242 Early Studies in Bacterial Plant Diseases 



Late in the year 1892 Dr. H. L. Russell was offered a special 

 assignment at the Eustis laboratory to investigate the bacteriology 

 of citrous fruits. He, however, declined owing to the fact that 

 during the school year 1892-1893, as a part of the " Programme 

 of Courses in Biology " at the University of Chicago, he was 

 presenting a lecture course on " Special Problems in Bacteriology." 

 In September 1892 the Experiment Station Record ^^ had published 

 a strong editorial on the need of station investigations of plant 

 bacterial diseases made in strict compliance with the canons of 

 Koch. Russell had furnished suggested materials for the editorial. 

 " Four or more Lectures " were all that was promised in his course 

 at the University of Chicago. Knowledge of the bacteria which 

 cause diseases of plants was still immature. In 1892 William 

 Wood and Company of New York had published George M. 

 Sternberg's Manual of Bacteriology, a volume of 886 pages. Not 

 until the second revised edition issued in 1901, however, would a 

 chapter on plant parasites be included, and even then considera- 

 tion of the saprophytes would be altogether omitted. Sternberg 

 requested Smith to submit his publications for this chapter of his 

 volume which in 1896 became Text-book of bacteriology, a volume 

 of 693 pages.'- Observers, the editorial of 1892 said, had recog- 

 nized bacteria, and in instances the bacterial nature, of certain 

 plant diseases. Some students had transferred " bits of diseased 

 tissue containing bacteria from affected to healthy plants," and if 

 the disease was seen to " spread to any extent this ha[d} been 

 regarded as sufficient evidence that the malady was of a bacterial 

 nature. " Elaborate equipment was neither the test nor the pre- 

 requisite of good work in plant bacteriology since " pathological 

 inquiry from a medical standpoint call[ed} for more accurately 

 adjusted conditions than [was] necessary for the study of many 

 problems from an agricultural standpoint. Good work has and 

 can yet be done with but little other than the simplest appliance." 

 The editorial urged that " the general principles of the subject in 

 relation to agriculture need[ed} to be more thoroughly developed. 

 . . . Medicine ha[d] taken up the subject largely from the hygienic 

 standpoint and outside of pathogenic forms little ha[d} been 

 done on the general biology of microorganisms since the death 



"4(2): 111-113. 



^^ Bacteria in relation to plant diseases, op. cit., bibliog., 1: 204-205. 



