310 Recognition in America 



This was the year when a committee of American bacteriologists 

 composed of J. George Adami, W. T. Sedgwick, George W. Fuller, 

 Charles Smart, A. C. Abbott, T. M. Cheesman, Theobald Smith, 

 and William Henry Welch, finally reported to the American 

 Public Health Association on procedures recommended for the 

 study of bacteria with especial reference to greater uniformity in 

 the description and differentiation of species. Although a report 

 to the Association's committee on the pollution of water supplies. 

 Smith regarded the pamphlet as of exceeding value, a model of 

 condensation, and considered that it " should be in very laboratory, 

 and in the hands of every student." 



Laboratories of bacteriology at last had a manual of standard 

 practice. George W. Fuller's method of titration, his expression 

 in regard to acidity, and his 1895 method of preparing meat 

 infusion were merged with the report of the committee of which 

 Fuller was a member.^^ 



In 1899, at the Minneapolis meeting of the American Public 

 Health Association, another committee, consisting of Fuller, G. C. 

 Whipple, H. W. Clark, Edwin O. Jordan, H. L. Russell, J. W. 

 EUms, and Robert Spurr Weston, was appointed to study further 

 standard proceduies in water analysis, including bacteriologic 

 examination. This committee remained at work for five years, 

 issued progress reports occasionally, but its final report was not 

 made available until 1905. Procedures provisionally recommended 

 by the first committee for the study of bacteria were presented in 

 1897 at the Philadelphia meeting of the Association. Quite likely, 

 however. Smith did not attend this meeting, since, as yet, his 

 papers in plant bacteriology without exception had been given 

 before botanical societies, and, as far as is known, he had attended 

 no meetings of the American Public Health Association and no 

 convention of bacteriologists. He, therefore, quite likely did not 

 come into possession of the knowledge embodied in the recom- 



*" Procedures Recommended for the Study of Bacteria, submitted at the Phila. 

 meeting, Sept. 1897, of Amer. Pub. Health Ass'n, The Rumford Press, 1898, 

 Concord, New Hampshire. Preface by Deputy Surgeon General Charles Smart. 

 Introduction by Wm. H. Welch. See, Hydrogen-ion concentration vs. titratable 

 acidity in culture mediums. Jour. Infect. Dis. 33(1): 1-59, July 1923, " Historical," 

 pp. 2-7, concerning 1899 Assoc, meet, at Minneapolis, etc. Introduction by Erwin 

 F. Smith. The 1897-1898 recommendations were provisional. See, also, Public 

 Health Papers and Rep'ts of Amer. Public Health Assoc, 1898, for report of com- 

 mittee of Amer. bact. for this year. 



