AQ that he knew not what to do. "The latest is a bacteriological 

 examination of soil from the Island of Mindanao. They want 

 to know whether nitrifying organisms are present. So far as I 

 am concerned, I don't care." But July 24, 1904, he was in 

 better mood: 



I finished up an article on the biology of cholera but am hold- 

 ing it, because of some experiments which I want to repeat. It 

 may amuse you to hear that Dr Freer told me confidentially 

 that he considered it the most important article put out from 

 (he should have said of) the Bureau, because I have attempted 

 to explain some things from a semichemical standpoint. If you 

 knew the limits of my chemical knowledge, you would appre- 

 ciate the joke as much as I do myself. But Dr Freer is an awful 

 flatterer. 



In fact, Freer was nothing of the kind. His compliment 

 referred to observations made by Wherry on the growth char- 

 acteristics of the cholera spirillum which though dated August 

 1904 in the director's letter of transmittal, and October 1904 

 in the bureau's bulletin file, were not to come out in printed 

 form until 1905 [9]. 



To recognize the importance of this paper one must recede 

 to the bacteriological gospel of the day. It was still the time 

 when microorganisms were considered fixed entities — that is 

 to say, life forms which in shape, size, manner of growth and 

 chemical reactivity did not vary. In this paper Wherry 

 brought proof that for the germ of cholera none of these 

 things was true. Thus in the descendants bred from a single 

 microorganism he noted wide and "spontaneous" variations in 

 size and shape even when cultivated by "standard" laboratory 

 methods. The "cause" for this needed to be hunted out. In this 

 quest he found that the stiffness of the culture ground, its 

 degree of acidity or alkalinity, its content of salts, etc had 

 everything to do with what finally emerged. The envi- 

 ronment, in other words, exerted a marked and modifying 

 influence upon the "biology" of the organism. Hereafter the 

 conditions surrounding its development had to be considered 

 along with the heritage. 



In the terms of scientific philosophy Wherry had arrived! 



