BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
25 
The laboratory, the prolonged and absorbing study into the 
secrets of plant life, compelling it to yield up its foods, its fuels, 
its fabrics, its flavors, its essences, its hues, its tonics; adding 
from hitherto useless plants, or developing additional resources 
from those already partly known,— what more dainty, more 
beautiful, more useful work to set before the girl-student ? 
What a good and brilliant development of woman’s work 
this is! 
“It is, perhaps, permitted to say of Miss Abbott, that her 
inclination first led her into the study of medicine, but discov¬ 
ering in one of its auxiliary sciences the unharvested field, she 
promptly accepted the line of special research as one which 
fully satisfied her ambition and her talents. She has made her 
own way therein, and not only a distinguished position, but, 
what is even better, she furnishes one more example of what 
a girl may do who wishes to fill her life with occupation formerly 
held to be only possible to the young man.” 
A Washington newspaper, a few months later, commenting 
on her lecture there on the Chemistry of the Higher and Lower 
Plants remarked that she had “evolved a theory by which the 
flora of past ages can be demonstrated. This theory is original 
with her and is attracting the attention of scientific men.” 
This theory would seem to have a prophetic bearing on the 
recent experiments made by an American scientist, with a view 
to follow back the steps of creation by an empirical collocation 
of certain chemical elements, and resulting, microscopically 
at least, in startling imitations of vegetable, mineral, and ani¬ 
mal forms. 
The same April, Miss Abbott gave a lecture on Plant Chem¬ 
istry in a course offered by the Philadelphia Academy of 
Natural Sciences. It was remarked at the time and after¬ 
ward that she had an extraordinary faculty of “bringing the 
results of her investigations within the scope of lay readers and 
hearers.” 
In the summer of this year, she went abroad carrying with 
her an unsolicited letter of introduction from Mr. S. P. Lang¬ 
ley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, to its foreign cor¬ 
respondents, and commending her as one “who visits Europe 
