84 Background of Work and Study in Public Health 



What has been done is but a tithe of the beneficient work which 

 can be done and will be done in the years to come." He prophe- 

 sied that " some of us will undoubtedly live to see chairs of sani- 

 tary science established in all our universities, and the funda- 

 mental principles of the science taught in all the common schools." 

 His paper was not a study in the medical aspects of the subject 

 but a proof of the value and importance of accurate statistics on 

 birth, deaths, and movements of populations and how death-rates 

 in cities were lowered by proper sewerage and pure water-supply. 

 Smith, as early as December, 1884, may have discussed with Dr. 

 Spalding his studying plant diseases when he should have accu- 

 mulated sufficient funds to finance a year or more at the University 

 of Michigan. During that month he had journeyed to Ann Arbor, 

 had "a long and friendly chat" with the University's "acting 

 professor of botany," and their conference probably was about 

 more than taxonomy and the Michigan flora. It must have in- 

 cluded plant morphology and plant physiology, and something of 

 plant pathology. For, that summer Smith had purchased, and 

 surely was reading, DeBary's Verglekhende Anatomie der Vegeta- 

 tionsorgane der Phanerogamen und Fame (1877); and, imme- 

 diately upon his return to Lansing, he either looked up or verified, 

 and sent to Spalding, the title of DeBary's "new book," Ver- 

 gleichende Morphologie und Biologie der Pilze, Mycetozoen und 

 Bacterien (1884). Smith had been acquiring several "German 

 botanies to mouse on," he told friends, but the fact was he was 

 building, or adding to, his botanical library. Karl von Goebel's 

 Grundzilge der Sptemattk und speciellen Pfianzenmorphologie 

 (1882) had also been received, along with four volumes of 

 Charles Darwin's works and Lesquereux and James's Manual of 

 North American Mosses published that year. Since for many years 

 the following were in Smith's library, the Darwin works must 

 have been: (1) The Power of Movement in Plants (1883); (2) 

 Insectivorous Plants (1883); (3) The Various Contrivances by 

 which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects (1884); and (4) The 

 Movements and Habits of Clitnbing Plants (1883) . The last two 

 were second editions. Sachs's Geschicte der Botanik (1875) also 

 had been ordered during the summer and was later in Smith's 

 library for many years. At least twice he had tried to acquire a 

 copy of the fourth edition of Sachs's Lehrbuch der Botanik and 

 once the second part of Duchartre's Elements de Botanique. 



