appointed to present a scheme for the establishment of a department of hygiene. The committee, on July 9, 1887, presented a report signed by V. C. Vaughan, A. B. Prescott, and John W. Langley recommending the establishment of a department of hygiene, the combination of the closely related subjects of hygiene and physiological chemistry in one chair, and the appointment of an instructor. The report was adopted, and Vaughan was appointed Professor of Hygiene and Physiological Chemistry and Director of the Hygienic Laboratory. At a meeting of the executive committee held the same day, Frederick George Novy ('86, Sc.D. '90, '91m, LL.D. Cincinnati '20) was appointed Instructor in Hygiene and Physiological Chemistry.
In October, 1887, the Regents accepted the architectural plans of Pond and Pond and awarded the contract for the building, which was to be completed on or before July 1, 1888. There were the usual delays in construction, and the building, the east half of the present West Physics Laboratory, was not completed until the late fall of 1888. The Department of Physics was given the basement and first floor, and the Hygienic Laboratory occupied the second floor and the attic. These quarters were soon outgrown. In 1903 the Hygienic Laboratory was moved to the present West Medical Building and in 1926 to its present location in the East Medical Building.
The Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Michigan was the first of its kind in this country; that of the United States Marine Hospital was started in New York in August, 1887, was moved to Washington in 1891, and is now the National Institute of Health; the hygienic laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania was established in 1890; and the Bender Hygienic Laboratory at Albany was founded in 1896.
Immediately after the establishment of the Hygienic Laboratory, work was carried on in rooms in the old Chemical Laboratory (the present Economics-Pharmacology Building) pending the erection of the new Medical Building. Chemical analyses of water and foods were made, but attempts to do bacteriological work were not satisfactory. It was evident that a first hand knowledge of bacteriological techniques could only be obtained by going abroad for a course of instruction in the new science. Accordingly, Vaughan and Novy went for such a course to Koch's laboratory, the Hygienic Institute of the University of Berlin, in the summer of 1888. At the same time they purchased the necessary equipment for the new laboratory. Later they visited the laboratory of Pasteur in Paris.
The first systematic lectures on the subject of bacteriology were given in the fall of 1888 by Vaughan in his course, Sanitary Science. These lectures he gave also in the following two years, when the designation of the course was changed to Hygiene. Vaughan continued to teach this course until his retirement in 1921. From 1891 to 1934, inclusive, the formal lecture course on general bacteriology was given by Novy. The course was required of all medical students, and also of students of dentistry from 1891 to 1901. In 1935 and for the next few years the lecture course was presented by Dr. Malcolm Herman Soule ('21, Sc.D. '24, LL.D. Saint Bonaventure's College '28), but because of a change in the curriculum in 1938-39 it was no longer required of the medical students, though it continued to be given to nonmedical students. Until the time of this change, the course had been taken by about 8,700 students. A full synopsis of the course is to be found in the Announcement of the Medical School (1938-39, p. 66).
In 1888 an attempt was made at giving
