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HEART NEWS and VIEWS the News Bulletin of the International Society for Heart Research HEART NEWS AND VIEWS The News Bulletin of the International Society for Heart Research www.ishrworld.org Volume 8, Number 2, 2000 N 1936 I began my fel- Past Truth &Present Poetry promoted to Professor of I lowship at the then Pathological Anatomy. In Rockefeller Institute for the Philippines, he discov- Medical Research in New York, now the ered a widespread strain of the dysentery Rockefeller University with Dr Alexis Car- bacillus since known as the Flexner type. rel, the experimental surgeon, and Charles In 1901 he took a month leave to head a Lindbergh, the aviator, to work on a system government commission investigating the they had designed to perfuse organs under outbreak of bubonic plague in San Fran- sterile conditions and with any desirable cisco. In the same year, the Rockefeller pressure and pulse rate. Working at the Institute for Medical Research was founded Rockefeller Institute were scientists of great in New York City and Flexner became its stature such as Landsteiner, the discov- director and one of the seven members of erer of the blood groups, Peyton Rous (the the Institute’s Board of Scientific Direc- role of viruses in cancer) and Oswald Avery, tors headed by William H. Welch. Begin- who established the role of nucleic acid as 13. Simon Flexner, ning in 1903 with the advice of Welch, the carrier of genetic information. The Ideal Flexner organized the Rockefeller Institute Over this highly diverse group of indi- Administrator according to specifications he had himself viduals presided Simon Flexner, the direc- drawn up at the Board’s request. There tor of the Rockefeller Institute. It was were to be several laboratory departments customary for any new fellow to present him or herself to the each headed by a competent scientist. Flexner did not director. My visit with Dr Flexner was rather brief but I choose the field of science to be represented, rather he remember that he talked without interruption and finished his selected the scientist because of his stature. In 1906 he was discourse without changing either pitch or rhythm. He ended instrumental in opening a new laboratory building, and in abruptly but not before he had advised me to marry a rich 1910 a modern research hospital. In 1907 America experi- woman. enced the first large epidemic of poliomyelitis. Flexner was Who was Simon Flexner and why make him the center of able to transmit the disease from monkey to monkey and this discussion? Simon Flexner was an administrator, presid- therefore laid the foundation for the development of protec- ing over a diverse group of scientists working primarily in tive vaccines for polio. fundamental research related to clinical conditions. A look Obviously Flexner was not only a competent administra- at Simon Flexner’s career will explain why I singled him out tor but also an outstanding and original investigator. Later as an ideal administrator. He was born in 1863, the fourth son in life, his energies were expended more and more upon the of nine children in Louisville, Kentucky. He graduated from direction of the Rockefeller Institute and his main contribu- the Louisville College of Pharmacy, worked in a drugstore, tions were to stimulate and advise his juniors. He left a free and then began the study of medicine at the University of hand to senior investigators but he shepherded the younger Louisville. He obtained his medical degree in two years. scientists until they were ready for independent work. Simon Following, he studied pathology at the Johns Hopkins Hos- Flexner died in New York City at the age of 83. pital with William H. Welch, who became a major influence in The following features made Flexner an outstanding ad- his career and who was one of the founding members of ministrator: he was himself a first rate scientist; he ap- Johns Hopkins University and of the Rockefeller Institute. pointed scientists to his staff not because he wanted a As resident pathologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Flexner representative of a specific scientific field but because he continued research in bacteriology and pathology and was wanted to support an individual outstanding scientist; he NEWS BULLETIN 1 did not hesitate to appoint to his staff Although the most important function ments. Faculty, administration and workers who were his scientific equals; of a board is to raise money, it should board should be balanced. he was tolerant of the idiosyncrasies also concern itself with the interrela- In the long run, good will, decency, and foibles of his faculty. An example tionship between the administration and respect for the individual scientist and was the appointment and continued individual scientists or physicians. Like appreciation for good science are the support of Alexis Carrel, the experimen- the board of the