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53rd APS President (1980-1981)
Earl Howard Wood
(b. 1912)
On Wednesday, 31 July 1985, the New York Times, in a major
editorial on the use of animals in biological research and testing,
commended APS by name for its policy supporting humane care and use of
laboratory animals. This policy is not something new for the Society. The
result of deliberations extending over many years and involving many of the
Society's members, committees, and officers, it expressed a long-standing
concern. For example, four years earlier (1981) Ernst Knobil, as a recent
past president, and Earl H. Wood, as past president of APS and president of
FASEB, offered testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology regarding the necessity
1) of continuing utilization of animals for biomedical research and 2)
of avoiding any suspicion of abuse or neglect. Wood mentioned this problem
in his past president's address (10) by noting, "The very active promotion
of legislative proposals by these types of well-organized and financed
animal rights groups is a most serious threat to continued progress in the
biomedical sciences." More recently he added. "The ongoing, progressively
increasing antivivisection activities seriously threaten continued progress
in the biomedical sciences." In 1983 the Society selected Wood to serve as
chairman of a blue ribbon panel that reviewed the case of Edward Taub, a
Silver Spring, Maryland, researcher whose laboratory was raided by animal
rights zealots; 117 charges of animal cruelty were filed against him.
Born in Mankato, Minnesota, after graduation from Macalester College in
St. Paul in 1934 Wood entered the School of Medicine of the University of
Minnesota but gave up his medical studies temporarily for training in
Maurice Visscher's department, where he received the M.S. degree in 1939.
Two years later (1941) he was awarded both the M.D. and the Ph.D. degrees,
the latter for research on water and electrolytes of cardiac muscle,
especially under the influence of digitalis (1). In fact, the year 1940-41
was spent at the University of Pennsylvania as an NRC fellow in the
Department of Pharmacology, and for the following year he was instructor in
pharmacology at Harvard. In 1942 he returned to Minnesota, to the
Aeromedical Unit of the Mayo Foundation Laboratories, where he progressed
steadily in rank in the Mayo Graduate School and then in the Mayo Medical
School to become professor of physiology and of medicine in 1951. He
officially retired from these positions in 1982.
Wood has written of his training, "My most important preceptors in
science were Prof. M. B. Visscher (Minnesota), Prof. A. N. Richards
(Pennsylvania), and Prof. Otto Krayer (Harvard). I had the greatest respect
for Otto Krayer; he was a really exceptional gentleman and scholar."
Wood's research interests fall into three main classifications. He began,
as noted above, by studying the action of cardiac glycosides in heart-lung
preparations, and with Gordon Moe he demonstrated that the positive
inotropic effects of digitalis glycosides are associated with loss of
intracellular myocardial potassium (1). This loss may be accompanied by an
increase in intracellular calcium, which in turn causes an increase in
efficiency of excitation-contraction coupling and the positive inotropic
effect. Twenty-seven years later (7) Wood and his associates showed that
dramatic positive or negative inotropic effects can be produced at constant
cardiac fiber length by relatively small induced changes in the plateau
phase of the action potential. Again these effects were postulated to be
caused by changes in intracellular calcium concentration and in efficiency
of excitation-contraction coupling. This report was the first to describe
use of the sucrose gap method of potential clamping for cardiac muscle
fibers. Another fundamental study of cardiac physiology showed that there
are position-dependent regional differences in pericardial pressures that
influence cardiac function (8).
The second theme of Wood's research is protection against positive
gravitational effects during high-speed aerial combat and dive-bombing
maneuvers. An active program of investigation carried out with the Mayo
human centrifuge and summarized relatively soon after the war (2) included
the discovery that protection against blackout requires procedures or
devices that maintain blood flow to the head by actually producing
hypertension at heart level. This led to the development of a simplified
single-pressure suit and its associated G-activated and G-compensated
pneumatic valve. In 1963 the later work of the group was described (6), with
a theoretical model of changes in regional lung volume, ventilation
perfusion, and pleural pressures caused by changes in the direction and/or
magnitude of gravitational-inertial forces. The papers these reviews were
based on made the Mayo laboratory a world leader in study of gravitational
stress.
