2 SAMUEL JAMES MELTZER— HOWELL tMBM0ISS [ v^ 1 ^ 



Meltzer was invited to visit hiru at his home. Tliis was the more or less accidental beginning 

 of a beautiful and lasting friendship between the two men. However hard the physical condi- 

 tions of life may have been during this period, there is no doubt that intellectually and spiritually 

 they were gloriously enjoyed and utilized. He threw himself into his work with intense zeal, 

 and taking advantage of his opportunities gave as much serious attention as time would permit 

 to the cultural studies of art and music. In the medical school he sat under great masters — du 

 Bois Reymond, Virchow, Helmholtz, Friedlander, and the like — but the teacher who exercised 

 the greatest influence upon his life and came closest to him was Hugo Kronecker. Like Stein- 

 thal in philosophy, Kronecker was impressed by the ability and industry of the young student 

 in physiology. He became interested in him personally, invited him to his home, and finally 

 became his warm personal friend as well as his guide and councilor in physiology. It was 

 under Kronecker that he completed his inaugural dissertation for the degree of doctor of medicine. 

 The dissertation was dedicated to Kronecker "in herzlicher Dankbarkeit," and in collaboration 

 with this master and friend he completed some notable investigations, which will be referred 

 to later on. The fact that this poverty-stricken young student enjoyed the personal friend- 

 ship of two eminent professors in the university and was received into the intimacies of their 

 family life throws an interesting light upon the conditions of university life at that time. 



A trivial incident of this phase of his life, which Doctor Meltzer sometimes referred to, 

 indicates quite clearly that the relationship between student and professor was not that of a 

 poor dependent and well-to-do patron, but an intellectual companionship of two scholarly men 

 not influenced by the mere externalities of life. Kronecker, knowing that Meltzer was so poor 

 that he got insufficient food, once in the kindness of his heart sent him a ham, but it was refused 

 with indignation, just as Dr. Sam Johnson, as related by Boswell, spurned the mistaken kindness 

 of a friend in sending him a pair of shoes to replace his shabby footwear when a poor student 

 at Oxford. After graduating in medicine Meltzer could have made his career as a scientific 

 man in Germany. It is stated that he was offered several positions on the condition that he 

 be baptized in the Christian faith. But such a step did not accord with his sturdy sincere 

 character. His thoughts turned to America as the country that had the best form of govern- 

 ment and promised the most freedom in speech and action. He did not have sufficient means 

 to purchase his passage; he therefore shipped as surgeon on one of the trans-Atlantic liners 

 and thus arrived in New York. He was provided with letters of introduction to leading men 

 in scientific, medical, and musical circles, but it is not recorded that he obtained any material 

 assistance through this agency. He applied himself to the practice of medicine in order to 

 support himself and to obtain sufficient means to bring over his family. His efforts must have 

 been unusually successful, since in the second year of his residence in New York, in 1885, he 

 felt justified in sending for his family. He became subsequently a successful practitioner, 

 owing no doubt mainly to his intrinsic ability as a physician, but partly also, in all probability, 

 to the fact that he at once began to make himself known to members of the profession through 

 his scientific publications. 



Just as soon as his financial position made it at all possible he sought the opportunity to 

 use the facilities then existing in New York to carry on investigative work. He found and 

 utilized such opportunities in Welch's laboratory at Bellevue and in Curtis's and Prudden's 

 laboratories at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. For many years his practice and his 

 investigations were carried on simultaneously. He worked with that extraordinary intensity 

 and devotion which characterized him throughout his life. All his spare time during the day 

 and a large part of the night were given up to laboratory investigations or the reading of current 

 scientific journals. The eagerness for knowledge that he had shown in his early youth and 

 manhood remained with him throughout life. It was a passion with him that seemed to grow 

 stronger as he grew older, so that almost from the beginning of his residence in this country 

 there came from his pen an increasing stream of communications to medical and scientific 

 journals that have served to establish his reputation as a scientific investigator of high rank. 

 His productivity was remarkable. The fist of his published papers includes over 240 titles, 

 distributed among some 48 scientific journals of this country, Germany, and England. These 



