August 17, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



153 



and becoming head himself when the position 

 was vacated by Dr. Russell. Professor Hast- 

 ings said: 



At the time Dean Russell was graduated from 

 the University of Wisconsin in 1888, bacteriology 

 was just being developed at the university. The 

 history of what bacteriology has done for the con- 

 trol of many animal diseases, such as hog cholera, 

 anthrax, black leg and bovine tuberculosis — dis- 

 eases which formerly killed off thousands of head 

 of live stock annually; of what it has done for the 

 production of milk and the consequent lowering of 

 the nation's death rate, especially among infants; 

 of what it has done for the control of plant dis- 

 eases, thereby saving millions of dollars to the 

 country annually by increased crop production; of 

 how the cheese industry has grown with increasing 

 knowledge of bacteria, of what has been learned 

 about the power of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, to en- 

 rich the soil and thus increase the crop yields, of 

 how it has brought about improved sanitary con- 

 ditions, and how it has helped with the canning in- 

 dustry and the preservation of food by other meth- 

 ods — the history of all this, which is the history of 

 agricultural bacteriology during the past twenty- 

 five years, speaks for the wisdom of spending 

 money and time on the study of bacteriology in 

 any state, and especially in a state with the dairy 

 and crop record of Wisconsin. 



The introduction of bacteriology at the Univer- 

 sity of Wisconsin was due to the efforts of Dr. Wm. 

 Trelease, now of the University of Illinois, and to 

 Dr. E. A. Birge, dean of the College of Letters and 

 Science of the University of Wisconsin. The first 

 announcement of courses in this subject was con- 

 tained in the university catalogue issued in 1887- 

 1888. It may seem strange that even before the 

 science of "bacteriology" had received its name, 

 it had found a place at this then far-western insti- 

 tution. This was due to the fact that those per- 

 sons in charge of the university were men with 

 the spirit of the pioneer. A pioneer must be a 

 progressive man, a man who is always on the job, 

 a man of good judgment as to the road to follow. 

 Such men Wisconsin had. 



Dean Russell became interested in bacteriology 

 early in his career as a student, and under the in- 

 fluence of his teacher. Dr. Birge, he decided to go 

 to Europe for instruction under the masters of 

 what was then a comparatively new subject. He 

 studied at Berlin while Robert Koch, the great 

 pioneer of medical bacteriology, was actively en- 

 gaged in teaching and investigating, and at Paris 

 while Louis Pasteur was still busy in his labora- 



tory. He returned to America and spent one year 

 under Dr. WiUiam Welch of the Johns Hopkins 

 University, thus completing the eighth year of his 

 preparation for work — a long time in getting ready 

 to work but the wisdom of this is shown in the 

 things accomplished in the next twenty-five years. 



About this time, in northern Germany and Den- 

 mark, the relation of bacteria to dairying, espe- 

 cially to the manufacture of butter and cheese, was 

 beginning to attract attention. W. A. Henry, then 

 dean of the College of Agriculture, with true 

 pioneer spirit, realized that Wisconsin was destined 

 to be a great dairy state if matters were rightly 

 directed; it had great natural resources in lands, in 

 climate and in men — for it had within its borders 

 such men as Governor W. D. Hoard and Hiram 

 Smith. Dean Henry's task was to make his insti- 

 tution do its share in the development of this in- 

 dustry. Looking back upon his work from the 

 present day, no one can question his success. 



Dean Henry decided that dairy bacteriology was 

 something he must introduce in the work of the 

 experiment and the college. It was most natural 

 that his attention should be directed to the first 

 student of the university to adopt it as a life 

 work. Dean Russell came to the College of Agri- 

 culture in 1893, and immediately began work on 

 the relation of bacteria to dairying and to bovine 

 tuberculosis. The tuberculin test was just being 

 introduced into this country, the Experiment Sta- 

 tion herd being the first one west of the AUe- 

 gheuies to be thus examined. This test revealed a 

 sorry state of affairs; twenty-five out of thirty 

 animals were found diseased. The herd was 

 slaughtered. The new herd, which was assembled 

 has been kept practically free from tuberculosis 

 for twenty years. Animals have been introduced 

 that later have reacted to the test, but the consist- 

 ent and persistent use of the test has prevented 

 any spread in the herd. True, expense has been 

 involved in this work, but returns have been 

 brought, both in money to the state and satisfac- 

 tion to those in charge of the herd. Back in 1894, 

 if the breeders of Wisconsin had adopted the ad- 

 vice given in Bulletin 40 of this station published 

 that year, the state would have been in a far more 

 enviable position as far as tuberculosis goes than 

 at present. 



Another subject which received much attention 

 and which has accomplished an endless amount of 

 good, was the study of the contamination of milk 

 — the sources of such contamination and its pre- 

 vention. The work done in pasteurization of milk 

 outlined the method which is used so widely at the 



