BACTERIOLOGY LABORATORY - 1903 Showing incubator (with door open showing incubated petri dishes) and ice box. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Pioneers of Sanitary Science Who were these men whose inventive, venturesome minds found the ways — always under Hiram Mills' inspired leadership — to solve so many difficult sanitary problems? First there was Dr. Thomas M. Drown, of Philadelphia. He had just come to the young Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach in analytic chemistry. Accepting a place on the Station staff he helped to set up and perfect the variety of chemical tests that the early research work of the Experiment Station was to be measured by. This, it will be remembered, was at a time when ordinary analytical methods applicable to the all-essential nitrogen determinations were rudimentary indeed and quite inadequate for the needs of the sewage studies. After almost ten years of invaluable consultation at the Experiment Station, Dr. Drown was lured away from Massachusetts to become President of Lehigh University. The man who, next to Hiram Mills, was to contribute most to the Station's early fame was William T, Sedgwick. Still in his early thirties, this young man, who had forsaken the study of medicine to pursue his beloved biologic research, had come to M. 1. T. to teach biology. He, too, came under Mr. Mills' sway. Sedgwick instituted various new methods of microscopic examination of sewage and water. His work, particularly in setting up the Sedgwick-Rafter method of determining counts of organisms, is still well known. Perhaps his greatest contribution was the succession of M.I.T. graduates whom he had trained so well before bringing them to the staff of the Experiment Station.

When my Great Aunt Viola passed away I inherited a large box of vintage magazine clippings. Apparently it was a hobby of hers. I was going through them yesterday and found some that were in good shape. I don't know who the artists are, or from which magazines they came from mostly, or even the dates, but they are lovely, so I decided to post them anyhow.