [had] been most in demand
during the w^orld war [had been] two works which [had] ema-
nated from the United States Department of Agriculture" —
Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies,
by Dr. L. O. Howard and others, and Smith's Bacteria in Relation
to Plant Diseases. Dr. Woodward quoted from his recent report
to the Institution's trustees: " Few of our contemporaries two
decades ago, say, would have thought it more than a trivial
matter whether a mosquito is designated as culex, anopheles or
stegomyia. Similarly few of us would have thought ten years ago
that a w^ork on bacteriology could have become at any time a
' better seller ' than the Institution's works on archaeology, history
or literature." Smith was pleased, and especially by Woodward's
added comment: " These instances serve to illustrate the truth

*" Memorandum 249, October, 1926, addressed to the chief of the Bureau of Plant
Industry, op. cit., chapter VIII.

520 Second European Journey

well known to men of science that what is commonly condemned
as lacking in " practical ' value often turns out to be of prime
utility."

Smith's and Miss Hedges' translation of Emile Duclaux's Pasteur,
The History of a Mind brought many more congratulatory letters
than may be quoted here. Dr. M. P. Ravenel, then president of
the American Public Health Association and a former student at
the Pasteur Institute, was among those who commended and
thanked Smith for the volume. Dr. Flexner thanked him for his
" most valuable service in giving Duclaux's work to the English-
speaking public. ... I shall look forward also," he wrote, " to
your forthcoming book [Introduction to Bacterial Diseases of
Plants']. It is splendid to know that an authoritative book on that
subject is about to appear. Some day before long I may wish to
speak with you again about plant pathology for the future."
Dr. Welch found " the greatest pleasure" in Pasteur. " I knew
that this book existed," he wrote,

but I had never seen a copy. I agree with your estimate of the work,
which is in many ways and especially for a scientific man more interesting
and informing than the familiar life of Pasteur by his son-in-law. I enjoyed
your sketch of Duclaux, of whose life I was previously but little informed.
Delighted as I am to have this book with the dedication in your hand-
writing, I am even more glad to have your remembrance and expressions
of good will. I reciprocate most heartily with all my best wishes for your
own health, happiness and continued capacity to advance scientific
knowledge.

During the year 1920 Smith learned that at the last meeting
of the American Association for Cancer Research crown gall as
a plant cancer was discussed. He immediately wrote in his diary:
" They will be doing this for the next ten years."

CHAPTliR XI

FURTHER DISCUSSION OF TI IF CROWN GALL-ANIMAL CANCER

ANALOGY-VARIOUS ASPECTS OF FACT AND THEORY. A SUGGESTED

MULTIPLE FACTOR HYPOTHESIS OF PATHOLOGICAL GROWTH.

FURTHER RESEARCHES IN BACTERIAL, FUNGOUS, AND

VIRUS DISEASES OF PLANTS

BY 1920 Smith had published more than twenty-five papers,
aside from his books, on crown gall. His laboratory was
becoming recognized as doing probably more research on bac-
terial diseases of plants than any other laboratory in the world.
He realized that he was breaking " new ground for the benefit
of other workers," and in his text. Introduction to Bacterial Dis-
eases of Plants,'^ more than writing on methods of research,
fourteen selected diseases including crown gall, and a general
conspectus of the subject, he suggested fifty-one subjects for
special study and supplied notes on thirty-four additional maladies.
Mention of a few of his topics for future research gives some
idea of their scope: natural and acquired immunity and resistance
to disease in plants and the effect of hybridization; symbiosis and
antagonism among the lower plant organisms and the possibility
of solving diseases by discovery of new methods; causes of mosaic
and virus diseases, tobacco mosaic, peach yellows and rosette,
pecan rosette, etc.; new adaptative and differential culture media;
critical study of the chemistry of tumor-producing species from
variously aged flask-cultures in various media; the determination
of all acids produced by plant pathogens, and the hydrogen-ion
content of media as related to growth of plant pathogenic species;
the continued study of plant nutritive components, soil and climate
relations, in plant diseases; insect and other animal distributors of
diseases and their control; and many other problems.

Since 1917, especially since his treatise, " Mechanism of Tumor
Growth in Crowngall," scientific interest in the crown gall-animal

^ W. B. Saunders Co., Phila. and London, 1920. At pp. 474-477 appeared his
" suggestion of subjects for special study " ; at p. 473, " notes on some additional
diseases." At this time, furthermore. Smith offered to research pathologists study
materials.

521

522 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

cancer analogy had been steadily accumulating. Among botanists
the response was reassuringly vigorous. On the Pacific coast,
Director H. J. Webber of the Riverside Citrus Experiment Station
of the college of agriculture of the University of California found
Smith's monograph " characteristic of the thorough work " he had
always done. Venus Pool McKay of the Oregon agriculture college
at Corvallis wrote that she had " practically " worded ' through "
his article. '" Now," she said,

I am wondering if any one would dare go so far to say that in peculiar
cases of malnutrition, the resistance of the animal cell becomes lowered
and proliferation results. This process then is kept stimulated by the NH3
radical which is constantly being cut off from some complex ammonium
compound formed from the malnutrition condition. If so, then a changed
nutrition should give a restored resistance and an inhibition of cell pro-
liferation. A great field for thought and serious endeavor, that you have
opened up.

P. J. O'Gara, chief pathologist in charge of the agricultural
investigations of the American Smelting and Refining Company,
with laboratories and experiment station at Salt Lake City,
addressed a six-paged single-spaced typewritten letter to Smith,
and described the results of his researches, made over three years,
" determining the effects of dilute concentrations of sulphur di-
oxide gas on the growing organism " — wheat, oats, barley, corn,
red clover, alfalfa, sugar beets, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and
other plants. On January 7, 1921, O'Gara visited Smith in his
laboratory, gave him a specimen of an Arizona disease of Pinus
ponderosa " supposed to be bacterial," and further described his
experiments on crop injuries due to " SO2 diffusion in air." Smith
thought it " a remarkable piece of research." No bacteria in the
pine disease, however, were found.

B. W. Wells, of the department of botany of the University of
Chicago, at the time completing a thesis on galls, believed that
Smith's paper constituted " a real and highly significant advance
toward the solution of what Kiister calls the ' kataplasma ' type
of gall or those forms in which the tissue suffers an interference
with the normal inhibitors present and proceeds to develop a
structure approximating the normal."

At a faculty seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith's
papers on plant overgrowths were discussed, especially the reasons

FuRTHi^R Riisi;archi;s in DisiiASKS OF Plants 523

why as yet lie had not " secured an epithelioma in plants." Drs.
J. W. Harshbcrqer and Maefarlanc were most interested, in fact
in 1917 llarshberger had written Smith of his interest in his " very
important hypothesis as to the inactivation of the inhibitors of
growth by the chemic products of Bacteriian tuniefaciens. I
believe," he said, ' that you have simplihed the problem very
much. \'our experiments with ammonia and other substances
point the way to a probable solution of some of the insurmount-
able obstacles in the way of the study of cancer in plants and
animals." In two letters he suggested various plant materials
with which to continue experiments. Dr. B. M. Davis of the
department of botany found his paper " mighty interesting."
"' I wish," wrote Dr. Joseph McFarland of the McManes Labora-
tory of Pathology of the medical school, " that I had a modicum
of your energy, industry and originality." The reprints were
" most interesting."

Dr. A. F. Woods, now president of Maryland State College of
Agriculture, praised his former associate, saying: " The work you
have done in this field is most important and I am sure will be
greatly appreciated by everyone interested in the development of
Pathology."

Smith, pleased with Dr. E. C. Jeffrey's new book on The
Anatomy of Woody Plants, promised in November 1917 to do
with it what now he seldom did with books — " read the whole of
it." Jeffrey replied,

It is a satisfaction to find expert opinion so favorable to my book. . . .
I trust that you may feel encouraged to carry out your intention of reading
the book through, particularly as there seem to be very close connections
between our two fields of work. I have just been looking over your last
interesting contribution on the subject of plant tumors. I am pleased to
note that the "' new growth hypothesis of the origin of tumors " is passing
into the back ground because it has always seemed to be particularly absurd
and impossible. Your article is all the more appreciated at the present
time because one of my students is carrying on investigations as to the effect
of purely physical stimuli on hypertrophy and similar phenomena.

On January 4, 1919, Smith reported to Dr. Cullen:

This summer some of my experiments on begonia phyllomaniaca turned
out well, and I am now getting a paper - ready for publication. The plant

* The cause of proliferation in Begonia phyllomaniaca, Proc. Nat' I Acad. Sci. 5:
36-37, Feb. 1919. Read Nov. 18, 1918.

524 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

has been known for a long time to throw adventive shoots from leaves
and stems (a very queer phenomenon) but nothing was known as to the
cause of this peculiar behavior. I began to experiment with it thinking it
might throw some light on non-cancerous tumor-cysts and the like. I find
the shoots arise from the skin of the plant and that by certain forms of
stimulus I can get them in great numbers at will. They are not vascularized
into the mother at least not on the start, and most of them never were,
and consequently they die in course of a few weeks. I have sometimes had
as high as several thousand of these baby plants develop from a single leaf
while still attached to the mother plant.

Jensen of Copenhagen (the mouse cancer man) has published this year
(in Danish) a long paper on Crown Gall of plants summing up his
observations and experiments of the last ten years, but also discussing
critically the work done on it here in the Department of Agriculture
especially as it bears on the question of animal cancer. I have had the
whole paper translated, and find it so very stimulating that I wish it could
be published somewhere in English. The enclosed excerpts =* will show
what he thinks of some of my notions. I have always believed that the pull
of heredity is so strong that as the disturbing factor is removed (bacteria
in case of crown gall) the tumor cells will cease to behave abnormally
whereas Jensen develops the very interesting idea that once the bacteria
have converted normal cells into tumor cells the microorganisms may then
die out, while the cells still retain and transmit their acquired characters.
In other words, he believes in the transmission of acquired characters while
I do not, or perhaps I should say, don't think there is as yet any good
experimental evidence of it, for I would keep an open mind. You may
have the whole paper to read if you wish.

Dr. CuUen answered, expressing much interest " in the memo-
randum ... of Professor C. O. Jensen's work on Animal Cancer."
He and Smith many times discussed various aspects of problems
of cancer research.

Smith was now studying the beginning and middle phases in
the production and development of tumors in plants. Some of his
experiments were made with the aid of bacterial infection: and
some by simple woundings and various experimental interruptions
of normal physiological functioning and healing. In each experi-
ment, he v/as interested in determining the minimum stimulus
necessary for tumor production and tumor growth. He wanted,
for purposes of his crown gall-animal cancer analogy, to arrive

^ These, or similar, excerpts were included in Smith's address, Twentieth century
advances in cancer research, Jour. Radiology 4(9): 299, Sept. 1923. Jensen's paper
was described in a letter to Dr. Gaylord as " Investigations concerning some tumor
resembling growths in plants," Serum Laboratory Rep't 54 or 59, Copenhagen, 1918.

FURTUHR RliSl'.AR(.Hi:S IN DlSHASES OF Pl.ANTS 525

at some fundamental knowledge of what was tlien described as
the '* pre-canccrous stas^e "' ' in plant and animal malignancies.
The "chemical and physical stimuli underlying tumor-formation "
was liis basic theme and the subject was extended to include " the
production of teratosis in the absence of tumors and of parasites." "

Proliferation experiments with the cultivated plant, Begonia
phylioffhiniacj, supplied material for many of his conclusions.
It, because of its watery nature and especially sensitive and very
permeable cell-membranes, was suited to studies of temporary
loss of function by chilling, heat, anesthetics, acids, or excessive
loss of water supply due to woundings or other causes. His paper
on " The Cause of Proliferation in Begonia Phyllomaniaca " ° had
been read on November 18, 1918, before the National Academy
of Sciences, and, in it, among other important points, he attached
special significance to his discovery that proliferation may occur
in young tissues at a long distance from the point of wounding.
In fact, the wounding might be in the root, and astonishing
proliferation take place in the young tissue at the top of the plant.
He accounted for this on the basis of shock induced by the
" sudden interruption of the water current," causing " cell-pre-
cipitates or plasmolysis of the young totipotent cells which begin
to grow when they have recovered from the shock." These adven-
tive shoots are not branches, he said, " since they have no initial
connection with the ordinary cambium, or xylem-phoem of the
mother plant. They are rather to be classed with filial teratomas.
Later, a small proportion of them establish connections with the
conductive tissue of the mother and persist, i. e., become abnor-
mally situated branches."

His paper, " Embryomas in Plants," ' the original basis of
which was his address in 1916 before the Johns Hopkins Medical
Society, had had to do mainly with tumors in plants, produced
by bacterial inoculations. When writing of growths from cut
surfaces in tobacco, how^ever, he had pointed to a tendency
" always there " toward adventive buds or shoots " if the stimulus
is strong enough," and this was so " not only in tobacco but

* Intro, to bad. dis. of plants, op. cit., 571. Also, pp. 483, 511.
^ Idem, part. IV, 3rd, 4th, and 5th subsections, pp. 477-632.
"Proc. Nafl Acad. Sci. 5: 36-37, Feb. 1919.
"•Johns Hopkins Hasp. Bull. 28(319): 277-294, Sept. 1917.

526 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

probably in all other plants, and presumably also in all animals,
since a great many plants and animals are known to give rise
readily to adventive buds even under a slight stimulus, e. g.,
willows and begonias; hydras and tubularias. Just what the stim-
ulus is in many cases," he had said,

remains to be worked out. The shoots are especially apt to appear when
the plant or animal has been wounded or otherwise thrown out of balance.
Such shoots are normal, or pathological only to the extent of being more
or less fused, crowded, distorted and starved. For these reasons some of
them should undoubtedly be classed as typical (non-cancerous) teratoids.
Several interesting cases in plants have come to the writer's attention
lately. . . . These are on tomato, cauliflower, cabbage, pond lily, etc. In
one very curious variety of begonia (Begonia phyllomaniaca) buds in
great numbers grow out of many parts of the leaf and stem on the slightest
provocation.^

He wrote the preface of his textbook, Introduction to Bacterial
Diseases of Plants, in August of 1920. He had completed the
manuscript in 1915 but revised it twenty times, re-read galley-,
proof five or six times, and page-proof three or four times; and
he said that his manuscript was to be construed as " revised down
to the end " of the year 1919-

His address, " Production of Tumors in the Absence of Para-
sites," ' was read on May 1, 1920, before the Section on Derma-
tology and Syphilology at the seventy-first annual session of the
American Medical Association, held at New Orleans, Louisiana.
The subtitle of his paper was " Varieties of Tumors in Plants,"
and, when outlining his conclusions from fifteen years of study
of crown gall, he included on the authority of Jensen the point that
this " tumor possesses the power of continuous growth through
several generations." "" In his text book of the same year, more-
over, he said: '" Whether the cells thus originated may then con-
tinue to grow in the absence of the parasite, as Jensen believes,
is a subject for further consideration." " Plant tumors, he said,
were attributable to a variety of living causes: gall flies, plant lice,
nematodes, fungi, myxomycetes, and bacteria. Frost (Harvey)
and mechanical irritation (Wolf) could also cause tumors in

^Idem, reprint, 5-6; or p. 279 of Bulletin, fn. 4.

"Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology 2: 176-180, Aug. 1920.

^^ lde7n, reprint, 4.

^^ Intro, to bact. dis. of plants, op. cit., 569.

Photograph taken in his laboratory in the early twenties.

Making free-hand sections ot inoculated wilted watermelon.

1895.

In the library of his home, Washington, D. C.

FURTHI-R RlZSEARCHI-S IN DlSIIASHS Ol PLANTS ^27

plants, and he olTercd experimental data tending to establish that
oxvi^en hunger followed by increased acidity in the tissues of
plants could, in the absence of parasites, result in turnors. " I hope
to convince you, " he uri;ed, that tumors may be also due " to a
lack of aeration and the resulting increase in acidity of the imper-
fectly aerated tissues." '- He described four series of experiments
" following out [his] theory that disturbed cell respiration is at
the bottom of tumor formation . . . results [obtained] in the
absence of parasites by limiting the intake of air in various ways,
and in each experiment [he reached] the same result — increased
acidity of tissues and the production of small hyperplasias." A
point of distinction followed.^''

In crown gall, and various other tumors due to parasites the parasite
furnishes the acids and other stumuli as a direct result of its metabolism,
but the small benign tumors I am describing arc not the result of para-
sitism. The increased acidity probably results from the incomplete com-
bustion of carbohydrates, i. e., from anaerobic cell-respiration due to poor
circulation and imperfect aeration, which we know to be a peculiarity ot
tumors in general, since most of them are poorly vascularized and out of
the general circulation.

If, for any reason, conditions such as I have outlined should occur in
parts of the animal body, I should expect to see similar phenomena arise
in such parts and, the nutrition being more abundant, the tumors might
become large.

This paper, though resulting from his studies of crown gall and
the general phenomena of tumor formation, treated " the experi-
mental production of small benign tumors," their developmental
physiology and morphology. Crown gall tumors and animal
malignancies were considered, but his references to the problem
of human cancer were few. At one point, concluding a paragraph
about the plant cancer, crown gall, he said: " Like cancer, if taken
early, the tumor may be removed completely; but in later stages
of growth it often returns after removal." He summarized his
address thus:

I have produced hyperplasia (1 ) by the direct application of dilute acids
and alkalies to susceptible plant tissues; (2) by the introduction into the
tissues of certain foreign organisms (especially the crown gall bacterium

^^ Production of tumors in the absence of parasites. Arch, of Derm, and Syph.,
op. ch., reprint, 1.
^" Idem, 5, 6.

528 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

which produces acids and alkali in flask cultures and probably also inside
the cells as a result of its metabolism), and (3) I can now bring about the
same results in the absence of parasites and their products by limiting the
intake of oxygen, thus compelling the cells themselves to manufacture the
stimulus which leads to the development of hyperplasias. I can conceive of
this taking place only as the result of an anaerobic cell respiration acting
on the youngest, most active cells of a tissue; but there must be always
some oxygen of the air present, otherwise there will be complete asphyxia-
tion of the tissues, as happened in my first experiments. Probably over-
growths due to freezing and to mechanical injuries will also be found to
depend on local interference with cell respiration.

The most striking tumors are obtained by inoculating the crown gall
organism, Bacterium tiimejaciens. Some of these are simple tumors and
others are tumors containing roots and shoots. Some also show the begin-
ning of secondary tumors, and in the embryomas the invasion of tumor
tissue into the embryomatous parts (young roots and shoots).

His diary of May 1, 1920, revealed that at New Orleans he
exhibited photographs of tumors produced in the absence of
parasites and live specimens of inoculated crown gall on sugar
beet, cassava, castor oil plant, tomato, geranium, and Bryophyllum.
Embryomas of the last three plants were demonstrated. The
tomatoes illustrated root-bearing tumors, and the Pelargonium
and Bryophyllum tumors bore leafy shoots. There was praise of
his work in the discussion. The next problem had been indicated
in this address and in preceding papers: how and by what method
did tumor cells invade normal tissue, in crown gall and in animal
cancer.^ In crown gall research, thus far at least, Bacterium tume-
faciens had not been cultured out of the gall tissue, and it was
believed almost beyond doubt that the action of the parasite and
its by-products was confined to the cells; in other words, the
disease began in the cells intracellulary and, spreading by contact
of one cell with another, overcame in its invasion one cell after
another until at last tissue and all organic substances fell subject
to the disease so far as the disease spread within the plant body.
This was the scientific view adhered to by Dr. Smith at this time.

In July 1920 he purchased and began to read several important
texts on human pathology: " the part on tumors," he noted in
his diary. These texts were Aldred Scott Warthin's edited and
translated version of Ziegler's General Pathology and Francis
Carter Woods' revision of Delafield and Prudden's work on the

l-URTHl!R RhSHARCHl.S IN DiSl-ASI-S OF PLANTS 529

subject. The third volume was T. 1^. M.iUorv's I'l/naplcs of Path-
ologic Histology,'* and by July 20 he entered in his diary an impor-
tant observation:

I-inislicd rcadin.c: the middle 96 p.is;cs of [G]. Hauscr's A/f Cylinder-
epithel-Carcitiom lies Migcns und dcs Dickdarws, the most important part
for my purposes, the first part being chiefly history and classification and
the last part a history of cases. It impresses me as a thoroughly good piece
of work based on original research with a full knowledge of the literature.
He is opposed to the" doctrine of parasites as a cause but I can answer all
of his objections. Striking is the resemblance of crown gall to cancer in
its conversion of normal cells into tumor cells by apposition. He says in
tumors big and little, ulcerated or not, there is a periferal conversion of
normal gland cells into cancer cells all stages of which can be seen under
the microscope. I must copy out some of his remarks. It would be
interesting to write a commentary on his discussion of cause of cancer,
entitled 50 years after.

Three days later his diary read: '" Two hot sticky days. 96° F.
in the hothouse where I made inoculations of crown gall on
tobacco (Res. Daisy and Hop.) I wish to get tumors duplicating
one of several years ago showing conversion of normal cells into
tumor cells by apposition." In a pencil notation, at the foot of
the page, obviously written some while later, but undated, appears:
"I got many such which have since been cut in serial sections
stained, studied and photomicrographed."

On September 10 he examined under the microscope " a box
of stained crown gall sections from tumor (3 weeks old) on young
tobacco stem cortex, the inoculation being from Resistant Daisy
Strain. They show," he wrote in his diary, " invasion of the
phloem and wood and distinct conversion of cortex cells by apposi-
tion. I have marked certain ones to photomicrograph." Late in
October he noted also:

In some of my Ricinus inoculations into vicinity of leaf glands I have
found superb invasion of the cortex by crown gall cells and will pick out
some for photomicrographs. . . . Working over the Ricinus slides. Some
show very beautiful clumps of crown gall cells between much larger and

" In Dr. Smith's scientific library at the time of his death in 1927 were: E. Ziegler's
General Pathology, N. Y., Wm. Wood, 1918 (translated from llth revised German
edition, Jena, Fischer, 1905), and, F. Delafield and T. M. Pruddcn, A text book of
pathology, Ed. 13, N. Y., Wood, 1925. His diary, however, reads: " Ziefiler by
Warthin, Delafield & Prudden by F. C. Wood, and Mallory (Pathologic Histology)."
A pencil-written notation says of the Delafield & Prudden text, " revised by " F. C.
Wood.

530 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

differently stained cortex cells, and their study in series shows that the
surface of the tumor resembles a branching short root invading the cortex.

November 3 was spent partly in " making photomicrographs of
No. 1188-62 crowngall on Ricinus petiole, showing invasion of
tumor cells in cortical parenchyma." By early December he was
concluding " There can be no question as to the growth of these
cortex tumors by apposition. The stimulating influence extends
out from the tumor on all sides about 1 mm."

On January 13, 1921, he began to plan a paper on this subject.
His diary for the day read: " Continued making crowngall photo-
micrographs (tobacco cortex) to illustrate a projected paper on
manner of growth of the tumor. It is peripheral by apposition in
these particular tumors." His intention was, as he later ^^ ex-
plained to Professor A. Borrel of the Pasteur Institute, to add
" one more piece of evidence pointing to the cancerous nature of
the plant tumor, and I shall have," he hoped, " several additional
ones to add in the near future." By June 11 he had " read all
the more important literature pro and con of growth of tumors
by apposition and made copious abstracts especially from Virchow,
von Hansemann, and Borst." Three days passed and he was still
studying the " origin of small tumors in the pith of Tobacco cortex
tumor 1548D. They are close," he wrote in his diary, " to outer
tumor but not clearly connected to it; but they are in tissue which
I should call precancerous. There is a whole nest of little tumors
in this region, some very small and in some instances they have
caused the formation of a S7nall island of wood on the inner face
of strands of the inner phloem i. e., in the pith." For months he
had been examining various transition stages in the contact of
diseased with normal cells. A few quotations from his diary
indicate his precision:

May 24, 1921. In all of the thousands of dividing cells I have never
seen a karyokinetic figure. I have thought that it was because I collected
them in p. m. and not at midnight or after, but I begin to think that the
cells may divide amitotically. At the border of the tumors ex[amine]d
today under high powers i. e., in the transition many of the nuclei are
notched or cleft deeply and a few wholly divided. I did not find the same
in nuclei of an embryo root or in the very fine-cells [of the] t[umor]
tissue. I will study further.

"Letter, November 20, 1922.

FURTHl-R RllSl- ARCHES IN DlSHASI-S OF PLANTS 531

June 6: Working at the microscope on nuclei of cfrown] .ufall] cells
in tobacco cortex (all the material was tixed in p. m.). I found very few
mitoses, but some in each tissue i.e., fine celled tumor, and two grades of
coarse-celled on the periphery. Notched nuclei occur also in all cell grades,
but they are most abundant in the transition tissue. Many tumor cells
contain 2 nuclei, and in one cell on the margin I .uiw four, with no trace
of any cross wall.

lune 7: Read Ziet^ler's Pathology. Worked at the microscope. Saw
mitosis (one case) in stretched cell on border of tobacco cortex tumor.
Searched especially for dividing cells which show clearly their origin from
stretched cells and found 2 or 3 that are good enough to photograph.

The beginnings-of his study of appositional growth in crown
gall tumors were traceable to the year 1907 when he had first
observed the phenomenon, and definitely to 1916 when he had
tried to reproduce experimentally what he had seen in 1907. He
had followed the same procedure, " using the hop-strain of the
crown gall organism and single needle-pricks as before, but the gall
was growing very slowly when collected and [he] got nothing
comparable to the earlier results which were produced " ^^ with the
Paris daisy strain of Bacterium tumefaciens. In 1920 his repeated
experiments were with this strain of the organism.

In the spring of 1908, he had " made fourteen sets of inocula-
tion experiments on fish and frogs with pure cultures of Bact.
iiimejaciens derived from tumors on the hothouse daisy (Chrysan-
themum) to determine whether this organism would induce similar
abnormal growths in cold-blooded animals, experiments on warm-
blooded animals being considered unnecessary because of the low
maximum temperature of the organism (about 36.5° C.)."^'
These experiments were continued at intervals of various years
throughout the remainder of his research career, and were made
on gold fish, trout, and salamander. While inoculations yielded
some results,^^ nothing conclusive was ever established and as late
as the year 1926 he would say: ^^

I will never believe that cancers in animals can be produced by means of
[the crown gall organism] until it can be done so many times and in such

** E. F. Smith, Appositional growth in crown-gall tumors and in cancers, ]our.
Cancer Research 7(1): 1-3, 1922.

^'' Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., 2: 182-184.

'* For example, on February 19, 1916, Smith thought that perhaps some inocu-
lations on gold fish had resulted in tumors which he described in a note-book.

" Letter to Dr. James Young, Edinburgh, Scotland, February 26, 1926.

532 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

a clear-cut way as to leave no doubt whatever. Many years ago I got what
I considered to be small sarcomatous tumors in fish, using the crown gall
organism, but some of these receded and I never knew for certain that all
would not have receded if I had left them longer, that is, it is so difficult
to be sure that a proliferation confined to the injected part is not merely
a response to the irritation which later on will all be absorbed. If I had
got definite secondary tumors in my trout, then I would have thought I had
something, but these I never got. In the same way (1914) I started a
series of inoculations on salamanders and I got one definite adeno-carci-
noma of the intestine, but that did not convince me, since " one swallow
does not make a summer," to quote the proverb. It may have arisen
naturally and not been due to anything I did.

Dr. Smith remained preeminently throughout his life a student
of tumors in plants. His paper on appositional growth in crown
gall tumors and in cancers was addressed to cancer research men;
in fact, as we shall see, its first real presentation was before the
American Association for Cancer Research. He, however, care-
fully qualified his purpose:

I am the more inclined to publish my observations on appositional
growth in these plant-tumors, -^ because of very positive statements by many
cancer specialists, from Waldeyer, Cohnheim and Virchow down to Hauser,
Krompechcr, v. Hansemann, Petersen, Cornil, Fabre-Domergue, Menetrier,
and others, as to the occurrence of appositional growth in carcinoma, and
because in many respects crown galls are better adapted to the study of
this phenomenon of growth by apposition than animal tumors, not only
because we know them to be due to an intracellular schizomycete so that
there is a definite reason for such growth, but because they can be repro-
duced at will and collected for examination at any period of growth, and
finally, because there are no migratory cells to confuse the picture.

As early as 1908 Dr. James Ewing, professor of pathology
of Cornell Medical School and director of cancer research of
Memorial Hospital, New York City, had been among those medical
scientists who encouraged Smith to make, with crown gall, a
fundamental study of pathological growth.'' Ewing later became
a sincere, honest, and forthright critic of Smith's theories. Among
other points, he thought that Smith, as a plant scientist, went too
far in his crown gall-cancer analogies.'- On November 9, 1921,

^"Appositional growth in crown-gall tumors and in cancers, op. cit., 4-5.

"^ See, A. J. Riker, E. Spoerl and Alice E. Gutsche, Some comparisons of bac-
terial plant galls and of their causal agents, Botanical Review 12(2): 59-60, Feb.
1946.

''- Told author by Dr. Riker who was told so by Dr. Ewing.

FuRTHiiR Ri;scARCni-s IN DisiiASi-s oi Plants 533

he wrote Smith that, wliile not denying the importance of his
work, he believed that Smith still had " to point out how this
process dillers from chronic inflammation in plants." As late as
November, 1926, these two scientists enjoyed discussions. On the
occasion of their last conference, Dr. Smith wrote in his diary of
Dr. Ewing: "About cancer etiology we do not agree, but I am
very fond of him. He is an honest man and a brilliant one."
That year he had written Dr. James Young,-^ gynecologist of
Scotland, and said of Dr. Ewing:

He is a good friend of mine and I am never hurt by any of his criticisms
because he is just as much in earnest to find the truth as I am, a very honest
man and an excellent diai^nostician and histologist. We have been scrap-
ping back and forth for years over the question of etiology of cancer. The
trouble with Ewinc; is that he is not a biologist and as I look at it, the
cancer problem is peculiarly a biological problem.

To his last year, Smith's main work was his study of crown gall,
and primarily he was studying this as one of many bacterial dis-
eases of plants. In 1920 he prepared with G. H. Godfrey an
article on the " Bacterial Wilt of Castor Bean." "-* With Godfrey
in 1918 he had published on the " Brown Rot of Solanaceae on
Ricinus "; "^ with Miss McCulloch in 1919 on " Bacterium solan-
acearum in Beans "; "° with Miss Mary Kathcrine Bryan in 1915
on "Angular Leaf-spot of Cucumbers";"' with L. R. Jones and
C. S. Reddy in 1919 on "The Black Chaff of Wheat ";-« and
with R. E. B. McKenney in 1921 on the tobacco blue-mold (Pero-
nospora) disease of Georgia and Florida."^ In 1921 he published
on the " Effect of Crowngall Inoailations on Bryophyllum," ^° and
in this considered his own work and that of Michael Levine on
Bryophylliwi calychium, a West Indian plant which Jacques Loeb
had also used in " some of his physiological experiments." "''^

" Letter, February 26, 1926.

-* Jour. A^ric. Res. 21(4): 255-261, May 16, 1921.

"S<r;V«f£' 48(1228): 42-43, July 12, 1918.

""^ Science 50(1288): 238, Sept. 5, 1919.

-''Jour. Agric. Res. 5(11): 465-476, Dec. 13, 1915. See also Miss Bryan's paper
on, A nasturtium wilt caused by Bacterium solanacearum, idem 4(5) : 451-458, Aug.
16, 1915.

•^Science 50(1280): 48, July 11, 1919; E. F. Smith, A new disease of wheat,
Jour. Agric. Res. 10(1): 51, July 2, 1917; and other authorities cited in Science
50: 48.

*'U. S. Dep't Agric. Dept. Circulars 174, 176, 181, Apr.-June 7, 1921.

*" Jour. Agric. Res. 21(8): 593-597, July 15, 1921.

" Letter, Smith to Dr. Cullen, Oct. 6, 1920.

18

534 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

Dr. Gaylord and Smith exchanged some letters in September, 1920,
concerning a similar study published recently in the Journal of
Cancer Research by Levine and Dr. Isaac Levin. Dr. Smith's
laboratory was still, first and foremost, one of plant pathology.
He tried in every way practical to perfect his technique in studying
crown gall. He had been " trying for two or three years to get
hold of Dr. Bovie's apparatus for registering, electrically, the exact
acidity of culture media " '' to improve his study of the hydrogen-
ion concentration in tumors of plants and thus his study of the
crown gall-cancer analogies.

By a letter of January 8, 1924, Smith explained to Dr. John M.
T. Finney of the Johns Hopkins Hospital his hopes and intention:
" I do not consider it at all likely that I shall ever be able to
settle the cancer question. I only may have thrown some side
lights on it which might help somebody working directly in that
field to solve it. That is the most I have ever hoped to do, and
sometimes I feel as if I had not done even that."

Dr. Charles Oberling, in his recent book, The Riddle of
Cancer, ^^ has said:

Nearly every organism advanced as the cause of cancer has turned out
to be a familiar and harmless inhabitant of the skin or mucous membranes,
and not a single one, whether isolated from man or from the lower animals,
has ever elicited a genuine neoplasm. The only exceptions are certain plant
tumors, caused by a microorganism {Bacillus tumefaciens) isolated and
described by Erwin F. Smith.

Discussing the three more important hypotheses of the origin
of cancer — the irritation, the embryonal, and the parasitic, or
microbic — Dr. Oberling drew from numerous instances of results
of modern research in virus diseases of plants and animals.

Smith, like many other students, found truth in all three hypo-
theses. While to the parasitic theory he subscribed more zealously,
he did so largely on the basis of his learning in bacteriology and
to some extent fungology. A student of parasitic diseases might
be expected to indulge some bias, especially where the behavior of
a pathogenic organism indicated analogous action. But prejudice
was an unwritten word in his scientific language. He sincerely
believed that the behavior of plant cancer was similar to animal

*' Letter, Smith to L. R. Jones, Mar. 11, 1920.
^'New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1944, p. 35.

FURTHl^R RliSHARCmiS IN DiSHASI-S OF Fl.ANTS 535

m.'.lignancics, and if so, the rationale indicated a parasite in cancer,
an ori^anism with capacities for adaptation and reproduction, and
possibly other descnbable characters. Observe, however, his sug-
gestions as to the nature of this possible, discoverable organism
or carcinogenic agent invariably were drawn from his knowledge
of plant diseases or from those human and animal diseases in
which a known parasitic microorganism was the cause.

Unyielding search in tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, malaria,
yellow fever, and other diseases had ended each time in finally
isolating the real causal parasite or had brought the final isolation
closer. This argifed that experimental scientists dared not yield
in their relentless search for a parasite in cancer. Especially was
this so, since it had been shown that cancer in animals can be
caused by parasites, Gongylouenia neoplasticuvi (Fibiger), Cys-
ticercus fasciolaris (Borrel) and by viruses — Rous's (and James
Murphy et al.) chicken sarcoma and Akira Fujinami's indepen-
dently discovered fowl myxosarcoma, which was tantamount to a
verification of Rous's work. To these have been since added,
among others, the Shope rabbit papilloma, Lucke frog kidney
carcinoma, Bittner mouse breast cancer, and Yoshida rat ascites
sarcoma.^'*

Smith never maintained at all points completeness of analogy
betu'een crown gall of plants and human and animal cancers.
Yet, he insisted, studies of the genetic origin and environmental
development of tumors were made possible by comparatively
studying malignant and non-parasitic tumors in plants. Since the
causal organism of malignant plant tumors had been isolated,
it followed, however slight the presumption, that a parasitic
organism causing malignancies in animals and man might also
be found — not the same organism but one with similar capabili-
ties. At least, clues or leads helpful to ultimate discoveries or
solution were available through the study of plant tumors.

Under controlled conditions, he examined the processes of
tumor formation and growth, the chemico-physical stimuli which
induce cell division and multiplication, and the nature of malig-
nant in contrast to benign growths. To determine the nature of
chemical substances liberated in tissues by parasites to cause plant

^* Science 110(2844): 20, July 1, 1949 (review by Kanem.itsu Sugiura of Caitcer:
radiations, virus, environment, vol. II, by Dr. J. Maisin).

536 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

tumors, Smith used a flask culture technique. Various gall-forming
fungi and bacteria could be cultivated in flasks " on simple culture
media in any desired quantity and their products determined with
a minimum of labor. This, rather than the analysis of tumors,"
was the proper procedure. He gave as his reasons ^^ that

the cells of a tumor are only the cells of a plant or animal grown under an
abnormal stimulus, which stimulus, it is very likely, is not only very minute
in quantity but also used up during the growth of the tumor cells, that is,
converted into something quite different and entirely inoffensive. For this
reason analyses of tumor tissue should give only about the same kind and
quantity of products as normal tissues in which there is an equally rapid
movement of food-stuffs, and in which there is an equally rapid growth,
and this is about what tumor analyses thus far have shown. In flask cul-
tures, on the contrary, the products of parasitic growth accumulate and can
be locked up for future study.

From 1911 to 1917 he prepared flask cultures of various sub-
stances produced by various strains of Bacterium tumefaciens out
of river water, peptone and grape sugar, " substances corre-
sponding to or approximating those which occur naturally in the
cells of the plant." ""^ These were sent to expert organic chemists
of the Department of Agriculture. But, before submitting them,
he tested each culture as to purity by pouring Petri-dish agar plates
and as to pathogenicity by inoculating susceptible plants. From
substances found present in the culture flasks and not in the con-
trols he, with the aid of the chemists, determined " the most
interesting . . . products of a cancer parasite, or, if one prefers
so to express it, of a schizomycete which is the cause of a plant
tumor possessing many features in common with animal cancers."
These subsances were " for the most part " ammonia, amines and
fatty acids."

Proceeding on the hypothesis that " the parasite acts through
its excretions " similarly as " most communicable diseases are due
not to the parasites but to their toxins," ^^ he continued his study

** Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, op. cit., 437-438.

'^^ Idem, 438 (flask culture technique explained) ; Chemically induced crown galls,
op. cit., 312 (Smith described the " very simple culture media [as] in flasks of
distilled water containing 1% dextrose and 1% peptone with a little calcium car-
bonate added to neutralize any acids formed and thus to favor long continued growth
since the crowngall organism is very sensitive to its own acid products.")

" Chemically induced crown galls, op. cit., 312-313; Mechanism of overgrowth in
plants, op. cit., 439.

''^ Production of tumors in the absence of parasites (New Orleans address), op.
cit., 4.

Furthi:r RrsHARCHiiS in Disi-ases of Plants 537

of the crown i;all bacterium and its by-products to establish within
a range of probabihty wliat takes place within a cell, as a result
of a changed metabolism, when a hyperplasia develops. Since
these years. Smith has been accredited '" with suggesting, if not
establishing, that " the living cells of the host react to some sub-
stance generated by the bacteria, and that the bacteria need not
be in direct contact with the cells which have been stimulated
to divide."

Cell respiration, disturbed by want or imperfect functioning
of the aerating organs of the plant, was believed to be one of
the causes " at tlie bottom of tumor formation " — an oxygen
hunger within the cell set up by " limited intake of air," re-
duced aerating water, etc.*° Professor Albert Joyce Riker of the
University of Wisconsin, and co-workers, more recently have cor-
related several individual factors suggested yet today to account,
by their lack of balance for changes in plants from normal into
pathological growth. These include " " oxygen hunger,' changes
in osmotic pressure, rearranged amounts of growth substances and
vitamins, ' irritating ' substances, and altered amounts of food
materials." ^' In another study, " Inhibition of Respiration in Plant
Tissues by Callus Stimulating Substances and Related Chemicals," ■*-
Dr. Riker et al. accredit Smith in 1917 with opening " the field of
chemical induction of gall formation by using materials found
in cultures of crown gall bacteria. . . . These bacteria were
grown in beef-extract peptone broth, and various compounds were
recovered and tested for their ability to induce galls. Many other
investigators continued this work and reported numerous com-
pounds of various kinds which were active in gall production." *^
Mitchell et al. found that the best chemicals for inducing chemical
galls actively induce " oxygen hunger." Several amino acids which
inhibit growth are now known.** Further evidence has been

^^ E. J. Kraus, Nellie A. Brown, and K. C. Hamner, Histological reactions of bean
plants to indoleacetic acid, Botanical Gazette 98(2): 4l4, Dec. 1936.

^ Production of tumors in the absence of parasites, op. cit., 5 f.

" A. J. Riker, E. Spoerl, and Alice E. Gutsche, Some comparisons of bacterial
plant galls and of their causal agents. Botanical Review 12(2): 57-82 at p. 66, Feb.
1946.

*']. E. Mitchell, R. H. Burris, and Riker, Amer. Jour. Botany 36(4): 368-378 at
p. 368, Apr. 1949.

*^ Riker and T. O. Berge in 1935 reviewed this subject, Atypical and pathological
multiplication of cells approached through studies on crown gall, Amer. Jour. Cancer
25: 310-357.

** Riker and A. E. Gutsche, The growth of sunflower tissue in vitro on synthetic

538 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

adduced to show that a considerable variety of organic acids
interfere with growth in plants/^ In both cases concentration
was critically important.

Another laboratory technique which Smith used effectively to
advance his work was tissue cultures. He was among the first
American scientists to recognize the need and " the potential value
of a tissue culture technique in the study of plant neoplasia." *®
Dr. Philip R. White has said that he " did all in his power to
encourage the development of such a technique." The origins of
" the culturing of isolated fragments of tissues, especially of the
vascular plants, under controlled conditions " to enable workers
with more accuracy and completeness to observe plant life pro-
cesses, has been traced to Haberlandt and the last years of the
last century.*' Many biological students of plants and animals
have had a share in perfecting the method, including Dr. W. J.
Robbins of the New York Botanical Gardens. Smith learned
how to prepare tissue cultures for his work from an animal embry-
ologist, Mrs. Margaret Reed Lewis, who was then with the depart-
ment of embryology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Her laboratory was then in Baltimore where her husband, Dr.
Warren Harmon Lewis, was professor of physiological anatomy
at Johns Hopkins University. On April 28, 1921, Dr. and Mrs.
Lewis had called on Dr. Smith in his laboratory at Washington.
After examining slides of crown gall, they were given by him
cultures of Bacterium tumefaciens. Smith had been acquainted
with Dr. Lewis for some years, having met him at the Marine
Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole while the latter was studying
under Dr. Franklin P. Mall. Their plan in 1921 was to secure, if
possible, tumorous overgrowths in chickens by cultural inoculation
of Bacterium tumefaciens, and, by means of tumor transplantations
to other chicks, to prepare tissue cultures and study the possi-
bilities of viruses and toxins in the culture media.

In March 1922 it was thought that an animal tumor had

media with various organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen, Amer. Jour. Bot. 35:
227-238, at 230.

^^ A. C. Hildebrandt and Riker, The influence of various carbon compounds on
the growth of marigold, paris-daisy, periwinkle, sunflower and tobacco tissue in
vitro, idem 36(1): 74-85, at 78, Jan. 1949.

** P. R. White, Plant tissue cultures, Ann. Rev. of Biochemistry 11: 624, 1942.

*'' P. R. White, Plant tissue cultures. The history and present status of the prob-
lem, Archiv f. exper. Zell. bes. Gewebz. 10: 501-518 at pp. 502, 511, 1931.

Fl'kthir Ri si;aiu:hi:s in Disi:asi:s of Plants 539

resulted from inoculations with the crown i;all organism, but, the
tumor receding, Mrs. Lewis on March 30 reported to Dr. Smith:

My plans liavc failed owing to the t.Kt that all of the overgrowths
obtained with the new cultures of bacillus tumcfacicns from the peach and
from cuonymus have been absorbed aqain. There was quite a marked
enlars;cment in some cases but it lasted only a tew days. The cells which
contain the organism after it has become changed resemble the human can-
cer cells. I inoculated several dozen developing eggs also and in every case
where the embryo survived, I was able to recover the organism from the
liver, after three or four days. A number of the embryos had malformations
of the head. . . . The important point is to get the organism inside of the
cells without any accompanying reaction of the tissue against them.

An enclosed memorandum ended: " Very diflicult to stain
organism without destroying all cytological structure of the cell."
Again in 192"^ these experiments were to be tried on rats and
rrogs, but result in only one " small tumor in the lymph sack"
of a frog. Again in 1926 Smith was to repeat some experiments
on salamanders and reexamine, in the light of new experimental
disclosures from Germany, whether several years earlier he, when
he tried similar experiments, had erred in any research particular.
From a series of inoculations with Bacterium tmyiefaciens, he had
obtained but one seemingly definite salamander carcinoma.

By 1921, and even before then. Bacterium tumefaciens was
being recognized as a carcinogenic agent of more than ordinary
significance. In April 1922, when he decided to consult cancer
research specialists before completing his paper (and address)
on appositional growth in crown gall tumors and in cancers, he
went first to Baltimore where Mrs. Lewis showed him tissue
cultures from their first set of inoculations with the crown gall
organism. His diary of April 17 reveals that he found them
" indistinguishable from reactions and similar cultures (ectoderm)
inoculated with two or three cancer cells. She is to gvjt me cultures
of an organism (rod) she obtained from a Sarcoma and I will try
it on plants." April 18, he wTOte: " Mrs. Lewis showed me addi-
tional cancer preparations. Whether (l) Bacterium tumefaciens
is used (2) an organism from cancer, or (3) a few cancer cells
or (4) Rous's chicken sarcoma ground, in her tissue cultures, there
is the same type of reaction viz. small and deeper staining cells
(3 or 4 times closer together) with notched nuclei. Material
stained at end of 48 hours or sooner." April 27 he learned " how

540 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

she makes tissue culture"; and, on May 13, after several times
working together, he placed the following comment in his diary:
" By injecting the heart of a chick embryo with Bacterium tume-
jaciens (peach strain) and then at once starting tissue cultures
from a bit of the peritoneum she has a tissue culture with giant
cells and also with abnormal masses that look like a roundcell
sarcoma. She is a genius! "

After he had adapted the tissue culture technique to the study
of plants, he brought his first plant tissue cultures to her/^
Together the Lewises and he interested Dr. D. S. Johnson, pro-
fessor of botany at Johns Hopkins and a friend of Dr. Smith,
in perfecting the procedure. Later Miss Nellie A. Brown of Dr.
Smith's laboratory learned from Mrs. Lewis how she prepared
tissue cultures.*^ About 1924 Dr. Johnson suggested that his
brilliant student, Philip R. White, be placed at work on the subject
as a specialty. He spent the summer of 1929 at the Mt. Desert
Island Biological Laboratory at Salisbury Cove, Maine, studying
the methods of Dr. and Mrs. Lewis in their laboratory quarters.^"

Since Smith's years, tissue culture methods have greatly aided
scientists in studying problems of organic metabolism. By this
procedure, not only interesting confirmation of his earlier beliefs
about growth stimulations and inhibitions by acids has been pro-
vided, but also the study of acids and their influence has been
directed toward determining their effects on host plants and the
bacterial organism. ^^ Smith helped to advance the work, especially
by his efforts to determine with exactness the factor of pH or
hydrogen-ion concentration in plant tumor growth.^- Years were
spent by him in investigating growth-promoting, growth-regu-
lating, and growth-retarding substances. So far as this author is
aware, the word " phytohormone " was never used once by him
in his v/ritings. The vast, organized study of plant hormones, as
such, postdated his years of research. Yet the subject matter now
embraced by hormones and their effects is an integral part of

** Told the author by Mrs. Lewis. The Lewises were then still living in Baltimore.

*° Told the author by Miss Brown.

