the biological characteristics of a microorganism that blackens *Z S 

 decayed teeth (B melaninogenicum) . He had found it not 

 only in the mouth but in an "infected surgical wound." 



I here recall a comment Wherry had made years before: 

 "Cultures from the pus of these wounds smell for all the world 

 like the surgeon's breath." 



He grew out also, and described for the first time, M minu- 

 tissimus. It accompanied commoner types of microorganismal 

 infection. The life characteristics of B duple x-nonliquefaciens 

 and M reniformis, already known as the inhabitants of the 

 mucous membranes, he made more precise. The importance of 

 this work lay in his differentiation of them from better known 

 forms which they looked like. Wherry's brands were innocent 

 and harmless even as they were mistaken for others which 

 carried immoral connotation. 



FOLLOWING the medical school's centenary celebration 

 came a quick descent from admiration of the flowers of 

 education to consideration of their fertilizers. Since Holmes's 

 death, J C Oliver had acted as dean; but demand (and funds) 

 for a "full-time" replacement brought Henry Page (fifty- 

 two, Colonel USA, retired for disability) into the job. It was 

 a tough one. For more than a decade past everything in school 

 and hospital, from professors to scrub women, had just bowed 

 down naturally to Holmes; Page believed in legal prop for 

 the matter. The request irritated his board. Nothing else 

 requiring reordering in the school, the curriculum was taken 

 in hand — already a nightmare to the most bedevilled of uni- 

 versity students. Page changed all morning sessions to the 

 afternoon and all afternoon sessions to the morning. Two of 

 the professors protested — their sinuses did not drain until late 

 and they simply could not meet those earlier hours. Another 

 question came up: What should be the policy of the faculty 

 in limiting the size of every class admitted to the medical col- 

 lege? Hereat reliable witnesses affirmed that Holmes rolled 

 in his sleep. January 31, 1922 a "committee" addressed a ques- 

 tionnaire to the faculty. Since Wherry's name appeared among 

 the signers, the following high spots are excerpted: 



