Comparative Helminthology as an Aid in the Solution of Ethnological Problems

Abstract

I regret that unavoidable absence in Europe on duty prevents me from addressing you in person and taking part in the deliberations of the Society today. This message to you is being written on shipboard as we make our way towards the Immortal City, the civilization of which played so great a part in the past in the dissemination of culture and of infectious diseases throughout Western Europe. We have just passed “Flores in the Azores where Sir Richard Grenville lay,” one of the outposts of that great little country, Portugal, which led the van in maritime exploration and discovery before the day of Columbus. Before us lie Cape St. Vincent and Cape Trafalgar, scene of the great battle between the English and the combined fleets of France and Spain, an event which has played a part in the distribution of races in the tropics and in the development of tropical medicine.