SOME BACTERIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF 



DEHYDRATION 1 library 



JNEW YORK 

 SAMUEL C. PRESCOTT Botanical 



Massachusetts Institute of Technology **AI<i>£jft 



One of the most striking phenomena of the world war period — 

 through which we have, we hope, now happily passed — is the 

 great stimulation which has taken place in all branches of pure 

 and applied science. While during this half-decade discovery 

 and invention have been especially directed in many scientific 

 fields to the development of more terrible methods of destruction 

 of human life and property, the energies of those in our own pro- 

 fession have been largely turned toward the constructive side, in 

 the alleviation of pain and disease, the control of infections, and 

 the development of means to promote rather than retard the 

 welfare of the individual and the race. We have witnessed the 

 tremendous expansion which has taken place in chemistry, in 

 aeronautics, in war engineering of all kinds, and we have also 

 seen and participated in the vast but perhaps less spectacular 

 developments in our own field of bacteriology — developments 

 which will attain their complete flower and fruition as arts of 

 peace rather than of war. It is only necessary to review the 

 work of the past two or three years, as evidenced by our own 

 former programs, to observe the tremendous impetus that the 

 war has given to medical and public health bacteriology. The 

 somewhat more restricted field of industrial bacteriology and 

 its applications, as in fermentation, soil bacteriology and the 

 preservation and conservation of foods, while less conspicuous, 

 has, however, shared in the general growth of the science that 



1 Address of the President of the Society of American Bacteriologists deliv- 

 ered at twenty-first annual meeting, Boston, December 29, 1919. 



109 



THE JOURNAL OF BACTERIOLOGY, VOL.V, NO. 2 



