“For '_a priori_' we cannot know whether the influence that one segment of the digestive tract exerts upon the succeeding segment is that of stimulation or of inhibition, or of both, viz., of stimulation under one set of conditions and inhibition under another set of conditions. In the investigation of the problem of a chemical co-relation between the salivary glands and the stomach, Dr. Hemmeter has done meritorious work, a great part of which it has been my good fortune to observe and assist in personally; though I am a physician in the employment of the government at Washington, I consider myself a post-graduate student of Professor Hemmeter. I have seen personally four of his animals that had successfully been nursed through the Pawlow operation and extirpation of the salivary glands after months of the most trying work. It required a great deal of perseverance to persist in this kind of work, especially when some of the best animals that had emerged safely from the vicissitudes of the operation for an accessory stomach and from the removal of all the salivary glands on one side of the head succumbed to the third operation in the attempt to remove the remaining salivary glands on the other side. “The history of these operative failures, though they will never be told, constitute a large part of the merit of those who have worked with Dr. Hemmeter in this research. No matter what the final outcome of the future investigation of this problem will be, whether affirmative or negative, the intrinsic value of such work will be appreciated by all who are to the least degree conversant with the history of physiology. Nowadays we are too liable to forget the hard plodders in experimental work who have started the solution of a problem, and when the last word has been said the worker of the beginning is generally forgotten. “In this connection I desire to quote an expression of Prof. William H. Welch concerning the merit of the work of ex-Surgeon General Sternberg, done since the first Yellow Fever Commission was appointed, in 1879 (see Medical News. June 21, 1902. p. 1198). Dr. Welch said 'that Sternberg's work with yellow fever would stand forever; that it was a common thing in these busy days to forget the steps which led up to an important discovery. All that Dr. Sternberg had done in the study of yellow fever was necessary work, and it had to be done just in the way that he did it. The ground had first to be cleared. If it were not so, the discovery had not been possible; and later discoverers themselves would have had to hunt out the large host of microorganisms which Dr. Sternberg had described and laid aside.' “And similarly I can say of Dr. Hemmeter's efforts that, no matter what the eventual outcome of this problem will be, all that he has done was necessary work, and it had to be done just in the way that he did it.