Amit Patel/1
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Amit Patel 2005 – 2006
Senior History Honors Thesis Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf Amit Patel/2
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Table of Contents
Thesis Acknowledgements …3
Thesis Introduction …5
Chapter One: Blazing a Path for the Duke Sciences The Department of Chemistry at Duke University Under Drs. Paul Gross and Marcus Hobbs (1920 – 1954) …13
Chapter Two: Taking Duke Medicine to New Heights The Department of Biochemistry at the Duke University School of Medicine Under Dr. Philip Handler (1950 – 1969) …50
Chapter Three: Growing into Chaos The Department of Anatomy at the Duke University School of Medicine Under Dr. J. David Robertson (1966 – 1988) …84
Thesis Conclusion …123
Thesis Bibliography …135
Amit Patel/3
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I must thank my mentor and advisor Sy Mauskopf for his
guidance and support and being the incredible individual that he is. Without him, I would
not even be majoring in history, let alone writing an honors thesis. Without him, I would be
neither the scholar nor the person I am today.
Janet Ewald, my thesis seminar professor, helped guide my investigations, gave
important feedback on my writing, and kept me motivated throughout the academic year to
put forth my best on this project. Alex Roland, my departmental advisor, helped convince
me to write a thesis and provided valuable help in the early stages of brainstorming. I must also thank Elizabeth Fenn, Barry Gaspar, Vasant Kaiwar, Michael McVaugh, Laura
Schlossberg, Adam Seipp, and the rest of my history professors who have fostered my interest in history and my skills in historical investigation and writing.
I could not have carried out this project without the help of the Duke University
Archives staff, especially Tom Harkins and Tim Pyatt. They guided me as I waded through
boxes and boxes of archival materials and pointed me onto further resources. Tom, in
particular, provided a constant source of support and advice for a year-and-a-half
throughout my project. Likewise, my project would have been impossible without the help
of the Duke University Medical Center Archives staff, especially Russell Koonts, Emily
Glenn, and Jessica Roseberry. They helped point me to the multitude of valuable resources
available there and made sure that the many afternoons I spent there were informative and Amit Patel/4
helpful. Moreover, Barbara Busse at the History of Medicine Collections at the Duke
University Medical Center Library helped me in the later stages of my project.
I must also thank the individuals who took the time to talk with me about their
respective departments: Cary Gravatt and Marcus Hobbs for Chapter One; Irwin Fridovich,
Robert Hill, and K.V. Rajagopalan for Chapter Two; and Nell Cant, Bill Hylander, Rich Kay,
and Psyche Lee for Chapter Three. These conversations helped me humanize the chairmen
beyond what I learned from archival materials and afforded insight into the charismatic
human beings they were. After all, individuals are what history is all about.
Finally, I would not be where I am today if not for the sacrifices and support of my
parents and grandparents. They have always stood behind me in every decision I have made
and every endeavor I have undertaken. I can never thank them enough for who they are and what they have done. My sister Meenal and my girlfriend Seema have also stood behind me
every step of the way; they are the two people who believe in me the most. And last but not
least, I must thank God for giving me the opportunities that I am blessed to enjoy. Amit Patel/5
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Thesis Introduction
If someone had suggested in 1920 that a prominent scientific center could be built in
the Southern United States, he or she would have been laughed at. At that time, the South
lagged far behind the North in terms of higher education, especially science. For just under
a century, since about 1830, Southern higher education had mirrored the withdrawal of the
South from the primary currents of American intellectual life. However, 1920 marked a
watershed in Southern higher education.1 Although higher education in the South may still
lag behind higher education in the nation as a whole by most metrics of quantity and quality,
it has come a long way and narrowed this gap since the early 20th century.2 All within the
two decades after 1920, the University of Virginia appointed its first president, the University
of North Carolina emerged on a national stage, Vanderbilt University freed itself of its
sectarian ties, Emory University moved to Atlanta, the Rice Institute opened in Houston,
1 Cartter, Allan M. “The Role of Higher Education in the Changing South.” The South in Continuity and Change. Eds. John C. McKinney and Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965: 277 – 297. Cartter divides the history of higher education in the South into three periods: 1694-1830, when collegiate education garnered respect and grew, 1830-1920, when Southern higher education mirrored the withdrawal of the South from the primary currents of American intellectual life, and 1920-present, when the growth of major universities in the South headlined an emergence of education. Although Cartter’s groupings oversimplify the important developments that necessitate subdivisions within his third period, his approach is useful because it marks 1920 as the turning point when Southern higher education began its rise. 2 Blackwell, Gordon W. “Higher Education in the South in the Next 20 Years.” The Future South and Higher Education. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Education Board, 1968: 69 – 116. Amit Patel/6 and the University of Texas started developing strong graduate programs.3 Until this time, most Southern universities had considered themselves primarily undergraduate institutions, serving a “distinctly regional character and tradition.” Soon afterwards, however, this self- perception began to change and these institutions began to strive to become places of excellence in terms of national, not regional, standards.4 By the 1960s, a historian of science wrote about the “ever-accelerating emergence of major universities [in the South] whose remarkable, even explosive development” pointed forward to the next decades when “a number of first-class centers of excellence” would develop in the South.5 His prediction rang true, as Duke led a group of Southern institutions –including Vanderbilt, North
Carolina, and Emory- into the upper tiers of American higher education by the 1980s.
Focusing on Duke, my thesis is a pioneer study of the rise of Southern contributions to science. It explores how Duke, a small Southern university, achieved such scientific prominence in a relatively short period (1920 – 1988) by tracing four entrepreneurial, charismatic individuals and the science departments they chaired at Duke University and
Medical School. Although my story is driven by these four individuals, it steps back to acknowledge the layers of context surrounding them and their departments. The University itself provides one setting. At Duke, battles were fought in the late 1950s over whether
Duke should remain a regional institution dedicated to teaching or aspire to national prominence and research excellence, a struggle that has become known as the Paul Gross-
Hollis Edens Affair. Moving outwards to the North Carolina Piedmont in the 1960s,
3 Cartter, Allan M. “The Role of Higher Education in the Changing South.” The South in Continuity and Change. Eds. John C. McKinney and Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965: 277 – 297. 4 Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966: 11. 5 Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966: 9. Amit Patel/7
Research Triangle Park, now one of the world’s foremost science/industrial centers,
emerged in the fields and pine woods bounded by Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham.
Marcus Hobbs, a Duke chemist, played a crucial role in this endeavor. On the broader,
Southern level, the civil rights movement and desegregation, which swept over Duke in the
early 1960s, changed perceptions of the South as a backwards place. And on a national level,
World War II sparked government support for science, which Paul Gross and Philip
Handler –respectively, former president of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science and former president of the National Academy of Sciences—sought to sustain.
This government support, especially from the National Institutes of Health, facilitated the
emergence of the “big science” characterized by larger labs and more expensive equipment.
The 1924 bequest of James B. Duke “created overnight the potential for a great
private university.”6 By the 1980s, Duke University had developed in this remarkably short
time from a regional college of modest pretensions into a research-oriented institution of
international renown. Also by this time, the Duke University Medical School had undergone
a similar transformation, pushing from its relatively recent beginnings in 1929 into the upper
tiers of medical schools across the nation. During this “great leap forward,” which was far
from inevitable, Duke relied upon the leadership and contributions of many administrators
and faculty to realize the potential of Duke’s original bequest. Among the individuals vital to its extraordinary development stand those often overlooked amidst the long shadows of the
Dukes and Duke’s presidents: the scientists who built and developed their respective academic departments.
6 Cartter, Allan M. “The Role of Higher Education in the Changing South.” The South in Continuity and Change. Eds. John C. McKinney and Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965: 277 – 297. Amit Patel/8
On the backs of these gifted scientists, their departments launched the rise of high- powered science at Duke. This thesis traces the chairmanships of four such scientists:
Chapter One on Chemistry under Paul Gross and Marcus Hobbs (1920 – 1954), Chapter
Two on Biochemistry under Philip Handler (1950 – 1969), and Chapter Three on Anatomy under J. David Robertson (1966 – 1988). This exploration affords insight into how science departments, both in the Arts and Sciences as well as in the Medical School, have grown and developed. The strategies employed by these chairmen on behalf of their departments were not identical; rather, each chairman brought a unique set of approaches to his position of leadership, building his department in a distinct way.
Paul Gross7 Marcus Hobbs8 Philip Handler9 J. David Robertson10 Figure 1: Photographs of the Four Chairmen
I chose these chairmen from a wide array of possibilities for four reasons. First, each of these chairmen has left an extensive legacy at Duke in the form of archival collections, administrative positions, and/or living contemporaries, affording ample resources for a nourishing investigation. Second, their departments provide representation from both the
7 Palmer, Richard. “History of the Department.” Duke University Department of Chemistry. 19 September 2005
Arts and Sciences (Chemistry) as well as the Medical School (Biochemistry and Anatomy).
Third, their departments grew dramatically and changed profoundly under their leadership.
Figure Two depicts the dramatic growth of the departments under the chosen chairmen.
Chairman & Department First Year of Number Last Year of Number Chairmanship of Faculty* Chairmanship of Faculty* Gross and Hobbs, Chemistry 1920 211 1954 1112 Handler, Biochemistry 1950 4 1969 1813 Robertson, Anatomy 1966 1314 1988 3715 Figure 2: Changes in Faculty Sizes Through Chairmanships *Totals do not include associates or instructors/lecturers
Fourth, the spans of their chairmanships overlapped only slightly, affording continuous
insight into Duke’s “great leap forward” and how larger issues on Duke, local, regional, and
national levels influenced the departments.
All four of the chairmen were also successful researchers and nationally prominent
scholars. Each of these leaders established himself as a productive research scientist in his
discipline. Gross conducted research in the areas of organic fluorinated compounds, Soret
coefficients of electrolytes, hexocyclohexams, and batteries.16 Hobbs investigated dielectric
constants, dipole moments, vapor pressures, molecular interactions, and the presence of
11 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993: 77. 12 Palmer, Richard. “History of the Department.” Duke University Department of Chemistry. 19 Sept. 2005
nickel and “tar” in tobacco smoke.17 Gross and Hobbs also collaborated to lead the
Frangible Bullet Project during World War II, designing a new system to train aerial gunners
more effectively. Both Gross and Hobbs thus became eminent and productive chemists.18
Handler, for his part, investigated formaldehyde-protein reactions, renal hypertension, and the disease pellagra (caused by a deficiency in the nicotinic acid vitamin), among many other topics. Arguably the most prolific researcher of the four chairmen, Handler authored or co- authored over 200 scientific papers and made vital contributions to understanding the mechanisms of enzyme functions in metabolism.19 Robertson was no slouch in terms of
personal research: universally considered a pioneer in high resolution electron microscopy
and inventor of the unit membrane concept, Robertson published 115 scientific articles and
one book (World Beneath the Microscope) over the course of his career.20 Former Duke
Chancellor for Health Affairs Ralph Snyderman celebrated how Robertson’s innovative
utilization of electron microscopy played an important role in elucidating the principles of
the cell and nervous system.21
Moreover, each of the four chairmen achieved prominence on the national scene—
especially through his leadership of professional organizations. Gross helped form the
17 Gross, Paul. “Revision of the Information Collected in 1939 at the request of the Chemical Warfare Service, War Department.” 19 July 1940. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 4. 18 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 81. 19 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985: 309 – 311. 20 “Duke Professor Elected to Head Microscopy Society.” Durham Sun 4 May 1983. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson; Robertson, J. David. “Membranes, Molecules, Nerves, and People.” Membrane Transport: People and Ideas. Ed. Dan Tosteson. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1989: 51 – 124. Box 3, J. David Robertson Reprints; “Duke to Recognize Dr. Robertson.” Durham Herald 14 June 1988. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 21 Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15. August 1992. Amit Patel/11
National Science Foundation in 1950 (serving on its board until 1962), helped lead the
founding of the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies in Tennessee, served as president of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and earned the President’s
Medal of Merit.22 Hobbs helped organize Research Triangle Park, spearheaded the creation
of the Office of Ordnance Research on Duke’s campus, and earned the United States
Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. Handler completed two six-year terms as
president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1969 to 1981 (during which time the
Academy enjoyed tremendous growth and expanded and reorganized the National Research
Council), coauthored three editions of the widely adopted Principles of Biochemistry textbook,
served on the President’s Science Advisory Committee under two American presidents, and
earned the National Medal of Science in 1981.23 Robertson was elected to the presidency of
the then-3100-member Electron Microscope Society of America in 1984.24 In this fashion,
these chairmen all dealt with the larger contexts of their disciplines in intimate ways.
The four chairmanships explored here span almost seventy years beginning in 1920,
when Southern higher education began to revive.25 The three departments illustrate
increasing success and greater degrees of innovation and leadership on a national level,
mirroring Duke’s rise as an institution over this time period. These strong science
22 Inventory, Paul Gross Papers; Handler, Philip. “Paul M. Gross, President Elect.” Science 133 (17 February 1961): 463 – 465. Handler, interestingly enough, published a tribute to Gross in Science upon Gross’s election to the presidency of the AAAS in 1961. 23 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985: 305. 24 “Duke Professor Elected to Head Microscopy Society.” Durham Sun 4 May 1983. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15. August 1992. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 25 Cartter, Allan M. “The Role of Higher Education in the Changing South.” The South in Continuity and Change. Eds. John C. McKinney and Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965: 277 – 297; Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966. Amit Patel/12 departments, both in the Arts and Sciences as well as in the Medical School, facilitated
Duke’s rise as a center of scientific preeminence in a region where few had considered it possible. Amit Patel/13
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Chapter 1: Blazing a Path for the Duke Sciences The Department of Chemistry at Duke University Under Drs. Paul Gross and Marcus Hobbs (1920 – 1954)
INTRODUCTION
A native of New York City, Paul Gross graduated from the City College of New
York in 1916 with a major in chemistry and earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from
Columbia University only three years later. While working towards his doctorate in 1918,
Gross married his sweetheart Gladys Cobb Peterson, with whom he would eventually have two children, Paul Junior and Beatrix. As Gross was finishing up his doctorate, Trinity alumnus George B. Pegram of Columbia recommended Gross to Duke University President
William Few to replace his father, recently retired Duke chemistry professor William H.
Pegram.26
When Gross arrived at Trinity College in 1919 after having earned the position on
the strength of the younger Pegram’s recommendation, he joined a Chemistry Department
that employed only one other faculty member—R. N. Wilson. After beginning as an
assistant professor of chemistry and teaching physical, fluorine, and organic chemistry,
Gross rose to the William H. Pegram Professorship the following year, and then became the
chairman of the Chemistry Department the year after that.
26 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 8. Amit Patel/14
Fig. 3: Gross, 195127 Fig. 4: Gross, undated28 Fig. 5: Hobbs, 200529
Chemistry, historian Robert Durden observed in his work The Launching of Duke University,
enjoyed a special advantage over other science departments when Gross chaired the
Department.30 Gross held onto this chairmanship for 27 years until he stepped down in
1948—a reign that would feature the growth and development of the Chemistry Department
as well as that of the institution then known as Trinity College, but soon to become Duke
University in 1924.31
Marcus Hobbs, after completing his undergraduate education at Duke, trained as a
graduate student at Duke under Gross. He then became an instructor in the Chemistry
Department upon earning his doctorate in 1935. Working his way up the departmental
ranks, Hobbs became the chairman of the Department of Chemistry in September 1951—
27 Palmer, Richard. “History of the Department.” Duke University Department of Chemistry. 19 September 2005
only two days after Gross recommended him to the post to replace John Saylor.32
Throughout his involvement with Duke, Hobbs worked closely with Gross, the two chemists –master and protégé- forming a powerful research and administrative team.33
Gross and Hobbs built the Department of Chemistry at Duke by using five principal strategies: (1) looking beyond Duke for models and advice, (2) seeking suitable space, (3) finding appropriate personnel, (4) emphasizing research, and (5) tapping the connections they had forged with entities outside of Duke. The two men relied on these strategies as they maneuvered around the budgetary constraints imposed on the Department by the
University.
1. LEARNING FROM OTHERS
When Gross ascended to the chairmanship, he looked to successful chemistry departments at other universities for advice on how to build Duke’s young Department of
Chemistry. Characteristically, Gross went right to the best: instead of communicating with fellow Southern institutions like Vanderbilt or the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he asked for advice on how to distribute resources from the oldest and most renowned chemistry departments across the country. Specifically, he solicited and received financial statements from places like Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, the
University of Chicago, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of
California-Berkeley.34
32 Letter from Paul Gross to John Saylor, 18 September 1951. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. 33 Gravatt, Cary. Personal Interview. 7 March 2006. 34 Letter from the Assistant Treasurer at The Johns Hopkins University to Paul Gross, 15 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Buckley to Amit Patel/16
In response to Gross’s inquiry on how to allot funds, A.A. Noyes, the director of the
Gates Chemical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, the leading American
physical chemist, and a talented administrator himself, offered Gross a piece of important
advice on how to distribute his resources: “resolutely resist the temptation to spread out in
new lines of scientific work before [you] have the funds to provide for those already existing
in a thoroughly satisfactory way.”35 Noyes had emphasized the chemical fields of inorganic
and physical chemistry at CalTech, while not pouring too many resources into the
subdisciplines of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical engineering.36 As we will
see later in this chapter, Gross made this advice from Noyes a central principle of his
administrative decision-making when he had to deal with limited resources. For example,
Gross built organic fluorine chemistry into a particularly strong subdiscipline at Duke.
Gross continually affirmed through his words and actions that resources should be used to
strengthen already sound enterprises instead of creating fledgling ones.37
In addition to following the advice of Noyes, Gross also learned much from the
great Dutch scientist Peter Debye. In 1929, Gross traveled to Leipzig to spend a year with
Debye, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1936 for work in structural and solution
chemistry.38 During this experience, Gross learned enough about molecular structure and
Paul Gross, 16 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from the Auditor at the University of Chicago to Paul Gross, 17 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from the Comptroller at the University of California- Berkeley to Paul Gross, 29 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 35 Letter from Paul Gross to A.A. Noyes, 10 January 1925. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 36 Letter from A.A. Noyes to Paul Gross, 18 February 1925. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 37 Handler, Philip. “Paul M. Gross, President Elect.” Science 133 (17 February 1961): 463 – 465. 38 Letter from Paul Gross to Peter Debye, 21 January 1937. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/17
dipole moments to come back to Duke and engage students in studies of solution chemistry.
Moreover, interacting with the premier figures in chemical research in Germany, especially
Debye, helped develop Gross’s abilities to stimulate and guide the research of others. Later,
Gross sought to make sure that his colleagues at Duke (especially Hobbs) built such
connections and enjoyed such experiences. According to the tribute to Gross written by
Duke biochemist Philip Handler, the year with Debye may well have represented the single
most important influence on Gross.39 Gross stayed in touch with Debye after their time
together, spending time with Debye when the Dutch scientist traveled to the United States
and even inviting him to come to Durham and stay at Gross’s residence.40 Although Debye
initially declined Gross’s offer to come to Durham because of time constraints, repeated
persuasion on Gross’s part convinced Debye to come to Duke and meet with members of
the Chemistry Department.41 This close association continued well into the mid-1960s:
Gross fed post-doctoral students like Cary Gravatt (his last doctoral student) to Debye’s lab
at Cornell after Debye had moved there in 1940.42
Throughout his career, Gross sought to build friendships with individuals outside of
Duke who might prove beneficial to the Chemistry Department. He often opened up his
home for visitors. For example, Gross arranged a group symposium on aqueous solutions
of non-electrolytes in the spring of 1937 and invited several of the attending chemists to stay
39 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 13-14; Handler, Philip. “Paul M. Gross, President Elect.” Science 133 (17 February 1961): 463 – 465. 40 Letter from Paul Gross to Peter Debye, 16 July 1936. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 41 Letter from Peter Debye to Paul Gross, 20 August 1936. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Telegram from Peter Debye to Paul Gross, 1 September 1936. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Peter Debye, 15 September 1936. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 42 Gravatt, Cary. Personal Interview. 7 March 2006. Amit Patel/18
in his home.43 Likewise, Gross offered hospitality to scholarly guests when the North
Carolina Chapter of the American Chemical Society and other organizations held meetings
in Durham and Chapel Hill.44 Gross also invited the Vice-President of E.I. duPont de
Nemours & Company (whose daughter attended Duke) to visit the chemistry laboratories at
Duke.45 This company later established a fellowship in the Chemistry Department,
illustrating how Gross’s growing connections with potential donors paid off for the benefit
of the Department.46 Through his constant search for opportunities to show off Duke and the Chemistry Department with gracious hospitality, Gross built connections that would later prove to be very useful.
Gross forged ties closer to home, too. He played a role in cooperation between
Duke and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Gross was one of five members of
the Duke community who served on the Joint Committee on Intellectual Cooperation
between the two schools.47 During Gross’s time as chairman, the Chemistry Department held joint seminars for graduate students of the two schools, cooperated with the chemistry department at Chapel Hill to sponsor visiting lecturers, and lent scientific apparatus back and forth between the two departments.48
43 Letter from Martin Kilpatrick to Paul Gross, 23 March 1937. Department of Chemistry, Box 1. 44 Letter from James Kendall to Paul Gross, 26 January 1937. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from K.R. Weidlein to Paul Gross, 12 March 1937. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Charles Smythe to Paul Gross, 31 March 1938. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 45 Letter from C.M.A. Stine to Paul Gross, 10 May 1935. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 46 Letter from the Duke University Department of Chemistry to Alumni, 15 January 1953. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. 47 Joint Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. “A Program of Cooperation: Duke University and the University of North Carolina.” 1935. Alice Mary Baldwin Papers, Box 9. 48 “Reports on Recent Cooperative Activity Between Duke University and the University of North Carolina.” 28 October 1937. Alice Mary Baldwin Papers, Box 9; Hanes, Frederic. Amit Patel/19
Gross also sought to pass on his connections to Hobbs and mold him into an
“academic statesman” like himself. He wrote to acquaintances at places like Washington
Square College in Manhattan (later New York University), Princeton University, and the
Bureau of Chemistry and Soils at the United States Department of Agriculture, seeking invitations for Hobbs to visit and learn about their laboratory facilities and research activities.49 Gross also enrolled Hobbs in a training course on the chemistry of explosives at
Washington University in St. Louis in 1940, affording him the opportunity to meet other
chemists and visit several munitions plants around the nation.50 Attending this course
allowed Hobbs to teach a similar course twice at Duke in 1941 that was over-enrolled both
times by individuals who sought employment in munitions plants or government arsenals.51
Of the 70 individuals Hobbs taught the first time, 43 placed into the explosives industry and of the remainder, only two were unemployed a year later, affording Hobbs even more connections in industry.52 When star Duke scientist Fritz London passed away in 1954,
Hobbs initiated a correspondence with Linus Pauling (among many others) to help seek a
“A Report on the Cooperative Activities of the University of North Carolina and Duke University.” Robert Lee Flowers Papers, Box 35. 49 Letter from Paul Gross to William West, undated. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Charles Smythe, 10 June 1936. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to O.R. Wulf, 10 June 1938. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 50 Letter from Paul Gross to C.B. Markham, 12 March 1940. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3; Hobbs, Marcus. Personal Interview. 25 March 2005. 51 Letter from A.S. Brower to Paul Gross, 6 September 1941. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3; Letter from R.A. Seaton to Paul Gross, 13 October 1941. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3; Letter from Paul Gross to John Studebaker, 9 October 1941. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3. 52 Letter from Marcus Hobbs to George W. Case, 26 September 1941. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/20
suitable replacement theoretical chemist for the Department.53 Hobbs certainly inherited
Gross’s sense of hospitality and social networking as he matured into a very capable
diplomat for the Department.
