A Half Century of Presidential Addresses of the Society of American Bacteriologists

Abstract

This survey of the presidential addresses of the Society of American Bacteriologists and brief citations concerning the men is dedicated to Barnett Cohen, Archivist of the Society of American Bacteriologists, first editor of Bacteriological Revies, Associate Professor of Physiological Chemistry in Johns Hopkins Medical School, and our cooperative friend of many years. I like to think of Barney as he arrived in San Francisco at the Society of American Bacteriologists meetings in 1938, a day or two early, with his pipe, his broad grin, and a heavy six weeks' beard acquired while camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He was in fine fettle, but in spite of our protests, he did shave before the meetings began. 1906 New York Erwin Frink Smith 1854-1927 Eminent plant pathologist, serving the U. S. Department of Agriculture for many years, Smith is best known for his virus studies on peach yellows and for his investigations of important bacterial diseases of plants among which crown gall and its causative agent Bacterium tumefaciene are most noteworthy. His three volume treatise, Bacteria in Relation to Plant Diwses (12), is the standard classic in that field, and his translation with Hedges of Duclaux' History of a Mind (13) (Biography of Pasteur) has been a delight to many. An extensive biography of Smith by A. D.

The Forgotten Forefather: Joseph James Kinyoun and the Founding of the National Institutes of Health

“…He had been a prominent leader in the 1894 Convention of [American] Bacteriologists ( 169 , 170 ), which brought the profession together for the first time, and in 1909, he became president of the Society of American Bacteriologists (now the American Society for Microbiology). In his Presidential Address, he discussed the new/evolving idea of two compartments of immunity, natural and acquired ( 171 ). In 1916, Kinyoun took a 3-month leave of absence to become director of the Health Department in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and thoroughly reorganized it ( 172 ).…”