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41st APS President (1968-1969)
Loren D. Carlson
(1915-1972)
The APS Fall Meeting in Davis, California, in August 1969 was a
delightful occasion, especially for participants from other parts of the
country who envy colleagues able to live and work in California. Loren
Carlson was unofficial host for all guests and provided his usual efficient
management of all that took place. He also delivered the past president's
address (10). Beginning with the observation that the souvenir volume for
the IUPS Congress of the preceding year had been Cannon's The Way of an
Investigator (1945), Carlson reviewed how science, and especially
physiology, had changed in the past twenty-five years. In an editor's note,
Ray Daggs explained that the address "was accompanied by an ever-changing
series of background slides which served as a backdrop for points being made
by the speaker . . . both color photographs and cartoons." The address
concluded with this summary:
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"The way of an investigator has changed.
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We have passed through an era of "blessedness" when support
of research was unquestioned as providing a source of betterment and
progress.
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We are faced with fragmentation of disciplines to
subdisciplines.
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We are increasingly aware that we can no longer live in an
ivory tower and insulate ourselves from political, economic and social
pressures.
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We must accept the inevitability of change in university
structure from an aristocratic one to a democratic form involving the
student and faculty community in its decisions.
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Somehow, we must change the connotation of the conjunction
between teaching and research to teaching with research so that the public
and government recognize their inseparable nature in the university."
Because it came near the end of the student unrest that marked the latter
half of the 1960s, Carlson's message was particularly appreciated.
Loren Carlson was born in Davenport, Iowa, and graduated from St. Ambrose
College there in 1937 with a degree in biology. Four years later (1941) he
was awarded the Ph.D. degree in zoology by the University of Iowa in Iowa
City, where he continued for a year as research associate in physiology. He
then joined the professional staff at the Aeromedical Laboratory at Wright
Field, Ohio, where he served from 1942 until 1946 as first lieutenant,
captain, and then major in the U.S. Army Air Corps. With the end of the war
he moved to the University of Washington, at first in zoology, and then from
1946 in the Department of Physiology of the School of Medicine. From 1955 to
1960 he held the rank of professor. During this interval he also served the
university in various administrative posts, including Director of General
Education (1949-51). In 1960 he began an six-year association with the
College of Medicine of the University of Kentucky as the first professor and
the founding chairman of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. For a
year (1965-66) he was simultaneously chairman of the Department of Zoology.
Carlson's career in science concluded at the University of California at
Davis, where from 1966 until his death in 1972 he was chairman of the
Division of Sciences Basic to Medicine. Once again he was also the first
professor and the founding chairman of the department, this time of human
physiology. Being recruited for this faculty early, he had major roles in
development of the school and its curriculum. From 1966 to 1969 he served as
assistant dean and then became Associate Dean for Research Development and
Curricular Affairs. The appointments he held exhibit not only Carlson's
commitment to the sciences of zoology and physiology but also his talent for
administrative responsibility. Worthy of note is how, although he almost
always held some administrative post, he continued virtually full time as a
teacher and laboratory investigator.
Honors came to Carlson from many sources. The Alumni Association of St.
Ambrose College gave him its Award of Merit in 1967, and in 1969 he received
the degree doctor of philosophy honoris causa from the University of Oslo.
In that same year he was elected to fellowship in AAAS (Boston). Although he
was not a medical graduate, he was elected to charter membership in Alpha
Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society, in 1972, when the Eta
Chapter was established at Davis. Thirteen years later (1985) the
university's biology and medical library was renamed the Loren D. Carlson
Health Science Library.
Carlson's military service at Wright Field initiated a continuing
interest and participation in national scientific affairs, especially in
aeromedical problems and space flight. For his contributions he was listed
in Who's Who in Space and in Engineers of Distinction, Including
Scientists in Related Fields. The U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S.
Air Force) awarded him the Legion of Merit (1946), the Exceptional Civilian
Service Medal (1962), and the Outstanding Achievement Award (1970). He was
an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, a fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, and a member of
the International Academy of Astronautics. For five years (1957-62) he was
chairman of the Aeromedical and Biosciences Panel of the Scientific Advisory
Board of the U.S. Air Force, while for six years (1961-67) he was a member
of two space technology subcommittees of the President's Scientific Advisory
Committee. He also served from 1962 in a variety of positions, advisory or
consultant, to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as
well as on several boards and committees of NAS (from 1964). Other related
appointments involved the Office of Naval Research (1965-68) and the
Aerospace Medical Association (1967-72). If this listing of responsibilities
seems to mark a career given almost exclusively to public service, such an
impression is mistaken. Through all these obligations Carlson preserved his
principal base of activity in his university positions and in his
laboratory.
He was a member and/or fellow of many other scientific societies. For
example, he was a charter member of the Biomedical Engineering Society and
served on its Board of Directors (1970-72), a member of the Board of
Trustees of Biological Abstracts (1971-72), and a fellow of AAAS. He
was approved for membership in APS in 1945.
Appointed to the Membership Committee, Carlson began his official service
for APS from 1962 to 1965, simultaneously with becoming section editor for
environmental physiology of the American Journal of Physiology
(1962-66). Elected to Council in 1964, three years later he became president
elect, in time to serve as president of the Society during the XXIV IUPS
Congress in Washington, D.C., and to serve for a year (1969-70) as president
of FASEB. He joined the Editorial Committee of the Handbook of Physiology
in 1967, and briefly in 1971 he represented the Society on the Council of
Academic Societies of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Late in his career Carlson summed up his research interests:
"a series of investigations directed toward a description and
understanding of mechanisms involved in adaptation to temperature.