2. SECURING SPACE
Soon after becoming chair, Gross devoted the Department’s resources to a departmental library. Having a respectable collection of chemical literature was important, both to keep up with current research and help guide new research avenues. Because Duke was a fairly new institution, it lacked older journals. So when Gross embarked on trips to
Europe, he made sure to acquire back issues and full runs of journals like the Berichte der
deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft. Even when he was in Durham, Gross was always on the
lookout to accumulate materials; in 1935-1936, he purchased 86 volumes of books for the
library (not counting bound periodicals).54 Gross took a proprietary interest in the
departmental library. When it was built, his proposal for more plentiful shelving had been
vetoed. Years later, in 1934, Gross wrote that the current pressing need for more shelving in
the library would not have arisen if his original advice had been heeded.55
Gross also used the departmental library to network and cooperate with people
outside Duke. He shared his library with the chemists at nearby Wake Forest University,
sending them a list of the periodicals held at the library. Several of them used the facilities
53 Correspondence between Marcus Hobbs and Linus Pauling, April-May 1954.
and thanked Gross for this generous offer.56 Duke’s chemistry library was judged as the best in the Southeast and completely capable of supporting top quality research—another important facet in the manner Gross and Hobbs built up the Chemistry Department.57
Gross laid a solid foundation for the chemistry library: through the 1970s it was still considered the best university chemistry library in the South.58
More importantly, Gross led the Chemistry Department to construct a new building
for the Department on West Campus. Just as Gross had solicited advice from prominent
scholars in other chemistry departments when he became chairman at Duke about finances
and research allocation, he again looked to other universities for guidance in constructing,
furnishing, and equipping the Department’s new building. The Baker Laboratory at Cornell
University, the Sterling Laboratory at Yale University, Tufts University, the University of
Iowa, and the University of California-Berkeley sent or planned to make available their
building specifications to Gross.59
Noyes again helped out, advising Gross to make sure to install adequate research
laboratory space, build the freshman laboratories in small units, and install facilities like
56 Letter from Nevill Isbell to Paul Gross, 29 November 1939. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3. 57 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 14 July 1926. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. 58 “The Problems of Achievement.” Brochure. Duke’s Fifth Decade Program. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 59 Letter from Edward Bartow to Paul Gross, 17 November 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from L.M. Dennis to Paul Gross, 18 November 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Sterling Chemical Laboratory to Paul Gross, 20 November 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Frank Durkee to Paul Gross, 9 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Merle Randall to Paul Gross, 6 January 1925. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/22
balances, sinks, electrical connections, reagent shelving, and draft-hoods adjacent to desks.60
Gross took these lessons to heart: in a 1927 letter to then-treasurer Robert Lee Flowers,
Gross warned that, of recently constructed chemistry buildings around the country, “There have been two or three cases in which splendidly furnished and planned buildings have been put into service with pitifully inadequate equipment as to instruments and apparatus.”61 The
Department finally moved into its new building on West Campus in the spring of 1931 (the
Chemistry Department was the only department to have its own building on this new campus).62 Figure Six shows the building’s west elevation and Figure Seven illustrates the
first-floor blueprint. Similar to his proprietary approach towards the departmental library,
Gross would lock the labs in this new building every summer from August 15 to September
15 while he went away on vacation, keeping the Department’s research from continuing
without him. By the beginning of World War II, the chemistry building itself as well as its
laboratories and library were considered first-rate.63
60 Letter from A.A. Noyes to Paul Gross, 5 December 1924. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 61 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 22 November 1927. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 62 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 79. 63 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 16. Amit Patel/23
Figure 6: West Elevation of the Chemistry Building64
Figure 7: First-floor Blueprint for the Chemistry Building65
64 West Elevation of the Chemistry Building. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/24
Because the expanding Department outgrew even the new chemistry building, Gross
and Hobbs together made sure it remained a functional and modern space. In 1948, Gross
proposed several modifications to the building to subdivide the existing space and allow for
more laboratories.66 A July 1952 letter from Hobbs to A.S. Brower, Comptroller at Duke
University, noted several desired improvements to the Chemistry Building, including the
installation of fluorescent light fixtures, extra sinks, and laboratory desks in the research
laboratories, and high-capacity safety showers in the restrooms.67 Another letter from then-
Vice President Gross to Brower reiterated the required improvements in the chemistry
research laboratories that Hobbs had brought to Brower’s attention. Gross further warned
Brower, presumably in order to inspire him to action, that there had been remarkably little
improvement in some buildings’ facilities at Duke, including the Chemistry Building.68
3. ACQUIRING PERSONNEL
As the Chemistry Department grew, Handler observed in his tribute to Gross, Gross
exercised great discretion in selecting his faculty.69 Having become acquainted with German academia during his earlier visits, Gross kept his eyes open for an opportunity to snatch one of the brilliant German scientists displaced by the Nazis. He had in his possession a comprehensive list of these scientists on which he marked those names with whom he had
65 First-floor Blueprint for the Chemistry Building. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 66 “Chemistry Department Budget, 1948-1949.” Enclosure in letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 22 June 1948. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. 67 Letter from Marcus Hobbs to A.S. Brower, 17 July 1952. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. 68 Letter from Paul Gross to A.S. Brower, 25 July 1952. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. 69 Handler, Philip. “Paul M. Gross, President Elect.” Science 133 (17 February 1961): 463 – 465. Amit Patel/25
connections. Moreover, Gross drew on the Duke network. He had kept in close contact
with George Pegram, who had gotten Gross his initial position at Duke. Pegram in turn put
him in contact with an “Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars.”70
Most notable among his selections was Fritz London. London had studied under
future Nobel Prize winners like Schrodinger in Zurich and Fermi in Rome and worked in the
Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University in London. As did many other German Jewish scientists, London lost his position at a German institution: in his case, the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute in Berlin in 1933. He then emigrated first to England, then France.71 While
London worked at the Institute Henri Poincaré of the University of Paris, Gross began to correspond with him regularly. The Duke chemist convinced London to try Duke for a semester as a visiting lecturer (Fall 1938), and then decide whether to stay there for the long run. Gross had to call on several of his friends in the Northeast, including Pegram, to help
London overcome problems with American immigration authorities at Ellis Island.72
London finally got to Durham safely, where Gross persuaded him to sign on as permanent member of the chemistry faculty. Although London conducted work relevant to both chemistry and physics, Gross christened him as a theoretical chemist. After a trip to Europe to fetch his family, London returned in 1939 to housing in Durham arranged by Hobbs.73
Tragically, London died of a heart attack in 1954, cutting short his promising career.74
70 List of Displaced German Scientists, undated. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from George Pegram to Paul Gross, 24 November 1933. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 71 “London, Fritz.” Duke Physics. 16 December 2005
Nonetheless, London’s work in low-temperature physics won him and Duke widespread
recognition. During a 1945 visit to the United States, for example, Manuel Gran, Dean of
the Faculty of Physics at the University of Havana in Cuba, expressed a strong desire to
come to Duke to discuss with Gross and London the work taking place in the Chemistry
Department.75
Gross found able chemistry faculty both outside Duke and within Duke. He
brought a classmate of his from Columbia, Warren Vosburgh, from the University of Iowa
to Duke as an assistant professor in 1928; Vosburgh became a productive electrochemist. In
1929, Gross brought Lucius Bigelow, whose success in organic fluorine chemistry will be
discussed later in this chapter, from Brown University to Duke as an assistant professor.76
Interestingly, Bigelow made a commitment to Gross for the long haul, explaining in his acceptance letter to Gross that he was “casting my lot with your department.”77 Gross also
sought to develop both of these chemists, who became longtime members of Duke’s
Chemistry Department, by involving them in exchange professorships: Gross sent both
chemists (Vosburgh in 1932-1933 and Bigelow in 1933-1934) to the University of
Edinburgh, where his former advisor from Columbia had moved.78
From within the University, Gross hired Duke’s own graduates: in 1928, John Saylor,
who specialized in solution studies on organic substances; in 1935, Hobbs, who specialized
in dielectrics, dipoles, and vapor pressures; and in 1939, Charles Bradsher, a former Duke
75 Letter from William Wannamaker to Paul Gross, 12 April 1945. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3. 76 Letter from Paul Gross to Lucius Bigelow, 15 May 1929. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Correspondence between Paul Gross and Lucius Bigelow, 1928-1929. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 4. 77 Letter from Lucius Bigelow to Paul Gross, 21 May 1929. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 78 Letter from Paul Gross to Warren Vosburgh, 14 April 1933. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/27
undergraduate who specialized in organic chemistry. All three of these men eventually
served as chairmen of the Chemistry Department after Gross. 79 Gross also tried to make
sure his colleagues got the chance to interact with their fellow American chemists,
encouraging them to present papers at meetings of the American Chemical Society and
convincing the university administration to cover their travel expenses.80 Likewise, Gross
arranged with his acquaintance Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology to
have Saylor spend the fall semester of 1941 there on sabbatical leave, giving Saylor a chance
to make connections and interact with members of CalTech’s illustrious Chemistry
Department.81
4. PROMOTING RESEARCH
Gross and Hobbs encouraged research in the Chemistry Department. They engaged
in impressive projects of their own, each earning reputations as prolific researchers.82 Gross
conducted research in the areas of organic fluorinated compounds, Soret coefficients of
electrolytes, hexocyclohexams, solubilities of compounds in aqueous salt solutions, chemical
79 Letter from Paul Gross to W.H. Wannamaker, 27 February 1930. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 79-80. 80 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 18 January 1932. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 10 March 1932. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 81 Letter from Paul Gross to Linus Pauling, 18 March 1941. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 4; Letter from Linus Pauling to Paul Gross, 21 March 1941. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 4. 82 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993: 81. Amit Patel/28
composition of tobacco tissues, and batteries.83 Between 1916 and 1942, Gross authored or
co-authored 54 papers and one book as well as acquiring six patents.84 Hobbs, among many
other research endeavors, investigated the presence of nickel and “tar” in tobacco smoke,
dielectric constants, dipole moments, vapor pressures, and molecular interactions.85 A highly productive scholar, in the four years between 1939 and 1943, Hobbs authored or co- authored 15 publications.86 In a 1938 response to a query from a professor at the University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill about faculty research, Gross showed that, out of all the
science departments at Duke, the Chemistry Department had the most individuals engaged
in active research: ten of its eleven staff members carried out research programs (physics and
zoology tied for second place with eight individuals each).87
Led by Gross and Hobbs, the Chemistry Department at Duke became a prominent
center for the study of organic fluorine compounds.88 This choice of research concentration
was prudent, because the field bore many practical commercial applications in
pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, plastics, electronics, solvents, and refrigerants. This, in turn,
facilitated collaborations with industry: most notably, the nuclear power industry, because of
83 “Publications of Dr. Paul Gross for the Period from July 1, 1951 through August 31, 1952.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 18; Memorandum to Dr. Marcus E. Hobbs on October 11, 1951. Paul Gross Papers. 84 “Publications of Paul Gross.” Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. 85 Gross, Paul. “Revision of the Information Collected in 1939 at the request of the Chemical Warfare Service, War Department.” 19 July 1940. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 4. 86 “Dr. Marcus Hobbs: Publications.” Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. 87 Letter from Paul Gross to Frank Cameron, 9 March 1938. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 3. 88 Handler, Philip. “Paul M. Gross, President Elect.” Science 133 (17 February 1961): 463 – 465. Amit Patel/29
the importance of fluorine chemistry in both the isotopic enrichment of uranium and the
reprocessing of fuels.89
Because of his extensive administrative responsibilities, Gross tapped Bigelow to take charge of the fluorine chemistry research that had represented a long-term interest of
Gross’s. Bigelow and his students developed techniques for fluorinating a variety of organic
compounds that could then be investigated for structure, physical properties, and chemical behavior, ultimately gaining him recognition as the best fluorine chemistry expert in the
South. In the early 1950s, Bigelow worked out a new flexible method for fluorinating organic compounds (especially for nitrogen-containing compounds) at low temperatures.
Moreover, his students began organic fluorine research endeavors elsewhere, including
Cornell University, the University of Florida, and industrial labs.90 In the new chemistry
building on West Campus, an explosives lab was built primarily for fluorine chemistry
because it represented a rather dangerous subdiscipline. Gravatt remembered how fluorine
research had represented a major aspect of the Department.91
Not surprisingly considering the origins of Duke University, the Chemistry
Department engaged in research activities related to tobacco, the largest industry in North
Carolina for most of Gross and Hobbs’s chairmanships. Most notably, Duke chemists
helped develop a new type of tobacco (which they called “Oxford 26”) that was resistant to
Granville wilt, a particularly menacing soil-borne bacterial disease in North Carolina. A 1944
89 Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966: 121, 128. The only volatile uranium compound suitable for separating uranium isotopes is uranium hexafluoride, forging fluorine chemistry’s central role later in the nuclear power industry. 90 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 13; Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966: 123. 91 Gravatt, Cary. Personal Interview. 7 March 2006. Amit Patel/30
publicity release praised this achievement as saving, by conservative estimates, over
$1,500,000 for the farmers of Granville County alone.92 In fact, Gross and Hobbs set up a
tobacco research fund for this kind of research with the help of Liggett and Myers Tobacco
Company.93 Moreover, Gross also pointed to the research contributions of the Chemistry
Department in sparking the cigarette paper industry in North Carolina (almost all fine
cigarette paper had been produced in France before). This industry, he explained, had
brought over $10,000,000 to the state and provided jobs for several thousand people.94
A report by Professor Bigelow in 1948, the last year of Gross’s term as chairman of
the Chemistry Department, lauded the Department’s current and active research in voltaic
cells, batteries and complex ions, direct and indirect fluorination of organic compounds,
organic condensations and electronic theory, carcinogenic hydrocarbons and their
derivatives, fungicides, spectrophotometry, and reaction kinetics. Moreover, the Chemistry
Department had penned publications that encompassed an impressive range of research areas, including experimental work in agricultural biochemistry, the more conventional fields
of inorganic, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry, and work on the more theoretical
aspects of chemical physics.95 In short, the Chemistry Department was conducting some
notably successful and exciting research. Gross was certainly proud of the research carried
on by the Chemistry Department: he sent high-ranking administrators at Duke reprints of
publications by members of the Department every chance he had.96 Moreover, Gross and
92 Enclosure in letter from Paul Gross to Everett Weatherspoon, 1 April 1945. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. 93 Letter from Paul Gross to G.C. Henricksen, 19 June 1952. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 1. 94 Enclosure in letter from Paul Gross to Everett Weatherspoon, 1 April 1945. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. 95 “Dr. Bigelow’s Report.” 18 February 1948. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 96 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 29 May 1930. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 27 June 1931. Department Amit Patel/31
Hobbs’s participation on and leadership of Duke University’s Research Council revealed
how they both placed a high priority on research for the University as a whole.
5. TAPPING CONNECTIONS
World War II was a pivotal era for the growth of connections among academia,
government, and private industry. Impelled by the need to develop weapons and other military goods, the government turned to academia and corporations to undertake research
and development. Gross and Hobbs led the Chemistry Department into this complicated
web of military-industrial endeavors with the Frangible Bullet Project.97 This project,
probably the most significant research contribution by Duke University to the war effort,
formulated a better way to train aerial gunners for combat by employing projectiles that
would mimic the flight trajectory of actual bullets but spread out upon impact with an armored target airplane (hence, the term frangible).98
Throughout the various phases of this project -the identification of a problem, the origins of an idea to solve this problem, the acquisition of funding, the actual research, and
the implementation of findings into practical application- Duke chemists led by Gross and
Hobbs cooperated closely with government agencies (the Office of Scientific Research and
Development and the Army Air Force) and private industries (the Bakelite Corporation,
Corning Glass Works, and the Bell Aircraft Corporation). The military initiated the project
of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 27 June 1934. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 22 June 1935. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 97 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 16. 98 Baxter, James Phinney. Scientists Against Time. Little, Brown, and Company: Boston, 1946: 192-193. Amit Patel/32
shortly after Pearl Harbor, when it realized the inadequacy of its training methods for aerial
gunners. In particular, the military lacked the technology to simulate battle conditions for its gunners, relying on such inadequate methods as BB machine guns and plane models or
camera guns. These methods resembled “training a prize fighter for a championship bout
without sparring partners and with shadowboxing alone.”99 Without realistic training,
airborne gunners went into combat woefully unprepared; mortality rates were high. Seeking
more realistic and effective training, in April 1942 Captain Cameron D. Fairchild of the
Harlingen Army Gunnery School wrote to a number of universities. His letter stated: “We
are interested in securing as quickly as possible aids in teaching gunnery under conditions
simulating actual combat.”100
At the time also chair of the Research Council at Duke, Gross saw Fairchild’s
invitation as a golden opportunity for the Chemistry Department. He initiated a
correspondence with the Captain, and traveled to the Harlingen Army Gunnery School to
meet him at the beginning of June 1942. After returning to Duke, Gross solicited the help
of Hobbs. The two coordinated a project that developed better tools for training aerial
gunners for combat.101 Gross and Hobbs sent some model projectiles to Fairchild, who
successfully demonstrated their potential to two generals. Gross and Hobbs then
experimented with various glass projectiles with mixed results.
Unsatisfied with glass as the sole material for the projectiles, Gross and Hobbs
turned to private industry. They proposed a plastic projectile made of Bakelite. Interestingly
enough, Hobbs and Gross were good friends with the then-director and chief executive
99 “Brittle Bullets Give Air Gunners Combat Practice.” Popular Science. May 1945: 86-87, 228, 234. 100 Letter from Cameron Fairchild to William Few, 23 April 1942. Paul Gross Papers, Box 3. 101 Baxter, James Phinney. Scientists Against Time. Little, Brown, and Company: Boston, 1946: 192-193. Amit Patel/33
officer of the Bakelite Corporation, whose son was also working with Hobbs as a graduate
student. Gross and Hobbs linked government and industry to help the Chemistry
Department secure this important project.102
Gross then used his networks to secure both funding and personnel for the project.
To help win funding for the project, Gross informed Fairchild of the National Defense
Research Committee, which helped to fund war research.103 Duke soon received a contract
from the OSRD (the contract-giving arm of the NDRC) to pursue work on a bullet that
would permit simulated combat for the training of aerial gunners.104 This contract allowed
Duke to recompense workers from the Bakelite Corporation and the Corning Glass Works
for assistance with the plastic and glass facets of the project: specifically, the production of appropriate materials for experiments and trials. In an exchange of letters in early April
1944, Gross and Archie J. Weith, Bakelite’s Director of Research and Development, discussed how Bakelite had matched appropriate personnel with the project. Gross and
Weith then cooperated to ensure that these men, who understood the intricacies of the project, continued to work on it. Later in 1944, Gross and Weith successfully appealed to
George W. Bailey, Chief of the Scientific Personnel Office at the OSRD, to secure the retention of these men because they were so important to the outcome of the project.105
With the national organization thus providing the funding to keep the necessary personnel employed, the University and its industrial partners could concentrate on developing the project together.
102 Hobbs, Marcus. Personal Interview. 25 March 2005; Correspondence in Boxes 3 and 4, Paul Gross Papers; Materials in the World War II Collection at the Duke University Archives. 103 Letter from Paul Gross to Cameron Fairchild, 6 July 1942. Paul Gross Papers, Box 3. 104 Contract OEMsr-1284 105 Correspondence between Paul Gross and Archie Weith, 1942-1944. Paul Gross Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/34
The actual research and production featured intense cooperation between Duke scientists and industrial workers, as well as the government. As the Duke scientists embarked on developing a suitable frangible bullet, the Bakelite Corporation manufactured many rounds of slugs which the Duke scientists modified in their machine shops to use for research. After a suitable version of the bullet was finally developed, industry met the demand for these bullets. Formed to supervise and streamline the production of the bullets, an Industry Integration Committee matched thirteen companies that possessed sufficient hydraulic press capacity with the project. With the assistance of the Small Arms Division of the Ammunition Branch to accelerate the process, nine of these companies undertook the molding of the frangible bullets and churned out five million slugs in impressive fashion by
December 18, 1944. Likewise, Duke scientists, in conjunction with several machinists led by mechanic Fred Kuhn of the Chemistry Department, developed versions of a specially designed machine gun that could fire these lead-filled Bakelite projectiles at the proper velocities.106
Fairchild and the Army Air Force offered Laredo Army Air Field to run trials, testing the entire apparatus. Hobbs described some of these earlier trials: a circular track was set up, and an airplane flew around the track, separated by half the distance from a jeep from which the bullets were fired. In the process of these trials, Gross and Hobbs developed ties with military officers. Hobbs worked with a major from the Army Air Force on a training project related to the frangible-bullet technique. Together, they developed the idea of using an experienced gunner in a “master” turret and a student simultaneously in a “slave” turret to
106 Hobbs, Marcus. Personal Interview. 25 March 2005; “The T-44 Frangible Bullet.” Modern Plastics. May 1945. Paul Gross Papers, Box 4. Amit Patel/35
enhance the training of aerial gunners.107 Over the course of their work together, the Duke
scientist and the Army major became close friends. The photograph in Figure Eight
illustrates the relationships between academia and the military. Gross, Hobbs, Fairchild, and
other Army Air Force officers posed together in front of a B-26 bomber at Laredo, illustrating the literal shoulder-to-shoulder cooperation of Gross and Hobbs with individuals
from the military.
