ROSS AND MALARIAL FEVER 145
I was not worried aboat my loss, because, f ortonately, I had asked my agent in England to put a sum of money at my disposal in case of need with a New York bank. Hence, though my friends offered to give me any cash 1 liked, I refused their offers, and liyed for a week in Panama entirely on hospitality with the assistance of a few dollars in my breeches' pocket. Beally I was never more happy in my life, and felt the complete joy of being an absolute pauper. At the end of my visit I went on board the same ship, which was to take me back to New York. As I had no money on board the ship I remained equally happy daring the voyage, but just as we reached New York my sole remaining hat was blown into the sea. I therefore arrived at New York on a Saturday, with one dollar in my pocket and no hat. Nevertheless I presented myself at the Waldorf- Astor Hotel and asked them to take me in on credit only till Monday. They lent me some cash to buy a hat and fed me as if I had not been a pauper at all. Next Monday my happiness ceased again, because the bank accepted my credit- note from London and filled my pockets with the detestable stuff on which we live.
I believe that none of us ever got back our losses, but the fun of the bosinesB repaid me. I believe that I was the only pauper who had ever been the guest of the Great American Bepublic.
I say nothing here of the extremely interesting time I had in Panama. My only grief was that Colonel Gorgas was not with me; but Captain Lyster, Dr. Balsch, Colonel Carter, Dr. Boss, Mr. Le Prince and every one else gave me the best time imaginable, but generally on a teetotal basis! I ascribe my loss en- tirely to the somnolence induced in me by teetotalling, and have abandoned that calling ever since.
The most bitter irony of the business was that, when I arrived in Liverpool, my friends there refused to believe that my five hundred dollars had been stolen at an and averred that it had all been thrown away in wild dissipation with Sir William Osier and other congenial friends, so that I obtained the reputation of being, not a teetotaller, but a wastreL
BoNALD Boss 26th June, 1916.
Bonald Boss is a man of remarkable versatility. He is not only a parasitologist and sanitarian of proven abilities^ but also amathematician, a poet and a publicist. He is editor of Science Progress, and one of the editors of Annals of Tropical Medicine, In 1906,he introduced his method of solving equations by " operative division/^^' a modification of that dis- covered by Michael Dary, a gunner of the tower of London, on August 15, 1674, and communicated by him in a letter to Newton on that day. The rationale of this method consists in expressing an algebraic opera- tion as a "verb function/^ an action upon or arrangement of quantities, without stating the quantities themselves. It is thus one of the sym- bolic or substitution algebras which have played such a prominent r61e in modern mathematics. Eoss defines an algebraic operation, some par- ticular grouping or arrangement of quantities, as a verb, while a func- tion, the result of such grouping, is definable as a substantive or noun. He holds that this notation gives the power of expressing any algebraic operation without reference to the quantities employed, e. g., if denote
i» Boss, Vroe. Hoy, Irish Acad,, DubL, 1905, XXV., Sect A, No. 3, 31-76.
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