September 7, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



241 



which implies an exhaustive and accurate in- 

 dex of all the books and periodical papers under 

 a given subject or author, as distinguished 

 from the bibliophilic sense, in which a book, 

 incunabula or manuscript is described, like an 

 object in natural history, in such a complete 

 and unmistakable manner that its identification 

 is always possible from the description. The 

 scattered scientific papers and the varied public 

 activities of Professor Welch are here set 

 forth, for the first time, in a strict chrono- 

 logical order, which will be most useful to 

 future medical historians and biographers. 

 No one, for instance, could gain any just con- 

 ception of the versatile and genial scientific 

 work of Virchow or Weir Mitchell who has 

 not gone over the " Virchow-Bibliographie " 

 of 1901 or the catalogue which Mitchell him- 

 self prepared in 1894. As much of the best 

 scientific literature of medicine is buried in 

 the endless files of medical periodicals, medical 

 bibliography, as standardized by Billings and 

 Fletcher, enjoys the status of firearms in the 

 early days of the far West — " sadly missed 

 when badly wanted." The Welch bibliography, 

 as Dr. Hurd tells us in the preface, has re- 

 quired the investigation of years, and is now 

 printed because the interruptions of the pres- 

 ent war have prevented the publication of the 

 collective writings. In the first half of Dr. 

 Burket's list (1875-1900), we find the larger 

 scientific contributions of Welch, the great 

 laboratory physician, his early investigations 

 of the pathology of pulmonary oedema (1S75), 

 glomerulonephritis (1886), the structure 

 of white thrombi (1887), his Cartwright lec- 

 tures on the pathology of fever (1888), his 

 discoveries of the staphylococcus which in- 

 fects the edges of wounds (1891), and (with 

 Nuttall) of the bacillus aerogenes capsulatus 

 (1892), now of immense moment in Europe 

 as the cause of gas infection in gunshot 

 wounds, his synthesis of the many nondescript 

 diseases caused by this bacillus (1900), his ex- 

 periments (with Flexner) on the effects of in- 

 jection of diphtheritic toxins (1891-2) and 

 his monographs on thrombosis and embolism 

 (1899). In his later period, Welch has been 

 content to see his pupils carry out investiga- 



tions inspired by him, so that the latter half 

 of the bibliography, while replete with con- 

 tributions on purely medical themes, is char- 

 acterized by those addresses on public occa- 

 sions in which Welch always acquits himself 

 with the grace and charm of some distingue 

 French academician. 



As one who has had latterly to devote 

 much of his time to the public good, Welch, 

 like Dr. Johnson's Mead, has " lived more 

 in the broad sunshine of life than any man." 

 Many of the papers listed in this bibliog- 

 raphy are described as " unpublished," which 

 perhaps accounts for the appearance of 

 the bibliography before the actual collected 

 writings. Among, these, it is to be hoped that 

 the many charming extempore talks at the 

 Johns Hopkins Historical Club will be in- 

 cluded. On such occasions, Welch, when the hu- 

 mor strikes him, improvises delightfully upon 

 a set theme, like some genial musician of the 

 past. The well-known " Ether Day Address " 

 on " The Influence of Anaesthesia upon Med- 

 ical Science" (1896) was written out without 

 preparation in a railroad car, as he traveled to 

 Boston, a fair example of his habit of im- 

 provisation. The two addresses on the evolu- 

 tion of scientific laboratories (1896) and the 

 interdependence of medicine and science 

 (1907), the latter also written out en route for 

 Chicago, are perhaps the most interesting of 

 Welch's contributions to medical history. 

 Here, as everywhere, he has furnished young 

 and old with food for thought, and often with 

 new ideas. Dr. Burket is to be congratulated 

 on the excellence and accuracy of his work, 

 which follows the bibliographic norms set by 

 the Surgeon General's Library. It is a most 

 timely contribution. In the present emergen- 

 cies, no man has labored more zealously and 

 faithfully for the welfare of his country than 

 William H. Welch. F. H. Garrison 



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