86 Background of Work and Study in Public Health 



nor in pathology and bacteriology, but in the natural sciences, and 

 particularly botany. When he consulted Dr. Vaughan, he may still 

 have been contemplating the medical profession. To prepare for 

 the practice of human medicine or surgery, however, would prob- 

 ably have required more than one year of resident study at the 

 university. Dr. Spalding may have turned Smith to the idea, of 

 studying parasitic fungi, or Erwin evolved his plan from the abun- 

 dant preparatory reading which he pursued the summer previous 

 to his entrance to the university. July 9, 1885, in any event, he 

 tendered to Dr. Baker his resignation from his position with the 

 Michigan State Board of Health. It was to take effect on July 21, 

 and Smith felt constrained to say: " I am led to do this because I 

 need the time for proper preparation for my University work next 

 year." He thanked the secretary for his courtesy to him during his 

 three years of service, and closed his letter by reiterating his 

 "lively interest in Public Health work in general" and especially 

 such work as was being done in Michigan. 



A week before his resignation became effective, he ordered 

 DeBary's Vergleichende Morphologie und Biologie der Pilze, 

 Mycetozoen und Bacterien (1884), Dr. W. Zopf's Die Spaltpilze 

 (1885), Dr. E. Klein's Microorganisms and Disease (1885), and 

 W. B. Grove's A Synopsis of the Bacteria and Yeast Fungi 

 (1884). Early in February he had sent for Eduard Strasburger's 

 Das Botanische Practicutn (1884) a.nd on July 21, 1885, he ordered 

 Dr. Ferdinand Hueppe's Die Methoden Bakterien-Forscbung 

 (1885). Hueppe, a Prussian army surgeon, had done important 

 work on fermentation (1883), had begun to study the bacteri- 

 ology of milk (1884), and, besides being a principal collaborator 

 with Koch, had prepared this "well-known manual on bacterio- 

 logical methods (1885)."^^^ During the spring Smith had ex- 

 amined Dr. Germain See's De la Pbtisie Bacillaire des Poumans, 

 a work published in Paris in 1884, and had v/ritten to Dr. William 

 Oldright of Toronto that he had found it "very interesting, 

 especially some chapters." It seems apparent that Smith, while 

 preparing for the University, read bacteriology as much as botany, 

 and that he himself, or with Dr. Spalding's help, began to realize 

 he might combine these two interests by studying plant pathology. 

 That summer he became convinced that bacteria cause diseases of 



^"^ F. H. Garrison, Introduction to the history of medicine, op. cit., 582. 