107 “Project Summary for Division II of the NDRC, June 1 – August 1, 1945.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 4; Hobbs, Marcus. Personal Interview. 25 March 2005. Amit Patel/36
Figure 8: The Frangible Bullet Project, Trials at the Laredo Army Air Field108
Just as Duke scientists were developing the frangible bullet, the objective of this
bullet in the proposed training technique, a special modified target airplane, had to be
developed. When the idea of using a special target airplane in conjunction with the frangible
bullet was conceived, Hobbs traveled to Washington to pitch the idea to a Colonel from the
Army Air Force, who quickly approved of the idea and helped ensure the availability of
108 “Duke Scientists Aid Air Force By Creation of Frangible Bullet.” Duke Alumni Register. February 1947: 38. Amit Patel/37
target airplanes, which would have to be modified for the proposed system of training. The
Bell Aircraft Corporation thus took responsibility for modifying planes for the training
technique. Changes made to the Kingcobra P-63 airplanes by Bell included bullet-proof
glass, steel grilles over the air intake, steel protection of exhaust stacks, almost a ton of
duralumin armor plating, an electrical amplification system to pick up hits by bullets through vibrations in the armor plating, and an indicator light in the nose of the target plane that lit
up with a successful hit. The project summary sent to the NDRC for the period covering
October 1 to November 30 of 1944 mentions ongoing research conducted at Duke
investigating the relation between the mechanical properties of Dural armor and its
resistance to perforation by the T-44 frangible projectile, illustrating how these two halves of the proposed training technique had to fit together. Larry Bell, the President of the Bell
Aircraft Corporation, wrote Gross to thank him for the part Duke scientists played in developing the frangible bullet used with these modified RP-63 airplanes at the Army Air
Force Training Command School of Flexible Gunnery. Gross’s diplomatic response to Bell
highlighted the coordination between the various entities involved in the project: “this has
not been the result of the efforts of any one man or group, but has come about as the result
of the combined effort that a number of civilian and Army organizations have put into it
over a period of nearly three years.”109
While May 29, 1945 featured the first successful air-to-air firings, this close
coordination continued into the implementation of the training system. The overall training
technique was first implemented at the Army Air Force Field in Laredo, where the officers
in charge of training referred to scientists on how to conduct the training sessions. The
109 Correspondence between Paul Gross and Larry Bell, March 1945. Paul Gross Papers, Box 4; “Project Summary for Division II of the NDRC, October 1 – November 30, 1944.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 4. Amit Patel/38
project summary sent to the NDRC for the period covering June 1 to August 1 of 1945, for
example, reveals work conducted at Duke as to whether pure-pursuit or lead-pursuit courses
would be most appropriate and advantageous for the RP-63 target airplane to fly when
“attacking” the bomber in the frangible bullet training technique.110 As Hobbs noted, the
participants ran into these types of troubles between concept and implementation.111 By V-J
Day student gunners had fired about 13,000,000 rounds of frangible bullets at 300 specially
modified RP-63 target airplanes in seven American gunnery schools- all without injuring a single
pilot of a target plane.112
The preface to the final report for “The Frangible Bullet for Use in Aerial Gunnery
Training” highlighted this outstanding cooperation between the numerous groups involved
in carrying the program to this successful conclusion.113 Under the atmosphere of concern
brought by World War II, Vannevar Bush hailed the exceptional professional partnership
that developed between the sectors of academia, government, and industry and that
“exemplified the spirit of America at its strongest and best.”114 The Frangible Bullet Project
demonstrates in a compelling way how Gross and Hobbs networked and cooperated with
individuals outside of Duke both to bring a remarkable opportunity to the Chemistry
Department and to serve their nation during war.
The success of Duke-military collaboration during the Frangible Bullet Project and
related projects brought post-war benefits to the University. In 1951, the United States
110 “Project Summary for Division II of the NDRC, June 1 – August 1, 1945.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 4. 111 Hobbs, Marcus. Personal Interview. 25 March 2005. 112 Baxter, James Phinney. Scientists Against Time. Little, Brown, and Company: Boston, 1946: 192-193. 113 “The Final Report for ‘The Frangible Bullet for Use in Aerial Gunnery Training.’” NDRC Report No. A-473/OSRD Report No. 6625. Paul Gross Papers, Box 4. 114 Baxter, James Phinney. Scientists Against Time. Little, Brown, and Company: Boston, 1946: viii. Amit Patel/39
Army situated its Office of Ordnance Research (OOR; renamed the Army Research Office
Durham, or AROD, in 1961) on Duke’s campus as a thank-you to Gross and Hobbs for the
Frangible Bullet Project.115 This office aimed to fund basic research projects at civilian
research institutions and coordinate these projects with army research installations.116 At
Gross’s request, Hobbs served as Acting Chief Scientist of the OOR for a time, service for which the Army awarded him its Outstanding Civilian Service Award.117 Because he had
worked with the Army, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and the Navy
during World War II, Hobbs was well-prepared for this position and led the OOR admirably
during his term. Nonetheless, Hobbs gave much credit to Gross for being the right person to take advantage of the opportunity to house the OOR on Duke’s campus and also successfully pushing for a new facility in 1958 as its programs and responsibilities
expanded.118
Impressed with the discussions and debates at the OOR, one administrator
compared the conferences there to “intellectual strip-teases;” presumably, he meant that he
found them exciting and stimulating.119 Figure Nine depicts such an ordnance conference at
the OOR at Duke in 1951 presided over by Hobbs (then Acting Chief Scientist of the OOR)
that included scientists from universities and government arsenals. Figure Ten shows the
115 White, Peregrine. “U.S. Army Research Office (Durham): A Historical Summary.” 1 November 1961. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 3; Gravatt, Cary. Personal Interview. 7 March 2006. 116 “Office of Ordnance Research: A Statement of Mission, Organization, and Policy.” April 1953. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 3. 117 Palmer, Richard. “History of the Department.” Duke University Department of Chemistry. 19 Sept. 2005
Figure 9: 1951 Ordnance Conference at the Figure 10: 1952 OOR Funding OOR at Duke (Hobbs is standing in the Breakdown by Divisions122 center)121
Although moved from Duke’s campus to elsewhere in Durham in response to student protests during the Vietnam War, the OOR (and later the AROD) facilitated federal funding to Duke, provided job opportunities for Duke students, and enlisted Duke faculty to act as peer reviewers for grant proposals while many of its employees taught Duke students as adjunct professors in science and engineering departments.123 In fact, four senior members
120 Hobbs, Marcus. “Establishment of the Office of Ordnance Research.” 14 June 1961. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 5. 121 Photograph enclosed with letter from Herbert I. Fusfeld to Marcus Hobbs, 13 January 1961. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 3. 122 “Basic Research by Divisions- OOR.” 5 January 1952. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 5. 123 Gravatt, Cary. Personal Interview. 7 March 2006. Amit Patel/41
of the Chemistry Department (Hobbs, John Saylor, Charles Bradsher, and Warren
Vosburgh) were under contract with the OOR during its first years.124
In the post-war era, the Chemistry Department under Hobbs continued its
relationship with industry, and also drew on the resources of private foundations. In 1952,
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in an effort to develop graduate
education in the South, instituted a five-year program whereby it granted Duke $60,000 each
year for faculty salaries and graduate awards.125 In 1954, Gross penned a “Statement
Relative to the Value of Carnegie Funds for the Advancement of Teaching Program at Duke
University” in which he praised how the Carnegie funds had enabled Duke to retain key professors and to bring in graduate students against competition from other universities.126
Funds from outside the University in this case had tangible benefits for the Chemistry
Department and the University as a whole.
The Carnegie grant was far from the only source of outside funding for the
Chemistry Department. Gross convinced the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation to establish a fellowship for $1,500 yearly in organic chemistry at Duke in 1946 (Gross had already suggested a student that the fellowship was awarded to in its first year).127 A letter
from the Chemistry Department to its alumni in 1953, when Hobbs led the Department,
noted that the following companies had established fellowships in the Department: Allied
Chemical and Dye Corporation, American Cyanamid Company, Carbide and Carbon
124 “Duke OOR Contract Scientific Personnel.” Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 5. 125 “Development of Graduate Education in the South: A Five-Year Program Beginning with 1952-1953.” Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1 February 1953. Paul Gross Papers, Box 10. 126 Gross, Paul. “Statement Relative to the Value of Carnegie Funds for the Advancement of Teaching Program at Duke University, Covering the Three Years of the Program.” 5 May 1954. Paul Gross Papers, Box 10. 127 Letter from George Curme to Robert Lee Flowers, 19 February 1946. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 5. Amit Patel/42
Chemicals Corporation (the aforementioned fellowship), E.I. du Pont de Nemours and
Company (this fellowship was also mentioned earlier), Eli Lilly Company, Monsanto
Corporation, and, reflecting Duke’s origins, several tobacco companies.128 For example, in
1952 Gross and Hobbs successfully urged the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company to establish a tobacco research fund at Duke that allowed for two more fellowships in the
Department.129 Likewise, the American Tobacco Company sponsored tobacco chemistry research (including two post-doctoral fellows) in the Department at Hobbs’s request.130
Moreover, Hobbs’s letter to alumni mentioned the departmental fellowships and/or research assistantships sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Allegany Ballistics
Laboratory, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Army Chemical Corps, the Office of Naval
Research, the Office of Ordnance Research, the Office of Scientific Research of the Air
Force, and the United States Public Health Service.131 In short, Gross and Hobbs facilitated
cooperation between the Chemistry Department and both corporate and government
entities that served to strengthen the Department.
MAKING DO WITH LIMITED FUNDS
Gross and Hobbs followed their five strategies against a background of a constant
lack of funds. Despite frequent appeals to the University for more money for the
Department, Gross and Hobbs did not enjoy the benefits of unrestrained budgets as they
128 Letter from the Duke University Department of Chemistry to Alumni, 15 January 1953. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. 129 Letter from Paul Gross to G.C. Henricksen, 19 June 1952. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 1. 130 Letter from Marcus Hobbs to H.R. Hanmer, 23 May 1958. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 2; Letter from Marcus Hobbs to H.R. Hanmer, 6 June 1958. Marcus Hobbs Papers, Box 2. 131 Letter from the Duke University Department of Chemistry to Alumni, 15 January 1953. Paul Gross Papers, Box 18. Amit Patel/43
built the Department. Even as the Department enjoyed success in attracting government
and private resources after World War II, Gross complained about a lack of financial
support from the University. In a 1952 memorandum, he lamented how funding for
chemistry had deteriorated since the founding of the University, making operations increasingly difficult.132 More specifically, chemistry faculty of all ranks did not appear to
earn more than their counterparts in other departments; if anything, they appeared to make
slightly less, according to the budget for the 1940-1941 academic year.133 In fact, Fritz
London (at $4500) did not even receive the highest salary of incoming professors at Duke for the 1939-1940 academic year, despite his international renown and obvious potential.
Instead, a forestry professor received $5500 and an associate professor in education received
$4000.134
In addition, the University offered only limited funds to support research and
facilities for chemists, making it difficult for Gross and Hobbs to attract personnel. In a
1929 letter to then-treasurer Robert Flowers at the beginning of the Great Depression,
Gross lamented how members of his department had to spend lots of time making
equipment because limited university funds could not cover everything they needed. In fact,
Gross explained to Flowers, the lack of research funding and the ensuing necessity of inventing time-consuming ways to make up for this lack of funding led to one faculty member’s departure and “I am afraid that we will have the same experience with other men
132 Gross, Paul. “Memorandum Concerning the Greater Financial Picture in the University.” 13 February 1952. Paul Gross Papers, Box 17. 133 “Budget for 1940-1941.” Robert Lee Flowers Papers, Box 32. 134 “Incoming Members of the Teaching Staff, 1939-1940.” Robert Lee Flowers Papers, Box 32. Amit Patel/44
unless we can provide adequate funds to carry on the work of the department.”135 In a 1933
letter to his colleague Vosburgh (who was in Scotland on the aforementioned exchange
professorship), Gross discussed how they would probably face a 10% salary cut for the upcoming year due to the deepening Great Depression and that he would try his best to take
up some of the deficit into laboratory budgets.136 In a 1935 letter to Flowers, Gross
admitted that the Chemistry Department was still somewhat handicapped by a constrained
budget that prevented them from acquiring instruments and other equipment.137
This need for more University funding extended into the realm of academic salaries
throughout Gross’s and Hobbs’s terms as chairmen. A 1948 letter from Gross to William
Wannamaker (then Dean of Trinity College and Vice President of Education) admitted that, even with the hefty raises he proposed, Duke academic salaries would still be below the level of those paid in most comparable institutions.138 In a report compiled by the American
Association of University Professors in 1960 (a small selection of data from this report is
included in Figure 11), Duke academic salaries for full professors for the 1939-1940
academic year lagged 21% behind institutions like Brown, Hopkins, Dartmouth, Princeton,
and Rochester, and for the 1949-1950 academic year lagged 37% behind institutions like
Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Yale. Without competitive salaries, Gross
and Hobbs could not just bring any chemist they wanted to the Department, they had to sell
their department and institution to the prospective faculty member.
135 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 18 June 1929. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 136 Letter from Paul Gross to Warren Vosburgh, 14 April 1933. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 137 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 22 June 1935. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 138 Letter from Paul Gross to William Wannamaker, 3 April 1948. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. Amit Patel/45
Academic Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, California, Year Emory, Rice, Oberlin, Hopkins, Cornell, Illinois, and Stanford, and Dartmouth, Harvard, Michigan, Vanderbilt Washington- Princeton, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, St. Louis and and Yale and Rochester Wisconsin 1939-1940 +2 -9 -21 Not available -5 1949-1950 +2 -13 -11 -37 -16 Figure 11: Percentage Difference between Average Academic Salaries for Full Professors at Duke University and Other Institutions (a minus sign indicates the Duke salary is lower) 139
Gross and Hobbs also looked to save money, however small the amounts, especially during the Great Depression. A 1933 memorandum from Gross to the Chemistry
Department entitled “To Reduce Expenditures” suggested even the smallest measures: using fewer stencils, more board writing instead of typed examinations, only using University stationery for departmental letters, less typing of directions, and placing orders together to save on postage costs.140 While the levels of adherence to Gross’s suggestions are unknown, this memorandum conveys his apprehensive state of mind regarding departmental funds and his sense of responsibility for the Department. Similarly, the astute Gross requested increased funding from President Flowers in 1945 for capital expenditures to take advantage of various pieces of chemical equipment that would be available at reduced prices following the termination of war contracts in the near future.141
Clearly, Gross and Hobbs made important choices about allocating the funds that the University gave to the Department. They had to pick their battles when requesting more
139 “Academic Salaries at Duke.” American Association of University Professors, Duke Chapter. 15 February 1960. Paul Gross Papers, Box 10. 140 Gross, Paul [?]. “To Reduce Expenditures.” Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1. 141 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 16 July 1945. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 2. Amit Patel/46
funds, making sure that the money they did receive was used wisely. They then doled out
the Department’s resources shrewdly, strengthening endeavors they deemed necessary (as
Noyes had advised), like the Chemistry Library or a specialized focus in organic fluorine
research. This approach to the distribution of resources worked successfully: as Gross later
pointed out in a speech he made to the Conference of Deans of Southern Graduate Schools
in New Orleans in 1952, “our institutions should carefully scrutinize their possible resources
and not attempt, as they often do, to stretch these so thin over the academic offerings that
there is but little solid substance in many of the fields that are offered, at least in terms of
modern university standards in this country.”142
Moreover, relying on the corporate and government partnerships described above to
supplement University funding helped the Chemistry Department a great deal. Gross and
Hobbs constantly corresponded with individuals from these entities, always pressing for these partnerships through diplomatic means. For example, in 1946 Gross wrote a detailed but unsuccessful “Proposal for a Cooperative Research Program on Large Molecules” in which he hoped to involve the Bakelite Corporation and the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals
Corporation on a large scale.143 In a 1948 letter to President Flowers to request more
University funds for the Department, Gross reminded Flowers of the Chemistry
Department’s five or six outside contracts that helped return substantial amounts of money to the University as overhead.144 In this fashion, both through a careful allotment of
142 Gross Paul. Speech at Conference of Deans of Southern Graduate Schools, New Orleans. 23 November 1952. Paul Gross Papers, Box 10. 143 Gross, Paul. “Proposal for a Cooperative Research Program on Large Molecules.” Department of Chemistry Records, Box 5; Letter from Archie Weith to Paul Gross, 11 April 1946. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 5. 144 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 22 June 1948. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 6. Amit Patel/47
resources to stronger endeavors and through partnerships with corporate and government
agencies, Gross and Hobbs overcame the problem of limited funding from the University.
CONCLUSION
Numbers attest to the success of Gross and Hobbs in building a strong Department
of Chemistry; by the end of their terms as chairmen, the Chemistry Department had
graduated the most doctorates of any department at Duke University.145 In terms of applications for graduate appointments for the 1947-1948 academic year, chemistry ranked as the second-most attractive department at Duke, behind the Department of English.146
For the 1957-1958 academic year, the Chemistry Department had the most salaried graduate assistantships of any department at Duke.147 From only Wilson and Gross in 1921, the
Department had grown to include twelve full-time faculty members by 1940, and would
continue growing through Hobbs’s term as chairman.148 Clearly, the Chemistry Department under Gross and Hobbs indeed became a noticeably strong department at Duke.149
After leading the Department of Chemistry, both Gross and Hobbs went on to
assume high positions in University administration at Duke. Gross served as Chair of the
Research Council, Dean of the Graduate School (1947-1952), Dean of the University (1952-
145 “The Problems of Achievement.” Brochure. Duke’s Fifth Decade Program. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 146 “Applications for Graduate Appointments, 1947-1948.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 1. 147 “Proposed Awards for 1957-1958, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 16. 148 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 16. 149 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993: 82. Amit Patel/48
1958), and Vice President for Education (1949-1960).150 Similarly, Hobbs served as Dean of the Graduate School, Dean of the University, Vice Provost, and Provost.151 In these high-
ranking positions, Gross and Hobbs continued to utilize their administrative and social skills
for the benefit of Duke (though at the expense of the Chemistry Department, which had lost
two incredibly talented scientists and leaders).
In 1959, moreover, the administration formed a University Committee on Long-
Range Planning that featured Gross as chairman and Hobbs as vice chairman. In its first
published report (it published three reports), the Committee declared that the University’s
needs could be broken down into three categories: faculty salaries, facilities, and “adding
strength where strength exists” (concentrating resources, as Noyes had imparted to
Gross).152 As seen throughout this chapter, these three categories represented important themes for Gross and Hobbs in their experiences as chairmen of the Chemistry Department.
Gross and Hobbs were “academic statesmen” in every sense of the title, building
connections outside of Duke as they acted as ambassadors on its behalf. Gross organized
the Council of Southern Universities in 1952 and served as its first president, helped form the National Science Foundation and served on its board until 1962, served as a charter member of the Board of Governors of the Research Triangle Institute, acted as one of the
five incorporators of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (now Oak Ridge Associated
Universities), served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of
150 Inventory, Paul Gross Papers. 151 Palmer, Richard. “History of the Department.” Duke University Department of Chemistry. 19 Sept. 2005
Science in 1962, and earned the President’s Medal of Merit.153 Upon Gross’s election to the
Presidency of the AAAS in 1961, Philip Handler proclaimed Gross “one of the principal architects” of Duke’s rise since James B. Duke’s bequest in 1924.154 Hobbs led the
organization of the Office of Ordnance Research on Duke’s campus (later to become the
United States Army Research Office in Durham) and earned the United States Army’s
Outstanding Civilian Service Medal for serving as Chief Scientist of the OOR.155 The contributions of Gross and Hobbs to Duke University and science, though clearly impressive and widespread, began with building a Chemistry Department at Duke.
153 “Dr. Paul M. Gross.” Oak Ridge Associated Universities. 2 March 2006
Amit Patel/50
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Chapter 2: Taking Duke Medicine to New Heights The Department of Biochemistry at the Duke University School of Medicine Under Dr. Philip Handler (1950 – 1969)
INTRODUCTION
Born in New York City in 1917, Philip Handler spent formative summers on his
grandparents’ farm as a child that instilled in him a curiosity about the nature of living things.
He went on to earn bachelor’s of science degrees in biology and chemistry from the College
of the City of New York (where Paul Gross completed his undergraduate work) in 1936, all
while working at a gasoline station and competing in twenty intercollegiate boxing matches.
Although Handler intended to enter a medical career, Benjamin Harrow’s biochemistry
course at CCNY convinced him to pursue a career in biochemistry instead.156 Handler went
on to earn his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Illinois under Herbert Carter
in 1939, the same year he married Lucille Marcus.157 While at Illinois, Handler worked at a
part-time job in a laboratory that studied soybeans and industrial byproducts because of a lack of scholarship funds, but still managed to graduate in only three years.
After earning his doctorate, he immediately accepted a position at the Duke
University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow in nutrition and physiology under
156 Kresge, Nicole, Robert D. Simoni, and Robert L. Hill. “Blacktongue and Nicotinic Acid Metabolism: Philip Handler.” The Journal of Biological Chemistry Centennial 1905-2005: 100 Years of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 279 (26 November 2004): e8. 157 “Philip Handler.” Current Biography (25): 17 – 19. February 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 5. Amit Patel/51
William Dann and became an instructor in nutrition and physiology the following year. Like
Gross and Marcus Hobbs, Handler quickly rose up the ranks at Duke: he became an
assistant professor in nutrition and physiology in 1942, an associate professor of
biochemistry in 1945, and a full professor of biochemistry in 1950. Also in 1950, upon the
death of William Perlzweig, chairman of Duke’s Biochemistry Department, Handler
assumed the chairmanship of the Department, becoming at 33 years old the youngest
biochemistry department chairman in an American medical school. Handler would hold this
chairmanship until 1969, when he resigned the post to become president of the National
Academy of Sciences.158 By the time Handler passed away from lymphoma in Boston in
1981 at the age of 64, the editor of Chemical & Engineering News proclaimed that Handler had
become a formidable power on the national, even international, science scene.159
In a 1946 letter from then-chairman Perlzweig to Dean Wilburt Davison of the
School of Medicine, Perlzweig acknowledged that Handler was a “brilliant young
investigator and the best teacher of biochemistry we have ever had…In fairness to him I shall have to continue recommending him for the top biochemical positions in the
country…but I hope we can keep him for another five years at least.”160 Handler would stay
at Duke not for another five years as Perlzweig had hoped, but for another 24 years (and
158 “Dr. Handler Heads Duke Biochemists.” Durham Herald. 2 April 1950. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler; Curriculum Vitae for Philip Handler. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1; “Handler to Head Duke Department.” Bristol, Tennessee Herald- Courier. 2 April 1950: A-26. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler; Stetten, DeWitt, Jr. “Philip Handler: An Appreciation (13 August 1917 – 29 December 1981).” Science 215: 5 February 1982. 633. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 159 Heylin, Michael. “Editor’s Page: Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981.” Chemical & Engineering News. 11 January 1982: 3. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1; Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler: Recollection and Assessment.” Nutrition Today. March/April 1982. 24 – 27. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 160 Letter from William Perlzweig to Wilburt Davison, 24 January 1946. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/52
thereafter on extended leave until his death). From the very beginning of his chairmanship,
Handler poured his time and energies into his post: in a 1952 record of his activities for the
Bureau of Public Information, Handler filled out each line of the 5-line space for “Plans for
1952-1953” with the word “working.”161
The Department thrived under Handler’s leadership. William Anlyan, who served as
Dean of the Medical School and later as Vice President for Health Affairs, observed that the
Biochemistry Department represented the leading basic science department at Duke under
Handler’s guidance.162 Henry Kamin, Handler’s first doctoral student, observed that
Handler represented an exceptional chairman whose department developed in both size and
quality under him.163 But one of his faculty members and his successor as department
chairman, Robert Hill, deemed Handler’s leadership style dictatorial.164 Likewise, Irwin
Fridovich, another of Handler’s distinguished faculty members who also came from the
College of the City of New York and earned his doctorate under Handler, considered him
autocratic in his approach to running the Department, citing an instance when Handler dealt
with a controversial issue among faculty members by deciding it on his own.165 Nonetheless,
in his memoirs, Fridovich explained that Handler was “easily the most impressive person I have ever met.”166
161 Questionnaire from the Duke University Bureau of Public Information Regarding Faculty Activities. 25 November 1952. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 162 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 63. 163 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler: Recollection and Assessment.” Nutrition Today. March/April 1982. 24 – 27. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 164 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 165 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 166 Fridovich, Irwin. “With the Help of Giants.” Annual Review of Biochemistry 72 (2003): 1 – 18. Amit Patel/53
When Handler stepped up to the chairmanship in 1950, the Department had a
faculty of four. When he stepped down in 1969, the Department had a faculty of 18.
