n. Dr. Stiles had
long been advocating such a campaign as an indispensable preliminary to
improving Southern life. But the humorous aspect of the hookworm always
interfered with his cause; the microbe of laziness had at last been
found!

It was not until Dr. Stiles, in the course of this Southern trip,
cornered Page in a Pullman car, that he finally found an attentive
listener. Page, of course, had his preliminary laugh, but then the
hookworm began to work on his imagination. He quickly discovered that
Dr. Stiles was no fool; and before the expedition was finished, he had
become a convert and, like most converts, an extremely zealous one. The
hookworm now filled his thoughts as completely as it did those of his
friend; he studied it, he talked about it; and characteristically he set
to work to see what could be done. How much Southern history did the
thing explain? Was it not forces like this, and not statesmen and
generals, that really controlled the destinies of mankind? Page's North
Carolina country people had for generations been denounced as
"crackers," and as "hill-billies," but here was the discovery that the
great mass of them were ill--as ill as the tuberculosis patients in the
Adirondacks. Free these masses from the enervating parasite that
consumed all their energies--for Dr. Stiles had discovered that the
disease afflicted the great majority of the rural classes--and a new
generation would result. Naturally the cause strongly touched Page's
sympathies. He laid the case before the ever sympathetic Dr. Buttrick,
but here again progress was slow. By hard hammering, however, he half
converted Dr. Buttrick, who, in turn, took the case of the hookworm to
his old associate, Dr. Frederick T. Gates. What Page was determined to
obtain was a million dollars or so from Mr. John D. Rockefeller, for the
purpose of engaging in deadly warfare upon this pest. This was the
proper way to produce results: first persuade Dr. Buttrick, then induce
him to persuade Dr. Gates, who, if convinced, had ready access to the
great treasure house. But Dr. Gates also began to smile; even the
combined eloquence of Page and Dr. Buttrick could not move him. So the
reform marked time until one day Dr. Buttrick, Dr. Gates, and Dr. Simon
Flexner, the Director of the Rockefeller institute, happened to be
fellow travellers--again on a Pullman car.

"Dr. Flexner," said Dr. Buttrick--this for the benefit of his
incredulous friend--"what is the scie