Historian

No matter where Dr. William Henry Welch of Johns Hopkins goes he finds friends to greet him with that affectionate regard which able men yield to an able, modest confrere. It may be at New Haven, Manhattan, Strassburg, Leipzig, Breslau, Berlin, where he has studied; or at Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cambridge, (Mass.) , Cambridge (Eng.), Princeton, Chicago, Washington or elsewhere, where he has received honorary degrees; in the U. S., England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, where he belongs to learned societies; or Japan,

Jugoslavia, France, Austria, whose governments have given him decorations and honors.

At 76, loaded with learning, he retains much of the liveliness of his body and mind and all the humanity of his wisdom. He is, as Dr. William Osier was at his death in 1919, the spokesman for modern medicine--the dean.

Last week Johns Hopkins, where he directs the School of Hygiene and Public Health, "promoted" him. The university had received $200,000 from the General Education Board for a chair of medical history, the first in the U. S. Few men are capable of this professorship. The average doctor learns piecemeal and verbally the Aeschulapian tradition and is little tempted to write on the history of his profession, although such writing should be comparatively easy. As Dr. Welch said last week: "There always has been but one goal in medicine, the prevention and cure of disease. That gives a unity to the history of medicine. It has a unity and continuity which, I think, few other subjects have."

Of the few men learned enough to fill this new chair at Johns Hopkins, the university chose, last week, Dr. Welch.