^^ White, Plant tissue cultures. The history, etc., op. cit., 511.

^^ A. J. Riker et al., works cited; also, memorandum by Dr. Riker to the author.

°^ A. J. Riker, Studies on the influence of some environmental factors on the
development of crown gall, jour. Agric. Res. 32: 83-96, 1926; also, Amer. Jour.
Botany 32: 357-361, 1945.

FuRTiii R RrsHARc ms in Diseases oi- Plants 511

tlic science of plant patholoi;y, atul much of the fundamental
study whicli has made possible its evolution was the very work
which he performed, thou£;h under the broad titles of plant
physiology and plant patholot^y. Since 1893 the theory based on
observation and experiment that plant organs, leaf, root, stem,
llower, etc., are started by some chemical phenomena produced
by the plant's metabolism had been announced by Sachs. Sachs's
theory was announced for plants practically a decade before the
discovery of the first animal hormone, secretin, by Bayliss and
Starling (1902), and many years before definite experimental
knowledge of prant hormones was made available. "'-^ Smith
interested himself in the study of the fundamentals of plant life,
regardless of definition or name. The study of crown gall infec-
tion nov,' includes the investigation of hormone effects. ^^ But, for
our purposes, we shall employ the descriptive phraseology and
terminology used by Smith.

While at Baltimore in April, 1922, Smith worked in the labora-
tory of Dr. Joseph Colt Bloodgood,^^ associate professor of
clinical surgery and associate surgeon of John Hopkins Medical
School and Hospital, an excellent, able man. Smith studied stained
slides, microscopic sections, and other detail, of cancers of male
and female organs, among these being the stomach, liver, and
intestines, and the uterus and other abdominal parts of the female.
One afternoon he watched Dr. Bloodgood, whom he regarded as
a " great teacher," demonstrate cancers to a group of students.
Several times he enjoyed discussions of pathology with Dr. Welch,
Dr. Cullen, Dr. MacCallum, and others of his faculty friends
there. Dr. MacCallum told Smith " he would be glad to have
[him] as a plant pathologist in the new pathological building.
He," Smith wrote in his diary, " would let me have several rooms."

April 24 Smith found, while reading past numbers of the
German cancer journal, Zeitschrijt fiir Krehsjorschuug^"'' an article

^'William Crocker, Botany of the future, Science 88(2287): 388-389, Oct. 28,
1938 (discusses also Boysen-Jcnsen's work on the significance of chemical substances
in the oat coleoptile) ; Growth of phuits, Ttceiity years' research at Boyce Thompson
Institute, chap. VI, Plant hormones, pp. 204 f., by P. W. Zimmerman, N. Y., Rein-
hold Pub. Corp., 1948.

'"Jour. ARric. Res. 57: 21-39, 1938.

°^ William Carpenter MacCarty, Joseph C. Bloodgood, Surgery, gynecology and
obstetrics 68: 965-966, May 1939.

'*M8(i): 110-125 (with Dr. Hans Hirschfeld), 11 figs., Berlin, 1925.

542 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

by Ferdinand Blumenthal, its editor, on crown gall. Dr. Blumen-
thal was a reputable medical authority on kidney secretion changes
in various human diseases and director of the cancer laboratory
of the important Berlin Charity Hospital of Universitiits Institut
fiir Krebsforschung. Zeitschrijt fiir Krebsforschung was " the
oldest and most influential cancer journal in the world." ^' Smith
remembered having read another article ^^ on the same subject
by the same authors in the same journal. Some years before, he
had challenged German scientists who were skeptical of his claim
of resemblances between crown gall and cancer. When one of
his manuscripts was rejected by a German journal, he sent cultures
to some of them, and later revealed: ^® "One of my manuscripts
was rejected by a German journal as ' zu Botanisch ' ; a second
German critic said, " The disease has nothing in common with
cancer but its name,' while a third likened the tumor to smut balls
in maize, which it does not in the least resemble, and said all this
had been known in Germany for a long time." Now Smith was
reading papers on crown gall, prepared by German scientists.
A special section for the study of plant tumors was to be a part
of the Imperial Institute. He commented in his diary that night,
" The Germans are waking up a little! "

April 29 Smith interrupted his studies at Johns Hopkins for a
few days to return to Washington and arrange his exhibits for
an address before the American Association for Cancer Research.
The meeting took place in the Army Medical Museum on May 1,
and of his address he said: " My paper came about ten thirty.
Room fairly well filled. I showed about 20 lantern slides and
spoke on Appositional Growth in Crown Gall and in Cancer. No
one contradicted me and Levin of New York spoke most flatter-
ingly of my work." At the meeting he found Dr. Lazarus-Barlow,
pathologist of the Middlesex Hospital, London, with whom he
had become acquainted at the International Medical Congress in
1913. He took this British scientist and Dr. Howard T. Karsner
of Cleveland to lunch and later " spent two hours showing Dr.

^^ E. F. Smith, Recent cancer research, Amer. Naturalist 60: 247-249, May- June,
1926; also, Some newer aspects of cancer research, Science 61(1589) : 600, June 12,
1925.

""^Zeit. f. Krehsf. 16: 51-58 with 2 pis.

®* E. F. Smith, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, Jour. Radiology
4(9): 299, Sept. 1923.

FuRTin-R Rrsr xRcnrs in Dispasi-s of Plants 543

Arrhcnius, cancer research man of the Christiania, Norway, Serum
Laboratory stained sections of crown gall." Smith saw he was
" much interested " and added to his diary account: "" He is one
of the few Europeans who believe cancer due to a parasite. I gave
him shdes and literature."

On May 3 Dr. Smith returned to Johns Hopkins for the second
of his lectures to Dr. Bloodgood's students. Two or three times
in 1922, and once in 1923, he lectured before the third year
medical students. They were " a very interesting lot " and on
April 19 his audience had consisted of ninety men and women,
some of them members of the staff of the laboratory of surgical
pathology. His second lecture was followed by microscopic demon-
strations and for this purpose he had brought suitable materials
from his own laboratory. He spoke for an hour and showed
lantern slides of

crown gall as follows: 1. Primary tumor. 2. Secondary tumors. 3. Tumor
strands. 4. Embryomas. 5. Sections showing structure. 6. Granulomas —
a. nematode galls, b. tumors on orange due to fungus, c. olive tubercle.
7. Tumors due to chemicals produced by Bacterium tuniefaciefis — a. am-
monia, b. acetic acid. c. formic acid. 8. Structure of acetic acid tumors —
a. early hypertrophied cells, b. later hyperplasia. 9. Hyperplasial growths
in fish due to crowngall bacteria.

At the conclusion, he " received vociferous and prolonged
applause."

The following year, on March 26, his subject was: " Some
resemblances between plant and animal tumors." Dr. Finney and
Dr. Robert Miller were among the eighty persons present, and, at
the end of this occasion, he received " a kind of ovation."

Smith completed on May 17 his research study of 1922 at the
three Baltimore laboratories: the Carnegie Institution's laboratory
of embryology. Dr. MacCallum's laboratory of pathology, and Dr.
Bloodgood's laboratory of surgical pathology. He returned to
Washington for some work at the Hygienic laboratory. He made
use of the facilities at the Army Medical Museum; and his last
action at his own laboratory on May 19, before leaving for Phil-
adelphia, was to consult with Dr. Robert Ervin Coker of the
United States Bureau of Fisheries on the habits of egg-laying sea
turtles and the feasibility of his working during July and August
at the Bureau's laboratory at Beaufort, North Carolina. He did

544 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

not go to North Carolina that year. We do not know definitely
what research plans he had in mind, but, as an extension of his
study of chemically induced crown galls, he perhaps wanted to
investigate chemically induced growth in unfertilized eggs of
animals. He had read and written of Dr. Jacques Loeb's study of
compounds which start growth in unfertilized eggs of the sea
urchin. '^° This had definite significance, he thought, in his study
of the chemical excretions of Bacterium tumefaciens.

Yet before him was the task of finally completing for publica
tion his paper on "Appositional Growth in Crown Gall and in
Cancer." As early as January he had finished a final reading of
this and begun to seek a publisher. Three or four figures in the
text and many photomicrographs were to illustrate it. In March
he was invited to address the cancer research association, and his
address became a condensed version, or abstract, of the paper.
Still, he was in doubt about some points of medical pathology.
So he began a journey to more cancer research centers.

He first v/ent to Philadelphia and consulted with Dr. True of
the department of botany at the University of Pennsylvania. He
read all of one day in the medical library and then v/ent on to
New York.

Five days were spent in New York consulting with cancer
research specialists at the Crocker Institute of Columbia Uni-
versity and at several laboratories of Cornell University Medical
College. Extracts from his diary May 22-May 25 reveal the im-
portant research work he found being performed there: At the
Crocker Institute he

met Mr. Kegerreis and saw 200,000 volt x-ray machine and Dr. Woglom
showed me around. I was most interested in the new Sarcoma of white
rats produced in six months to eighteen months by feeding Cysticercus eggs
from cat's dung. Some strains of rats are more susceptible than others and
young rats than old ones, in fact old rats are free from liver cysts due to
the worm. Not all of the rats develop the Sarcoma by so far [as] 4%
to 36% and not all cysts in the same rat show it. It is a malignant disease
metastasizing freely. I saw one rat dissected (dead at end of 18 months)
and many in formalin. They have over 5000 inoculated. They feed the
eggs by washing them out with water strained through cloth. . . . They
have promised me a set of slides.

'"Chemically induced crown galls, op. at., 313; Mechanism of overgrowth in
crown gall, op. at., 439-440.

FURTHl-R Ri;Sl-ARCHi:S IN DiSliASl-S Ol F'lants 545

May 2S: Spent most of the day with l)rs. Stoi.kard and CJianibcrs at
Cornell Medical SJiool and worked on Chambers papers and ms [ Apposi-
tional Growth in Crown Gall and in Cancer] till 9 p. m. 1 !e is to teach me
how to manipulate his improved I^arber apparatus. I wish to use it to inject
cells with crownuall bacteria and watch their behavior under the micro-
scope. I had my first lesson today.

May 24: All day at Cornell Medical School. . . . Talked with Charles
Stockard. Talked and lunched with James Ewing and worked all afternoon
in Chambers' Laboratory. He has made substantial improvements in
Barber's apparatus and I am learning how to use it.

May 25: At the Crocker Laboratory. . . . Saw Dr. R[ohdenburg] feed
Norwegian rats with cockroaches infested with Fibiger's Gonglyonema
nematodes. Later saw eggs and cysts and a worm escape from a cyst after
repeated trials. Dr. R. also showed me slides showing stomach and tongue
carcinoma due to the nematode.

The slides. Smith believed, were Fibiger's.

Spiroptera neoplastica is the scientific name now applied to the
Dane Johannes Fibiger's carcinogenic worm, Gong)lonemci neo-
plasticnw. This, and Cysticercus fascioiarus (the larval form of
a cat tapeworm. Taenia crassicollis), are malignant tiimor-inducing
agents in animals,''' and Smith, in his study of Bacterium tume-
facieus, had been investigating what he believed to be a malignant
tumor-inducing agent in plants. He was familiar with Borrel's
position which, to quote Oberling,*"' was that " neither the Spirop-
tera nor any other parasite can provoke a malignant tumor unless
contaminated with a carcinogenic virus." His diary comments,
however, made no reference to Borrel's hypothesis, whatever more
he was to say on this subject later that year in his address before
the Radiological Society of North America on " Twentieth Cen-
tury Advances in Cancer Research." '^^

On May 25 Smith observed Miss M. R. Curtis of the Crocker
laboratory dissect two rats fed with Taenia eggs from cat feces.
Borrel had seen and attempted artificial infestation to study the
rat-liver cyst sarcoma. But, his work having been interrupted,"*
the further work of Bullock and Curtis became very important.
Smith wrote into his diary a memorandum on the dissections,
believed it " undoubtedly sarcoma and tremendously interesting,"

" Chas. Oberling, The riddle of cancer, op. cit., 67, 69.
«' Idem, 70.

"0/7. cit.. Worm cancers, 303-311.

'* Oberling, op. cit., 73; Smith, Twentieth century advances in cancer research,
op. cit., 309.

546 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

and added, " It seems as if a parasite might be cultivated from
it. . . ." That day Dr. William H. Woglom accepted for publica-
tion in the journal of Cancer Research Smith's manuscript, "Appo-
sitional Growth in Crown-Gall Tumors and in Cancers."

Later that year, on December 8 at Detroit, Dr. Francis Carter
Wood of the Crocker Institute told Smith that they now had
" over 800 rat liver sarcomas from feeding eggs of the cat tape-
worm." He added to his diary memoranda that these had " come
along very rapidly in the last six months and they have had 100%
of cases in descendants of Sarcomatous rats bred together, but
none without the irritation of the worm." This last fact was to
Smith significant since it tended to minimze, without dispelling,
the hereditary aspect of cancer and did not disturb the suscepti-
bility aspect.

He regretted that time did not permit him to visit the botanists
and zoologists of his acquaintance at the Rockefeller Institute.
The end of the week had arrived and by the beginning of the next
he had to be in Washington. Reaching there, he on May 31
assembled his photographs, and again re-studied parts of his paper
on appositional growth. He was yet to go to some research centers
and libraries in the middle west to settle a few final points. But,
before doing this, Dr. Brandes, now with the Department at
Washington, brought him a copy of a paper by L. O. Kunkel on
corn mosaic in which were figured certain intracellular bodies
associated with mosaic disease in Hippeastruni equestre and corn
in Hawaii. After their interview. Smith prepared another entry for
his diary: " Iwanowski in 1903 in Zeit[schrift'] /[/i'V] Pfi[anzen']-
krlankheiten~\ has a long paper on Tobacco mosaic in which he
figures the Kunkel bodies. [D.] Prain has recently named the
small bodies which Iwanowski saw, as a protozoan . . . and says
it is the parasite but offers no proof."

In the early 1920's comparatively little was known of the
chemical composition of viruses and their physical mechanisms.
The stronger optical instruments with vastly improved lighting
facilities of today were then not available, at least not in quantity.
Superior instrumentation and special apparatus for various pur-
poses of investigations were being invented and perfected. Tech-
niques of filtration, as distinguished from ultrafiltration, and cen-
trifugalization, as distinguished from ultracentrifugation, in cancer

Further Ri:sharches in Diseases of Plants 547

rescarcli, were bciiii; explored, but were not raised to tlie present-
day level of eftkiency and ciTectiveness. A new era of technical
research was in the makini;. But as yet little more than the ground-
work had been laid. In cancer research, Borrel's theory of the
carcinogenic virus was taking on more importance, because of the
discoveries and proof of parasites as causes of animal cancer. His
insistence was that " parasites take part in the spreading of viruses,
and " he, Oberling says,"^ " suspected from the first that in the
so-called hereditary cancer of mice something other than genetic
factors may be transmitted. More than once I have heard him
suggest the passage of some agent by way of the milk." Virus
study in cancer was almost completely, if not entirely, dissociated
from what study there was of virus diseases of plants, and rightly,
it would seem. Since these years, however, scientific knowledge of
viruses, their chemical composition and physical mechanisms, has
been greatly advanced, and a not inconsiderable portion of the
credit has been due to research in the plant sciences. " Most of
this work," Oberling explains,®*' " has been carried out on the plant
viruses because they are easily handled, but above all because they
are available in such large amounts; in certain plants with mosaic
disease 80 per cent of the protein is virus."

Smith to the last years of his life believed that scientists were
" far from having sounded all the depths of parasitism." "' Extra-
ordinarily he wished to see research in parasitology advanced.
He realized that, in animal cancer research, the parasitic hypo-
thesis w^as gaining favor. Borrel in France had maintained the
virus theory at a time when the " greatest courage " '^^ was required
to do so. This year Smith, in his address, " Twentieth Century
Advances in Cancer Research," w^as to mention Borrel's work on
several points. In plant pathology, moreover, the study of para-
sites as causes of disease was being extended, especially in two
comparatively new research fields, virus diseases and diseases
believed to be caused by flagellate protozoa.

This year, on December 28, the American Phytopathological
Society would join with the Physiological Section of the Botanical

*^ Op. cit., vi.
••Op. cit., 121.

8
68

''Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 317.
Chas. Oberling, op. cit., vi.

548 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

Society of America in a symposium on mosaic diseases of plants.
Four of the fourteen papers — one by Kunkel — reported finding
" definite bodies of organisms in the tissues of plants affected
with mosaic." H. H. McKinney, Sophie Eckerson, and R. W.
Webb described finding intracellular bodies in mosaic of Hip-
peastrum johnsonii and rosette disease of wheat. These "many
interesting papers " made Smith ' live a month in this day. , . .
Fourteen papers on Mosaic diseases," he exclaimed, " including a
magnificent one by Ray Nelson on Trypanosomes and related
forms in four plants — bean mosaic, clover mosaic, tomato mosaic
and potato leaf roll." Illustrated by beautiful photomicrographs,
Nelson's paper received an ovation. Two papers by Dr. A. J.
Riker on crown gall were of much more than usual interest, but
these will be considered at a later point in our narrative.

The symposium on mosaic diseases of plants was regarded as
" an important milestone in the progress of plant pathology." ^^
During the next year, in Phytopathology, would appear an abstract
of Nelson's paper on " The occurrence of protozoa in plants
affected with mosaic and related diseases." '° Following the pub-
lication of his bulletin '^ from the Michigan Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, other studies were made and published.'" Charles
Atwood Kofoid, eminent protozoologist, and some co-workers at
the University of California, however, were unable to agree that
the organisms believed to be " a flagellate of new generic rank"
were either trypanosomes or of " a protozoan nature." Nor were
such " as might be expected in an organism with trypanosome
affinities, or, indeed, of any known protozoan type." "^

Smith was aware that, emerging more or less from the recent
study of mosaic diseases of plants, a " great revival of interest in
' virus ' diseases of plants," ^* was taking place. In fact, in his
own laboratory during the first half of the year 1922, he and his
co-workers had been studying the tomato streak virus, so-called.
His intention was presented in an address " of that year:

^^Phytopathology 13:33-60, 188-198, 1923.
""^ Phytopathology 13(1) : 41, Jan. 1923.
'^ Mich. Agr. Exp. Sta. Tech. Bull. 58, 1922, 30 pp.
'-Phytopathology 13(7): 324-325, 326-329, July 1923.

'"'Idem, 330-331. See also, Harold Kirby, Charles Atwood Kofoid 1865-1947,
Science 106(2759): 462-463, Nov. 14, 1947.
''*' Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 35.
'® Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 317.

FuRTin-R RrsrARCHrs in DisrAsrs oi- Plants ')-l9

We must expect to continue to find animal and plant parasites with
peculiar methous of propayation ditlicult to discover and to fmd parasites
much smaller than any microort;anisms now known to us. There are plant
viruses, the particles of which are so small that an ordinary haclerium
swimming among them would be almost like a whale among minnows, or
a Zeppelin among cockchafers. Tlicre is an immense lee-way for living
things between the size of the largest molecules and that of the smallest
known organisms. There are many hherable virus diseases in plants and
more arc being discovered every year. The virus of the tomato streak is
exceedingly infectious and sometimes kills in three or four weeks yet we
have not been able to isolate any organism. The same is true of the tobacco
mosaic and yet the least particle of the juice of a diseased tobacco plant
will infect a healthy one, and some of the particles of this virus will pass
through a filter with'pores only 3/100 micron in diameter (B. M. Duggar).

In March and April of that year, he had tried to isolate, by the
use of culture media, a parasitic organism from tomato streak.
At one time he had what he described as a " gray white bacterium."
"Parasite.'*" he asked himself. He described his culture media
thus: " Various agars, Cohn, Fermic, steamed potato, milk, litmus
milk and bouillon of juice and tissue fragments from the interior
of the stem under the stripes taking the utmost care to keep out
surface contaminations." Other agar plates with various prepara-
tions were used. Miss Brown continued the study when other
researches required most of his time.

In 1926 Smith expressed ''^ some of his final views on this
subject. He believed that " possibly, in the end," the " flagellate
protozoan diseases," (concerning which there was by that time
" quite a literature ") , and virus diseases in plants would be shown
to be " one." But he still referred to them as " two groups."
Plant virus diseases were to him very " interesting," and he recog-
nized that, while the cause or causes yet remained in doubt, much
had been " learned respecting signs of these diseases, host plants,
and methods of transmission. Scepticism," he said,

will not down until these assumed flagellates and amoeba can be cultivated
on artificial media and reinoculated with production of the disease. AUard
(1914-1918) showed that tobacco mosaic is spread by aphides, and we
now know that many of these diseases are introduced by the bites or punc-
tures of insects, that some of them have several host plants and that in
some of these plants they produce no signs. ... So far, trypanosome-like
flagellates have been found principally in plants with a milky juice. Atten-

^* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 35-36.

550 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

tion was first called to these parasites by Lafont in Mauritius in 1909. He
discovered them in Euphorbiaceae and pointed out that they were trans-
mitted by insects, but most of the work has been done in the last six years
in Portugal, Italy, Russia, Dahomey, and the United States.

Smith said more but, it must be remembered, this was a period
of scientific knowledge in the making on these subjects. Modern
knowledge has greatly refined and extended our learning of both
virus and protozoan diseases of plants.

He had been consulted by many of the early students of plant
virus diseases. Since 1892 Iwanowski's demonstration of the filter-
ability of the tobacco mosaic virus had overshadowed in importance
his description of cell inclusion corpuscles found associated with
the disease. While his filtration experiments had been confirmed,
his work on the cell inclusion bodies was not corroborated really
until the early 1920's. In 1910 Dr. Lyon in Hawaii described
inclusion corpuscles in Fiji disease of sugar cane.^' Kunkel's work
and the symposium of American plant pathologists brought the
discovery and its significance into real notice, and new data
followed. On July 19, 1920, F. S. Earle, then located in Puerto
Rico and studying sugar cane varieties, had called on Smith at
his laboratory and, during their visit, he told Smith ^^ that the
" pathologist of the station [there had] found a slime mould
constantly present in the cells " of stripe disease of cane. In
January Smith mentioned in his diary a " new Dutch paper from
Quanjer on mosaic disease of potato. He thinks," he wrote, " it is
in many respects like peach yellows and peach rosette to which
he refers. I gave him alcoholic material of both diseases last
year when he was in this country." May 24 appeared this entry
in his diary: " Dr. lodidi explained to me results of his analysis
of spinach mosaic. He finds decrease of total nitrogen and in-
crease of proteid nitrogen and also presence of nitrous nitrogen.
All indicating that a denitrlfication occurs in plants attacked by
this disease," and on July 1 Smith read the "manuscript of Dr.
lodidi's paper on cabbage mosaic to be published in September "
in the journal of the American Chemical Society. Work at Dr.
Harper's department of botany, Columbia University, for some

''■' See, Gustav Seiffert, Virus diseases in man, animal and plant, op. cit., 265.
Also, L. O. Kunkel, Virus diseases of plants: twenty-five years of progress, 1910-
1935, op. cit., 53.

'* Quotation Smith's, written into his diary.

FURTHl-R RnSFARCHES IN DISEASES OF PLANTS ^^\

years had included rcscartii in niosaic plant diseases. On August
24. Dr. Makoto Nishiinura, one of his students on this subject,
called on Smith at his laboratory. Frederick V. Rands doctoral
thesis, published March 2i), 1922 as bulletin 1038 of the Bureau
of Plant hidustry, "' Pecan rosette: its histology, cytology, and
relation to other chlorotic diseases," had been begun under Dr.
Harper's direction and completed under Smith in his laboratory.
November 15-17, 1920, Smith read a revision of this and com-
mented, " He thinks [pecan rosette] resembles the infectious
mosaics." Important research in mosaic diseases was being done
at the University of Wisconsin where Rand was also a graduate.
At Cornell Universit)', Michigan Agricultural College, and prob-
ably elsewhere, valuable studies of mosaic diseases and their
transmission in cucumber, bean, and other crops, were being made.
In the west curly top of sugar beet was being studied by Eubanks
Carsner and others. Carsner had studied at the University of Texas
under F. D. Heald and at the University of Wisconsin under Jones.
On a few occasions he conferred with Smith, and Smith regarded
him as a good and able scientist. On January 6, 1921, after an
interview, Smith wrote in his diary:

He has been working for three years in California on tlie cause and
methods of transmission of curly top of the sugar beet and has found a
new kink which makes the etiology still more complex. The insect which
transmits it from beet to beet transmits it also to Erodium but if fed on
Chenopod'ann murale the second generation of the insect will not transmit
it to beets if transferred directly, but if first fed on Erodium and then
transferred to sugar beet will do so. He has done it over three times, he
says, in insect proof cages! I am to give him letters to Dr. H. Noguchi,
McCoy, Hitchens and Theobald Smith.

During these years, very little was known of variant strains of
viruses in plant diseases, and still less of the origin and nature
of variant strains. In 1924 Carsner and C. F. Stalil published in
PJjytopathology " on " The relation of Chenopodium murale to
curly top of the sugar beet," and announced that an attenuated
strain of curly top of beets had been obtained by passing the curly-
top virus through the resistant weed host, Chenopodium murale.
Since these years it has been shown that strains of low and strong

70

14: 57, 1924 (abstract). See also Carsner's study. Attenuation of the virus of
sugar beet curly-top, Phytopathology 15(12): 745 f., Dec. 1925.

552 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

virulence exist in the curly-top virus, and the discoveries of this
and other factors have given rise to new interpretations placed on
the same or similar fundamental phenomena.

In 1923, when Dr. L. O. Kunkel returned to the United States
after several years spent in Hawaii studying diseases of sugar cane
and other plants, he accepted a position with the Boyce Thompson
Institute for Plant Research at Yonkers, New York, and there
performed his valuable studies on the aster yellows. Smith had
told him that when he solved the problem of aster yellows he
would find the way to solve the peach yellows problem. In 1925
in Science ^^ appeared preliminary pronouncements on " Insect
transmission and host range of aster yellows," and in 1926, in
the American Journal of Botany,^'^ the article, by Kunkel, which
Smith read the following January. This was entitled, " Studies
on aster yellows," and of it Smith wrote in his diary:

It is a fine piece of work. He has transmitted the disease to more than
50 plants belonging to 23 families, but not to Rosacae or Leguminoseae.
In many ways it is like Peach Yellows and Curly Top of beets. It is trans-
mitted by a leaf hopper {Cicadula sexnotata) but only after it has fed on
diseased plants and then a period of 10 to 14 days must elapse before the
hopper can infect plants.

In 1926 Dr. Simon Flexner was directed by the board of the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to go to Europe and
investigate the subjects of plant pathology and physiology with a
view possibly to establishing a department within the Institute.
About 1932 a department was created and Dr. Kunkel was
placed in charge of the work which since has been combined with
that of animal pathology. One of the great laboratories of the
world for the study of virus diseases of plants has been developed
under his administration, and the work, of course, has included
the study of all plant diseases. The late Dr. William Crocker,
former managing director of the Boyce Thompson Institute and
himself one of the greatest authorities on plant physiology this
country has produced, has this to say in his recent book Growth
of Plants ^" of the work of Dr. Kunkel at the Thompson Institute:

'"•62: 524.

®^ 13: 646-705, Dec. 1926. The leaf hopper Cicadula sexnotata is now described
as Macrosteles divisus Uhler. See Phytopathology 31(2): 120-135, Feb. 1941, and
literature cited.

*" Twenty years' research at Boyce Thompson Institute, 15, N. Y., Reinhold Pub.
Corp., 1948. Dr. Kunkel's work is reviewed, pp. 10-15.

FuRTHiiR Ri;si-ARcnr.s in Disi:asi:s or Plants 5')3

Diiriny tlic (.IcL.ulc Dr. Kiiiikcl and liis associates . . . made the Institute
outstandini; hcadtjuartcrs tor contributions to the knowlcil^c on virus and
yellows diseases of plants. Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
including the branch at Princeton, were, of course, interested in virus dis-
eases as well as other diseases of both humans and animals. They con-
cluded that researches on human, animal, and plant diseases could be
carried on profitably in close association, the advance in each contributint;
to and benefiting by advances in the others. This is especially true of virus
diseases. Conscc]uently, Rockefeller Institute employed Dr. Kunkel to head
a new division of plant pathology at Princeton, New Jersey, as a part of
their now newly named Department of Animal and Plant Pathology.

The DcpartmeiTt recently was transferred to the main buildings
of the histitute in New York.

In 1926 Dr. Smith spoke of " living carriers of disease [as a]
subject [which had] grown to vast proportions and . . . become one
of the most important considerations of preventive medicine." *^
He said,

We now know definitely that there are human carriers of disease, that is,
persons who appear to be well and yet are able to transmit deadly disease
to others. ... Of animal carriers there are many! The trypanosome of
rats {T. lewisi) is transmitted by a louse; the deadly African Nagana
disease of horses and cattle is transmitted by a fly; the surra disease of
domestic animals in East Indies and the Philippines is transmitted by a fly;
the fatal African sleeping sickness, by the bite of another fly ; trench fever,
by a louse; the typhus fever of jails, ships, and camps, by a louse; the
bubonic plague, from rats, marmots, and ground squirrels to man, often by
fleas ; stomach cancer of rats, by nematodes carried in the muscles of a cock-
roach ; trichinosis in man, by another nematode living in the muscles of rats
and hogs ; the sarcoma of rat livers, by the larvae of a tapeworm of the cat ;
Texas fever of cattle, by a tick ; the Rocky Mountain spotted fever of man,
by another tick ; malarial fever of man and birds by mosquitoes ; Dengue
fever, by a mosquito; yellow fever, by the same mosquito {Aedes egypli) ;
the embryos of the worm F/Iar/a, the cause of the enormous human over-
growth known as Elephantiasis, are also taken up and distributed by
several kinds of mosquitoes; rat-bite fever is caused by a rat microbe;
the Tularemia fever of man is caused by a microbe living in rabbits and
it is transmitted by the bites of a deer fly and of a tick, and directly by
handling dead wild rabbits; typhoid fever and cholera are transmitted by
house flies; purulent ophthalmia, by flies; the Egyptian fluke disease, Bil-
harzia, by water snails; a similar disease of the Japanese, by another snail
and by crabs ; a third fluke disease of dogs, cats, and man, by eating raw
fish ; a tumor of frogs, by a nematode living in earthworms ; anaemia with
dropsy in salamanders is associated with another nematode; Malta fever in

®^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 42-43.

554 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

man is caused by a coccus conveyed in milk from diseased goats ; the spiro-
chaete of African relapsing fever is transmitted by a tick; the cause of
undulant fever, another spirochaete, is carried in the body of a louse and
is transmitted by scratching; and so on. The list is a long one. Referring
again to the Rocky Mountain spotted fever, transmitted by infected ticks,
Spencer and Parker of the Hygienic Laboratory, have discovered a pro-
tective vaccine. . . .

Smith concluded his elaboration of this subject by the paragraph
on " carriers of plant parasites," quoted in the last chapter.

His proximity to the Hygienic Laboratory of Washington
enabled him to keep in close contact with the progress made
there in medical studies. Practically all of our knowledge of
tularemia came from this laboratory,^* and at least once Dr.
Edward Francis, surgeon of the United States Public Health
Service, consulted with Smith. On January 24, 1921, Smith in
his diary described their conference:

He brought slides of a pathogenic organism (schizomycete) for me to
photomicrograph. He has obtained it from the Deer fly fever of Utah.
This also attacks jack rabbits and can be inoculated into guinea pigs. It
attacks the spleen of jack rabbits and if the cut spleen of a diseased rabbit
is rubbed on the shared skin of the pig it contracts the disease through
the lymphatics. He himself contracted the disease during his two year
study. 550 rabbits were shot and dissected and the disease found in 18.

According to Smith, Dr. Francis, during 1919-1920, had isolated
in Utah Bacterium tularense from seven human cases and seven-
teen jackrabbits, and called the disease " Tularemia." In 1921
he and Dr. Mayne "" proved the deer-fly {^Chrysops discalis^ to be
a transmitter of the infection of Tularemia to laboratory animals "
and by 1926 this fever had been found in man in the District of
Columbia and thirty-one states.®^ Among the list of animal dis-
ease carriers, the other transmitters were mentioned; and in Chap-
ter X a reference to Director McCoy's discovery in 1911 of Bac-
tenum tularense in ground squirrels dead of an epidemic disease
resembling plague appeared.

The foregoing paragraphs indicate what Smith believed. The
reader is cautioned not to regard their factual content as complete
condensations of the knowledge to the present time. Since those

**The National Institute of Health, Science 107: 615, June 11, 1948, in which
many other scientific achievements of the Institute are listed.
^^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 40-41.

FuRTHi^R Ri;siiARcnus IN Disi-Asus OF Plants 5*>3

years, new extensions of learning; have been hrouL;lit about, and
new interpretations have been phiced on some of the factual data.
The important points to remember are his studious interest and
abundant enthusiasm to know as much as possible concerning dis-
eases of man, animals, and plants. A biography of him can only
indicate the wide scope of his knowledge. Dealing with so many
ditlering problems in plant pathology, he had to acquire much
learning of animal and human pathology. For instance, when he
and Miss Brown studied the tomato streak virus disease and dis-
covered " a curious body (30 and 40/x in diameter) in cortex cell
of a tomato petiole close to a streak spot," he carefully described
their findings and illustrated these by drawing six differing
positions v/ithin range of the nucleus taken by the organism at
various times. Then, five days later, Kunkel, recently arrived in
Washington from Hawaii, brought with him " stained slides of
maize and Hippeastrum mosaic," and Smith learned from him
his technique of studying the " problematic bodies " there found
"' usually attached to the nucleus." These seemed to have the
" structure of protoplasm and often contain[ed} small normal dark
staining bodies ht pairs." In his diary memorandum, he wrote,
" They are most abundant in parts most badly diseased and look
to me as if they might be parasites, yet they do not disorganize
the nucleus, though sometimes they make it stain differently."
Kunkel told him that " in corn mosaic the diseased cells have
very active streaming movement on plasma strands." Again he
drew a picture of a " vacuolate problematic body," and asked
himself, " Is it a protozoan.^ " But no answer or further opinion
was suggested.

Today, these " x-bodies " found in cells of certain plant virus
diseases are presumptively regarded as concentrations of virus
particles. During the 1920's, research in virus diseases of plants
began to take on definitely the stature of a highly specialized
branch of experimental science, inquiring into the nature of virus
infection, the various viruses and the species and families of plants
susceptible to each virus, the ways and vector agents of trans-
mission of plant virus diseases including study of hereditary
transmission of diseases from one generation to another; in other
words, full-scale research in another class of plant maladies.
Cytological and histological investigations became the rule, not

556 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

the exception. Dr. Smith was well along in years now and pre-
eminently a plant bacteriologist. But he read everything he could
find, and among the last articles studied by him was one on the
cytology of tobacco mosaic.^® That " the x-bodies " were found
" constantly present in the cells and not in normal cells " was the
fact interesting to him. The year before, Miss Eckerson had
described and figLired " small flagellate protozoans as the cause of
tomato mosaic." ®^ His reading on the " ultra-microscopic viruses
of animals " extended to the British journal of Experimental Path-
ology.^^ Later, we shall see that in 1926 he especially examined
at Cornell University scientific exhibits on the point of protozoa
and viruses in plant diseases.

In December of 1921 President M. L. Burton of the University
of Michigan had advised Smith that on June 19, 1922, his alma
mater wished to confer on him the honorary degree of Doctor
of Laws. On the journey to this happy event, he planned to com-
plete his final study of the unfinished points of his manuscript
on "Appositional Growth in Crown-Gall Tumors and in Cancers."
The ceremonies took place at the annual spring commencement,
the graduating address being given by the Secretary of State, the
Honorable Charles Evans Hughes. When Smith replied to Presi-
dent Burton's letter and accepted the " great honor," he modestly
qualified his acceptance by saying, " it seems to me that I am
hardly worthy of it. I believe I could have written acceptable
literature if I could have devoted myself to it rather than to science.
How much I have accomplished in science is for others to judge.
To myself it seems very little for the years I have put upon it."

The University of Michigan had an unbroken tradition against
degrees conferred in absentia. Dr. and Mrs. Smith journeyed to
Ann Arbor, and on June 19 he received his second honorary
doctorate. Professor Arthur Lyon Cross of the Department of
History read the characterization, a copy of which was sent after
the ceremonies by President Burton to Smith. He was charac-
terized as an

^^ Bessie Goldstein, A cytological study of the leaves and growing points of healthy
and mosaic diseased tobacco plants, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 53(8): 499-599, 29 pis.,
with bibliography. Smith found the plates "' interesting."

*" Sophie H. Eckerson, An organism of tomato mosaic, Botanical Gazette 81: 204-
209, pi. 19-22, Apr. 1926.

^® Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 36, fn. 4.

FURTHllR RliSIiARCHliS IN DiSliASHS OF Pl.ANTS 5'>7

investigator, a scholar, and a writer of varied ^ifls ami interests. Distin-
i^iiislied for his research in phmt patholoi;y and bacterioloi^y presented to
the world in notable publications. Furthermore, an extensive scries of
invcstii^ations on plant tumors produced by parasitic ort^anisms led him to
a critical interest in the progress of cancer research to which he has made
serviceable sui^qestions. Loyal and self sacrificing public servant. The most
productive worker in his particular fieKI, a man exceptionally honored and
loved by a larqc and diverse group of colleagues, the University of
Michigan proudly claims him as one of the most eminent of her alumni.

On August 1-1 Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry \V. A.
Taylor transmitted to Dr. Smith Secretary Henry C. Wallace's
" personal congratulations on the recognition of [his] scientific
service by the University of Michigan. ... I assume," wrote Dr.
Taylor,' " that expression of our personal gratification is not
necessary. We all trust that you may long continue in the impor-
tant work you are prosecuting." Secretary Wallace's letter read:
" I trust that you will extend my personal congratulations to Dr.
Smith, not for the recognition that has been granted to him but
for the splendid achievement which has made such recognition
inevitable." The Secretary's expressed trust that future conditions
in the scientific work of government service would enable the
Department to " show more appreciation of such exceptional
talents as Dr. Smith has displayed " was to be realized within a
few years. He would arrange a trip to Europe for Dr. Smith.

En route to the University of Michigan ceremonies, Smith
stopped at Buffalo and spent two days at the Gratwick laboratory.
There he examined cancer research slides and experiments, and
" talked shop " with Drs. Gaylord and Simpson, and a young
Austrian chemist, Carl F. Cori. He read several of Cohnheim's
papers, and on the afternoon of the second day was driven by
Dr. Gaylord to Springville where he " saw Dr. Marsh and some of
his mouse carcinoma experiments. Among other things," Smith
said in his diary, " I saw the nematodes that are lodged in the
colon of the cancerous strain in great numbers and in much less
numbers in the colon of the strain that is less subject to cancer.
He is breeding mice free from the nematode and they will soon
reach cancerous age."

At Detroit Smith continued his study of cancer slides, this time
in the laboratory of pathology at Grace Hospital. He had lunch
and in his oflices and at the hospital conferred with Dr. Rollin

558 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

H. Stevens. After two more days of study, he went on to Ann
Arbor and there found more cancer slide materials. Dr. Warthin,
he found on June 22, "' has thousands of cancer slides and it
would pay me to come here for two months to study them." Dr..
Warthin disagreed with him that " cancer grows by apposition."
But when at Chicago he became acquainted with Dr. H. Gideon
Wells, formerly dean of medical work at the University of Chicago
and then director of medical research at the Otho A. Sprague
Memorial Institute, he found a medical scientist in partial agree-
ment with him, at least. " Wells," he wrote in his diary, " says
he thinks cancer of the liver grows by apposition from his own
observation on primary liver tumors. He gave me very helpful
references to half a dozen papers. He says all the pathologists
who have worked on pr[imary] liver tumors are agreed on this."
At Chicago, Smith first called on Professor E. O. Jordan. Wells,
he said, " who is a delightful man to meet, studied under [Ludvig}
Hektoen, and Jordan at Mass[achusetts} Tech. under Sedgwick
about whom we talked. He studied under Duclaux and is pleased
with the Pasteur book. He says D[uclaux] was a very genial man."

Smith spent the next several days reading in the John Crerar
Library on primary carcinoma of the liver. On June 29 he happily
wrote in his diary: "" I have found very interesting confirmation
of my views, and have read about a dozen papers in English and
German and abstracted them. I have now the best part of the
recent literature and am ready to see Dr. MacCallum's slides."
At this library he renewed his acquaintance with J. Christian Bay,
who was then manager of the medical part and who during many
recent years has since been librarian there. In 1948 Dr. Bay, in
an article in Science ^^ on " Some vital books in science: 1848-
1947," characterized Dr. Smith's three volume work. Bacteria in
Relation to Plant Diseases, as "a peer in its field."

While in Chicago, Smith called also on Miss Maude Slye, whose
researches in cancer (especially on heredity) he alluded to appre-
ciatively in addresses several times and whose work on breeding
races of mice formed part of not only his diary account of his
visit to her laboratory but also of the discussion of his address
that year on " Twentieth Century Advances in Cancer Research."

Cleveland was the final destination of Dr. and Mrs. Smith's

" 107(2785): 490, May 14, 1948.

Further RiisnARCHiis in Disi:asiis of Plants 559

journey. They had attended several pleasant social affairs. At
Ann Arbor Dr. Smith sat several times for his portrait, an honor
arranged for by Dr. Harlcy Harris Bartlett, professor of botany
at the university and a close and good friend for many years. At
Cleveland they spent some time with Norman P. Buffett, brother
of Charlotte May Buffett Smith. From a research point of view
their Chicago stay had been " very profitable," and so immediately
Smith began to go forward with his studies. He first tried to
consult with Dr. George W. Crile of the famous Cleveland Clinic
at Euclid Avenue and 93rd Street. He was out of the city, so,
until his return, Smith spent his time consulting other doctors of
the Clinic and the Lakeside Hospital. On July 5 he had luncheon
with Dr. Crile who introduced him to more doctors and to Miss
Amy F. Rowland who was making some electrical conductivity
experiments with animal tissues in the laboratories. So interested
was Dr. Crile in Dr. Smith's work that he offered him "" all the
facilities of the laboratory " if Smith wished to make conductivity
tests on crown gall. Dr. and Mrs. Smith arrived in Washington
July 6, he highly elated and with a prepared insert on primary
liver tumors, and literature, for his paper on appositional growth
in crown gall tumors and in cancers.**"

The following year, on March 8, he wrote to Dr. Bloodgood:

I am in high feather this afternoon because I have discovered a paper
by Dr. H. T. Deelman of Amsterdam, in which he says that tar cancer
grows by apposition as well as invasively. His exact expression is that
there are two ways of growth, first, an invasive growth " aus sich heraus,"
and second, a horizontal growth in all directions by cancerous conversion
of neighboring cells. What a pity I didn't know of this in time to make a
reference to it in my Journal of Cancer Research paper. He thinks Ribbert
and his followers are all wrong. He says that the neighboring cells of the
skin become first enlarged and then cancerous, just as I find in the crown
gall.^i

In December 1922 Dr. and Mrs. Smith visited again in Ann
Arbor, and also this time at Lansing. To botanists and bacteri-
ologists, about sevent)'-five persons in the audience at Ann Arbor
and at least tsventy botanists at Lansing, he repeated his lecture

" Appositional growth in crown-gall tumors and in cancers, Jour. Cancer Research
7: 1-105, 28 pis., 1922, Literature ref., pp. 47-49.

'^ Smith told Bloodgood that Dr. Dceiman's paper was found in Klinische
Wochenschrift 1. Jahrg. Nr. 29, 15 July, 1922, pp. 1455-1457.

560 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

on " Twentieth Century Advances in Cancer Research," ^' presenter
first a few days previously at Detroit before the Radiological
Society of North America. On the afternoon of December 7, at
the society's annual meeting held at the Hotel Statler, he had
spoken before an audience of four hundred and fifty persons who
vigorously applauded him. At all three places the lecture evoked
interest. Dr. Bloodgood made Smith promise to giVQ it before
his medical students in January. Dr. Albert John Ochsner, noted
surgeon of Chicago, who spoke also before a joint meeting of
the society and the county medical organization on " Cancer from
the Surgical Standpoint," alluded to Smith's work during his
address. Smith became acquainted with him and that night told
in his diary: " He believes cancer is due to a parasite. . . . [H]e
said alluding to the sceptics, ' You have got them.' ' Next time
you go to Chicago let us know and we will be at home.' "

Smith's exhibits attracted " very little attention." Ten photo-
micrographic illustrations of rat Spiroptera cancer mounted to-
gether on a white card board was one, and this will be mentioned
again later. Similarly mounted crown gall photographs of
dwarfings and killings of plants due to crown gall, solid em-
bryomas due to crown gall, tumor strands in crown gall, and
other carefully chosen charts and illustrations comprised another
exhibit. When his paper was published and reprints sent out,
however, several cancer research workers thanked him. Dr. Alexis
Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute, without criticism, found the
contents " most interesting." Peyton Rous sent " good wishes for
a continuance of your significant work. [Smith had] disclosed to
[him] many new things for which I," Rous said, " have to thank
you even more than for the just exposition of my own work."
Dr. J. M. T. Finney of Johns Hopkins wrote that he had read
the address " with the greatest interest and profit." He quoted
from it in a lecture to medical men from the northwest and told
them to visit Smith in his laboratory and see " the excellent
work " being done. He thought the reprint " most interesting and
scholarly," and he told Smith he believed he had " thrown a
good deal of light on the cancer question; your work," he said,
" has certainly given very interesting sidelights. . . ." Dr. M. C.

^"^ Jour. Radiology 4(9): 295-317, Sept. 1923.

Further Ri-srARCHns in Disi:ases of Plants 561

Marsh of the New Wnk State histitutc for Study of Malii;nant
Disease congratulated Smith on presenting " what we need. With
Fibiger's trvvo summaries of experimental cancer research in French
and German and yours in Fnglisii, workers can take stock in three
languages."

On December 2, en route to Detroit, Smith spent another day
at Buffalo with Drs. Gaylord, Simpson, Marsh, Cori, and Carey.
He saw some of C. A. Kofoid's slides of intestinal amoebae which
he thought looked " astonishingly like some of the problematic
cell inclusions found in breast cancer in man." While Dr. Kofoid
was director of the parasitological division of the California State
Board of Health, he maintained a laboratory to make systematic
examinations of persons for intestinal parasites. An extensive
series of papers on flagellates, amoebae, and ciliates of man and
other animals was published. The following December 27 Smith
found Kofoid at the annual meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science and discussed with him his recent
article on Hodgkins' disease in the Journal of the American
Medical Association^^ A theory that the origin of this disease
may be associated with cells of the protozoan Endameba dysen-
teriae had been advanced, and Smith, after receiving Kofoid's
explanation, believed he had " demonstrated it. He wants," Smith
wrote in his diary, " a large sum of money to head a drive on
Cancer with a parasite in view."

