October 28, 1010] 



SCIENCE 



585 



ous development as a consequence of its 

 shallow conceptions of the purposes and 

 possibilities of intellectual training. A 

 public opinion must be created which will 

 be intelligent enough to detect and repre- 

 hend methods that are insufficient or un- 

 worthy, and men that are ineffective or 

 unfit, as well as to accord adequate recog- 

 nition to men of high purpose and real 

 ability. When such an opinion exists there 

 need be no fear of a lack of men both will- 

 ing to strive for and capable of earning 

 the high distinction its approval will con- 

 fer. 



Sidney Gunn 

 Massachusetts Institute 

 OF Technology 



HOWARD TAYLOR RICKETTS"- 



Dr. Ricketts came to the university in 1902 

 to join the newly founded department of path- 

 ology and bacteriology. He had just returned 

 from a year's visit to European laboratories. 

 Previously he was fellow in cutaneous pathol- 

 ogy in Rush Medical College for two years, 

 taking up that work at the end of his service 

 as interne in the Cook County Hospital. His 

 medical course he took at the Northwestern 

 University Medical School, where he gradu- 

 ated in 189Y. 



He was a modest and unassuming man, of 

 great determination and of the highest char- 

 acter, loyal and generous, earnest and genuine 

 in all his doings — a personality of unusual and 

 winning charm. His associates of the hos- 

 pital and fellowship days who knew him well, 

 knew his ability and energy, his distinct fond- 

 ness for the day's work, all looked to him for 

 the more than ordinary achievement. 



He deliberately turned away from the al- 

 lurements of active medical practise and de- 

 cided to devote himself to teaching and inves- 

 tigation in pathology. He had early become 

 possessed of noble ideals and had a pure love 



' An address delivered by Professor Ludwig 

 Hektoen at a memorial service in tlie Leon Mandel 

 Assembly Hall, May 1.5, 1910. Reprinted from 

 The University of Chicago Magazine. 



for the search after truth in his chosen field, 

 which abided with him and gave him a high 

 conception of all his duties and relations and 

 placed a special stamp on his work. His in- 

 stinct for research at no time was permitted 

 to lie dormant and unused, but growing 

 stronger it carried him on farther and farther, 

 and in due time the university freely and in 

 special ways promoted the work in which he 

 was to accomplish such large results. The 

 torch was placed within the grasp of hands 

 fit to carry it forward, and during the few 

 short years given him he advanced it farther 

 than we may realize at this moment, because 

 he broke open paths for future progress. 



His earlier researches are all marked by rare 

 insight, directness and accuracy, by clear and 

 forceful reasoning; it is in his brilliant work 

 on Rocky Mountain fever, however, that Dr. 

 Ricketts fully reveals himself as investigator 

 of the first rank. He took up the study of 

 this fever in the spring of 1906 as a sort of 

 pastime during an enforced holiday on ac- 

 count of overwork. The disease is a remark- 

 able one; it occurs in well-defined areas in the 

 mountains, is sharply limited to the spring 

 months, varies greatly in severity, the mor- 

 tality in one place being about 5, in another 

 between 80 and 90 per cent. For some time 

 it had been regarded as caused in some way 

 by the bite of a tick. Dr. Ricketts promptly 

 found that the disease is communicable to 

 lower animals and that a certain tick, which 

 occurs naturally on a large number of animals 

 in those regions, by its bite can transmit the 

 disease from the sick to the healthy animal. 



These observations opened a new field, and 

 henceforth he devoted himself untiringly to 

 the investigation of the many problems that 

 arose one after another as the work went on, 

 both in the laboratory here and in the field. 

 As we follow the various stages in the progress 

 of this intensely active work it becomes very 

 clear that Dr. Ricketts not only was gifted 

 with imaginative power so that he could see 

 and trace the various lines along which the 

 solution of a problem might be sought, but 

 that he also possessed in a full measure tlie 

 capacit.v for that hard, accurate, patient work 



