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. 