Rockefeller Institute at pillars on which scientific and medical tal surgeon and Nobelist, who was a the beginning of the 20th century, it establishments should be built. great scientist but because of his inter- should be aware of the relationship of Simon Flexner was a shining example. ests in metaphysics and social sciences, the administration to the faculty and of was a gadfly amongst the other mem- the value of their scientific accomplish- Richard J. Bing, M.D. bers of the Institute; Flexner also had excellent relations with the Board of the Rockefeller Institute, particularly with Welch and with John D. Rockefeller, Jr, who assured the Institute of continu- RICHARD BING’S 91st He further established that defective ous funding. At that time, individual BIRTHDAY energy production was not the source grant support was not a major factor of the problem in heart failure. It was and the Director of the Institute distrib- On October 12, 2000 Richard Bing this classic series of six articles that uted the funds amongst his faculty ac- will be 91 years old. Through his many appeared in the American Journal of cording to his own lights. contributions in Past Truth & Present Medicine and in the Journal of Clini- I have chosen Simon Flexner as an Poetry, he actively promotes and en- cal Investigation, as well as his Harvey ideal medical administrator, primarily hances this News Bulletin. I would like lecture that carried the message that because he was tolerant, selfless in to pay tribute to this outstanding in- the heart was more than just a pump. It support of his faculty, and considered vestigator and renaissance human be- had its own metabolic needs, governed his main function the support of indi- ing who, in my view, planted the seed by its own complex machinery. Meta- vidual scientists. Because he himself that led to the creation of the Interna- bolic paths were the forerunners of was a competent scientist, he recog- tional Society for Heart Research. This today’s signal system. His classic se- nized talent and genius. He was no Society evolved from the International ries on Physiological Studies in Con- threat to the scientific ambitions of his Study Group for Research in Cardiac genital Heart Disease covered eight faculty but rather supported them once Metabolism, established in 1968, at a outstanding articles, still classics in he recognized their worth. meeting in Dubrovnik in Yogoslavia. their own right. Thus it was that from In scientific and medical institutions, The year before, a group of investiga- congenital heart disease that his work administration has assumed a pivotal tors, including Richard Bing, had come evolved to metabolism of the human role. It directs the course and develop- together to lay out the principles and heart to myocardial ischemia and later ment of science, and it chooses person- aims of this new group. to hypertrophy and failure, always one nel, both key and technical. Sometimes In those days cardiology was domi- step ahead of his times. administrators rule by decree, and do so nated by pumps and pressures. The As brilliant as his start was, much either openly, autocratically or diplo- only suitable clinical training was one more was to come. For decades run- matically; sometimes however, they fail based on the catheter laboratory. It ning, he and his laboratory produced to consult the faculty. In most medical was into this scene in about 1948 that a series of outstanding papers, many schools, there exists a faculty senate, or Richard Bing initiated the new meta- well ahead of his times and confirmed a similar body, which acts like a parlia- bolic cardiology, via the catheter labo- by later work. Few know that Richard ment to advise and consent. But often ratory. During his studies on congeni- was among the first to relate angio- these advisory bodies either do not tal heart disease he inserted a catheter tensin to the blood pressure. He was exist, or they are powerless and fulfill into the coronary sinus, drew off black also one of the first to define the con- only a cosmetic function. Administra- venous blood and his fertile mind im- tractile properties of isolated human tors of medical schools or scientific mediately realized that he had a major heart muscle. He initiated studies into institutions should be compassionate tool at his command for studying the the metabolism and electricity of the yet firm. Firmness is indeed needed. oxygenation and metabolism of the effects of ischemia on the mammalian But firmness should be combined with intact human heart. heart. He and Sigmundur Gudbjar- compassion. Foremost, the administra- Not only that, but he carried his nason were the first to study the me- tor should have respect for his faculty. ideas furher and delineated the meta- tabolism of myocardial infarction and Boards oversee both the financial and bolic fuels of the human heart (fatty the repair process.
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