In the autumn of 1917 influenza broke out over the map of 1 7 

 U S A. It had started in a naval camp; gotten worse in the 

 military cantonments; had reached a crest in those barracks 

 where doctors only were housed. The civil population was 

 invaded, with nearly everybody (because of the many fatali- 

 ties) having the jitters. From one hospital, squads of orderlies 

 broke and ran when delegated to duty in influenza wards. The 

 disease was going strong when Wherry volunteered. 



The Surgeon-general of the Public health service answered 

 Wherry's "letter and telegram" (January 12, 1918) : "I desire 

 to state that the kind of duty contemplated is only for tempo- 

 rary periods in connection with special investigations of certain 

 diseases as meningitis." For proper induction to this work, 

 Wherry applied to the U S civil service commission for 

 appointment as "special expert in bacteriology and epidemiol- 

 ogy." After four months he got it. But by May, "meningitis" 

 had abated and the Surgeon-general's office suggested that 

 trachoma (a Babylonian disease) be taken up instead. As to 

 the new specificity of his "research," what difference did that 

 make? — bugs had always been bugs to him. It took two 

 months more of letterwriting and orders, signed by five dif- 

 ferent principals, before the where and how and with what, of 

 Wherry's labors were settled. He believed Cincinnati (closest 

 to his teaching obligations) the best place; the government 

 decided that Pikeville was better — centre of Kentucky's age- 

 old red-eye. June 8, 1918 the Department still believed that 

 work there "could not be commenced at least until July 1st." 

 Nevertheless Wherry was inspecting the field of his new 

 assignment June thirteenth. 



IN the meantime some other telegrams and special deliveries 

 had arrived — as usual, not to find him at once. Medical 

 Detroit was undergoing reform and its College of medicine 

 and surgery was straining upward. N P Colwell (then the si- 

 lent, clear-thinking pope of the American medical association's 

 Committee on medical education) and H Gideon Wells (pro- 

 fessor of pathology in Chicago's university) had been asked 

 for counsel; and had suggested "Wherry of Cincinnati" as 

 dean. The school had just "become an integral part of the 



