74 Report of the President 



ordinary man and to teach him what he needs to know in 

 order to keep sound and well, is an extensive one, including 

 twenty-five different sections. It cannot be realized in the 

 near future and may perhaps never be realized in its entirety, 

 but it gives definiteness and purpose to the immediate plans 

 of the department to see them in relation to this larger 

 plan. One section dealing with the disposal of city wastes 

 was practically finished in 191 1. During the firgt half of 1912 

 another section was essentially completed, dealing with water- 

 supply, its sources and relation to the rainfall, the composition 

 of water, the micro-organisms of water, the dangers from pol- 

 luted water and the methods used for making water-supplies 

 safe. A series of models and preserved colonies of bacteria 

 was also finished during the spring. Through the generosity 

 of Felix M. Warburg it was made possible to send all this 

 material to Washington for the exhibition held in connection 

 with the Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and 

 Demography. It is gratifying to note that, in each of the two 

 sections of the Congress in which the Museum exhibited, it 

 received the highest honor, a Diploma of Superior Merit. On 

 returning from Washington the material was installed in the 

 West Corridor on the third floor, where the department has 

 for the first time a chance to display its exhibits in permanent 

 form. During the present year, as before, the preparation and 

 installation of exhibition material has been in the immediate 

 charge of John H. O'Neill. 



The next step in the development of the exhibit is the 

 preparation of a series of models and specimens illustrating 

 the insect-borne diseases in which man and the microbe and 

 the intermediate insect host are knit together in complex 

 relationship. As one of the central features of this exhibit, 

 work has gone forward during the whole summer and fall in 

 the Department of Preparation upon a giant model of the 

 common house fly, which promises to rival the mosquitoes in 

 the Darwin Hall in interest and beauty. A striking model of 

 a corner of a rat-infested house in San Francisco, illustrating 

 the part played by these rodents in the spread of plague, has 

 been loaned to the Museum by the United States Bureau of 

 Public Health Service, and is being copied; and a number of 