Currently, these are directed toward measurements of changes in the response
of the peripheral circulation following chronic cold exposure."
"A second program is directed toward understanding of mechanisms involved
in the change in the cardiovascular response to tilting or lower body
negative pressure following the hypodynamic state, or weightlessness."
Between 1939 and 1941, Carlson published six papers in collaboration with
Joseph Hall Bodine, professor of zoology and head of the department at the
University of Iowa. The papers carried the running title "Enzymes in
ontogenesis (Orthoptera)" and were concerned mainly with activators of
protyrosinase (1). One additional study completed before the war analyzed
the effect of hydrogen peroxide on frog skin (2). During his years at the
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Carlson investigated problems of adequate
oxygen supply for air crews, and thence for commercial aviation (3). From
this he moved to problems of acclimatization (4) that began with a project
on cold exposure funded by the Air Force during the winter of 1948-49. In
1954, with W. Cottle, he published the first of a series of papers
describing adaptive changes in rats exposed to cold (5). This interest
continued until the end of his laboratory career; in one of the last titles
in his bibliography, on the calorigenic effect of norepinephrine in newborn
rats (12), from 1957 to 1972 he collaborated with Emery and with A. C. L.
Hsieh, with whom he had worked since 1957.
With a variety of coauthors, Carlson's complete bibliography lists well
over a hundred titles. They include numerous review articles he was invited
to prepare on, for example, equipment for providing oxygen, acclimatization
to cold, respiratory exchanges, and human performance under stressful
conditions. Many are summaries commissioned by the several federal agencies
asking about human performance in cold climates. The list also includes
papers on combined effects of ionizing radiation and heat or cold on white
rats (6). In the early 1960s he published "Requirements for monitoring
physiological function in space flight" (7) and "Necessity for biological
experimentation in space" (8). Also published in 1963 was the paper that
began Carlson's analysis of the relationship between skin temperature and
blood flow in a rabbit ear (9). In a sense his scientific work was brought
to a climax by publication with Hsieh of the small volume, Control of
Energy Exchange (11). In 106 pages it provides both mathematical and
block diagram models of energy balance, metabolism, energy expenditure,
thermophysiology, and regulation of body temperature. Perhaps its most
useful features, however, are appendices that serve as a handbook of
reference for anyone interested in these subjects. The last ten pages of the
appendix include models of energy exchange as they have been conceived by
various investigators.
His past president's address, mentioned above, concluded as follows:
"I can add a happy and optimistic note in this discussion. It is the role
of friends at home and abroad. Being a biologist had brought to me the
benefits and pleasures of friendships in the United States and in many
countries. At home, here in Davis, this has been particularly true for me.
As a physiologist and as your president, I am grateful to those of you whom
I know for your friendship and, to those of you who attend the business
meetings, for your confidence in electing me your president. I accept with
some sadness the edict that nothing gets paster faster than a past
president."
Perhaps even more clearly than publications, achievements, positions, and
honors, these lines disclose the character of Loren Carlson as his friends
knew him.
Selected Publications
1. Bodine, J. H., and L. D. Carlson. Enzymes in ontogenesis (Orthoptera).
XIV. The action of proteins on certain activators of protyrosinase. J.
Gen. Physiol. 24: 423-432, 1941.
2. Marsh, G., and L. D. Carlson. The effect of hydrogen peroxide on the
rate of oxygen consumption of frog skin. J. Cell. Comp. Physiol. 22:
99-114, 1943.
3. Carlson, L. D., W. R. Lovelace II, and H. L. Burns. Requirements for
oxygen in commercial aviation. Some aspects of its use. J. Aviat. Med.
19: 399-413, 1948.
4. Carlson, L. D., H. L. Burns, T. H. Holmes, and P. P. Webb. Adaptive
changes during exposure to cold. J. Appl. Physiol. 5: 672-676, 1953.
5. Cottle, W., and L. D. Carlson. Adaptive changes in rats exposed to
cold. Caloric exchange. Am. J. Physiol. 178: 305-308, 1954.
6. Carlson, L. D., and B. H. Jackson. The combined effects of ionizing
radiation and high temperature on the longevity of the Sprague-Dawley rat.
Radiat. Res. 11: 509-519, 1959.
7. Carlson, L. D. Requirements for monitoring physiological function in
space flight. Astronautik 2: 310-321, 1960.
8. Carlson, L. D. The necessity for biological experimentation in space.
Adv. Astronaut. Sci. 17: 1-20, 1963.
9. Honda, N., L. D. Carlson, and W. V. Judy. Skin temperature and blood
flow in the rabbit ear. Am. J. Physiol. 204: 615-618, 1963.
10. Carlson, L. D. The way of an investigator reanalyzed. Physiologist
12: 425-432, 1969.
11. Carlson, L. D., and A. C. L. Hsieh. Control of Energy Exchange.
London: Macmillan, 1970.
12. Hsieh, A. C. L., N. Emery, and L. D. Carlson. Calorigenic effect of
norepinephrine in newborn rats. Am. J. Physiol. 221: 1568-1571, 1971.
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