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When Martin Fischer elected to write the biography of his friend, associate and contemporary William B. Wherry, he added another quiet chapter to modern medical history. It is a pity that the layman, so obviously hungry for information about the progress of medicine and the biologic sciences, should not be fed his facts through the pleasing medium of biography rather than the less reliable medium of autobiographic confidences. No man, no matter how excellent his intentions, can properly weigh the human values in his memories of himself; it is to the distinct advantage of society when some Boswell is available who is willing and eager to write the story as he knows it.
Wherry was born in India in 1874, the son of American missionaries. His parents were well educated and poor. When William was 14 years old the parents moved back to the homeland to provide an education for