Thirdly, Wood and his associates have made notable contributions to
laboratory methods and techniques, including 1) a Statham unbounded
strain gauge for measuring blood pressure; 2) an oximeter for
on-line, real-time measurement of oxygen saturation while blood is being
withdrawn for diagnostic purposes; and 3) an absolute-reading ear
oximeter; all three are generally used throughout the world. Their
development and their properties have revolutionized procedures for
diagnostic cardiac catherization, as summarized by Wood in 1950 (7), and
eventually they led to on-line, real-time monitoring during cardiac surgery
(5). Studies of dye-dilution techniques began with continuous recording of
Evans blue dye concentrations, then of indocyanine green, and finally led to
an article summarizing these methods and their use (4). The most recent
interest of Wood and his colleagues is a high-speed, computer-based X-ray
scanning system that gives accurate and three-dimensional views of
moment-to-moment changes in, for example, heart, lungs, or circulation of
intact animals or humans. Known as the "dynamic spatial reconstructor," the
machine is a high-speed, synchronous, volumetric whole-body
computer-assisted tomographic (CT) scanner. It was described in 1977 (9) and
in some detail in Wood's past president's address that speaks to the
multiple grant requests and many site visits required to secure funding for
construction of the machine (10).
For his development of the anti-G suit, Wood was awarded the Presidential
Certificate of Merit by Harry Truman in 1947. He has received from
Macalester College an honorary degree of D.Sc. in 1950 and a Distinguished
Citizen Award in 1974. In 1963 he was given awards by the Aerospace Medicine
Association and by Modern Medicine. The American College of Chest
Physicians (1974), the Mayo Foundation (1978 and 1984), and the Biomedical
Engineering Society (1978) have all honored him with lectureships. He is an
honorary member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1977)
and of the American College of Cardiology (1978). In 1982, he received an
honorary degree, doctor of medicine, from the University of Bern,
Switzerland, and in the following year he was given both the Humboldt Prize
for Senior U.S. Scientists by the government of West Germany and the John
Phillips Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians. Wood has been
a visiting professor at the University of Bern (1965-66), an honorary
research fellow in the Department of Physiology at University College,
London (1972-73), and a visiting professor at the University of Kiel, West
Germany (1983).
When he spoke to the society as past president, Wood recalled that the
first such address was given by Wallace Fenn at the University of Minnesota
in 1948, and Wood added that he had heard all but two of the ensuing
thirty-three addresses. Few members of APS can claim more. Wood became a
member in 1943. He was active at first mainly in the Circulation Group and
served as a member of its Steering Committee (1962-1964; chairman,
1963-1964). He received its Carl J. Wiggers Award in 1968. He was elected to
APS Council in 1977 and became president elect in 1979. From 1978-1980 he
was chairman of the Centennial Celebration Committee, and from 1982 to 1985
he served on the Finance Committee. Responsibilities with FASEB ran very
much in parallel with those in the Society; in addition to his year as
president of FASEB (1981-1982), he was a member of the Long-Range Planning
and Development Fund Committees (1982-1985) and the Public Affairs Committee
(1984-1985).
While he was participating in APS, Wood was likewise active in AHA. From
1962 to 1977 he was a Career Investigator of AHA. He was a member of its
Basic Science Council and its Council on the Circulation from 1963, and for
three years (1967-70) he was on both the AHA Research Fellowship Review
Panel and the Physiology and Pharmacology Research Study Committee. In 1973
he was given the association's Research Achievement Award. A member of the
Biomedical Engineering Society from 1970, he was elected president for
1983-1984. He is a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association (1964-) and
its Space Medicine Branch (1976-). For his pioneer research on problems
encountered in flight, he has been a consultant and served on committees for
many federal agencies and ad hoc groups, beginning with the U.S. Air Force
Aeromedical Center in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1946. The list includes also
the Bioastronautics Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee
(1962-66); the Advisory Panel on Medical Biological Sciences (1962-67); a
working group on Gaseous Environment for Manned Space Craft of NAS
(1963-64); the Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering
(1964-65); NASA panels and study groups (1964-65, 1967-80, and 1978-81); the
U.S. Air Force Manned Orbital Laboratory Medical Advisory Group (1969-74);
the American Institute of Biological Sciences Medical Program Advisory
Council (1963-); and an AIBS ad hoc panel on medical selection and
maintenance of crew health, created for NASA with Wood as chairman
(1978-81). For a year he was a consultant for the Aerospace Corporation
(1964-65), and for six years he served on the NASA Man in Space Committee
(1964-70). He has served NIH on the Physiology Fellowship Review Panel
(1963-65), the Research Career Development Award Committee (1963-65), the
Artificial Heart/Myocardial Infarction Program Advisory Committee (1967-70),
the Biomedical Engineering Special Study Section (1970), and the Computer
and Biomathematical Sciences Study Section (1974-77).
