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Helen  Abbott  Michael. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I     October,  1905. 
HELEN  ABBOTT  MICHAEL. 
By  Samuex  P.  Sadti,er. 
The  subject  of  this  sketch,  a  former  special  chemical  student  of 
the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  and  at  the  time  of  her  death 
an  honorary  member  of  the  College,  as  well  as  a  member  of  several 
learned  societies,  affords  a  striking  example  of  a  life  devoted  to 
ennobling  literary  and  scientific  pursuits. 
Helen  C.  De  Silver  Abbott,  daughter  of  James  Abbott  and  Caro- 
line Montelius,  was  born  December  23,  1857,  m  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Educated  under  the  care  of  private  teachers,  she  showed  special 
aptitude  for  music,  which  she  studied  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
She  was  not  only  a  brilliant  performer  on  the  piano,  but  made  a 
thorough  study  of  the  principles  of  music,  and  might  have  made 
her  mark,  not  only  as  a  public  performer,  but  as  a  composer. 
In  the  early  eighties  she  began  to  be  interested  in  scientific 
subjects,  and  in  June,  1882,  entered  the  Woman's  Medical  College 
of  Pennsylvania  and  attended  lectures  for  two  sessions,  but  did  not 
graduate.  Being  attracted  towards  the  study  of  chemistry,  she 
acted  as  assistant  in  the  Chemical  Laboratory  of  the  Philadelphia 
Polyclinic  School  for  a  time,  and  early  in  the  summer  of  1884  she 
came  to  the  writer  to  arrange  for  facilities  for  carrying  out  work  on 
plant  chemistry.  This  led  to  her  beginning  work  at  the  Philadelphia 
College  of  Pharmacy  Laboratory,  where  she  worked  with  some  inter- 
ruptions until  1887,  when  she  went  to  Germany  to  pursue  her  studies. 
The  years  spent  in  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  Labora- 
tory were  very  fruitful  in  valuable  results  in  plant  chemistry,  as  will 
be  seen  from  the  appended  list  of  published  papers  during  this 
period.  She  had  speciaLfacilities  provided  by  the  Board  of  Trustees 
of  the  College  in  a  small  research  laboratory  adjoining  the  main 
Chemical  Laboratory,  and  she  gathered  for  herself  through  private 
sources  abundant  supplies  of  some  Mexican  and  Central  American 
plants  that  had  never  before  been  investigated.  But  she  had  also 
the  constant  advice  and  direction  in  the  work  of  an  accomplished 
botanist  and  chemist,  the  late  Prof.  Henry  Trimble. 
These  papers  on  plant  analysis  and  chemistry  were  also  of  great 
theoretical  interest,  abounding,  as  they  did,  in  most  suggestive 
thought.  Dr.  H.  W.  Wiley,  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  has 
said  with  regard  to  them  that  "  her  studies  in  tracing  the  relations 
existing  between  chemical  composition  and  botanical  species  are  of 
the  highest  interest  from  the  viewpoint  of  research." 