That month, in his address on twentieth-century cancer research,
he had described under " Worm Cancers " ^^ three main series of
specific experiments: " Fibiger's rat carcinoma due to cockroach-
nematodes," " Kopsch's frog tumors due to angleworm nema-
todes," and " the rat liver-cyst sarcoma due to tapeworm of the
cat." He introduced these more important experimental investi-
gations by listing instances where repeated attention had been
drawn to " the suspicious close association of various parasitic
worms " with tumors of animals and plants. " We have," he said,

destructive nematode tumors in plants. One is due to Heterodera radicicola.
It occurs on the roots of a great variety of plants and is more injurious
than crown-gall. Structurally, the tumor is a soft, perishable, small-celled
connective-tissue hyperplasia containing a great many large multinucleate

''See, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 303.
"^Ibid, 303-311. Quotation of paragraph, p. 303.

562 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

giant cells. Many plants are killed by this tumor, and many others are
dwarfed so badly as to be worthless. It occurs on a multitude of hosts in
many parts of the world and has not received the attention it deserves.
Other destructive above-ground plant tumors are due to nematodes of the
genus Tylenchns. These occur on wheat, clover and other plants.

While in Ann Arbor, Dr. and Mrs. Smith visited in the home
of Dr. and Mrs. Bradley Moore Davis. Dr. Davis was now a
professor of botany at the university and on December 11, the two
men conversed on the " possibility of destruction or modification
of some chromosome as [a] basis for the cell modification in
cancer." Smith asked Davis " if he accepted bud variation " in
plants, and his reply was " yes." ^^ In his address,®" Smith had
suggested that " some element of the cell or of its environment
which ordinarily acts as a break on cell division is destroyed or
weakened by the action of certain physical and chemical activities
(x-ray burns, common burns, arsenic, cobalt, tar products, products
of worms and of bacteria) and so we get a cancer, that is, a cell-
multiplication passing beyond physiological control." In 1922-
1923 he was planning some new experiments, and by 1926 he
was prepared to suggest in a formal paper on " Recent Cancer
Research " ®' the possibility of chromosomic destruction with a
subsequent abnormal affection of all descendants of all the cell
or cell-complex.

There was another point in crown gall research about which
Smith was unwilling to venture a final opinion until later. He did
not disagree with C. O. Jensen that, in crown gall. Bacterium
tumejactens converts normal cells into tumor cells. But, on the
basis of a lack of scientific evidence at that time, he questioned
the conclusion that if the bacteria die out the cells still retain
and transmit their acquired characters. He awaited more corro-
borative evidence for the present view that once the genes within
the chromosomes have been changed from normal to tumor cells,
in crown gall the tumor cells without continued stimulus from the
bacteria will continue to grow indefinitely and autonomously. Yet,
before the end of his life, he candidly conceded that experimental
proof might be produced to show that cells could be so " ab-

"" Smith's diary, Dec. 11, 1922, p. 345.

*" Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 315.

" Amer. Naturalist 60(668) : 247, May- June.

FURTHl-R RliSHARCHHS IN DlSllASES OF PLANTS 563

normally changed that they will go on indclinitLly "" growing and
multiplying without the primary cause subsisting."'

In 192"^, at the eighteenth meeting of the American Association
for Cancer Research, Dr. Hwing would ask him whether he main-
tained that a parasitic organism exists in connection with those
experimental cancers produced by repeated coal tar paintings, a
subject wc shall discuss further very soon. Dr. Ewing would ask
Dr. Smith, " Does the microorganism get in with the tar? ... Or
are we required to assume that there are a great many factors in
the production of cancer? " Dr. Smith would reply:

Direct irritation certainly cannot be the cause of tar-cancer. It remains
to be explained why some spots of the painted area respond while most
do not. We do not know just how chemical substances act on the cells to
produce a malii^nant process, and whether a parasite is necessary after the
change once occurs for it to go on. It may be that several types of chemical
stimulus will give the same result, and that we might have cells so abnor-
mally changed that they will go on indefinitely without the primary cause
continuing to act.

Since his earliest publications on crown gall, Smith had believed
that the bacteria were located intracellularly. In bulletin 255,
" The structure and development of crown gall: a plant cancer," ®^
he had pronounced the situs of the bacteria " must occur within
the cells," since the microscope did not show their occurrence
between the cells or in the vessels. Because of the proof that
bacteria had been found in the tumor, this conclusion had seemed
to him inescapable unless the causal organism was to be supposed
as " ultramicroscopic, i. e., totally unlike their form on culture-
media, and also unlike the rods and Y-shaped bodies that diffuse
out of the sections. Then, of course," he said, " they might occur
anywhere." In 1911 his belief was that the stimulus of the
mechanism of the controlling cell division came from within the
cell, and in a footnote he had said: '°'' " It is inconceivable to the
writer that a foreign organism, by any localized and brief presence
in the tissues, should so modify cell inheritance that, after the
organism and its products have disappeared, the cells should
continue to develop abnormally rather than return to their normal
habit." No later than 1922 he confessed as to crown gall " an

"/o«r. Cancer Research 9: 497, 1925.

"O/^ r//., 17. '■"Udem, fn. 1.

564 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

entire revision of views as to the nature of tiie disease." "^ In his
textbook (1920)^°- he had said that Jensen's belief in an auto-
nomous growth of parasitized cells without the aid of the bacteria,
that is, in their absence, was " a subject for further consideration.".

Biologist M. C. Marsh of the New York State Institute for
Study of Malignant Disease answered on February 3, 1924, an
inquiry from Smith about some of his experiments made with
mice along this line. " Yes," said Marsh, " we are getting
interesting results from mice. That quite expresses it. They add
to, rather than subtract from, the difficulties, and indicate the
need of long drawn out replanned experiments. The absence
of worms does not stop the tumors from developing." Marsh's
studies on breeding and the hereditary aspects of cancer etiology
interested Smith for years; he mentioned them in several addresses,
and Marsh was now planning experiments to " continue genera-
tions of worm-free mice indefinitely."

At the 1925 cancer research association meeting. Dr. Smith
entered into the discussion which followed the reading of a paper
by Dr. Leonell C. Strong on " Genetic deviations within the
transplantable tumor cell." He urged: "^

It would be interesting if it could be made out definitely that through
irritation certain factors or structures inside the cell are destroyed or
weakened. I have for a long time thought it might lead to a solution of
the cancer problem, if the cytologist could make out changes in the cell
which would give to its progeny an aberrant course. Boveri called attention
to such changes.

Irritations, as a factor leading to cancer in susceptible indi-
viduals, were believed by Smith to be of numerous kinds."*
Repeated tar paintings fell in this category, and these are yet to
be considered more fully. Woundings due to repeated applica-
tions of arsenic, anilin, paraffine, and other substances were
another. The latter has significance in crown gall study as well
as cancer. In 1938, in a study of " Growth Substance and the
Development of Crown Gall," "'^ Dr. Riker, Dr. B. M. Duggar,

^"^ Synopsis of researches of Erwin F. Smith, op. cit., 39-40.
^"^ b2tro. bad. dis. of plants, op. cit., 569.
''"^ jour. Cancer Research 9: 509, 510, 1925.

'^'^*']our. Heredity (Organ of the American Genetic Assoc), 16(2): 61-62, Feb.
1925.

"■""•jour. Agric. Res. 57(1): 21-39, July 1, 1938.

Furthi:r Ri:sEARCHFS IN DisiiASFS OF Plants •j6')

and Dr. S. B. Locke explained the association of several hormone
cfl'ects with crown i^all infection and, in the course of their dis-
cussion, cited another study *'" by Riker and T. O. Berge to the
effect that, " following Smith,"' they have listed " numerous other
chemical agents capable of stimulating cell division locally." A
conclusion reached was: " The great diversity of materials reported
to cause stimulation suggests that irritation or injury induced by
them, which is apparently a common characteristic, is more impor-
tant than the nature of the substance." This would seem to add
credence to Smith's earlier beliefs about irritants and injuries as
causal factors in tlie processes of gall formation.

Smith's studies of the processes of tumor formation included
examining the nature, amount, and the continuity of chemical-
physical stimuli required to induce structural modification and
tissue reactions of variously aged plants under differing environ-
mental conditions. After publishing his paper, " Appositional
Growth in Crown-Gall Tumors and in Cancers," he wrote Brierley,

My last paper I think throws considerable light on the early develop-
ment of the tumor and ought to be of more than a little interest to cancer
research workers. I am planning another paper on what goes on inside the
cell, a subject which so far I have not published much upon. I would like
very much also to see the tumor develop under the microscope from single
cells, and I believe that I can bring it about with enough patience. This
I am hoping to try the coming year.

His diary reveals that on August 30, 1922, he began new experi-
ments to demonstrate bacteria in the cells. Nothing in his diary
or letters discloses that he had read in Phytopathology ^°' a pre-
liminary announcement that year that Dr. Riker, from " evidence
secured from microscopic study of the tissues at different stages
of gall formation and from the development of the original and
secondary galls," w^as securing evidence on the location of the
bacteria in crown gall. Dr. Riker reported their location to be
intercellular, rather than intracellular, as Dr. Smith had said they
must be. According to the new pronouncements, Bacterium tume-
faciens lives in the gall tissue of the host plant " between the
cells," rather than within the cells, " Its intercellular position and

^'" Atypical and pathological multiplication of cells approached through studies
on crown gall, Amer. Jour. Cancer 25: 310-357, 1935.

"^Studies of crown gall, Phytopath., 12(1): 55, Jan. 1922.

19

566 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

its scarcity," said Riker, " apparently contribute to the difficulty
of demonstrating it in the tissues. Under certain conditions, the
organism was found to travel through the vascular bundles."

In November of 1922, Dr. L. R. Jones read in the Medical
Library of the University of Wisconsin a copy of Smith's article,
"Appositional Growth in Crown-Gall Tumors and in Cancers."
On December 1 he sent Smith a letter to congratulate him on his
paper and to extend him the courtesy of advance knowledge of
two papers on crown gall to be given by Riker at the forthcoming
Boston meeting of the American Phytopathological Society. Your
" various lecture calls," wrote Jones,

show that your missionary work is arousing interest among medical men
in the search for a parasitic factor in animal cancer. Congratulations as well
as sympathy for the distractions. I regret to possibly add another by
urging your attention to a matter which may distract you for the moment
but which, unless I mistake, may then bring more rapid progress. I note
that in this Journal article you again call attention to the intracellular posi-
tion of B. tumefaciens. One of our keenest young men, Dr. A. J. Riker,
published some months ago (Phytopathology 12: 55-56., Jan. 1922)) his
judgment that the crown-gall organism lives between the cells of the host
rather than intracellularly. He has since advanced the demonstrations of
this to our satisfaction as well as his own, and has sent in two notes
(abstracts) for the Boston program, of which I enclose carbons. One MS.
(corresponding to Abstract No. 1) would have been released before this
if I had done my part editorially as promptly as he has his, and the other
is nearly ready for submission (developing abstract No. 2). I am sure you
will accept his evidence as convincing and we would like you to be the
first to see it. He is going to take his materials (microscopic mounts and
lantern slides) to Boston.

Jones invited Smith to visit them at Madison:

It offers a fortunate possibility that you are coming west next week.
I am . . . writing in hope that you can com.e from Detroit to Madison
next week and spend at least a day or two as our guest, going over this
most interesting and important matter. I am sure you will be delighted to
know Riker personally as well as to see his fine workmanship and its
results, and he, of course, wishes you above all others to see and judge of
the evidence.

After presenting at Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Lansing his address
on twentieth-century cancer research. Smith tried to go on to
Madison. But he got not further than Lansing where, because of
heavy snows, he and Mrs. Smith had to change their plans and

FURTHCR Rl-Sl-ARCHIIS IN DiSI-ASES OF PLANTS 567

return to \\'ashint;toii. At Lansini; he examined " Ray Nelson's
photos of Trypanosomes in pliK)cni of Bean mosaic, Tomato
mosaic. Clover mosaic and Potato leaf curl. ... It is a great dis-
covery," he wrote in his diary, " and Nelson or someone will be
able to complete the proof of pathogenesis, beyond a doubt." As
it happened, when he arrived in Washington, he learned at the
Department of Agriculture that Dr. Jones was in the city. The
next evening he and Dr. R. A. Harper called on Dr. and Mrs.
Smith at their home. They "' discussed Academy matters and other
things." A few days later. Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones " drew up a
preliminary reports on Nomenclature of bacteria for the Boston
meeting of the Phytopathologists. I," Smith wrote in his diary,
" am the chairman of a committee they appointed for that purpose
last year." Later that day. Dr. H. H. Bartlett and he spent an hour
together in his laboratory. Recently Bartlett had been appointed
head of the department of botany at the University of Michigan.
The fourteenth meeting of the American Phytopathological
Society was held in the main building of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology at Cambridge. President E. C. Stakman
presided, and seventy-five papers were read. On December 27
Smith listened to a paper by Melville T. Cook on galls, and the
next afternoon Dr. Riker's two papers, " The location of the
crown-gall organism in its host tissues " and " Some morphological
responses of the host tissue to the crown-gall organism," ^"^ were
read. Smith's diary account will be of interest to every botanist:

In the p. m. two papers on crowngall which may require us to revise
all our notions as to the location of the bacteria. He thinks they are all
betw^een the cells. Botanists' dinner at Youngs Hotel in evening 225
present. Address by Dr. [Charles Elmer] Allen of Uni[versity} of Wis-
consin on the potentialities of the cell — very good. Dinner also very good.
I sat with Riker and his new wife. They were married on the 26[th] in
Phila[delphia]. She is a Smith College woman specializing in Botany and
Chemistry in Ufniversity] of Wisc[onsin] where she met Riker. I like
her and him. He is an overseas soldier.

When Dr. Smith met Dr. and Mrs. Riker for the first time,
he said, " Oh you are the young people on your honeymoon. Let

^"^ Phytopatholo,?,y 13(1): 43 (abstracts), Jan. 1923. See also, Some relations of
the crowngall organism to its host tissue, by Riker, Jour. A.<;nc. Res. 25: 119-132,
1923; Some morphological responses of the host tissue to the crowngall organism.
Jour. Agric. Res. 26(9): 425-435, Dec. 1923.

568 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

me give you a word of advice. It always takes two to make a
quarrel." ^°°

The next day Smith attended a conference of fifty-five plant
pathologists on extension work. He thought them " splendid
fellows, mostly young. Very eager to help the farmers." He
himself was approaching the retirement age. Under the pro-
visions of the Retirement Act of May 22, 1920, he in 1924, after
thirty-seven years with the Department of Agriculture and at the
age of seventy, could retire from active scientific service. He
would choose, however, to apply for a two-years extension, and,
at a salary of $5,500 a year, the extension would be granted. His
laboratory of plant pathology possessed a personnel of eighteen
employees and he, as its chief, supervised an annual expenditure
of approximately $52,460. In July 1922 he had explained one of
his main reasons for his perseverance: " if I," he said, " succeed
in turning the tide of cancer research into biological channels
I shall be more than repaid." In 1923 Smith was unable to get
at his crown gall researches again until late in January. He tried
to begin work on a " revision and completion of [his] ms. for
Volume IV of [his] Carnegie monograph," Bacteria in Relation
to Plant Diseases. " I shall never complete it if I don't get going,"
he commented in his diary. " There is a good half-year's work
on it, and perhaps more."

His attitude toward Riker's papers was one of awaiting further
scientific proof. On May 14, 1923, he acknowledged receiving
from Professor Etienne Foex of the Station de Pathologic Vegetale,
Paris, France, some specimens of diseased tobacco leaves, two
letters, and a paper by Foex which summarized Smith's studies on
crown gall. " Concerning Riker's work," Smith wrote,

it is as yet only in the "' dough," so to speak, and we must wait for a full
paper before any decision can be come to and probably not then. I heard
his paper . . . and at that time pointed out that he had not shown any-
thing which we did not already know, namely, in the needle wound and its
vicinity, that is as far as the wound exudate is spurted when the needle is
driven in, there, of course, the bacteria will be carried and found. This does
not, I think, explain what we have had very often, namely, the occurrence of
secondary tumors at a long distance from the primary tumor in leaves
already fairly well developed when the needle prick was made in the stem
below the leaf. Until we have ourselves gone over Riker's work critically,

' Told author by Dr. Riker.

FURTHIIR Rl:SEARCHi;S IN DlSl-ASES OF Pi. ANTS ^d^)

md by that I mean experimentally using liis metliods, I am not prepared
to admit that he has shown anythins; except presence of the bacteria in the
vicinity of the needle wound already known about. However, as I have
worked year after year on the crown,i;all and have studied the cancer prob-
lem in its larger bearings as it behaves in animal tissues I believe that too
much emphasis has been put on the supposed fundamental differences
between cancers and granulomas, hi other words, I believe the difference
is much less tlian has been supposed and is still supposed by a majority
of the workers.

The intercellular or intracellular location of the bacteria in
crown gall is still, even today, under discussion among the most
reputable scientific authorities."" Workers do not agree entirely
on fundamental points of how " tumor strands " and '" secondary
tumors " or " secondary galls " are formed in crown gall."' Crown
gall research is. still very much in the foreground of plant scientific
research. But the early studies of Dr. Smith and his co-workers
are still regarded as " classic " authority, even by those who, on
some fundamentals, do not agree with his (or their) conclusions
and interpretations. As research facilities have become more ade-
quate for the purposes of studying these fundamental phenomena,
newly discovered truths and factual data were inevitable. In all
branches of science, from generation to generation, this has been
so. But no one may deny that Dr. Smith was first to observe
these phenomena, to work out proper methods for their study,
and to foresee the possible correlations with animal cancer research.
A very considerable proportion of his findings as to crown gall
has withstood the test of time. Surely his place as the leading
pioneer student of this disease in plant pathology is secure.

During his lifetime, Smith knew that some revisions of his
views on crown gall might become necessary. In April 1923 was
published from England a paper by W. Robinson and H. Walkden
entitled "A Critical Study of Crown Gall." "- Smith read this on
June 18, and that night wrote in his diary:

There is a paper in April Annals of Botany attacking, and perhaps over-
throwing, most of my crown-gall hypotheses, which makes me feel very

"° Riker, Spoerl and Gutsche, Some comparisons of bacterial plant galls and of
their causal agents, op. cit., 69-74.

"^ Armin C. Braun, Development of secondary tumors and tumor strands in the
crown gall of sunflowers (review of literature), Phytopathology 31(2): 135-137 f.,
Feb. 1941; Riker, Spoerl and Gutsche, op. cit., idem.

"■^-Annals of Botany (London), 37: 299-324.

570 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

humble; but if I could not make the discoveries they report (which con-
firm Riker's) I have at least stirred up others to do so, and there are some
things I must see for myself before I shall be convinced. Probably my
desire to help in the solution of the cancer problem has led me to over-
stress phases of the interpretations, and anyway the hundreds of clear-cut
experiments remain whatever the conclusion drawn from them. Next I am
going to study the Potentiometer reactions of the crown-gall tumors and
after" that I will try to produce tumors out of single cells by means of the
Barber apparatus.

It may be added now that Dr. Smith did not change his views
on crown gall research during the balance of his life, although,
as we shall see, he continued to study points concerning the
" tumor strand," the " secondary tumor " and location of the
bacteria in crown gall throughout his remaining years. For the
time being, however, this must end our consideration of this
subject. In February 1925, while visiting at the Pasteur Institute,
he would defend Riker's skill as a careful scientific workman, and
more, he would recommend Riker to the International Education
Board for a year's study abroad when, among other places, he
and Mrs. Riker would study at the Pasteur Institute.

The new papers of, first, Dr. Riker, and then, Robinson and
Walkden, v/ere published after Dr. Smith presented his address
on " Twentieth Century Advances in Cancer Research " but before
the address v/as published. He did not delete his quotation from
Dr. E. J. Butler's London Lancet "^ paper, " Some Relations be-
tween Vegetable and Human Pathology," in which was mentioned
the " extreme difficulty of detecting the parasite in the cells." To
his parenthetical comment, "it is certainly in, not between the
cells," Smith, presumably, suffixed a footnote: "Recently Riker
in the United States and Robinson and Walkden in England have
denied this, maintaining that the organism is always between the
cells. . . ." In August of 1921, Dr. Butler, then in America, had
spent four hours with Smith at his laboratory, and had been
shown " many specimens and many stained slides." For nineteen
years he had served as a plant pathologist in India, at Pusa, and
was now Director of the Imperial Bureau of Mycology or plant
pathology at Kew. Smith first saw his paper on May 18, 1922,
and saicl of it in his diary:

"''Jan. 21, 1922, p. 160.

FURTHr.R RtSHARCHES IN DlSI-ASHS OF Pl.ANTS "S? 1

Dr. E. J. Butler li.is written tlic lust account of our work on Crown Gall
that I have seen. He has i;ot in it all my notions about its relations to
Cancer and has made no mistakes. It forms the first part of a paper he
read on relation of botanical research to human diseases before an linglish
organization devoted to Tropical Medicine.

The location of the parasite was significant, Smith believed,
from the standpoint of cancer research. The analogy between
crown gall and animal cancer was admittedly not complete. But
his persistent experiments to demonstrate bacteria within the cells
had extended over many years and were planned as studies in
cellular pathology^ The first paragraph of his conclusions as to
" Twentieth Century Advances in Cancer Research " ''■• began:

What goes on inside a cancer cell that does not go on inside a normal
cell? If we knew that we should be very near the solution of the cancer
problem, and it is not beyond hope that eventually wc shall know just
that — chemically and structurally. We must conclude that the cell or its
progenitors has been under a foreign stimulus of some sort. Everything
we know about cancer points to this conclusion. In case of the crown-gall
bacteria, acid and alkaline by-products arc given off in siniple culture media
and we have a right to assume that they are also given oft inside the plant
where similar proteids and sugars are at their disposal. When applied to the
surface of the plant these substances set up chemical and physical changes
which lead to an excessive, disordered, hyperplasial growth and they
probably do this in the tissues where they are produced by the parasite, but
here our knowledge ends.

This was so for crown gall. But, alike for tumors in animals
and perhaps in man, physical and chemical activities from many
causes — parasites among them — were known to bring about the
"cell-multiplication passing beyond physiological control " which
was one of the phrases used by Smith to explain cancer. Later
he spoke of " multiplying extraneous organisms " as activating
the origin of malignant tumors.

Since Dr. Smith's years of research, in cancer laboratories of the
world, the transformation of normal mammalian cells into cancer
cells has been observed in vitro. A vast amount of environmental
and genetic learning about cancer induction has been accumulated.
Knowledge of the modes of cancer transmission is superior,
especially in the direction of cytoplasmic inheritance and trans-
placental transmission. Indeed, the knowledge of chemically in-

"* op. cit., 315.

572 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

duced sarcomata has been extended. "° Such a discovery as that
made by John J. Bittner in 1936 that a cancer virus may be trans-
mitted by a susceptible mother to her offspring through her milk,
a conclusion still very much in doubt/^*' finds adherents of the
virus theory of cancer etiology defending the hypothesis and as
many, perhaps more, equally qualified cancer authorities opposing
it. Smith contributed knowledge to a research period from which
much of the modern, more advanced knowledge has emerged, or
on which in considerable part it has been based. When we con-
sider the subject of tar cancers, more will be said about carcino-
genic agents. But it may be suggested now that, had not the
chemical compounds been made available, Bacterium tiimefaciens,
as such an agent, likely would have found more of a place in
cancer research laboratories as well as in laboratories of plant
pathology.

Several times Dr. Smith in writings or utterances had expressed
confidence that scientific proof would settle the question whether
a parasitized cell would continue to grow if the parasite died out,
lost virulence, or was removed. In recent years, from research
in crown gall, an answer has been made available. Dr. Philip
R. White of the Lankenau Hospital of Philadelphia and Dr.
Armin C. Braun of the department of animal and plant path-
ology of the Rockefeller Institute, with the use of a plant tissue
culture technique, and taking advantage of the native sterility of
secondary crown gall tumors on sunflower, have isolated and
cultivated in vitro tissues of varying degrees of malignancy. Some
of these have been shown to be " capable of producing bacteria-
free crown-gall tumors when grafted back into sunflower or arti-
choke after prolonged multiplication in vitro. The tumor-forming
capacity has thus been segregated from the bacteria and the tumor
can be studied and its metabolic processes followed in the absence
of the original inciting agent." "^ In 1942, while Dr. White was
yet with the department of animal and plant pathology of the
Rockefeller Institute, he and Dr. Braun published in Cancer
Research "' an important study, the product of their researches and

^^"^ See, Leonell C. Strong, A new influence on chemically induced sarcomata,
Science 108(2816): 688-689, Dec. 17, 1948.

^^^ Cbr\r!cs Oberling, The riddle of cmcer, op. cit., 82, 162.

"''Philip R. White, Plant tissue cultures, Ann. Rev. of Biochemistry 11:624,
1942. See'also Science 94(2436): 239-241, Sept. 5, 1941.

"'2(9): 597-617, Sept. 1942.

FURTHHR Rl-SliARCIIilS IN DlSUASlZS OF PLANTS 373

collaboration, entitled "A cancerous neoplasm of plants. Auto-
nomous bactcria-frce crown-gall tissue." Their summary reads:

Secondary or metastatic tumors frequently arise on sunflower plants
inoculated with Phytoniotuis \_Bacteriurn'] tiitncjacietis at considerable dis-
tances trom the primary tumefactions. These have been shown by cultural
and serological methods to be characteristically bacteria-free. Tissue cul-
tures from these tumors show a rapid disorqanized type of growth con-
trasting; sharply with the slow, moderately organized growth of those
isolated from healthy tissues. Upon implantation into uninfected plants of
the same or related species, these tissues produce typical crown-gall tumors.
This capacity for unrestrained, invasive, potentially malignant growth both
in vivo and /';; vitro in the absence of the original excitant differentiates
these tissues from any other plant materials reported to date and places
them in a category comparable to cancerous growths in animals.

Smith's unvarying aim had been to enlist medical research men
to study " the symbiotic action of organisms ... an almost
untouched field in medicine and yet . . . one of the commonest
and most striking things in Nature, witness the lichen," he said.^'"
But he cautioned not to expect as many parasites as there are
forms. The ability of experimental scientists to produce " cancer
in plants by means of bacteria, in chickens by means of a filter-
able virus (Rous), in rats by means of a nematode (Fibiger), in
rats by means of a tapeworm (Bullock and Curtis), and in rabbits
and mice by means of tar (Yamagiwa, Tsutsui, Fibiger, and many
others) " was of utmost significance to him. " The cause of cancer,
so far as we now understand it," he urged, ^-°

may be defined as an irritation acting on an organ or organs unable to
withstand it owing to a transmitted or an acquired weakness. Heredity alone
cannot cause cancer, but irritation (parasitic and possibly non-parasitic)
plus heredity can and does cause it. No such conclusions could possibly
have been drawn twenty years ago. They are the measure of the progress
we have made.

In January of 1924, when he sent Dr. Gaylord a reprint, he
spoke of this address as " a popular paper " prepared '" with
reference to etiology." Smith realized that Dr. Rous and his
associates (chiefly Dr. James B. Murphy) had not isolated the
" agent or virus " and determined the cause of the chicken sar-
comas but, said he, "' experimenting through a series of years

^^^ Twentietli centuiy advances in cancer researcli, op. cit., 317.
^^"Idem, 316-317.

574 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

they demonstrated indubitably that the filtrate of the crushed
cells will cause the disease, and a little later that the virus persists
in cells killed by freezing, by heat, by drying, and by glycerin." "^
Even today, this presumably " " living organism,' " ultramicro-
scopic in some, perhaps all, of its forms, an organism having
specific attributes or properties, distinguishable from ferments,
and practically as capable of inducing chicken tumors as the car-
cinogenic hydrocarbons, can survive physical cell destruction, and
yet it has not been isolated and cultivated in pure cultures in vitro
as well as in vivo. Very important research has been performed
in recent years on this virus-like agent of chicken tumor. At a
meeting of the American Philosophical Society on April 19, 1912,
Rous read a paper on "An avian tumor in its relation to the tumor
problem." ^-- Smith may have attended this meeting, although
not yet a member of the Society, and, much enthused, sent Rous
his letter of May 16 quoted in Chapter IX. In his address " Twen-
tieth Century Advances in Cancer Research," he quoted from Rous'
paper several times. Much more could be said about these inves-
tigations started at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
but one more point has special pertinence. With the use of cell-
free filtrates and under definite, highly artificial conditions, the
disease can be transmitted from one animal to another, although
under natural conditions, it has not been found transmissible; that
is, healthy fowls may be kept with diseased chicken without
danger of infection.

Fibiger supplied Smith with the ten photomicrographs of rat
Spiroptera cancer used to illustrate his discussion of the Dane's
'"' rat carcinoma due to cockroach-nematodes." Later Fibiser men-
tioned Smith's " renowned researches " in a lecture before the
Danish Medical Association. Several letters passed between the
two scientists during 1922-1924. On November 1, 1922, Fibiger
wrote:

I have published during the last years no special papers concerning the
nematode-carcinoma, but in various papers I have mentioned the summary
of the results. I am sending you these papers accompanied with some
papers concerning the tar carcinoma. Having given away during these last
years an exceedingly great number of preparations, I amsorry to say that just

^-^Idem, 301.

'^"^ Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 51: 201-205; also, xi, minutes of the meeting.

ri'inni K Ri si:ar{ urs in Disi;asi;s oi- Plants 575

at this moment I possess only a very restricted number of good stained slides
showini; the nem.itode-i.ari.inoma, but I think I may be able to ^ive you
some good photos, and 1 shall send these as soon as they have been finished.
If, in the next time, I should get some beautiful specimens, I shall send
them to you. . . .

Smith in 192i sent hun a copy of his address and called his
attention to the fact that he had given " a good deal of space to
your beautiful researches which I considered to have advanced
cancer research very materially. 1 mounted up the photographs
which you sent me on a big sheet and exhibited those also at the
X-ray Congress." "Fibiger became president of the committee for
cancer research in his country and, as such, was congratulated by
Smith who by that time was president of the American Association
for Cancer Research. He cordially responded on behalf of the
Danish Association and the cancerologists of his native land. A
year or so thereafter, he, because of his discovery of the Spiroptera
carcinoma, won the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine.

While preparing his address, Smith had abundantly read the
literature of many cancer research workers — Rous, Fibiger, Kopsch,
Borrel, Haaland, and others. Both his text and his diaries show
this, and included among them were works from students of
experimental coal tar cancers. Early in 1923 Koitchi Itchikawa
sent him from Japan " a whole bundle of cancer papers." Further-
more, in 1925, he was to meet Dr. Itchikawa in Dr. G. Roussy's
laboratory at the Ecole de Medicin of Paris and be given by him
eight more reprints on tar cancer. Smith outlined the earlier work
in his address. Dr. Katsusaburo Yamagiwa, erstwhile student of
Virchow, founder of the Japanese cancer journal, and professor of
pathology at the University of Tokyo, and Itchikawa, doctor of
veterinary medicine and also of the Tokyo pathological institute,
chose rabbits as their experimental animals and, on the theory
that rabbits' ears are peculiarly free from any suggestion of car-
cinoma growths, they painted their inner or outer surface every
second or third day more or less for a year with the coal tar itself
until at last papillomas and a few keratinizing carcinomas of a
mild type resulted. Other experiments with mice follov^'ed, per-
formed by Dr. Hidejiro Tsutsui, professor of general pathology
and pathological anatomy in the medical high school in Chiba.
Menetrier and Surmont in Paris confirmed K. Yamagiwa's and

576 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy

Itchikawa's results. It had been said that the incentive for their
experiments had been the parasitic action on rats obtained by
Fibiger when he fed rats witii nematodes taken from muscles and
the thorax of roaches. Fibiger also made a series of coal-tar
paintings on white mice, and in 1921 his results as well as those
of Deelman of the Leeuwenhoek laboratory of Amsterdam and
some English experiments by Murray and Woglom were an-
nounced. Smith described still other experiments from England
and Denmark.

His purpose in the study of tar cancer experiments was to
strengthen his crown gall analogy. In March 1923, after reading
Dr. Deelman's recent paper on tar cancer in mice, he called Dr.
CuUen's as well as Dr. Bloodgood's attention to the article. In
his letter to Dr. CuUen he underscored Deelman's finding that in
the youngest tar cancers a horizontal growth "' in all directions
by cancerous conversion of neighboring cells " takes place plus
an invasive growth, and attached special significance to tiie Dutch
pathologist's view that " the cells are hypertrophied before they
become cancer cells." The disclosures were believed to " throw
much light on the origin of cancer."

In his address on twentieth-century cancer research,^-^ Smith
predicted that great advances would result from the use of " coal
tar distillates " and " soot extracts." Since then, from the coal
tar, carcinogenic hydrocarbons have been derived, and from the
coal tar hydrocarbons extracts and by-products. He illustrated his
point by examples. One was:

Recently an attempt has been made by Bloch and Dreifuss (Sch. Med.
Wochenschr. Nov. 10, 1921) to isolate the active principle from coal tar
and these efforts if we may believe the preliminary report have proved
remarkably successful and will greatly advance our knowledge. They
began work in 1920 using rabbits, with the same results as Yamagiwa
(number not stated) ; guinea pigs, which proved resistant; and white mice
which yielded results "exceeding anything hitherto obtained." Raw tar
was used only on a small part of the animals. All the fine results were
obtained with a definite fraction of the coal tar, produced by distillation.
Corresponding to English observations on the variable number of cancers
in men who handle various kinds of coal tar products (H. C. Ross, J.
Cancer Research, 1918) the bases, phenols and hydrocarbons, which come
over at low temperatures, were found to be negligible. With the first two

^"0/>. cit., 313-314.

FURTHtR RlISl-ARCMES IN DlSHASF.S OF Pl.ANTS ^11

nothint; w.is obtained arul witli the low-boiling hydrocarbons only mild
resin(ts\vhich first appeared after many days. On the contrary with a pro-
duct which distills over above 300'C. and is soluble in benzol, astonishing
results were obtained. With such a distillate they stale they were able to
produce skin cancers on mice in four months' time in 100 per cent of the
cases (number not stated nor strains or age of mice employed). Their
technique was the same as that used by Yamagiwa. . . .

This docs not imply that Smith was first, or among the first,
to realize the value of, and recommend to cancer research workers,
the use of phenols, hydrocarbons, and various chemicals for tumor
inductic^i. He was, however, among the first, if not the first, of
the students of crown gall and cancer, to recognize the value of,
and apply, chemicals and chemical influences in experimentally
inducing tumors in plants. Utilizing techniques of his own making
and techniques devised by others to study tumors of animals and
man, he obtained in plants, through less than killing doses, types
of cell-growth varying between what he regarded as hyperplasias
and hypertrophies or a combination of the two. He produced
overgrowths in plafts with at least a half-dozen and more sub-
stances which readily pass through protoplasmic membranes, each
of which are products of Bacterium ttimejaciens: ammonia, amines,
aldehyd, alcohol, acetone, acetic acid, formic acid, and carbonic
acid ( ?) . Many more effective compounds have been reported since
his years, each active in gall production in plants. During his last
years this subject became one of his special research interests.

Chapter XII

THIRD EUROPEAN JOURNEY, COORDINATE STUDY OF CANCER

RESEARCH, INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PLANT SCIENCES OF

1926, LAST WORK. FINAL HONORS.

IF SMITH knew at this time of the studies of Otto Warburg
of Berlin, Germany, on cell metabolism and cell chemistry,
he did not, so far as this author knows, say so. In 1925 he was
to become acquainted with Dr. Warburg and, being given reprints,
one ^ especially was to capture his interest and prompt him to
write in his diary March 12:

what I thought out respecting oxygen hunger as the cause of cell division
in cancer and published in 1920 in my Textbook he and his assistants
have verified experimentally by most delicate and ingenious methods. They
show clearly as I have always maintained that the cancer cell is chemically
different from a normal cell, stores more acid under anaerobic conditions
and cannot get rid of it under aerobic conditions. In this respect it is
quite unlike normal embryonic tissue. He says the acid is lactic acid.
Query: Does the crowngall organism excrete lactic acid and not formic.'*
Ask the chemists to do over again flask cultures of various strains of
Bacterium tumejaciens for the presence of lactic acid. Query: Can War-
burg be wrong in his conclusions and a part of the acid of cancer cells
be formic acid} It is important also for us to make a lot of experiments
in 1925 on Ricinus and other plants using dilute lactic acid 1: 100, 1: 300,
1 : 500, etc. Carry these along with experiments using ammonium lactate,
and others using monobasic ammonium phosphate on Ricinus plants out of
doors as well as others in the hot house.

Smith was to find Warburg believing as he did that " cancer
cells behave unlike normal cells and contain unlike substance."
How Warburg and his associates determined " the respiration of
tissues and how the acid content of cancer cells " proved " very
interesting." Smith took two pages of notes on the demonstrations
made for him. But he reserved judgment on a few points. He
thought that small quantities of acids other than lactic acid might
be present and serve to stimulate cell division. Warburg had
shown that if grape sugar was present, the cancer cells might

^ Ueber den Stoffwechsel der Carcinomzelle, Die Naturwissenschaften 12(50):
1131-1137, 1924.

578

Last Work. Final Honors ')79

live without oxygen for a considerable length of time, and that,
owing to the splitting of sugar during their anaerobic growth,
an excess of irritant acids was produced in cancer tissue. We shall
have cause later again to mention Warburg's suggestion that, to
quote Smith,- the " normal resting epithelium is a mosaic in
which a few cells are strongly glycolytic, while most are oxidizing
cells, and that when for any reason (pressure, sclerosis of vessels,
presence of bacteria, etc.) there is a lack of oxygen the non-
glycolysing cells perish and the others grow." In rats results had
been obtained which pointed, furthermore, to a " glycolytic action
of cancerous tissue on grape sugar with production of a great
excess of lactic acid."

" Warburg, in Berlin, has shown," Smith would say in 1926,^

both for carcinoma and sarcoma that the malignant cell breaths anaero-
bically, even in the presence of air, whereby sugar is split and irritant
lactic acid is produced in the tissues continuously. In all these ways the
tumor cell behaves unlike a normal cell, but we can not decide from this
whether the stimulus to growth is due to a parasite ; to some derangement
of the internal mechanism of the cell due to an irritant; or, finally, to
some change in the environment of the cell. We might suppose some of
the chromosomes destroyed, so that all descendants of the given cell or
cell complex would necessarily be abnormal. . . . Warburg believes that
anaerobic conditions are the explanation of tumor growth. According to
his idea, our bodies and those of all animals are a mosaic of two kinds
of cells, the great majority of the cells being aerobic. Under normal con-
ditions the few anaerobic cells are controlled and kept in abeyance by the
great mass of aerobic ones. Under certain abnormal condition, such,
for example, as the influx into an ulcer of aerobic organisms, avid of
oxygen and the destruction of the aerating blood vessels, the aerobic cells
are killed off and under cover the few anaerobic cells begin to grow rapidly
as a tumor.

Whether malignant tumors have their origin this w^ay or are
due to the direct action of parasites, Smith believed that in each
the " multiplying extraneous organisms must be the activating
thing in most cancers." By 1925 he had read a study * by Dr.
Montrose T. Burrow^s, director of laboratories of the Barnard
Free Skin and Cancer Hospital of St. Louis, Missouri, in which

'Some newer aspects of cancer research, Science 61(1589): 596, 597, June 12,

1925.

•■' Recent cancer research, A?)ier. Naturalist 60: 247, 255, May- June 1926.
* Archives of Internal Medicine, Sept. 15, 1925.

580 Third European Journey

was advanced a theory of cell and tissue heaping and stagnation
as a cause of cancer. This theory Smith discussed with Warburg's.

Since 1917 in his address, " Mechanism of Overgrowth in
Plants," ' Smith had urged that in tumor etiology much might be
learned from following a line of inquiry represented by Dr.
Bernhard Fischer's paper (1906) on overgrowths of epithelium
due to the injection of scarlet red and indophenol into rabbit's
ears. He said, " Fischer's paper in particular pointed the way
clearly toward the solution of the cancer problem, but it was
received very coldly and he became discouraged, and no one else
took up the suggested clue." The point to remember was not
Fischer's discouragement when the " invading epithelial cells sub-
sequently ceased to grow, with disappearance of the stimulus, and
were finally absorbed." Smith stressed that " if specialists had
then assumed that quite other substances than scarlet red and
indophenol can cause overgrowths, as we now know, and that
some of the substances may be the products of tumor-producing
parasites, as also we now know, how suddenly luminous the whole
subject would have become and what an incentive it would have
given, and still gives, to further research! "

When, therefore, five and one-half years later. Smith examined
the facts concerning experimental cancers reported from injec-
tions with anilin compounds — "Anilin-Dye Cancers," ^ he called
them — he explained more about Fischer's " remarkable results . . .
obtained by injecting rabbits' ears with olive oil saturated with
scarlet red." Describing why subsequent experiments, whichj
followed the "' good deal of interest " created by Fischer's pub-
lication, failed, he suggested, "Here apparently, as in case of
the coal-tar treatments, the failures were due to lack of persis-
tency on the part of the experimenters, since in 1918 Yamagiwa
and Ohno reported success with scarlet red dissolved in olive oil
when injected into the wall of the ovary in hens (Gann, Bd. XII,

^ op. cit., AAA.

"Twentieth century advances in cancer research, op. cit., 315. By 1945 the sub-
stances of known tumor-inducing effectiveness, chemical, mechanical, physical, etc.,
were believed to be " at last accounting . . . more than 290 " in number. See Peyton
Rous " Concerning the Cancer Problem," Ajnerican Scientist 34: 329-358, at 336,
1946'. This paper, presented that year in the Sigma Xi national lectureships, is
especially valuable for its discussion of "' tumor-producing viruses," and mentioned
among other carcmogenic agents the hydrocarbons and "' fat soluble dyes Sudan III
and Scharlach R."

Last Work. Final Honors 581

S. 3). Their experiments began in December, 1914," and, after
presenting what data concerning these he had been able to find,
Smith urged that the work be repeated for the purpose of veri-
fication. A tumor obtained with a one per cent solution of Sudan
III in olive oil by Dr. Nobumasa Umehara, professor of general
pathology and pathological anatomy in the medical high school in
Kyoto, Japan, was also described. Smith's interests embraced the
whole range of environmental and genetic influences in tumor
production. Each way to break " new ground " to solve the
problems of tumors was important.

Since his years, belief in his general theory of chemically
induced plant galls has been consistently furthered. Many of
his conclusions, and those of other workers of his generation,
have undergone modification, revision, and refinement. But con-
sistently there has been an extension of many of the principles
which he first elaborated. There is an " extensive literature " '
about auxins, which have been shown to be " particularly active "
in gall production. Mitchell, Burris, and Riker ^ have listed other
important more or less recent studies. They say:

The use of lanolin as a carrier was a great improvement in experimental
procedure. With it chemicals could be released in continuing sublethal
concentrations over relatively long periods. Brown and Gardner (1936)*
grew crown-rjall cultures in media containing peptone with some trypto-
phan added. An ether extract of the culture was dried, incorporated into
lanolin and applied to bean plants. Excellent galls developed. No control
with the unfcrmented medium was reported. However, Kraus (1941) ^'^
showed that 2 per cent tryptophan in lanolin was active. Also Brown and
Gardner used 2 per cent indole- 3-acetic acid in lanolin and secured
excellent galls. The concept has developed that a chemical cause of crown
gall has been found.

In 1935 Miss Brown, still with the Department of Agriculture
and continuing her studies of Bacterium tumefaciens, thought of
producing a plant gall with indoleacetic acid and, in so doing,
made an important discovery. A growth substance was extracted

' F. Skoog, Growth substances in higher plants, Atm. Rev. Biochem. 16: 529-564,
1947.

* Inhibition of respiration in plant tissues by callus stimulating substances and
related chemicals, op. cit., 368-369.

582 Third European Journey

from cultures of Bacterium tumefaciens', and in 1936, she and
Dr. Gardner announced " a hormone extracted " from the crown
gall bacterium. " In a theory of gall formation," they said, " it is
not the mere presence of the organism that leads to overgrowths
but rather the stimulus of certain products of the organism's
metabolism." At that time they obtained " no definite informa-
tion " as to " the chemical nature of the growth-promoting sub-
stance from Bacterium tumejaciens or to the best method of its
extraction." But the work was continued and new studies were
suggested.

Dr. Kraus, Miss Brown, and Dr. K. C. Hamner began a new set
of investigations, results of which were announced in December.^"-
Many similarities in phenomena were found to exist between bean
plant tissues inoculated with Bacterium tumejaciens and those
tissues to which indoleacetic acid was applied. That Smith's work,
a decade after his death, was still having influence is indicated
by the following quotation from their published results: " The
histological responses of the cells of the bean plant to indole-
acetic acid," they said, " show many developmental patterns which
are almost exact duplicates of those Smith, Brown, and McCulloch
have shown for crown gall. Those which follow the application
of the indoleacetic acid are somewhat more pronounced."

Not every research-phase of this vast subject can be treated
here. The various investigation-aspects of the many problems, as
in Smith's time, are very much in the current scientific literature.
Recently, R. S. de Ropp of the New York Botanical Garden has
evaluated the important work done on " Plant tumours and
Animal Cancer." ^- He points out that " the work on plant
tumours has brought to light three factors — virus, hormone and
genetic — which may act singly or in combination to produce
pathological growth. This trio of etiological agents," he adds,
" is already familiar to students of animal cancer." Three forms
of plant tumors which have " certain properties in common with
those neoplasms in animals which are collectively referred to as
cancers " are described, and he says that the " resemblance is

" E. J. Kraus, N. A. Brown, and Hamner, Histological reactions of bean plants
to indoleacetic acid, Bot. Gaz. 98(2): 370-420, Dec. 1936; also, Bot. Gaz. 98(4):
735-807, June 1937. Quotation at 4l4.

^"Nature 160(4075): 780-782, Dec. 6, 1947. See also by de Ropp, Some new
plant growth inhibitors, Science 112(2913): 500-501, Oct. 27, 1950.

Last Work. Final Honors 583

closest in bactcria-frcc ci\)\\n-L;all tissue, "' and in L. M. Black's
" virus-tumour tissue." The *" virus wound tumour " i^Anwrican
Jourfhtl of Botiiny 32: 408, 19-1'S) is described as follows:

Susceptible plants can be alfcctcJ with the wound tumour virus cither
throii'Ji ihc ar.cncy oi acalliaii leal hoppers or by bein^i; _L;r.'.lted to iiile. fed
plants. Infection is systematic and symptoms include enlargement of the
veins as well as the formation of tumours on roots and stems in many
species of infected plants. Most of these tumours appear to arise at points
where root or stem has been wounded. Black {Nature 158: 56, 19 16)
showed that the tumour tissue from sorrel could be cultured for as long as
twenty months on an artificial medium without the production of roots,
stems or leaves. 0n being grafted back to healthy plants, tissues from
these cultures induced a systemic infection in the stocks, showing that the
virus was still present. Such a tumour-producing virus has obvious resem-
blances to entities such as the Rous sarcoma or the Bittner milk factor.

De Ropp's discussion of the work on bacteria-free crown gall
tissue included that of many workers since Smith's time: his own,
Braun and White, Riker, T. Laskaris, E. M. Hildebrand, A. C.
Hildebrandt, and others. The explanation of a tumefacient factor
and a growth hormone seems indicated from most of the studies.
However, it is said:

If a virus is responsible for the formation of induced tumours, it is
probably of the type transmissible only by grafting, as extracts of tumour
tissue are without effect on normal tissue [White and Braun, Cd/zf^r
Research, op. cit.\ de Ropp, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 75(1) : 45-50, 1948].
The existence of such a bacteria-borne tumefacient factor has still not been
conclusively demonstrated.