Handler’s biographers lauded his leadership of the Biochemistry Department:
“…from a small department with limited activities and diversity, Phil
developed one of the outstanding research departments of biochemistry in
the country, with a reputation for providing outstanding graduate students
who came to occupy leading positions in the world of biochemistry.”167
The American Council on Education’s ratings of departmental graduate programs quantified
this impressive ascent of Duke’s Department of Biochemistry during the last portion of
Handler’s term as chairman, to 15th in the nation in 1964 and 11th in the nation in 1969.168
Throughout his term as chairman, Handler was repeatedly offered positions as a dean, provost, and even University president—but always declined because he believed he could carry on his own academic research and teaching while still contributing to the development of the University in his post as chairman of the Biochemistry Department.169
Even outsiders observed his favorable impact. Only midway through his
chairmanship, the University of Alabama Medical Center requested that he visit as the first
step in reforming their Department of Biochemistry and share his wisdom on how to choose
167 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985: 318 – 319. 168 “A Rating of Graduate Programs.” The American Council on Education. Paul Gross Papers, Box 17. 169 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985. Amit Patel/54
a proper chairman and develop their department for the next decade.170 In an episode
similar to Gross’s visitor from Cuba, a scientist from Thailand visiting the United States
made a special request to visit Handler and the Biochemistry Department at Duke during her stay in the country.171 Likewise, a nutritionist from India wanted to visit Handler’s
laboratory during a trip to the United States.172 A visiting biochemist from Columbia
congratulated Handler on the “biochemical paradise” he had built at Duke.173 When the
Indiana University Medical Center sought to woo Handler away from Duke in 1964, one of
their faculty members wrote to assure him that even if he chose to leave Duke, Handler had
already built the foundation for his successful department at Duke and that it might not need
his leadership any longer.174 A member of the Rockefeller Institute, when asked for advice
regarding a replacement for Handler as department chair, remarked that under Handler the
Biochemistry Department had grown into the best in the South and one of the most prolific in the nation.175
170 Letter from Robert C. Berson to Philip Handler, 14 January 1960. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 171 Letter from Agnes M. Pearce to Barnes Woodhall, 17 October 1960. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 172 Letter from V.N. Patwardhan to Philip Handler, 21 April 1960. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 2. 173 Letter from Ernest Borek to Philip Handler, 3 May 1961. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 174 Letter from A. Donald Merritt to Philip Handler, 17 March 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 175 Letter from Stanford Moore to James Wyngaarden, 6 February 1969. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42. Amit Patel/55
Figure 12: Undated photograph of Figure 13: Handler in 1969, upon Handler176 ascending to the Presidency of the National Academy of Sciences177
What were the distinguishing characteristics of the ways in which Handler built the
Biochemistry Department at Duke during his term as chairman? Although Handler’s
chairmanship dealt with a different era in American science from Gross and Hobbs and resided in the Medical School instead of the Arts and Sciences, Handler followed the formula of Gross and Hobbs in that he (1) exercised impressive discretion in hiring biochemists with potential and (2) skillfully tapped connections outside of Duke to support and expand departmental research in the face of limited funding from the University. Unlike
Gross and Hobbs, however, Handler (3) advocated interdisciplinarity (especially through physical space), (4) encouraged his staff’s research to be diverse, and (5) initiated a novel
176 Photograph of Handler. Undated. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 177 Cover, Chemical and Engineering News 30 June 1969. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. Amit Patel/56
program that helped to strengthen his department in the Bio-Medical Research Training
Program.
1. HIRING THE RIGHT PEOPLE
When Handler hired personnel, he looked for individuals who could both hold their
own when it came to earning research grants and who would work well together as members
of his department. Because the University and Medical School did not give the Department
enough money to employ a big faculty, Handler had to pick people who could earn research
grants.178 Even before assuming the chairmanship of the Department, Handler’s personal
research was financed almost entirely by outside grants, and he clearly wished the same of
his staff members.179 In fact, Handler explained in 1959 how the growth of the
departmental staff over the previous ten years had enabled the Department to play a major
role in the emerging Bio-Medical Research Training Program and to delve into graduate
education, further boosting the Department.180
Moreover, Handler put together a department whose members worked well together.
Handler appeared to have a remarkable ability to judge people.181 Kamin observed that the
Biochemistry Department under Handler “developed espirit de corps.”182 Interestingly, the
New York native Handler loved square dancing and would organize regular outings in which
178 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 179 Letter from William Perlzweig to Wilburt Davison, 24 January 1946. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 180 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 181 Rajagopalan, K.V. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 182 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler: Recollection and Assessment.” Nutrition Today. March/April 1982. 24 – 27. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/57
the members of the Department and their families came together to eat barbeque and square
dance, contributing to departmental camaraderie.183 Moreover, Handler hosted
departmental parties at his home and began weekly faculty lunch meetings for the
Department.184 Both Fridovich and K.V Rajagopalan, another biochemist whom Handler
brought to Duke, lauded the family-like atmosphere of the Department under Handler.
Students and faculty would even ambush one another with water guns!185 Rajagopalan
remembered an episode when Handler, engaged in a deep discussion about science with
another faculty member, simultaneously threw darts under his legs.186 Beyond the
individuals Handler brought to the Department, he thus sought to ensure that they worked
well together. Kamin explained how Handler built the Department well, such that the spirit
of cohesion within his faculty lived on beyond Handler’s time there.187
During the hiring boom near the beginning of his chairmanship due to the deaths of senior faculty Perlzweig and Seymour Korkes and the departures of other senior faculty H.
Neurath and W. Mommaerts from Duke, Handler hired younger biochemists in the hope
that the Department would grow with these young faculty members as they matured.188 In a
1959 letter to Dean Davison about a prospective faculty member at the National Institutes
of Health in whom he was interested, Handler predicted that the biochemist could “serve as
a balance wheel for my stable of younger biochemical colts.”189 Although Handler failed to
183 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 184 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005; Rajagopalan, K.V. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 185 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 186 Rajagopalan, K.V. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 187 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler Memorial.” 6 January 1982. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 188 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 18 December 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 189 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 20 May 1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/58
bring the scientist to Duke, this episode affords insight into how Handler sought to a build a
department whose members would learn from one another and function together
harmoniously. Kamin, in a memorial address for Handler, explained how Handler’s
laboratory had attracted him: it was where he gravitated for exhilarating discussions about
science.190 Handler’s lab, blossoming with ideas and conversations, thus provided the model
Handler sought for the other labs in the Department.
Beyond the Biochemistry Department, Handler also brought the right people to
Duke: the scientists Handler helped recruit, especially Daniel Tosteson and James
Wyngaarden, represented key individuals in pushing the Medical School to the elite of
American medical schools.191 Handler, who served as chairman of the committee to select a
new Chair of Physiology, ultimately chose Tosteson instead of three older, more established,
and less enthusiastic physiologists considered by the committee, citing Tosteson’s dynamic
personality and his willingness to tackle the problems inherent in running a medical school
department.192 Moreover, Handler stuck to his ideas about physical space facilitating
interdisciplinary interactions and tried to keep this bright young star physically close to him
by suggesting that Tosteson’s hot isotope space be situated directly underneath his own
office.193 Wyngaarden, likewise, earned Handler’s glowing praise for his sensitivity to human relationships and his premier talent as a clinician and scientist, the very model of what
190 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler Memorial.” 6 January 1982. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 191 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985: 319; Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 67. 192 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 21 September 1960. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 193 Letter from Philip Handler to Joseph W. Beard, 15 May 1961. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/59
Handler’s Bio-Medical Research Training Program sought to develop.194 Wyngaarden led
this program at Handler’s bidding and helped ensure its success. In short, Handler exercised
careful discretion when adding to his staff as well as to Duke, benefiting the Department and
the Medical School.
2. DRAWING ON TIES OUTSIDE DUKE TO BOOST RESEARCH
Like Gross and Hobbs, Handler faced limited funding from the University when
trying to build his department. In a 1954 letter to Dean Davison, he expressed his
frustration over how the departmental budget from the University had just then hit a low in
the five years since he had become chairman. Specifically, because it had been proposed that
he cut one prospective staff member, Handler felt he was being punished by being so
successful in acquiring outside funding (from government and private sources) to build his
staff.195 Handler sought to bring biochemists to Duke who could earn research grants
because the limited funding from Duke would not allow for a large departmental faculty.196
In this new era of medical science, Anlyan explained, basic science faculty derived maximum benefit from their research grants, and the University covered the remainder of their salary.
The issue from the perspective of Anlyan and the Medical School administration was deciding how much “soft money” to build into the system in case the National Institutes of
Health budget shrank in any given year, since the Medical School was responsible for sustaining the salaries of tenured faculty members (even those who were not competitive for
194 Letter from Philip Handler to H. Stanley Bennett, 28 July 1961. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 195 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 10 March 1954. Philip Handler Papers, Box 4. 196 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. Amit Patel/60
outside grants).197 Handler observed that basic science departments could only become
larger if they successfully recruited faculty members who would be largely supported by
outside funding instead of the budget derived from Duke’s endowment.198
As Figure 14 illustrates, many members of Handler’s staff around 1960 were not paid
through what funding Duke allotted for the Biochemistry Department. Instead, Handler got
around this limited funding from Duke by securing outside funding and cooperating with
other departments and entities like the Center for Aging and the Bio-Medical Research
Training Program. 199 In a letter to Barnes Woodhall, Dean of the School of Medicine from
1960 to 1964, Handler pointed out how many of the individuals on the departmental staff
were thus supported by outside funds and he affirmed that he expected to be able to support
them in this fashion for the foreseeable future.200 True to Handler’s word, by 1967 the salaries of most faculty members in the Biochemistry Department were still supported by a variety of outside sources that included Career Development Awards, the Veterans Hospital, the Research Training Program, and other research grants.201
STAFF INITIAL RANK* SALARY COMMENTS APPOINT- ($) MENT Philip Handler 1939 P 16,500 Charles Tanford 1960 P 12,500
197 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 84 – 85. 198 Letter from Philip Handler to Vittorio Luzzatti, 11 May 1964. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 2. 199 “Staff Structure of the Department of Biochemistry.” 1961? Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 200 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 26 September 1960. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 201 Memorandum, “Status of the Biochemistry Department,” 1965. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42; Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 18 December 1967. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42. Amit Patel/61
Haywood Taylor 1930 AP1 11,200 M.L.C. Bernheim 1930 AP1 5,000 Half-time Ralph Thiers 1960 AP1 12,000 Clinical chemist- might be charged to hospital budget in future Walter Guild 1960 AP1 10,000 Paid from Commonwealth Funds (assured by NIH) Kenneth McCarty 1959 AP1 9,000 Paid from Commonwealth Funds (assured by NIH) William L. Byrne 1954 AP2 8,250 Irwin Fridovich 1956 A 8,760 NIH Research Fellow, budget slot now occupied by Rosett Eugene A. Davidson 1958 AP2 8,500 Paid from Aging Center Funds (position underwritten by Department of Surgery) Salih J. Wakil 1959 AP2 9,000 Paid from Aging Center Funds (position underwritten by Department of Medicine) Robert W. Wheat 1956 A 7,500 Half of salary paid by Rockefeller Funds, half of salary paid by research grant to Dr. Handler Theodore Rosett 1957 A 6,250 In salary spot held for Fridovich, no permanent commitment Norman Kirshner 1956 AP2 8,760 NIH Research Fellow (committed support by Department of Surgery) W.S. Lynn 1955 AP1 8,760 Permanent support up to Department of Medicine, Markle Scholar James Wyngaarden 1956 AP1 20,000 Permanent support from Department of Medicine, half of salary from funds for Clinical Research Training Program Provision AP2 9,000 Held for Langridge Provision for AP2 9,000 Paid from Aging Center Funds Neurochemist (position underwritten by Department of Psychiatry) Henry Kamin 1950 AP1 US Veterans’ Hospital Ronald C. Greene 1955 A US Veterans’ Hospital Figure 14: Staff Structure of the Department of Biochemistry (1961?)202 [P= Professor, AP1= Associate Professor, AP2= Assistant Professor, A= Associate]
202 “Staff Structure of the Department of Biochemistry.” 1961? Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/62
Like Gross and Hobbs, Handler also became well-connected and used his contacts to benefit the Biochemistry Department. Figure 15 shows just some of Handler’s advisory positions during his reign as chairman of the Department (1950-1969).
Figure 15: Some of Handler’s Science Advisory Positions While He Served as Chairman of the Biochemistry Department (1950-1969)203
The connections Handler forged through his participation in and leadership of such boards and councils helped him gain stature on a national stage. For example, Handler helped organize a two-day symposium at Duke on “The Impact of Education, Science, and
Technology in the South” to honor Gross upon his retirement.204 Frank T. de Vyver, the
Assistant Provost at Duke who helped plan this symposium, urged Handler to write to
203Small, William E. “Handler: The Academy gets a Big Man.” Scientific Research. 28 October 1968. Box 5, Philip Handler Papers. 204 Letter from Philip Handler to Vernice Anderson, 28 December 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1; Letter from Philip Handler to Emanuel Piore, 1 December 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/63
several of the most important invitees to ensure that they accepted their invitations.205
When a high-ranking scientist at the United States Army Chemical Center tried to talk with
Handler at national meetings, he could only see him from a distance because Handler was seemingly always surrounded by others!206
By 1967, as Figure 16 shows, Handler was spending approximately 81 days a year
plus summers attending to his various advisory responsibilities outside Duke.207
Type Organization Days/Year Government National Science Board 30 Government President’s Science Advisory Committee 20 Professional Survey of the Life Sciences of the National Academy 10 + the summer of the Sciences Industry Board of Directors, E.R. Squibb, Inc. 11 Academic Johns Hopkins University 1 Academic Notre Dame University 1 Academic Kettering Institute 2 Academic Scripps Clinic 4 Academic Institute for Cancer Research 2 Figure 16: Handler’s Advisory Responsibilities Outside Duke in 1967208
The ascendancy of Handler to the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences in 1969
provided ultimate proof of Handler’s connections and prominence on a national level.
Handler’s growing influence from the very beginning of his chairmanship undoubtedly
helped him secure large amounts of funding from both government and private sources for
the Department.
205 Letter from Frank T. de Vyver to Philip Handler, 10 November 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 206 Letter from Bernard Jandorf to Philip Handler, 8 May 1961. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 2. 207 Letter from Philip Handler to William Anlyan, 11 December 1967. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 72. 208 Letter from Philip Handler to William Anlyan, 11 December 1967. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 72. Amit Patel/64
Simply put, Handler was incredibly effective at drawing outside funds to the
Biochemistry Department, a crucial skill in this era when outside support –especially from
the government- fueled the growth and prosperity of academic science departments. This
funding could provide for equipment, facilities, graduate students, resident lecturers, special programs, and research projects. A 1952 press release celebrated Duke’s acquisition of a
$20,000 mass spectrometer (a powerful research tool rare in the South) with funds provided by the Veterans Administration.209 Likewise, the addition of a wing to the Bell Medical
Research Building in 1953 was funded by $200,000 from the National Cancer Institute,
$43,605 from the National Heart Institute, and only $125,000 from University building
funds.210
Handler’s ability to garner funds for the Biochemistry Department became
particularly visible when it came to winning research grants. In a 1955 letter to Dean
Davison regarding the needs of the Biochemistry Department, Handler anticipated that he
would be able to finance departmental research activities entirely with grants-in-aid for the
foreseeable future.211 In a 1957 letter also to Davison, Handler pointed to grant programs
from federal agencies -especially the National Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation, and the Atomic Energy Commission- as responsible for making possible the
expansion of the departmental research program.212 This relationship with grant-awarding
209 “Duke University Expands Atom Research with New Mass Spectrometer.” Duke University Bureau of Public Information 2 March 1952. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 210 “Application for a Grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation to Duke University in support of a Training Program for Clinical Investigators.” 28 May 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2. 211 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 28 February 1955. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 212 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 18 December 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/65
federal agencies did not represent anything unusual: the leading American medical school
departments of biochemistry established these relationships with patrons of basic research
during the middle of the 20th century.213 Figure 17, nonetheless, illustrates the prolific ability of Handler’s department to win outside funding compared to Duke’s other basic science
departments.
Department University Funds Grants* and Total Departmental Funds Anatomy $106,505 $161,964 $268,469 Biochemistry $116,524 $499,706 $616,230 Microbiology $128,869 $105,343 $234,212 Pathology $142,623 $53,215** $196,938 Physiology $111,776 $58,738** $170,514 Figure 17: Sources of Operating Funds for Preclinical Departments, 1959 – 1960214 *Excluding overhead **The Departments of Pathology and Physiology were recently reorganized and had substantial outside support forthcoming in 1960-1961
Handler could proudly state that because of grantsmanship the Biochemistry
Department had grown like it did, a sentiment echoed by Hill.215 The United States Public
Health Service awarded the Biochemistry Department three grants in March 1959 totaling
$85,704, with over $60,000 of these funds earmarked directly for research equipment for the
Department. The rest of the funding went to support departmental projects investigating
213 Kohler, Robert E. From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry: The Making of a Biomedical Discipline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982: 334 – 335. 214 University Committee on Long-Range Planning. “Sources of Operating Funds 1959- 1960, Medical School Budget.” Duke University in the Decade Ahead. June 1961. Duke University Archives: 43. 215 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Requirements to Effectively Carry Out Present Program Objectives of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3; Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. Amit Patel/66
the effects of aging on connective tissue metabolism and the biochemical steps in the body’s
formation of noradrenaline.216
In October of the same year, the United States Public Health Service directed
another $185,950 to the Biochemistry Department, this time for strengthening and
expanding its graduate training program. Handler used these funds primarily for fellowship
stipends, enabling the Biochemistry Department to attract and train even more qualified
graduate students. Handler also focused some of the funds towards the creation of a
resident lecturer program and the purchase of more equipment and supplies for graduate
students in the Department.217 In fact, the growth in the number of graduate students in the
Department (to about 60 by the early 1960s) was in large part the result of such funds
awarded by the National Institutes of Health, reflecting this new era when federal agencies
played a central role in the growth of academic science departments.218 After the graduate
school sent condolence letters to applicants who had failed to win university-wide awards, a
frustrated Handler explained that the Biochemistry Department’s own funds collected from
outside Duke had enabled it to develop a strong graduate training program without taking
away from the total sum available to the University for its other graduate departments. He
then requested that the graduate school mail another letter to these applicants apologizing
for the inappropriate nature of the first one.219 The financing for the launch of Handler’s
216 “Public Health Service Awards Duke $85,704 for Biochemical Studies and Equipment.” Duke University Bureau of Public Information 6 March 1959. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 217 “$184,950 Allotted for Five-Year Period: Biochemistry Graduate Training at Duke Medical Center to be Strengthened by Public Health Service Funds.” Durham Sun 23 October 1959. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 218 Hill, Robert. “History of Duke Biochemistry.” Duke University Medical Center Biochemistry. May 2005. 3 December 2005
Bio-Medical Research Training Program demonstrated his ability to tap outside sources:
Figure 18 shows how only $100,000 of the $1,360,800 required for the program’s first five
years came from Duke; outside sources like government agencies and private foundations
supplied the vast majority of the funding.
SOURCE FUNDS Commonwealth Fund $225,000 Duke University $100,000 John and Mary R. Markle Foundation $250,000 National Institutes of Health (for construction) $287,500 Atomic Energy Commission $25,000 National Institutes of Health (running expenses) $456,300 Industrial concerns $17,000 TOTAL $1,360,800 Figure 18: Funding for the First Five Years of Duke’s Bio-Medical Research Training Program (excluding core faculty)220
As seen, Handler did not stop at government sources, but also tapped private
sources for funding. For example, he won ongoing funding from the Life Insurance Medical
Research Fund for his research on the pressor factor in normal human urine.221 Moreover, in a 1955 letter to the Lederle Laboratories Division of the American Cyanamid Company,
Handler acknowledged that its cooperation with Duke helped the Department obtain drugs, materials, and support funds while the Department, in return, trained two doctoral students who went on to work at the company.222 The Shell Companies Foundation established a
220 Letter from Philip Handler to John M. Russell, 17 May 1961. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2. 221 Letter from Francis Dieuside to A.S. Brower, 15 February 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1; Letter from Philip Handler to A.S. Brower, 10 May 1955. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 222 Letter from Philip Handler to W.G. Malcolm, 22 March 1955. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/68
fellowship in biochemistry at Duke in 1963.223 Handler’s acquisition of funding from outside Duke, be it from government or private sources, helped pay for facilities, the Bio-
Medical Research Training Program, equipment, graduate students, and guest lecturers, as
well as directly financing departmental research activities. In a 1967 letter to Woodhall,
Handler affirmed that the Department’s growth represented a testimonial to
grantsmanship.224
3. INTERDISCIPLINARITY THROUGH PHYSICAL SPACE
In 1952, soon after Handler assumed the head of the Biochemistry Department, it
moved into its considerably larger new quarters in the W.B. Bell Medical Research Building.
Its 26 laboratory rooms, seven offices, conference room, storage space, and library occupied
the entire second floor of the research wing.225 Nonetheless, Handler had to apply pressure
to ensure that two rooms still unfurnished at the end of the 1952-1953 academic year were
equipped with the appropriate laboratory furniture so that they could be properly used.226
The most fascinating elements of this new physical space were the frequent interactions between different departments. Handler lauded how the arrangement of the
Bell Medical Research Building enhanced the Biochemistry Department. Because all the departments of the Medical School shared its space and facilities, the frequent contacts
223 Letter from Philip Handler to W.M. Upchurch, 22 January 1963. Philip Handler Papers, Box 4. 224 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 18 December 1967. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42. 225 “Unit at Duke Moving into New Quarters.” Durham Herald. 4 January 1953. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler 226 Handler, Philip. “Biochemistry Department Annual Report: 1952 – 1953.” Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/69
between the personnel of various intellectual backgrounds there helped facilitate a mutually
beneficial cross-fertilization.227 In response to Davison’s solicitation of his advice in 1956 on
how to reform the Medical School curriculum, Handler acclaimed the ways in which the
Biochemistry and Physiology Departments had been working together in the Bell Building,
making possible a comfortable exchange of ideas and cooperation during that time.228
Moreover, Hill, who succeeded Handler as chairman of the Biochemistry Department, recounted how his lab was across the hall from a professor of medicine’s lab, facilitating regular conversations. In fact, one student worked in both labs!229 Anlyan called this
beneficial mixing of basic and clinical scientists the “Bell Building Phenomenon.”230
In his 1957 application to the National Institutes of Health for a grant to help construct another addition to the Bell Building to house the Bio-Medical Research Training
Program, Handler boasted that the Bell Building afforded special opportunities for the
“creation and maintenance of an atmosphere of constant stimulation by the close association
of many groups of diverse interests and capacities.”231 Demonstrating his satisfaction with
this concept of the Biochemistry Department residing close to other departments, Handler
later expressed his desire for a massive “Medical School” building that would house
classrooms, teaching laboratories, administrative space, student lounges, a cafeteria, large
lecture halls, and office and research space for the pre-clinical departments like biochemistry.
