A tribute to Dr. Meltzer's life and services. 



By GEORGE B. WALLACE. 



As the first speaker this evening and one who, through a 

 friendship of some twenty years, has been largely influenced by 

 Dr. Meltzer, I may be permitted to sketch in a somewhat general 

 way those characteristics of his life and work which have espe- 

 cially impressed me. 



My acquaintance with Dr. Meltzer began in the spring of 

 1902. At that time Professor Cushny was passing through New 

 York and together we went, on what seemed to me a pilgrimage, 

 to call on Dr. Meltzer at his house in Harlem. The visit stands 

 out very clearly in my memory. Dr. Meltzer was then in his 

 fifty-first year, in the full vigor of life and carrying on an extensive 

 hospital and private practice. The conversation, however, was 

 not concerning practice, but mainly on research work, his own and 

 that of others. I recall how greatly I was impressed by his knowl- 

 edge of the scientific work being carried on, by the clearness and 

 fairness of his criticisms, and by his general enthusiasm and 

 optimism. He dwelt at some length on the state of medical 

 science in New York and deplored the isolation of the individual 

 workers and their failure to meet at frequent intervals to present 

 their work and exchange their ideas. Apparently this had been 

 in his mind for some time, for he outlined a plan for the formation 

 of a society which should include all the active workers in the 

 biological and medical sciences. In the following year Dr. 

 Meltzer put this plan into effect, and with the cooperation of a 

 small group of his friends, the Society for Experimental Biology 

 and Medicine was formally launched. 



One of the last occasions on which I saw Dr. Meltzer was at a 

 meeting of the Society held last spring in New Haven. He was 

 then in his seventieth year and in miserable health, but his en- 

 thusiasm was as great as it had been twenty years earlier, and he 

 had made what to him must have been a long and trying journey 

 because of the intense interest he had in the society and in sci- 



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