News From Senior Physiologists

As originally printed in The Physiologist, 
June 2001, Volume 44, Number 3 
Page 132

Letters to Michael Bárány
Maximo Deysine writes: “Away from the pressures of the Darwinian struggle and with my basket of appetites reasonably filled with successes and failures, I look back and realize that the knowledge of Physiology was a life-long devoted friend.
    “It all started way back in Buenos Aires, Argentina when my high school biology teacher enthusiastically introduced me to the wonders of life and I became addicted to physiology. Through all my life and in spite of many attempts at rehabilitation, I continued falling into the pleasurable mysteries of cell function. Wrapped by this addiction, during Medical School I became chief instructor at the Physiology Department of the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Bernardo Odoriz. In that heady den I shared responsibilities with my dear friend Dr. Guillermo Pilar, who later shined in neurobiology. During those ecstatic years, our daily subject of conversation, when not directed to dealings with the opposite sex, was about the then incipient studies on cell biology. In 1954, President Juan D. Peron expelled us all from the department and later Dr. Bernardo Houssay reinstated us with all due glory. Politics can’t stop an addiction and my colleagues continued the road of Physiology and I, interested in applying those concepts to the care of surgical patients, took a fork towards surgery.
    “My surgical career was a futile attempt to abandon my habit. Unable to change courses and craving for answers, I started to investigate problems dealing with surgical infections, particularly the diagnosis of abscess with radioisotopes. Later on, I participated in intensive care, which is an advanced course in clinical physiopathology. There I learned that every failure at human resuscitation from septic or hemorrhagic shock was associated with our ignorance about some form of cellular function, stressing the need for further research. Finally, I have specialized in the care of patients suffering from infected meshes utilized for hernia repair and this is where I am now. In reality, all forms of rehabilitation failed and I find myself constantly hungry about the marvelous complexity of life. With age, my surgical practice has declined but my interest in surgical physiopathology remains as keen as when I was a student.
    “Yes, my dear colleagues, the bean counters can force you to retire, but if you continue to be interested in your primary love, your mental professional life will continue. All you need is some kind of connection with the subject of your adoration, a library, and questions. Humans start to die when they stop asking questions.
    “I firmly believe that physiology is the basis for the understanding of disease so I continue teaching medical students, trying to set their brains on fire like that biology professor did to me. How to do it depends on your relationship with them and the intensity of your inner blaze. You will not always succeed but the few times you do will be unforgettable. It is, however, disturbing to discover that some students will graduate with minimal interest and knowledge about cell function and I doubt the wisdom utilized when they were screened for entrance into Medical School. Medicine should be a course given for compassionate individuals interested in advanced human physiopathology.
    “Today, my activities range from the actual repair of a hernia to academic teaching at Congresses, etc. My obsession with physiology provides me with a seemingly interminable number of subjects to write about so I keep trying to persuade faceless editors to publish my papers—a task I often find frustrating. My two sons are surgeons and chatting shop with them is a great source of pleasure as they pretend to listen to my unrequested clinical advice. Four grandchildren provide me with a feeling of perpetuity.
    “To survive aging you need a hobby and during the cold winter evenings I carve walking sticks from dry oak branches and then physiology follows me into my basement and the wood becomes alive with precious lignin and its cellular surroundings. I also make stained-glass windows and I force my friends to accept them. It gives me pleasure to know that something made by me will remain with the living. During warm days, pretending to play golf provides a much needed break from dealing with the human suffering associated with the practice of surgery.
    “The biology professor who started my addiction, cunningly like all dealers, manipulated me into entering a life of great pleasure driven by the never-ending quest to solve the mystery of life. He was my real teacher.
    “My advice to those who reach my age is two-fold. First, rejoice upon the fact that no one reaches a true pinnacle; the joy comes from the privilege of participating in the contest even if that includes some loses. Second, refuse to retire by always pursuing your forever lasting first love.”

