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. 



