Rl-COGNITION OF PlANT BaCTURIOLOGV IN EUKOPli 373 



that cancer, or a disease in points quite similar to cancer, exists 

 in plants. In so cKmiii;, he evolved a loL;ical theory of cancer 

 development. 



hi plant bacteriolop' Smith occupies " a position comparable 

 witii that of Koch in the held of medical bacteriolog)'." ^° The 

 foremost importance of his work on crown gall, furthermore, may 

 be said to have been his study of this as a disease of plants caused 

 by a bacterium. His background in pathology and bacteriolog)', 

 however, had been closely linked to research in sanitation and 

 hygiene, public health, and medicine, and medical research men 

 gradually became interested in his crowngall-animal cancer analogy. 

 Dr. Gaylord was among the first to recognize its importance from 

 the standpoint of fundamental biology, perhaps even from its 

 indicated values to the knowledge of cellular physiology and path- 

 ology. He called on Secretary Wilson and persuaded him to 

 allow Smith sufficient latitude in his study of plant overgrowths 

 to include the animal cancer analogy. Great economic and scien- 

 tific importance to agriculture attached in solving the problems 

 of this and other similarly destructive diseases of plants; and 

 during the century's first half-decade Smith was almost totally 

 absorbed with studying diseases of plants as such. But after 1907, 

 for reasons yet to be divulged, the work as to crown gall began 

 " to offer a clue which might lead to the solution of the greater 

 and very obscure problem of the origin of malignant human and 

 animal tumors." '^ Dr. Gaylord interested other medical scientists 

 in Europe as well as in America in Smith's work. Other doctors, 

 leaders in the field of cancer research and among them Dr. James 

 Ewing," we shall see encouraged Smith to elaborate the analogy 

 on the basis of a fundamental study of pathological growth. 



In October 1901, Smith began to move his laboratory into the 

 larger quarters in the Department's building situated in the 1300 

 block on B Street — two large rooms on the third floor which were 

 far more spacious and adequate than the quarters of the dwelling 

 on 13th Street Southwest. In these years, the Department of Agri- 



■"^ Arthur T. Henrici (revised by Eriing J. Ordal), The biology of bacteria, 353, 

 Boston, D. C. Heath and Co., 1948. 



"^ E. F. Smith, Mechanism of overgrowth in plants, Proc. Amer. Philos. Sac. 56: 

 437, 1917. Address read April 13, 1917. 



'^ A. J. Riker et al. Some comparisons of bacterial plant galls and of their causal 

 agents, Botanical Review 12(2): 59 (as to Dr. Ewing), Feb. 1946. 