At the 1949 meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, Dr. Braun presented a paper on the
development and proliferation of plant cancers caused by crown
gall bacteria. In this he described experiments, the results of
which pointed to the conclusion that "it is before and during
early stages of active wound healing that normal cells are con-
verted into tumor cells." Two factors (among the other important
conclusions reached) were elaborated: first, a w^ound by which
the bacteria gain entrance to the plant and, second, a time factor
during which the " tumor-inducing principle," probably a hor-
mone, transforms the " normal plant cells to tumor cells." Because
of his studies " so well designed that they chart a basic course

584 Third European Journey

in man's understanding of the greatest human malady," he was
given the association's annual one thousand dollar prize.^^

According to deRopp, the third form of plant tumors — on
hybrids of Nicotiana Langsdorfi and N. glauca — are of interest
because, to quote him, " the abnormal growth results " from a
cytoplasmic disturbance occasioned by the introduction of the
chromosome complement of N. Langsdorfi into the cytoplasm of
N, glauca. . . . Such tumours," deRopp says,

develop only in hybrids in which N. Langsdorfi is used as the pollen parent.
The tumour tissue was cultured in vitro by White (Amer. Jour. Bot. 26:
59, 1939), who showed that it would continue to grow as a tumour when
grafted back on to normal plants. He showed also that this tumour tissue
was capable of differentiating organs in vitro, in which respect it differs
from crown-gall tissue and virus wound-tumour tissue.

That Smith adhered to a parasitic theory of animal cancer
etiology seems undoubted. But what form, or the nature and
mode of action, of parasite or parasitic agency was stated on the
basis only of what authentic experimental evidence allowed. He
believed that " the products of parasites or symbionts [are] the
probable cause of most cancers or at least of their initial stages." ^^
A preponderance of utterances seems to have favored a virus
interpretation, as yet experimentally undetermined: analogous to
the bacterium of tumors in plants. In practically the last working
years of his life, 1926, he would still be urging more research
on the cancer cell: " Is the stimulus to this malignant overgrowth
intrinsic or extrinsic? " he would ask. " Does it come from within
the cell, due to some change in its internal mechanism brought
about by a parasite or by some non-living irritant, or is it due to
a changed environment acting on an otherwise normal cell ? Here
is the problem that lies just ahead of us." ^®

Since 1922 he had given a large share of his attention to an
important series of experimental tests to determine with the use
of the potentiometer and electrometric titration the hydrogen-ion
concentration and total acidity of various crown gall tumors. The

"■^ Science 111(2871): 21, Jan. 6, 1950; abstract of Dr. Braun's paper, Thermal
inactivation studies on the tumor-inducing principle in crown gall, Phytopathology
40(1): 3, Jan. 1950.

^* T. W. Whitaker, ]our. Arnold Arbore!u?n 15: 144, 1934.

^^ Twen. cent, adv's in cancer research, op. cit., 316.

^* Recent cancer research, op. cit., 246.

Last Work. Final Honors 585

purpose was to ascertain tlic exact amount of acidity in tumor
juices over and above normal plant juices scaled down to phenol-
phthalcin neutrality, to determine the ranges of tolerance of
various plants to acids and alkalies, in other words, to fix for
each set of phenomena the so-called pH factor at which, among
other points, bacterial growth and gall development will be
inhibited. In 1923, at the annual meeting of the American Asso-
ciation for Cancer Research, Dr. Smith had been elected vice
president of the organization, and in 1924 he had been elevated
by the association's council to the office of president. This took
place at its seventeenth annual meeting which was held that year
at Buffalo and at this meeting Dr. Smith (and Miss Agnes J.
Quirk) presented a paper on " Hydrogen-Ion Content and Total
Acidit}' in Crown-Gall Tumors." '' Since 1917 Smith had asso-
ciated ammonia production with the pathogenicity of Bacterium
tuviefacieus. It may be added, furthermore, that today ammonia
production is believed to be the factor most common among the
various gall-stimulating bacteria. In this paper he again indi-
cated his belief that a " combined acid," (in part, ammonia) is
fundamental as a factor in the origin of crown gall tumors.
Some interesting observations on oxidation phenomena were also
revealed. But one theory appears to have been quite definitely
shaping in his mind, a theory based on his belief as to the
inhibitory action by acids in gall development. This would have
a bearing on his later explanation of immunity manifest in some
varieties of plants to crown gall. Much future research would be
done by him and other workers along these lines.

On April 1, 1924, he had '" completed [his] abstract of Poten-
tiometer work on crow^n gall as far as [they had] gone — 170
experiments," he wrote in his diary. '" Tests are yet to be made
on 6 other groups of inoculated plants, making in all about 200
experiments." On April 9, he participated in a symposium on
cancer of the District of Columbia medical society. Approximately
one hundred and twenty doctors were present, and he spoke
on " Biological Aspects of Cancer." In his address before the
American Association for Cancer Research he announced many

^' Jour. Cancer Research 8: 515-516, 537 f., 1924. Entries in Smith's diaries for
the summer of 1923 are interesting in this connection, as, for instance, that of
July 17.

586 Third European Journey

interesting conclusions, all building to the final point that "Appar-
ently the acid produced by Bacterimn tumejaclens is locked up in
the tumors nearly or quite as fast as it is produced, but it may
nevertheless be the active agent in inciting the cells to abnormal
division." More than 250 potentiometer tests of juices from
normal and diseased tissues of sunflower, sugar beet, and other
plants, had been made, and most of the tumors studied varied in
age from three to six weeks, thorough tests of the youngest
tumors and the youngest, outermost parts of older tumors not
being included. " The general trend of the experiments," he
suggested, " indicates that the apical, actively-growing parts of a
normal vegetative plant, especially Helianthus annuus, are more
alkaline than the middle or lower parts where growth is less
active." From sugar beet, comparisons were drawn between the
juice alkalinity of youngest and full-grown leaves, and between
the juice alkalinity of blades of full-grown leaves and their
petioles. In general, the tumor juice, especially for sugar beet,
was found to be " more alkaline than the juice of corresponding
normal parts, and the older the tumors, up to a certain stage,
i. e. until secondary invasions have set in, the more alkaline " was
found " their juice — with some few exceptions." Electrometric
titrations followed the determinations of pH, and further inves-
tigations were promised to decide " whether the tumor juice is
ever more acid than the normal juice, as we believed," said Smith,
" would prove to be the case when we began these experiments.
... It seems to be so in some instances. It is less alkaline in early
stages of growth and in a few instances it has been more acid
than normal juice and in other instances it has been of the same
pH value, but such readings have not been very numerous." Smith
illustrated his paper with twenty-two lantern slides which showed
some of the results of their fifteen months of work.

Immediately on returning to Washington, he and his co-workers
continued potentiometer tests of crown galls on sugar beet and
sunflower, and on May 2 he started study of "' galled Ricinus
plants inoculated April 9th." By June 6 the work included
" crowngall on Cauliflower. Doubtful," however, he said, " if pH
can be determined electrically. Something seems to interfere."
Crown galls on other plants were tested. But not until mid-
summer did his diary contain any important memorandum of
conclusions. July 31 he wrote:

Last Work. I'inai. Honors 587

Did on the potentiometer the last of the stem crown^alls on the Garden
sunflowers of the second plantin;;. They consistently have hail a hit^her
acidity (pH) and a s^reater total acid (I'liller scale reading) than any of
the normal parts of any atje; even the youngest. Tlie youngest part have
almost as little acidity as pure water, hi these particulars the sunflower is
unlike the sui;ar beet. That plant is more acid and the crownt^alls on it are
less acid than the tissues out of which they are developed whereas just the
reverse is the case in the sunflower, i. e. tumors more acid than the tissues
out of which they have developed.

The following September, when Dr. and Mrs. Smith went to
Europe, he took with him his notes of that summer's potentiometer
crown gall studjes, and plann^ed to add these results to those
announced at the Buffalo meeting of the cancer research asso-
ciation. Some of the conclusions furnished a basis for addresses
given by him in Europe. Further, the prepared program of the
Association's eighteenth annual meeting, held in Washington
May 4, 1925, soon after his return, announced that he would
present a paper, "Additional notes on the pH of crown-gall
tumors." Evidently, however, regarding the new research matters
which he found while in Europe more important, he substituted
another address, " Some Newer Aspects of Cancer Research."
Medical men had confidence in him. In 1923, when Dr. Willy
Meyer, former president of the association's council, ^^ telegraphed
his congratulations because of Smith's election as vice president,
the latter wrote in his diary of Dr. Meyer: " He is a New York
surgeon greatly interested in some of my work. He perfected a
major operation for breast cancer. I saw him operated on for gall
stones by Dr. W. J. Mayo in 1913 at Rochester, Minnesota. He
said once in my Laboratory, ' Doctor, may you live a thousand
years! ' " Dr. Bloodgood once said ^^ of Smith to someone else,
" I have picked him to find the cause of cancer." Remember,
furthermore, that Smith had been elected president of the cancer
research association by a council composed of president William
Duane, secretary-treasurer W. H. Woglom, Dr. Robert B. Green-
ough, Dr. Meyer, Dr. Ewing, Dr. H. G. Wells, Dr. Frederick
Prime, and Dr. Francis Carter Wood. These men were all
medical doctors of the highest order.

Dr. Smith appraised highly the value of pH, total-acid, and

^^ four. Cancer Research 8: 137.
" Smith's diary, Dt-cember 8, 1922.

588 Third European Journey

oxidation determinations, as bases for comparative study of normal
and diseased tissue juice from various plants. That he gave fully
one-half of his working hours to this type of research in his
laboratory, especially as the work began to elaborate growth
accelerating and growth inhibiting formulas for the study of bac-
terial organisms, indicates his interest and belief in its possibilities.
After his cancer research association address, within less than
two months, he had completed 325 experiments, and several more
series, including some on Bryophyllum and Ricinus, were planned.

But this work was but one department of his laboratory. Many
papers on other subjects had been, or were being, completed by
his co-workers. November 6, 1923, Miss Bryan was working on
a paper on a disease of delphinium; Miss Brown, on a paper on
limb knot of apple; Miss McCulloch, a paper on a spot disease
of gladiolus; Miss Fawcett, one on B. tracheiphilus in media
curves of growth; Dr. Braun, one on pythium disease of Pelar-
gonium; Miss Elliott, on a paper with Smith on Bacterium andro-
pogom and another paper by herself on several cereal spots;
Miss Hedges, a paper on bean wilt, and from 1922 to 1926 she
discovered and described a new and destructive bean disease
caused by Bacterium flaccumfaciens; Dr. Rand and Miss Cash, a
paper on Stewart's disease of maize transmitted by Diabrotica
duodecempunctata\ Dr. McKenney, a paper on field treatment of
soil for Bacterium solanacearum; and Miss Quirk, with Smith, a
paper on hydrogen-ion concentration of crown gall fluids versus
normal juice of sugar beet and sunflower. In 1923 Miss Quirk
and Miss Fawcett, with Dr. Smith's aid, had published studies on
the hydrogen-ion concentration of culture media as compared with
Fuller scale readings. In this had been elaborated " the approxi-
mate ranges of growth (acid-alkaline)" of more than two dozen
bacteria pathogenic to plants. An abundant, steady increase in
learning about plant bacteria and bacterial diseases of plants was
being published from this laboratory.

Late in the year 1922 and early in 1923 the first centennial of
Pasteur's birth had been celebrated; and in at least two com-
memorative events in this country Dr. Smith had participated.
At a celebration held at Rutgers College on December 20, 1922,
he had spoken on " Pasteur — the man," ^^ and on January 10,

""Scientific Monthly 16(3): 269-279, March 1923.

Last Work. Fin'.m Honors 589

1923, at the more elaborate Pasteur (xntenary of the New York
Academy of Medicine, on " Pasteur's study of silkworm diseases."
On these programs were other celebrities: at Rutgers, Drs. R.
G. Wright, j. G. I.ipman, and J. F. Anderson, at the New
York Academy, Drs. R. H. Chittenden, Hermann Riggs, Theobald
Smith, Simon Flcxncr, W. H. Welch, and W. W. Keen. He could
have spoken at other centenary celebrations, but refused because
he had so often given addresses on the man who he thought had
" moved the world." '^ He would have accepted the invitation
from the American Museum of Natural History to speak on
Pasteur's contribution to agriculture, but, being away from Wash-
ington at the time, he did not receive the invitation soon enough.
Smith was a collector of Pasteuriana, and he lent some of his
photographs and a bronze figure fifteen inches high of the great
Frenchman to the New York Academy of Medicine occasion.
His new studies added to his high rating as an authority on the
life and work of Pasteur. Especially appreciated was his trans-
lation of a paper by Emile Roux on " The Medical Work of
Pasteur." " His and Miss Hedges' translation of Duclaux's Pas-
teur. The History of a Mind had been received as a " history of
two minds " because of the senior translator's excellent appraisal
of the life and work of Duclaux. As a scientist, Smith had been
recognized many times by workers and officials of the Pasteur
Institute. Brazilian O. da Fonseca, who had studied in Smith's
laboratory, found when he went to Paris to study that Smith's
crown gall specimens, left at the Institute in 1913, were still
there, and mycologist Magrou had much to say about his work
and books. That year another former student from Smith's labora-
tory, K. Nakata, wrote from the Rothamsted Experiment Station
of England and expressed similar appreciation of the recognition
he found being accorded an American's work. Etienne Burnet of
the Institut Pasteur in Tunis, Director Roux, Dr. A. Berthelot, chief
of the laboratories, Dr. Calmctte, and Dr. Magrou of the Pasteur
Institute of Paris each congratulated and commended Smith for
various of his writings about " the maker of new pathways in half
a dozen fields of science." "^

In 1923, moreover, Dr. Smith represented the Bureau of Plant

=' E. F. Smith, Louis Pasteur, Nuture 8(6): 346-347, Dec. 1926.
""■ Scientific Monthy 21(4): 364-389, Oct. 1925.
*' E. F. Smith, Louis Pasteur, op. cit., 346.

590 Third European Journey

Industry as a delegate to the centenary observance which honored
Joseph Leidy, whose " chief contributions," Smith believed, " were
in comparative anatomy, palaeontology (fossil vertebrates of the
Cretaceous era) and protozoology." He did not give an address
at this occasion. But, at many other times, he had been called
upon for oral as well as written disquisitions. His interests in
civic and literary matters brought forth as many requests as his
work in science. In 1916 he had been asked to prepare an "in
memoriam " tribute to Thomas J. Burrill,-* and in 1918 he wrote
an appreciative sketch of the unique and productive career as a
plant explorer of Frank N. Meyer. -^ Time and the years had given
to Smith many, many enjoyable friendships, and the opportunities
were now arriving for his co-workers and friends to honor him.
Perhaps the first of such recognitions was the annual dinner of
the Washington Botanical Society, held March 4, 1924, at the
Ebbitt House, when Dr. Smith, now seventy years of age, was
guest of honor. At this occasion, he chose to present a character
portrayal of himself, " Some thoughts on old age." ^^ Early in
1923 he had charted a work-plan for the rest of his life. " I have
been so interested in my work," he said,"'

that the years have slipped away unheeded and now I observe by various
signs that I am growing old with not half of my work accomplished. It is
always the way, I suppose, with men who are absorbed in what they are
doing. I should like (1) to finish [translating the sonnets of Jose-Maria
de} Heredia,-^ (2) publish a new volume of sonnets, (3) write an auto-
biography, (4) do a book on a scientific man's religion, (5) complete the
unfinished volume of the Carnegie monograph. Alas, there is little time
left ! But I am not sad, only a little melancholy.

A discovery of the following mid-summer caused him to revise
these plans. While working at pH determinations of crown gall
juice from sunflower, he noticed one day that " four of the sun-
flowers which were inoculated in the young flower head with
crowngall bacteria " almost a month before had " developed
abnormally, giving rise in the center of the heads to strop-shaped

^* Jour. Bacteriology 1(3): 269-271, May 1916.
^'Science 48(1240): 335-336, Oct. 4, 1918.
-^ ]our. Washir2gton Acad, of Sci 14(11): 231-238, 1924.
^^ Diary, Feb. 1, 1923.

28

Work never completed, but many of the sonnets published in For Her Friends
and Mine, op. cit., 341 ff.

Last Work. Final Honors 591

flowers." -^ He photographed one, and added to his memorandum:
" 14 of these yellow flowers and 18 subtending green bracts. Some
small tumors in the vicinity but most in stem under the flower
head.'" His potentiometer tests of sugar beet crown galls had
yielded results " consistent with all that have preceded. The
tumors, even these relatively young ones none of which show any
necroses, [were] 2-4/10 pH more alkalme than the normal tissues
of the sound sides of same beets." Most of the month had been
given, therefore, to testing the sunflower crown galls for pH and
total titratable acidity, and the work had brought forth a discovery
of sterile ray flowers in the middle of sunflower heads. The full
significance of thfS was not realized until the following years,
1924 and 1925. But, during 1923, he did not forget what he had
observed, and later, when we consider his work of these years,
we shall find this discovery supplying the basis for months of
research.

During August of that year, Dr. and Mrs. Smith attended a
reunion of old residents of Gilberts Mills, New York, and then
took a journey into Canada and the New England states.

W^hen he returned to his laboratory, his attention was at once
called to the " good grov.-th " some Begonia plants had made
during the passed six weeks. In April he had begun experiments,
evidently injuring leaves in one way or another to study any
resulting proliferations. But he was disturbed to find the varia-
tions in proliferation graded from " very slight " to abundant,
and so he started some new experiments to restudy the results.
At some time either that year or early in the next, nematode galls
due to Heterodera radidcola were found on the crowns of a tall-
growing begonia. The same cultures of Bacterium tumefaciens
which produced tumors in sunflowers, sugar beets, and Ricinus
plants failed to produce tumors on Begonia lucerna, although
the experiments were three times repeated. Dr. Smith and Miss
Quirk, therefore, began a series of potentiometer studies on this
plant. Begonia phyllomaniaca which had been the subject of the
spring to autumn 1923 experiments, and other begonias.^" Even-
tually the studies were extended to onions, garlic, banana, sugar
cane, and many other plants to determine not only their acidity

"' Dian*, 1923, July 23; quotation concerning sugar beet crown palls, July 2.
'" A " B. P. I. Hybrid Begonia " was another variety especially studied.

592 Third European Joi/rney

but also their immunity or semi-immunity to crown gall. These
tests and examinations also were to last through the years 1924
and 1925; and from their results they would publish their paper
on Begonia lucerna, "A Begonia Immune to Crowngall: with
observations on other immune or semi-immune plants." ^^ All of
the begonias were found to contain oxalic acid and to be " rather
resistant to crowngall inoculations," but their final conclusion
read:

We started out with the assumption that the pH controlled tumor forma-
tion and that no tumors could be produced on plants having; a greater
acidity than pH 5.00, but the final experiments show that we have been
able to produce crowngall tumors on three begonias having a very much
more acid juice reaction than any the organism will tolerate in fluid cul-
tures. The only conclusion we have come to is that mass action must control
infection, /'. e., if you can once get a tumor started in a tissue, even in a very
acid tissue, it will make its own milieu and continue to grow in spite of the
inhibiting pH. This probably would be true even on Begotiia lucerna.
Considering these results, it is premature to state that no crowngall tumors
can be produced on the plants mentioned and supposed hitherto to be
immune owing to their acid juice. Further experiments should be made,
but it is still believed that crowngall tumors on such plants are non-existent
in a state of nature. Other factors than acidity of course may determine
resistance in some of these plants.

Smith's idea that bacterial growth may be inhibited by pH
alone is now known to be sound. Under definite conditions, bac-
terial growth and gall development in tissue culture are inhibited
at about pH 4.5. Oxalic acid, furthermore, is now high on the
list of organic acids known to be inhibiting and bactericidal at
high concentrations.^'

Another discovery made in September of 1923 was " some very
astonishing fasciations in flower head of a Dahlia." ^^ Immediately
he had this photographed, and poured plates for their study. In
1921 he had prepared an explanatory note on " Fasciation of plants
due to bacterial infection." ^* This was to accompany the pub-
lication of four or five photographs of crown gall inoculations on
nasturtium. Early in 1922 he had studied at the microscope sections

'^^Phytopathology 16(8): 491-508, Aug. 1926, and reprint.

^^ A. J. Riker, Studies on the influence of some environmental factors on the
development of crown gall, ]our. Agr. Res. 32(1): 83-96, 1926; Hildebrandt and
Riker, op. cit., 83 ; memorandum to author by Dr. Riker.
Diary, Sept. 12.
Diary, Dec. 23.

33
34

Last W'oKK. I-inai. 1 logons 593

of Tropacolum fasciatioii due to crown gall, and prepared a short
paper which was afterward revised with new material from
further study added, and published by Phytolhithology''' under
the title " Fasciation and prolepsis due to crowngall." At one
time, most of the crown gall inoculated nasturtiums showed
" shoots developing from the inoculated axil and from no other."
He photographed one plant which had " three sets of branches,'"
the main axis bearing secondary, tertiary, and quaternary shoots,
all within a period of two months. " Strangely suggestive," he
commented, " of what occurs in peach yellows." ^° Within a few
months he photographed a nasturtium shoot which showed that
the translocation of starch had been hindered by a crown gall.
His memoranda read:" "There is much more in two swollen
shoots from this axil than in the main stem. The main stem is
long and has many leaves. These shoots have lost almost all
leaves and the larger ones have begun to shrivel at apex (5 of
the 12 inches). These stems ha\;e a diameter twice that of the
main axis below the tumor. There is more sugar in the juice of
the main axis." After dissecting more shoots, he found there wms
a " damming back of the starch."

In his paper on the subject he suggested that in this disease

we may have all varieties of stimulating secondary effects on normal tissues,
from prolepsis of uninjured leaf and flower bud and root anlage in the
vicinity of the tumors, through simple fusions or divisions (fasciations),
to the breaking up of the dormant bud, or of a cambium, into dozens and
even hundreds of small vegetative fragments which may either grow as
roots or shoots on the surface of the tumor or be buried in its depths.

As interesting as any suggestion w^as his assumption that the
initial disturbance may have begun in the embryonic or dormant
bud stage — an observation not unlike the embryonal hypothesis
of the origin of cancer, possibly. Smith pointed out that similar
phenomena were to be found in the animal world — " many
interesting figures of trunk and limb duplications or fusions,
especially of parts of the human body." Recently, he said, Charles
Rupert Stockard, professor of anatomy of Cornell Medical College
and an investigator for the Huntington Fund for Cancer Research,
and others, had started experimental studies, and these Smith

'= 12: 263-270, 1922.
""Diar)-, Jan. 14, 1922.
"'Diary, April 13, 14, 1922.

594 Third European Journey

commended, since he was convinced that the problem would have
to be solved by experimental methods.

His study of the problem with plants did not end here. In
September of 1923, when agar poured plates taken from the base
of the fasciated Dahlia revealed " dendritic strongly iridescent
colonies, white, brownish, blue, or purple, according to the
lighting," he began taking some field notes and his memorandum
reads: ^® " It is a big double pink and the only fasciated pl[ant]
in 36 plates. I counted more than 50 fasciated blossom shoots
and no good flowers. Two fasciations have given 3-4 strop-shaped
pink petioles among the many green bracts." He photographed
these along with perfect flowers from the next plants in the row.
In April 1926 the Journal of Heredity ^^ published as its frontis-
piece of that issue two photographs entitled, " Fasciation of
Dahlia," with the following description by Smith:

A full double pink Dahlia, one plant of which was fasciated as here
shown. This was a large much branched very leafy plant. There were many
floral axes stretched three to six inches and covered with green bracts.
There were no normal flowers on this plant, but occasionally a few pink
petals appeared, as on these two shoots. In addition to its excessive vege-
tative growth the plant differed visibly from its fellows only in having an
injured main axis into which rainwater had penetrated. This cavity
extending through several internodes was full of a mixed bacterial growth,
and the fasciation is attributed to the action of ammonia and other bacterial
by-products. Some of these fasciations were much more striking. One of
them had seven centers of growth at its apex. Types of the colonies ob-
tained on poured plates are also shown. There were at least three sorts,
yellow colonies, round white colonies and iridescent branched ones. Unfor-
tunately the cultures were lost before experimental inoculations could be
made.

No later than 1918,*° he had stated his belief that " thyloses,
fasciations, distortions of tissues, and various duplications, sim-
plications and inverse tissue differentiations are caused by the
excretions of feeble parasites although in nature probably all are
not so caused."

In 1923 Smith received some specimens of " early stages of
aerial galls on apple " which showed " dead buds as though the
swelling which is a root anlage might be started by death of the

''Diary, Sept. 14, 18, 1923.

*' 17(4): opposite p. 113, Apr. 1926.

*" The relations of crown-gall to other overgrowths in plants, op. cit., 453.

Last W'oi^k. I-inai, Honors 595

buds. They su ingest," he wrote in his diary May 22, " the tume-
factions I got on Bryophylkim by moving from cool to warm
house." Since 1908 he and Miss Brown had recognized that the
apple strain of the crown gall organism possessed a tendency
under definite conditions to produce roots in conjunction with
tumors. In liis textbook of 1920 '^ he had said:

In 1916 the writer discovered crown galls bearing leafy shoots and
sivbsequcntly produced many by needle-puncture inoculation on stems and
leaves of tobacco, Pelargonium and other plants. Earlier than this by some
years, Miss Brown and 'myself had demonstrated that crown galls may bear
roots (hairy root of apple, etc.) but I did not then perceive the full
meaning and trend of this discovery, viz., that because the type of a crown
gall depends on the kind of tissues inoculated it should be just as easy to
produce tumors bearing leafy shoots or flower buds as roots. This had to
be stumbled upon to be seen, like many another perfectly obvious thing.
Its discovery, however, it seems to me, adds very considerably to our knowl-
edge of the nature of crown gall and throws a flood of light also on the
origin of animal teratomas.

Crown galls occur very often on what gardeners call the
" crown " oi the plant. They may develop on any part of the
root or shoot, and are " very common above ground on the
branches of the daisy, grape, quince, apple, rose, willow and
poplar. They are also common on the roots of a variety of plants
but must not be confused," Smith pointed out,"' '" with root galls
due to nematodes." In 1908 he expressed " little doubt " " that
hairy root of the apple is of bacterial origin and caused by a
" similar if not identical organism " as in the case of crown galls.
The crown gall and hairy root bacteria have since been differen-
tiated." Infectious hairy root of apple is now belived to be caused
by Phytomonas [Bacterium'] rbizogenes, an organism distinguish-
able from Bacterium tumejaciens.

In 1925, in the Journal of Heredity,"" Dr. Smith published

*' Intro, to bcjct. dis. of plants, op. cit., 419, 421.

^ndem. All.

*^ The etiology of pl.tnt tumors, op. cit., chap. VIII. See also, N. A. Brown, The
tendency of the crown-gall organism to produce roots in conjunction with tumors.
Jour. Agric. Res. 39(10): 747 ff. (G. G. Hedgcock accredited with establishing in
1905 the pathological effect of crown gall on orchard trees. Crown gall and infec-
tious hairy root of apple considered also as the same disease).

*' A. T. Riker, Studies on infectious hairy root of nursery apple trees. Jour. Agric.
Res. 41(7): 507 ff., Oct. 1, 1930.

*' 16(8): opposite p. 273, Aug. 1925.

596 Third European Journey

another photograph of a " Tumor formation in Bryophyllum."
This was also a frontispiece, and was published to show that " one
successful crowngall inoculation on Bryophylhnn calycmmn does
not protect from a second inoculation." His explanation read:

The base of the plant was inoculated with the hop strain of Bacterium
tumejaciens March 22, 1920. The top of the plant was inoculated with
the same strain of the organism on October 3, 1921, after the lower tumor
had become of large size. Photographed March 2, 1922, about one-third
natural size, i. e., the height of the plant was 20 inches. At this date both
tumors were still free from necrosis, the lower tumor being nearly two
years old and the upper one over five months.

Smith's two most important publications of this period were
communicated in 1924 and 1926 to the National Academy of
Sciences: the first,, " Tumors, cysts, pith bundles, and floral pro-
liferations in Helianthus," '' and the second, an abstract of which
was published also in Science,''^ " Changes of structure due to a
modified environment. A study of labile protoplasm in Helianthus
anmius L." Following his discovery in 1923 of four sunflower
heads with strop-shaped flowers located in the middle of the head
and among tubular disk flowers, he found on July 25, 1924,
"" tumor strands " in the pith of sunflowers inoculated twenty-two
days previously. He fixed one in carnoy for sections, and this,
when examined on August 29, was seen to be " a perfect vascular
cylinder in the center of the pith and in its center [were] tumor
cells." Immediately he wanted to know whether these phenomena
could be obtained by simple woundings and in the absence of
tumor irritation. He had studied the effects of simple wounds on
other plants. On about sixty undeveloped sunflower heads, he
punched out the middle of the torus, but three ^^ weeks later he
examined them in blossom and could find " no evidence of any
central strop-shaped flowers." Believing that '" the woundings and
inoculations " had not been made early enough, he decided to
repeat the experiments the next year.

From the beginning of his study of these phenomena, it appears,
he attributed their occurrence to some " mechanical traumatic

^«Mew. Nafl Acad. Sci. 22(4): 1-50, 43 pi., 1924.
*' 63(1637): 505, May 14, 1926.

^* Twenty-five days for one set. Eleven days for another. Diary, Aug. 18, for
conclusions.

Last Work. Final Honors Y)1

displacements occurring in tlic early lifc"^'' of tlic plants. His
final explanation of the "cysts" or "cavities in the pith, lined
by a well-defined small celled membrane," which he later dis-
covered, was that these were " the result of implantation of tiny
fragments of torus into the tissues under the torus." This was
the simplest explanation, he said, but also in his mind was the
question, '" may they not be the product of very young pith cells
abnormally stimulated.'* Their regularity would suggest this. If
the ray flowers out of the place were fertile," he commented,
" we might infer that they got an excess of nutrient substances,
but as they are sterile like the normal rays, we may suppose that
they are tubular flowers converted into sterile ray flowers through
some defect in nutrition."

A theory of parasitism was also advanced. Along with his
potentiometer tests of inoculated plants that year to determine at
what day-and-night hours the maxima and minima readings for
pH and total acidity fall, he had been studying the influence of
light, among other environmental features, as a factor in the
stored acid content of tumors. He studied in other plants bud
germination and the interference of functions subserved in the
process by sugars and starch in various parts of young and old
plants. His memoir, " Tumors, cysts, pith bundles, and floral
proliferations in Helianthus," ^° covered special investigations
which lasted from 1924 through 1926; but the summary of his
results in his paper, " Changes of structure due to a modified
environment," reads:

These results were first obtained by inoculating the crowngall organism
{Bacterium tutnefaciens) into young flower heads and so far this method
has given the most numerous and striking examples, but the same results,
exclusive of the supernumerary capitula, were obtained in a smaller number
of instances from simply dislocating tiny fragments of tissue of the recep-
tacle by means of repeated needle punctures. The results show that cysts
are independent of tumor formation, but in case of the bacterial inocula-
tions the walls of the cysts bore numerous tumors which were either discrete
or fused over long distances. These crowngalls frequently filled the cyst
cavity and stretched it, often rupturing its walls to appear on the surface
of the stem. My experiments were made in 1923-1924, and were repeated

** Tumors, cysts, pith bundles, and floral proliferations, op. cii., summary.

^"Smith's diar)' shows that lie wrote the memoir in 192'>. He may have bequn to
report his discoveries of 1924 to the Academy that year. Evidently a delay in pub-
lishing his paper enabled him to include his confirmatory results of 1926.

20

598 Third European Journey

on a larger scale in 1925 with the same results. It is the first time I have
observed cysts in connection with crowngalls.

On June 18, 1925, Smith inoculated " about 90 sunflowers . . .
in the small undeveloped flower head hoping to get again strop-
flowers in center of the heads." By July 15 the five or six heads
" smallest when inoculated " showed " large green bracts in the
center " and would, he believed, later " show central strop shaped
flowers." Two days passed, and twenty of the inoculated plants
showed " large central green bracts and the beginnings " of the
phenomenon. He wounded eighty side buds of small heads in
the center with a scalpel and in each case cut out a central piece
of the torus to see whether again he could get any result. By July
18 one of the " strop shaped yellow flowers " had opened and, on
dissecting it, he found " a little crowngall tissue in the extreme
top of the stem under [the] bracts and also one small central
white lobe distorted with tumors but," wrote he, " there seems
hardly enough to account for the results. Can it be due solely to
the wounding? The distorted tumefied piece" was then "fixed
in alcohol." July 22 he " got very striking results in one head,
viz. a second small head developed in the middle of the large one."
He dissected two inoculated sunflower heads that showed no
central proliferation, were not split open, and had no tumors on
or in the stem, but did have tiny ones on the torus. By July 25
his memorandum read: " There are many long tumor strands in
the stems of the proliferated sunflowers. It seems hardly possible
the 14 to 19 inches of strand is all due to stretching of stem under
the young head and no invasion, but most of it may be." Within
three more days twenty-four of the eighty-eight sunflowers had
proliferated in the head and he saw " in the pith of stems under
the head long cyst-like cavities lined like the torus with a soft
hairy membrane. These cysts," he noticed, " often bear tumors on
their walls and are subtended by a ring of vascular bundles, a
dozen or more with xylem outermost and phloem turned toward
the cyst cavity."

What he had learned from these experiments he itemized in a
memorandum of July 31:

(1) have found many stems in the pith extending down long distances,
(2) have found pith cysts lined by a hairy membrane like that of the torus

LAsr WoKK. Final Honors 599

and i;iviiii^ otT tumors at intervals, (3) the pith stems have reversed bundles
i.e. phloem in the center and xylem on the periphery, (4) occasionally
roots developed in the center of the ilowcr head, (*)) in a few cases com-
plete secondary small capitula formed in the head as a rose sometimes
proliferates out of a rose, most of these were sessile but four of them were
pedicellate, (6) the development of bii^ leafy bracts and expanded yellow
ray flowers in the middle of the disk flowers was often very striking.

He planned to repeat on a large scale some experiments to
decide whether by wounding very young buds he could not get
the same results as to proliferation without using the crown gall
organism. Already he had about one hundred wounded side
flowers on big plants and these, together with seedlings coming
on for autumn, would provide, he thought, sufficient material. On
August 1 1 he counted one hundred and fifty-seven wounded sun-
flower heads and, finding not a proliferation, cyst, or abnormal
development of vascular bundles in the pith, he concluded,
" Woundings without crowngali inoculation will not cause green
bracts and ray flowers." But by September 28 his conclusion was
changed: "All but 5 of the 108 needle pricked sunflower heads
are now in blossom," he wrote. " 3 of the youngest heads (of
those in bloom) show ray flowers (not yet open) among the
tubular flowers. Wounding alone will cio it! If done early
enough." He now had enough material for " an interesting
paper " and the general conclusion he drew from the experiments
was that "many of the common teratological forms in plants and
animals are due to parasitic or mechanical traumatic displacement
occurring in early life." More specifically, he said:

The results of these experiments confirm and extend earlier ones on
other plants — daisy, pelargonium, sugar beet, tobacco, ricinus, tropaeolum,
etc. They show that what young cells will become depends to a very con-
siderable extent on how they are treated. A changed stimulus, if not
too strong and if applied early enough, leads inevitably to a changed
structure." -•'^

While his experiments on sunflower plants were being pursued,
he had been studying also crown gall inoculated Ricinus plants.
In the first weeks of August 1924, three of his diary memoranda
read:

^^ Tumors, cysts, pith bundles, and floral proliferations in Hclianthus, op. cit.,
summary and discussion.

600 Third European Journey

August 2: As indicating the long continued virulence of certain strains
of Bacterium tumefaciens, witness the Hop strain through col. 1 (1915)
i. e. on agar since 1915. It was isolated from a hop tumor in 1906 or 1907.
We obtained our first infections with it in 1907, on hop et cetera. Now,
of the 190 young Ricinus plants which I inoculated July 24th (1924),
every one but 3 have given fine tumors tn nearly or quite every needle
prick! One of these three shows no pricks and may have been overlooked
and of the other 2, one shows a tiny tumor. I consider this very remark-
able because it is 18 years since first isolations and 9 years since the sun-
flower col. 1 re-isolation was first cultivated on a^ar and in all this time
it has not been reinforced by passage through plants ! Of the 2 exceptions
(which I will do over) one shows nothing and the other very slight tumors.

August 9: Reinoculated the 3 Ricinus plants (see Aug. 2) with 4 day
whey agar, also as checks two younger Ricinus plants — all from one tube.

August 12: Examined inoculated Ricinus plants and made 12 photos
(each 2/3 natural size) . I see no evidence of tumors with roots or leaves,
although they cover a large part of the top of the stems and rim out on
many leaves (petioles and blades).

Two days later he happened to show his Ricinus inoculations
to Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace. On the previous
April 23 the Secretary had seen some crown galls, at a time when
Smith was working at potentiometer hydrogen-ion determinations
of crown gall of sugar beet, sunflower, ricinus, tropaeolum, and
other plants. His main reason for seeing the Secretary was to
protest against a proposed removal of some of the Department's
facilities to government-owned land on the Potomac twenty miles
distant. He had recently been elected president of the American
Association for Cancer Research, and his enthusiasm to continue
his work without any change in working conditions was evident.
In 1922 the Secretary had been given an account of Smith's
research achievements, and his already quoted response showed
that he recognized the value to the Department of such a world
known scientist in its employ.

During their conference of August 14, Secretary Wallace sug-
gested to the veteran scientist a journey to Europe. They " got to
talking about agricultural research in the United States and in
Europe, and he said, " How long is it since you were over there .-^
Smith answered, ^- " ' Eleven years.' ' Don't you think it would
be a good idea to go over there and see what they are doing?
the Secretary asked. The response was, " ' I should like to, would

" Diary, Aug. 14, 1924.

Last Work. Tinai. Honors 601

you approve it?' He said, 'yes.'" Smith explained, "'This is
the only year I could go, for one of my assistants is on leave of
absence, and next year I shall [be] hard up again." He said
' yes. Go this year.' " Smith was very happy. He had " met the
Secretary only a few times and in no way [had] tried to ' cultivate '
him. I like him, however," he wrote, " and, evidently, he likes
me." Immediately beginning to prepare for his journey, he booked
passage for the steamship George Washington, of the United
States Line. He gathered together his notes made during the
summer from his potentiometer work, and arranged to take more
than one hundred mounted photographs illustrating his crown
gall studies. On-^eptember 3, Dr. and Mrs. Smith left for Europe.

On the day of their departure, he wrote further: " It has been
a great wrench to pull loose. . . . However, the summer's experi-
ments are pretty well over and the autumn ones I had planned
must wait." He planned to " make some further experiments on
Ricinus with monobasic ammonium phosphate for tumors in young
stems." When he returned, he inoculated Ricinus plants with
ammonium formate, ammonium lactate, and ammonium carbo-
nate." These experiments were started early in the summer of
1925 and by October, " Each one [had] given proliferations, but
in most cases not very extensive ones."

Dr. Smith kept a journal of his journey, and he purposed, while
in Europe, to write up the " potentiometer crown-gall studies "
of the past tw^o years. He had also planned to " complete a paper
on proliferations in Bryophyllum," to " do one more on Begonia
phyllomaniaca proliferation," to " complete a paper on night and
day variations in pH of leaves of sunflower," and to prepare with
various of laboratory co-workers papers on Begonia lucerna, on
a bacterial disease of sorghum and broom corn, on the Puerto
Rico bacterial disease of sugar cane, on tuberculosis of sugar beet
{^Bacterium heticolimi) and, among other things, he had not
forgotten the final revision of some chapters of the fourth volume
of Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases and the experiments with
Chambers' improved form of Barber's apparatus " to produce
crown galls in single cells and see them grow in nutrient solutions
under the microscope." But each of these tasks would have to
await his return.

'*' Diary, June 20, July 3, Oct. 26, indicating ammonium carbamide a type used.

602 Third European Journey

On the George Washington, he became acquainted with several
distinguished passengers: Dr. Oswald S. Lowsley, urologist of
New York and consulting surgeon of the steamship company,
one Dr. Young of Montreal who had been at Johns Hopkins and
was now going to Paris to study anatomy of the brain, and others.
One afternoon he showed his crown gall photographs to the two
doctors.

Straightway after arriving in Paris, Dr. Smith went to the Pas-
teur Institute where he met Dr. A. Besredka. To him and one of
his students, Dr. Harry Platz, a few days later he showed his crown
gall photographs. Dr. Besredka, at the time, was preparing a book
on " Local Immunity," a subject which Smith believed opened
" a vast field for study." '* In an address he later spoke of this
as an important advance of the decade and described Besredka's
theory as showing that " bacteria deadly in certain tissues are
harmless when placed in other tissues." For instance, the anthrax
organism " kills when placed in the skin but is harmless when
placed in wounded muscles, liver, lungs or other internal organs.
This tissue resistance [is] called ' local immunity.' "

Dr. Besredka presented Smith with a copy of his Histoire d' unc
Idee Lceuvre de Metclmikojj (1921) . The great Elie Metchnikoff,
" founder and defender of the phagocytic theory," ^^ the dis-
coverer of phagocytosis, and former vice-director of the Pasteur
Institute, had died in 1916. He had written a book on the subject
of Immunity, and Emile Duclaux, director of the Institute until
1904, in his book on Pasteur, ^*^ had devoted fully one-half of his
discussion of viruses and vaccines to immunological problems.

On September 17 Smith learned that one Dr. S. Metalnikoff,
now five years with the Institute, had " been making experiments
with Bacterium tumejaciens on the larvae of the wax-moth," and
the next day he saw " smears made from worms injected " with the
crown gall organism. He examined also " smears and beautifully
stained sections of larvae infected with the human tubercle
organism. In a few hours," he noted,

the bacteria are all picked up by phagocytes and destroyed. I never before
saw phagocytes so literally stuffed full of bacteria. In a few days they are

^* Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 41. Also, Journal, Feb. 10, 1925.

^^ V. C. Vaughan, A doctor's memories, op. cit., 139.

^'^ Pasteur, The history of a mind, op. cit., 8th part, 299-321.

Last Work. Tinai. Honors 603

all dissolved into a brown debris and around this there is formed a thin
fibrous wall. In this stai;e it is impossible to kill guinea pi^s by injecting
bits ot these parts of the worm previously containing enormous cjuantities
of a very virulent culture. All arc dead.

The Bi(L'fen/ffff ///me fac/ens experiments liad produced no tumors.
" Those larvae kept at 37^C," Smith was told, '" were not injured
by the or_ganism; those kept at room temperature (20''C) were
killed." His journal memoranda read:

He used very larye doses, too many organisms I think. [September 18]
In smears made from worms injected with Bacf. lumejaciens four hours
previously, the rods are capsulatc and very short and in smears made after
48 hours the rods are larger and inclined to be in chains and non-capsulatc
and the worms are killed, if kept at room temperature. M. thinks a new
strain- has been developed. I am in doubt. He has not tried out the " new
strain " on any plants.

Director Roux was " most cordial " to Smith. On the second
day of his visits, he had an hour with the famous French physician,
bacteriologist, pathologist, pupil of Duclaux, collaborator with
Pasteur and Chamberland, and whom he had heard believed cancer
of parasitic origin. When Smith showed him his crown gall photo-
graphs, he sent for Dr. Calmette; and they both " asked many
questions and showed great interest." In the Director's office,
he met Dr. Rcgaud, said by Besredka to be " the most expert
radiologist in France," and " famous for his studies of mito-
chondria in animal cells." ^' Later, at the Madame Curie radium
laboratories in Paris, Professor Rcgaud and his associates w'ould
show Smith " many interesting things, including numerous photo-
graphs of remarkable cures effected, some by X-ray, others by
radium." In 1923, at a clinic of the New York State Institute
for Study of Malignant Disease, he had learned of " similar
encouraging results " from treatments by x-ray for special types
of cancer. On this European journey Smith was truly the president
of the American Association for Cancer Research and would study
the subject from the standpoints of diagnosis, treatment, pallia-
tives, biology, and etiology. '-

On September 23 he began to divide his visits between the
Pasteur Institute and the Laboratory of Plant Pathology, number

^^ Some newer aspects of cancer research, Science 61(1589): 596, June 12, 1925.
^^Idem, 595-601.

604 Third European Journey

11 bis rue d'Alesia. There he found the laboratory and garden
looking " much as they did in 1913." There he met the Japanese
professor Yendo, who was interested in silkworm culture and
mulberry diseases and to whom Smith had given a letter of intro-
duction the summer previous to Etienne Foex. Foex showed Smith
a new potato disease from Morocco, which " begins as numerous
surface specks " and which he concluded to be "' probably a lenticel
infection " which " ends in an interior soft rot." He was shown
also " various interesting tobacco diseases," and he met Miss Sara
Bache-Wiig, Norwegian by birth but then a professor and graduate
of Smith College who had spent a year in study with Whetzel at
Cornell and a year with Foex in his laboratory. Smith remembered
an assistant and student of mulberry diseases, M. Arnaud, from
his work at the laboratory in 1913. He showed them all his crown
gall photographs and, in turn, Foex let him see " stained slides
of Morocco potato tuber disease. Under the lenticels were dis-
integrating tissues and many bacteria (short rods and filaments) ."

Several more times during this stay in Paris, Smith went to the
laboratory. Once he had a "' confab " with the Marquis le Nor-
mand de Bretteville, whose family owned large sugar beet interests
which had been attacked by the curly top disease ^^ and, still later,
Foex showed him " a new dwarfing disease of fodder beets in
which no parasite [was] evident. He said," Smith wrote in his
journal,*"' " it was not very common and had appeared only in
the beets from one lot of seed. The leaves are thickened and
die irregularly. The roots I saw were large. Mosaic?" Tumors
on PJnus cembra from Nice, France, were also shown him; and
Dr. Dufrenoy there promised to write the Forester at Nice to
help Smith, when he went to southern France, to procure some
specimens of pine tumors. An Egyptian brought out " sections of
Psycotma tumors stained with hematoxylin " and, while he saw
short and very abundant rods, they were not " sharply outlined."

Soon after arriving in Paris, Smith had begun to work on " a
revision of [his and Miss Quirk's] potentiometer crown-gall
paper." The completion of this was interrupted, however, by an
invitation to give an address on crown gall. On October 3 he
presented his first principal address to an audience of scientists
while on this tour. He had but a few days in which to prepare it,

^^ Journal, Sept. 29, 1924. '" Journal, Oct. 9, 1924.

Last Work. Finai. Honors 605

in fact, he finished his seventeen pa^es of manuscript during the
morning of the day it was given. He expected to find unly eiglu
or ten persons in attendance. But when he got to the Jardin des
Plantes he found " about 75 persons, and some very distinguished
ones ■' awaiting his lecture. The occasion was the first meeting
that year of the Socicte de Pathologic Vegetalc et d'Entomologie
Agricole de France, and among those present were Dr. Roux, Dr.
Calmette, Dr. Magrou who when Smith first called at the Pasteur
Institute was away on vacation, Dr. Mangin, director of the
Museum, Dr. Molliard of the Faculty of Sciences, Dr. Foex,
Dr. Marechal or-Marchal (Smith spelled his name both ways),
Dr. Bertrand of the Academy of Science, President Radais of
the college of pharmacy, Dr. Vayssicre, Dr. Patouillard, Dr.
Loubet, Drs. Fron and Maublancc, Dr. Mesnil, Professor Bouvier,
and others of " the best known men in Paris." Mme Lemoine
algologist, was also there. Dr. Smith exhibited his crown gall
photographs, read his address slowly, received the " minutest
attention," and was " applauded liberally." Jubilantly he wrote
his laboratory co-w^orkers: " ' On Crown gall ' ^^ is to be printed
and I have been asked to talk again on our return from Italy, next
time on the general subject of bacterial diseases of plants."

