30 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES 
here was a field of study which should be further cultivated 
in behalf of the dairy industry. The result was the appoint- 
ment of Dr. H. L. Russell as head of the department of 
bacteriology in the University and Bacteriologist to the Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station. The uniqueness of this action 
may be judged from the fact that at that time there was no 
similar official position in any American agricultural experi- 
ment station. The nearest analogy was Dr. H. W. Conn, 
professor of biology at Wesleyan University, Middleton, 
Conn., who was doing some cooperative work with the Storrs 
Agricultural Experiment Station and the Federal Depart- 
ment of Agriculture. 
To those coming recently into the field of dairy bacteriology 
it is difficult to picture the meagreness of the facts available 
to Dr. Russell when he was inducted into this field of work 
in September, 1893. These available facts may be fairly 
summarized as follows: 
1. Bacteria were known to be widely distributed in nature 
and to find their way accidentally into milk. 
2. They multiplied in milk and in connection with their 
growth produced various compounds among which acid was 
the most evident. The work of Storch, Weigmann, and Conn 
suggested that the flavors in cream and butter resulted in 
part from such growths. The relation of bacteria to cheese 
was less evident. 
3. It was known that tuberculosis was caused by a definite 
germ and a number of other diseases of cows and people were 
more or less definitely ascribed to germ causes. 
During the sueceeding twenty-five years Dr. Russell, in 
person and through his students, has contributed largely to 
increasing our knowledge along all lines of dairy bacteriology. 
One of the first problems which engaged his attention was 
that of bovine tuberculosis® and the influence he exerted has 
helped to bring Wisconsin to the front in the struggle against 
i 1 
®H. L. Russell, On the Efficiency of Tuberculin as a Diagnostic Agent 
in Tubcreulosis in Annual Report, Wis. Agr. Exp. Sta., 11 (1894), DD. 
166-195, 1895. 