Bill Sawyer writes: “Thank your for your letter reminding me of the rapid flight of time and asking for a note for “News from Senior Physiologists.” It is still hard for me to believe that it has been 10 years since the then-mandatory retirement age came and I shut down my lab at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and migrated west. I am also surprised to realize that my publication list has grown by 30 papers since I retired. This does not reflect continued productivity, but that I had pharmacological data on hundreds of synthetic peptide analogs of the neurohypophysial hormones that Maurice Manning’s group in Toledo had synthesized during the 24 years of our collaboration. Although we had published over 100 papers on these before I retired, many promising peptides remained unreported. Some of these served as lead compounds for subsequent syntheses of more interesting peptides. Manning now has the pharmacological support of my first graduate student, W.Y. Chan, of Cornell Medical School, and my superb former chief technician, N.C. (Becky) Wo. They continue to characterize new neurohypophysical hormone analogs from Manning’s group. It is really gratifying to find that I remained such a productive investigator long after leaving the lab. 
    “A high point of my post-retirement years came when Bill Dantzler, Hiroko Nishimura, and Peter K.T. Pang arranged a symposium and dinner to honor my retirement at the FASEB meeting in Anaheim in 1992. A number of my old friends, students and collaborators were there, including Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen, Arthur W. Martin, W. Francis Ganong, Serge Jard and John Blair-West, to name a few. I certainly found it a bit overwhelming that this party included two Past-Presidents and one President-elect of the APS, and colleagues from France and Australia. Many there had known me as a comparative physiologist and endocrinologist and not merely as a pharmacologist. I had, in fact, been involved in physiological research for almost 50 years, starting as a college undergraduate doing a thesis project under the late Carroll M. Williams. I did graduate work with Frederick L. Hisaw and was a faculty member in Homer W. Smith’s department at NYU. I nominally became a pharmacologist when I joined H.B. van Dyke’s department at Columbia P&S and learned to apply pharmacological techniques to the study of the evolution of active neurohypophysial peptides. This interest, in turn, lead to my association with Manning and the rest is history.
    “The moral of this story, if any, is that one should find something one enjoys doing and then to follow one’s instincts. It certainly worked for me. It also surely helped to have had such great teachers and role models and to have had consistent generous support from the NSF and the NIH.”

Piero P. Foa writes: “Thank you for your kind wishes on behalf of the American Physiological Society. I have no words of wisdom, but I cherish the opportunity to reflect upon the events of my 90-year long life, extended through oral history and family memorabilia by the experiences of my grandfather Pio and of my father Carlo. My title will be ‘No, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling.’
    “Pio Foa was a professor of Pathologic Anatomy at the University of Turin, Italy at a time when, in many cases, only an autopsy could confirm the cause of death. Today, most autopsies are rendered obsolete by current diagnostic techniques and are things of the past (except in forensic cases). Nevertheless, many old timers expected the sky to fall, but it did not.
    “Pio’s tools were the microscope and the paraffin baths and, when my father Carlo, professor of Physiology at the University of Milan, relegated them to a remote corner of the lab to make room for a brand new 24-speed kymograph, the histologists thought that the sky would fall down, but it did not.
    “And when the kymograph and the smoked drum gave way to the polygraph and the mercury column gave way to the sphygmomanometer and the students took the place of the dogs, some of us asked how could one become a doctor without some hands-on experience with a beating heart or a secreting pancreas. Surely the sky would fall, but it did not.
    “And when the students discarded their surgical gloves for the chromatographic plate to learn the meaning of DNA, some of us who went to school when the textbooks of Biochemistry mentioned nucleic acids only in a footnote, worried lest the forest be lost not for the trees, but for the underbrush. Surely the sky would fall, but it did not.
    “And when aches and pains force us nonagenarians to seek our doctor’s advice and to navigate the alphabet soup of HMO, CEO and CPA, we wish that the body politic would come to its senses, for surely now the sky is about to fall, but so far, it has not.
    “And when our lecture halls will be used only for ceremonial occasions and our students will be able to listen to the best professors in the world on a CD-ROM in the convenience of their homes, surely something intangible will be lost, but the sky will not fall.
    “Nor will the sky fall as long as our students will continue to discover things that we, their teachers, will not fully understand.
    “How do I keep busy? Family, friends, travel, concerts, endocrinology seminars and some bench work on a novel, potent insect repellant (believe it or not, the idea struck me in a dream!)