Dr. Magrou and Dr. Pinoy of the Pasteur Institute asked to see
again his crown gall photographs. He had met Pinoy when on
his 1913 journey. In the conference which soon took place were
also Foex, C. R. Hursh, assistant to Professor Elvin Charles Stak-
man of the University of Minnesota and now studying for a year
with Magrou, and Dr. Jean Dufrenoy who spoke English and
occasionally served as an interpreter. Pinoy showed Smith " sec-
tions of a crowngall tumor on Pelargonium made with the hop
strain of Bacterium tumefaciens " obtained from Smith's labora-
tory. He wrote in his journal: '^" " These w^ere stained in Riker's
way with very dilute stain, and it really looks as though he had
succeeded in staining the bacteria inside the cells. He finds none
in the intercellular spaces, nor in most of the proliferating cells,
but a few cells of rather large size are full of short rods which
may be the bacteria, in which case surely there is action at a

'^ E. F. Smith, Le crown-gall, Revue de Pathologie vegetale et d'Entomologie agri-
cole, 11(4): 10 pp., 1924.
"Oct. 6, 1924.

606 Third European Journey

distance." In his address he had mentioned the question of the
location of the bacteria, intracellular or within the cells, as a point
still under discussion: " Les bacteries du Crown-gall sont-elles
dans les espaces intercellulaires ou bien dans les cellules? Cette
question est jusqu'a present un sujet de discussion. En quelque
lieu que soient loges ces micro-organismes, leur action est, je
pense, toujours de nature physico-chimique et non mecanique." '^^
Before Dr. Smith had left the United States, Dr. Riker had
again reported observing the bacteria in the intercellular spaces.
The bacteria, seen between cells in living uncontaminated sections
placed in agar, had been observed to grow, had been isolated, and
identified.*^* Nothing from Dr. Smith's diary intimates that he
knew this. But, after he had gone to southern France and Italy
and returned to Paris, he read " Pinoy's note on Plant Cancer or
Crown Gall " ^^ and wrote the following in his journal February
6, 1925:

Pinoy and Magrou were unable to find bacteria in crowngalls on Pelar-
gonium by Riker's method. Pinoy found in large peripheral tannin cells
short rods often paired which he takes to be the bacteria. He did not find
them either in or between the small cells of the tumor (Magrou's statement
to me and my own observation of Pinoy's slide) . His sections were fixed
in [ - } with iron sulphate, washed free, and stained in indigo blue
and counter-stained with fuchsin. The bacteria are red and the tannin
granules black. There were fewer of these in the cells containing the bac-
teria. He emits the hypothesis that in crowngall, as in the nitrogen
tubercles of Leguminosae, the bacteria are not in the cells that form the
tumor. This I doubt. They are not, it is true, in the fine hyperplasia of
the Legume nodules, but the swollen cells in which they occur are so nu-
merous that they make up the bulk of the tumor. He thinks Riker mistook
for crowngall bacteria B. fluorescens, very frequent on tomato and tobacco
and always intercellular. This I also doubt. Riker is I think too good a
worker for that.

On October 14, Dr. and Mrs. Smith left Paris and, after
stopping a few days at Avignon and Nimes, journeyed on to
Montpellier where Dr. Ravaz escorted them about the agricultural
college and botanist Boyer took them through the Arboretum.

*' Le Crown-gall, op. ch., reprint, 7.

** Some rel. of the crowngall org. to its host tissue, Jour. Agr. Res. 25(3): 119-
132, at p. 130, July 21, 1923; also Bot. Rev., op. ch., 12: 70.

*^ P. E. Pinoy, A propos du cancer des plantes ou crown gall, C. R. Acad, des Sci.
180: 311-313, Jan. 26, 1925.

Last Work. Imnai. Honors 607

By October 20 they were in Marseilles wliere, as at Montpellier,
they enjoyed the Lx^tanic garden. Before Smitli left Paris, he had
been told by Diifrenoy about the tumors to be found on Finns
hell e pen sis and Pinus strobus. Since 1913 he had been trying to
get suitable materials for a more or less complete study of pine
tumors. What materials he had received, however, had proven
old or otherwise unsatisfactory. He purposed now himself to
collect proper specimens and send them to his laboratory in
Washington. They visited Aries near Marseilles, then Nice, and,
among other points, Monte Carlo, where north into the mountains
near La Turbie, he, accompanied by a forest guard, climbed down
a steep and very rough mountain-side to a " straggling plantation
of Pin lis halepensis." ^'^ There he found an abundance of tumors
of all sizes and " collected tumors from 7 or 8 trees all living,
and all the younger ones up to % inch in diameter covered with
a smooth unbroken bark, the larger ones fissured." He saw none
on wood of the season's growth; and, inquiring as to other species,
he learned " there is a similar tumor on Pifiiis ceinbra in the high
mountains back from the coast, but none ... on Pinus maritiina
which grows on the moutains near P. halepensis. . . . Strange,"
he said, " that this species should be wholly immune! I wonder
if it is." He remembered having seen one tree of Pinus maritijua
where they collected the tumors. So he mailed six of the pine
tumors to Miss Brown of his laboratory and planned to send
other specimens later from Florence, Italy, evidently after he had
consulted with Dr. Petri of the School of Forestry in the Cascine
there.

Dr. and Mrs. Smith spent one day at Genoa and, soon after
arriving at Florence, he learned at the botanic garden where Dr.
Petri could be located. Finding him, he discovered that he recently
had published

a well illustrated paper on the pine tumor from material obtained near the
sea between Leghorn and Quercianella and in the latter place. He [had]
isolated and described a yellow organism, a polar flai^cllate gram positive
organism, as the cause of the tumor, but he [had] not reproduced the
disease by his pure culture inoculations. He [thoucht] the disease is intro-
duced into the pine by aphides, Eulachnus agilis (Kalt.) Del Guercio.

Smith read his paper, next day examined his " interesting slides,"

«' Journal, Oct. 22-24, 1924.

60S Third European Journey

saw his "' very' good . . . photomicrographic apparatus," promised
him a copy of his text book, but still believed that another paper
on the subject could be prepared. His reasons were that the
'" failure to reproduce the disease {made him] suspect [Petri] may
have isolated and described the wron^ or^-anism. . . . His draw-
ings and photomicrographs [were] very attractive. He [had]
stained bacteria inside of certain cells as well as in the intercellular
spaces and tlie cavities."" But Smith still wanted to re-study the
pine tumor and Petri gave him three of his slides.^'

He learned tliat Dr. Victor Pc^lion was now in Rome as Under
Secretary of Agriculture. On November 5, in Rome, he called at
the Department of Agriculture and Peglion immediately presented
him with a copy of his book, Le Bonijiche in Italia, Problemi e
FiriMlita Agricole. He met many interesting officials, saw the
laboratories and museum, and promised to return tlie next day
to study specimens and examine more closely an exposition of the
Italian universities then being held. These were troublous times
in Italy, politically. Premier Mussolini had established himself
in complete control of the government. This pleased Smith no
more than tlie prospect of the English elections and the possibility
that the Labor part}' " witli its Socialistic program " might not be
beaten. What Smitii objected to was the then aspect of " Com-
munistic domination. . . . The Communistic tail is wagging the
Dog," he said.^^ " The rougher elements in the part}' cannot
tolerate free speech when it is not on their side and are breaking
up meetings by catcalling and throwing things. It is a shameful
side of the Labor movement in all countries that when they are
short of arguments they resort to violence." He had been recently
shocked to read in the London Times of the sudden death of
Secretar}' "Wallace. He admired the great men of both political
parties, Republican and Democratic. At one time he had been a
Republican, but right now he was in sympathy with the views of
"Woodrow "Wilson. In politics, he was, as he said, "' an onlooker
rather than a worker." Science was to him " the key wherewith
[to] unlock all mystery of time and sense, of life and death, of
whence and whither borne." His plea was: " Let me the strong
sweet life of Nature find, the God of earth and heaven whom
Science bares." In Italy, he found that, owing to the war's after-

*' Journal, Oct. 28, 29, 1924. *' Journal, Oct. 27, 1924.

Last l H . 609

yoTjnr» m^-n v.r"^ " r'.'-rr- 'r*~ ■"

u: for the nexr

United States, if it can keep ouf of 3 rvo'fv^r o-reaf and w

will have scientific research of muni-

tions) ver)' miich to itsdf, t to lead tne

Dr. and Mrs. Smuh e of Agri-

culture, founded by D^ er

ir- '^' i^ -^

..^; ^ :^^.;.-, >: " on : '• -^ in

- "--Ai-'V she .— -...-...: its cr, it

s: . . -copytoDr. W S G- -!

written Srr.ith that " this survey s. . .

are ^ ^- on the subject. Years ago, " he wrote, ' when : g

for my first degree. I did some work on ' Crown Gall of Lucerne '
— bu- no-one .nnected it in anv wav with cancer." Ptziion

and Dr. Beniamino P-; vice director della Pv. ' '.e di

Patologia Vegetal e. tooK . . . .- ^^^ _^_^ ^.^p^

around Rome, and Pe^'rone. c-..^^ i:. :.^ - -n a recenr srdcit

on crown gall by Dr. M' -' The pC-.:-,i. --- - -' \ dis-
turbances accompan-"'- :- -' ■ -' - -. of Arm..;... .-._ '"ly

persisted. He, ne%'e:: _.: — ^-r -"--' i ---:er _ . .zi

on olrve diseases, examined his - rograr^hs in

his exhibit ar the unrversiry ezp '. of pine tumors a.' - . ve

and ash fasciations, and at last located Magrou's arncie in the
Annales de V Imthut ?a:teurP He found it " based n

studies, but ititizing very frequently to my wcrk. He rd

aside the criticisms of a certain objector by saying they amo^ixit to
this only: ' Crown gall is due to a parasite, and cancer by defini-
tion is : - ^isizic, therefore crown gall cannot be a cancer.' "
He reac. -_.rr literature on cancer ca':':-''n and bef ' -" 'e left
Rome met " Professor Grassi of ~ - - -.: > ;_-ne. He c, . , .red,"
he said, "the carrier of the .._..._n malaria parasite to be
Anopheles."

On this journey while :: - - -7, Dr. Smith e ...y

enjoyed renewing acquaintance with three of his older friends m

'» ' ;n:ales sllt le Cincer ies pitzxss, Amm. Inst.

Pas:ear 38(10): 83"-872, 1924.

610 Third European Journey

science: Peglion at Rome, Cavara at Naples, and Savastano at
Acireale. Cavara was director of the botanic garden, and Savas-
tano, " an indefatigable student of literature," had " the best
library in Italy on trees and plant pathology and experiment
station publications." He told Smith that the carob tree tumors
were not due to bacteria. He had described and figured, as not due
to fungi, the hard burls of the olive. Mai de Spacco, a wood
disease of grafted oranges, due to bacteria, interested Smith, the
more since the malady did not appear on wild stock. ^^ At Palermo,
he discussed tumors and showed his crown gall photographs to
Director Luigi Buscalioni of the botanic garden there. His talks
with scientists about tumors and pathology were many, and he was
flattered at the interest which Dr. W. T. Councilman, whom he
chanced to meet in Rome, took in his photographs: Together they
examined a tumor on live oak {Quercus tlex) . " The trees," Smith
wrote,'^

are parasitized by a beetle and some of them are enormously deformed.
The leaves on the sprouts from the tumors are sharply serrate while the
healthy parts bear leaves wholly or almost free from serratums. This is
only a young form of the leaf i, e. such as occurs normally on young trees,
as I convinced him. After lunch I showed him the crown gall photographs.
He expressed great interest and said he was convinced I am right in
claiming analogies to malignant human and animal tumors.

Dr. and Mrs. Smith's return to Paris by way of Pisa, Genoa,
Nice, Lyon, and other points preceded the New Year by a day
or two. On the same day, January 5, that he sent out letters to
fourteen members regarding the next annual meeting of the
American Association for Cancer Research he received a report
from Miss Brown of his laboratory that " successful inoculations
on other plants " had been made " with colonies plated from the
pine tumors. She thinks it crown gall," he added, and consulted
Dufrenoy who promised to " try to find pines and ashes for [him].
He showed [him] small tumors on Abies " from which he got
bacteria. A tumor on Sequoia sempervirens was next brought to
Smith's attention. He thought this looked like crown gall and,
given specimens, sent them to his laboratory. On January 19
Dufrenoy showed him " under the microscope a pure culture of a
coccus he [had] obtained (single or in doublets) from the tumor

"Journal, Dec. 11, 1924. "Journal, Dec. 18, 1924.

Last Work. Final Honors 611

on Sequoia sevipervireus. He also showed [Smitli] the ms. of his
thesis for the Doctorate on Tumors of Conifers and asked [him]
to read it,"' whicli he did that night. Next day the two scientists
went to Bois Vinccnncs and found not only a Sequoia with tumors
resembling crown gall but also, about forty rods away, another
tree of the same species free of tumors. Small tumors on an Abies
on the same grounds were discovered. Dufrenoy took specimens
of each for further study and Smith noticed '" a long row of
Berberis (many species)."

En route to the Jardin dcs Plantcs from the Ecole d' Agriculture
et d' Horticulture de la Ville de Paris, they called on Professor
Guilliermond to whom Smith some two weeks before had been
introduced at a dinner at Dufrenoy's home. Smith, during the
next summer, would try to demonstrate by special fixations and
dilute stains crown gall bacteria in large peripheral cells of tobacco
stem tumors, and to differentiate the bacteria from mitochondria."
Guilliermond was believed to be " the best cytologist in France," '"'
and, in his laboratory, he showed them slides of stained mito-
chondria of Elodea, Iris, Lilium, Pisum, Saprolegnia, and other
plants. Smith thought him " a superb technician." He showed
him his crown gall photographs and photomicrographs. Guillier-
mond told him that " by his methods we ought easily to distinguish
between mitochondria and bacteria in crown-gall cells — in five
minutes, he said," and he presented Smith with a copy of his
last important paper, " Nouvellcs recherches sur les constituants
morphologiques du cytoplasme de la cellule vegetale." Together
the next day they went to the Madame Curie laboratories where
Professor Regaud and Dr. Antoine Lacassagne and other men
whom Smith met took him through the new building, their labora-
tories, and the examination, lecture, and work rooms.

As time permitted, since his return to Paris, Dr. Smith had been
preparing his conference address on bacterial diseases of plants.
Before regarding it finished, he submitted it to Dr. Foex, and on
January 27 he and Mrs. Smith drove to the " Lecture room of the
Museum of the Jardin des Plantes where [he] lectured to about
65 persons. Heavy rain all day discouraged some and others are
reported ill, but I, ' Smith wrote of the occasion,

Tt

Diar>', June 18, July 30, 1925.
Journal, Jan. 6, Jan. 20-21" 1925.

612 Third European Journey

had many of the most distinguished biologists of Paris — Mangin, Mesnil,
Viala, Bloeringhem, Costantin, Guilliermond, Magrou, Foex, etc. They
hstened very intently and several took notes feverishly and when done I
received a good round of applause. Professor Mangin, director of the
garden, vv'ho introduced me in Professor MoUiard's absence, also closed
with some highly flattering remarks and asked to have the paper for Revue
generale des Sciences pures et applique es.''^

That evening, the first of two elaborate dinners given in Dr.
Smith's honor, took place at the home of Jean Magrou, sculptor
and brother of Dr. Magrou of the Pasteur Institute, with twelve
guests seated. The other, given at Dr. Calmette's home for
eighteen persons of great distinction in literary and scientific
circles of Paris, occurred two evenings later. Madame Mary
Duclaux and Dr. Pasteur Vallery-Radot were there, and among
the scientists were Mesnil, Besredka, Weinberg, Magrou, Bertrand,
Delezenne, Negre, and Calmette.

While in Paris, Smith had many conferences with research men
about diseases of plants: pear blight; mosaic, white-spot, and
chancre of tobacco; crown gall; and others. At the Hotel Dieu,
the great hospital near Notre Dame, Professor Menetrier wel-
comed him and he became acquainted with Dr. C. Botelho, chief
of the cancer laboratory, and Dr. Hartmann, surgeon. To them
he showed his crown gall photographs, discussed whether cancer
is caused by a parasite and whether its spread in plant and animal
bodies is by apposition, and diagnostic methods by serum or
radium emanations. Dr. Hartmann was especially interested in
Smith's " photos showing results of chemical stimulation " in
crown gall.'*^ Dr. Menetrier showed Smith " a slide of stomach
carcinoma in a rat produced by injecting tar into the loin of the
rat at intervals (about 20 times) in course of a few months. After
six months he obtained a stomach carcinoma very definite with no
tar touching it. The tar is all on the outside of the stomach
muscles plainly to be seen. Contrary to statements made in the
first edition of his book Dr. Menetrier now says there is no growth
by apposition in cancer. He thinks there is no parasite in cancer.
Dr. Botelho, whose laboratory I next visited, believes there is a
parasite. He tells me," Smith wrote,"

■'^ Les maladies bacterriennes des plantes, 134-138, 193, Mar. 15, 1925.
"Journal, Jan. 24, 1925.
" Journal, Jan. 24, 1925.

Last Work. I-inai. Honors 6l3

that someone has found that in tar cancer in mice all the tripanosomes
migrate to these sore spots. He says Dr. Mat^rou and the Surqeon with
whom he is working have discovered that tlie L;rowdi of crown^alls can be
prevented by exposing them to a certain kind of vibratory machine which
gives very long waves. He himself has dicovered a diagnostic method for
cancer.

On January 31, Smitli went attain to Dr. Botelht^'s laboratory
and this time met Dr. K. Itchikawa who had spent a year and half
in Paris studying tar cancer at various laboratories including that
of Professor G. Roussy in the Ccole de Medicine. To Smith's
delight he found that Itchikawa planned to visit in May his
laboratory of pla-nt pathology. " He seemed pleased to meet me
and I certainly was to see him, because," wrote Smith, "^^ " he has
done splendid work on Tar Cancer. In Botelho's laboratory I read
his serum charts. He claims, with serum from cancer patients, to
obtain a definite diagnostic reaction," which he later demonstrated
for Smith. Dr. Smith took pages of notes on the diagnostic tests,
why some failed to give the reaction, the reagents used, and the
mixtures which gave the best results of various purposes, including
palliatives for hopeless cases abandoned by surgeons. Itchikawa
confided to Smith that, in tar cancers of rabbits, he had secured
confirmatory results of Botelho's method of diagnosing " invisible
cancers " and believed in it. He was told also that Dr. Hartmann
used the method in his surgical work.'"

Dr. Weinberg of the Pasteur Institute invited Smith to see his
" many drawings and paintings showing result of the activities of
intestinal worms in various experimental animals. He [had]
proved that they can penetrate the musculars of the stomach and
intestine in some cases allowing bacteria to enter causing ulcers
and in one case a fibrous tumor." Since the w^ar, he had been
publishing and lecturing on anaerobic bacteria and gangrene.^"

February 3 was also an important day since in the morning
Smith visited Dr. Magrou's tumor laboratory and the surgical
laboratories of the famous surgeon, Dr. Gosset, at the great
Salpetricre Hospital. His journal reads:

Dr. Magrou showed me again the slide of Pelargonium tumor stained

■'* Journal, Jan. 31, 1925.

^' Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 595-596; Journal, Feb. 3, 4,
1925, Feb. 11, 1925.

«" Journal, Feb. 2, 1925, Feb. 10, 1925.

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6l6 Third European Journey

drawings and water color paintings of algae," Bornet's library,
Thuret's herbarium, and " photos or engravings of many promin-
ent algologists, including Dr. Farlow." He visited the laboratory
of Madame Lemoine, " an expert on calcareous algae." ®^ He
spent another day at the Pasteur Institute with Dr. Besredka and
Dr. Weinberg.^^ When calling on Dr. Itchikawa in Dr. Roussy's
laboratory again, he became acquainted with Dr. A. Kotzareff who
had discovered " an interesting test for cancer." " His mare
complete estimate of this was later told to Dr. Sofia A. Nordhoff-
Jung of Washington:

88

Dr. Kotzareff has found that if a few millicuries of radium emanations
are added to auto serum and injected intravenously into cancer-bearing
animals, they are not injured by it and the emanations are absorbed by the
tumors which are killed. Undiscovered internal tumors may also be diag-
nosed in this way by exposing a photographic dry plate over the suspected
spot. The only other tissues of the animal body capable of absorbing the
radium are embryonic tissues. The method has been tried in a few cases
of human cancer with apparently favorable results, but much remains to
be done. . . . His method of attack on cancer seems to me at least very
hopeful and every method of approach offering any least likelihood of
success ought to be tried out thoroughly. It is at least very suggestive that
Dr. Blair Bell's treatment in Liverpool, now attracting so much attention,
acts in the same selective way, the lead salts killing the tumor cells more
readily than they do the normal cells. It is interesting also that Dr. Blair
Bell was induced to try lead salts in cancer by observing that in abortion
in rabbits, induced by means of lead, it is the actively-growing chorionic
cells that are killed. ^^

On the way from Paris to Berlin, Dr. and Mrs. Smith stopped
for a few days at Strasbourg where Dr. Amedee Borrel was in
charge of the Pasteur Museum and the Institute for Bacteriology
and Hygiene, one of the best in France. Before leaving America,
he had written Borrel who told Smith to " Come over at once,"
and so they went immediately to the Musee Pasteur where they
were shown through " the magnificent laboratory building " and
the museum. Research work was going on in tuberculosis, cancer,
syphilis, vaccine virus, and " all sorts of human and animal

«' Journal, Feb. 6, 1925.
^'Journal, Feb. 10, 1925.

*' Journal, Feb. 11, 1925; Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 595.
^^ Feb. 20, 1926, letter.

*" Smith mentioned also an article by G. Tizzoni, E. Cetanni, and G. de Angelis,
Jour. Tropical Med. and Hygiene, 438-441, Dec. 15, 1925.

Last Work. Final Honors 617

diseases," even plant diseases, too, " for 1 saw," wrote Smith,""
" plants inoculated with crown gall." They were introduced to
" numerous assistants " and to Dr. Masson, professor of pathologi-
cal anatomy, whose book on cancer Smith had been reading, in
Strasbourg were located the botanical laboratories founded by
Anton de Bary, which, when Smith visited them, seemed to him
" like sacred ground, so much I was inllucnced by his writings
many years ago! " "^

Their first visit to the laboratories of the Institute for Bacteri-
ology and Hygiene had been in the late afternoon. Arrangements
were made thatJDr. Smith should show Dr. Borrel his crown gall
photographs the next morning, and in the late afternoon show
them to Dr. Masson. Smith culled valuable information the first
day, however: he wrote ^- that Dr. Borrel

has found the cornea of rabbits an excellent place for propauation of
vaccine virus and here he has demonstrated by staining methods the pre-
sence of great numbers of cocci, sharply stained (he showed them to me
under the microscope), and closely resembling similar bodies he has found
in Molluscum contagiosum, but from neither disease can they be cultivated.
There also I saw numerous very large tubes of bacterial and fungous cul-
tures prepared for museum exhibit. Dr. Borrel has a superb collection of
cancer slides which I should like to study if only there were time. In the
Pasteur museum are also many exhibits it would be profitable to study.

Of his appointment with Dr. Borrel the next day, he said: '•'•*

He w^as lecturing when I got to the Laboratory. . . . He came in to see
me in about fifteen minutes and took me to another room where we placed
all the sheets of photographs on a large table. He then asked if his class
might also see them. I said, yes, and the result was I had to explain each
one to a class of 70 medical students. They listened very intently, and
when I finished in thirty or forty minutes, they gave me round after round
of applause. I don't know what Dr. Borrel said to them about me in the
amphitheatre, but certainly all that clapping and shouting could hardly
have been in honor of my bad French. Afterward Dr. B. took me to
another part of the big building and gave me the Pasteur centenary medal,
silvered, in a silk-lined leather case.

His appointment with Dr. Masson also became more or less of
a formal occasion. " I expected," Smith said,'-" " only two or three

'"Journal, Feb. 16, 1925.

" Leter to W. A. Taylor, Mar. 5, 1925; Journal, Feb. 20, 1925.

''-Journal, Feb. 16, 1925.

"•■'Journal, Feb. 17, 1925.

•'Journal, Feb. 18, 1925.

618 Third European Journey

other persons to be with him to examine my photographs but
more than fifty persons came, and I explained each one of the 128
photos to the crowd, as best I could, in their own tongue." Pro-
fessors and students from the university as well as the institute
were there, and several branches of research were represented,
biology, botany, internal medicine, and others. Hideo Komuro, a
Jap, became Smith's guide one day, Professor Charles Killian,
botanist, another day, when either Dr. Borrel or Dr. Masson could
not be with him. Smith was especially pleased to find a bio-
physicist [Professor Vies?] "doing a great deal of work on
normal and diseased tissues, using the potentiometer." ''' He
wished that he might accept more of the invitations offered him.
A tea " with half a dozen other research men " present, and
another tea " with three research women present " were enjoyable.
The great hospital of 2,500 beds in connection with the medical
school and the institute, where annually a thousand operations
were performed, provided Professor Masson, he knew, with " a
wealth of pathological material." At the university botanical
laboratories he saw " many interesting cultures and drawings of
Ascomycetes, hepaticae, etc.," and he was given a flask culture of
one hepatic which he hoped to cultivate, when again at his labora-
tory, to " try to obtain crown galls on it." Other work on an
ascomycete and cultures of '" the fungous element of lichens free
from algae " ^*^ interested him. But the time had arrived for Dr.
and Mrs. Smith to leave the city, interesting for many reasons, but
especially so because of the points of association with such lives
as DeBary's, Solms Laubach's, Pasteur's and Goethe's. From there
they went to Frankfurt, and then to Berlin.

On the morning of February 25, Dr. Smith became acquainted
with Director Blumenthal, Dr. Auler, Miss Meyer, Dr. Kraus, head
of the hospital, Dr. Lewin, Dr. Hirschfeld, and Professor Brugsch.
To his delight he found that Dr. Auler and Miss Meyer had been
students of tumors, including crown gall and other plant tumors,
for several years. Dr. Auler had been " definitely working on
animal inoculations and transplants of the bacterially induced
sarcomas and carcinomas since September, 1923." Miss Meyer,
who often had been in England and spoke English, had worked

" Letter to W. A. Taylor, Mar. 5, 1925.
•" Journal, Feb. 20, 1925.

Last Work. Final Honors 619

with FricJlarulcr, Ma<;nus, and other eminent pathologists. She
had "been working on tumors in this Laboratory since 1918,
definitely on human and animal tumors due to bacteria since May,
1923." Hers was the discovery of the bacteria in the breast
cancer, PM, so-called because of her initials. She had inoculated
the sunflowers and obtained the results about which Smith had
read in Paris. At once she showed Smith a diagram of her
experimental plots. He saw on

one plot she inoculated B^tct. tmnejacieus. On the other plot, separated by
a roadway (width 3 to 4 feet) she inoculated PM. and obtained many
tumors on sunflaivcrs and tomatoes. She is quite certain there was no
'" verwechelung " of the cultures or cross-inoculations. Dr. Blumenthal has
given me photographs of three PM tumors on plants (All on sunflowers.
The one on cactus is due to Bacteriuiu tumefaciois) . I also saw many rats
inoculated \yith PM. 1 2th transplant, also transplants of Hu tumors as big
almost as English walnuts and several with good metastatases. I saw also
histological preparations of the animal grafts (sarcomas and carcinomas).
Dr. Blumenthal assured me that they held controls, i. e. animals inoculated
only with cancer serum and kiesclgur and with these two they were not
able to cause tumors. I also saw stained sections of a mouse tumor said
to have been produced without addition of either Kieselgur or cancer
serum. It contained epithelial pearls and appeared to be a beginning skin
cancer. ... I examined stained slides of the bacteria from PM, Be, Ze,
Hu(2nd) and Rhode and one other. They all look much like Bacterium
tumefacie72S. All were well stained and sharp. They arc short rods single
or paired. Fuchsin stain, I think. I saw also some of the sunflowers first
inoculated with PM (out of doors on large plants). The tumors were as
large and as typical looking as any we have obtained in Washington with
Bact. tu77iejaciens. Dr. Auler is now trying to grow Bad. tumefaciens in
cancer serum at blood temperature and if he succeeds he will then inoculate
animals with it. The one strain they now have came from Jensen in Copen-
hagen, it is said. It our hop strain, I think.

Smith inspected the cancer clinic, and was told of vaccines being
used to relieve extreme suffering. These vaccines were experi-
mental and in some cases improvements had taken place. Dr.
Auler, among other things, was trying " histidin." He later went
through the main building and another known as the Polyclinic.
Various doctors accompanied him, and on the first evening Dr.
Blumenthal took him to a meeting of the Berliner Medicinische
Gesellschaft held in the Hygienic Laboratory. Three hundred of
the two thousand members were present, and Dr. Kraus, the
organization's president, introduced Smith as their " distinguished

620 Third European Journey

guest . . . from America, the discoverer of the cause of cancer in
plants." After the meeting, Dr. Blumenthal entertained him.

Next afternoon Dr. Smith again worked with Dr. Auler and
Miss Meyer studying sections of various rat tumors from PM and
L. The PM tumor, he concluded, " is a curious one. In the mouse
it produced horncelled cancer. In the rat mostly mixed tumors but
sometimes carcinoma (not alveolar) and at other times (in other
transplants) typical sarcoma. Whatever the type it is a malignant
tumor metastasizing freely. This morning I selected a white rat
to take with me. . . ." ^' He also picked out five stained slides of
L and PM. After he had examined the results of some dissections
they had made, he exclaimed, " I must work longer in this labora-
tory! " He had been urged to stay. That morning he had shown,
and explained, his crown gall photographs to Dr. Blumenthal, Dr.
Auler, Miss Meyer, and two visitors. Dr. Lewin and Dr. Paul
Lazarus. Dr. Lazarus had studied some time in Paris and knew
Dr. Gosset. Late that afternoon, he received notice that, because
of his " important services to cancer research," he had been made
a foreign associate of the Deutsches Zentralkomitee zur Erforsch-
ung und Bekiimpfung der Krebskrankheit E. V.

From a young American doctor he learned there was much
skepticism concerning the merit of the discoveries made by
Blumenthal, Auler, and Meyer. One objection being raised, " a
perfectly foolish one," Smith said, " since I have never tried it,"
was, " How should they be able to find BacL tumefaciens in
cancer, if Smith, the discoverer of the organism, could not find it
there? "^^

The same American doctor told him of a Dr. Otto Warburg
who, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fiir Biologie, had " worked a
great deal on the cancer cell," and that Smith " might find it of
interest to talk with him." He agreed to visit Dr. Warburg and
Dr. Carl Posener in their laboratory, and did so on March 10,
just before leaving Berlin to go to Copenhagen. From them he
was to learn " how they determine the respiration of tissues and
how the acid content of cancer cells, all very interesting. . . . They
have much delicate and beautiful apparatus for their physiological
determinations," he said,'^'' " and after seeing how they work I

"" Tournal, Feb. 26, 1925.
"'"journal, Feb. 27, 1925.
»« Journal, Mar. 11, 1925.

Last Work. Final Honors 621

have great conhdcncc in tlicir results. Tliey think, just as I do,
tliat the cancer cells behave unlike normal cells, and contain
unlike substance." Smith's technical account of what he saw and
learned at Dr. Warburg's laboratory on March 1 1 tilled two pages
of closely written material in his journal. Furthermore, in two
addresses ""^ given after his arrival home, he was to describe this
work and estimate its value for the future. He knew he had met
a very able, great scientist. In 1931 Dr. Warburg would win the
Nobel prize in physiology and medicine for his discovery of the
character and mode of action of the respiratory ferment. Famous
today for his work on oxidation in the cell and the nature of the
flavine enzyme, he is known, too, for his discovery, with Dr.
Christian, of the secondary respiration ferment. Recently he has
been a visiting professor at the University of Illinois. There a
special laboratory was established for his work.

From February 27 until March 2, every working day was given
by Smith to re-checking the research methods and results of Miss
Meyer, Dr. Auler, and Dr. Blumenthal. From March 2 through
March 4 Dr. and Mrs. Smith, accompanied by Dr. Blumenthal,
took a " pleasant and profitable " trip to Dresden. There the two
scientists went to the Siichsisches Serumwerk Aktiengesellschaft
where Smith met two high officials, Drs. Behlke and P. Galewsky,
and various assistants. He was shown their chemical laboratories
and work, and in the evening attended the Dresdener Medicinische
Gesellschaft meeting to hear a lantern slide illustrated lecture on
rat cancers due to PM given by Privat Docent Dr. Reichert of the
Serum Laboratory. After this event, Dr. Blumenthal entertained
eight guests, and the scientists were '" greatly interested " and
asked many questions of Dr. Smith about his crown gall work. By
this time he was much more convinced of the validity of the
Blumenthal PM malignancies. On February 27 practically every
doubt as to whether PM would produce tumors in plants had been
removed. But he had yet to be convinced that the rat-tumors were
really caused by PM. The possibility of " some unknown virus or
other irritation introduced along with PM and since propagated
by grafting " was still in his mind. " Once started," he said,
"' grafting to any number of generations is no evidence as to the
cause of a tumor." "' In a letter to Miss 'Hedges of his laboratory,

"° Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. ci:., 596-597 ; Recent cancer research,
op. cit., 247, 255.

^" Journal, Feb. 27, 1925.

622 Third European Journey

he suggested that the virus might have been " introduced with the
heated cancer serum they used along with the PM. The more so,"
he added, " because, except in the first-generation tumor, they have
not succeeded in re-isolating PM." But he admitted that " an
independent investigator in a great institution for Serum Cultures
where the greatest exactitude is habitual " had gone far toward
confirming the Berlin work. This investigator had " injected into
rats pure cultures of PM {ivithout any cancer serum, but with
Kieselgur) and . . . obtained the same malignant tumor as they
did in Berlin." Two malignancies, transplanted through five and
six generations, were important, even though fifty rats were used
in the experiment, in view of the difficulty of transplanting a
tumor successfully from " any animal to one of another species "
and since it was not likely that the rats were of " any specially
susceptible race." Smith was learning of other new experiments
on animals in which in one way or another BacteriuTn tumefaciens
was involved. The experience was " highly exciting," but he
insisted " we must wait for more work to be done and for con-
firmation from other laboratories." ^''"

He had not seen " plant tumors due to L but it [was] possible
[he might] see some on [their] return to Berlin," since seedling
sunflowers had been inoculated with L seven days previously.
When he got there, he found that the last set of 29 inoculations
on sunflowers, made twenty-one days before, with PM had de-
veloped " 28 good tumors and one small tumor." '°^ These were
" more than double the size of those [he had obtained] before
[he] went to Dresden," and he was given two specimens by Miss
Meyer. He looked also at the young sunflowers inoculated with
Hu, L, and three other strains four days before he went to Dresden.
On one of Hu there was a slight tumor; on L there was '" nothing
very definite but some callous tissue in the lancet cleft of the stem
that may later develop as a tumor. Judged by this," he wrote,"*
" L is losing its power to produce tumors in plants. I am eager to
see these plants on Monday, probably our last day here." But
nothing further was said in his journal about the L inoculations
or those of any other strain except PM.

As president of the American Association for Cancer Research,

102

Written at Dresden, Mar. 3, 1925.
"^ Letter to Dr. W. A. Taylor, written at Berlin, Mar. 5, 1925.
"" Journal, Mar. 6, 1925.

Last Work. I'inai. Honoks 623

he prepared and sent a note to Science '"'' in the hope of interestinc
research. hiLx)ratories in the work he had seen. At Berlin and
Dresden, investii^ators had convinced hiin of the possibihty, con-
trary to his former bcHefs, that some strain or strains of BacteriNm
tuviefitcicns, as yet undiscovered, might prove to he the cause
of some of the cancers of man. hi a letter to Dr. Taylor he
explained: '"'"

I have believed for a long time, as you know, that crowni^all has many
analogies to malignant human and animal tumors and that its study in
many laboratories was bound to throw more or less light on the terrible
unsolved human tumor problem, but at the same time I thought only ot
similarly acting bacteria as probably the cause of cancers in men and
animals and never of Btut. tniJiejaciens as the cause chielly because the few
strains we have tested out for temperature relations did not grow in our
thermostats at the temperature of warm-blooded animals, although always
in the back of riiy head was the suspicion that some strains mii^ht grow at
such temperatures, and so I have been always careful in handling the
tumors and have generally sterilised my hands afterwards.

After he returned to the United States, he determined to " try to
discover strains able to grow at 38°C," and he still doubted that
" the crown gall organism could be the cause of cancer in man."
His real belief was that " cancer might be due to some parasite
endowed with similar chemical activities." ^^'

The Blumenthal work made him want to consult Jensen, Fibiger.
Deelman, and other cancer research experts. He had not forgotten
that " Friedman and his associates claimed to get Bact. tumefaciens
from non-tumorous diseased conditions in man, e. g. from the
human intestine, several times." Miss Meyer claimed to have got
PAl from breast cancer and " closely resembling strains from 15
other human cancers "; on agar streaks PAi looked " exactly like
BiT'cL tumefaciens." ^'^^ Possibly his objection that an irritant " un-
known virus " was introduced with the cancer serum had beet,
overcome. He, nevertheless, reiterated this objection after his
return to America: "^ and, more important, he still thought tha^
some indiscernible or unknown virus might have been taken in
with the PM culture " from the surface of the rat." "° He thought

^'"'Cancer in plants and in man, Science 61(1581): 419-420, Apr. 17, 1925.

^"« Berlin, Mar. 5, 1925.

^"^ Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 601.

^"^ Leter to Miss Hedges, Mar. 3, 1925.

^°* Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 600-601.

""Letter to W. A. Taylor, Mar. 5, 1925.

624 Third European Journey

still other errors were possible: unknown natural tumors in the
rat " already in process of development " or the pyramiding of a
" number of successful malignant tumor transplants upon a very
slight basis, perhaps on only one primary tumor " due perhaps to
the virus. At least he was skeptical, and his skepticism persisted.

Before leaving Berlin for Copenhagen, he called on Dr. Otto
Appel, director of the Biologische Anstalt, and found the Anstalt
" greatly enlarged " since 1906 when he had first conferred with
Director Rudolph Aderhold and when Dr. Appel was first assist-
ant. Now a great agricultural research institution, with more than
fifty branches of work and five substations, an expanded museum,
and many other improvements, had been developed. Dr. Appel
questioned Smith closely on many points and introduced him to a
bright, young bacteriologist, Dr. Carl Stapp, who was working on
crown gall and various other plant diseases. He showed Smith
"good tumors of crown gall on potato tubers and stems, obtained
by dipping the tubers for a moment into the culture and then
planting them. [Smith}promised to send [him] various strains of
Bact. tumefaciens. [He] saw tumors of this [Smith's laboratory's
hop strain] growing on slices of carrot floating in water in sterile
Petri dishes." "^

On March 9 he said goodbye to Dr. Blumenthal and his assist-
ants and was told of a third rat tumor. Beta, from another breast
cancer; but it was not yet known whether the transplants would
take.^^" Miss Meyer told him that " she had tried in vain to culti-
vate bacteria from this breast-tumor resembling Bact. tinnefaciens
but she will continue to try. The difiiculties," Smith wrote,^^^ " are
great because there are many saprophytes and they grow rapidly
and overgrow the plates and swamp out all slow-growing bacteria
like Bact. tiimefaciens. This raises again the question whether
some virus carried over with Bact. tumefacieus may not after all
be the cause of the rat tumors. Miss Meyer evidently thinks the
bacteria are there."

Dr. and Mrs. Smith left Berlin for Copenhagen on March 12,
he possessed of the valuable reprint given him by Dr. Otto
Warburg, " Ueber den Stofi^wechsel der Carcinomzelle," "^ which

"'•Journal, Mar. 7, 1925.

^^^ See, Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 601.

"'Journal, Mar. 9, 1925.

"' Op. c!t., at p. 578 of this book.

Last W'cirk. Tinai. Honors 625

he read on the train. Dr. Warburg had been "' very pleasant and
expressed great interest in [Smith's] crown gall studies.'" He
found Warburg's paper " exceedingly interesting," since it verihed
experimentally what Smith had thought out about " oxygen hunger
as the cause of cell division." *^''

On the afternoon of their first day in Copenhagen, Smith set
out to locate Dr. C. O. Jensen and, after arranging a future
appointment with Dr. Johannes Fibiger, found Dr. Jensen in the
Serum Laboratory of the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural High
School. Jensen asked to hear of the Blumenthal work, and Smith
showed him the ten slides which Miss Meyer had given him. One
slide the distinguislied Dane pronounced a sarcoma, another from
the same rat "possibly an endothelioma," but he said generally
of the slides he " had never seen any tumor like it." They dis-
cussed foot-and-mouth disease of cattle which recently had made
its way into Denmark and for which a serum had been prepared.
Smith met his son who was studying axolotls, North American
tailed amphibians. They showed him through the laboratories
and he promised to return later.

The next day Smith had no special appointment. But he went
to Professor Albert Fischer, pathologist of the university insti-
tute for general pathology in connection with Rigs Hospital,
and spent two hours with him. In exchange for a promise to send
crown gall cultures and papers, Fischer gave Smith a set of his
publications. This became " another superb day." Fischer had
studied in New York and Smith saw some of his work. He
wrote,'""

He has been able to grow cells of Rous* chicken sarcoma in serum, something
Rous was not able to do, by adding to the drop a bit of muscle and a trace
of embryo juice to harden the scrum. The sarcoma cells invade the muscle,
destroy the protoplasm and liquefy the serum, something normal cells do
not do. \n this way he has by transfers every second day kept the chicken
tumor cells alive out of the body for two years. I saw such cultures under
the microscope. These two year old cultures when introduced into fowls
cause virulent tumors, some of which I saw. In the lungs of one such fowl,
there must be a thousand metastases. ... He tells me Dr. Alexis Carrel
is now studying cancer intensely in New York, and has found that he can
convert the big mononuclear leucocytes into tumor cell, by treating them
with the Berkcfeld filtrate from Rous' chicken sarcoma. Dr. Fischer intro-
duced me to his chief, Professor Dr. Thomsen, and together we went to an

"'Journal, Mar. 10, 11, 12, 1924. ""Journal, Mar. 14, 1925.

626 Third European Journey

amphitheatre where they had a lantern operator throw upon the screen a
series of interesting slides of tissue cultures of normal fibroblasts and
epithelial cells which behave quite differently, the former never changing
into the latter and when cultivated together the normal epithelial cells grow
as gland-like nests in the midst of the fibroblasts. He also showed slides
of the chicken sarcoma cells invading small pieces of muscle. ^^^

That afternoon Smith tried to consult " the great surgeon Dr.
Rovsing, almost," he believed, " the only man in Copenhagen who
has insisted that cancer must be due to a parasite." The Doctor
was ill, but he enjoyed meeting his son Christian, first assistant
surgeon, and Dr. Rovsing senior wrote Smith cordial letters after
his return to America.

Professor Fibiger called on Dr. and Mrs. Smith late that after-
noon, and Dr. Fischer requested that he and other doctors of his
laboratory be shown the Blumenthal rat-tumor slides and crown
gall photographs. Accordingly, two days later,^^® Smith went to
Fischer's laboratory in the morning and to Dr. Jensen's laboratory
in the afternoon. He showed his photographs and ten slides of the
rat-tumors; four sunflower PAi tumors; and three whole rats, one
inoculated with PAI and two with L. Dr. Thomsen, a bacteriolo-
gist Dr. Jensen, and a young doctor were also present at the
morning conference. Dr. Fibiger, at his " patologisk-anatomiske "
laboratory on March 17, saw these materials, or most of them,
during a two-hours' interview with Smith. He inquired whether
either Dr. Jensen or Professor Thomsen planned to " repeat " the
experiments. He wished to do so, and for the purpose arranged
with Smith to send him cultures of " all the strains " of Bacterium
tumejaciens his laboratory had. Fibiger thought that the slides of
the L inoculations indicated " malignancy more than do those of
Py\l." He promised to send " a series of his cancer slides " and
told Smith some points from his own work which prompted the
latter to conclude that, perhaps, what " Blumenthal has observed
in his rat-tumors occurs also ... in tar-cancer of mice." Smith
wrote in his journal:

In mice attacked by cancer due to tar-paintings he said he got both sar-
coma and carcinoma, and mixed carcino-sarcoma in the same animal, and
this he demonstrated to me in well-stained preparations. In one and the
same mouse I saw (1) good invasive carcinoma in the muscles, (2) in the

^^'' See, Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 598.
"* Journal, Mar. 16, 1925.

Last Work. Final Honors 627

hcart-musdc, a metastasis that was a plain sarcoma, not a trace of carcinoma
in it. In tlic lunys of the same mouse a good sized clump of carcinoma
cells, and in another j->LKe in the same lungs, a metastasis tlut contained
only sarcoma cells. . . . Dr. Tibiger does not believe with Roussy [of
Paris] any more than I do, that one form of cell under pressure can change
into the other. Sarcoma remains sarcoma, and carcinoma remains carcinoma.

Fibigcr told Smith he now had a tar that would produce cancer
in 95 per cent of animals, and Smith's concluding notation was:
" He docs not think that tar cancer can possibly be due to any
parasite." He tried to consult with Dr. Fibiger once more before
leaving Copenhagen but, unable to arrange a time convenient to
both, an exchange 'of letters had to take the place of the second
interview. Both he and Dr. Fridtjof Bang ''^ of the Rigs Hospi-
talet wrote Smith: on March 19 Fibiger expressed his indebtedness
" for all you. have shown and told me about your wonderful
experiments [and for] the opportunity of seeing the preparations
and specimens of Dr. Blumenthal. I," he said, " am not able to
judge about the significance of these last experiments, and
although I cannot deny that two of the microscopical preparations
demonstrated by you were closely resembling malignant and
especially sarcomatous tumors, I dare not exclude the possibility
of all the disease being an infectious one and not at all tumoral.
It seems to me that great series of control experiments are required.
..." These he hoped to do, if and when the duties of his uni-
versity professorship and other work permitted. Dr. Bang had
been " very glad to see [Smith] in Copenhagen, and to learn more
exactly and from first hand your famous investigations of cancer
in plants, giving so beautiful results." On the evening of March
18, Dr. Bang had called on Smith at his hotel and, after demon-
strating his cancer slides, examined the Blumenthal rats and slides
and the crown gall photographs.

Dr. and Mrs. Smith left Copenhagen for Amsterdam on March
20. Part of his last day had been spent with Professor August
Krogh,^-" zoophysiologist, Nobel prize winner, and Silliman
lecturer in 1922 at Yale University on the anatomy and physiology
of the capillaries. Reaching Amsterdam the next day, Smith, at
his first opportunity, went to locate Dr. Deelman only to find he
was now professor of pathology in the medical school at Gronin-

^** Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cil., 598.

