64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



And I suppose also that to a man suebi as Professor Dennis was, the use of 

 such a standard, suggested by such a man as Dr. Jordan, would give the high- 

 est possible satisfaction and meet with the very fullest possible approval. 



As to heredity, David Worth Dennis could trace his ancestry to repre- 

 sentatives of English families who formed part of the company that reached 

 New PJngland on the Mayflower; ancestors from whom also are descended 

 the Greenleafs and farther down the line, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, 

 himself; by another line the Bachilers to Daniel Webster; and by still another 

 through the Gardners to David Worth, the maternal grandfather of David 

 Worth Dennis. Generations of Puritan and Quaker ancestors, men and 

 women from whom have come statesmen and literary and professional men, 

 this is the kind of stock from which men of strength of character and of 

 insight come. 



The scientist, the enthusiastic apostle of disease prevention, and the 

 determined seeker for the best ways to accomplish desired ends, are fore- 

 shadowed in the following incidents in the lives of his ancestors, taken from 

 many similar ones which might be chosen: 



1. His maternal grandfather*, living in North Carolina, being iniicli 

 grieved over the death in infancy of two of his children on acc^ount, as lie 

 believed, of laedv of proper medical attention, determined that he would })re- 

 pare himself to be a physician. He accordingly supplied himself with the 

 best medical liooks he could secure, and after having studied them catefully, 

 drove to Philadelpliia, attended lectures, received instruction from leading 

 physicians of the city, and then returned to North (Carolina where he prac- 

 ticed medicine for the remainder of his life with great success. 



2. His mother mystified him as a little child by going at times in the 

 morning to a certain building which stood in the yard, remaining for a short 

 time inside, then reappearing in different dr(>ss to go away for awhile, at times 

 for a few hours, at times for all day. Returning, she would first go to the 

 building in the yard, and finally would come to the house in which they 

 lived wearing lier customary clothing. As a child he was warned never to 

 go into this l)uilding in the yard, and it was not until years afterward that 

 he learned that his mother in that way was giving assistance in cases of con- 

 tagious diseases in the neighborliood. ])rotecting her own family meantime 

 by the best means knoAvn to her. 



It is litth' wonder that in tlic fight against sinall-])o.\'. typhoid fever and 

 tul)erculosis. Professor Dennis was to ])e found enlisted as an enthusiastic 

 leader, always urging fearlessly the adof)tion of the methods approved by 

 the latest results of scientific investigation. 



And he was from his boyhood "brought right up ;tg;iinst nature." Tlie 

 earlier contact with luiture was incidental to the life on tiic latin in Wayne 

 County, Indiana, \\here he was born. The later contact with nature was a 

 continuous experience of his own choosing. He has himself said that Whittier's 

 "Snowbound" is almost a literal description of his own l)()yhoo(l e.xix^'iences 



