C"HAKi,i:s si:i)(;\\i(i< minot. 81 
where the flame of re.^eaivh hurncd so hri^'hlly. The intense experi- 
ences of these Waiuk'rjahre at Leii)zij,' with Ludwij; in pliysiolo^y 
(1873-73, 1876), at Paris witli Uanvier in histology (1875), ami at 
\Viirzl)ur^' with Semper in zoiilo^'v (1S7()), aceomphshed their purpose 
and Minot returned with liigli ideals of what education in science 
meant and a fixed purpose to improve and vivify sucli teaching in his 
own hmd. 
A little later, in 1S80, when he was 28 years old, he was appointed 
Lecturer in Embryology at the Harvard Medical School, then in its 
oUl Imilding on North Grove Street. 
To those whose experiences in biological laboratories are somewhat 
recent, Minot's position midway, as it were, between the beginnings of 
laboratory work in biology and conditions of to-day, may not be easy 
to appreciate. Yet it was there he stood. 
While a student abroad he tells us that he heard the elder Leo 
Gerlach recount how in 1857, during a study of the distribution of 
blood vessels by injection, he quite accidentally discovered the value 
of carmine as a dye for staining tissues — one of the earliest advances 
in histological techni([iie. 
Henry Bowditch had established at the Harvard Medical School in 
the early seventies the first physiological laboratory open to students 
in this country, and Minot was his first research pupil. 
\Mien he was appointed Lecturer in Embryology and gi\en charge 
of the histological work in general, I venture to surmise that it was a 
novel step to use his small battery of microscopes for systematic teach- 
ing rather than for demonstration. 
What advances have been made since that time in 1880, most of us 
know. Minot found everything to be done. The whole method and 
purpose of such work had to be established and the ways and means 
devised. Pioneering is a time-consuming process and this lalior 
claimed him in these early years. 
It was in 1883 I saw him first. There was a meeting in New York 
of the American Society of Naturalists — a small but vigorous organi- 
zation which he had helped to found. A youthful member read a 
paper on the classification to be adopted for histological material anfl 
I asked my neighbor who he was. 
This was my first knowledge of the man whom it was my privilege 
to count a friend for more than thirty years. This comnmnication 
by Minot to the Naturalists is illustrative here. I recall that he had 