""Cecil K. Drinker, August Krogh: 1874-1949, Science 112(2900): 105 f., 1950.

628 Third European Journey

gen. Slides of Deelman's " very early stages of tar cancer in mice "
were, nevertheless, at the Leeuwenhoek Huis, and he studied these
on March 24, finding that they showed what Deelman " claimed,
i. e. appositional growth in early stages of the tumor." ^-^ Of the
Blumenthal " schizomycete isolated from human breast cancer,"
Smith wrote Miss Hedges of his laboratory.^" " I have come to the
conclusion that they have isolated something . . . that will produce
tumors in rats and crown galls in plants — either bacteria (the
visible thing) or some invisible virus carried over along with
the bacteria must cause the rat tumors." He was meeting " the
cancer specialists of Amsterdam " — Dr. Bonne, Dr. W. F. Was-
sink, Dr. W. M. de Vries, and Dr. Nicolas Waterman, among
others. Dr. Wassink told him of " remarkably successful " cancer
treatments by radium and x-ray. He discussed with Dr. Bonne some
questions about parasites ^"^ believed found in tar-treated mice.
He showed these doctors his crown gall photographs and Blum-
enthal rat-materials,^-'* and then he and Dr. Waterman, a biologist,
may have discussed Dr. Otto Warburg's work.'^-^ Smith told his
first American audience that Waterman had " verified Warburg's
results obtained on rats, /'. e., the glycolytic action of cancerous
tissue on grape sugar with production of a great excess of lactic
acid, using, in vitro, a variety of human cancers ... I suspect,"
he said, " as does also Waterman, that small quantities of other
acids may be present and act as stimulants to cell-division."

On March 23 Professor Johanna Westerdijk of the Centraal-
Bureau voor Schimmelcultures at Baarn telephoned and sent a
letter to Dr. Smith:

I am so glad to see you here to-morrow, both of you! I do not know
what other plans you have in Holland, but on Friday from four to five
I have my university lecture in Utrecht. I should care very much that all
my students at Utrecht should meet you and hear you. I wonder whether
you (instead of myself) would care to give them that lecture. Utrecht is a
nice old town, where I might show you things. Please think of it. I was
just going to treat " Vegetable galls " in my lecture; think of just having
you here at the time !

Dr. and Mrs. Smith went to Baarn and were taken by Miss

'"Journal, Mar. 24, 1925.

'" Letter written at Baarn, Mar. 26, 1925.

123

See, Recent cancer research, op. cit., 243.
'^'^ Journal, Mar. 24, 1925.
^"^ See, Some newer aspects of cancer research, op. cit., 597.

Lasi W'okk TiNAL Honors 629

Wcstcrdijk to licr home and laboratory. The Willie Commclin
Scholtcn Laboratory, formerly at Amsterdam, had recently ac-
quired an estate, and Miss Westerdijk divided her work in plant
patholoi^y thus, her research at Baarn and her teaching at Utrecht.
Dr. Smith, revelled in the glorious gardens, good greenhouse
facilities, and the laboratories where plant diseases were studied.
By frequent transfers 16*^0 kinds of fungi were kept alive. He
saw many interesting plants, the good library of books on science
and literature; and in the evening Miss Westerdijk invited eight
of her assistants and special students to meet her American guests.
Dr. Quanjer was away from Wageningcn that week. When
reached, he pr5mised to be at Utrecht the next day. Miss Wil-
brink, discoverer of the hot water treatment against Sereh disease
of' sugar cane, had recently returned from Java and Smith,
" pleased .with her." ^-'' learned of her efforts "to infect sound
cane ... to find the parasite."

At four o'clock the next afternoon, Dr. Smith addressed fifty
students in the University of Utrecht botanical laboratory " on
crowngall and its relation to other galls and tumors. [H]e used
English, and strange to tell," he said,^-' " all understood me.
Students here are taught to use three languages. All can use at
will English or German and some also know French. They
seemed very much interested and at the close gave me three
tremendous rounds of applause."

Professor Quanjer and two other scientists from Wageningen
w^ere in the audience. Smith enjoyed talking with them, and with
a professor of plant physiology from the Imperial University at
Sendai, Japan, who also heard the lecture. Dr. Went took them
around the " new and commodious laboratory," and invited Dr.
Smith to attend with him a meeting of the Dutch Academy of
Science. He did not accept this invitation, however, since on that
day at Amsterdam he planned to re-study "Dr. Deelman's slides
of early stages of tar cancer in the skin of mice."

Dr. and Mrs. Smith returned to Amsterdam and he became more
convinced than ever that Deelman was " right beyond doubt. The
precancerous stage," he wrote in his journal, ^-^ " is cell-hypertro-
phy followed by cancerous invasion. The hypertrophy gradually

^=' Journal, Mar. 26, 1925.
^-'Journal, Mar. 27, 1925.
'-'Journal, Mar. 28, 1925. Also, Mar. 24.

21

630 Third European Journey

extends farther and farther into the skin in all directions and new
invasions follow. His sections show all this very clearly." The
" very early stages " meant " before the muscles have been
invaded."

One of their last days in Holland was spent at the Inter-
national Flower Show at Heemstede and Lisse. They were invited
to this event by Dr. E. van Slogteren who met them at Haarlem and
drove them to the exposition grounds. There, among the important
exhibits on plant pathology, Smith saw demonstrated the "" marvel-
lous effect of [Dr. van Slogteren's] hot water treatment in (l)
killing eel worms and (2) stimulating growth. By this treatment,
at small cost, the Narcissus [could] be made free from its worst
parasite." ^"^ This former student of Dr. Moll at Groningen, who
had been offered Moll's place, had tried out the method against
other plant diseases, among them, the still serious yellows disease
of hyacinths. He took Smith to his laboratory at Lisse and told
him " he was not able to control the yellows disease of hyacinths
by direct heat, but accomplished the same thing indirectly, /'. e.
by exposing the bulbs for a considerable time at 33°C. This tem-
perature greatly favors the growth of the bacteria in the diseased
bulbs and two months later at planting time he can then easily
distinguish and throw out the sick bulbs."

One more week in Holland would have satisfied Dr. Smith since
he had wanted to see " Deelman, Beyerinck, Moll, and Wakker."
But to study the English work with the thoroughness he wished,
he and Mrs. Smith had to leave Amsterdam on March 30. His
work was known of now the world over. Scholars from South
America, South Africa, British India, the Philippine and Hawai-
ian Islands, Japan, Russia, the Balkan states, Austria, Hungary,
Scandinavia, and other world regions, had visited his laboratory.
Many had applied to study with him; and many were his corre-
spondents in all quarters of the globe. In 1925 he was made a
" membre honoraire " of the mycological section of the Russian
Botanical Society; and his " splendid work in the study of Bacterial
diseases of plants " and his rank as an authority on this subject
were regarded as " incontestable." ^'^^ His influence on the plant
scientific research work of Japan was especially pronounced.

^'* Journal, Mar. 29, 1925.

^^^ In 1921 Dr. N. I. Vavilov and Dr. A. Jaczewski, Russian plant scientists,
had been entertained at a botanists' dinner in Washington and by Smith in his home.

Last Work. Tinai Honors 631

Recognitions from scientists of the British Isks had not been
few. On February 28, 1921, Director A. R. Boycott of the depart-
ment of patholoi^y of the medical school of the Univcrsit)' of
London, while visiting leading schools in the United States, had
called on Smith at his laboratory and been given photomicro-
graphs of the tobacco cortex crown gall tumor. He was later
sent slides and, thanking Smith, "" frankly confcss[ed] that a sight
of the actual specimens altogether changed my ideas on the
subject." Bricrley of the Institute of Plant Pathology of the
Rothamsted Pxpcriment Station at Harpenden wrote: '" The hard
convincing evidence of your wonderful series of crown gall speci-
mens made a great impression upon [Boycott] and he said to me
what I have often said to others that he " had never seen so
magnificent a demonstration in his life.' " The next year, on
September 2, Bricrley, as editor for botany of the Aunals of
Applied Biology, asked Smith to prepare the first of a series of
articles by leading scientists in the fields of economic botany —
Johannsen, Nilsson Ehlc, Berlese, Chevalier, among them — sum-
maries of investigations with special biological applications, such
as Smith's work on crown gall. Smith agreed to submit a 5,000
word article. But evidently it proved to be more than was wanted
and, when the second request arrived, he was unable to promise a
revision in the near future.

Late in 1922, Dr. George Adami, now vice chancellor of the
University of Liverpool, had written:

Ever since I have been in England I have been crying up your work on
crown gall, and people here are beginning to realize its huge importance.
I confess it has been a rather interesting demonstration to me of the diffi-
culty there is in one country in getting sound work in another country
acknowledged unless a man comes over to the other country and actually
demonstrates his methods to the assembled men of science.

On April 21, 1923, Sir Harold J. Stiles of Edinburgh, accompanied
by Drs. Finney and Miller of Baltimore, made a laboratory call on
Smith, and soon Dr. Harvey Gushing wrote to say that the noted
Scotsman had written him " most enthusiastically in regard to the
visit." In January of that year Sir Clifford AUbutt, Regius Pro-
fessor of Physic at Cambridge, had thanked Smith for his "' three

Jaczewski of the Institut Jaczcwski dc Mycologie et Pathologic veg(§tale wrote
Smith and told him of his new honor. They collaborated in studying the black chaft
disease of wheat. Science 63(1629): 305-307, 1926.

632 Third European Journey

most interesting and important research records. You may be
aware," he wrote, " that for forty years I have been preaching the
need of Comparative Pathology," and he requested that Smith
send him more of his reprints. German Sims Woodhead of the
pathological laboratory at Cambridge also had been interested in
Smith's work, especially his study of " Production of tumors in the
absence of parasites " (1920) . " You have taken up an interesting
subject," he wrote, " one that has very wide bearing."

Dr. and Mrs. Smith arrived in London on the evening of March
31, and soon he visited the Middlesex Hospital cancer laboratories.
There he met several of the doctors, and with one. Dr. Helen
Chambers, a cancer research specialist, he discussed questions of
parasitism and immunity by x-ray, showed her his Blumenthal
rat-cancer slides, and she showed him " some of her rats inoculated
with Jensen's rat sarcoma." In sixty per cent of human breast
cancer cases, the parasite Demodex, he learned, was found asso-
ciated with the disease, and an appointment was arranged the next
day with " Surgeon Handley of breast cancer fame." Eight of
the doctors and surgeons saw his Blumenthal rat specimens.
Unable to locate Dr. Sambon at the Tropical School of Medicine,
he went on to officials and members of the famous staff of the
Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He wanted to find its director,
Dr. James Alexander Murray, but, he being out of the city. Smith
consulted with Dr. Findlay who showed him about the laboratories
and arranged an appointment with Dr. Murray for April 15. Dr.
Findlay gave him a copy of the Fund's 1923 report, and Smith
learned that he had " a note in The Lancet (April 4) reporting
three cases of skin cancer in mice from a single application of hot
tar (70°C)." Dr. Findlay then gave Dr. Smith some important
information: that " one of their research men (at a substation) has
found the virus of Rous's chicken sarcoma. This man's name
[was] Dr. Gye."^^^

Dr. Smith was not to meet Dr. Gye until after his conference
with Dr. Murray. Soon after their arrival in London, he and Mrs.
Smith had had dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Brierley, and on April
6 they went to Harpenden to enjoy two days at the Rothamsted
Experiment Station. At almost every point of their journey, they
had been entertained with teas and dinners, and this was no

"^ Journal, Apr. 2, 3, 4, 1925.

Last Work. Iinai. Honors 633

exception. The first Ja) the Rrierleys gave a tea and a dinner in
tlieir honor, and the next evenins: they had dinner at tlie home of
Sir John Russell, the director. On one occasion Dr. Smith spoke to
a company of about twenty men and women. They stayed at the
home of Dr. Cutler, a Cambridge University protozoologist who
was studying the micro-fauna and micro-flora of the region.

In the morning Smith, Brierley, and a young student from
Geneva, Switzerland, strolled around the experiment station
grounds and the village. Along with the hundreds of acres under
cultivation. Smith saw the manor house of Sir John Lawes who
had given the land on which the great English institution had
been established.- Leading to the manor house was a beautiful
avenue of lime trees, and they passed through woodland to the
famous wheat fields which, though cultivated for eighty years or
more, were still yielding good harvests. Brierley and he talked
some of plant diseases, among the topics being a canker disease
prevalent in England and the results of preventive experiments
against potato wart.

In the afternoon Smith visited the laboratories and saw several
things of greater or less definite interest: laboratory cultures of
soil algae and soil protozoa; a method of staining bacteria in soil
without staining the humus compounds, " Winogradsky's new
method "; slides of soil showing a stained coccus form of the
nitrogen-fixing organism which was believed to change develop-
mentally (or culturally) into other forms; a simple and rapid
device for testing lethal doses of various insecticides; and, among
still other points, he learned of ^^- " Colpodium colpoda ... a
single celled mononeucleate organism " which he believed " might
be good for some crown-gall experiments." Dr. Cutler had experi-
mented with these organisms which " feed on bacteria in the soil
[and] accustomed them to take their carbon from glycerine and
their nitrogen from ammonium sulphate."

On April 8 Dr. and Mrs. Smith returned to London to attend
another dinner given in his honor by Dr. Brierley, this time at the
Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus. Those present were Dr.
E. J. Butler, English pathologist; Dr. J. Ramsbottom, mycologist
at the Kew Gardens; Dr. F. T. Brooks, plant pathologist of
Cambridge University; Fernand Chodat, the young botanist from
Switzerland; Dr. Ernest S. Salmon, Smith, and Brierley.

"* Journal, Apr. 7, 1925.

634 Third European Journey

Dr. Salmon was a mycologist at the University of London,
South-Eastern Agricultural College, located at Wye, Kent. H.
Wormald from there, working in 1921 on crown gall of apple
stocks, mulberry blight, and soft rot organisms, had corresponded
with Smith. He and Mrs. Smith could not go to Wye until April
1 1 because for April 9 Sir John Russell had arranged that they be
admitted to a session of the House of Commons. They went two
days later, however, and, under the guidance of Dr. Salmon, saw
the college and his work on hop and apple diseases. He showed
them various experiments: grafted hops for mosaic studies; fungi-
cidal treatments for apple scab; a new hop mildew; and sections of
Vefituria perhhecia " attacked by some Protozoan-like parasite." "^

The next day was Easter Sunday. So they visited Canterbury
and attended cathedral services and, after another day, during
which time they saw a hospital founded by John Smith in 1657,
they journeyed back to London. On April 15 Dr. Smith went to
his appointment with Dr. Murray.

At the Imperial Cancer Research Laboratories Dr. Murray very
carefully examined the slides from Dr. Blumenthal's laboratory,
and Smith quoted ^^* him as saying, " ' I should be greatly dis-
turbed if they were mine.' This because the tumor is so variable
from rat to rat. He said it looked like an infection there are so
many polymorphs in it." He introduced Dr. Smith to Sir George
Lenthal Cheatle, a noted surgeon and doctor who became so
interested in his crown gall work that the following September
while on a journey in the United States he visited Smith's labora-
tory and spent a whole day studying specimens.

Dr. Murray then arranged for the American visitor to go ten
miles northwest of London to meet Dr. W. E. Gye at his substation
laboratory, and in him Smith found the " most interesting " man
he had met in London. Of his work Smith wrote: "'"

He has been working on Cancer for fifteen years and on Rous' chicken
sarcoma for the last two years, and has obtained wonderful results but has
published nothing as yet. He has established two things: 1. That the filter-
able virus of the chicken sarcoma is particulate. This he has done by centri-
fuging it and showing by inoculations that the precipitate is infectious and
that the supernatant fluid has lost all power to infect. The centrifuge must

"' Tournal, Apr. 11, 1925.
^""Tournal, Apr. 15, 1925.
"'journal, Apr. 15, 1925.

Last Work. Final Honors 635

be run at 9,000 revolutions a minute and (he (luitl must be pH 6.5. It
cannot be done if the lUiid is 7.1 J->H. 2. He has shown that the virus
multiphcs and must tlicretore be a Uvini; thing. This lie has done by taking
0.02CC of the filtered virus and putting it into 5cc of his culture fluid. After
three days from the first tube he transfers 0.02cc to a second 5cc. After
another three days 0.02cc from the second lube is transferred to a third
tube of ^cc and so on for se\en transfers, the last of which is infections.
This is Pasteur's dilution method and it leaves no doubt that something has
grown. He has obtained about forty cases of the chicken sarcoma in this
way, but what disturbs him is that only about 50% of his inoculations
take, whereas the filtered virus derived directly from the chicken tumor
will infect ei'ery tivie. Dr. Gye finds also that when his transfers become
contaminated with cocci and other organisms they cease to be virulent.
He formerly bcliercd malignant tumors non-parasitic but now he believes
very tirmly that they arc all or most of them of parasitic origin.

Dr. Smith learned that Dr. Gye had " not been able to demon-
strate any organism [in vitro} by stains. . . . His tubes," he said,
" do not cloud even faintly unless they are contaminated." ^^"

Dr. Gye examined the Blumenthal rat-tumor slides and said he
thought " they were infections of some sort." In Amsterdam,
Smith had read in Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics ^^' a paper
on " The Experimental Production of Metastasizing Carcinoma in
the Breast of the Dog and primary Epithelioma in Man by repeated
Inoculations of a micrococcus isolated from human breast cancer."
They discussed this subject, and Smith left the laboratory to return
for a second visit two days later.

On April 16 he went to the cancer hospital at Kensington to
consult another doctor but, not finding him, he spent some time
with Dr. Cheatle and Dr. Murray. On April 17 he went to Rhodes
Farm, Mill Hill, and " saw Dr. Gye inoculate chickens with the
Rous sarcoma virus." Smith's memorandum read:

He put into some, also, virus treated with chloroform for two hours
■which he says destroys the virus. Before injecting it he put the tube under
an air pump and carefully extracted all the chloroform, otherwise the
chickens would die. I suggested to him that his 50% of failures with the
cultures, must be due to the fact that he has attenuated his virus (by
excessive heat or otherwise) and consequently only the weaker chickens
are infected. In that case the others should be vaccinated, and resist the
fresh virus. Evidently he is aware of this interesting possibility and has
not told me all.

^^' See, Some newer aspects of cancer rese.irch, op. cit., 599; Recent cancer research,
0/7. cit., 251-253.

""Mar. 1925, 343-352.

636 Third European Journey

Dr. Smith believed him " a very clever and a very interesting
man, on the eve of great discoveries." ^^^ He was " a well-
balanced, industrious and quiet man thirty-five or forty years old,
with an excellent training for the work he [was] doing. He
impressed [Smith] as a keen critic, cautious and well aware of the
pitfalls on every hand, and more anxious to be right than to be
famous."

Dr. Smith regarded his three conferences with Dr. Gye as "as
interesting as any [he had had} anywhere in Europe." The third
took place on April 18 at the National Institute for Medical
Research located on Windmill Hill near London. There, Dr. Gye
" introduced [him] to his colleague, the physicist and optical
expert, J. Edwin Barnard, who [had] devised very clever new
apparatus for seeing the ultramicroscopic filterable viruses. He
examines them," Smith wrote, ^^® " by monochomatic light through
a green screen using a mercury lamp. This screen cuts out practi-
cally all the lines except the green and a mere trace of the orange.
With this he uses an objective of 1.3 N. A. and eye piece which
magnifies 1800 diameters. By this means he can see down to

Barnard had " been working on the problem of seeing and
photographing the organism causing Rous's chicken sarcoma for
two years " and Smith believed that he had " succeeded in both.
I saw it under the microscope," he said, " and I saw photomicro-
graphs of it. He first showed m.e the pleuro-pneumonia germ,
fastened to a thin film of gelatin and afterwards the living organ-
ism bobbing about in a rabbit serum culture." Smith described and
drew various developmental " stages " of the organism which he
saw. He saw also " a four dav, fifth transfer " of the Rous sarcoma
organism. He " examined the pleuropneumonia culture for a long
time and [was] satisfied it is a living thing. ... If this filterable
virus is an organism, then," he concluded, " I don't see how one
can refuse the same name to the sarcoma virus." "°

He added: "^ " I got more out of Dr. Gye today. He is trying
all sorts of incubator temperatures on his virus cultures from
35°C to 42°C with the idea of attenuation and vaccination."

^^* Journal, Apr. 17, 1925; Recent cancer research, op. cit., 252.
^^* Journal, Apr. 18; Some newer asp. of cane, res., op. cit., 599.

"^^^ Idem; also, Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 45.
^"Journal, Apr. 18; Recent cancer research, op. cit., 252.

Last Work. Final Honors 637

Whether a vaccine had been or would be discovered awaited more
definite completion of the studies."' But at this time Smith com-
mented, ■" What a wonderful discovery it would be! "

On April 22 he and Mrs. Smith sailed on the U. S. Line ship,
" President Harding;,'" and arrived in New York eight days later.

On ALiy 3 and -1, the eighteenth annual meeting of the Ameri-
can Association for Cancer Research convened at Washington. At
its council meeting Dr. ('banning C. Simmons, vice president
during Dr. Smith's regime, was elected the organization's new
president. Dr. Burton T. Simpson, director of the New York
State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease, was elected
vice president, and Dr. Woglom was continued in the office of
secretary treasurer. At the Navy Medical School, morning and
afternoon sessions were held, and in the presence of about forty
members Dr. Smith presented his address, " Some Newer Aspects
of Cancer Research." He wrote of the meeting: '^^ " I exhibited
Blumenthal's rats and slides. Drs. Ewdng, Wood and Woglom
examined them microscopically. ... At the meeting Dr. Cori of
[the New York State Institute for the Study of Malignant Disease]
read a paper '" stating that he had verified Otto Warburg's excess
of acid in cancer cells, using man and living animals; and Dr.
Warthin continued his study of a cancerous family." Smith tabu-
lated some of Dr. Warthin's conclusions. He knew that his address
had been wtU received. Members asked for cultures and slides to
study the Blumenthal w^ork further.

Dr. and Mrs. Simpson and Dr. and Mrs. Shrader of the Gratwick
Laboratory called on Smith and saw his laboratory and the rat-
tumor slides. Soon Miss Fox of his laboratory was cutting one
rat specimen brought from Berlin, the " one of the big axillary
metastases in PM VIII cell transplant." "^ By August he had
received a " letter from Dr. Blumenthal " "*^ which told that
" another rat tumor now in 4th transplant, structurally like L,
[had been obtained] with a bacillus cultivated from a cancer of
the uterus plus kieselgur," and by early the next year,"" after

**" Some newer asp. of cane, res., op. cit., 599.
"'Diary, May 4, 1925.

*** Drs. Carl F. and Gcrty Cori, The carbohydrate metabolism of malignant tumors,
Jour. Cancer Research 9: 510 f., 1925.
"'Diary, May 14, 1925.
"'Diary, Aug. 7, 1925.
"^Mar. 10, 1926. Letter, Feb. 9, 1926.

638 Third European Journey

receiving another letter and reprint from him, Smith was writing
in his diary, "They have obtained the bacillus PM from another
human cancer." On August 20, 1926,^*^ before the International
Congress of Plant Sciences, Smith would say of this work:

Blumenthal and his associates in Berlin have . . . isolated what appear
to be strains of [Bacfer/um tuniefacieiis'] from human tumors and with
them have produced tumors in plants and malignant tumors in rats. Very
recently, Dr. Fritz Kaufmann, of Koch's Institute for Infectious Diseases
in Berlin, has isolated an organism, said by him to belong to the B.
tumejaciens group, from a carcinoma of the mouse (Ehrlich strain) and
with it has produced tumors in plants.

In this address. Dr. Smith admitted that the " bulk of medical
opinion at present may be said to favor the view that malignant
tumors in man are due to a variety of long-continued local irrita-
tions rather than to any specific parasites. Favoring this view,
which I do not share," he continued, " is the fact that cancers may
be produced in experimental animals by tar-painting, by extracts
of soot, and by other chemical substances applied repeatedly." "^

In July 1925, a year before, almost to the month, he had ordered
a copy of the London Lancet ^^° and, after studying the substance
of a recent paper by Drs. Gye and Barnard, exclaimed in his
diary: ^^^ " It marks even a greater advance forward than I
expected. [Gye] says there are two factors concerned in tumor
production (l) the living virus which is non-specific and (2) a
chemical stimulant derived from the tumor tissue which is narrowly
specific." Late that year Dr. Smith was invited to participate in a
symposium on the Cancer Problem, held in conjunction with the
meeting of the American Society of Zoologists. He could not be
present. But he sent Dr. Stockard his address, " Recent Cancer
Research," ^" and a telegram the substance of which became its
final paragraph. In November, Dr. Murray's Twenty-third Annual
Report of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund had been published,
and Dr. Smith quoted an excerpt which began: "-^

The essence of Dr. Gye's conception is that malignant growth results

^** Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 45.

^" Idem.

^""July 18, 1925.

"^ Diary, July 30, 1925.

'^^''- Amer. Naturalist 60: 240 f., May- June 1926.

^"^Idem, 254.

Last Work. Final Honoiis 639

from the concurrence of two factors — an ultra microscopic microbe and
an unstable chemical factor derived in his experiments from propagated
malii;nant tumours of animals, and it would be erroneous to regard either
ot these factors, sinijly, as the cause of cancer. The direct evidence of this
dual origin of new growths has so far only been furnished for the Rous
towl sarcoma and for a transplantable sarcoma of the mouse. For other
tumours the evidence is indirect, cultures of these supplying the ultra-
microscopic microbe, the specific unstable chemical factor being supplied
by an extract from the Rous fowl sarcoma, in which species of animal the
two injected simultaneously gave rise to progressively growing sarcoma.
Injected singly, they are inert. The delicate racial and tissue specificity
governing the transmission of malignant new growths therefore attaches
to the labile chemical factor, and not to the microbe. One of the gravest
objections to previous forms of the parasitic hypothesis of cancer is thereby
met. '

On December 29, Dr. Gye wrote Smith expressing confidence
that the defenders of the " cell theory " would " in the very near
future . . . find it hard to hold their ground." He confided that he
had " a good deal of information on the subject of immunisation
against new growths " but the materials were " only partial " and,
requiring a " hundred and one qualifications," too difficult to put
in a letter. His next letter ^^^ told of their " new laboratories "
which, though small, were " as near perfection as one can ever
hope for in this world. Barnard and his assistants," he wrote,

are on the ground floor; I have, with one colleague, the upper floor. It has
taken several months to settle down, to arrange work and so on but now
we are in full swing. Barnard of course is doing the microscopy and
happily has already made many improvements. . . . The experimental
work is of course in my hands and I am glad to say that we have pushed
along pretty satisfactorily. I have repeated my published work with newly
devised technique and I have nothing to withdraw or recant. If I had
of course I should do it at once. I am now more satisfied than I was that
a filterable virus is the true cause of the fundamental character of animal
tumours. The parasitic theory has been a little battered lately but that is
in the natural order of things. Scientific orthodoxy is against it and of
course with reason. But then in science the orthodoxy of one decade is
based on the best available evidence of the previous decade. And fortu-
nately so or there would be no stability. I am pretty confident that with
the better methods now devised there will be less ditriculty in repeating
my results and I am optimistic enough to believe that theory will change
slowly. In any case let truth prevail.

^^* Nov. 7, 1926, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Medical
Research, Farm Laboratories, Mill Hill.

640 Third European Journey

Dr. Gye is today the director of the Imperial Cancer Research
Fund. In a recent lecture, " The Propagation of Mouse Tumours
by means of Dried Tissue," ^^^ given before the Royal College of
Surgeons on March 22, 1949, he has described three sarcomas
propagated in mice with the use of a complicated technical pro-
cedure. His conclusion is still that experimental evidence points
to cancer having a " continuing cause, and that this, in mammals
as in birds, is a virus. ... At present the only conclusion from the
whole work which is of vital and abiding interest," Dr. Gye says,

is that it is no longer justifiable to put the normally easily filterable tumours
of chickens in a separate class and turn a rather scornful eye on them.
This work has now brought tumours of mice — average tumours found in
all well-equipped cancer laboratories — into the same class. They have, as
was to be expected, a continuing cause, and, since the continuing cause of
chicken sarcoma is a virus, probably it is viral in nature.

In his letter to Dr. Smith of November 1926 he had said:

The technique of filtration is of course one of the most obscure and
difficult jobs in filterable virus work. . . . We are using collodion filters
which can be graded with some approach to precision. And the results
are now being standardised /'/ it is possible against the "" depositing power "
of centrifugalisation. For the purposes of centrifugalisation we have now
a better machine — a real engineering job — which will spin 15,000 rev[olu-
tion]s a min[ute], record the speed and enable us to repeat with accuracy
any given experiment.

His address of more than two decades later evaluates much of
the modern knowledge of Dr. Rous's chicken sarcoma. " The
agent," he said,

which multiplies with the growth of the tumour is now recognized as a
virus. Electron-microscope photographs have been taken, and the sizes
revealed by such photographs are in fair harmony with sizes deduced from
experiments with collodion filters. The virus is more or less spherical and
occurs in clumps in the tumour cells. Now we know of several hundred
filterable tumours of the domestic hen. They are of different structures:
some, but very few, are simple spindle-cell tumours resembling the Rous
sarcoma ; others include chondromas, osteochondromas, fibrosarcomas,
myxosarcomas, muscle-cell tumours, and so on. . . . [I}t has universally
been found that the inoculated virus can start a tumour only of the kind
from which it is derived. . . . Tlie virus is so specialized in its effects that
it represents in itself all the qualities and properties of the cell from which
it is derived. Nevertheless, an immune serum made by injecting virus

(With colleagues), British Med. Jour., 511-515, Mar. 26, 1949.

Last Work. Final Honors 6-11

from one tumour will nc-utralize the viruses from other types of tumour;
which indicates a common antigenic clement.

Chemical, physical, or parasitic causes have usually been
described bv Dr. Gve as " remote or adjuvant. " But these " lead
to cancer and the intracellular continuing cause. This continuing
cause is related to the pathological nature of cancer and is, in the
sense in which we say that the tubercle bacillus is the cause of
tuberculosis, the cause of cancer."

In September 1926 Dr. Smith attended the International Sym-
posium on Cancer held at Lake Mohonk, New York, Mountain
House under t4ie auspices of the American Society for the Control
of Cancer. He was not a member of this organization and not on
tlie program of speakers. But, on the morning of September 23,
his extemporaneous remarks "' on the question of parasitism in
cancer " stirred up " a lively discussion." '•"' With him he had his
crown gall photographs, and, in his room, he showed them to
many important men of the conference: Dr. Henri Hartmann and
Dr. Gustav Roussy of France, the first of whom he had met while
in Paris; Dr. Raffaele Bastianelli, associate professor of surgery at
the University of Rome and vice president of the Italian League
for the Control of Cancer; Sir John Bland-Sutton, president of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England; and many other European
and American scientists. At the conference Dr. Blumenthal told
him of the Kaufmann work at Koch's Institute. On Pelargonium
and sunflowers five large tumors had been produced with bacteria
(resembling Bacterium tumejaciens) from mouse cancer (Ehrlich
strain) . He told Smith also of other workers who claimed to have
obtained one plant tumor on a Pelargonium with " a yellow
schizomycete growing only at 30°." ^"' Dr. Blumenthal was later
Smith's guest in Washington and spent a morning in his labora-
tory.^^*^ As the concluding event of the symposium, the foreign
guests were honored with an elaborate dinner at the Hotel Astor
in New York City. Dr. Smith attended this occasion, and also a
cancer research program held at Johns Hopkins Hospital on
September 27. He returned the next day to his laboratory and set
out his crown gall material for any guests who might visit his

'^'' Diary, Sept. 23, 1926. See Cancer Control, 179, Chicago, Surgical Publishing
Co., 1927.

^=' Diary, Sept. 20, 1926.
"* Diary, Sept. 25-26, 1926.

642 Third European Journey

display. Among those who arrived were "' the Dutch cancer
specialists, DeVries and Deelman. They spent about three hours
looking over crown gall material, specimens and slides." ^^^

On October 1 he applied for an additional $40,000 research
appropriation for his laboratory during the approaching year. For
the crown gall work he listed four problems which he purposed
to have studied:

1. Can tumors be produced in cold-blooded animals with Bacterium
tumefac/ens? ... 2. Can the process of tumor formation be observed
under the microscope by introduction of Bacterium tmnejaciens into a
single cell by means of Chambers' apparatus? 3. Can the strains of the
crowngall organism we now possess be gradually adapted to growth at
blood temperature and thereby made to produce tumors in rats and mice?
Can strains of Bacterium tumejaciens be found in nature which naturally
grow at 38°C., at temperature of man's blood?

The appropriation was to be divided equally between four
branches of investigation: crown gall; bacterial soft rots of
potatoes, field and laboratory studies; bacterial diseases of wheat
in the middle west beyond the Mississippi River, field and labora-
tory studies; and bacterial diseases of beans and related legumes,
and bacterial diseases of tobacco, field and laboratory studies from
Massachusetts to Florida."'"

In March, Dr. B. M. Duggar, chairman of the executive com-
mittee of the fourth International Botanical Congress, had called
on Smith and told him that he had been selected to givt one of
two main addresses for the sessions of the congress meeting as a
whole. " This is a great honor," he replied. " I am hardly equal
to it or worthy of it." "^ Dr. Went was the European chosen to
speak on the evening of August 18 and Dr. Smith's address was
scheduled for August 20. He took for his topic, " Fifty Years of
Pathology," and, during its preparation, he found that to sum-
marize a half-century of pathology and " make it interesting
[was] no easy task." ^^"^ More than once, while writing, re-writing,
and condensing his address, he was unsure that he would succeed.
The International Congress of Plant Sciences, as the congress
became known, was held at Cornell University during the week of

^" Diary, Sept. 28, 29, 1926.

^'"' Letter addressed to Dr. W. A. Taylor, chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry.

'" Diary, Mar. 29, 1926.

^"^ Diary, Aug. 5, 1926.

Last Work. Final Honors 643

August 16 of that year. 'I'licrc were between ei^ht and nine
hundred registrants, and, t)f these, fully one-eighth were foreign
delegates. Dr. Smith found the occasion " the most delightful
scientific gathering [he had] ever attended." '"^ His great friend,
Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey, was president and presiding chairman of
the congress. He introduced Smith on the night he gave his
address to an audience of about three hundred persons. The
address, well received, required two hours in presentation and was
illustrated by forty-five lantern slides.

Smith one day attended a luncheon of the nine members present
of the National Academy of Sciences. He spoke on "' Dr. Jones,
the man," at a dinner given in honor of Professor L. R. Jones and
at which the honored guest's portrait was presented to the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin and a set of twenty-nine bound volumes of the
collected works of his students given him. Among several other
important events was a luncheon, which Smith also attended,
honoring twenty-two foreign botanists at the congress. He be-
lieved that " great credit " for the congress' effectiveness should go
to Dr. Whetzel, chairman of the committee on local arrangements,
and he visited his laboratories of plant pathology on the last day.
After the congress. Dr. and Mrs. Smith took a short journey
through points in New York State to Toronto where he enjoyed
again visiting with Professor Leslie C. Coleman who was teaching
at his alma mater after having returned from Mysore, India, where
he had been director of agriculture.

At the congress, Dr. Smith became acquainted with Professor
B. Nemec from Czechoslovakia who showed him " very beautiful
stained slides of root-nodules of Legumes and leaf teeth of
Ardisia " and who claimed that he had " stained the bacteria in
crown gall [which] like B. radicicola are both between the cells
and inside of them." While in London he had been told of a
method of staining, used by Dr. Murray, which might be applied
for crown gall bacteria.''" He wrote down Professor Nemec's
formula. ^*^^ The papers on pathology at the congress which appear
to have interested him the most were on " Filterable virus diseases,

"' Diar>', Aug. 19, 1926.

"'Journal, Apr. 17, 1925.

^•"^ Diary, Aug. 21, 1926. Nemec had read a paper before section C, Cytology, on
The mechanism of mitotic division. Another paper which Smith marked for hearing
at this section meeting was Dr. Harper's, The structure and functions of plastids,
particularly elaioplasts.

644 Third European Journey

yellows, mosaic and related diseases": three" very instructive
papers from different angles on Mosaic diseases by B. M. Duggar,
[H.] Klebahn, and Kunkel." He quoted Duggar as saying that
" poke weed juice in sufficient amount ' kills ' tobacco mosaic
virus." A full half-page memorandum from Dr. Kunkel's
" Studies of the aster yellows disease " read:

Aster yellows cannot be given to Rosaceae but it is inoculable into plants
of many other families, can be budded like peach yellows, dwarfs the plant '
and causes it to send out numerous chlorotic shoots of erect habit, and
often causes the flowers to become green. It is not transmitted by the juice,
but by a leaf hopper. . . . One day's feeding on a diseased plant is enough
to infect the hopper but he cannot transmit the disease to healthy plants
until the virus passes through an incubation period in his body the shortest
time for which is ten days.'

166

More than this, while examining an exhibit of " Opuntias inocu-
lated with an exceedingly destructive bacterial soft rot obtained in
Bermuda," Smith saw "various mosaic preparations including
those of Ray Nelson in squash petiole where were numerous
bodies stained with iron haematoxylin and looking like pro-
tozoans." He saw also G. P. Clinton's " amoeba-like bodies in
living trichomes of mosaic tobacco and . . . also in many other
cells. Clinton," he said, " can get mosaic, he claims, from dried
mosaic tobacco twenty years old (done by finger rubbing) ," and he
noticed that the Connecticut plant pathologist's " stain 1% iodine
green in l%acetic acid differentiates the amoeboid bodies from the
nucleus." He examined also Miss Eckerson's " stained smear pre-
parations of tomato mosaic," and Miss Goldstein's " striking slides
of tobacco mosaic stained with 1% iodine green in 1% acetic acid.
The amoeboid bodies pink in contrast to the blue nucleus." ^''^

These exhibits were seen on the day before he gave his address,
" Fifty Years of Pathology." Into this he had written several
paragraphs on the current study of plant viruses and protozoa.
He knew something of Duggar's work. At the spring meeting of
the National Academy of Sciences, Smith had introduced him when
he read a paper on " Indications respecting the colloidal behavior
of the agency of virus inducing mosaic disease of tobacco." "^ By

"' Diary, Aug. 18, 1926.

"' Diary, Aug. 19, 1926.

^°* Diary, Apr. 27, 1926; and program of the meeting. At ttiis meeting Smith also
presented his paper, Changes of structure due to a modified environment: a study of
labile protoplasm in Helianthus annuus L.

Last Work. Final Honors 64*)

tlic- time Smitli's address was published, Kunkcl's work on the aster
yellows was published m the Anicnccoi journdl of Botany, Miss
Goldstein's study of tobacco mosaic had appeared in the Bulletin
of the Toney Botiiniciil Clnh, and Miss Eckerson had a paper on
tomato mosaic in the Botanical Gazette. Smith read each, and
inserted a fcx^tnote reference to those, as well as other, studies not
mentioned in the main body of his address."''

Toward the end of the year 192'>, Dr. Smith had begun to suffer
at times from insomnia. More and more he reflected on the
possibility that his work might be nearing completion. '" What-
ever happens," he wrote, " life is good and I have had a long
and interesting stretch of it. In a month I shall be 72 [years of
age] and if I could sleep I should go on into the 80's, I believe.
How I should like to do it. There are so many interesting problems
almost within my grasp but then if I lived another 70 years the
same would be true. The arcana of the Universe are endless." ^'^
On New Year's Eve, his thoughts had been retrospective: " For
us," he said, " it has been an eventful and happy year. In France,
in Germany, in Denmark, in Holland, in England, and then in our
home making it over inside and making a garden out of the dis-
reputable old side-hill back yard. May we have some joy in it
in the new year! "

The year 1926 did bring far more than he hoped, a correspond-
ing membership in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
dephia, among other honors, near its close, an event replete with
lasting satisfaction took place. On December 29, at the eighteenth
annual meeting of the American Phytopathological Society, a
dinner of 195 covers at the Hotel Normandy in Philadelphia was
given in his honor. He was presented with a leather-covered
brochure, hand-engraved on parchment paper, containing 172 sig-
natures of members of the society and visiting pathologists. Its
dedicatory statement read: " To Erwin Frink Smith scientist,
linguist, poet, friend, who for forty years has devoted his life's
service to the broad field of pathology, in grateful appreciation we
the members of the American Phytopathological Societ}' dedicate
this testimonial."

Dr. L. R. Jones spoke for the plant pathologists and he extolled
Smith

"" Fifty years of Pathology, op. cit., 36.
""Diary, Dec. 19, 1925.

646 Third European Journey

For leadership in early study of peach yellows, most stimulating example
of dogged work upon a baffling problem, with prophetic assurance that
knowledge of tobacco mosaic and aster yellows was pertinent to the solu-
tion; for leadership in pioneer studies of bacterial plant pathogens, with
classic publications exacting models for all who followed; again with
prophetic vision of the boundless extent of this field ; for zealous devotion
in defense of truth ; for assembled contributions to knowledge of bacteria
in relation to disease in plants ; for epochal researches on crown gall ; for
sympathetic counsel to eager younger scientists, from far and near; for
thus exemplifying the Pasteurian characteristics: clear vision, instant action,
intuitive judgment, precise method, tireless endeavor, sympathetic patience,
self-sacrificing devotion in service through science; for these things we
delight to honor you: pioneer, prophet, exemplar, dean of our science.

Dr. William H. Welch spoke next to Dr. Smith. " No one in
our day." he said,

has done more to bring the two great divisions of pathology into close
relation to their mutual advantage. Your studies of plant tumors have
brought you into the field of onkology in its broadest aspect. Here you
take your place in national and international congresses and associations
devoted to medical research and here your work is recognized as of the
greatest interest and importance. While your name is associated especially
with the championship of the parasitic theory of the origin of tumors,
your studies of the mechanism of tumor formation, of problems of histo-
genesis, of formative stimuli and inhibitions of growth are scarcely of less
importance. We too on the medical side have learned to admire you as a
man inspired with the highest ideals of the searcher for truth, and devoted
to this search, with the heart, the methods and the loyalty of the ideal
man of science.

Dr. Rand, Miss Hedges, Miss Brown, Miss McCuUoch, Miss
Bryan, Miss Elliott, and a former member, Miss Ames, were
present from Dr. Smith's laboratory. Dr. Rand presented " the
memento." ''' " What Robert Koch was to the early days of
human and animal bacteriology," he said,

that and more have you meant to the bacteriology of plant diseases. Almost
single handed you saw it through those first years of speculation and
scepticism to its present broad and solid position among the sister sciences.
In your scientific work and in your influence you have made an indelible
impression not alone upon plant science or upon animal science, but upon
the whole field of experimental biology. And what is to me most vital
and reassuring, through it all you have never for a moment lost sight of
the humanities nor of the beautiful things of the mind and of the world

Diary, Dec. 29, 1926.

Last Work. Final Honors 617

without. May I therefore be permitted to add tlic personal tribute of one
who for o\er fifteen years has worked under the inspiration of your guiding
hand.

Dr. Smith's response reviewed " how [he] came to be a patholo-
gist " and his work of forty years as " a research patlioh^i^ist of
the United States Department of Agriculture." '•' There he was
regarded as " undoubtedly tiie most eminent research man ever
connected with the Department." '"^

This was to be his last appearance at a large gathering of
scientists outside of Washington. On December 17, 1925, he had
addressed forty members of the Washington Academy of Sciences
on " Recent Cancer Research." On October 6 of the year he had
spoken before an audience of sixty persons, including Secretary of
Agriculture W. M. Jardine, on " Things seen and heard in
Europe." This was a meeting of the Washington Botanical
Society, and on March 1, 1927, he would address the 200th meeting
of this organization and review its origins and history since 1893
when it was known as the " Botanical Seminar." Other addresses
were made by him: as instances, one on May 6, 1926, before the
Women's Club of Rockviile, Maryland, on " Modern advances
in medicine and surgery," and many for the National Carillon
Association. Twice he had been asked by Dr. Bloodgood to speak
at important dinners or meetings of scientists in Baltimore.

During the years 1925 and 1926 many well known scientists
had visited his laboratory. On September 17, 1925, Sir George
Lenthal Cheatle told him of new accomplishments at the Imperial
Cancer Research Fund laboratories since he had been there. Dr.
van Slogteren visited this country, called on Smith at his laboratory
November 21, and while here journeyed to California, spoke at the
Ithaca International Congress, and lectured at the National
Museum on bulb diseases and their treatment. On November 30,
Dr. F. O. Bower, emeritus professor of botany at the University
of Glasgow, spent an hour with Smith and was given a dozen
crown gall slides and some recent publications. Earlier that month.
Dr. Giulio Savastano, had arrived from Italy to study " some
months" in the laboratory. In August, William Brown, plant

'" Idem.

'^' Letter from Dr. L. O. Howard of the Bureau of Entomology to Mrs. Erwin F.
Smith, Apr. 13, 1927.

648 Third European Journey

pathologist of the London Imperial University, called while on
his way to the American cotton belt regions. American botanists,
too many to list all, continued to visit the laboratory, some to
examine scientific materials and some for consultations. During
these years, a noticeable increase of correspondence with Canadian
scientists took place: mostly with botanists, however, interested
in the crown gall-animal tumor work.

Dr. Charles Mayo, in whose company Dr. Smith had gone to the
cancer symposium at Lake Mohonk, spent an hour or two at the
laboratory on January 14, 1927. So interested was he still in
Smith's work that, like other doctors at other hospitals, he had
sent both surgeons and medical practitioners to inspect his
materials. The importance of the laboratory's work was particu-
larly recognized in other scientific laboratories of Washington.
For instance, within a little more than a month's time in 1926,
three pathologists from Garfield Hospital in the company of Dr.
Garner, and Professor Treat Baldwin Johnson of Yale University
with Dr. William Charles White of the Hygienic Laboratory,
visited Smith's laboratory. Dr. Johnson was planning to do some
work in organic chemistry on crown gall. As promised, Dr. Koitchi
Itchikawa on May 25, 1925, made a trip from New York to
Washington for the sole purpose of examining Dr. Smith's plant
tumor collections, and was given slides and specimens, and cultures
later. On January 25, 1926, Jensen of the experiment station at
Copenhagen, Professor Hurdon of the Rothamsted station, and Dr.
B. M. Duggar, called. March 16 Miss Wilbrink arrived from
Holland after having been since September in the Dutch and
English West Indies, and was entertained by Dr. Smith and his
laboratory assistants. Visitors from all parts of the world made
a point of seeing the laboratory before returning to their native
lands. At times one countryman would tell a fellow scientist of
work seen. For example, from Sweden in 1922 had come Professor
Barthel, director of the central agricultural stations and depart-
ment of agricultural bacteriology, and three years later, on Novem-
ber 27, Dr. Lundegardh, pathologist interested in destructive soil
parasites including Fusariums, spent a good part of the day with
Dr. Smith. Before and after the Ithaca congress, many foreign
scientists visited his laboratory. Nils Svedelius of Uppsala, student
of marine algae, among them. Olof Arrhenius, son of the great

Last Work. Final Honors 649

plnsical and hiochcinist Dr. Svantc August Arrhcnius, of Sweden,
also consulted Smith and in 1921 lioped some live years later to
work in his Laboratory of Plant Pathology " for some montiis."
At the Ithaca congress O. Arrhcnius submitted an invitation paper
on " Soil acidity, plant growth, and its practical application." On
November 19, 1921, after a conference with him. Smith had
written in his diary: "He has been for six months in Java and
Sumatra and has found that the tobacco soils on which tobacco
wilt is bad are acid soils, which agrees very well with our findings
in the United States. I sent him cultures of Ract[erium] sol[ana-
cearum] . . .-six weeks ago . . . and he says it behaved in his
tests the same as the Sumatra organism."

