Rnsi-ARCH ON Plant Tumors 469 



came Mr. Makins,- the i;reat surueon and Dr. [Sir Tliomas] Barlow, 

 president of the Congress. Some men I hoped mii;ht see it did not come, 

 e. g. Dr. Osier and Dr. \\\ J. Mayo, but there were too many thini^s to 

 see and do and the time too short. The scientific exhibits, as a whole, 

 were exceedingly interesting but tailed largely of their juirpose owing to 

 the multiplicity of other things going on at the same time. One day in 

 the middle of the Congress should have been set aside for this and called 

 " Exhibit Dav." ... At least one third of my visitors were Frenchmen 

 and Germans and Russians, there were many of the latter, also some 

 Japanese, who mostly spoke German. The Russians spoke German and 

 French indifferently. I got along very well with these people, but could 

 have done nothing in English. I put up also an Italian sign over my show, 

 but Italians were scarj:e. I did not meet any, but some Spaniards. The 

 newpapers gave short notices. . . . 



Tuesday evening, August 13, Dr. Osier sent Smith a note saying 

 he was " desolated not to have seen you but I," he explained, 

 " have been tied to my section every day. I hear your demon- 

 stration was wonderful." Dr. W. J. Mayo also sent a letter of 

 explanation, saying: 



Our stay abroad was of necessity very brief as we arrived in London 

 on Monday evening and sailed from. Liverpool the following Saturday, 

 August 9th. I am sorry I did not have opportunity of again seeing your 

 excellent exhibit, as would liked to have brought in a number of English 

 friends who also are very interested in work of this character. 



I am still calling attention of the profession at various times to the work 

 in connection with the cancer question. 



Among the many, many honors heaped upon this eminent 

 graduate of the University of Michigan, his election to the presi- 

 dency of the American Surgical Association was his latest. 

 Already he had held the high honor of president of the 

 American Medical Association in 1905-1906, and besides having 

 served in 1895 as president of the Minnesota Medical Society 

 he had occupied the same office of distinction during 1911-1912 

 in the Society of Clinical Surgery. 



The plea of Smith's address, " Cancer in Plants," to medical 

 scientists was presented near its conclusion. " I am persuaded," 

 he affirmed, 



that malignant human and animal tumours must be due to some kind of 

 micro-organism occurring within the cells, and driving them into division 

 through its action on the nucleus, in other words, that cancer is not a cell 

 anarchy, but a cell symbiosis, " the incestuous product of the parasite and 



" George Henry Makins of England. 

 16 



