566 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy 



its scarcity," said Riker, " apparently contribute to the difficulty 

 of demonstrating it in the tissues. Under certain conditions, the 

 organism was found to travel through the vascular bundles." 



In November of 1922, Dr. L. R. Jones read in the Medical 

 Library of the University of Wisconsin a copy of Smith's article, 

 "Appositional Growth in Crown-Gall Tumors and in Cancers." 

 On December 1 he sent Smith a letter to congratulate him on his 

 paper and to extend him the courtesy of advance knowledge of 

 two papers on crown gall to be given by Riker at the forthcoming 

 Boston meeting of the American Phytopathological Society. Your 

 " various lecture calls," wrote Jones, 



show that your missionary work is arousing interest among medical men 

 in the search for a parasitic factor in animal cancer. Congratulations as well 

 as sympathy for the distractions. I regret to possibly add another by 

 urging your attention to a matter which may distract you for the moment 

 but which, unless I mistake, may then bring more rapid progress. I note 

 that in this Journal article you again call attention to the intracellular posi- 

 tion of B. tumefaciens. One of our keenest young men, Dr. A. J. Riker, 

 published some months ago (Phytopathology 12: 55-56., Jan. 1922)) his 

 judgment that the crown-gall organism lives between the cells of the host 

 rather than intracellularly. He has since advanced the demonstrations of 

 this to our satisfaction as well as his own, and has sent in two notes 

 (abstracts) for the Boston program, of which I enclose carbons. One MS. 

 (corresponding to Abstract No. 1) would have been released before this 

 if I had done my part editorially as promptly as he has his, and the other 

 is nearly ready for submission (developing abstract No. 2). I am sure you 

 will accept his evidence as convincing and we would like you to be the 

 first to see it. He is going to take his materials (microscopic mounts and 

 lantern slides) to Boston. 



Jones invited Smith to visit them at Madison: 



It offers a fortunate possibility that you are coming west next week. 

 I am . . . writing in hope that you can com.e from Detroit to Madison 

 next week and spend at least a day or two as our guest, going over this 

 most interesting and important matter. I am sure you will be delighted to 

 know Riker personally as well as to see his fine workmanship and its 

 results, and he, of course, wishes you above all others to see and judge of 

 the evidence. 



After presenting at Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Lansing his address 

 on twentieth-century cancer research. Smith tried to go on to 

 Madison. But he got not further than Lansing where, because of 

 heavy snows, he and Mrs. Smith had to change their plans and 



