Wherry discussed what had been done on "the respiration of 201 

 bacteria," laying special emphasis on the work of those who 

 had shown "that the optimal conditions for the growth of 

 any single species do not depend so much on the presence or 

 absence of oxygen as on its tension." Here his Beijerinck (out 

 of Chicago and Holland, it will be remembered) was pointed 

 to as Number One man, for it was he who had acquainted the 

 world with the microaeropbiles. "It seems remarkable to us 

 that greater attention has not been paid to the oxygen require- 

 ments of parasitic bacteria," wrote Wherry. "Recent experi- 

 ence has suggested that the cultivation of many of the un- 

 known viruses of infectious diseases may depend more on the 

 presence of the right oxygen tension than on the composition 

 of the artificial medium." Whereafter he recorded "the details 

 of our discovery that the gonococcus is a partial tension organ- 

 ism." The "our" is italicized because Wherry discovered 

 many things and many principles in his life; but only rarely 

 did he so frankly call himself the author. It was more common 

 practice for him just to hand the fruits of his tree of knowl- 

 edge to anybody standing around the place. 



He proceeded next "to describe a partial-tension Clostridium 

 and a partial tension bacterium from a human knee joint 

 resembling B abortus. None of the three organisms will grow 

 anaerobically (that is to say in the complete absence of oxy- 

 gen) but they throw off aerobic variants from their partial- 

 tension growths." Now Wherry showed "that Leptothrix 

 innominata of the human mouth has a very wide range of 

 oxygen tension," and recorded observations indicating that 

 rf B typhosus becomes adapted to partial tension growth within 

 the body." 



As already detailed, he had thus made the cultivation of the 

 gonococcus "an easy matter." The Clostridium, growing quite 

 naturally at partial tension below the (fully oxygenated) 

 surface of his culture medium, he teased into life under aerobic 

 conditions by breaking this surface and allowing the organism 

 to crawl upwards. The descendants, now used to the fresher 

 air, would then go on happily when transplanted into like cir- 

 cumstances elsewhere. For his bacillus of typhoid fever he 

 noted a growth, under aerobic conditions, of "thousands of 

 colonies"; but under partial-tension, of "millions." Anae- 



