RusiiARCH ON Plant Tumors 47'> 



bactcrii)K\uv. Contrasting Smith's two jxiblishcd, and the pro- 

 mult;atcd third, vokimcs of Bdctcr'nt in RcLifiofi to Plant Diseases 

 with the total knowledge of micro-organic pathology as shown 

 by W. Kollc's and A. Wasscrmann's Hdndhuch der pathogenen 

 Mikroorganismen, plant bacteriology as a growing science was 

 developing commcnsurately. In 1907-1909 two supplementary 

 volumes to the original four of the great Hancihuch had been 

 published, and in 1912-1913 a new edition by Kolle and Abel- 

 eight volumes in all— had made its appearance." Plant pathology 

 and bacteriology as experimental sciences were scarcely a half- 

 century old; some might say, scarcely little more than a quarter 

 of a century old. 



At the French exhibit of the International Exposition, Smith saw 

 some " cultures of cheese and butter organisms from the Pasteur 

 Inst[itute] on which [he] made some notes for Thorn." Charles 

 Thom w^as at that time a mycologist in cheese investigations of 

 the dairy division of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture and in charge of cooperative 

 work in soft and fancy cheesemaking w^th the Storrs Connecticut 

 Agricultural Experiment Station. 



Investigation in microbiology for many years, of course, had 

 figured prominently in the work, and the Bulletin, of the Pasteur 

 Institute. In America, many microbiological investigations had 

 taken place but had been known under the broader titles of dairy 

 bacteriology, vegetable patholog)', mycology, or various branches 

 of medical science. Gradually, however, microbiology, as an 

 organized segregate of experimental inquiry, w^as being recog- 

 nized. In 1914 Dr. Thom, authority on the physiology and classi- 

 fication of the economic molds of the genera Penicillium and As- 

 pergillus and at one time a student in Smith's laboratory, was to be 

 placed in charge of a Microbiological Laboratory in the Division 

 of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture. In 1911 Charles 

 Edward Marshall, professor of bacteriology and hygiene at 

 Michigan Agricultural College, had edited, wqth many scientists 

 collaborating, an important publication, Microbiology, and the 

 next year he had gone to Massachusetts Agricultural College as 

 director of the graduate school and professor of microbiology. 

 In 1914 he became president of the Society of American Bac- 



"Uem, 34-35. 