Letters to G. Edgar Folk
Howard Lowensohn writes: “Thank you for your letter regarding my present activities. I can’t believe that it has been almost seven years since my retirement began. There has never been a dull moment, but not any very high points either. We have the grandchildren and their family and our friends whom we see, some here and some in New England. I have gotten into finances and that does occupy a considerable amount of my time. We do listen to our peers and exercise consistently by walking and swimming. The most important matter is that my wife, Martha, and I remain in good health. We moved to Bradenton, FL about four years ago and live in a gated community with no residency age requirements. We spend the summers on Cape Cod. Sadly, I have gotten away from science. I do try to read and follow the literature via Grateful Med and several recent textbooks and very occasional correspondences with past colleagues. I undertook the cataloguing, editing and submission of 36 notebooks of notes for a book on the coronary circulation that was being written by Dr. Donald E. Gregg, prior to his death, for submission to the National Library of Medicine. Your letter mentioned about seeking archival repositories for a life’s works. I tried this, while still working, for the deposition of other’s works. 
    “Sadly, it is very difficult and I found that there was no national policy on this matter. Seeking local assistance might unload the shear weight of the material, but subsequent location or knowledge of the material’s existence might prove to be a formidable task. My only advice to those coming along would be to always prepare for tomorrow, whether that be retirement, or the possibility that one’s present pursuits may fall victim to a change in scientific priorities. I question whether my contribution should appear in The Physiologist. One more point: I feel strongly that the American Physiology Society should sponsor some memorial event, on a yearly basis, for Dr. Donald E. Gregg. We all owe him a great debt of gratitude for essentially starting the coronary physiology discipline as we know it today. He commenced this work in the laboratories of Dr. John Carl Wiggers and carried it forth in his own laboratories for many years. Besides his national and international scientific recognition, he personally received a citation from President John F. Kennedy for his contributions as an outstanding scientist. The latter information is included in his memorial dedication in The Physiologist (1984 or 1985).” 

Arthur S. Leon writes: “Thank you for your inquiry. I am still active in academics with no plans to retire in the immediate future. I am an endowed professor at the University of Minnesota and the Director of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and Exercise Science (originally founded by Ancel Keys in 1938). My professorship is name in honor of Henry L. Taylor, Ancel Keys’ first PhD and a deceased member of APS. Incidentally, Ancel, who is age 97 years and an emeritus professor, just received another honorary doctorate degree and is still actively analyzing data from his Seven Countries’ Study with a major publication last month from this study in Preventative Medicine.
    “My major research effort is as a PI in the multicenter HERITAGE Family Study. The purpose of this study is to investigate the interactions of exercise training and genetics on risk factors for coronary heart disease and diabetes. This study involves about 800 members of 204 families. We are currently in the ninth year of NHLBI funding and based on a recent study committee evaluation score, we expect an additional four years of funding primarily for molecular biology studies. This project recently received the International Olympic Committee’s President’s award in exercise science. I am also PI or co-investigator on several other major grants and an active contributor to the scientific literature, including first authorship on six papers in refereed journals this past year.”

Letter to Eugene Renkin
Maurice B. Burg writes: “Thanks for the personal 70th birthday greeting. I feel rewarded to have survived to become a “Senior Physiologist.” My wife, Ruth, also has an important birthday at this time, and we decided to celebrate in the spirit of biological science by taking the whole family (including children and grandchildren) on a cruise to the Galapagos next month.
    “Age aside, nothing much has changed for me professionally. I continue to administer my laboratory, train postdoctoral fellows, and struggle to remain current in my science. My main interest remains the consequences to renal medullary cells of osmotic stress, both the dangers that high and variable salt and urea pose and the adaptive responses of the cells.
    “I have no special words of wisdom. Science is still great fun for me and I intend to continue in science as long as it remains fun.”