' In April 1926 Dr. Smith received a letter from Dr. Alexis Carrel
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Carrel
regretted that he was unable to be in Washington on April 27 to
hear Dr. Smith read his paper, " Changes of structure due to a
modified environment," before the National Academy. The sub-
ject interested both scientists, and he arrived on April 30 and they
discussed tumors and examined materials. ^'^ Smith, in his address,
" Recent Cancer Research," ^'^ had twice mentioned Dr. Carrel's
work.

On February 25 of that year, Dr. John W. Churchman of the
laboratory of experimental therapeutics of Cornell medical school
and known for his studies of selective bactericidal properties of
certain aniline dyes had thanked Smith for cultures of the crown
gall organism and for reprints: " I have read with much interest
the reprints you sent me," he said. " Of course, I have followed
closely the extremely valuable work you have done on galls and
hope that I may have the pleasure of visiting your laboratory in
Washington and seeing some more of your work."

Dr. Smith's laboratory remained one of plant pathology and
plant bacteriology to the very last year of his life. In 1927, evi-
dently still skeptical of the genuineness of the Blumenthal rat
tumor, he sent slides or sections for neoplastic diagnosis to several
specialists: Dr. MacCarty of the section of bio-pathology and
diagnosis of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Wells of the department of
pathology of the University of Chicago, Dr. Lewis of the depart-

^'* Letter, Apr. 26, 1926; Diary, Apr. 30, 1926.
"* Op. cit., 247, 254.

650 Third European Journey

ment of embryology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington,
Dr. Burrows of the Barnard Free Skin and Cancer Hospital of St.
Louis, and perhaps others. Each one denied the true neoplastic
nature of the tumor. After February of that year nothing further
on this subject appeared in any of Dr. Smith's writing or memo-
randa of his diary. Late in 1926 and early 1927, furthermore,
he gave much time to studying the so-called " cancer germ " and
method of treating cancers by antitoxin of Dr. T. J. Glover of
New York City. Dr. William B. Coley arranged on November
16 ^'"^ for his first appointment with Dr. Glover who had been
seven years at work on his antitoxin and had never sold it or
made money with its use. Dr. Glover showed him young and old
cultures of his organism, his collection of tumor-bearing animals,
stained sections of various types of cancers, explained his work,
and gave Smith cultures of his organism to study in his laboratory
at Washington. Dr. Smith spent parts of three months studying
the " schizomycete," ^'^ and his conclusions,^'* some of which were
suggested, found, or verified by Dr. Thom, were that the organism
was not a " schizomycete," as Dr. Glover had told him he believed,
but contained several organisms. Smith wrote: " I have found one
' spore sack,' that of Glover's ' cancer germ,' to be the conidia of
Penicillium brevicaule, a contaminating fungus. The rest of the
' germ ' was made up of several types of sporulating bacteria."
On March 1, 1927, Dr. Woglom acknowledged receiving from
Smith a paper entitled, " Glover's ' cancer germ,' " to be read at
the Rochester meeting of the American Association for Cancer
Research. This paper was never presented, and for reasons soon
to be disclosed.

Practically all of Dr. Smith's last publications had been based
directly upon, or built around, his work in crown gall. He had
continued to direct and supervise all of the work of his laboratory.
Much important work had been done by his co-workers. Miss
Hedges' study of the bean disease {Bacterhmi fiaccumfaciens)
had been extended to Europe and it was known that its cause is
transmitted " from year to year on and in the seeds." In 1923-

^^ Diary, Nov. 16, 1926; interview with Dr. Glover, Nov. 17; interviews with
other New York doctors concerning Dr. Glover's work, Nov. 18-19.

"' Diary, Dec. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 1926; work continued. Diary, Jan. 14, 1927;
conference with Dr. Thom, Diary, Feb. 7, 1927.

^■'^ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 35.

Last Work. Final Honors 651

1924 FrcJ Rcucl Jt)iics of Wisconsin had discovcrcxl and estab-
lished the etioloi;y of a serious vascular disease of alfalfa, and in

1925 Miss McCulloch had described the cultural characters of its
cause, ApLinobacter insiciiosnni.^'" That year ^"^ Miss Bryan had
obtained " interesting root infections on tomatoes with Ap/iino-
bacter mich'tganense and also demonstrations that the disease is
carried on the seeds, as [Smith had] long suspected." In 1924
Dr. Smith and Miss Elliott had presented at the meeting of the
American Phytopathological Society a paper on "A bacterial
disease of broomcorn and sorghum." '^^ These were but a few
examples; and on March 5, 1927, he summarized the laboratory
work which w^as going on satisfactorily: " Miss Fawcett," he
wrote,^*-

lijs interesting studies of distilled water well along. Agnes Qairk and
Miss Brown are working on crowngall oxidation phenomena. Miss Brown
has a note with two plates on sweet pea fasciation due to Bad. tumejaciens
in Phytopathology. Miss ElHott has written a paper on stripe disease of
oats. Miss Hedges is working diseases of beans. Miss Bryan on several
things — one of which is Aplanobacter on tomato. Lucia McCulloch is
working on bulk diseases. Miss Cash on miscellaneous things. Miss Fox
the same. I am trying to complete the illustrations for my Ithaca paper,
[Fifty Years of Pathology]. [J. F.] Brewer is helping.

For many years Brewer, botanical artist of the Department,
had helped Dr. Smith valuably in preparing illustrations for
publications from his laboratory, i. e., by drawings and prints for
half-tone plates and other special features.

In January, Dr. Rand had begun work to " complete a bulletin
on bacterial wilt of sweet corn." ^^'^ During the first week in March
a " tumor-like disease on nodes of suger cane [had been] received,"
and on March 8 Dr. Smith began to examine these for protozoans
or cell inclusions in the tumors. Some root tumors of lilac from
France were also studied, and he believed these crown gall.*"*'
That night he suffered the first of several recurrent heart attacks
and was never again the strong, virile man he had been. But

'" Idem, 37.

^*'' Diary, May 9, 1925.

181

Phytopathology 14(1): 48, Jan. 1924; A bacterial stripe disease of sor£;lium.
Jour. Agric. Res. 38(1): 1-22, Jan. 1, 1929 (extension of paper of 1924 meeting,
Amer. Phytop. Soc).

^" Diary, Mar. 5, 1927.

"' Diary, Jan. 3, 1927.

"' Diary, Mar. 7, 8, 1927.

652 Third European Journey

he went to his laboratory almost every day for the next three
weeks. His comments on the work grew fewer and fewer, although
on March 23 he wrote in his diary a paragraph concerning Miss
Bryan's studies of the " American and European lilac blight "
due to Bacterium syringae.

Dr. Smith's strength had given out. On March 25 he welcomed
Dr. Jaroslav Peklo, professor of applied botany in the Czech
Technical University, Prague, to his laboratory and gave him the-
work-table which Dr. Nakata had had. Dr. Peklo wanted to " get
general information on bacteriology, mycology, plant breeding,
etc. Very likely," wrote Smith, ^'^^ " we can do little for him in our
laboratory. He has studied with Pfeif er in Germany and Blackman
in London." Other well qualified plant pathologists had studied
in the laboratory during recent years.

Among them had been one of America's leading plant scientists
today. Dr. Elvin Charles Stakman, a recent president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. On Janu-
ary 26 he had called at the laboratory and furnished Dr. Smith
with some conclusions about " sulfur dusting for rust of wheat."
This was a subject which interested him. In his address, '" Fifty
Years of Pathology," ^^^ he had spoken of the '" great attempt
[that had] been made in the United States to control stem rust of
wheat (our worst disease)," he said, " in a dozen or more of our
western states by a united effort to eradicate all the barberry
bushes over a territory a thousand miles square. It is too early to
know what the final results will be, but thus far they appear to
be favorable. Plant breeding would seem to offer a more effective
remedy. This also is being tried. Possibly dusting by airplane with
colloidal sulphur is the coming remedy." Smith wrote ^" of what
Stakman told him:

They saved twelve bushels per acre on one field. He thinks more is to
be expected from resistant varieties and from barberry eradication than
from dusting. If rust were equally bad all years, it would pay but there
is only now and then a bad year. It costs six dollars per acre and some-
times the crop is injured and sometimes the rust is not prevented. The
sulphur prevents the germination of the spores, but if they have entered
the plant the mischief is done.

"^ Diary, Mar. 25, 1927.

"* Op. cit., 39.

"' Diary, Jan. 26, 1927.

Last Work. Final Honors 6*) 3

Oil March 28, Dr. Smith knew that he was " not well. In cvcry-
thint; I do 1 have now to be very careful of my heart, which is
deuced inconvenient,"' he complained.'""' His last day of studious
activity, March 29, was spent reading all day in the Surgeon
General's library. For almost a week after that day of pleasure
every page of his diary was a blank. On April 6 he passed beyond
the world of living forms as earth-born creatures know them. He
had said: And since God '" must be like His universe — Because
things made reflect the maker's mind — And most of all like man,
at least not worse, 1 think that we shall live again in Him, and
nobler and diviner then shall find clear light from Him to read
what now is dim." The last " of the deep secrets the universe
conceals " had been unfolded. He had believed he would go to
the " Divine . . . Great Love the one sole thing to satisfy a hunger-
ing world ■' and " become just earth and sky." He had written his
own epitaph: " Be then my scroll: lies one beneath this sod to
whom all nature voiced the living God."

The Reverend U. G. B. Pierce officiated at funeral services held
at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, Dr. A. F. Woods
gave the eulogy or address of appreciation. Dr. Smith's body was
cremated and his ashes scattered over the waters of the " many-
islanded and wide, blue sea, the winding shore " at Woods Hole,
Massachusetts.

At the meeting a few days later of the American Association for
Cancer Research, the place w^hich Dr. Smith's paper was to have
had on the program was " devoted to an appreciation of his
character and his work." "" Dr. Mortier F. Barrus, president of the
American Phytopathological Society, telegraphed the " sincere sym-
pathy of every member " and wrote that " Doctor Smith [had]
long been regarded as the Dean of American plant pathologists
and his death [brought] a sadness to us all." Every organization
and publication with which Dr. Smith had been identified in his
work, and many, many American and European scientists, prepared
or sent memorials, memoirs, testimonials or tributes. Almost two
dozen sketches on his life and work were published in current
scientific literature of the world.'"" Dr. A. Besredka, on behalf of
his colleagues of the Pasteur Institute, assured Mrs. Smith " that in

'*' Diary, Mar. 28, 1927.

"' Letter, Apr. 16, 1927, from Dr. W. H. Woglom to Mrs. Smith.
""' B/og. Mem. Eru-in Frink Stnith 1854-1927, Natl AcaJ. of Sci., op. cit., 21: 69-
70 (list compiled by F. V. Rand).

654 Third European Journey

him we have lost a great savant u^ho honored microbiology."
Secretary of Agriculture Jardine wrote:

He has been so closely identified with the research work of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and so outstanding in the quality and magnitude of
his personal achievements in research in his chosen field, that the Depart-
ment and the country suffer with you in his departure at a time when,
while long mature, he was in possession of the full intellectual power with
which he was so richly endowed and which he applied so enthusiastically
and effectively in his researches and so unselfishly for the general good.
The record of his life and service will long continue to inspire those of
his associates who remain and those who follow, to exert their full power
in the pursuit of truth, and at the same time developing strong human
friendships and relationships. The memory of these hundreds within and
many outside the Department service share with you.

Dr. Smith's greatest monument, of course, was his scientihc
work. But the genius of his example is still alive in the memories
of many a working scientist today. Where else, in the history of
American science, may be found a scientist who, more than
establishing a fame and reputation unexcelled in his chosen work,
could attain to such sublimity of expression in poetry as the
following sonnet on " God and the Universe ".'*

His will alone that rhythmic force explains.
Which cell on cell of tiniest being shows — -
And star dust old not less than new-born rose,

But His deep Self incognito remains:

In all earth's realm, I find not Him who reigns
And vain the search where old Antares throws
A ruddy flame, or lone Arcturus glows.

Alone His finger prints the clay retains.

Man proud, some say: He dwells within the soul;
And some: He liveth not; and mournful some:
He u'ills but hath not yet to pity come;

And some with me: He is our final goal,

He hides within the deeps, withdrawn, world-vast,
That man through search may come to Him at last.

Truly the " near and small " had foretold for him " the great and
far ": God had been "" over all and in all " his life and work.

INDEX

Abbott. A. C. 193 f, 212 f, 310, 330

Abtl. J.J. 21-}, 506

Abclmann. H. \V. 50-1

Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadel-
phia, 6-i'>

Academy of Sciences, France (Smith,
corrcsp. member) 615

Actinomycosis, 62, 472

Adami, j. G. 310, 331, 440 f, 464, 500,
651

Adams Act of 1906, 432

Aderhold, R. 279, 325, 402, 406 f , 422,
624

Adlcr. H. M. 504

Agardh, J. G. 93 '

Agassiz, A. 131 f

Agassiz, L 19, 25, 28, 98, 131 f, 359

Agramonte, A. 424

Agresti, O. R. 609

Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 129, 246,
267

Alexander, J. 500

Alfalfa, vascular disease of (Aplano-
bacler insidiosum), 651

Algae, 92flF, 97 f, 316, 328, 359, 400 f,
616

AUard, H. A. 149, 151, 511

AUbutt. C. 631

Allen, C. E. 567

Almond and apricot diseases, 161, 205,
232, 234; see also Crown gall

Alternaria diseases of plants, 243 f, 297

Amaranths, Smith's disease of {^Bac-
terium amaranth}), 341

American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
479

American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, 89, 110, 112 f, 175 f,
247, 261, 282, 287, 293, 303, 307,
309, 332, 369, 376, 385 f, 423 f, 451;
Smith, president, Section G (1906),
393

American Association for Cancer Re-
search, 437 f, 441 f, 444, 446, 453 f,
494, 520, 532, 542, 575, 585, 600,
603, 622 f, 637, 653; Smith, vice
president and president (1924-5), 585

American Journal of Botany, 284 f

American Medical Association, 89. 458 f,

494, 504 f. 526

American Mycological Society, 386
American Naturalist, 211 i, 291, 306,

308, 311 f, 315 ff. 320, 330
American Philosophical Society, 492,

495, 507, 510, 574

American Phytopathological Society, 349,

385 f, 416, 446 f, 547, 645, 653;

Smith, president (1916), 492
American Pomological Society, 20, 89,

102, 121, 175
American Public Health Association, 31,

33, 40, 276, 298, 310
American Society of Naturalists, 286 f,

327, 393
American Society of Zoologists, 638
Ames, Miss, 646
Anderson, J. F. 589
" Anilin-dye cancers," experimental,

580 f
Animal carriers of disease, 43, 553 f ; see

also under various diseases and Insect

transmission
Antagonism, 72, 484, 487, 491, 521
Anthrax, 41 f, 49, 52 ff, 58, 71, 73, HO,

311, 330, 343, 602
Antibiotics, 475 f, 486 f, 489 f, 492
Antibodies in plants, 487
Antitoxins, vaccines, sera, etc., 38, 42,

49, 61, 185 f, 215 fT, 423 f
Aplanobacter, 482, 651
Aplanobacter Rathayi, All f ; see Orchard

grass diseases
Appel, O. 345, 369, 406 f, 422, 482, 624
Apple, bitter rot of (Glomerclla), 364,

381
Apple, infectious hairy root of, 434, 493,

595
Apple scab {Fusicladium dendriticum),

102, 130, 140, 180 f, 198, 244, 325,

634
Apple twig blight, pear and, see Pome

fruits
Arcangeli, G. l47, 398 f
Arloing, S. 62
Arnaud, 604
Arnold, J. 45

655

656

Index

Arrhenius, O. 648 f

Arrhenius, S. A. 649

Arrhenius, idem'! 543

Arthur, J. C. 15 f, (>(y, 87, 97, 105,
lllff, 116 ff, 121, 137, 139, 142, 159,
164, 180 f, 197, 200, 207 f, 246, 252,
294, 297, 301, 342, 346, 382, 385 f

Asparagus rust, 381

Aster yellows, 333, 552, (i\it, 646

Atkinson, G. F. 210 f, 229, 245 f, 266 f,
283, 287, 308, 342, 449, 461

Atrophy in plant disease, 437

Atwater, W. O. 144

Auler, H. 6l4, 618 ff

Ayers, H. 120

Babcock, S. M. 293, 307

Babes, V. 40

Baccarini, P. 398 f

Bache-Wiig, S. 604

Bachmann, J. 315

Bacillus alvei, 62

Bacillus amylobacter, 68, 110

Bacillus amylovorus, see Pome fruits, fire

blight of
Bacillus carotovorus, see Soft rot of

vegetables
Bacillus coli, 342, 465, 490
Bacillus cotnesi, 396
Bacillus delphini, 369, 393
Bacillus phytophthorus, see Potato, black

leg of
Bacillus subtilis, 54 f
Bacillus tracheiphilus, see Cucurbits, wilt

disease of
Bacillus ulna, 54
Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diseases

(Smith), 383 f, 388 ff, 395. 402, 409,

426 ff, 450 f, 464, 474 f, 478 f, 484,

519, 558
Bacterial diseases of plants, early work

on (general), 67 ff, 87, 104 ff, 146 ff,

177 f, 184, 191 ff, 206 ff, 216 ff, 247 f,

251 ff, 267 ff, 277, 291 ff, 318 ff, 328,

340 ; see also under various bacterial

diseases
Bacterium putredinis, 68
Bacterium sarastanoi, see Olive tubercle
Bacterium solanacearum, see Solanaceae,

brown rot of
Bacterium stewarti, see Maize, Stewart's

disease of

Bacterium syringae, see Lilac blight

Bacterium termo, 12 3

Bacterium tra-islucens var. undulosum,

see Wheat, black chaff of
Bacterium tumejaciens, see Crown gall

of plants
Bacterium rascularutn, see Sugar cane,

Cobb's disease of
Bacterium welchii, 214, 324
Bailey, I. W. 500
Bailey, L. H. 18, 78 f, 121, 127, 154,

159, 164 ff, 175, 197, 229, 289, 299,

349, 389, 413, 449, 643
Baird, S. F. 92

Baker, H. B. 31, 36, 45, 80, 83, 86, 128
Banana, Cuban disease of {Fusariuyn

cubense), 339, 483, 513
Bang, F. 627
Banting and Best, 487
Barber, M. A. 465
Barlow, T. 469
Barnard, J. E. 636, 638 f
Barnes, C. R. 17, 88, 128, 164
Barrus, M. F. 449, 653
Barss, H. P. 46l
Barthel, C. 648
Bartlett, H. H. 559, 567
Bashford, E. F. 468
Bastian, H. C. 51
Bastianelli, R. 641
Bateson, W. 413 f, 420
Bay, J. C. 255, 331, 558
Bayne- Jones, S. 506
Beach, S. A. 298, 356
Beal, W. J. 18 ff, 28 ff, 70, 89, 113, 121,

128, 159, 164
Bean blight {Bact. phaseoli), 298, 305,

320 f, 341, 343
Bean diseases (general), 200, 416 f, 533,

650 f
Bean wilt {Bad. flaccumfaciens), 588,

650
Beckwith, T. D. 463
Behlke, Dr. 621

Behring, E. von, 59, 61, 186, 216
Beijerinck, M. W. 145, 151, 279, 328 f,

402, 422
Bell, W. B. 616
Berckmans, P. J. 223
Berge, T. O. 537, 565
Berkeley, M. J. 51, 67, 136
Berlese, A. N. 325, 631

Index

6^7

Berlese, Antonio, 398

BcrnarJ. C. 104

Dtrthclot, A. 589

BcrtholJ. G. 68, 108

BcrtranJ, G. 605, 612

BesreJka. A. 472, 602 f. 616, 653

Bcssey, C. E. 15 ff, 70. 90, 97. lUff,

121, 129. 142. 274. 283. 297, 389,

421. 450 f. 461
Bessey. E. A. 94. 105. 365, 480
Biflfcn, R. H. 411 f
Bis^clow, H. J. 91
Bigelow, R. P. 306
Biggs. H. M. 33, 193, 213, 589
Billings, J. S. 44, 46frr82, 153. 192 f,

212 ff, 383, 459
Biological Society of Washington, 253,

260, 275, 283, 292
Biologischen Anstalt (Kaiserlichen) fiir

Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Berlin-

Dahlem, 406 ff, 624
Birge. E. A. 106
Bitt'ner, J. J. 535, 572, 583
Black knot of cherry and plum, see

Cherry
Black, L. M. 583

Blackberry (and raspberry) rust, 102
Blackman. V. H. 479, 652
Blakeslee, A. F. 461
Bland-Sutton, J. 641
Blaringhem, L. 612
Bloch and Dreifuss, 576
Bioodgood, J. C. 541, 543, 559 f, 576,

587, 647
Blumenthal, F. 541 f, 6l4 f, 618 ff,

623 ff, 637 f, 641, 649 f
Bokorny, T. 280
Bolle, J. 325, 470
Bolley, H. L. l42, 200 f, 245 f, 251 f,

307, 337 f, 341
Bollinger, O. von 62
Bolton, B. M. 193 f, 330
Bonne, C. 628
Bonnier, G. 316
Bordeaux mixture, 139 ff, 152 f, 173,

183, 199, 207, 222, 244 f, 265, 381;

see also Fungicides
Bornet, J. B. E. 70, 93, 615 f
Borrel, A. 456 ff. 470, 530, 535, 545,

547, 575, 616 ff
Botanical-Physiological Inst., Agram,

Croatia, 148

Botanical Society of America, 285, 331,
446 f, 547 f; Smith, president (IVlo).
446

Botanical Seminar. Washington, 262,
272, 283. 647

Botclho. C. 6l2ff

Bovcri, T. 564

Bovic apparatus. 534

Bower, F. O. 647

Boyce Thompson Inst, for Plant Re-
search, 512. 541, 552

Boycott. A. E. 631

Boyer and Lambert, 369, 422, 606
(Boyer)

Brackett. G. B. 363

Brandes. E. W. 512 f. 546

Braun. A. C. 569. 572 f, 583 f

Braun, H. 517 f, 588

Breeding plants for disease resistance,
[19 f, 99, 102, 115], 122. 210, 231 ff,
241, 258, 267, 276. 296 f, 299, 334 ff,
361 ff, 381, 405, 409 ff, 484, 652; see
also Genetics

Brefeld, O. 53, 67, l40 f, 288 f, 315,
325, 408

Brenner, V. D. 425

Brewer, J. F. 651

Brewer, W. H. 91

Brierley, W. B. 465, 515, 565, 631 ff.

Briosi, G. 205, 401

British Medical Journal, 465 ; see also
American Medical Assoc.

Brizi, U. 397, 401

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 285, 510

Brooks, C. 512

Brooks, F. T. 633

Brooks, W. K. 131, 214. 220

Broom corn and sorghum, bacterial dis-
ease of, 118, 369, 387, 393, 478, 588,
651

Brown, N. A. 430, 432 ff, 437, 452, 456,
476, 537, 540, 549, 555, 581 f, 588,
595, 607, 610, 646, 651

Bruce, D. 63

Bryan, M. K. 533, 588, 646, 651 f

Buller, A. H. R. 351

Bullock, F. D. 545, 573

Burdon-Sanderson, J. S. 41

Burkct, W. C. 506

Burkholder, P. R. 476

Burkholder, W. H. 4l6f

Burnet, £. 589

658

Index

Burri, 315

Burris, R. H. 537, 581

Burrill, T. J. 15, 27 f, 68 f, 87, 91, 99 ff,
106 ff, 115 ff, 121, 124, 137, l46,
153, 166 f, 174, 180, 201, 203, 239 f,
247 f, 294 f, 297, 319, 324, 342 f,
349, 387, 396, 427, 448, 464, 478,
590

Burrows, M. T. 579, 650

Burt, E. A. 287, 461

Burton, M. L. 556

Buscalioni, L. 610

Busse, W. 327, 402, 407

Butler, E. J. 570 f, 633

Butler, N. M. 492

Cabbage, black rot of, see Cruciferous
plants

Cabbage, club root of {Plasmodiophora
brassicae), 70, 171, 238, 276, 370 ff,
429, 437, 439

Cabbage yellows, 4l6

Cacao diseases, 361, 513

Caldwell, G. C. 145

Calkins, G. N. 216

Calla lily bacterium, 348, 367

Calmette, A. 589, 603, 605, 612

Campbell, D. H. 278, 290, 459

Cancer research, coordinate study of, as
part of Smith's study of Crown gall,
"" cancer in plants," Chap. X-XII and
331 f, 369 ff, 374 f, 427, 435 ff, 451 ff,
462 ff. See also Crown gall, analogy
to animal cancer etc.. Tumors in
plants, and Carcinoma, Sarcoma, Ani-
lin-dye, Tar, Worm Cancers, Frog
tumors, Milk factor, Radium, X-rays,
Hormones, and Genetics.

Hypotheses as to cancer etiology,
435 ff, 451 ff, 469 ff, 492 ff, 505,
507 ff, 524 ff, 534 ff, 543 ff, 561 ff,
571 ff, Chapter XII; heredity as a
factor, 501 f, 558, 573

Cancer Symposium, Lake Mohonk, N. Y.
(1926), 641 f, 648

Cannon, W. B. 438, 500

Cantani, A. 72

Carcinoma, rat stomach {Spiroptera neo-
plastica), Abl f, 535, 545, 560 f, 574 f

Carleton, M. A. 204, 240, 328, 365,
417 f

Carlson, A. J. 359

Carnation diseases, 224, 246, 301, 341,

350
Carob tumors, 610

Carnegie Institution of Washington, 383,
426, 506; Desert Botanical Labora-
tory, Tucson, 447; Laboratory of Em-
bryology, 538, 543

Carpenter, T. B. 331

Carrel, A. 560, 625, 649

Carroll, J. 214, 424

Carsner, E. 416, 511, 551

Cash, L. C. 588, 651

Castellani, 408

Catalogue of the Exogenous Endogenous
and Acrogenous Plants of Wisconsin
(G. D. Swezey) 17

Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and
Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of In-
diana (Coulter and Barnes) 17

Catalogue of the Phaenogamous and
Vascular Cryptogamous Plants of
Michigan (Wheeler and Smith) 15,
18 f, 21, 29

Cauliflower, intumescences on (Von
Schrenk) 509

Cavara, F. 147, 205, 243, 326, 395,
401 f, 610

Celli, A. 63

Centennial Exposition, 1876, 14 ff.

Centralblatt fUr Bakteriologie (Smith,
Assoc. Editor), 135, 272

Cereal diseases (general), 66, l40 ff,
203 f, 307, 365, 417 f

Chadwick, E. 32

Chamberlain, C. J. 442

Chamberland, C. E. 51, 104, 150, 603

Chambers, H. 632

Chambers, R. 545

Chambers' apparatus, 545, 601, 642

Chapin, C. V. 32 f

Channels of entrance and types of move-
ment in bacterial diseases, 393

Chauveau, J. B. A. 62

Cheatle, G. L. 634 f, 647

Cheesman, T. M. 310, 331

Chemical theory of plant disease, 117

Cherry and plum, black knot of {Plow-
rightia morbosa), 96, 99, l47, 171,
199, 204

Cherry, gum disease of {Bacillus spon-
giosus), 257?, 407 f

Indux

6^9

Chcrr>', leaf scorch of (Gnomonia

erythrostoma), 142
Chester, F. D. 166. 245, -12 5
Chestnut bark disease {Endolhia para-
sitica). 482
Cheync, W. 57, 62
Chicken cholera, 49, 71
Chicken sarcoma, see Sarcoma
ChittenJcn. F. H. 304
Chittenden. R. H. 589
Qiolera (Asiatic), 57 ff, 82 f, 213, 330,

343, 474
Cholera, hog, see Hog cholera
Chromosome, see Genetics
Churchman, J. W. 64S^-
Citrus, canker of {B.tct. citri), 481 f.
Citrus, diseases of (general), 28, 137,

170, 221 fF, 225 f. 241, 244, 275, 329,

398, 400, 472, 610; see also Orange

blight
Clark, H. W. 310
Classification of bacteria, 55, 290 f,

316 f, 319 f, 425
Clements. F. E. 274, 386
Cleveland Clinic (Crile), 559
Clinton. G. P. 97, 175, 296, 384, 448,

461. 511, 644
Clowes, G. H. A. 505 f
Cobb, N. A. 341 f, 361 f, 391
Coca, A. F. 464 f
Coccidial diseases, 186
Coconut bud-rot, 387, 483, 514
Coffee, leaf disease of {Hemeleia vasta-

trix), 143 f
Cohen, S. S. 504
Cohn, F. 54 f
Cohnheim, J. 46, 51, 55 f, 444, 453,

532, 557
Coker, R. E. 543
Cole, R. I. 424
Coleman, L. C. 410, 514, 643
Coley, W. B. 443, 503, 650
Colman, N. J. 113 f, 130, 137, 156, 163,

168, 173
Colorado potato beetle, 27, 295
Colton, A. L. 249

Columbia University (College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons), 45, 216, 221,

423, 492, 512, 550 f; see also Crocker
Institute
Columbian Exposition, World's, 244 f,
251 f

Comes, O. 107. 206, 226, 518. 385.

395 f. 399
Comstock, J. H. 27 f
Congress of Arts and Sciences, Uni-
versal Exposition, 382, 390
Conifers, tumors on, 446, 478. 604,

607 fT
Conklin. E. G. 98. 357, 426, 459
Conn. H. W. 215, 285, 384, 386
Connecticut Agric. Exp"t Sta., 90 f, l44,
159, 199 f, 284, 350, (Storrs) 475,
490
Contagious pleuropneumonia, 47, 133,

185 f. 311, 636
Coiitjji/um tivu/t] fluidum, 151, l68
Cook, A. J. 27 fT, 121, 128, 164
Cook. G. H. 90, 129, 158
Cook, M. T. 474, 567
Cooke, M. C. 67. 101, 136
Coo ley, T. M. 43
Coons, G. H. 200 f
Cope, E. D. 50, 277 f, 306
Coquillet. D. W. 259
Corbett, L. C. 363
Corda, A. C. J. 51, 67, 136
Cori, C. F. 557, 637
Corn, see Maize

Cornell University, 27, 30, 90, 103, HI,
132, 165, 197, 289, 378 f, 4l6; Medi-
cal School, 392, 443, 464 f, 544 f,
649; see also New York State College
of Agriculture; for New York State
College of Veterinary Science, see
under V. A. Moore
Correns, C. 390, 414
Corrosive sublimate, 252, 258
Costantin, J. 327, 612
Cotton, angular leaf spot of {B.ict.

malvacenrum), 341 f
Cotton, anthracnose of, 124, 211, 246
Cotton, diseases of (general) 28, 187,
195, 246, 305 f, 345, 414; see also
Neocosmospora
Coulter, J. M. and M. S. 17, 87 f, 128.

164, 459, 495
Coulure of raisin grape, 232, 236 flF, 4l4
Councilm.-in, W. T. 134, 186, 193,

213 f, 392, 459, 503 f
Coville, F. V. 363
Cowles, H. C. 447
Cowles, S. N. 19

660

Index

Cowpea, wilt disease of, see Neocos-
mospora

Crandall, C. S. 159

Crile, G. W. 559

Crocker, W. 541, 552

Crocker Institute, Columbia University,
492, 544 f

Crookshank, E. M. 327

Cross, A. L. 556

Crotti, A. 504

Crown gall of plants {Bad. tume-
faciens), 228 ff, 331 f, 372 ff, 397,
428 ff, 451 ff. Chap. X-XII, see also
Tumors in plants; Acidity, increased,
in etiology of plant tumors, 436 ff,
495 ff, 507 ff, 524 ff, 535 ff, 540, 543,
571, 581 f, 585 ff, see also Tumors in
plants, inhibition of growth by acids ;
Analogy to animal cancer, [331 f,
369 ff, 374 f, 427 f], 435 ff, 441 ff,
451 ff, Chap. X-XII; Animal inocula-
tions with crown gall organism, 445,
484 f, 531 f, 538 ff; Appositional
growth, 529 ff, 539, 542, 556, 558 f,
565, 576, 612, 628 fT; Autonomous
growth of parasitized cell without bac-
terium, 441, 524, 526, 562 f, 572 f,
582 f; Chemically induced crown
galls, 436, 495 ff, 507, 509 f, 535 ff;
Cysts, floral proliferations, pith-bun-
dles, 524 ff, 590 f, 596 ff; Embryomal
teratomata, discovery of, 493 ff, see
also Embryomas; Hydrogen-ion con-
centration etc. 534, 540, 584 ff, 591 f;
Location of bacteria, 442 f, 456, 528,
563 ff, 605 f, 642 f ; "Oxygen hunger"
as a cause of tumors, 526 ff, 537,
578 ff; see also Hyperplasia, Mito-
chondria, Phyto-hormones, Symbiosis

Cruciferous plants, black rot of {Bad.
campestre), 247, 274, 280 f, 287,
292 ff, 298, 302 ff, 317 f, 320 f, 328,
341, 343

Cuboni, G. 397, 420

Cucumber, angular leaf spot of {Bad.
lachrymans), 369, 533

Cucumber mosaic, see Mosaic diseases of
plants

Cucurbits, wilt disease of {Bacillus
tracheiphilus), 245 i, 251 ff, 256,
259 ff, 264, 267 ff, 277 ff, 294, 302 f,
317, 319, 328, 343, 407, 499, 516 f

Cugini, G. 400

Cullen, T. S. 444 f, 492, 506, 524, 541,
576

Culture media, early use and improve-
ment of, in plant disease study, 52 f,
66, 87, 98 f, 104 f, 112, 116 ff, 120,'
122 f, 141, 183 f, 191 ff, 211 f, 268 f,
272 f, 289, 309 ff, 317, 321, 387; see
also under various diseases

Curtis, C. C. 450

Curtis, M. A. 94

Curtis, M. R. 545, 573

Cushing, H. 40, 57 f, 193, 208, 468,
506, 631

Cutler, D. W. (?) 633

Cystopus, 96 f, 123, 170

Dabney, C. W., Jr., 90, 129, 163 f

Dana, C. L. 468

Darwin, C. R. 12, 25, 41, 50, 72, 84,

390
Darwin, F. 326 f, 420
Davaine, C. 55, 68
Davenport, C. B. 506 f
Davenport, E. 99 ff
Davis, B. M. 307, 357, 359, 461, 523,

562
Davis, J. J. 294, 302
DeBary, H. A. 51, 64 ff, 69 f, 79, 84,

86, 88, 92 ff, 108 f, 113, 121, 125,

135 f, 139, 141, 208, 243, 343, 347,

349 f, 452, 617
DeCandolle, A. 93
Deelman, H. T. 559, 576, 623, 627 ff,

642
Dejubainville, A. D'A., and J. Vesque,

67 f
Delacroix, G. 345, 350, 385, 402 f, 422
Delafield, F. 45, 528
Delaware Agric. Exp't Sta., 164 ff
Delezenne, C. 612
Del Guercio, G. 398
Dental caries, 404
De Ropp, R. S. 582 ff
Detmer, W. 217, 267
DeToni, G. B. 400 f
Deutsches Zentralkomitee zur Erforsch-

ung und Bekiimpfung
der Krebskrankheit (Berlin), 620
DeVries, H. 107, 389 ff, 409 f, 413 f,

459
DeVries, W. M. 628, 642

Index

661

DeWolf. A. P. 15. 22. 25. 226 f

crHerelle, F. 477

Diabetes. 487

Diabrotica, sec Insect transmission

Dick. G. F. and G. H. 486

Diphtheria, 37. 41 ff. 61, 82, 186, 214,

343, 486
Dodge, C. \V. 299, 380
Dooiittle, S. P. 511, 517
Dorset. M. 185, 324
Dorsett. P. H. 197, 275, 297
Downy mildew of lima bean, 200
Duane, W. 587

Duchartre, P. £. 78 f, 81, 84, 88
Duclaux, A. M. R. 47?, 612
Duclaux, fi. 37, 51, 53, 55, 71 f, 254,

4-3v 520, 558, 589, 602 f
Dudley, W. R. 103, 197, 278
Dufrenoy, J. 6Q4 f, 607, 610 f
Ducqar, B. M. 96, 287, 328, 378 f, 382,

385, 402 f, 450, 461, 476, 512, 549,

564, 642, 644, 648
Dunbar. U. S. J. 425
Dunham, E. K. 213, 331
Duval, 441
Dysentery, 186

Earle, F. S. 104, 181, 386, 550

East, E. M. 384, 462, 507, 511

Eaton, D. C. 94, 461

Eaton, J. 88

Eberth, C. 60

Eckerson, S. 548, 556, 644 f

Ecology, 274, 286, 308, 357, 380, 447

Ehrlich, P. 189, 471

Eisenberg, A. A. 504

Elliott, C. 478, 588, 646, 651

Ellis, J. B. 67, 124

Films, J. W. 310

Ellwanger and Barry Nursery, 210

Embr>'omas in plants, 503, 507 f, 525,

528, 560, 593; see Crown gall
Engelmann, G. 93
Engelmann, T. W. 279
Engler, A. 136, 316, 405, 408
Enzymes, 150, 254 f, 279 f, 328 ff, 351,

380, 389, 621
Eriksson, J. 307, 3l6, 479
Ernst, H. C. 331, 360
Errera, L. 327
Erysipelas, 37, 61
Erysiphaceae, 104

Euteltix tenell.i, 416. 551 f, see also

Sugar beet, curly top of
Evans. I. B. P. 470
Ewing, J. 375, 392, 443, 532 f, 545,

563, 587, 637
Experiment Stations, State Agricultural,

90, 128 f, sec also under various

States
Eycleshymer, A. C. 171

Failyer, G. H. 28 f, 128, 175

Fairchild, D. G. 96. 174, 194 ff, 200,

210, 232, 248, 258, 282, 287 f, 299 f,

422, 463
Farlow, W. G. 30, 51, 69, 91 ff. 103 ff,

111, 113 f, 119, 125, 132, 138, 146,

172, 180, 199 f, 202, 204, 208, 212,

277 f, 282, 284, 286 f, 290, 297, 301,

303, 306 ff, 313, 343 f, 383 f, 386,

447, 452, 459 ff, 6l6
Farmer, J. B. 327, 397
Farneti, R. 401, 422
Fasciation of plants. 498, 592 ff, 651;

see also Crown gall
Faull, J. H. 461

Fawcett, E. H. 297, 425, 588, 651
Fehleisen, F. 61
Fernald, C. H. 28
Fernow, B. E. 171, 299, 308
Ferrouillat, 152
Fibiger, J. 457 f, 535, 545, 561, 573 ff,

623, 625 ff
Fig, souring of, 232 f, 236, 256
Finlcy, J. P. 128, 175
Finney, J. M. T. 534, 543, 560, 631
Fischer, Albert, 625 f
Fischer, Alfred, 279, 3l6, 319, 342 ff
Fischer, B. 509, 580
Fischer, H. 408

Flax, wilt and other diseases of, 337 f
Fleming, A. 486

Flexner, S. and J. T., 55 f, 213, 330,
353, 359, 392, 394, 423, 427, 459 f,

471, 506, 520, 552, 589
Fliigge, C. 46, 290 f, 317
Focx, E. 474, 568, 604 f, 611 f
Fonseca, O. da 589
Foot and mouth disease, 133, 625
Foot rot, 170, 222, 225 f; see also

Citrous diseases
Forbes, S. A. 276, 378

22

662

Index

Foreign correspondents, Smith's, 325 ff,
360 f

Forest pathology (general), 146, 307 ff,
328

For Her Friends and Mine, 249, 425,
590

Formaldehyde and formalin, l42, 252,
517

Fox, Miss, 637, 651

Fraenkel, A. 59 f

Fraenkel, C. 216

Francis, E. and Mayne, 554

Frank, A. B. 68, 105, 142, 347, 385

Frankland, P. 327, 492 (Frankland and
Ward)

Freeman, E. M. 144, 385, 448

Freer, P. C. 362

Freezing, effect of, on bacteria, 379,
386, 393

Friedlander, C. 60 f, 619

Fries, E. M. 51, 93, 136

Frobenius, W. 46

Frog tumors (Kopsch, Lucke), 535, 56l

Fron, G. 605

Frost, W. D. 491

Fujinami, A. 535

Fuller, G. W. 215 f, 297f, 310, 321, 352

Fulton, J. A. 164

Fungicides, early use of, 102, 136, 139 ff,
152, 179 ff, 194 ff, 200, 203, 224, 241,'
244 f, 248, 251 f, 256, 258; see also
Bordeau mixture, Lime sulphur, Hy-
drocyanic acid, Heat, etc.
Fungous diseases of man and animals,

47, 354
Fungous diseases of plants (general),
64 ff, 94 ff, 101 ff, 114 ff, 122 ff, 127',
130f, 136ff, 142, 148 f, 155, 194 ff,
208, 210 f, 222, 243 f, 251, 257, 290,
307 f, 350, 356, 385 (Duggar),
399 ff, 411, 450, 487
Fungous infestation of agricultural soils

261 ff, 266, 334 f
Fusarium diseases of plants, 26l f, 265 f,
293, 296, 334 ff, 350, 379, 406, 416,'
481, 483, 487, 513

Gaffky, G. 56, 59 f, 406
Gage, S. H. 132f
Galewsky, P. 621

Galloway, B. T. 95, 139, 142 f, 152,
167 f, 170, 173 f, 178 ff, 184, 191,

193 ff, 202, 204, 207, 209, 221, 226 f,
231, 233, 236 f, 240 f, 245, 247 f,
251, 257, 264, 267, 275, 283, 287,
297, 300 f, 336, 360, 363, 365, 369,
377, 383, 402, 432, 445
Galton, D. 81 f
Ganong, W. F. 278, 285 ff, 328, 431,

447
Gardner, F. E. 581 f
Garfield, C. W. 21, 87, 121, 124, 127,

153 f, 156, 159, 164, 167
Garner, W. W. 511, 648
Garrey, W. E. 359
Garrison, F. H. 44, A(>, 48, 52 f, 59 ff,

63, 74, 86, 214
Gaylord, H. R. 369 ff, 375, 438 ff, 500,

505, 557
Genetics, 286, 390, 397, 410 ff, 484,,

562, 564, 582
Germ theory, 51 ff, 110
Germicides, 51 f, 73 f, 81, 118, 184, 201,
215, 329; see also Fungicides, Anti-
toxins, vaccines, sera, etc.
Gilberts Mills, N. Y., Iff, 8 f , 13, 202,

591
Gilman, D. C. 153
Gladiolus, spot disease of, 588
Glanders, 60, 62, 311, 343
Gloeosporium, 384
Glomerella, 381
Glover, T. 27
Glover, T. J. 650
Godfrey, G. H. 533
Goebel, K. von 79, 84, 409 f
Goessmann, C. A. 102, 129, 157, 160 f

175 f
Goff, E. S. 121, 180 f, 197 f, 245
Goldstein, B. 556, 644 f
Gongylone77ia neoplasticum, see Carci-
noma, rat stomach
Gonnermann, M. 279
Gonorrhea, 62
Goodale, G. L. 70, 79, 93 f, 105, HI,

132, 287, 391, 459, 461
Gorham, F. P. 394, 425
Gosset, Dr. 613, 620
Grace Hospital, Detroit, 557 f

Grape, anthracnose of, 124, 137 179

184 . , ,

Grape, California vine disease of, 154f
170 f, 178, 181 ff, 186 f, 206,'233ff!
275 f, 329

Index

663

Grape, miUlcws, rots, and other dis-
eases of, 95 f, 122 ff, 127. 130f.
137 ff. 151 f. 179 fT. 19-1 f, 197 f, 245

Grape phylloxera, 91. 122. 140, 152,
2 33

Grassi, B. 609

Grave, C. 35"

Gray, A. 6, 10, 18, 26, 36, 92 ff, 99.
103, 113. 132, 401

Gray. W. M. 192 ff

Gray, W. S. 609

Green, J. R. 253 f

Greene, R. H. 502

Greenman, J. M. 286

Greenough, R. B. 587

Grove, V;'. B. 86

Guer^n. A. F. M. 73

Gummosis, 396,. 402; see also Peach,
gummosis of

Guilliermond, A. 611 f

Gussow, H. T. 101, 448

Gye, W. E. 632, 634 ff

Gymnosporangium, 98 f. 146

Haaland, M. 458, 466, 575

Habcrlandt, G. 280, 538

Hall, J. G. 450

Halsted, B. D. 30, 96 ff, 102, 138, 144 f,
172, 174, 196, 203, 210 f, 229. 231.
247, 266, 276, 281, 283, 288, 290,
295. 298. 305, 307. 463. 476

Halsted, W. S. 193, 213 f, 393

Hammond, H. S. 427

Hamner, K. C. 537. 582

Handley. W. S. 632

Hansen, A. 61

Hansen, N. E. 258, 419

Harding, H. A. 145 f, 293 f, 341, 451

Harkness, H. W. 97, 233

Harper, R. A. 287 f, 351, 379, 459. 512.
550. 567, 643

Harrington, M. W. 81, 121, 128, 175

Harshberger, J. W. 287, 523

Harter, L. L. 381

Hartig, H. J. A. R. 67, 108, 146, 309,
343, 347, 349

Hartmann, H. 612 f. 641

Harvard University. 23, 69 f- 90, 132.
153, 460 ff; see also under Farlow,
Thaxter, Goodale, Sargent, Gray, etc. ;
Bussey Institution, 69, 90, 313, 461 f,
500; Laboratory of Cr>'ptogamic

Botany (Farlow Herbarium), 94 ff,
105 f. 119. 204. 286, 377. 460 f;
Medical School, 44, 503. sec «ljo
under Councilman and T. Smith; Sta-
tion for Tropical Research. Cuba, 514

Harvey, R. B. 526

Haskins. A. (Mrs. D. B. Swingle). 380.
430 ff

Hasse. C. 481 f

Hatch Act of 1887. 129. 164, 166, 172.
180

Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Exp't Sta., 391,
512

Hays, W. M. 365,415

Hazen, A. 215

Health Boards and Dcp'ts, see Municipal
and State

Hcald, F. D. 448, 551

Heat treatments for plant diseases, 141 f,
276, 516, 630

Hedgcock, G. G. 429 f, 595

Hedges, F. 14, 37. 323, 380. 387, 478.
487, 588 f, 628, 646, 650 f

Heinz, A. 148, 343

Hektoen, L. 359. 558

Hcllriegel, H.. and H. Wilfarth, 145

Hemp, bacterial disease of. 399. 422

Henle. F. G. J. 51, 54

Hcnrici, A. T., and E. J. Ordal, 375

Henry, W. A. 29, 121, 128 f, 138, 181 f

Herter, C. A. 75 f, 193

Heterocism, 65

Heterodera rjdicicola galls, 561 f, 591

Hildebrand, E. M. 583

Hildebrandt, A. C. 538, 583, 592

Hilgard, E. W. 90, 233, 459

Hirschfeld. H. 541, 618

Hiss, P. H. 353

Hitchcock, A. S. 204

Hodges, N. D. C. 306

Hodgkins" disease. 561

Hofmeister, W. 93, 139

Hog cholera, 185, 193. 324, [343]

