18 STUDIES ON PATHOLOGIC OVA. 



the country. For a number of years our esteemed colleague, Dr. Howard A. Kelly, 

 inclosed a copy of this circular with every one of his reprints. 



This circularization, we believe, accounts for the responses we first received 

 from distant and varied points. Furthermore, if the effort is worth while, as a 

 collection grows a literature develops from it, and papers from studies of our own 

 collection began to appear in rapid succession. Reprints of these were sent to all 

 our contributors. This doubtless served to stimulate their interest and encour- 

 age others to send specimens, for in numerous instances physicians have written to 

 us, at the suggestion of one of our donors, asking for information and instructions 

 concerning the preservation and shipment of specimens. Thus, for a number of 

 years our efforts were directed toward stimulating an increasingly large group of 

 contributors, and we found that a succession of specimens from a physician .gradu- 

 ally improved in quality as his knowledge and interest increased. In the course of 

 time certain contributors, who were especially interested in the work, developed 

 contributing centers, so that in a few instances our collection has been augmented 

 by a number of specimens received at one time from one or another of these centers. 

 Aside from those in our own country, such a center was established at Manila, 

 another at Shanghai, and quite recently one in Korea. The contributors at the 

 last two points have carried their efforts to the extent of writing letters to the 

 various Asiatic journals, requesting the preservation of embryos for this collection; 

 and although unforeseen difficulties are to be overcome in Asia, we hope in the 

 course of time to acquire at least a representative number of specimens from each 

 of the important races. 



It may prove helpful to others who are making embryological collections to 

 state that the task will probably be simplified if they will focus most of their 

 efforts upon the immediate territory. In this way a collector can doubtless secure 

 all the specimens he can use and, in a way, pay his debt to the local profession by 

 running a gratuitous pathological laboratory. The collection will thus be made 

 a central point of interest for the physicians of the community who are scientifically 

 inclined. Our many accessions from Maryland are due largely to personal 

 influence through which the cooperation of the practising physicians of the Johns 

 Hopkins Hospital was secured. We have also found that most of the physicians 

 of Baltimore were not only willing but anxious to send specimens, especially from 

 cases of repeated abortions. Usually a physician will bring his specimen directly 

 to the laboratory, thus affording us an opportunity to show him what is done with 

 it and thereby increase his interest. We do not receive all the embryological 

 material available in the State of Maryland or in the city of Baltimore, but we 

 do get a large amount from physicians practising among the poorer classes, as well 

 as from gynecologists and obstetricians practising among the wealthier. Most 

 of the specimens from the poorer people belong in the third to sixth month of 

 pregnancy and usually appear normal; while those from the upper classes are, as 

 a rule, younger specimens and most of them are pathological. 



After our collection was well established we came somewhat in conflict with 

 the department of health of the city of Baltimore, owing to the passage of a law 