227 “Application for a Grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation to Duke University in support of a Training Program for Clinical Investigators.” 28 May 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2. 228 Letter from W.C. Davison to Philip Handler, 28 June 1956. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3; Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 17 July 1956. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 229 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 230 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 128. 231 Handler, Philip. Application to the National Institutes of Health for Health Research Facilities Grant.” 9 April 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 4. Amit Patel/70
In a 1961 letter to Woodhall, in fact, Handler proclaimed such a building “the crying need” and the “highest possible priority” of the Medical School.232
In October 1956, Handler –always with an eye directed towards the future spatial
growth of his department- wrote of the serious need for space in the Department, primarily
room to house an additional associate professor, more space for two of his staff members,
and more space for storage and preparations.233 Although Handler admitted that the 1952
addition to the Bell Building had made possible the expansion of the Biochemistry
Department’s research program, by 1958 this second floor of the Bell Building had become,
in Handler’s opinion, the most highly saturated research space in the Medical School such
that the future of the Department had become entirely dependent upon further increases in
space.234 In 1958 Handler boasted that the Biochemistry Department was among the most
successful departments in the Medical School and certainly the most successful of the pre-
clinical departments, but that the most serious limitation of the Department was that of
space.235 After all, as Handler explained to a budding biochemistry department at North
Carolina State University in Raleigh, it was futile to attempt to attract competent biochemists
without providing them with sufficient research space.236
232 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 2 August 1961. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 233 Letter from Philip Handler to J.W. Beard, 24 October 1956. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 234 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 18 December 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3; Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Requirements to Effectively Carry Out Present Program Objectives of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 235 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Requirements to Effectively Carry Out Present Program Objectives of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 236 Letter from Philip Handler to Gennard Matrone, 3 March 1964. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 2. Amit Patel/71
In January 1959, Handler wrote that within a year he expected to double the
Department’s available research space compared to a year ago and increase the departmental
staff by five individuals.237 What made this physical expansion possible was Handler’s
pioneer interdisciplinary Bio-Medical Research Training Program. Nonetheless, the
expanded space quickly filled up again under Handler’s leadership by 1962, when he could
not even consider bringing any of the biochemists from a disintegrating group at Porton
Downs in Great Britain to Duke because of the utter lack of space in the Department.238
However, Handler brought the Biochemistry Department into the quarters in the
Nanaline Duke Building in which it resides today. By the mid-1960s, Tosteson had led the raising of funds from the National Institutes of Health to construct this building.239 By this point, the Bell Building was in poor shape. Hill joked that if the cockroaches in the building were killed, the building would fall down!240 Likewise, Fridovich remembered how his
colleagues would often shoot rats in the fire escape with rifles for fun.241 Unfortunately, the
plans for the new building that transpired while Handler was away during the summer of
1964 did not accommodate the needs of the Biochemistry Department: the space allocated
for x-ray crystallography was not suitable, and the animal space was placed adjacent to
biochemistry laboratories.242 Alerted to these plans upon his return to Duke, Handler
quickly employed the “force of his autocracy” to make sure that the Department moved in
237 Letter from Philip Handler to Ernest Borek, 29 January 1959. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 238 Letter from Philip Handler to D. Bernard Amos, 13 December 1962. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 239 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 127. 240 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 241 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 242 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 17 November 1964. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42. Amit Patel/72
and occupied the first and second floors of the building, where its needs would be better met.243 In such fashion, Handler insisted not only on getting the Department into the
Nanaline Duke Building planned by Tosteson, but also on getting the proper space in it.244
Departmental interest in interdisciplinary contact and endeavors followed directly
from Handler’s own ways of thinking. Kamin observed how Handler possessed a
remarkable ability to see the relationships between widely disparate fields of science.245
Fridovich recalled one incident when Handler took a seat next to Eugene Stead, chairman of the Department of Surgery, and discussed a problem with him. As they talked, Handler realized that while there was almost no overlap between their approaches to solving the problem because of their divergent backgrounds and training, they could better move towards a solution if they combined their different perspectives. Handler recognized this trend and resolved to foster this same give-and-take between the faculty of different departments.246
Reinforcing this integrative mindset, Handler saw himself as a biologist, but held that
biology could be most precisely explored in the language of chemistry. After all, Handler
held valid credentials not only in biochemistry but also in nutrition and physiology.247
Moreover, Handler sought to convey this concept of familiarity with other disciplines on a larger stage. In his presentation on “The Education of Professional Biochemists” at the
April 1963 meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
(FASEB), Handler stressed that success in biochemical research would require not only a
243 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 244 Anlyan, William G. Personal Correspondence. 5 April 2006. 245 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler Memorial.” 6 January 1982. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. 246 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 247 Kamin, Henry. “Philip Handler: Recollection and Assessment.” Nutrition Today. March/April 1982. 24 – 27. Philip Handler Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/73
comprehensive understanding of biochemistry, but also strong training in areas of science
like thermodynamics, x-ray crystallography, mathematics, physics, genetics, botany, and
pathology.248 Clearly, as Handler affirmed in a memorandum, biochemistry was no longer an
isolated discipline.249
Handler’s excitement over interdisciplinarity may have stemmed from what he saw as
the lack of barriers or boundaries separating pre-clinical departments. Advances in
knowledge during the 1940s and 1950s led him to observe that when looking at the research
activities of faculty in pre-clinical departments, it was often difficult in many cases to decide
in exactly which department the scientist should be placed. By the middle of the 20th century, most biochemists had lost any “coherent programmatic vision of biochemistry” and felt their sense of communal identity slipping away, illustrating how new developments had muddled departmental boundaries.250
Handler’s reaction was to contemplate the creation of a single “Division of Medical
Sciences” because this arrangement would abolish such departmental boundaries altogether.
He often upheld eye function as an example of how such a reorganization could stimulate
research: a chemist interested in conformational change in carotenoid pigments, a
neurophysiologist interested in the mechanisms of excitation and conduction, and an
electron microscopist could all cooperate and combine their talents.251 In any event,
Handler was pleased with the warm rapport enjoyed by the pre-clinical and clinical
248 “New Approaches Advocated in Education of Biochemists.” Lab World, Los Angeles, California. June 1963. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 249 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “The Educational Programs of the Department of Biochemistry.” 26 March 1964. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 250 Kohler, Robert E. From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry: The Making of a Biomedical Discipline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982: 331 – 332. 251 Letter from Philip Handler to Eugene Stead, Barnes Woodhall, Dan Tosteson, and James Wyngaarden, 25 July 1962. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/74
departments and the success of interpersonal and interdepartmental relationships at Duke.252
In fact, a scientist Handler tried to recruit to Duke considered the “unique love affair” between the various disciplines in the Bell Building the element that made it so hard for him to turn down Handler’s offer to come to Duke.253
Handler also echoed the importance Gross had placed earlier on a departmental
library. Handler noted in a 1958 memorandum that the Biochemistry Department
represented the only department in the Medical School to have a significant library of its
own.254 Handler boasted of a new acquisition in the departmental library to noted zoologist
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen to encourage him to visit it.255 He made further note of the
departmental library when considering space requirements for the Department, explaining
that the trajectory of its future growth depended on exactly where the Department would
grow.256
4. DIVERSE RESEARCH
While his department may have been created for and charged with teaching, Handler
acclaimed the importance of research. The early 20th century witnessed the rise of academic biochemical research: research success became more important than teaching prowess in
252 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 4 November 1960. Philip Handler Papers, Box 4. Also found in Wilburt Cornell Davison Papers, Box 25. 253 Letter from James D. Case to Philip Handler, 19 May 1959. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 1. 254 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 255 Letter from Philip Handler to Knut and Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen, 29 August 1960. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 3. 256 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Space Requirements for the Department of Biochemistry in the Next Growth of the Duke University Medical Center.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/75
assessing the reputation of a school, and contributing to medical knowledge began to be
perceived as a superior method of bettering medical practice than training many general
practitioners.257 Handler grasped this trend from the very beginning: Perlzweig, Handler’s
predecessor as chairman, acknowledged that the young Handler of 1946 already stimulated
research around him.258 Soon after assuming the chairmanship of the Biochemistry
Department, Handler wrote a memorandum to Davison pushing the need for his
department to engage in more research. Handler explained that vibrant research was
necessary to keep pre-clinical instructors from falling into a pattern of just teaching what
they themselves had been taught.259
In a 1958 memorandum about the Biochemistry Department’s activities, Handler
observed that the primary responsibility of the Department lay in teaching medical students
and nurses. Nonetheless, he wrote proudly, every member of the departmental faculty was
expected to take on a full research slate, this research function being the dominant one in the
life of the Department.260 In fact, Handler cringed when Hill and Fridovich began a
biochemistry course for undergraduates.261 Only when the enrollment of the course grew from 45 students in its first year to over 100 in its third year did Handler finally consent to naming the course in biochemistry (instead of biology) and having his faculty teach it on a rotating basis.262 At a seminar on graduate education at Duke organized by Duke President
257 Kohler, Robert E. From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry: The Making of a Biomedical Discipline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982: 158 – 159. 258 Letter from William Perlzweig to Wilburt Davison, 24 January 1946. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 259 Memorandum from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 19 February 1951. Philip Handler Papers, Box 4. 260 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 261 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 262 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. Amit Patel/76
Douglas Knight, Handler stressed research in graduate education as vital to American
intellectual progress: the “task of developing researchers competent to investigate the edges
of knowledge is a terribly expensive and complicated task but it is imperative for the sake of
both the present and future.”263 During his later years as chairman of the Biochemistry
Department, Handler was repeatedly called upon by the leader of the Congressional House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Health to “dazzle Congressmen with glowing accounts of
the successes and needs of research.” Specifically, Handler could masterfully convey
scientific goals in a language that resonated with the political money managers in
Washington.264
Most interesting beyond Handler’s advocacy for research within his department was
his resolve for research in a wide variety of biochemical subdisciplines. In his 1958
memorandum on the Biochemistry Department’s activities, Handler explained that the
research program in his department encompassed the full sweep of biochemistry at the time
as part of his desire to see to it that all of biochemistry was represented within the
Department.265 After all, Handler considered biochemistry the “queen of the sciences.”266
Handler mentioned the diversity of the research program in the Department, pointing out projects investigating a wide array of biochemistry, including the fine structure of protein molecules, the structure of new organic chemicals, the mechanisms of enzyme action, the intermediary metabolic pathways in bacteria and animals, the morphology and chemical
263 McPherson, Holt. “Good Morning.” Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 264 Parker, Roy, Jr. “Dr. Handler Reelected as Head of National Science Board.” Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer 28 July 1968. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 265 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 266 Letter from Philip Handler to Julius Schultz, 23 March 1965. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 3. Amit Patel/77 structure of bacteria, the chemical basis of genetic phenomena, the metabolism of human tissues in culture, and the mechanisms of hormone action.267 Handler steered true to this path: in 1963 he emphasized how he had recruited the faculty of the Department during his chairmanship in such a way as to reflect almost a total spectrum of biochemistry. By this time, the diversity of research endeavors he celebrated included, beyond what he had mentioned in 1958, pure physical chemistry, physical biochemistry, biophysics, macromolecules of biological origin, microbial plant and animal metabolism, the behavior of human cells and tissue culture, basic genetic mechanisms, the biochemical basis for evolution, the biochemical basis for aging, and the biochemical basis for infectious diseases.268 Handler took pride in how the members of his department contributed in their different subfields to the Department’s success.269
When choosing members of his department, Handler sought, therefore, to recruit biochemists with different specializations such as physical biochemistry, biophysics, or lipid biochemistry.270 Moreover, in contrast to the autocratic manner in which he ran the affairs of the Department as a whole, Handler wanted the research in each individual laboratory to be self-sustaining. He stressed how each member of his faculty should act as an independent investigator by seeking his or her own financial support from outside the University, managing his or her own affairs, and determining the problem he or she would address and
267 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 268 Letter from Philip Handler to Clarence Whitefield, 4 February 1963. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 269 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Graduate Training Program in Biochemistry.” 1963. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 270 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005; Rajagopalan, K.V. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. Amit Patel/78
the appropriate experimental approach.271 Each faculty member, then, followed a unique
direction in their research that contributed to the diversity of research within the
Department. Handler’s policy of recruiting a staff with diverse interests thus encouraged
such a full sweep of biochemistry, as opposed to the Chemistry Department’s specialization
in certain areas under Gross and Hobbs. Anlyan thus observed how Handler recruited
scientists in many fields who helped propel the Duke University School of Medicine to the
very forefront as a leading research institution.272
5. THE BIO-MEDICAL RESEARCH TRAINING PROGRAM
The Bio-Medical Research Training Program began at Duke in the fall of 1959.273
Handler had initiated and planned this program, which took medical students and introduced them to research, because he saw a need for more individuals who could function as both clinicians and researchers.274 He saw a specific need, moreover, to train
students who could ultimately become faculty members in basic science departments in
medical schools.275 In Duke’s application for a grant from the Markle Foundation for the
Research Training Program, Handler lamented the limited quantity of physicians for the
271 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 272 Letter from W.G. Anlyan to Robert Ebert, 10 September 1982. Philip Handler Papers, Box 5. 273 Handler, Philip and James B. Wyngaarden. “The Bio-Medical Research Training Program of Duke University.” The Journal of Medical Education 36 (November 1961): 1587 – 1594. 274 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 93 – 94. 275 Handler, Philip and Eugene A. Stead, Jr. “Historical Background.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966-1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham: Duke University Press, 1978: 4. Amit Patel/79
staffing of pre-clinical departments like biochemistry.276 This program thus helped funnel talented individuals to the Biochemistry Department. As Handler noted, his department’s post-M.D.’s were as good or better than its post-Ph.D.’s in terms of future biochemical training and productivity.277 Rajagopalan agreed, praising the intelligence of the program’s
participants that he taught and that worked in his lab.278 In fact, Hill took on four of these
students for one large project on blood coagulation.279 Within two years of implementing
this program, 16 medical schools sent representatives to learn more about the program and
over 100 medical schools sent requests for more information about the program.280 Handler
praised the accomplishments of this program, celebrating it as a development that premiered
at Duke and was subsequently copied in some fashion (most often the Medical Scientist
Training Program (MSTP)) by almost every major American medical school.281
In 1957, Handler boasted that each year more and more students chose to spend
summers doing research with the Department. No wonder then, he noted, that his
department looked forward eagerly to the Training Program because of the additional
students it drew to the Department.282 During the summer of 1960, six medical students
276 “Application for a Grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation to Duke University in support of a Training Program for Clinical Investigators.” 28 May 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2. 277 Letter from Philip Handler to Harland Wood, 22 January 1962. Department of Biochemistry Records, Box 3. 278 Rajagopalan, K.V. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 279 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 280 Handler, Philip and Eugene A. Stead, Jr. “Historical Background.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966-1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham: Duke University Press, 1978: 5. 281 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 2 June 1966. Wilburt Cornell Davison Papers, Box 25. 282 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 18 December 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/80
worked in the Biochemistry Department full-time, all supported by research grant funds.283
Of the second class of eight students in the Training Program, one chose to spend another year in the biochemistry laboratory before returning to medical school and another planned to pursue a Ph.D. in biophysics after finishing his internship, illustrating how the Bio-
Medical Research Training Program helped draw bright minds into biochemistry.284 The
Department benefited from these talented individuals, who helped tackle departmental
research projects, churn out papers, and stimulate thinking among the faculty.
CONCLUSION
Unfortunately, Handler succumbed to lymphoma in Boston at the New England
Deaconness Hospital in December 1981.285 After being cremated at Harvard, his ashes were
flown to Durham, where, after some brief yet frightening confusion over their whereabouts,
Hill had them picked up for the services.286 Handler’s ashes were then, as he wished,
interred in a wall in the entrance of the Davison Building and later transferred to the
columbarium at the Searle Center at Duke.287 Handler’s obituaries lionized him as a
“champion for science,” emphasizing how United States President Ronald Reagan had
283 Letter from Philip Handler to Barnes Woodhall, 12 October 1960. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 284 Handler, Philip and James B. Wyngaarden. “The Bio-Medical Research Training Program of Duke University.” The Journal of Medical Education 36 (November 1961): 1587 – 1594. 285 “Dr. Philip Handler, Scientist, Dies.” Greensboro Daily News 30 December 1981: B8. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 286 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005. 287 Smith, Emil L. “Philip Handler.” Biographical Memoirs, American Philosophical Society. Philip Handler Papers, Box 5. Amit Patel/81
presented him with the National Medal of Science.288 Before he championed science on a
national level, however, Handler had championed the Biochemistry Department at Duke.
Handler himself directed praise on the Department:
“…at the end of World War II this was a small, relatively minor department
of biochemistry. As of this date it is one of the largest flourishing and most
rigorous departments of biochemistry in the country. Its faculty enjoys
international status, its research is supported in the amount of more than one
million dollars annually from external sources, there will be in September
about 45 graduate students in residence making it one of the prime centers of
biochemical graduate training in the United States and there will be about
three dozen postdoctoral fellows continuing their graduate professional
education in biochemistry.”289
Handler was careful, however, to not let biochemistry run roughshod over other
departments at Duke. In planning a program in genetics at Duke (which was ultimately
formed in 1975 as the Cell and Molecular Biology Training Program from a biochemistry
training program), Handler made it clear that the new “Division of Molecular Biology” he
envisioned would encompass three departments: Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular
Biophysics, each of which would be essentially co-equal in status, facilities, and university
288 “Handler, ‘Champion for Science,’ Dies.” Hendersonville, N.C. Times News 30 December 1981. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler; “Dr. Philip Handler, Scientist, Dies.” Greensboro Daily News 30 December 1981: B8. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler. 289 Letter from Philip Handler to Clarence Whitefield, 4 February 1963. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/82
support.290 Upon bringing an immunologist to Duke in 1962 under the title of assistant
professor of biochemistry, Handler expressed his concern that this move might be seen as
“expansionist” on the part of his department.291 Similarly, in a 1954 letter to Gross, Handler hoped he would not be accused of “empire-building” in acquiring another staff member for
his department.292 These concerns afford insight into how the Biochemistry Department
grew so prolifically in stature and size under Handler to the point where even he worried
about too much success. Nevertheless, as Anlyan observed at his memorial service, Handler
was a “team player for balance within the medical school.”293
A 1961 letter from Handler affords insight into his vision of a departmental
chairman:
“I can conceive of only two useful types of chairmen. The first is one who
by his gifts of scholarship provides real intellectual leadership for his
department as it pursues its various activities. By his own record and by his
own activities he sets standards of excellence to which the entire Department
may aspire. At the same time, in his day to day activities, he makes available
his own sense of his discipline and offers critical but constructive suggestions
290 Letter from Philip Handler to Samson Gross, Walter Guild, Bernard Amos, and J.B. Wyngaarden, 21 February 1965. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3; “History.” Duke University Program in Cell and Molecular Biology. 6 March 2006
concerning the work of the junior people in the Department. The second
type of chairman who may supply a vital need in a growing department is an
entrepreneur or operator. He knows the important people in his discipline,
know where to find bright and talented young people, knows where to find
the funds to support the activities of a growing department. It is of course
an added bonus if these two types of chairmen may be combined within the
person of one individual. But this is a rare and unusual circumstance. And
in appointing a new departmental chairman there should be sharp realization
of what is truly expected of him so that one may properly choose between
these two types so as best to serve the purposes of the Department and of
the University.”294
Like Gross and Hobbs (and later J. David Robertson), Handler represented one of these
“rare and unusual circumstances” in which both types of chairmen were combined. Soon enough, moreover, some of the same qualities that made Handler such an exemplary departmental chairman helped him represent American science in impressive fashion in
Washington.
294 Letter from Philip Handler to John McKinney, 16 May 1961. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/84
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Chapter 3: Growing into Chaos The Department of Anatomy at the Duke University School of Medicine Under Dr. J. David Robertson (1966 – 1988)
INTRODUCTION
J. David Robertson, whose father served as a motorcycle policeman and his mother
as a schoolteacher, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on October 13, 1922.295 At the age of
16, Robertson entered the University of Alabama, where he gained election to Phi Beta
Kappa and graduated in 1942 with honors in biology.296 He underwent a year of medical
training in Alabama before enlisting in the United States Navy and subsequently finishing his
medical education at Harvard in 1945.297 Robertson remembered being “poor as a snake”
and having to get through his education “by his own tooth and nails,” illustrating the
ambition that would mark him throughout his career.298 It was during Robertson’s internship at Boston City Hospital that he sold his old brass monocular Spencer microscope
295 Robertson, J. David. Biographical Sketch (for Grant Application). 17 May 1976. J. David Robertson Reprints, Box 1; “In Memory of J. David Robertson.” The American Society for Cell Biology. 19 January 2006
–that was, according to him, his only possession- so he could date Doris Kohler, whom he
married in 1946.299 They moved to Alabama shortly thereafter, where Robertson practiced pathology for two years.
