Or 11 in SciuNci- OF Plant Bactlriologv 329 



mcnts. Woods believed that " under certain conditions " tobacco 

 mosaic was infectious, and he suggested that his explanation might 

 extend to peach yellows, the California vine disease, and die 

 back of the oran<;e. Smith the next year "" spoke of 



a whole ^roup of diseases, the etiology ol which mere field study and the 

 ordinary ^laboratory methods do not appear to be competent to unravel; 

 tor example, the Calitornia (Anaheim) vine disease, the wilt of the orange, 

 the sereh disease of the sugar cane, gum diseases, the yellows and rosette 

 of the peach, the winter blight of the tomato, the internal brown spotting 

 of potato tubers, etc. ... A good beginning on this class of diseases has 

 been made by Beyerinck and\Voods' in the study of the Mosaic disease 

 of tobacco. 



He was confident that " these obscure diseases will yield up their 



full etiology to careful study at some time in the future." 



At the Baltimore meeting (1900) of the Society of American 



Bacteriologists, Smith presented experimental data tending to 



establish that in bacteriological culture work the practice prevalent 



then of using thymol and chloroform as antiseptics and germicides 



was of limited value. He called attention to the fact that twelve 



micro-organisms were known which grew readily in test-tube 



cultures of milk or beef bouillon to which an equal volume of 



chloroform had been added. Two organisms grew readily in beef 



bouillon to which thymol had been added. '*' In discussing some 



years later in his first volume of Bctcteria in Relation to Plant 



Diseases the subject, " Reaction to Antisepics and Germicides," 



he said: 



Some organisms will grow in a solution saturated with thymol (e. g., in 

 bouillon). Others will grow in the presence of chloroform (5cc. of 

 chloroform in test-tubes with 10 cc. of milk or beef-bouillon) . Ten 

 organisms have been found by the writer which, under the conditions 

 named, grew in the presence of chloroform and two which grew vigorously 

 in the presence of thymol. Russell reports one capable of growing in the 

 presence of sulphuric ether. It is, therefore, not always safe to depend 

 on these substances as antiseptics. Newcombe has made the same observa- 

 tion (Cellulose Enzymes, Annals of Botany, Vol. XIII, 1899, p. 60). In 

 the opinion of the writer the statements of physiologists respecting the 



^'^ Plant pathology: a retrospect and prospect, op. cit., 611 (Smith's presidential 

 address before the Society for Plant Morphology and Physiology, fifth meeting, 

 January 1, 1902, held at Columbia University). 



'■^'' Experiment Station Record 13(2): 114; aXso Science, n.s., 13(322): 327, 1901; 

 also, ]our. Boston Soc. Med. Sci. 5: 375; also Centralb. f. Bakt., 1901, 1st Abt., 29: 

 445-446. 



