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I met Dr. Jaeger in 1962 through Lloyd Mason Smith with whom I studied
anatomy. Dr. Smith invited his students to join a field trip with Dr.
Jaeger and I accepted the invitation on the assurance that our host was one
of the "old-school field naturalists." Field naturalists were then nearly
a thing of the past. I wanted to meet one; one of the best I was assured,
and I was not disappointed. The trip was a romp in the desert (somewhere
around the Joshua Tree area) and I and my fellow students were nearly run
off our feet by Dr. Jaeger who was nearly four times our age and who more
than matched his energy with his erudition, and his knowledge of desert
flora, fauna, and ecology (then a little known and little used word).
Dr. Jaeger's students were heavily engaged in noting the names of the specimens he pointed out. I was not. When he asked why that was so I replied, "Sir, I have my entire life to learn the names of plants and animals, I am studying your method." "And what have you learned of that?" he asked. "Observation of relationship," I replied. "Absent that, this place is nearly barren and most uninformative." "I shall see you again." he said. Six months later he appeared in the dissecting room where I was working on a brain, came over to me and said "how is my methodist." I told him that I was suffering from too much form, too little function, and an embarrassment of nomenclature. I asked him how he did and he said he had brought me a window and if I should undertake to study Latin and Greek I could look through it. [ed. note: Mr. Morgenroth is referring to Dr. Jaeger's Book, A Source-Book of Biological Names and Terms. He told me that “it is one of the most valuable references on my shelf”]I never saw him again. And I took his advice and it generated an interest in etymology and language that has remained with me to this day and now forms a significant portion of my work and research in my retirement; my personal window onto the history of biology; a most magnificent gift from a most unusual man. In fond memory of the giant I met twice, Peter A. Morgenroth Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Retired.) Melbourne, Australia |
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