Holm, T. 287

Holmes, I. and V. 5, 23 f, 201 f

Holmes, J. C. 18

Holmes, O. W. 74

Hopkins, F. G. 485

Hoppe-Seylcr, F. 46

Hormones, 541 ; see also Phyto-hormones
Horsfall, J. G. 200

Hospitals, Paris, Strasbourg, Copen-

664

Index

hagen, London, 612 f, 618, 625, 632;

for Berlin see Universitatsinstitut etc.
Hottes, C. F. 99 ff, 116
Houghton Farms, Mountainville, N. Y.,

129, 156 f
Houston, D. F. 480 f
Howard, L. O. 27, 305, 519, 647
Howell, W. H. 214
Hubbardston, Mich., 9 ff, 13 f, 18, 21,

26, 159, 165, 201, 251
Hueppe, F. A. T. 46, 86, 190 f
Humphrey, J. E. 204, 278, 285 ff, 461
Hunt, E. H. 26, 28
Huntington Fund for Cancer Research,

503, 593
Hurd, H. M. 214, 221, 292, 330, 354,

506
Hursh, C. R. 605
Husted, J. D. 176, 201
Hutchinson, C. M. 478
Huxley, T. H. 26, 81, 131
Hyacinth, soft rot of (Heinz) (Bacillus

hyac'mthi septicus), 148, 318, 343
Hyacinth, yellow disease of {Bad.

hyacinth}), 107 f, 146, 148, 291, 298,

302, 318, 320 f, 341, 343, 352, 361,

409, 420, 422, 630
Hyams, M. E. 19
Hydrocyanic gas, 259, 275, 287
Hydrophobia, 71, 324
Hygiene, see Sanitary science
Hygienic Laboratory, Washington, 554
Hylten-Cavallius, G. 77, 79
Hyperplasia, 372, 428, 436 f, 527, 537,

561, 606
Hypertrophy, l47, 372, 437, 629

Illinois Industrial University, 15, 100,
110; see also Burrill

Immunity, 38 f, 49, 71 f, 185 f, 215,
239, 354, 412, 435, 484, 487, 585,
591 ff, 602, 640

Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Eng-
land, 466, 632

Imperial Health Department, Berlin, 56,
70, 402, 406, 408

Indiana Agric. Exp't Station, see Purdue
University

Infantile paralysis, 471

Infectious enterohepatitis in turkey, 186

Infectious leukemia of fowl, 186

Influenza, 186

Insects destructive to plants (general),
27 f, 91, 154, 187 f, 222, 233, 259,
263, 275 f, 309

Insect (animal) transmission of disease,
118, 187 f, 197, 207 ff, 244, 253,
270 f, 273, 295, 302 f, 313, 323, 352 f,
416 f, 424, 471, 513, 516 f, 549 ff,
607, 609 f, see also Animal carriers

Institut - International - d'Agriculture,
Rome, 609

Institut, K. K. Oenologisches und Pomo-
logisches, Austria, 344, 477

Institut Pasteur, see Pasteur Institute

Instituut voor Planten-Ziekten en Cul-
tures, Java, 512

Istituto Botanico, Pavia, 243

Istituto Superiore Forestale Nationale,
R., Florence, 607 f

Istituto di Studi Superiori, R., Florence,
398

International Botanical Congress, Fourth,
642 ff ; see also International Congress
of Plant Sciences, 1926

International Cancer Congress, Paris,
1910, 439

International Conference (First) on Hy-
bridization and Cross-breeding ( 1899),
London, 363

International Conference (Second) on
Plant -breeding and Hybridization
(1902), New York, 365 f

International Conference (Third) on
Genetics (1906), 405, 410 ff

International Congress (First) of Com-
parative Pathology, 456, 458

International Congress (Seventeenth) of
Medicine, London, 458, 467 ff

International Congress (Fourth) for
Microbiology, 1947, 476

International Congress of Plant Sciences,
1926, 642 ff

International Exposition, Belgium (1913),
474 f

International Exposition, Milan (1906),
401

International Flower Exposition, Hol-
land (1925), 630

International Medical Conference, Lon-
don (1881), 52 f, 58

Introduction to Bacterial Diseases of
Plants (Smith), 291, 296, 434, 450,
483, 520 f, 526

Indhx

66^

Intumescences on plants due to chemi-
cals, early experimental, 426, 509

lodidi, Dr. 550

Ionia, Michigan, M f, 17, 22 ff, 26, 28,
30, 34 f, 37. 41, 48, 80, 177, 226, 249

Iowa Agric. College, 15 ff, 30, 90, 111,
172, 204, 212, 280, 300

Iowa Agric. Exp't Station, 212, 245, 247,
280

Itchikawa, K. 471. 575 f. 613. 616, 648

Iwanowski, D. 150 f, 328, 546

Jackson, H. S. 461

Jaczewski, A. 630 f

Jagger, I. C. 517

James, J. F. 282

Jam?s, T. J. 84

Janeway, T. C. 506

Jardine, W. M. 647, 654

Jeffrey, E. C. 324, 447, 523

Jenner, E. 42, 58

Jensen, C O. 439 f, 458, 470, 501, 524,
526, 562, 564, 619, 623, 625

Jensen, J. L. 14 1 f

Jensen, P. Boysen, 541

Johannsen. W. 414, 631

Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical
School, 40, 44, 46 f, 75, 133 f. 193 f,
212 ff, 330, 353 ff, 383, 444, 472,
503 f, 541 ff

Johns Hopkins University, 75, llj, 131,
212 ff, 216 ff, 285, 393, 540

Johnson, A. G. 462, 518

Johnson, D. S. 540

Johnson, S. W. 90 f, 129

Johnson, T. B. 648

Johnston, J. R. 380, 422, 461, 513

Johnston, W. 331

Jones, F. R. 651

Jones, L. R. 177, 245, 251, 274, 292,
333 f, 339, 341, 350 f, 385, 389, 4l6,
427 f, 447 ff, 451, 460, 462, 479, 514,
518, 533, 551, 566 f, 643, 645 f

Jordan, E. O. 32, 215, 310, 324, 382,
394, 464, 505, 558

Jordan, W. H. 128, 299 f

Joubert, J. F. 51, 486

Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fiir Biologie,
Berlin, 620 f ; see also under Warburg

Kansas Agric. CoU. and Exp't Sta., 28,
174, 203 f, 231, 240, 518

Karsner, H. T. 542

Kaufmann, F. 638. 641

Kearney, T. H. 417. 419

Ktdzic, R. C. 36. 144. 159

Keen, W. W. 495, 506, 589

Kcitt. G. W. 177, 333 f

KLlicTm.in, K. 377

Kellcrman, W. A. 66, 99, 142, 201 ff,

231. 296, 387 f
Kellogg, J. H. 44f
Kelly, H. A. 39. 213. 393
Kgl. Veterinaer-og Landboh^jskoles Aars-

skrift. Serum Laboratory, Copenhagen,

524, 625
Kilborne, F. L. 208 f
Killian, C. 618
Kinyoun, J. J. 331
Kirchner, O. 279, 385
Kitasato, S. 59, 61, 186, 216 f
Klebahn, H. 325, 384. 644
Klebs, E. 37, 48, 52 f, 61
Klein, E. 86
Knowlton, F. H. 250
Kny, L. 315, 327
Koch, R. 39, 42, 46 ff, 52 ff, 62, 70 ff,

81, 86, 128, 133 f, 150, 177, 186, 192,

212, 216, 220, 242, 646
Koch's Institute for Study of Infectious

Diseases, 106, 125, 128, 134, 177,

212, 216 f, 406, 408, 641
Koehne, E. 325
Kofoid, C. A. 548, 561
Kolle, W. 186, 385, 475
Komuro, H. 618
Kopsch, F. W. T. 561, 575
Kotzareff, A. 616
Kraemer, H. 391
Krai, F. 345 f
Kramer, E. 287, 315, 318
Kraus, E. J. 537, 581 f
Krober, E. 280
Krogh, A. 627
Kuhn, J. G. 51, 64, 67, 69
Kunkel, L. O. 318, 511 f, 516, 546, 548,

550, 552 f, 555, 644 f
Kiister, E. 385, 522

Laboulbeniales, 354
Lacassagne, A. 611
Lafar, F. 345, 361
Lafont, 550
Lamarck, J. B. de 26

(yGG

Index

Large, E. C. 53, l43

Laskaris, T. 583

Laveran, A. 40, 63

Lazarus-Barlow, W. S. 542

Lazear, J. W. 214, 424

Lazenby, W. R. 129, 154, 167

LeConte, J. L. 50

Le Due, W. G. 27

Leeuwenhoek Huis, Amsterdam, 576,

628
Leguminosae, see Root nodules
Lehmann, K. B. 317, 327
Leidy, J. 50, 132, 590
Lemoine, P. 605, 616
Lemon, brown spot of, 398; see also

Citrous diseases
Leprosy, 61, 472, 535
Lesquereux, C. L. 50, 84
Levin, L 534
Levine, M. 533 f
Lewis, M. R. and W. H. 538 ff, 649

(W. H.)
Lichens, 36, 93, 97, 316, 461, 573
Lilac blight {Bad. syringae), 369, 410,

420 f, 651 f
Lillie, F. R. 98, 357, 359 f, 425 f, 479
Lily, diseases of, 144, 301
Lime and sulphur, 143, 256 f, 259, 336,

381; see also Fungicides
Lindau, G. 320, 408
Linsbauer, Dr. 477
Lipman, J. G. 589
Lister, J. 52, 73 f
Lister Institute, England, 397
Lloyd, F. E. 391
Lobar pneumonia, 60 f
Locke, S. B. 565

Loeb, J. 331, 359, 459, 508 f, 533, 544
Loeb, L. 359, 501 f
Loffler, F. A. J. 56, 59 ff, 406
Loew, O. 254 f, 327, 391
Lotsy, J. P. 220 f
Loubet, E. 605
Lubin, D. 609
Lucke, B. 535

Ludwig, C[K]. F. W. 46, 104
Lugger, O. 337
Lumpy jaw of cattle, 62
Lundegardh, H. G. 648
Lyell, C. 26, 49
Lyman, G. R. 461
Lyon, E. P. 359

Lyon, H. A. 512, 550
Lyon, T. T. 156, l6l

Maassen, Dr. 407

MacCallum, W. G. 214, 353, 471 f, 54l,
543, 558

MacCarty, W. C. 437 f, 440, 459, 494,
499, 541, 649

Macchiatti, L. 399 f

McClintock, J. A. 417

McCoy, G. W. 471, 554

McCulloch, L. 323, 437, 452, 456, 533,
588, 646, 651

McFarland, J. 394, 523

Macfarlane, J. M. 280, 285 ff, 357, 523

McKay, V. P. 522

McKenney, R. E. B. 379, 533, 588, 615

Mackenzie, J. J. 330 f

McKinney, H. H. 548

MacMillan, C. 274, 386

Magnin, A. 37 ff, 54, 69, 73 f

Magrou, J. 589, 605 f, 609, 612 flf

Magruder, G. L. 83

Maisin, J. 535

Maize, diseases of (general), 201, 478,
483, 487 ff, 518, 546; see also Broom-
corn

Maize, smuts of, l40 f, 203, 542

Maize, Stewart's disease of (Bad.
stewarti), 301, 309, 320 ff, 341 f, 368,
393, 434, 478, 516 f, 588, 651

Makins, G. H. 469

Mai di gomma, 225, 244; see also
Citrous diseases

Mai di spacco, 610

Mai nero, 181, 183, 205, 399 f; see also
Grape diseases

Malaria, 37, 40, 43, 63, 186, 382, 404,
535, 553, 609

Mall, F. P. 193, 214, 359, 459, 538

Mallory, F. B. 442, 529

Malta fever, 63, 553 f

Mangin, L. A. [280,} 605, 612, 615

Mangold and sugar beet, English dis-
ease of, 411 f

Mann, B. P. 131

Mann, H., Jr. 92

Marchiafava, E. 63

Marechal, 605

Marine Biological Laboratory, Naples,

218, 395
Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods
Hole, 98, 220, 313, 356 flf, 425 f, 479

Index

667

M.irozzi, C. A. 399 f

Marsh, M. C. 500, 505. 557, 561, 564

Marsh. O. C. 50

Marslull. C. E. 327, -175

Martin, H. N. 131 f. 153. 214, 220

Mass. Apric. Coll. and Exp't Sta., 129,

157. 204. 475
Mass. Health Board, 32, 97, 311
Mass. Horticultural Soc, 90, 313
Mass. Inst, of Tcchnolog)^ 132, 2l4ff,

293, 322
Massee, G. 450
Masson, P. 615, 617 f
Masters, M. T. 420
Mathews, A. P. 359'
Maublanc, A. 474, 605
Max^vell, W. S. 156, 162, 188, 195, 197
Mayer, A. 148 ff, 328
Maynard, L. A. 485
Maynard, S. T. 157, 176, 204
Mayo, C. H. 437, 440, 496 f, 648
Mayo. W. J. 437, 440, 459, 469, 505,

587
Meister, J. 71
Melhus, I. E. 462, 512
Mell, P. H. 267

Memorial Hospital, New York, 443
Mendel, G. 390, 413 f
Mendelism, 390, 411 ff, 4l6f; see also

Genetics
Menetrier, P. 532, 575, 612
Meningitis, 63
Merrill, G. Pi 308
Mesnil, F. 605, 612
Merrov.% H. L. 287
MetalnikofF, S. 602 f
Metcalf, H. 421 f, 448
Metchnikoff, fi. 39, 472. 602
Meteorology' (Weather Bureau), Smith's

work in, 81
Meyer. A. 468
Meyer, F. N. 390. 590
Meyer, P. 614, 618 ff
Meyer, W. 502 f, 587
Michigan Agric. Coll. and Exp't Sta., 18,

21, 26 IT, 36, 70, 154, 159, 165, 228,

302 f, 327. 356, 475, 559 f, 567
Michigan Horticulturist, 87
Michigan School Moderator, 35 f, 38,

41 f, 51, 54, 56 f, 69. 79, 85, 88

Mich. State Board of Health. 31 fT. 36,

41 (T, 64. 77 (T. 83 f. 86
Mich. State Hort. Soc, 21, l6l. 309
Michigan, University of, 21 f. 30, 84,

119ff. 136, 167, 177. 187. 212. 221,

556 ff; see also under Spalding
Migula. W. 220, 316. 318 f. 325
Miilardet, P. M. A, 1 39 f, 173, 232,

2 36 f
Milk factor in cancer etiology (Bittncr),

535, 572. 583
Miller, C. 409
Miller. W. D. 404
Millet, J. A. P. 505
Minot. C. S. 306
Miquel, P. 68, 81, 340
Missouri Botanical Garden, 104. 390,

483, 512; see also Shaw School of

Botany
Mitchell, J. E. 537, 581
Mitochondria. 442, 603, 611
Miyabe, K. 461
Miyoshi, M. 320
Molisch, H. 477
Moll, J. W. 189. 630
Moller, A. 361. 402, 406
Molliard, M. 605
Montagne, 67, 136
Montemartini. L. 401
Montpcllier, France, 606 f
Moore, G. T. 328, 357, 377, 461
Moore, V. A. 134, 185 f, 192, 248. 289.

299. 311 f, 320, 341. 352, 392 f, 508
Morrill Act of 1862, 90 f
Morris, D. 411, 420
Morse, W. J. 389
Morton, J. S. 249, 259, 267. 300
Mosaic diseases of plants (general).

148 fT, 274 f, 328 f, 417. 498. 510 ff,

517. 546 fT, 550 f, 567, 644 f ; see also

Virus diseases of plants and " X-

bodies "
Mudge, B. H. 27
Mulberry blight {Bact. mori), 369, 401,

474. 634
Miiller-Argoviensis. J. 93
Municipal Health Dep'ts. 32 f, 213.

330 f
Murphy. J. B. 573
Murray, j. A. 576, 632, 634 f, 638 f,

643
Muskmelon, alternaria disease of, 243 f

668

Index

Nageli, K. W. von 65, 413

Nakata, K. 589, 652

National Academy of Sciences, 89, 344,

459 f, 494 ff, 596, 644
National Board of Health, 33
Nawaschin, S. 280, 370 f
Neal, J. C. 224 f
" Negri bodies " 324
Neisser, A. 62
Nelson, R. 548, 567, 644
Nemec, B. 643

Neocosmospora, 261 ff, 277, 296, 345;
see also Fusarium and Breeding plants
for disease resistance
Nestler, A. 315
Neumann, R. 317
Newcomb, S. 382
Newcombe, F. C. 171, 217 f, 284 f, 287,

289, 328, 355, 446 f
New Jersey Agric. Exp't Sta., 90, 158,
172, 283; see also Rutgers University
and under B. D. Halsted
New York Agric. Exp't Sta. (Geneva),

128, 180, 197 f, 293
New York Botanical Garden, 5l4, 538,

582
New York State College of Agri. and
Exp't Sta., 246, 385, 4l6, 449, 462;
see also under Whetzel and Cornell
University
New York State Institute for Study of
Malignant Disease, 331 f, 370, 456,
500, 505, 561, 603, 637
Nichols, H. J. 471
Nicolaier, A. 60 f
Nicotiana hybrid tumors, 584
Nishimura, M. 551
Noguchi, H. 359, 470 f, 486
Nomenclature of plant diseases, 282 f,

567
Nordhoff-Jung, S. A. 6l6
North Dakota Agric. Exp't Sta., see

under Bolley
Norton, J. B. 381
Norton, J. B. S. 189, 378
Norton, J. P. 90
Novy, F. G. 128, 177, 212, 323 f
Nursery stock diseases (general), 179,

195, 198
Nuttall, G. H. F. 213, 324, 352

Oberling, C. 452, 456 f, 534, 545, 547.

572
Ochsner, A. J. 560
Oersted, A. S. 66
O'Gara, P. J. 429, 463, 478, 522
Ohio Agric. Exp't Sta., 229, 253, 348
Ohio State University, 30, 129, 154, 204,

296, 348
Oleander, diseases of (general), 397,

399, 422, 478
Olive tubercle {Bad. savastanoi) , 147,
206, 247, 318, 320, 342 f, 368, 372 f,
396, 399, 437, 439, 498
Olive and orange, California disease of,

96
Onion smut, 98, 200
Opie, E. L. 214

Orange blight, 222, 225 flf, 231 f, 240 f,
251, 275, 329; see also Citrous dis-
eases
Orchard grass diseases, [137], 344 f,

477 f
Orient, plant pathology in the, 362, 410,

465, 512 flf, 570, 630
Orton, C. R. 448
Orton, W. A. 277, 333 ff, 363 ff, 414,

448, 512, 514
Osborn, H. 27
Osborne, T. B. 280
Osier, W. 44, 58, 194, 213 f, 393, 440 f,

AGA, 468 f
Osterhout, W. J. V. 461
Oudemans, C. A. J. A. 67, 325

Packard, A. S. 27

Pammel, L. H. 98, 212, 245, 247, 280 f,

293 f, 300, 302 f, 343, 355 f, 389, 461
Pan American Scientific Congress, 493
Park, R. 331 f, 440
Park, W. H. 385 f
Pasquale, F. 395
Pasteur, L. 41 f, 47 f, 51 ff, 56, 58, 60,

62, 64, 70 fif, 104, 486
Pasteur Institute, Paris, 218, 254, 472 f,

603, 612 f ; see also under Roux,

Duclaux, Metchnikoff, Magrou, etc.
Pasteur, Musee, Strasbourg, 616
Pasteur the History of a Mind, 37, 473 f,

520
Pasteur Vallery-Radot, 520, 612
Patouillard, N. 605
Patten, B. M. 504

Indhx

669

Peach, brown rot of (Monilia jructi-

getu), 179 f. 188 f, 222
Peach, gummosis of, 223, 226
Peach, little, disease. 223, 250 f, 304 f,

309, 318, 364
Peach diseases (general), 162, 176, 188,

257
Peach leaf curl. 162, 176 f, 206, 256 f
Peach rosette, 176 f, 188, 198, 201 f,

222 ff, 239, 264, 318, 329, 510, 521,

550
Peach yellows, 102, 150, 153 if, 174 ff,

182, 186 ff, 198, 201, 204, 222 f, 230,

239 f, 262 f, 277, 305, 318, 329, 364,

510, 512, 516, 52i, 550, 552, 593
Peach and plum, black spot and canker

of {Bact. pruni), 368, 387, 393, 407,

434
Pear blight, see Pome fruits, fire blight

of
Pear diseases (general) 130, 140, 180,

195, 198, 245
Pearson, A. W. 152
Pecan rosette, 521, 551
Peck. C H. 95, 97, 113, 138
Peglion, V. 243, 326, 391, 399, 402,

422, 608, 610
Peirce, G. J. 352, 461
Peklo, J. 470 (Peklov of Prague), 652
Pellagra, maize theory of, 487 f, 490
Penhallow, D. . 156 ff, 175 f, 287
Peninsula Hort. Soc. 162, 313
Pennsylvania, Univ. of, 113, 132, 522 f;

see also under Macfarlane; Institute of

Hygiene and Medical School, 44,

212 f, 327, 330, 440, 454, 523
Pepper, W. 44
Peronosporaceae, 96 f, 121 ff, 139 f,

170 f, 262, 533
Pettenkofer, M. von 43, A6, 81 f, 212
Petri, L. 397; 407, 607, 6l4 (Dr. Petri)
Petri, R. J. 52
Peyronel, B. 609

Pfeffer, W. 105, 126, 267, 288, 459, 652
Pfeilfer, R. 59, 186
Phyto-hormones, 540 f, 565, 581 ff
Pierce, N. B. 171, 177 f, 181 ff, 204 ff,

227, 232 if, 256 ff, 276, 366
Pierce, W. D. 517
Pieters, A. J. 287
Pine tumors, see Conifers
Pinoy, P. E. 605 f, 614

PLigue, 43. 186. 217, 474

Plant patliology, Univ. dcp'ts of, 385,

448 f. 462 f
PLismoJiophora brjssicae, sec Cibbagc,

club root of
" Plimmcr's bodies," 370
Plowrightia morbosa, see Cherry black

knot
Plusi.t bras si Cite, 224 f
Pneumonia, see Contagious and Lobar
Pome fruits, fire blight of, 68 f, 87.

103 f, 108 ff, 115 ff, 184, 194. 207 ff,

221, 247, 258, 294, 307, 318 ff, 342 f,

407, 432, 449
Popenoe. E. A. 27 f
Porter, H. C. 287
Potato, black leg of {Bacillus phyto-

phthorus), 369, 406 f, 422, 478, 482,

499
Potato, dry rot of {Fu sari urn oxyspor-

mm), 338 f.
Potato, macrosporium disease of, 245
Potato mosaic, see Mosaic diseases of

plants
Potato rots, blight, mildew, etc., early

studies of, 65, 68, 95, 108, 121 f, 125,

137 f, 140 f, 155, 179 f, 196, 245,

251, 315; see also Solanaceae
Potato scab (Oospora scabies), 200 f,

251 f
Potter, M. C. 345, 403
Pound, R. 274
Powell, J. W. 100
Prain, D. 546
Prantl, K. A. E. 136, 316
Prentiss, A. N. 18, 30, 103, 167
Prcscott, S. C. 216, 322, 394, 424
Prillieux, E. E. 107 ff, 385, 402 f, 422
Prime, F. 587
Pringsheim, N. 105
Pritchard, F. J. 448
Protozoan diseases, 324, 382, 548 flf
Prudden, T. M. 45 f, 48, 193, 213, 215,

324, 386, 459, 506, 528 f
Prune rust, 237
Pseudomonas, 294, 320 ff, 341 if, 345,

393, 403
Puerto Rico Agric. Sta., Mayaguez, 512
Purdue Universit)', 129, 142, 181, 296

Quanjer, H. M. 422, 550, 629
Quince, diseases of, 169, 180, 245

670

Index

Quirk, A. J. 297, 379, 425, 476, 585,
588, 591, 604, 651

Rabenhorst, L. 67, 69, 279
Radiological Society of North America,

545, 560
Radium, discovery of, and use in treat-
ment for disease, 398, 485, 603, 616;

see also X-rays
Ramsbottom, J. 633
Rand, F. V. 77, 177, 323, 333 f, 516 f,

551, 588, 646, 651
Rathay, E. 236, 327, 344 f, 477
Ravaz, B. L. 606
Ravenel, M. P. 327, 520
Ravn, F. K. I4l
Recklinghausen, F. D. von, 46
Reddick, D. 448 f
Reddy, C. S. 518, 533
Reed, W. 214, 424
Reese, Dr. 456
Regaud, C. 603, 611
Reichert, Dr. 621
Reighart, J. E. 172, 289, 357
Reimer, F. C. 258
Reinke, J. 68, 108, 262
Remsen, I. 383, 459
Rhizoctonial diseases, 328, 378 f, 403
Rice, brusone of (Piricularia), 399, 401,

421 f
Richards, H. M. 278, 286
Ricketts, H. T. 471
Riker, A. J. 375, 532, 537 f, 540, 548,

564 ff, 581, 583, 592, 595, 605 f
Riddle, L. W. 461
Riley, C. V. 27 f, 113, 121 f, 259
Ritzema Bos, J. 410, 422
Robbins, W. j. 538
Robinson, B. L. 278, 286, 393, 461
Robinson, W. and H. Walkden, 569 f
Rockefeller Inst, for Medical Research,

392, 423, 427, 454, 460, 470, 552 f,

574
Rocky Mountain spotted fever, {Ric-

keusia), 471, 554
Rogna of the vine, 397, 399 f
Rohdenburg, G. L. 545
Rolfs, P. H. 244, 266, 296, 345, 381,

389, 432, 514
Root nodules, Leguminosae, 68, 144 ff,

279, 315, 606, 643
Rorer, J. B. 368, 380, 461, 513 f

Roscoe, H. E. 397

Rosenau, M. J. 462

Rosenow, E. C. 486

Rostrup, F. G. E. 141

Ross, H. C. 576

Ross, R. 208

Rossi, G. 396

Roth, F. 171, 308

Rothamsted Exp't Station, England, 515,

589, 631 f, 648
Rothert, W. 279, 325
Rothrock, J. T. 113
Rous, F. P. 452 ff, 458, 472, 505, 535,

560, 573 ff, 580; see also Sarcoma,

chicken
Roussy, G. 575, 613, 615 f, 627, 641
Roux, P. P. E. 185 f, 472, 589, 603, 605,

615
Rowland, A. F. 559
Rowlee, W. W. 287
Rovsing, Dr. and son, 626
Royal Horticultural Society, England,

410 f, 413, 419 f
Rusk, J. M. 133, 173, 186, 219
Russell, E. J. 633 f
Russell, H. L. 103, 106, 216 ff, 242,

291 ff, 302, 307, 310
Russian Botanical Society (Smith, hon.

member, mycological section), 630
Rust diseases of plants (general), 64 if ,

97 ff, 102 f. 111, 123, 140, 142,

169 ff, 197, 204, 237, 240, 248, 301,

307, 384, 386; see also under various

crops
Rutgers University, 129, 476, 588 f

Sabine, W. C. 460, 462
Saccardo, P. A. 67, 135, 265, 312
Sachs, J. von, 77, 79, 84, 88, 92 f, 105,

541
Siichsisches Serumwerk Atkiengesell-

schaft, Dresden, 621
Sackett, W. G. 462 f
Salmon, D. E. 132 f, 185, 311 f
Salmon, E. S. 412, 420, 633 f
Sambon, L. W. 632
Sanitary News, 64, 77 f, 80 ff, 128
Sanitary science and hygiene, 31 ff, 77 ff,

382
San Jose scale, 233, 259, 275 f
Sarcoma, chicken, 452 ff, 458, 505, 535,

539, 573 f, 583, 625 f, 632, 634 ff

Index

671

Sarcoma, crown gall antl, 436, 438,

507 f ; see also Crown gall
Sarcoma, rat-ascites (VoshiJa), 535
Sarcoma, rat-liver c^st (Cysticercus jus-

ciolaris), 457. 535. 544 f. 561. 573
Sargent, C S. 29, 152, 308 f. 459
Saunders, E. 4l4
Saunders, W. (Canada), 413
Saunders, W. (U. S.). 91. 138
Savastano. L. l47, 206, 326. 342, 346,

391, 396, 402, 479, 610, (G. Savas-
tano) 647
Scarlet fever, 37, 41, 82, 4S6
Schaudinn and Hoffman, 408
Schenck. B. R. 353 f
Schilling. C. 408
Schimper. A. F. W. 327
Schimper, W. P. 93
Schlectendal, D. F. L. von, 65, 338
Schrenk, H. von, 307 f, 328, 356, 381,

426
Schultz, E. S. 511
Schiitz, E. 60, 62, 133
Schweinitz, E. A. de, 185, 324
Schwendener, S. 316, 408
Sclerotinial diseases of plants (Woronin ) ,

279
Sclerotium disease of plants (Rolfs),

244, 296, 345
Scott, W. M. 381, 448
Scribner, F. L. 103, 114 f, 119, 122,

124 f, 128, 130 f, 135, 137 f, 140,

151 ff, 160, 163 ff, 168, 181, 197, 363
Scuola, Bologna, and at Ferrara, plant

pathology (1906) at the, 399
Scuola Sup. di Agricoltura, R. (Portici),

206, 395 f
Sedg\vick, W. T. 34, 44, 131 f, 214 ff,

310, 327, 386
See, G. 86
Seelig, M. G. 504
Selby, A. D. 229, 348 f, 430, 448
Semmelweis, I. 74
Septicemias, 62

Sereh disease, see Sugar cane diseases
Setchell, W. A. 91, 93, 95, 97, 461
Sewall, J. A. 100
Sewerage and water-supply on death

rate, influence of, 37, 81 ff, 120
Seymour, A. B. 97, 119, 168, 290
Shantz, H. L. 376
Shattuck, L. 32

Shaw School of BtUany, 1()4, 119, 125,

154, 202, 204, 309; sec also Missouri

Botanical Garden
Shear, C. L. 64, 381. 386, 446. 448, 5l4
Shiga, K. 186
Shope, R. E. 535
Shreve, F. 492
Shuttleworth, E. B. 330
Silkworm diseases, Pasteur's work on,

73, 75 f, 589
Simmons, C. C. 637
Simmons, G. H. 505
Simon, J. 32
Simpson, B. T. 557, 637
Sleeping sickness, 406, 474, 553
Slye, M. 501 f, 558
Smallpox, 37, 42
Smart, C. 310, 331
Smillie, W. G. 31 ff
Smith, Clayton, 470
Smith, Charlotte May Buffett, 249. 403 f,

421 ff
Smith, J. G. 274, 418
Smith, L. B. 417

Smith, R. E. 328, 398, 448, 515 f
Smith, R. K. and L. F. 1, 5, 8, 13 f, 405
Smith, Ruth Warren, 478 f
Smith, S. 31
Smith, Theobold, 131 ff, 185 f, 192 f,

208 f, 248, 310 ff, 317, 352, 355, 382,

392, 427, 459, 503, 589
Smith, W. E. 430
Smith, W. G. 108, 136
Smut diseases, see under Fungous or

Rust diseases, or various crops
Societe de Pathologie Vegetale et d'Ento-

mologie Agricole de France, 605
Society for Plant Morpholog>' and Physi-

olog>', 66 f, 285 ff, 320 f, 324, 328,

355, 362, 368, 386 f, 393, 423. 447;

Smith, president (1902), 66, 324. 328
Society for Promotion of Agricultural

Science, 19 f. 89. 96 f. 102, 112 f.

131, 144, 155, 175, 196, 245
Society of American Bacteriologists,

327 ff, 386 f, 393 f, 42 3 ff, 434 f;

Smith, president (1906). 394
Soft rots of vegetables, 333 f, 339 ff,

400, 634. 642
Solanaceae, brown rot of {B.uillus sob-

naceurum), 201, 272, 292, 294 f,

672

Index

302 f, 317, 320 f, 328, 343, 369, 403,
474, 482, 533
Solms-Laubach, H. G. 280
Sommier, S. 398
Sorauer, P. C. M. 67 f, 136, 276, 292,

318 f, 326, 385, 405
Southworth, E. A. 125, 174, 211, 247,

356, 379
Spalding, V. M. 18, 21, 78, 81, 84, 86,
97, 99, 102 f, 112, 119, 121 f, 125 ff,
130, 136, 164, 167, 169 ff, 177, 205,
217 f, 249 f, 267 f, 278, 287 ff, 297,
308, 351, 356, 368, 447, 480
Spieckermann, A. 339 f, 478
Spillman, W. J. 363, 413
Spinach blight, 417
Spinach mosaic, see Mosaic diseases of

plants
Sporotrichosis (Sporotricha), 353 f
Sprague Memorial Institute for Infec-
tious Diseases, Chicago, 558
Stahl, C. F. 551

Stains and staining, early use of, 71,
189 ff, 260 f, 442 ; see also under vari-
ous diseases of plants
Stakman, E. C. 567, 605, 652
Stanley, W. M. 511
Stapp, C. 624
State Health Boards, 31 f
Station for Experimental Evolution,

Long Island, 390
Station de Pathologic Vegetale, Paris,

345, 473 f, 568, 603 f, 607, 611 f
Stazione di Patalogia Vegetale, Rome,

397, 609
Stazione Sperimentale di Agrumicoltura
e Frutticoltura, R., Acireale, Sicily,
610
Steere, J. B. 85, 121
Stelwagon, H. W. 504
Sternberg, G. M. 37 ff, 48, 54, 60, 69,

73, 134, 193, 242, 360, 392, 396
Stevens, F. L. 447 f
Stevens, R. H. 504, 557 f
Stewart, F. C. 98, 300 f, 322, 328, 348,

461, 516
Stewart, V. B. 258
Stiles, C. W. 217 f
Stiles, H. J. 631
Stiles, W. A. 152

Stockard, C. R. 359, 545, 593, 638
Stokes, W. R. 330

Storer, F. H. 90

Strasbourg, University of, 6l6 ff

Strasburger, E. 86, 93, 217, 260, 279,

288 f
Strawberry diseases, 103 f, 180, 245
Strong, L. C. 564, 572
Sturgis, W. C. 200, 284, 287, 350, 461
Sturtevant, E. L. 20, 89, 113, 128 f
Stutzer, A. 315
Sugar beet, curly top of, 301, 415 f, 498,

551 f, 604

Sugar beet diseases (general) 287, 301,

341, 364, 378, 399, 407, 591; see

also Crown gall and Tumors in plants

Sugar beet tubercle (BacL beticolum),

498, 601
Sugar cane, Cobb's disease of {Bact.

vascularum), 341 f, 361 f, 410
Sugar cane diseases (general), 361, 410,

512 ff, 550, 601, 651
Sugar cane, Sereh disease of, 276, 329,

410, 514, 629
Sugiura, K. 535
Sulphur dioxide gas, 522
Svedelius, N. 648
Sweet potato diseases, 196, 381
Swingle, D. B. 338, 379, 386, 432
Swingle, W. T. 142, 201 ff, 221, 223 ff,
227, 231 f, 240 f, 244, 250, 275, 287,
289, 299, 365, 377, 415, 418
Swine plague, 133, 185
Sydow, P. 385
Symbiosis, 316, 397, 458, 469, 484, 487,

521, 573
Symmers, D. 506
Symptomatic anthrax, 185 f, 343
Syphilis, 43, 408, 470 f, 535

Taenia crassicollis, see Sarcoma, rat-liver

cyst
Taft, L. R. 154, 159, 167, 181, 229
"" Tar cancers," experimental, 471, 559,

563, 573, 575 ff, 612 f, 626 ff, 632,

638
Taylor, T. 16
Taylor, W. A. 250, 304, 480, 482, 557,

615, 623
Tavel, see Von Tavel
Tenny, L. S. 380
Tetanus, 60 f, 186
Texas fever of cattle, 47, 133, 185, 208 f,

253, 352, 553

Indhx

673

Thaxter. R. 98, U6. 199 f. 286. 324.

377, 386, 430. 448. 459 ff, 479. 491
Thayer, W. S. 214. 330. 424
Thorn, C. 384. 475, 4S9 ff. 511. 650
Thomas, M. B. 449
Thomas, P. f^. 62
Thiimen, F. von 67, 136, 205, 477
Thuret. G. 70, 93, 616
Thymol and chloroform, 329 f. 387
Tissue cultures, 538 ff
Tobacco, blue mould of, 533
Tobacco mosaic, 148 ff, 274 f, 328 f.
498. 511, 521, 549. 556, 644 ff; see
also Mosaic and Virus diseases
Tobacco, special problems in, 364, 391
Tobacco wilt {B.ict. soLnacearum) , 474,

47^, 482 f, 649
Tomato, bacterial canker of {Aplano-

hacter mickig-inense), 478, 482
Tomato, oedema of, 246
Tomato, potato, and egg plant, brown
rot of (Bacillus solanacearum), see
Solanaceae
Tomato streak virus, 549, 555 ff
Tomato, winter blight of, 329
Toumey, J. W. 228 ff, 373 f, 429 f
Townsend, C. O. 307, 377 f, 399, 415,

428, 430 ff
Townshend, N. S. 30, 128
Tracy, S. M. 137, 294, 393
Treat, M. 19

Trelease, W. 97, 103 f, 106, 119, 125,
137 f, 154, 207, 212, 288, 459, 461
Trepanosoma leu-isi, 323 f
Treponema pallidum, 408, 470
Trichinosis, 80, 553
Troop, J. 128, 159, 167
Tropics, plant pathology in the, 362,

474, 512 ff, 632
True, R. H. 307, 357, 376, 381, 489,

544
Trypanosome diseases, 324, 382, 548 ff,

553, 567
Tschermak, E. 390, 414, 420
Tsutsui. H. 573, 575
Tuberculosis, 40 ff, 56 f, 60, 186, 217,

311, 343, 382, 472, 535, 641
Tubeuf, K. von, 385, 446
Tularemia {Bad. tularense), All, 553 f
Tulasne, L. R. and C, 51, 64, 136
Tumors in plants, 367, 372 f, 428,
434 ff, 441 f, 454 f. Chap. X-XII, see

also Crown of plants; Galls and over-
growths, various types of. 472. 507 ff,
522. 526 f. 543, 561 f, 582; Growth
and development, mechanism of. 435 f,
497 ff, 507 ff. 526 ff; Inhibition of
tumor growth by acids, 540, 584 ff,
592, 646; Production by bacterial
inoculation, 428, 430 ff, 441 f, 454 f,
470. 493, 508. Chapter XI f; Produc-
tion by products of bacterial inocula-
tion only, or, in absence of parasite,
496 ff, 500, 507. 509 f, 524 ff, 535 ff;
Strands and secondary tumors. 441 f,
454 f, 471 f, 543, 560, 568 ff

Turner, J. B. 100

Turnip, black rot of, 368

Twort, F. W. 476

Typhoid fever, 37, 40 f, 43, 60, 82, 186,
343, 382, 474

Typhus fever, 43, 58

Tyndall, J. 48, 53, 486

Tyzzer, E. E. 503

Uhlworm, O. 327, 406

Umehara, N. 581

Underwood, L. M. 221 f, 328, 461

United States Dep"t of Agric, Chap.
IV-XII; Bureau of Animal Industry,
132 ff, 185, 208 f, 311 f, 475, 489;
Bureau of Chemistry, 475, 488 f, 491;
Bureau of Plant Industry, 362 ff,
375 ff, 480, 488 ff, 511, 647; Division
of Vegetable Physiology and Path-
ology' (under Galloway), 167-363;
Entomology, early work in, 27, see
also under Riley; Laboratory of Plant
Breeding, 363, see also Breeding
plants for disease resistance; Labora-
tory of Plant Physiology, 377 ; Labora-
tory of Plant Pathology (under Smith),
216, 355, 363 ff, 374 ff, 428 ff, 477 f,
480 ff, 485, 487 ff, 516 ff, 524 ff,
529 ff, 533, 535 f, 548 ff, 554 f, 568,
570, 577, 584 ff, 590 ff, 637, 641 f,
647 ff; Mississippi Valley Laboratory,
St. Louis, 309, 356, 381, 426; My-
cology, early section of, 113 ff, 130,
133, 135, 137 ff; Pacific Coast Labora-
tory, Santa Ana, California, 227,
232 ff, 240 f, 256 ff; Plant Industries,
Chapters III-VI, 365 ff, 378, 411 ff,
418 f, 481 ff ; Plant Introductions, 227,

674

Index

258, 299, 365 f, 417 ff, 422; Sub-
tropical laboratories at Eustis and
Miami, Florida, 227, 232, 240 ff, 244,
381, 432, 514; Woods Hole, Mass.,
laboratory, 360
Universitatsinstitut fiir Krebsforschung
an der Charite, Berlin, 542, 614 f,

618 ff
Universitetes-patologisk-anatomiske In-

stitut, Copenhagen, see Fibiger
Uredineae, 65 f, 97, 171, 328
Ustilagineae, 169, 384
Utrecht, University of, 409 f, 629,

(Baarn) 628 f.

Van Hall, C. J. J. 410, 512

Van Hise, C. R. 479

Van Slogteren, E. 630, 647

Van Tieghem, P. 68, 110

Vasey, G. 100, 114, 137

Vaughan, V. C. 43, 45, 85 f, 120 f, 128,

177, 212 f, 312, 508, 602
Vavilov, N. I. 630
Vayssiere, P. 605
Ventilation, 34
Verticillium, 262
Viala, 612

Viala, P. 151 f, 158, 181, 197
Vilmorin, M. and P. 420
Violet, alternaria disease of, 297
Virchow, R. 37, 45 ff, 51, 58, 532, 575
Virus diseases of plants, 115, 149 ff,

167 f, 182, 223, 239, 318, 328 f, 382,

416, 498, 510ff,5l6, 521, 534, 546 ff,

555 f, 582 ff, 643 f
Virus wound (plant) tumor, 583
Vitamins, 485, 537
Vochting, H. 260, 280, 327
Volkens, G. 408, 447
Von Dungern, 470
Von Tavel, F. 280, 296, 325

Wagner, E. 46

Waite, M. B. 116, 118 f, 134, 174, 184,

186, 194, 197, 207, 209 f, 247 f, 253,

258, 274, 281 f, 294, 307, 342, 429,

432
Wakker, J. H. 107 f, 146, l48, 190, 298,

422, 630
Waksman, S. A. 476
Walcott, C. D. 383
Waldeyer, H. W. G. 46, 532

Walker, J. 79

Wallace, A. R. 12

Wallace, H. C. 557, 600 f, 608

Walnut disease, 234, 257 f, 341

Warburg, O. 578 f, 620 f, 624 f, 628,

637
Ward, L. F. 19, 30
Ward, H. M. 143 f, 208, 279, 303, 327,

385, 449
Warren, J. C. 506
Warthin, A. S. 528 f, 558, 637
Washington Acad, of Sciences, 647
Wassermann, A. 385, 475
Wassink, W. F. 628
Waterman, S. N. 628
Watermelon wilt, 261 ff, 277, 335 f,

345, 365, 414
Watson, B. M. 313
Watts, F. 15
Webb, R. W. 548
Webb, W. 161 f, 164
Webber, H. J. 202, 232, 240 f, 266,

274 f, 287, 307, 328, 363 ff, 377, 405,

413 ff, 522
Weed, C. M. 180
Wehmer, C. 346 f, 402, 491
Weigert, C. 46, 55, 71, 189
Weil, R. 465

Weinberg, M. 455, 612 f, 616
Welch, W. H. 44 fi, 48, 59, 83, 104,

134, 153, 193 f, 212 ff, 218 ff, 310,

312 ff, 324, 327, 330 f, 353 ff, 369 ff,

383, 386, 393, 423, 440, 459, 520,

541, 589, 646
Wells, B. W. 522
Wells, H. G. 558, 587, 649
Went, F. A. F. C. 316, 361 f, 409 f, 629,

642
Westerdijk, J. 410, 421, 491, 628 f
Weston, R. S. 310
Weston, W. H. 461
Wheat kernels, Prillieux's micrococcus

disease of, 107 f
Wheat, black chaff of (Bad. tran slue ens

var. undulosutn), 518 f, 533
Wheat, rusts of, 65, 142, 171, 240, 248,

411 f, 418, 652
Wheat, seed disinfection of, 517 f
Wheat, smuts of, see Cereal diseases
Wheeler, C. F. 10 f, 14 f, 17 ff, 21, 29 f,

79, 289, 302 f, 356
Wheeler, L. 356, 380

Indi-x

675

Whctzcl, H. H, (At. 107, 1 39 f . 142 f,

216, 309. 381. 3S^ f. -MSf. 462, 6'13
Whirplc, G. C. 215, 310
W'hitakcr, T. W. 58-1
White. P. R. 538. 5-10, 572, 583
White, >X'. C. 648
Whitnun. C. O. 220, 313
Whitney. M. 262 f. 308
>X'ickson, E. J. 229
Wiesner. J. 105, 220
Wilbrink. G. 276, 629, 648
Williams. J. 24
Willie Commelin Scholtcn, Phytopatho-

lopisch Laboratorium, Amsterdam,

409 f, 419 ff. 49t, 629
Willits. E. 164, 223
Wilson, E. B. 131
Wilson, J. 375. 383, 444 f, 480 f
Wilson, L. B. 440, 458
Wilson. W. P. 285, 379
Wmchell, A. 126, 169
Winogradsky, S. 315, 402, 633
Winslow, C.-E. A. 32 f, 327, 331, 386,

491
Winter, G. 67. 69, 136. 169
Wisconsin, Univ. of (and Exp't Sta.),

103, 121. 129, 180, 292 f, 385, 448 f,

462. 479, 551; see also under Jones

and Riker
Wittmack, L. 420
Woglom. W. H. 452, 456, 546, 576,

587, 637, 650, 653
Wolf, F. A. 526
Wolfe, J. J. 461
Wollenweber, H. W. 262, 339
Wood, F. C. 45, 528 f, 546, 587, 637

Wood head, G. S. 6^2

Woods. A. F. 184. 274 f, 293. 300.

328 f. 334. 363 ff. 367. 377. 421. 443.

497. 523. 653
Woodward, R. S. 383, 519 f
Woodworth, C. M. 229
"Worm cancers" 561
Wormald, H. 634

Woronin, M. S. 66, 68 ff, 279. 326, 452
Wright, R. G. 5S9
Wyman, J. 91, 132

" X-bodies," 546, 548, 550, 555 f, sec
also Virus diseases of plants

X-rays, discovery of, and use in treat-
ment of disease, 398, 485, 544, 603;
see also Radium

Yale University, Sheffield Scientific

School, 90 f, 129, 204
Yamagiwa, K. 471, 575 ff, (and Ohno)

580'
Yaws, 408, 471
Yellow fever, 39 f, 43, 207, 424, 486,

535, 553
Yendo, Prof. 604
Yersin, A. 186

Yoshida, rat ascites sarcoma, 535
Young, J. 531, 533

Ziegler, E. 528 f
Zimmermann, 218, 340
Zimmerman, P. W. 541
Zinsser, H. 131
Zinsser, O. 315
Zopf, W. 86, 279

Hliliilllil(;.l|lliraill-lli?H;!;ill!ill

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