the centenary of abraham jacobi

The Centenary of Abraham JacobiAuthor(s): Victor RobinsonSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jul., 1930), pp. 94-96Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14895 .

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94 THIE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

at the Chicago fair, will be a dominat- ing note of the entire exposition. Through a cooperative effort of the national scientific societies and the American industries it is planned to show how, from a few single discoveries in pure science through the creative in- agination of practically minded men, these scientific principles were applied for the betterment and increasing com- fort of the human race.

Against the alleged evils that have attended the mechanization of industry, bringing mass produetion and power machinery to do manual work, it is planned to show how science is solving the problem of readjustment and how higher standards of living are now at- tainable as a result of this progress.

To me the scientific discoveries which connect the world of knowledge-ac- quired for its own sake-with the world of man 's daily existence are like the connecting links of an intricate chain network. From one side radiate chains, long and short, simple and complex- frequently cross-connected but all extending into the region where the forging of each link had back of it the motive of increasing the sum of human knowledge.

From the other side stretch out other ehains, also long and short, simple and complex, and likewise frequently cross- connected, but all extending into the region where the forging of each link had back of it the motive of some prac- tical application or the gain to be de-

rived from adding to the world's tools. The investigations on the eonduetion

of electricity through gases, the produetion of electrons and the structure of matter are the links forming a chain leading to telephone service, the whole radio art and a host of other useful things. On the other hand, a study of every industry shows chains which lead far back to the original discoveries in pure science.

The cross-connecting links unite the chain of any one partienlar industry with the neighboring one, forming a network of whole modern industrial strnettre. So extensive are the inter- relationships between our industries that alternating times of repression or prosperity pass over practically all of them at the same time. If each industry went its coLrse independently of the others, sLch a condition coLld hardly ocecr.

The spirit of cooperation will prevail in the temple of science. But supple- mentary to this spirit of cooperation there exists also among the industries the spirit of competition.

It is our wish to create an exposition philosophy that will be quite different from anything ever undertaken before. It will have running throngh it a thread of unifornmity in the manner of presentation and in the objective of that presentation which has never heretofore been present in any large exposition.

MAIURICE HOLLAND

THE CENTENARY OF ABRAHAM JACOBI

IT seems only the other day that a medical meeting was incomplete without Dr. Jacobi in the chair; his vivid per- sonality is so contemporaneous that at first it is difficult to realize his centenary. Even the "younger men in the profession" remember so well that low voice with the interesting accent which often made us lean forward in our seats, those deep-set and penetrating eyes, the bronzed face, the splen-did head and

magnificent shock of hair crownirng the smnall, trim figure, that we need a chronology to remind us he was cradled a century ago. It was long our habit to group him with his friends Osler and Welch, with whom he was frequently as- sociated on committees and campaigns, and yet he was old enough to be the father of either, and was in fact the teacher of the latter. In his long life, Jacobi knew Valentine IMott - the



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96 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

pioneer surgeon who caine into the world several years before Washington was in- augurated president of the new nation- and he likewise knew many internes who are now rounding out their first decade of practice.

Abraham Jacobi was born before the Schleiden-Schwann cell-theory, the dis- covery of anesthesia, the clinical tri- umphs of the great men of Guy's, the introduction of experimental medicine by Claude Bernard; he was middle-aged before the birth of antisepsis and bac- teriologv; he was old before von Behring treated diphtheria with anti- toxin and Jacques Loeb explained the theory of tropisms; yet he was modern enough to hear that the Soviet government had established an Institute of Experimental Endocrinology at Moscow, and that the new generation of Russians had founded a Pediatric Society at Odessa.

Metternichism in 1848 closed the careers of myriads of promising youths, and Jacobi, for his participation in this European revolution, was transferred from the clinics to a Prussian dun- geon-for two precious years the ink faded uselessly on his recent diploma. Then escape, through a friendly jailer's intercession, and the three-master Tr- mnomutain carried the exile to a foreign shore. Forty years later the Prussian government invited the fugitive to re- turn-as professor of pediatrics in the University of Berlin, but too many ties bound "the last of the forty-eighters" to the new motherland. Jacobi had become an integral part of American life, and like Jacob Henle, who had tasted the same brand of Prussian justice, he declined the honor.

Jacobi was one of the forces that made the nineteenth century the "century of the child." Not only was he our first teacher of pediatrics both in the lecture room and at the bedside, not only was he the guardian at the nation's nursery door, not only were his mono-

graphs the guide posts of his colleagues, but he made us remenmber the soul of the child. It is infinitely pathetic to recall that Jacobi's own first-born died in in- fancy, and at the age of seven his be- loved Ernst passed away. Joseph O'Dwyer was a savior of childhood, but four of his sons died young. Thousanud, of little patients were saved by Jacobi, thousands of mothers blessed his name, bhLt the father of pediatrics in America could not save his own children. A generation later, visitors to Lake George wNould hear Jacobi speaking of his lost boy. There stands in the writer 's library a set of Jacobi's early reprints, collected and arranged by himself, bound and saved for his boy. On the first page is written in Abraham Jacobi's characteristic hand-Fiir meinen Ernst gesamnnelt. A terrible line-mute testi- mony of the impotence of the art of medicine.

In these days of ever-multiplying biographies, it is a strange neglect that the present writer 's "Life of A. Jacobi" remains the only biography of this bene- factor of the humau race. His life was unique in many ways, and out of the thousands who knew him, there are those who should pause and give us recollections. Let us hope that the centenary of his birth will stimulate a disciple to preserve for posterity the record of the man who taught the medical profession the importance of the child. The science of mediciue will iuake technical advances such as he never knew, but a nobler physician thau Abraham Jacobi will never stand at a child's bedside. His lifelong battle for pure milk certainly deserves a volume. To this biographer we leave this senti- ment: The father of pediatrics in America-he brought the cradle into medicine; he taught a nation how to feed its infants; and childhood is safer because of the life work of Abraham Jacobi.

VICTOR ROBINSON



the centenary of abraham jacobi

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