The crown of a good n ame W. Barry Wood, Jr., and Daniel Nathans Irving Kushner, MD This page, Dr. Barry Wood, Jr. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. Right, Dr. Daniel Nathans. Courtesy of the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University School of Medicine. The crown of a good n ame Dr. Kushner (AΩA, Washington University in St. Louis, n September 1950, I entered the Washington University 1954) is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Case Western School of Medicine in St. Louis. During the four years Reserve University School of Medicine. Video interviews of that I was there, it was my good fortune to get to know Dr. Wood and Dr. Nathans from the Leaders in American Itwo extraordinary individuals—W. Barry Wood, Jr., one of Medicine video series are available on our web site: http:// my teachers, and Daniel Nathans, one of my classmates. They alphaomegaalpha.org/leaders.html. came from vastly different backgrounds. Their lives converged during that four-year period, then separated, and later con- verged again. The crown of a good name record for Harvard athletes—for collecting more major sport letters (13) than any other Harvard athlete in history, and to tie another— for finishing his course (if he gets four A’s this year) with a record of 16 A’s, one B.2 In addition to detailing his athletic exploits, the article indicated that when he was awarded the Francis Burr scholarship, which goes to Harvard’s best student athlete, he tried to persuade the au- thorities to give the money to someone else. When they refused, he took the scholarship and gave the money to a student athlete who needed it.2 In his junior year, Wood encountered chem- istry professor James B. Conant, future president of Harvard, who suggested that he might want to participate in an ongoing study by Laurence J. Henderson, investigating the relation between blood count and physical exercise.3 Wood later recalled the encounter: [Mr. Conant] said that he knew just where I ought to work on my honor’s thesis, with Professor L. J. Henderson. Well, I had read Henderson’s Fitness of the Environment, which was a book that anyone concentrating in bio- chemistry would read, and I had also read his monograph on the blood, which was his great Barry Wood on the cover of Time, November 23, 1931. Courtesy of Time/Life Inc. work as a scientist, and the idea of working with L. J. Henderson just seemed too good to be true.4 W. Barry Wood, Jr. When I arrived in St. Louis, Barry Wood had been chairman This encounter resulted in the first of Wood’s many publica- of the Department of Medicine for eight years. He was born tions dealing with white blood cells. in 1910 to parents from affluent, established Boston families. After graduating from Harvard in 1932, Barry Wood entered His father, Harvard class of 1902, was a cotton broker and a medical school at Johns Hopkins, serving his medical resi- Harvard trustee. As a student at the nearby Milton Academy, dency there as well. The chief of the medical service, Warfield the young Barry Wood displayed no special interest in science Longcope, encouraged his residents to select a specialty area or medicine. He entered Harvard in 1928. In those days, fresh- to study in depth. He called Wood’s attention to the work men were not eligible to play varsity sports. Once he became of Oswald Avery, the great bacteriologist at the Rockefeller a sophomore, however, he was unstoppable—his record was Institute,5 and arranged for him to visit Avery in New York. spectacular. He earned ten varsity letters; three as center on Wood later described his visit as follows: the hockey team, three as first baseman on the baseball team, and three as quarterback of the football team. He was one of I can still remember to this day going into Avery’s office. He the most celebrated football players of his time and was named sat me down at a table. He was a tiny little man, and he first team All-American quarterback in 1931. He also found had on a long white coat, and he paced the floor. He told time to earn a letter in tennis, and was a member of the Davis me the whole story of the pneumococcus capsule and the Cup squad.1 polysaccharides in such a way that I was just entranced by it, He appeared on the cover of Time magazine on November and I went back with great enthusiasm for getting into this 23, 1931. The accompanying article described him: infectious disease field.4 Harvard’s Barry Wood is tall (6 ft. 1 in.), slim (173 lb.), a Phi He went on: Beta Kappa. Wood has a chance this year to pass one 10 The Pharos/Summer 2013 Dr. W. Barry Wood, Jr., examining a patient. Behind the patient is Dr. Robert J. Glaser. Courtesy of the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University School of Medicine. When I went to visit Avery . he pointed out that there are Wood arranged to share the clinical and administrative two kinds of investigators. There are investigators who go responsibilities of department head in St. Louis with his col- around picking up surface nuggets, and wherever they spot a league, Carl V. Moore. Each was in charge of those duties for six surface nugget of gold, they grab it and put it in their collec- months of the year, allowing a half year for full-time research. tion. And, he said, there is another kind of investigator who Wood largely focused on the mechanisms involved in recovery is not interested in these surface nuggets, but rather is inter- from diseases produced by the pneumococcus or related micro- ested in digging a deep hole in one place, hoping to hit a vein. organisms, with particular emphasis on the role of phagocytic Of course, if he strikes a vein of gold he makes a tremendous leucocytes. He also began studies on the mechanisms that advance. Dr. Avery was such a wonderful example of this caused fever.1 second type of investigator.4 Within a few years Wood had established an outstanding teaching and research medical service at Barnes Hospital, at- Wood returned to Harvard as a fellow in the Bacteriology tracting an excellent young faculty and a steady flow of superior Department, working with John Enders on the role of white house officers. A meticulous clinician, his lectures were exciting blood cells in recovery from pneumococcal pneumonia, then models of clarity. returned to Hopkins as an assistant in the Department of Many of those who trained under him remembered him Medicine. In 1942, at the amazingly young age of thirty-two—a vividly. Sam Guze, who started in internal medicine but later mere six years after graduating from medical school—he was became chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, said, offered the position of professor and head of the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. My beginning thoughts about an academic career were The Pharos/Summer 2013 11 The crown of a good name stimulated by Barry Wood. There was an aristocratic aura and assumed the position of director of the Department of about Barry Wood. He was a gentleman born. I don’t Microbiology. Over the next decade he carried out extensive know what his feelings were, but he treated everybody with research largely dealing with the role of leucocytes in the courtesy, refinement, and good manners. I don’t think I’ve pathogenesis of fever. The following comments were written by ever had a better clinical teacher. He could take any kind of an anonymous reviewer for The Pharos who had been one of problem and turn it into the most interesting, challenging Wood’s students during this time: case you can imagine. Barry had the ability to bring out the very best in people. What impressed me most was that this incredibly gifted man, Everybody wanted to meet his high standard.6 who could have been whatever he wanted to be—a giant of Wall Street, a captain of industry, a powerful politician- Dan Nathans: statesman—opted for the modest lifestyle of a physician- scientist, driving to work in his Ford Falcon and putting the Barry Wood was a very unusual man. He had a way of name of his laboratory technician, Mary Ruth Smith, on paper inspiring younger colleagues that is really unsurpassed in after paper in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. my experience . he had just tremendous skill in bringing out the best in students, of not only arousing our interest in Some of the advisory and administrative activities Wood medicine but just bringing out the best performance, mostly participated in during those years included membership in by his example.7 the National Academy of Sciences, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the Armed Forces Epidemiologic Board, Robert J. Glaser, who served as a house officer and young the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Board faculty member under Wood, and later became the executive of Overseers of Harvard College, president of the American secretary of Alpha Omega Alpha and editor of The Pharos: Society of Clinical Investigation, and president of the American Association of Physicians. Barry Wood was a remarkable guy. He was, I thought, one of He appeared in Time magazine again in March 1971: the two or three best teachers I’ve ever seen. He was a very good clinician and allegedly hadn’t been when he first came.