Our Society One Hundred Years Ago—the Presidential Address by C.-E. Winslow

Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, of Yale University and President of the Society of American Bacteriologists (SAB), presented his Presidential Lecture at the 1913 General Meeting in Montreal. The title of his talk was “The Characterization and Classification of Bacterial Types.” In the introduction to this talk he offers some interesting comments on the state of bacteriology at that time. He comments on the various backgrounds of SAB members, the need to serve those interested in dairy and soil bacteriology, and the importance of creating a universal system of classifying organisms. The following are some direct statements from his introductory remarks: The vast majority of students of microbial life are preoccupied with immediately practical problems and most of them have been trained for their work from the standpoint of some practical art, medicine, veterinary science, sanitary engineering or agriculture, rather than from the more general and fundamental standpoint of the biologist. The Society of American Bacteriologists was founded as a protest against such necessary but dangerous specialization, to bring together workers in all fields for a consideration of their problems in the light of the underlying, unifying principles of bacteriology as a member of the group of the biologic sciences. It is this ideal which distinguishes our society from any other organization in America which deals with microbic life and its effects. … It would be a great pity if, as we gather year by year, we should fail to discuss together many of the more special problems of technique with which we are concerned. In particular it is well that we should exercise the widest hospitality toward those branches of our science, such as dairy bacteriology and soil bacteriology which have no technical societies at their disposal, such as are available for the specialists in medical and sanitary lines. We should be untrue to our highest mission, however, if we failed at the same time to emphasize those phases of our work in which this society of all others is peculiarly qualified to be of service, in striking sparks by the contact of experience in the different fields of bacteriology, and in viewing all our special problems by the clear light of fundamental biological principles. … Instead of the pure compounds of the chemist we must deal with organisms, interacting mixtures of substances, different for each kind and even for each individual plant and animal. … For most purposes, however, the species or kind of organism displays reasonably uniform characteristics, and may be used as our practical unit of study. A clear distinction between the kinds of organisms involved and a clear conception of the relation between these kinds is certainly however imperative, and a sound basis for the characterization and classification of the organisms with which we deal is one of the most pressing needs of bacteriology. Winslow then enters a long dissertation (13 pages of text in Science) reviewing what he sees as the most significant developments in the classification of microorganisms, and begins his discussion with such statements as, “The question of what constitutes a colon bacillus has agitated sanitary bacteriologists for three decades and still remains unsolved.” He ended what he called his “long survey … with which you have borne so patiently …” with the recommendation that the time had come for the SAB to take the lead and “… invite fifteen bacteriologists from the principal scientific countries to act as an international commission on the characterization and classification of bacterial types.” (His full text can be found in Science 39:77–91, January 1914.)