Message to the Present Generation. 



19 



independence and because of this for many years he remained un- 

 affiliated with school or hospital. Above that of personal in- 

 dependence, Meltzer held the necessity for leadership of one's 

 continuous participation in active experimental investigation. 

 Other leaders, whether educators or practitioners, early abandoned 

 their habit of research. Over them Meltzer had an advantage. 

 He also possessed the advantage of an indomitable craving for 

 reading, and the advantage of a phenomenal memory. 



Thus it happened that unaffiliated, holding no official position, 

 Dr. Meltzer became the feared critic and the recognized leader 

 and teacher both among the men of science and the men of prac- 

 tice. And often when new ideas and new discoveries in medicine 

 had to be introduced to the American public, Dr. Meltzer was 

 called upon to perform the task — and he always lived up to the 

 occasion. His success in this direction lay in the fact that he 

 never presented a subject before he assimilated it by experiment 

 in the laboratory. Thus he labored and toiled to attain self- 

 perfection and through self-perfection to aid and teach those 

 around him. 



Dr. Meltzer was one of the few men favored by Fortune who 

 lived to see his efforts crowned with success. While his mental 

 and physical energies were still in full vigor, the standard of the 

 medical profession of America rose to unexpected heights. Dr. 

 Meltzer could then devote more of his energies to his personal 

 joys, things nearest to his heart — they were his old problems of 

 physiology; old and many new. The opportunity presented it- 

 self with the foundation of the Rockefeller Institute. What he 

 accomplished there, constitutes an important chapter of American 

 medicine and more competent persons than I will give you an 

 account of it. To me, however, tonight, his scientific contribu- 

 tions speak second and his life first. It was a simple life, simple 

 in its dignity and honesty of purpose, magnificent in the humble 

 manner of its great service to man and to ideal. The record of 

 his life is the message Dr. Meltzer leaves not only to his colleagues, 

 not only to the medical profession of America, but to all. 