Letters to Novera Herbert Spector
Dexter M. Easton writes: “You are doing a good service—checking up on us old-timers born in 1921. I will be 80 this September and I recall receiving a request a while ago (for the 75th?). In response, I noted at that time that I had retired in 1982 under the terms of a generous program (evidently too generous, for it was terminated after one year) that allows me to continue with eternal tenure at half-time employment in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida State University (FSU).
    “I continue to teach one course in the fall semester. It is essentially a laboratory course in “Experimental Physiology” that offers me a chance to indulge my long-time interest in “old-fashioned” electrophysiology and keep in touch with younger students. I developed, for example, some special arrangements that improve the reliability of recording action potentials from frog sciatic nerve. Last year I developed a Web lesson that shows examples of recordings using that method to illustrate what the student ought to, but often does not find (http://www.bio.fsu.edu/faculty-easton_actionpotential.htm). Composing and drawing the 30 or so figures gave me a feeling of artistic accomplishment. “My main scientific concern has been to convince my colleagues of the virtues of Gompertz kinetics as a modeling tool for many natural processes. According to the classical Gompertz survival model, the number of survivors in a population decreases exponentially at an accelerating rate with age. This might be of some concern to those in our age bracket. In the case of aging Mediterranean fruit flies and for very old humans, I find that a more accurate model posits that the number that die increases exponentially at a decelerating rate (Easton, D.M., Theoret. Pop. Biol., 48, 1995; Exp. Geront. 32, 1997). That model also describes well the survival of cells subject to increasing doses of X-rays (Easton, D.M., J. Theoret. Biol., 196, 1999).
    “But my greatest interest in Gompertz kinetics is that the concept of exponentially changing rate constant (the special feature of Gompertz kinetics) makes possible accurate and computationally efficient prediction of nerve axon membrane currents, synaptic currents and diverse pharmacokinetic phenomena. My current jousting seeks to convince conservative reviewers of my offerings, concerned with these three topics, that this is a rational viewpoint. The outlook is also useful in many other situations that still remain to be examined.
    “I do find time for other activities. At the behest of my wife, I am happy to assist in the activities of the Unitarian-Universalist Church and the League of Women Voters. 
    “With three of our four children living nearby in Tallahassee (the fourth pursues computer networking in California), and with four grandchildren, we do not want for family interaction.
    “The younger people in science are smarter than I am. I try to keep up, because I have not fulfilled the promise of my youth (and I have to be able to pay for health insurance), but it is an impossible task. Maybe I have gained wisdom, but wisdom, it seems, cannot be passed on. It seems to stay in the heads of the old, while the young find their own way. But if advice is wanted, what better than to say: learn what you are able about whatever you can when you are young. Then you have many options when you are older. Eat to live and do not live to eat; hold to a simple program of regular exercise to keep your cardiovascular system in good shape. I “run” a couple of miles around the neighborhood every day, trying to keep up with our excessively energetic Jack Russell Terrier that my wife bought in an unguarded moment. That helps keep my head clear and maybe reduces my blood pressure.
    “While I’m dispensing free advice, let me suggest avoidance of automobile transportation. For the last 10 years or so I have used the city bus system and walked at both ends of the route, from my home to the lab. Prior to that, for two or three decades, my bicycle and I competed, in an unfair contest, against city traffic. I like to think both the planet and myself are better off because I so seldom use our car.
    “I have no objection to sharing these thoughts with the readers of The Physiologist. I enjoy reading in that journal about the activities of others of my ilk.”

Richard L. Riley writes that he has doing well and is still interested in respiratory physiology, as witnessed by his most recent publication, “What Nobody Needs to Know About Airborne Infection” (Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., 163:7-8, 2001).

Wells E. Farnsworth writes: “Thank you so much for inviting me to share with my current activities and thoughts.
    “Since I retired in 1991 from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (now a unit of Midwestern University) where, for eight years, I chaired the Department of Biochemistry, the Department of Urology of Northwestern University Medical School kindly appointed me Adjunct Professor of Urology. Having known for 30 years Prof. John Grayhack, as Chairman of Urology, and Dr. Chung Lee, Director of the Urology Research Lab, and having conducted research on the physiology of the prostate for some 50 years, this was, for me, a coming-home.
    “In the years since joining Northwestern Medical School, I think I have published at least one review type paper in some aspect of prostate physiology per year. In addition, I prepared two more philosophical studies, one on “Why We Breathe,” and the other on “Pitfalls of Creativity.” The latter was an attempt to project what Columbus might now write as an NIH proposal for his explorations. In addition to these papers, I have written several letters to the editor of The Scientist on various aspects of education. At present, I am assembling a review of the different mechanisms of sodium pump activity, especially in kidney, GI tract, red cell, and, most interesting, the eye, in an effort to upgrade the badly neglected study of pump activity in the prostate. My fascination with the eye is a consequence of my loss of vision in my right eye due to glaucoma.
    “Besides my scientific efforts, I continue to serve as a volunteer tutor, conducting three five-week, four hours/week sessions in Problem-Based Learning for the Department of Medical Education. Working with six to nine, usually second year, medical students, we try to illuminate the basic science principles underlying the disease process and its manifestations through study of clinical cases.
    “Finally, I must mention that, during this last year, I have tutored a second grader in reading. He came to me badly handicapped by dyslexia. I spent half an hour three times a week, using the Hooked on Phonics program. Since he knew that I am a retired scientist, he was intrigued and further motivated by my conducting simple high school physics experiments on light, heat and motion for him. According to his parents, he is now right up with his class and just loves books.
    “In closing, let me say that I have long recognized that I am a misfit scientist since I have chosen to pursue basic biological principles despite their being unfashionable. I hope, and continue to believe, that what I have done is important.
    “My thanks to you and the APS for giving me this opportunity.”

[Table of Contents] [No Free Lunch: A Matter of Opinion] [APS News] [Membership] [Public Affairs] [Positions Available] [ Book Review] [Books Received] [People & Places] [Scientific Meetings and Congresses] [APS Membership Application]