Inspired by H. Stanley Bennett, however, in 1948 Robertson moved back to Boston
at Frank Schmitt’s electron microscopy laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Here Robertson earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry, specializing in nerve
synapse ultrastructure.300 Robertson took advantage of the GI Bill and worked as a staff physician at the student health department to pay for his graduate studies. After earning his
Ph.D. in 1952, Robertson chose the University of Kansas over offers from the University of
Pennsylvania and the University of Washington.301 Robertson headed up electron
microscopy laboratories at the University of Kansas Medical School (1952 – 1955) and
University College in London (1955 – 1960), where his work helped define the nerve
synapse, synaptic vesicles, and myelin nerve sheath structure, as well as his “unit membrane”
concept. 302 He then returned to McLean Hospital at Harvard in 1960 as an assistant (and
later associate) professor of neuropathology, where he elucidated how gap junctions facilitate
intercellular communication.303
299 Robertson, J. David. “Membranes, Molecules, Nerves, and People.” Membrane Transport: People and Ideas. Ed. Dan Tosteson. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1989: 51 – 124. J. David Robertson Reprints, Box 3; Curriculum Vitae for James David Robertson. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 300 “In Memory of J. David Robertson.” The American Society for Cell Biology. 19 January 2006
Figure 19: J. David Robertson304 Figure 20: Robertson’s original and often- reproduced diagram of his “unit membrane” model305
Several years later, however, Daniel Tosteson, chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Duke and chairman of the search committee to find an Anatomy
Department chairman, invited Robertson to Durham.306 On July 1, 1966, Robertson officially left Harvard and assumed the chairmanship of the Anatomy Department at
304 Photograph of Robertson. Undated. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 305 “In Memory of J. David Robertson.” The American Society for Cell Biology. 19 January 2006
Duke.307 Anlyan remembered recruiting Robertson, considering him a “breath of fresh air”
who was willing to go along with the new curriculum implemented in 1966.308 In bringing
Robertson to Duke, the Medical School administration sought a “strengthening and general reorientation of the Department of Anatomy along new lines incident to [his] acquisition.”309
In a mid-1980s memorandum, W.K. Joklik, chair of the Department of Microbiology and
Immunology at Duke, observed that the Department of Anatomy appropriately ranked itself among the top ten in the United States (though there were no official rankings at that time for anatomy departments).310 A 1985 external review of the Anatomy Department near the
twilight of Robertson’s chairmanship lauded the Department as belonging to the elite group
of anatomy departments in the nation and praised Robertson’s leadership (though some
assessments of Robertson would sour quickly soon after).311
When Robertson bowed out from his chairmanship in 1988 (because he had reached
the age of 65, when medical school department chairmen had to step down), the three
divisions of the Anatomy Department (a tripartite structure that Robertson had
implemented in the late 1970s) essentially became the foundations for three new
departments: Cell Biology, Neurobiology, and Biological Anthropology and Anatomy.312
Ralph Snyderman, former Chancellor for Health Affairs at Duke, observed that Robertson
307 “Librarian, Professors Appointed at Duke University.” Durham Sun 27 February 1966. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 308 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004: 75; External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 309 “Future Plans for Anatomy” from Health Sciences Advancement Award (Application Pending). 1966? Joseph E. Markee Papers, Box 2. 310 Joklik, W.K. Memorandum. Mid-1980’s. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 311 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 312 “J.D. Robertson, EM Specialist, Dies.” Duke Dialogue 25 August 1995 (Volume 10, Number 10). Amit Patel/88
built one of the finest anatomy departments in the United States.313 By the end of his
chairmanship, Robertson “perhaps chauvinistically, but sincerely” considered his department
second to none.314 His faculty members considered him responsible for the successful
growth and development of the Anatomy Department:
“It is not reasonable to criticize the chairman for the Department’s
shortcomings without recognizing that most of its successes are also
attributable to its chairman of the past twenty years. Dr. Robertson has
made the Department what it is today. His restructuring of the Anatomy
Department became the model upon which most modern anatomy
departments within other Medical Centers have been developed.”315
How did Robertson build the Anatomy Department, for better or worse, during his
chairmanship? Like Gross, Hobbs, and Handler, Robertson (1) relied on cooperation and
collaboration to help cope with the financial limitations of the University and (2) paid
valuable attention to space and facilities. Like Handler but unlike Gross and Hobbs,
Robertson (3) sought a diverse and innovative scope of research expertise within his
department. More so than the other chairmen of interest, however, Robertson (4)
emphasized teaching and (5) exercised a less autocratic leadership style.
313 Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15 August 1995. 314 Robertson, J. David. “Membranes, Molecules, Nerves, and People.” Membrane Transport: People and Ideas. Ed. Dan Tosteson. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1989: 51 – 124. 315 Addendum to Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/89
Figure 21: Early 1970s Photograph of Faculty of Anatomy Department (J. David Robertson front center, with pipe)316
Figure 22: Anatomy Department, 1987. First row, L to R, Hylander, Erickson, Kay, Hall, Counce, Robertson, Diamond, Moses, Everett, Cartmill, and Reedy. Second row, L to R, Lin, Schweitzer, Beall, Richardson, Corless, Nicklas, Smith, Cant, Tyrey, and Costello. Third row, L to R, Saling, Raczkowski, Crain, Kopf, Fitzpatrick, Jakoi, Duke, McIntosh, Schachat, Lamvik, Taylor, and MacPhee.317
316 Undated photograph of Anatomy Department. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. Interestingly enough, Robertson lost his pipetool while flying to Japan in 1978 (Letter to J. David Robertson, 30 August 1978. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2.) 317 Photograph of Duke University Department of Anatomy. Personal collection of Nell Cant. Amit Patel/90
1. COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION
Like Gross, Hobbs, and Handler, Robertson had to maneuver around the obstacles
imposed by the University’s financial situation by emphasizing collaboration, establishing
contacts, and mastering the social workings of science. For much of Robertson’s
chairmanship, the Duke University Medical Center faced a time of financial retrenchment.318
A 1978 Institutional Self-Study Analysis noted the “relative paucity of institutional hard money to support existing faculty.” Moreover, salary levels in the basic science departments, especially at the Assistant Professor level, had been falling behind on a national scale as annual increments were held below inflation levels, resulting in a steady erosion of faculty salaries.319 In a 1978 letter to Anlyan, Robertson lamented such existing budget problems.320
Likewise, a 1980 letter from the chairs of the basic science departments to Anlyan complained of the pay scales at Duke not being competitive and the inability of the
Employment Office to provide reasonable candidates for research technician and secretarial positions.321
318 Letter from William G. Anlyan to J. David Robertson, 17 July 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 319 Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 320 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 23 February 1978. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 321 Letter from W.K. Joklik to William G. Anlyan, 18 February 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/91
Department Univ. Funds: Non-Univ. Funds: Total Budget: Total Total Faculty Total Faculty Faculty Ratio Ratio Ratio Anatomy 24,049:1 60,393:1 84,442:1 Physiology 16,133:1 25,575:1 42,690:1 Biochemistry 14,023:1 91,737:1 109,552:1 Microbiology & 14,465:1 92,428:1 106,893:1 Immunology Pharmacology 13,425:1 106,409:1 120,658:1 Pathology 21,029:1 42,942:1 118,175:1 Figure 23: Basic Science Department Statistics, 1978322
Robertson and his department faced certain challenges in raising funds from outside
the University. Figure 23 shows that the Anatomy Department struggled to bring in such
outside funds, ranking third from the bottom of basic science departments in this category in
1978. Similarly, a 1981 study by Anlyan of departmental research overhead recovery
(revenue from outside funding per square foot of the department) placed the Anatomy
Department second from the bottom among the basic science departments. 323
However, it is important to note that the Anatomy Department may not have
brought in as much outside funding as other departments because of the very nature of its
work. For example, Rich Kay spent much of his time working with fossils and thus most of
his expenditures involved travel expenses to museums, not costly laboratory equipment.
Likewise, Matt Cartmill focused on dissections of primate cadavers, activities inherently
cheaper than most. In this fashion, their specialties represented “lightly-funded” areas.324
Nonetheless, their work has been both peer-respected and fundamentally important, and
322 Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 323 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 4 August 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 324 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/92
they have won most of the grant funds they have requested.325 Moreover, the National
Institutes for Health did not normally cover certain areas of functional morphology or
primate biology, for example, with their grants.326 In addition, these National Institutes for
Health grants tended to cover salaries, while National Science Foundation grants (which
some of the Department relied upon) did not.327
Despite these challenges, Robertson did a commendable job in the area of finances.
Until 1987 (the next-to-last year of his chairmanship), Robertson had not overspent the
Department’s budget and left red ink on the bottom line any single year since he became the
chair of the Department.328 Moreover, the Department grew and flourished under his
leadership: Figure 24 traces the faculty-staff size of the Anatomy Department under
Robertson. In fact, in only his first decade as chairman, Robertson added 13 new senior
staff members to the Department.329
Year 1965330 1967331 1973332 1977333 1983334 1989335
325 Letter from J. David Robertson to Montrose J. Moses, undated (Spring 1979?). Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. 326 Letter from Sheila J. Counce to William G. Anlyan, 1 October 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 327 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 328 Duke University Department of Anatomy. “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 329 Robertson, J. David. Biographical Sketch (for Grant Application). 17 May 1976. J. David Robertson Reprints, Box 1 330 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1965. Duke University Medical Center Archives. 331 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1967. Duke University Medical Center Archives. 332 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1973. Duke University Medical Center Archives. 333 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1977. Duke University Medical Center Archives. 334 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1983. Duke University Medical Center Archives. Amit Patel/93
Professors 3 5 5 4 7 13 Associate Professors 5 4 3 8 6 9 Assistant Professors 1 4 13 14 14 15 Associates 3 3 10 7 11 14 Instructors/Lecturers 2 3 0 1 1 1 Total 14 19 31 34 39 52 Figure 24: Size of the Anatomy Department by Faculty/Staff Position, 1965 – 1989
Although the sheer numbers of outside dollars may not have reflected well on the
Department, Robertson encouraged outside collaborations and links that strengthened it.
Foremost among these sources of support was a Health Sciences Advancement Award in
1968 by the National Institutes for Health to the Duke University Medical Center for $2.5
million, half of which was earmarked for the Department of Anatomy. This massive award
made possible the addition of young faculty members to the Department, the acquisition of equipment, and the strengthening of research facilities.336 Another National Institutes of
Health grant in the early 1970s supported the construction of a new Medical Sciences
Research Building (the Sands Building), into which the Anatomy Department moved in
1973.337
The 1985 external review of the Department praised its cooperation with UNC-
Chapel Hill.338 Bill Hylander worked with colleagues at the UNC-Chapel Hill dental school,
UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke had professors give lectures at the other institution, graduate
students in the Department took courses like developmental neurobiology at UNC-Chapel
335 “The School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center.” Bulletin of Duke University. May 1989. Duke University Medical Center Archives. 336 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 337 Anlyan, William G. Personal Correspondence. 5 April 2006. 338 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/94
Hill, and students from UNC-Chapel Hill worked in labs in the Anatomy Department.339
For example, K. Christopher Beard, an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, worked in Rich
Kay’s lab and eventually became successful in the field of vertebrate paleontology.340
One episode that reveals Robertson’s pursuit of collaborative enterprises in the
region was his proposal for an International Center for the Advanced Study of
Microstructure in North Carolina. As chairman of the Governor’s Subcommittee on
Electron Microscopy, Robertson authored a 1984 report to the governor proposing the
establishment of this center. Such a center, Robertson explained, would bring together
academic entities (UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Duke, Wake Forest
University, UNC-Charlotte, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina A & T,
Appalachian State University, Winston-Salem State University, and the North Carolina
School of Science and Mathematics), the Research Triangle Institute, the governor’s office, federal funds, the Microelectronics Center, and industries throughout the state.341 This
endeavor, although it did not come to fruition, helped illustrate Robertson’s strong
connections in the area.342
However, other projects undertaken by Robertson did pan out. Shortly after coming
to Duke, Robertson and his department sought to modernize the Microscopic Anatomy
Teaching Collection by working with the Carolina Biological Supply Company to teach them
how to prepare plastic embedded material fixed by electron microscopy’s modern
339 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006; Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 340 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 341 Subcommittee of the Discussion Group on Electron Microscopy (Chairman, J. David Robertson). “A Proposal for the Establishment of an International Center for the Advanced Study of Microstructure in North Carolina.” October 1984. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2; Letter from J. David Robertson to Quentin Lindsey, 29 October 1984. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 342 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/95
techniques. Throughout this collaboration, Robertson noted, the enterprise developed the
necessary methods by utilizing the expertise existing in the departmental faculty and helped the Department obtain new slide collections.343 The Triangle Computation Center, which
featured extensive central computer facilities used by the triangle universities (Duke, UNC-
Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University), was connected directly to the Anatomy
Department.344
In 1984, Reichert Scientific Instruments loaned a Cryofract 190 machine to
Robertson and the Anatomy Department until a grant could be won for its purchase. While
Reichert sought to use it for promotional activity, faculty members in the Anatomy
Department could use the Cryofract 190 for their research endeavors.345 Similarly, a one-of- a-kind super-conducting electron microscope with a field emission gun (which reduced beam damage by keeping the specimen at liquid helium temperatures) that had been built at the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory was housed in the Anatomy Department at Duke. This instrument, in fact, could be found nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere.346
Robertson understood the social intricacies of science. Mike Reedy, one of his
recruits to Duke, marveled at Robertson’s social charisma:
“His storytelling charm was well known, his talent based on a sense of drama
and a twinkle of diffident humor…Dave and Dody Robertson were a close
343 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 23 February 1978. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 344 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 345 Letter from Robert Donaldson to J. David Robertson, 18 September 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 346 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/96
and supportive couple throughout their 49 years of married life. They
remain famous for great personal hospitality to colleagues, and for wonderful
parties at Naples, Boston, and Duke that splendidly lubricated the social
gears of science.”347
Robertson’s faculty members fondly remember the phenomenal parties he threw at his home several times a year. Robertson’s wife Dody prepared refreshments on a lavish spread in the dining room and Robertson hired the cadaver caretaker to run an open bar.348 Departmental parties, interestingly enough, were financed by a party fund whose coffers were filled by crematorium revenues.349 Moreover, Robertson firmly believed that the graduate students in the Anatomy Department needed to learn to interact socially.350 Accordingly, he held wine- and-cheese functions for them in his office almost every Friday afternoon in which he sought to impart unto them his social wisdom.351 His office, fittingly, had a well-stocked bar, a Persian rug, and a solid redwood table.352
The Sloan Foundation helped fund a trip for Robertson to Japan in 1978 to recruit junior scientists to Duke. When the foundation expressed concern over Dody’s presence on the trip, Anlyan defended Dody’s accompanying Robertson (who succeeded in recruiting
Kazuo Itoh, a neuroanatomist from Kyoto University, to Duke): “I have little doubt that her
347 “In Memory of J. David Robertson.” The American Society for Cell Biology. 19 January 2006
presence contributed significantly to achievement of the trip’s business purpose.”353 In an
episode that helps illustrate how much attention Robertson paid to how the Department was
perceived, he took his entire department to the pagoda in the Doris Duke Gardens and hired
a professional photographer to take the 1987 departmental picture shown in Figure 22.354
However, Robertson neared a point of excess regarding his emphasis on fun and
entertainment that may have detracted from his department’s success. In a letter to
Robertson, Anlyan expressed his shock at the high price of a dinner Robertson had with a
visiting doctor, lamenting that his department spent far too much money on entertainment
and travel.355 Psyche Lee, one of Robertson’s staff members, remembered how Robertson
often ordered a different bottle of wine with each course of dinner.356 Robertson usually
outspent all the other members of MedSAC (the MEDical School Advisory Committee)
together in using institutional funds for travel and entertainment!357 Even during his
sabbaticals, Robertson spent far more money than any other chair or faculty member had in
the previous 16 years.358 Robertson’s utilization of departmental funds for social purposes may have thus reached the point where it was harmful rather than helpful to the
Department.
353 Letter from William G. Anlyan to J. David Robertson, 1 December 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2; Letter from Irving Diamond to William G. Anlyan, 23 November 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 354 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 355 Letter from William G. Anlyan to J. David Robertson, 18 August 1982. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 356 Lee, Psyche. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 357 Letter from William G. Anlyan to J. David Robertson, 17 July 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 358 Letter from William G. Anlyan to J. David Robertson, 21 August 1979. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/98
2. SPACE AND FACILITIES
When Robertson came to Duke in 1966, the Anatomy Department had about 16,000
square feet of space, within which confines the Department was constricted space-wise.359
Moreover, this space was scattered all over campus, hindering effective communication between members of the Department.360 Under the guidance of Tosteson and Handler,
however, Robertson quickly got a new building in the works after coming to Duke.361 The
1973 grant from the National Institutes for Health allowed Joklik and Robertson to build the new Medical Sciences Research Building (the Alexander Sands Building, or MSRB-I), in which the Anatomy Department occupied 22,000 net square feet.362 Anlyan grasped the importance of constructing the Sands Building (which was named for the former vice chairman of the Duke Endowment, which also helped pay for the building) in order to have proper research facilities for Robertson and the growing Anatomy Department.363 This
building facilitated the hiring of additional faculty members.364 In 1975, the department also
took advantage of 2,000 net square feet of additional space in the adjacent Edwin Jones
Cancer Research Building.365 From the hindsight of 1978, the crowding that had
359 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 360 Letter from J. David Robertson to Montrose J. Moses, undated (Spring 1979?). Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. 361 Robertson, J. David. “Membranes, Molecules, Nerves, and People.” Membrane Transport: People and Ideas. Ed. Dan Tosteson. Bethesda, MD: American Physiological Society, 1989: 51 – 124. J. David Robertson Reprints, Box 3. 362 Anlyan, William G. Personal Correspondence. 5 April 2006. 363 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004: 128. 364 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 365 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/99 characterized the Department in the late 1960s had been completely reversed and space had become adequate for the growing Department.366
By 1967, Robertson had already been leading the Department in assessing the architectural plans for the new building—even before the awarding of the National Institutes of Health grant! He consulted with the Department on a very detailed level, even paying much attention to the placement of hoods within individual laboratories.367 Similarly,
Robertson himself led discussions about ceiling requirements, candle power, vacuum heads, dishwashers, and other details.368 Robertson hoped to utilize this new building not only to expand the existing programs in the Anatomy Department, but also to develop new programs in chemical morphology, biophysical cytology, developmental anatomy, and biophysical instrumentation.369 These new departmental quarters ultimately included space for administrative offices as well as biophysical cytology, microchemical architectonics, biophysics, physical anthropology, tissue culture, neuroanatomy, neuroendocrinology, nuclear cytology, chemical morphology, and comparative anatomy labs.370
Another episode affording insight into space issues was the Whitehead Institute space in the Jones Building. Although a biochemist had moved into this space as part of this private initiative to increase research funding for the basic sciences, Robertson had made sure to get Anlyan’s word that this space would be returned to the Anatomy Department
366 Duke University Department of Anatomy. “Evaluation of Resources and Programs.” for Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 367 Robertson, J. David. Memorandum to Anatomy Staff, 27 April 1967. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 368 Minutes from Anatomy Staff Meeting, 25 January 1967. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 369 Minutes from Anatomy Staff Meeting, 31 January 1967. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 370 Duke University Medical Center (J.G. Elchlepp, Assistant Dean for Planning). “Transmission of Material for Architectural Program for the Department of Anatomy Portion of the Medical Science I-B Building of the Duke University Medical Center.” 28 March 1967. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/100
when the initiative ended.371 When this issue finally arose in the spring of 1979 (when
Robertson was on sabbatical in Europe and Montrose J. Moses served as acting chairman), it represented a contentious issue for the Anatomy Department because the Department had four junior faculty members and their staffs occupying only the 2000 square feet originally allocated in 1975 to the Department in the building.372 The Department, therefore, needed
the Whitehead space to relieve this pressing congestion, as Robertson argued that these
promising young scientists who had just received their first grants were conducting exciting
research and needed more space badly.373
Robertson made sure the Anatomy Department contained world-class equipment and facilities. The 1985 external review commended the Anatomy Department for the
unique range and quality of its equipment, even acclaiming its facilities for ultrastructural
analyses, image processing, cryogenic manipulations, highly refined light microscopic
techniques (mass measurements, birefringence, polarization, and Normarski optics), and x-
ray diffraction as the best of any anatomy department in the nation.374 Also in 1985,
Robertson helped establish a new Plastination Laboratory (for performing this recently-
developed technique on anatomical specimens to preserve bodies and body parts) in the
Department.375 By 1986, Robertson’s department had eight modern electron microscopes,
371 Letter from Montrose J. Moses to William G. Anlyan, 6 March 1979. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. 372 Letter from P. Susan Padilla to Margie Newton, 9 June 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. 373 Letter from J. David Robertson to Montrose J. Moses, undated (Spring 1979?). Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. 374 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 375 Letter from J. David Robertson to Jeanine Carithers, 30 July 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2; Memorandum, “Cost Estimate of Establishing a Plastination Laboratory at Duke for Anatomy and Pathology, to be Located in the Department of Anatomy,” 30 July 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/101
state-of-the-art facilities for specimen preparation and for optical and computer image
reconstruction, modern facilities for x-ray diffraction, a wide range of biochemical
instrumentation, and the unique cryo-electron microscope.376 The department’s electron
microscopy facilities also allowed for high angle specimen tilting, low dose microscopy, freeze fracture-etch, and cry-ultramicrotomy.377 In his laboratory alone, Robertson and his
group had the Reichert-Jung Cryoblock liquid helium freezing device, a Balzers propane jet
freezing apparatus, a Reichert-Jung Cryofract 250 freeze-etch device complete with rotary
microtome and shadowing attachments, an electron microscope with a super-conducting
objective lens, the unique field emission electron gun that had been developed at Oak Ridge
and then moved to the Department, and another electron microscope equipped with a
eucentric goniometer stage and a cold stage for low temperature studies.378
The Anatomy Department’s facilities extended beyond the Sands and Jones
Buildings to include the Duke University Primate Center in the Duke Forest and the Duke
University Marine Station Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina. Developed in
conjunction with Robertson’s bringing physical anthropologists to Duke to teach gross
anatomy at the beginning of his chairmanship, the Duke University Primate Center features
breeding prosimian primates.379 Spanning 85 acres and home to now 250 animals, the
Primate Center was established two miles away from the main Duke campus in 1966.380 The
376 “Duke University Department of Anatomy.” Peterson’s Guide 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 377 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 378 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 379 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 380 “About the Primate Center.” Duke University Primate Center. 20 Feb 2006
center has helped bring research opportunities closer for members of the Department
throughout its existence. For example, the facility includes several inbred lineages and
unusual hybrids that have been used in cytogenetic studies to elucidate evolutionary
relationships among various lemur subspecies.381
Likewise, the Duke University Marine Station Laboratory has also afforded research
opportunities for members of the Anatomy Department. The 1985 external review of the
Department praised its cooperation with the Duke Marine Station.382 Likewise, an overview
of the Anatomy Department highlighted the auxiliary research facilities at the Marine
Laboratory in Beaufort.383 Robertson himself often came to the Marine Laboratory during
his summers to conduct research (especially his octopus research), and sought to build an
electron microscopy lab and provide a technician there.384 In fact, Robertson had two
microtomes and other equipment moved there.385 To illustrate how valuable he considered
the facilities in Beaufort, Robertson gave the library at the Marine Laboratory his personal
collection of the last twenty years of the Journal of Physiology as a gift in 1978.386
3. DIVERSE RESEARCH INTERESTS
381 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 382 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 383 “Duke University Department of Anatomy.” Peterson’s Guide 1975. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 384 Letter from J. David Robertson to John Costlow, 24 May 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 385 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 386 Letter from J. David Robertson to John Costlow, 15 August 1978. Duke University Marine Laboratory Records, Box 14; Letter from John Costlow to J. David Robertson, 15 September 1978. Duke University Marine Laboratory Records, Box 14. Amit Patel/103
Like Handler but unlike Gross and Hobbs, Robertson sought a diverse scope of
research within his department. The goal of the Department with respect to research was to emphasize a broad range of biomedical sciences.387 Moreover, it made sense that a faculty
with research interests in a wide range of fields would make for a stronger teaching group (a
singular emphasis of Robertson’s that will be explored further in the next section).388 One of the major changes in the Department as it grew under Robertson, therefore, was that the research of staff members became much more diversified.389 Figure 25 provides a portrayal
of faculty research interests as of 1986, illustrating the bewildering array of research interests
in the Anatomy Department near the end of Robertson’s chairmanship.
