dall: origin of philosophical society 33 



other room. That was before 1876, when the first public ex- 

 hibition of the telephone took place at the Centennial Exposi- 

 tion at Philadelphia. 



Among other things, I remember a paper by Dr. A. F. A. King 

 in which the mosquito theory of the transmission of malaria 

 was fully set forth. Dr. King was one of those who originated 

 the theory that the disease is transmitted by these insects. Of 

 course, the theory required proof, and it was not till a good many 

 years afterward that proof was furnished by contributors from the 

 Medical Corps of the Army and others. 



Most of the papers in the early days were intended to be pub- 

 lished elsewhere than in the Bulletin of the Society. They were 

 read there for the information of the members, and when the 

 Bulletin was printed, it would give the title of the paper and state 

 the place in which it was published, and in that way reference 

 could be had from the Bulletin to the place of publication of 

 anything that was read before the Society. At first, of course, 

 the pecuniary resources of the Society were not great and it 

 could not afford to publish many papers, but owing to the fact 

 that most of the members were members of the Government 

 staff under one Bureau or another, and that the publication of 

 their results would naturally have to be through Government 

 agencies, the system adopted was fairly satisfactory. The Society 

 was a great boon to all of us who desired to know something of 

 what was going on in the departments of science with which we 

 were not personally acquainted. 



I think that there were none of us but derived welcome and 

 interesting information, and added to our store of knowledge 

 from the communications that came from other members in 

 quite different fields of work. I ought perhaps to mention one 

 of the remarkable things that were done by members of the So- 

 ciety at that time. This was the work of Dr. Woodward of the 

 Army Medical Museum in microscopy. He was the first, as far 

 as I know — at all events in this country, and I think the first 

 anywhere — to succeed in getting a diatom photograph of a per- 

 fection and size that would reveal, for instance, all the almost 

 invisible, complete and beautiful ornamentation with which it is 