In addition to membership in the usual, more generalized scientific
societies (e.g., AAAS) Wood is a member of the American Society for Clinical
Investigation and the Central Society for Clinical Research. He belongs to
the Cardiac Muscle Society, the Minnesota Heart Association, and the
Minnesota Academy of Sciences. In 1979 he went to China as a member of a
delegation representing the American College of Physicians.
Wood grew up in a family with a sister and four brothers, all of whom
became distinguished in their several fields. Louise, an executive of the
American Red Cross during World War II, eventually became director of all
overseas activities of that organization and then served for eleven years as
executive director for the Girl Scouts of America. Their brother, Harland,
was professor of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. Chester
(Ph.D., Stanford University), who taught in various schools in Minnesota,
was a member of the staff of the University of Minnesota in Duluth and then
of the Anchorage Methodist University. Delbert graduated from the St. Paul
College of Law, was a member of the staff of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation for six years, and then for twenty years was chief special
agent for the Illinois Central Railroad. Wilbur received his medical
education at Minnesota and after the war established a medical clinic in
Littleton, Colorado. From 1942 the family and a few friends have come
together each year in the Minnesota woods, since 1944 in their own camp, for
a reunion that includes a fall deer hunt and other family traditions. Earl
is said to be the one in charge; he sends out rules of the camp, four pages
long. He also keeps statistics of each year's hunt and issues a
"productivity" report after each season.
When he retired from his position at the Mayo, and from office in the APS,
Wood with his sons, Andy and Mark, his close friend Homer Warner (of the
University of Utah), Warner's son, Steve, and a friend, Ray Skrocke, sailed
from Hawaii to Seattle. Wood wrote of the rough parts of the trip, "winds
about 30-40 miles per hour from the north. Seas very rough. Tremendous
swells and breakers---at least 20 feet high. . . .Boat often heeling over to
40-45 degrees. Terrifying. . . ."
This voyage must have been a grand way to "wind down" from three years of
presidential service to APS.
Selected Publications
1. Wood, E. H., and G. K. Moe. Blood electrolyte changes in the
heart-lung preparation with special reference to the effects of cardiac
glycosides. Am. J. Physiol. 137: 6-21, 1942.
2. Wood, E. H., E. H. Lambert, E. J. Baldes, and C. F. Code. Effects of
acceleration in relation to aviation. Federation Proc. 3: 327-344,
1946.
3. Wood, E. H. Special instrumentation problems encountered in
physiological research concerning the heart and circulation in man.
Science Wash. DC 112: 705-715, 1950.
4. Wood, E. H., H. L. C. Swan, and H. W. Marshall. Technic and diagnostic
applications of dilution curves recorded simultaneously from the right side
of the heart and from the arterial circulation. Proc. Staff Meet. Mayo
Clin. 33: 536-553, 1958.
5. Wood, E. H., W. F. Sutterer, and D. E. Donald. The monitoring and
recording of physiologic variables during closure of ventricular septal
defects using extracorporeal circulation. Adv. Cardiol. 2: 61-74,
1959.
6. Wood, E. H., A. C. Nolan, D. E. Donald, and L. Cronin. Influence of
acceleration on pulmonary physiology. Federation Proc. 22: 1024-1034,
1963.
7. Wood, E. H., R. L. Heppner, and S. Weidmann. Inotropic effects of
electric currents. I. Positive and negative effects of constant electric
currents or current pulses applied during cardiac action potentials. II.
Hypothesis: calcium movements, excitation-contraction coupling and inotropic
effects. Circ. Res. 24: 409-445, 1969.
8. Avasthey, P., C. M. Coulam, and E. H. Wood. Position-dependent
regional differences in pericardial pressures. J. Appl. Physiol. 28:
622-629, 1970.
9. Wood, E. H. New vistas for the study of structural and functional
dynamics of the heart, lungs, and circulation by non-invasive numerical
tomographic vivisection. Circulation 56: 506-520, 1977.
10. Wood, E. H. Past-president's address. Four decades of physiology,
musing, and what now. Physiologist 25: 19-32, 1982.
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