Faculty Member Divi- Research Interests sion* H.P. Beall 1 Biomolecular lipid membranes, lipid-protein interactions N.B. Cant 2 Auditory system M. Cartmill 3 Arboreal adaptations and cranial morphology in mammals J.M. Corless 1 Vertebrate photoreceptors and retinal diseases M.J. Costello 1 Lens junctions, membrane fusion, cryofixation methods S.J. Counce 1 Cellular bases of morphogenesis, experimental embryology B.J. Crain 2 Experimental approaches to stroke and epilepsy I.T. Diamond 2 Thalamus and cortex K.L. Duke 3 Comparative histology of the reproductive tract E.L. Effmann 1 Mammalian vascular embryology, microangiography H.P. Erickson 1 Cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix J.W. Everett 2 Hypothalamic-pituitary control of ovulation, corpus luteum D. Fitzpatrick 2 Organization of visual pathways, neuronal cell types W.E. Garrett, Jr. 3 Muscle physiology W.C. Hall 2 Superior colliculus W.L. Hylander 3 Mammalian craniofacial biomechanics E.R. Jakoi 1 Intracellular trafficking of cell surface proteins, IgG transport R.F. Kay 3 Primate paleontology, dental anatomy of primates D.A. Kopf 1 Electron microscopy, image processing
387 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 388 Report on the Activities of Anatomy. 1952. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 389 “Anatomy at the Duke University Medical Center: 1930 – 1980.” Department of Anatomy Records, Box 1. Amit Patel/104
M.K. Lamvik 1 Cryomicroscopy, ribosome and muscle structure C.-S. Lin 2 Central nervous system W. Longley 1 X-ray diffraction and EM studies of macromolecules R.D.E. MacPhee 3 Cranial ontogeny and morphology, systematics D.R. McCaslin 1 Membrane proteins, transduction of info and energy T.J. McIntosh 1 Structure and function of biological membranes M.J. Moses 1 Nucleus and chromosomes R.B. Nicklas 1 Chromosome movement in mitosis D. Raczkowski 2 Brain mechanisms of vision, retino-geniculostriate system M.K. Reedy 1 Molecular basis of muscle contraction J.S. Richardson 1 X-ray crystallography of proteins J.D. Robertson 1 Synapses, nerve tissue, lens structure, learning and memory P.M. Saling 1 Mammalian fertilization, gamete interaction F.H. Schachat 1 Hereditary muscle deficiencies, myosin L.F. Schweitzer 2 Development of the auditory system and cerebellum E.L. Simons 3 Prosimian biology K.K. Smith 3 Musculoskeletal functions, mechanics of tongue and jaw K.A. Taylor 1 Myosin filament assembly, 3-D image reconstruction L. Tyrey 2 Radioimmunoassay, reproduction neuroendocrinology Figure 25: Anatomy Department Faculty as of 1986 and their Research Interests390 *1= Biophysics; Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology 2= Neurobiology; Neuroendocrinology 3= Physical Anthropology; Functional Anatomy; Primate Evolution
The 1985 external review thus lauded the impressive range of research interests within the
Department, observing that graduate and postdoctoral students learned in a “very
sophisticated intellectual cafeteria.”391
This phenomenon of the diversification of faculty research interests was not limited
to Duke. Across the world, gross anatomy became more of a body of information students had to learn and less of a dynamic field to be explored through research.392 This decrease in
390 “Duke University Department of Anatomy.” Peterson’s Guide 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1; Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 391 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 392 Oxnard, Charles E. “The Research Correlates of Human Gross Anatomy Teaching: Functional Morphology, Primate Evolution, and Human Variation.” The American Association Amit Patel/105
interest in human morphology combined with revisions of curricula that allowed for less
time for the study of anatomy in medical schools precipitated a degeneration of the
discipline.393 Anatomists, therefore, turned to newer, different areas like microscopic,
ultrastructural, molecular, and neurological anatomy, a trend in which Duke participated in
successfully.394
This emphasis on breadth did not compromise quality: there was a consensus that
the group of anthropologists at Duke represented the strongest existing group in the analysis
of cranial functional morphology and its relevance to primate evolution.395 In fact, by 1987
Duke ranked among the top three or four institutions nationally in the study of human and
primate evolution.396 Richard Kay, whom Robertson brought to Duke in 1973 and who
later served as the chairman of the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy
(created with the 1988 reorganization), offered Robertson a secondary appointment in this
Department after the reorganization because of Robertson’s “pivotal role in bringing the
functional morphologists together at Duke and providing us with the environment and
support that fostered our scientific growth.”397 Likewise, Bill Hylander, another
morphologist Robertson brought to Duke in 1971, observed that this group flourished
of Anatomists, 1888 – 1987: Essays on the History of Anatomy in America. Ed. John E. Pauly. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1987: 163 – 175. 393 Tobias, P.V. “Reflections on Anatomy and Physical Anthropology.” South African Medical Journal 53 (24 June 1978): 1066 – 1071. 394 Oxnard, Charles E. “The Research Correlates of Human Gross Anatomy Teaching: Functional Morphology, Primate Evolution, and Human Variation.” The American Association of Anatomists, 1888 – 1987: Essays on the History of Anatomy in America. Ed. John E. Pauly. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1987: 163 – 175. 395 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 396 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 397 Letter from Richard Kay to J. David Robertson, 1 December 1988. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/106
under Robertson’s leadership.398 Sheila Counce, Director of Graduate Studies for the
Anatomy Department for a time under Robertson, observed that the neurobiology,
functional vertebrate morphology, and primate biology sections represented great strengths
of the Department. In fact, she explained that the Department’s faculty was “generally
recognized as being among the very top group” in these subdisciplines.399
Moreover, electron microscopy at Duke flourished under Robertson: Duke scientists
pioneered fundamental scientific advances in this field, like the world’s first measurement of
the mass of muscle thick filaments by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM),
the first use of the electron-energy loss signal for mass determination, the nation’s first
development of freeze-fracture techniques at liquid helium temperatures, and the first
important work involving the microscopy of frozen hydrated specimens.400 Like Handler,
Robertson excelled at research: considered a pioneer in high resolution electron microscopy,
Robertson authored or co-authored 115 scientific publications and one book (World Beneath
the Microscope) over the course of his career.401 Snyderman extolled how Robertson’s
“innovative use of electron microscopy significantly furthered our understanding of important principles of the cell and nervous system.”402 Likewise, image analysis represented
another strong field in the Department: its three-dimensional image reconstruction facility
was one of the first five set up in the United States, and scientists in this field have analyzed
398 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 399 Letter from Sheila J. Counce, 26 December 1984. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 400 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 401 “Duke Professor Elected to Head Microscopy Society.” Durham Sun 4 May 1983. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson; Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15. August 1992. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 402 Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15. August 1992. Amit Patel/107
low-dose and cryological electron microscopy images to resolve the three-dimensional
structure of crystalline protein arrays in the study of gap junctions, sarcoplasmic Ca2+-
ATPase, Na/K-ATPase, and rhodopsin.403
Despite this diversity of research interests, there remained strong communication
between different laboratories and a sharp awareness of the value of the research done in
other laboratories.404 For example, almost all the faculty of the Department would attend
each other’s seminars.405 Mike Reedy observed that the diversity of scholars in the Anatomy
Department relished the remarkable harmony among themselves and flourished under
Robertson’s chairmanship.406 During his term as chairman, for example, Robertson adeptly
bridged the gap between technical scientists interested in developing new instrumentation
and new preparative procedures and medical people interested in using electron microscopy
to solve problems in cell biology and pathophysiology.407 In the 1986 departmental bulletin,
Robertson explained that despite the striking diversity of research interests in the
Department, its members shared a common intellectual bond.408 The departmental faculty felt the same way, considering themselves united by an acute awareness of their shared intellectual themes and interlocking research interests.409 Robertson came to Duke in 1966
403 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 404 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 405 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 406 “In Memory of J. David Robertson.” The American Society for Cell Biology. 19 January 2006
“Anatomy faculty development from the late ‘60s onward was governed by
Dr. Robertson’s vision of a new rationale for anatomy, grounded in a
modern biological focus on the analysis of structure-function relationships.
The new faculty who were recruited with this vision of the Department in
mind have naturally tended to adopt it and develop it further, and so Dr.
Robertson’s view of biological structure as the common ground for anatomy
has continued in force as a basis for faculty appointments and promotions
for the past twenty years…Our common reliance on using structure to define
and explore functional, evolutionary, and developmental relationships
involves a top-down approach to biological problems that is an essential
counterpoint to the reductionist, bottom-up approaches that prevail in other
basic science departments. This shared way of thinking about the facts and Amit Patel/109
problems of biology makes us valuable intellectual resources for each other
precisely because our research interests are so diverse.”410
This common intellectual bond manifested itself in the interactions between scientists in the Anatomy Department that confirmed Robertson’s vision of his faculty members acting as resources for one another. Rich Kay lauded these fabulous interactions with others in the Anatomy Department. For example, talking with others around a lunch table helped him realize he could utilize the techniques of microscopists and math analysts in the Department (especially two-dimensional Fourier transforms) to explore microwear on the teeth of fossils, an endeavor which led to multiple publications in Nature.411 Similarly,
Bill Hylander lamented the loss of contact and opportunities to interact with the cell
biologists and neuroanatomists after the reorganization because he had learned so much
from them, especially how to borrow their techniques to help solve problems in his field.412
Likewise, evolutionary morphologists consulted microanatomists about relevant histological and cellular details, and cell biologists studying retinal receptors worked with experts in vertebrate evolution to learn about the functional significance and phylogeny of these structures.413
410 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 411 Oxnard, Charles E. “The Research Correlates of Human Gross Anatomy Teaching: Functional Morphology, Primate Evolution, and Human Variation.” The American Association of Anatomists, 1888 – 1987: Essays on the History of Anatomy in America. Ed. John E. Pauly. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1987: 163 – 175; Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 412 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 413 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/110
Other projects in the Department made possible by a shared focus on biological
structure that transcended the boundaries of departmental subdisciplines included studies of
primate karyosystematics, antibody labeling of cell-surface proteins in the developing brain,
and the development of techniques for tracing boron-labelled neural pathways using electron
energy-loss spectroscopy. 414 Nell Cant, whom Robertson brought to Duke in 1978, agreed
that these cross-fertilizations and interactions expanded the ways in which members of the
Anatomy Department thought about things.415 In sum, this diverse yet good-willed and open-minded structure of the Department crafted by Robertson facilitated an exchange of knowledge and perspectives between faculty members and students far beyond what could be gained if departmental interactions were restricted to those scientists with whom faculty
members shared more specific, limited technical types of expertise.416
In response to discussion about the impending reorganization of the basic sciences
(and the dissolution of the Anatomy Department) upon the end of Robertson’s
chairmanship, a graduate student named Kimberly Coleman, who worked with both Matt
Cartmill and Monty Moses, observed that the diversity of the Department had unforeseen
positive effects on her graduate studies.417 Although first attracted to the Department by
Moses and chromosome biology, Coleman soon found herself interested in other areas
within the Department and ultimately found her niche at the interface between cytogenetics
and primate systematics. This development, she explained, would not have been possible
414 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 415 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 416 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 417 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/111 without the juxtaposition of interests and faculty members within the Anatomy Department.
The existing structure of the Department, Coleman argued, afforded far greater opportunity for cross-communication across disciplines than the proposed compartmentalized departmental structure. As such, she lamented the proposed reorganization as preventing future students from sharing the same opportunities that she had to discover interdisciplinary interests. Instead, the reorganization would “circumscribe the range of possible directions a developing scientist might take.”418 Robertson had grasped this idea a year earlier, observing in the 1986 departmental bulletin that in the Anatomy Department, departmental research ranged from the macroscopic structure and evolution of man and his relatives on one end of the spectrum to the macromolecular organization of cells and tissues at the other end. This represented a large framework within which his faculty could pursue many different research directions.419
Beyond the interdisciplinary endeavors made possible by the diversity of research interests within his department, Robertson knew that some people would welcome more intense interdisciplinary connections.420 His department helped provide such connections through the Genetics Program, the Cancer Center, and to a lesser extent, the Program in
Cell and Molecular Biology. The Anatomy Department often led joint interdepartmental grants for training graduate students in interdisciplinary fields. It sought to advertise its participation in these interdepartmental training programs like cell and molecular biology,
418 Letter from Kimberly Coleman to J. David Robertson, 12 August 1987. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 419 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 420 Letter from J. David Robertson to James O. McNamara, January 1986. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/112 genetics, neurobiology, and pharmacology.421 Robertson, likewise, wrote of many interdepartmental training grants that his department participated in, always seeking to promote this interdepartmental cooperation and sharing credit and overhead for these endeavors.422 Regarding the proposed reorganization, Robertson made clear his opposition, suggesting instead that new chairmen be recruited for both the Anatomy and Physiology
Departments and that appropriate interdisciplinary fields be developed.423
4. EMPHASIZING TEACHING
Robertson placed a higher priority than the other three leaders on teaching. Some of this emphasis on teaching may have stemmed from the very nature of the Anatomy
Department. Even before Robertson’s arrival, the primary responsibility of the Anatomy
Department at Duke had been the teaching of anatomy to a number of different groups, including medical students, special students, Ph.D. candidates in anatomy and in other medical fields, physical therapy students, nursing students, medical record librarians, interns, residents, and members of specialty training groups.424
As Robertson took charge of the Anatomy Department in 1966, the new curriculum for medical students introduced at Duke in the same year mandated that the number of hours for medical students to take core courses be cut considerably. For gross anatomy, microanatomy, and neuroanatomy, this change would cut 575 hours of instruction to only
421 “Duke University Department of Anatomy.” Peterson’s Guide 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 422 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 4 August 1981. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 423 Letter from J. David Robertson to Phillip Griffiths, 8 December 1987. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 424 Report on the Activities of Anatomy. 1952. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/113
252 hours for medical students.425 Many members of the senior faculty expressed anger at this reduction in hours, and some even forced students to attend night courses to add to the number of hours.426 Some of these senior faculty members allowed their bias against the
new curriculum to be conveyed to the students, forcing Robertson to relieve some of these
individuals of their teaching responsibilities.427 Soon after he arrived at Duke, he thus
“cleaned house” and many of these older faculty who were unwilling to adapt to the new curriculum left Duke.428
Robertson had complete autonomy to organize this new anatomy core curriculum.
To cope with this decrease in instruction time, Robertson attempted to use fetuses instead of
adult cadavers for dissection in gross anatomy, a daring endeavor that illustrated his
innovative mindset when it came to teaching (only Western Reserve University Medical
School attempted to dissect fetuses for gross anatomy).429 Unfortunately, this experiment
did not pan out because of the difficulty involved in acquiring well-preserved fetuses and too
many differences between fetal and adult anatomy. Next, Robertson tried a new approach
whereby he sought to make the gross anatomy course as clinical as possible, involving the
clinical faculty in planning and teaching the material and leaving dissections out altogether.
However, this approach did not work either, because of a lack of continuity between the
425 “Anatomy at the Duke University Medical Center: 1930 – 1980.” Department of Anatomy Records, Box 1; Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 426 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006; Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 427 Robertson, J. David. “Anatomy.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966 – 1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978: 34. 428 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006; Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 429 “Anatomy at the Duke University Medical Center: 1930 – 1980.” Department of Anatomy Records, Box 1; Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/114
many different lecturers and too much of an emphasis on pathological anatomy from the
clinical lecturers that detracted from the basic principles of anatomy.430
In a landmark move that did work out exceedingly well, Robertson employed
physical anthropologists like John Buettner-Janusch (1966), Jack Prost (1968), James
Shafland (1969), Matt Cartmill (1970), William Hylander (1971), and Rich Kay (1973) to lead
the teaching of gross anatomy. As a discipline, physical anthropology (“the study of human
biological variation and evolution”) had developed in anatomy departments in France and
Germany in the 19th century. These two fields then gradually drifted apart from one another as anatomy capitalized on the availability of new tools (like electron microscopy!) to reveal structure at finer and finer levels and as the study of anthropology became concerned with
biological and cultural interactions and thus became more holistic. By the time of
Robertson’s chairmanship, physical anthropology had moved furthest away from anatomy in
the United States.431
Anlyan thus recalled how Robertson, in this daring move, transformed the teaching
of gross anatomy by bringing in these scientists to teach it.432 Most fascinating of these
physical anthropologists was Buettner-Janusch, who was wooed away from Yale by
Robertson, Anlyan, and Handler in 1966.433 By 1973, however, Buettner-Janusch had
become so disenchanted with the administration’s attitudes towards anthropology and the
430 Robertson, J. David. “Anatomy.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966 – 1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978: 33. 431 Tobias, P.V. “Reflections on Anatomy and Physical Anthropology.” South African Medical Journal 53 (24 June 1978): 1066 – 1071. 432 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004: 75; External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 433 Minutes of the Meeting of the Biological Sciences Council. 22 February 1966. Joseph E. Markee Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/115
development of the aforementioned Primate Center that he left Duke for New York
University.434 Meanwhile, Shafland and Cartmill spearheaded an effective new organization for the gross anatomy core course around body segments that emphasized dissections by students.435 In this fashion, Robertson’s moves towards adapting to the changes in the curriculum earned him Anlyan’s goodwill.436 Soon, anatomy departments across the country,
such as those at Brown University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, and
Stony Brook, followed this Duke model for the teaching of gross anatomy.437
Robertson made it clear that every faculty member with a tenure track appointment
in his Department should dedicate a considerable fraction of his or her time to teaching.438
In 1978, the Anatomy Department reported that 10% of its faculty effort went towards teaching undergraduates and another 10% towards other students (medical students, allied health students, physical therapy students, etc.).439 In this manner, Robertson affirmed that, with respect to teaching commitments, the Anatomy Department had more of a commitment to medical school teaching than did biochemistry.440 After all, Robertson
434 Letter from John Buettner-Janusch to Colleagues in Anatomy, 10 January 1973. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1; Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004: 78. Soon after he moved to New York, Buettner-Janusch’s wife died and he later went to jail for producing illicit drugs in his laboratory. Upon being paroled, Buettner-Janusch sent chocolate candies laced with poison to the judge’s wife. Thankfully, she did not eat the candy, but Buettner-Janusch returned to prison, where he eventually passed away. 435 Robertson, J. David. “Anatomy.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966 – 1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978: 34. 436 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 437 Hylander, William. Personal Correspondence. 2 March 2006. 438 Appointment and Promotion Policies for the Department of Anatomy. February 1982 (Amended 15 April 1987). J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 439 Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 440 Letter from J. David Robertson to Montrose J. Moses, undated (Spring 1979?). Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/116
sought to bring scientists to Duke based on their intellectual expertise to teach, hiring
scientists based on what they could teach, a practice that fed into his vision of a Department
with diverse research interests.441 For example, he brought auditory system specialist Nell
Cant to Duke when Talmadge Peele, who engaged in similar research, was preparing to retire.442 Hylander agreed that Robertson considered high-quality teaching very important
and central to the mission of the Anatomy Department.443 Moreover, Robertson wrote in
1986 that the diverse collection of individuals in the Department, including cell biologists,
molecular biologists, physical anthropologists, neurobiologists, biochemists, biophysicists,
computer scientists, zoologists, geneticists, and even a dentist (Hylander), were held together
in part by a common interest in teaching anatomy to medical students. 444
And instead of reorganizing the basic science departments on the basis of research disciplines, Robertson, in a letter to the Provost of the University, urged an emphasis on teaching. He claimed the new curriculum from 1966 had failed and advocated a return to the traditional two-year course in basic science. He did, however, laud the teaching of gross anatomy, explaining that it was superbly done by faculty members who were preeminent in their fields.445 Robertson’s leadership was thus instrumental in successfully resolving the
common problem of structuring gross anatomy sections to make them both relevant to
medical curricula and productive in the scientific research community.446 In any event,
441 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 442 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 443 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 444 Letter from J. David Robertson to James O. McNamara, January 1986. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 445 Letter from J. David Robertson to Phillip Griffiths, 8 December 1987. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 446 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/117
Robertson’s response to the reorganization crisis demonstrated how he placed greater emphasis on teaching rather than research when it came to the basic sciences.
Interestingly enough, however, the Anatomy Department had fewer graduate
students than other basic science departments at Duke. For example, the Department had
only four graduate students enter in 1986 (though they were from Johns Hopkins University
and Duke Medical School, Sidney Sussex College in England, UNC-Chapel Hill, and
National Taiwan University, illustrating the international appeal of the Department).447
Several factors hindered its ability to attract graduate students. Firstly, the name of the
Department as the “Anatomy Department” limited the ability of cell biology and neurobiology labs to attract graduate students. Moreover, the Department’s broad curriculum for graduate students limited many individuals’ interest in the program because they would have to take a variety of courses across the Department, not just in their particular area.448
5. A LESS AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP STYLE
Robertson exercised a less dictatorial leadership approach than the other three
chairmen. Before Robertson assumed the chairmanship in 1966, the previous chairs of the
Department sometimes granted appointments without consulting faculty members.
However, Robertson changed this policy such that the chairman would always consult with
447 Hylander, Bill. Memorandum, “First Year Graduate Students.” 8 July 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 448 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/118
relevant faculty members before making new appointments.449 Kay remembered how
Robertson decentralized the choosing of new faculty, asking involved faculty to come up
with a short list of candidates and then following their suggestions.450 In this way and
others, Robertson endorsed an effort to “divide the administrative functions in the
Department among the faculty so that no member, including the chairman, becomes
overburdened with them.”451
Although Robertson held meetings of the tenured faculty of the Department in his
office, he did not wield a dictatorial hand like Gross or Handler in meeting proceedings. If a viewpoint did not feature unanimous acceptance, Robertson would allow for discussion and
then put the matter to a ballot vote.452 In contrast, Handler often took hold of controversial
issues that split the members of his Department and decided the issues on his own.453 When
deciding how to modernize the Microscopic Anatomy Teaching Collection in 1978,
Robertson welcomed discussion and suggestions rather than forging ahead with what he
believed correct. He held a group discussion on the topic and continually emphasized that
any decisions made were group, not individual, ones.454 Robertson continually made it clear that he would decide on all policy matters in consultation with faculty members, a sharp
449 Appointment and Promotion Policies for the Department of Anatomy. February 1982 (Amended 15 April 1987). J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. 450 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 451 Duke University Department of Anatomy. “Evaluation of Resources and Programs.” for Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 452 “Minutes of Meeting of Anatomy Tenured Faculty.” 5 February 1987. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1; “Minutes of Meeting of Anatomy Tenured Faculty.” 19 February 1987. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1 453 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 454 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 23 February 1978. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/119 contrast to Gross unilaterally mandating that all chemistry labs be locked up for several weeks at the end of each summer.455
However, this less domineering leadership style of Robertson’s may have stemmed in part from changes in the very nature of the position of department chairman over time.
