82 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 



taking in all he undertook. His last work on "Wells and Subsoil 

 Water," the proof-sheets of which lie before me, was recalled during 

 the last weeks of his illness, and was finally submitted but two weeks 

 before his death, complete to the last detail. 



It is perhaps fitting in this connection that a word should be said of 

 the remarkable courage and fortitude exhibited by Doctor McGee dur- 

 ing the progress and culmination of the insidious malady (cancer) 

 which caused his death. For the benefit of humanity he made a spe- 

 cial study of his own case, setting down calmly and imperturbably the 

 progress of the disease from its first observed inception, in 1894, to its 

 obvious dominance, in April, 1912, this diagnosis being published a 

 few days after his death (Science, September 13, 1912). It thus ap- 

 pears that for the last fifteen years of his life his work some of it the 

 most exacting of his career was carried on in the impending shadow of 

 certain dissolution, much of it at the last under the stress of acute 

 physical suffering, but there was no slighting, no faltering, no repining. 



