382 Chief of a Laboratory of Plant Pathology 



research. He seldom did field research at a distance, although he 

 continued to direct field investigations the nation over. His real 

 speciality now was, as it had been for several years, plant 

 bacteriology. 



Perhaps this was the real reason why in 1904 he found it im- 

 possible to give the address on plant pathology before the Congress 

 of Arts and Science held at St. Louis as a part of the Universal 

 Exposition. ^^ When Dr. Simon Newcomb, president of the Con- 

 gress, received his refusal, he asked Smith to suggest " three or 

 four men eminent in this line who might be asked to deliver the 

 address in question." Waite presented an address on " Vegetable 

 Pathology, an Economic Science," and Arthur gave an address on 

 " The History and Scope of Plant Pathology." Several American 

 scientists discoursed before this conference. Duggar, now Pro- 

 fessor of Botany at the University of Missouri, spoke on " Plant 

 Physiology — Present Problems"; Theobald Smith, on "Some 

 Problems in the Life-History of Pathogenic Microorganisms"; 

 and in E. O. Jordan's address on " Relations of Bacteriology to 

 Other Sciences," special attention was drawn to the " new division 

 of technologic science," including now bacteriology of the soil, 

 dairy, barn-yard, tan-pit and canning factory. Jordan did not fail 

 to mention other advances made possible by bacteriology including 

 new knowledge of diseases of domestic plants and animals, and 

 advances in public hygiene. Similar to the past warfare of man 

 against malaria and typhoid fever, the recent movement to study 

 and suppress tuberculosis had become " one of the first attempts 

 to apply bacteriologic knowledge in a determined and radical 

 way to a problem of public hygiene." Furthermore, and some- 

 what indicative of future research in animal and plant bacteriology, 

 the " study of the ultramicroscopic, or perhaps more correctly, the 

 filterable viruses, [was] being prosecuted with great energy and 

 in a sanguine spirit. The extension of bacteriologic method into 

 the field of protozoon pathology," constituted, Jordan said, " one 

 of the latest and most helpful developments in the study of infec- 

 tious diseases." Included in this last was " renewed study of the 

 remarkable protozoa called trypanosomes." Indeed, so great had 



®^ Volume 5, edited by Dr. Howard J. Rogers, op. cit., in which each and all of 

 the following referred to addresses and quotations may be found. The quotations 

 from Dr. Jordan's address may be found pp. 208-214. 



