SUSANNA PHELPS GAGE 9 
opportunity for laboratory work in his own cramped quarters. 
Later he was often a guest in her home and seemed to rejoice 
at the sacrifice he had made to give her opportunity to work 
out for herself some of the fundamental things in physics. In 
passing it may be said that she never had any trouble in convine- 
ing her teachers that it was worth while giving her a chance to 
do things. The animated face and honest gray eyes kindling 
with enthusiasm were her passport everywhere. 
It was not to be in physics that she was to do her intellectual 
life work, however, but in the zoological side of biology. The 
teaching staff in zoology and comparative anatomy at that time 
was presided over by Prof. Burt G. Wilder for the vertebrate 
side, and Prof. J. H. Comstock for the invertebrates, in which 
entomology was the major interest. She took all the courses 
offered by the two departments. 
In 1881 occurred her marriage to Asst. Prof. Simon Henry 
Gage. This gave opportunity for work and investigation in 
biology. She made the most of her chance, entering at once 
with full enthusiasm into the work of her husband, making 
drawings for his papers, and wall diagrams for his courses, and 
many also for Professor Wilder’s courses. But the naturally 
independent mind could not long be satisfied as a mere helper; 
there was a desire to undertake some original work on her own 
account. . 
At that time the form and relations of the fibers of striated 
muscles were not well understood, and especially were they mis- 
understood with small animals like mice and small birds. So 
it became her first published scientific work to show what the 
relations of the fibers really were in the small animals and later 
in laboratory animals generally. So fundamental and con- 
vincing was her work, and so clear the drawings accompanying 
the text that the veteran KOlliker revising his Histology for 
the sixth time, declared in his introduction that the literature 
is now so large that he can only refer to the ‘ Allergewichte,’ and 
gave her as authority for the statement with which he closes 
the discussion of the form and length of the fibers in striated or 
skeletal muscles (KGlliker’s Gewebelehre, Sechste Auflage, Bd. 
I, p. 371). And ina letter from Dr. Minot who was giving some 
