eties have had more money in recent years than could be properly ex-
pended, because of the dearth of adequately trained personnel. Even
though one can readily present adverse comments on unnecessary over-
head and plush carpets, some of these private organizations (it would
be invidious in this broad survey to name any one) have had, over dec-
ades, impressive histories of achievement.
   Books on bacteriology conform to the usual practice-"of the mak-
ing of books there is no end." Early American publications in this field
have been listed through 1915 by L. S. McClung,' archivist of the
Society of American Bacteriologists. He employed the term bacteriol-
ogy not as we have done, but in a stricter taxonomic sense omitting
animal parasites, and also more loosely, including texts in pathology,
and even practical therapeutics, if the book included a chapter or a sec-
tion concerned with bacteria or bacteriologic techniques. Of the ap-
proximately 250 titles in his survey, about 5o would come under the
head of popular teaching, especially important in the early period, a
similar number of laboratory guides, useful chiefly in the courses for
which they were written, a goodly number of addresses and short
notes, and about 50 more complete texts varying in breadth and depth
and number of editions to satisfy the demand.
   In the several sections of these chronicles, I have mentioned the books
that have seemed to me important from a national point of view. When
one realizes the labor involved, one wonders why anyone ever at-
tempts to write a book, including this one. The recent broad-scale an-
notated guide to the history of bacteriology by Thomas H. Grainger
and the bibliography of communicable diseases with critical abstracts
and personal notes by Arthur L. Bloomfield will be helpful to give us a
deeper understanding of the shoulders on which we stand.
  Americans have done world service in making medical literature
available. Through the initiative of John Shaw Billings, the Index Cata-
logue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office of the United States
Army was begun in i88o; it still continues its marvellous cumulative
indices. The Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus is also an invaluable
necessity. England has provided the Zoological Record and the Index
Veterinarius, equally important in their respective fields. A more recent
Bibliography of Agriculture stems from the United States Department
of Agriculture. Still more recently, we have been making more success-
ful efforts to provide abstracts and translations of the literature from
Russia and other little known areas. We need occasional shocks.


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Perspective