ntific standing of Dr. Charles W.
Stiles?"

"Very, very high," came the immediate response, and at this Dr. Gates
pricked up his ears. Yet the subsequent conversation disclosed that Dr.
Flexner was unfamiliar with the Stiles hookworm work. He, too, smiled at
the idea, but, like Page his smile was not one of ridicule.

"If Dr. Stiles believes this," was his dictum, "it is something to be
taken most seriously."

As Dr. Flexner is probably the leading medical scientist in the United
States, his judgment at once lifted the hookworm issue to a new plane.
Dr. Gates ceased laughing and events now moved rapidly. Mr. Rockefeller
gave a million dollars to a sanitary commission for the eradication of
the hookworm in the Southern States, and of this Page became a charter
member. In this way an enterprise that is the greatest sanitary and
health reform of modern times had its beginnings. So great was the
success of the Hookworm Commission in the South, so many thousands were
almost daily restored to health and usefulness, that Mr. Rockefeller
extended its work all over the world--to India, Egypt, China, Australia,
to all sections that fall within the now accurately located "hookworm
belt." Out of it grew the great International Health Commission, also
endowed with unlimited millions of Rockefeller money, which is engaged
in stamping out disease and promoting medical education in all quarters
of the globe. Dr. Stiles and Page's associates on the General Education
Board attribute the origin of this work to the simple fact that Page,
great humourist that he was, could temper his humour with
intelligence, and could therefore perceive the point at which a joke
ceased to be a joke and actually concealed a truth of the most
far-reaching importance to mankind.

[Illustration: Walter H. Page (1899), from a photograph taken when he
was editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_]

[Illustration: Dr. Wallace Buttrick, President of the General Education
Board]

Page enjoyed the full results of this labour one night in the autumn of
1913, when Dr. Wickliffe Rose, the head of the International Health
Board, came to London to discuss the possibility of beginning hookworm
work in the British Empire, especially in Egypt and India. Page, as
Ambassador, arranged a dinner at the Marlborough Club, attended by the
leading medical scientists of the kingdom and several members of the
Cabinet. Dr. Rose's description of his work made a deep impression. He
was i