Regarding the leadership by the chairmen of the basic science departments in the 1980s,
Joklik observed an absence of “unilateral imposition of will or autocratic handling of departmental issues.” Rather, the faculty discussed issues like graduate student admissions, curriculum matters, appointments, and promotions, and then dealt with them.456 Moreover,
Robertson faced control issues with Anlyan, asking him to consider decentralizing the almost completely centralized teaching budget for the Microscopic Anatomy Teaching
Collection so Robertson could control the use of this budget.457 Most tellingly, Anlyan observed how Duke University Medical Center had a long tradition of departmental autonomy, but that a wave of turnovers in chairmanships in the early and mid-1960s helped smooth the implementation of the drastic changes going on in the Medical School, especially the new curriculum.458 This decline in the power of departmental chairmen over time may have also contributed to Robertson’s discouragement as he found he could not prevent the reorganization of the basic sciences.459
455 Duke University Department of Anatomy. “Evaluation of Resources and Programs.” for Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1. 456 Joklik, W.K. Memorandum. Mid-1980’s. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 457 Letter from J. David Robertson to William G. Anlyan, 23 February 1978. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 458 Anlyan, William G. “Conclusions, and a Look Ahead.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966 – 1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978: 238. 459 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/120
CONCLUSION
The Anatomy faculty, in its 1987 internal assessment on the eve of this reorganization of the basic sciences, harbored reservations about the route the Anatomy
Department had taken of late under Robertson:
“Up until about five years ago, Anatomy was considered to be a strong and
active department at Duke. Since then its perception by other departments
has been declining steadily, and the level of dissatisfaction among its faculty
has been increasing steadily. An unhealthy ‘holding pattern’ has been
allowed to develop, initially to await the infusion of enthusiasm that a new
chairman would provide, and more recently a fatalistic watch for the
outcome of proposed Basic Science reorganization.”460
Robertson almost “checked out” in discouragement after he realized that he could not stop the impending reorganization of the basic sciences and the razing of his department as he immersed himself in his neurobiological research with octopi.461 So heavily invested in the current structure of his department and nearing the age when he had to step down from his chairmanship, Robertson had argued passionately to keep the Department together but could not stop this reorganization.462
460 Duke University Department of Anatomy (originally drafted by Matt Cartmill, Joe Corless, and Fred Schachat). “The Anatomy Department and Its Future: A Departmental Assessment and Prospectus.” 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 461 Hylander, William. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 462 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. Amit Patel/121
The basic sciences reorganization came to pass with the end of Robertson’s
chairmanship in July 1988. In 1987, a Faculty Coordinating Committee for the
Development of the Basic Sciences at Duke University Medical Center had produced a
report where they recommended the dissolution of the Anatomy and Physiology
Departments and the creation of three departments: Cell Biology, Neurobiology, and Gross
and Evolutionary Morphology (later to become Biological Anthropology and Anatomy).463
The chair of this committee, Lewis Siegel, justified the report: “Nobody had taken a real look, an honest look, using the whole faculty, at what scientific areas really needed to be developed here, and which ones were no longer being fruitful.”464 Nonetheless, this report
was controversial among the basic science faculty, especially since many faculty members
had left the meeting thinking it was over after Siegel called for a hand vote, but before Siegel
called for another ballot vote that decided the issue in favor of reorganization.465
To honor Robertson on the eve of the end of his chairmanship and the basic
sciences reorganization, the Medical Center put on a 1988 symposium on “Specialized
Membranes and Membrane Assemblies” featuring participants from the Scripps Clinic, the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Harvard Medical School, Mexico, Washington
University School of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, the MRC Laboratory of
Molecular Biology, Yale University School of Medicine, and Duke.466 With respect to this
463 “Report of the Faculty Coordinating Committee for Development of the Basic Sciences at Duke University Medical Center.” 29 September 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 464 Rosen, Rocky. “Medical Faculty to Propose Departmental Reorganization.” The Chronicle 4 September 1987. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 3. 465 Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 466 Program, “Specialized Membranes and Membrane Assemblies: A Symposium in Honor of Professor J. David Robertson.” 21 June 1988. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2. Amit Patel/122
symposium for Robertson, Anlyan publicly acclaimed Robertson for his vital contributions
to the scientific understanding of cell membranes and nerve tissue.467
After the reorganization, Robertson moved to the newly created Neurobiology
Department and continued immersing himself wholeheartedly in his research with octopi.
Cant visited Robertson at his home mere months before his death. Although he was
especially frail, Cant remembers them sitting around his fireplace when he suddenly told her
to go fetch an abstract from a paper on octopi from another room. When she brought it
back, he explained he had finally realized what was wrong with it. He proceeded to fix it and
contact the author, illustrating how enthusiastic he was about octopi research and how
intellectually vigorous he remained to the last of his days.468 Robertson succumbed to
leukemia on August 11, 1995, at the age of 72.469
467 “Duke to Recognize Dr. Robertson.” Durham Herald 14 June 1988. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. 468 Cant, Nell. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 469 Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15 August 1995. Duke News Service Biographical Files: J. David Robertson. Amit Patel/123
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
Thesis Conclusion
These three departments and their increasing degrees of success illustrate science at
Duke transitioning from a follower to an innovator and leader on the national stage. While the Chemistry Department under Gross and Hobbs may not have made a huge impact on the national stage, it certainly assumed a leadership role within the University. By the end of their terms as chairmen, the Chemistry Department had graduated more doctorates than any other department at Duke.470 In terms of applications for graduate appointments for the
1947-1948 academic year, chemistry ranked as the second-most popular department at
Duke, behind only the English Department.471 For the 1957-1958 academic year, the
Chemistry Department had more salaried graduate assistantships than any other department
at Duke.472 From R.N. Wilson and Gross as its only faculty members in 1921, the
Department had grown to include twelve full-time faculty members by 1940, and would
continue growing through Hobbs’s term as chairman.473 The Chemistry Department under
Gross and Hobbs thus became a noticeably strong department at Duke.474
470 “The Problems of Achievement.” Brochure. Duke’s Fifth Decade Program. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 471 “Applications for Graduate Appointments, 1947-1948.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 1. 472 “Proposed Awards for 1957-1958, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.” Paul Gross Papers, Box 16. 473 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 16. 474 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993: 82. Amit Patel/124
Chemistry at Duke, however, followed behind trends in American academic
chemistry. In general, the chemical discipline represented a central facet of the emergence of
the American research university, as universities granted more doctorates in chemistry during
the 19th century than in any other field.475 At comparatively young Duke, however,
chemistry doctorates topped those in other fields all the way through the mid-20th century.476
Moreover, the early prominence and visibility of chemists facilitated their promotion to university leadership at the end of the 19th century, a trend that peaked soon after 1910.
Gross and Hobbs would not rise to their university leadership positions at Duke until the
mid-20th century, again reflecting how chemistry at Duke followed, rather than led, chemistry trends. Likewise, industry-academia cooperation, which developed as industry realized its
growing need for chemists trained in academic chemistry departments as well as for
fundamental research onto which to base its work in industrial research laboratories, hit its
stride in the interwar period.477 However, Gross and Hobbs did not really join in this trend
until World War II with the Frangible Bullet Project. In any event, the idea of Duke
chemistry as a follower rather than a leader on the disciplinary stage became clear through
Gross’s seeking advice on issues like the distribution of resources and constructing a new
building from chemistry chairmen elsewhere. As seen in Chapter One, Duke chemistry
under Gross and Hobbs featured solid growth as it led Duke through its first several decades
by following the blueprints of elite chemistry departments at Northern and Western
institutions.
475 Thackray, Arnold, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, P. Thomas Carroll, and Robert Bud. Chemistry in America, 1876 – 1976. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1985: 147. 476 “The Problems of Achievement.” Brochure. Duke’s Fifth Decade Program. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 477 Thackray, Arnold, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, P. Thomas Carroll, and Robert Bud. Chemistry in America, 1876 – 1976. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1985: 124. Amit Patel/125
As science entered a new era shortly after World War II, the Biochemistry
Department at Duke under Handler developed to assume a role on the national stage
beyond what the Chemistry Department under Gross and Hobbs could have accomplished.
When Handler stepped up to the chairmanship in 1950, the Department had a faculty of
four. When he stepped down in 1969, the Department had a faculty of 18. Beginning with a
small department of little reputation, Handler built it into one of the world’s outstanding
biochemistry departments in terms of research and quality of graduate students.478 The
American Council on Education’s ratings of departmental graduate programs quantified this impressive ascent of Duke’s Department of Biochemistry during the last portion of
Handler’s term as chairman, to 15th in the nation in 1964 and 11th in the nation in 1969.479 A member of the Rockefeller Institute observed that under Handler the Biochemistry
Department had grown into the best in the South and one of the most prolific in the nation.480
Handler’s approach to biochemistry thus featured more innovation and leadership.
Robert Kohler’s authoritative history on biochemistry as a discipline details the stagnant
disciplinary environment into which Handler entered:
“Biochemistry in 1953, the annus mirabilis of the double helix, was more
expansive and diverse than it had ever been. It is also true, however, that this
expansiveness and diversity were sharply limited…the political economy of
478 Smith, Emil L. and Robert L. Hill. Philip Handler, 1917 – 1981: A Biographical Memoir. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press, 1985: 318 – 319. 479 “A Rating of Graduate Programs.” The American Council on Education. Paul Gross Papers, Box 17. 480 Letter from Stanford Moore to James Wyngaarden, 6 February 1969. William G. Anlyan Papers, Box 42. Amit Patel/126
medical departments and the traditional core problems, which served to unify
the discipline, limited the pace and scope of change…this pattern of limited
innovation reflects institutional relations that had developed between 1910
and 1930…the momentum (or inertia) of medical service roles and the heavy
investment in traditional research programs set limits to radical change.”481
Moreover, the uniquely American emphasis on the clinical style of biochemistry left
American biochemists somewhat unprepared for the strides made by molecular biology in the mid-20th century.482 Nonetheless, Handler helped implement the revolutionary Bio-
Medical Research Training Program and sought to foster interdisciplinarity as ways to help the Department cope with these changes and new developments in the discipline.483 In fact, he began a Biochemistry Training Program that ultimately became the Program in Cell and
Molecular Biology in 1975.484 As seen in Chapter Two, Handler’s chairmanship represented a period of some innovation and exciting growth for Duke biochemistry.
Finally, the Anatomy Department under Robertson occupied an even larger role on the national stage and pursued even more innovation. In a mid-1980s memorandum, Joklik observed that the Anatomy Department appropriately ranked itself among the top ten anatomy departments in the United States (though there were no official rankings for
481 Kohler, Robert E. From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry: The Making of a Biomedical Discipline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982: 334 – 335. 482 Servos, John W. “History of Chemistry.” Osiris: Historical Writing on American Science 1 (1985): 132 – 146. 483 Handler, Philip and Eugene A. Stead, Jr. “Historical Background.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966-1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham: Duke University Press, 1978: 4. 484 “History.” Duke University Program in Cell and Molecular Biology. 6 March 2006
Anatomy departments at that time).485 Ralph Snyderman, former Chancellor for Health
Affairs at Duke, declared that Robertson developed one of the finest anatomy departments in the nation.486 A 1985 external review of the Anatomy Department near the twilight of
Robertson’s chairmanship lauded the Department as belonging to an elite group of anatomy departments and commended Robertson for his leadership in guiding it to this position.487
Robertson’s Anatomy Department featured the greatest degree of innovation among these three departments. Although anatomy went all the way back to 16th century Padua, its refashioned incarnation represented a relatively “fresh” science compared to chemistry and biochemistry: the American Association of Anatomists was only founded in 1888. On the eve of Robertson’s chairmanship, the discipline of anatomy was thus considered to be “in a malleable, if not a fluid, state.”488 However, human gross anatomy during Robertson’s
chairmanship quickly became “chiefly a systematic body of knowledge important for the
education of medical and other health professionals” but which held no further discoveries
to be made via research. Most teachers of gross anatomy, therefore, moved into newer,
different facets of anatomy like microscopic, ultrastructural, molecular, and neurological
anatomy, which all featured new advances and problems. Although the Department
participated in this expansion into new research fields, the visionary Robertson built a strong
physical anthropology group that conducted research cognate with their teaching of gross
485 Joklik, W.K. Memorandum. Mid-1980’s. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 486 Merritt, Richard. “Former Duke Anatomy Chairman Dies at 72.” Duke News Service. 15 August 1995. 487 External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. 488 Anson, Barry Joseph. “The History of Anatomy in Medical Education.” Quarterly Bulletin (Spring Quarter). Chicago: Northwestern University Medical School, 1956. Amit Patel/128
anatomy, an approach that became a growing trend across the United States.489 Other
departments across the country like those at Johns Hopkins, Brown, Stony Brook, and
Northwestern soon followed this Duke model.490 As seen in Chapter Three, Robertson
reconstructed the Anatomy Department by appointing physical anthropologists and built a
departmental faculty with incredibly diverse interests, who stimulated one another’s research
and kept the sprawling department cohesive through a common emphasis on structure and
social functions to promote goodwill. Unfortunately, Robertson’s grand experiment ended in 1988 with the reorganization of the basic science departments at Duke.
As Duke thus established itself as a leader in Southern higher education, the three
science departments explored here reveal three themes: the chairmen all sought cooperation
with outside entities to boost their respective departments, the chairmen shared a common
emphasis on space and facilities, and the passage of time gradually eroded the authority of
the position of departmental chairman. First, an emphasis on cooperation with outside
entities represented a common thread across these three science departments. Since World
War II, an extraordinary increase in federal support –from sources like the Atomic Energy
Commission, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Defense- boosted
research and development in the sciences, as did assistance from private sources.
Throughout the South, through individual research grants and institutional facilities grants,
489 Oxnard, Charles E. “The Research Correlates of Human Gross Anatomy Teaching: Functional Morphology, Primate Evolution, and Human Variation.” The American Association of Anatomists, 1888 – 1987: Essays on the History of Anatomy in America. Ed. John E. Pauly. Baltimore, MD: Williams and Wilkins, 1987: 163 – 175. 490 Hylander, William. Personal Correspondence. 2 March 2006. Amit Patel/129
these funds have represented key contributions to the growing strength in science in
universities.491
Gross and Hobbs pioneered this type of collaboration at Duke with the Frangible
Bullet Project during World War II, in which they cooperated with the Army Air Force, the
Bakelite Corporation, Corning Glass Works, the Office of Scientific Research and
Development, and the Bell Aircraft Corporation. They parlayed this success into situating
the Army’s Office of Ordnance Research on Duke’s campus in 1951. Handler continued this emphasis on outside support: he and his department won huge sums of money from government agencies for various research projects and equipment acquisitions. For example, of the $1,360,800 required to finance the first five years of Duke’s Bio-Medical Research
Training Program, the National Institutes of Health provided $743,800, or over half of the total cost (and because of funding from the Commonwealth Fund, the Markle Foundation, the Atomic Energy Commission, and industrial concerns, Duke only put forth $100,000 of the total cost!).492 In fact, Handler thanked grant programs from federal agencies, especially
the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Atomic Energy
Commission, for making possible the expansion of the departmental research program.493
Although this reliance on outside support was not unusual, Handler proved very adept at winning such funds (by 1963, his department was drawing over $1,000,000 annually from external sources!) and using them to build the Biochemistry Department, as evidenced by the
491 Pollard, William G. Atomic Energy and Southern Science. Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 1966: 11. 492 Letter from Philip Handler to John M. Russell, 17 May 1961. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2. 493 Letter from Philip Handler to W.C. Davison, 18 December 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. Amit Patel/130
rise in national standing and reputation of the Department.494 In his long-range program for the Duke University School of Medicine, Handler saw the National Institutes of Health as the means through which most support for medical centers would come in the future and proposed that Duke “lead in this growth rather than dally behind and ignore our potential for leadership.”495
Robertson continued this trend: grants from the National Institutes of Health in
1968 and 1973 helped Robertson build the Sands Building, recruit young faculty members,
acquire world-class equipment, and upgrade departmental research facilities.496 Moreover,
collaboration with Carolina Biological Supply, Reichert Scientific Instruments, the University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory bolstered the Anatomy
Department. Gross’s leadership of the National Science Foundation and presidency of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science and Handler’s two terms as president
of the National Academy of Sciences illustrated how important they held government and
private support for American science. By 1983, Duke trailed only Johns Hopkins and the
University of Texas among Southern universities in the amount of federal support for
research and development.497
Second, all four chairmen sought to get the best space and facilities possible for their
departments. Adequate space allowed for the addition of more faculty and new programs,
494 Letter from Philip Handler to Clarence Whitefield, 4 February 1963. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 495 Handler, Philip. “Proposed Long-Range Program.” 1958 – 1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 496 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1; Anlyan, William G. Personal Correspondence. 5 April 2006. 497 “Federal Support for Research and Development to Colleges and Universities Receiving the Largest Amounts.” Southern Regional Education Board Fact Book on Higher Education. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Educational Board, 1986: 81. Amit Patel/131
good equipment and research facilities promoted research and the retention of faculty
members, and strong departmental libraries helped guide research directions and promote
awareness of current research. Gross placed a high premium on having a strong library for
the Chemistry Department, eventually making it the best chemistry library in the
Southeast.498 When the new West Campus was built in 1931, chemistry represented the only
department that had its own building.499
Handler followed this lead: soon after becoming chairman, he moved the
Biochemistry Department into the new W.B. Bell Medical Research Building, where the
physical layout promoted what Anlyan called the “Bell Building Phenomenon,” or the
interdisciplinarity and collaboration with other departments that represented a trademark of
Handler’s department.500 Later in his chairmanship, Handler ruffled feathers with Dan
Tosteson to make sure the Biochemistry Department would have the space and facilities it needed in the new Nanaline Duke Building.501 Upon coming to Duke, Robertson sought to
secure the National Institutes of Health grant that would make possible the construction of
the Sands Building. Moreover, one of the strongest facets of Robertson’s department was its
world-class equipment that facilitated strong original research. For example, the Anatomy
498 Letter from Paul Gross to Robert Lee Flowers, 14 July 1926. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 1; Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994; “The Problems of Achievement.” Brochure. Duke’s Fifth Decade Program. Department of Chemistry Records, Box 7. 499 Durden, Robert Franklin. The Launching of Duke University, 1924 – 1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993. 79. 500 “Unit at Duke Moving into New Quarters.” Durham Herald. 4 January 1953. Duke News Service Biographical Files: Philip Handler; “Application for a Grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation to Duke University in support of a Training Program for Clinical Investigators.” 28 May 1957. Philip Handler Papers, Box 2; Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004: 128. 501 Hill, Robert L. Personal Interview. 7 December 2005; Anlyan, William G. Personal Correspondence. 5 April 2006. Amit Patel/132
Department had the western hemisphere’s only super-conducing electron microscope
equipped with a field emission gun.502
Handler also subscribed to Gross’s emphasis on a departmental library: the
Biochemistry Department was the only Medical School department to have a substantial
library of its own.503 Interestingly, the emphasis on libraries advocated by Gross and
Handler applied to Duke as a whole: Cartter counted Duke as the premier and one of only
four universities in the South (along with Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia) to keep a
library that supported high quality graduate education and research across the disciplines.504
By 1985, only the University of Texas out of all Southern universities held more volumes in its libraries than Duke.505
Third, these three departments help illustrate the decay of the authority of the
departmental chairman’s position over time, as power shifted to administration from
departments. Over the course of the seventy years depicted through the three chapters here,
each chairman exercised a somewhat less autocratic leadership of his department, a
progression caused not entirely by personality, but by this shift of power. Gross locked the
labs in the new chemistry building every summer from August 15 to September 15 while he
went away on vacation, ensuring that the Department’s research could not proceed without
502 Departmental Bulletin, the Department of Anatomy at Duke University Medical Center. 1986. John W. Everett Papers, Box 1. 503 Handler, Philip. Memorandum on “Present Operation of the Biochemistry Department.” 1958-1959. Philip Handler Papers, Box 3. 504 Cartter, Allan M. “The Role of Higher Education in the Changing South.” The South in Continuity and Change. Eds. John C. McKinney and Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965: 277 – 297. 505 “Large College and University Library Collections, Expenditures, and Staff: SREB States.” Southern Regional Education Board Fact Book on Higher Education. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Educational Board, 1986: 82. Amit Patel/133
him.506 While Handler did not attempt to prevent his faculty from conducting research in
his absence, he sometimes decided controversial matters on his own.507 Robertson,
however, often gave faculty members the freedom to choose new faculty appointments that
he would then pursue (he actually changed the departmental policy so that the chairman had
to consult faculty members about appointments), sought to share administrative
responsibilities with his faculty members, and insisted on open discussions in meetings.508
The loss of authority of these departmental chairmen over time reflected a larger
trend, not just a consequence of the personalities of these four scientists. Just as Gross had
run his department as he saw fit with minimal interference from the University
administration, Anlyan noted that the Medical School had an effective tradition of
departmental autonomy, one that Handler exemplified. However, in the six years following
1960, eight departmental chairmanships (including that of the Anatomy Department)
changed hands in the Medical School. This turnover, according to Anlyan, facilitated
cooperation in the implementation of new concepts, especially the new curriculum.509 In fact, Anlyan greatly appreciated Robertson’s willingness to go along with and adapt to the new curriculum.510 Finally, the culminating instance of Robertson’s lack of authority as a
506 Dean, James. “Paul M. Gross: Leading the Good Against the Best.” Honors Thesis Duke History, 1994. Duke University Archives: 16. 507 Fridovich, Irwin. Personal Interview. 15 December 2005. 508 Duke University Department of Anatomy. “Evaluation of Resources and Programs.” for Duke University School of Medicine. “Institutional Self-Study-Analysis.” 1978. Montrose J. Moses Papers, Box 1; Appointment and Promotion Policies for the Department of Anatomy. February 1982 (Amended 15 April 1987). J. David Robertson Papers, Box 2; Kay, Richard. Personal Interview. 14 February 2006. 509 Anlyan, William G. “Conclusions, and a Look Ahead.” Undergraduate Medical Education and the Elective System: Experience with the Duke Curriculum, 1966 – 1975. Ed. James F. Gifford, Jr. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978: 238. 510 Anlyan, William G. Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004: 75; External Review of the Duke University Department of Anatomy. 7 June 1985. J. David Robertson Papers, Box 1. Amit Patel/134
departmental chairman was his inability to stop the basic sciences reorganization of 1988. In
sum, the University and Medical School administrations encroached further on departmental
autonomy with the passage of time, curbing the authority and prestige of departmental chairmen.
The approaches taken by the chairmen of these three science departments thus
featured the two common threads of seeking outside cooperation and securing space as well
as increasing degrees of innovation and leadership on a national stage. The time periods of
these four chairmanships, moreover, encompassed the rise of Duke University and Medical
School to a leadership position in Southern and national higher education. Few people had
believed it could be done, but behind the entrepreneurial, charismatic leadership of
individuals like these four scholars, Duke had shown that centers of scientific preeminence
could be developed in the South.
Amit Patel/135
“A Great Leap Forward:” Department-Building in the Sciences at Duke University and Medical School
Senior History Honors Thesis Amit Patel Advisor: Dr. Sy Mauskopf
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