August 22, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



249 



hitherto incurable disease is invaded on 

 every side, and that the danger of opera- 

 tion qua operation is retreating to a vanish- 

 ing point. 



It is impossible even to enumerate the 

 varied ways in which medicine has cooper- 

 ated with economics, social legislation and 

 philanthropy, which we sum up briefly as 

 public health. The school house and the 

 scholars, the home of the poor, the colliery, 

 and the factory, the dangerous occupations, 

 the sunless life of the mentally deficient, 

 have benefited, and will benefit still more, 

 by its friendly invasion. And I venture to 

 foretell that, not many years hence, every 

 department of life and work shall be 

 strengthened and purified and brightened 

 by its genial and penetrating influence. 



Surely I have said more than enough to 

 justify my contention that we have come 

 into a goodly heritage, and that that herit- 

 age is like a lofty and magnificent tableland 

 of knowledge and efficiency. The gaps are 

 being filled ; we are no longer isolated, but 

 are working side by side on adjacent areas 

 which are inseparably connected. Every 

 day we gain fresh help from the auxiliary 

 sciences, and we realize more and more the 

 unity and the universality of medicine. 



Brethren from foreign lands, we thank 

 you for the treasures, new and old, of ob- 

 servation and experiment, and of a ripe 

 experience, which you have brought to this 

 congress for the common weal. 



I venture to affirm that the output of 

 work of the congress week in its twenty- 

 three goodly volumes will astonish civilized 

 countries by its amount and its solid worth. 



I welcome you to our dear country, this 

 ancient home of freedom, and I speak not 

 only for the medical men of the British 

 Isles but for our brethren of the overseas 

 dominions, who join with us in our cordial 

 greeting. 



May this congress add to the common 



store of fruitful and useful knowledge ; may 

 it increase our good fellowship, our mutual 

 understanding and cooperation, and may 

 it help to break down the barriers of race 

 and country in the onward beneficent 

 march of world medicine. 



Thomas Bablow 



CEREAL CROPPING: SANITATION, A NEW 

 BASIS FOR CROP ROTATION, MANURING, 

 TILLAGE AND SEED SELECTION^ 

 Peoples truly rich are those who cultivate cereals 

 on a large scale. — E. Chodat. 



rOBEWOEDS 



1. In cereal cropping, air, water and soil fertil- 

 ity (plant foods) are primary matters of crop 

 productivity. 



2. The problem of grain deterioration, as now 

 observed by farmers, millers, chemists and agri- 

 culturists, the writer thinks, involves the question : 

 "What is the matter with the crop and its prod- 

 uct?" rather than: "What is the matter with the 

 soil?" 



3. Deteriorated wheat, as seen in depressed 

 yields and low quality, as now quite commonly 

 produced in the great natural wheat-producing 

 regions of this country, is not, primarily, a matter 

 of lost fertility or of modified chemical content 

 of the soil, but is specifically a problem of infec- 

 tious disease which is superimposed upon the prob- 

 lems of soil and crop management. Crop rotation, 

 for example, is not, primarily, a farm process 

 which is likely to conserve the fertility of the soil, 

 but when properly arranged in a system so that 

 the proper crops follow one another, it is defi- 

 nitely a sanitary measure tending to maximum 

 production. 



4. Wheat does not do well in the presence of its 

 own dead bodies, not because of any changes 

 which the wheat plants have made in the content 

 of the soil fertility, nor because of any peculiar 

 poisons (toxines) which the crops may be thought 

 to have introduced, but primarily because of in- 

 fectious diseases which are characteristic of the 

 crop. 



5. Proper methods of soil tillage and handling 

 of manures and artificial fertilizers are not merely 

 measures for supplying plant food, but also in- 

 volve vital features of a sanitary nature. — Bolley. 



^ Outline of an illustrated address given before 

 the students and faculty of the Division of Agri- 

 culture, University of Wisconsin, July 20, 1913. 



