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Senior Physiologists' News |
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Letter to
Virendra Mahesh Louis J. Poirier writes: “I really appreciated your good wishes at the occasion of the anniversary of my 90th birthday. I have always considered The American Physiological Society as one of the most eminent organizations in regard to its major role in the promotion of basic and applied research. “As to my own activities, they are at a slow pace. I still have interest regarding the development of scientists and the promotion of basic and applied research. Now living in the countryside, I have developed interest in wild animals and vegetation around the world. I am also involved in gardening specially growing asparagus and raspberries. With my best regards.” Ian Glynn writes: “Please forgive me for taking so long to reply to your very kind letter; I rather expect my Cambridge college to notice the approach of my eightieth birthday but I am deeply touched that the American Physiological Society should do so. It confirms my long-held prejudice that physiologists are a likeable lot. “As to my current activities, they are of three main kinds. First, family. With six grandchildren ranging from nine to eighteen there are plenty of opportunities - in fact my wife and I are just recovering from two weeks of assorted half-term holidays. And at the other end of the age-range there are the problems of elderly friends and relations. “Second, college. Trinity is peculiar in having no retiring age for Fellows who have been Fellows for a long time. So we try to deserve our privileges by serving on various committees, so lightening the load for our younger colleagues. And it works. “And, thirdly, writing. Having spent most of my working life as an experimental scientist studying the mechanism of the sodium pump, and having, fortunately, reached a convenient stopping point when I had to retire, I decided to write about problems that I had long been interested in but had not had time to do much about. In 1999, four years after retiring, I completed An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, in the UK, and by the Oxford University Press, New York, in the USA. Then in 2002, my wife and I - who had always been interested in each other’s writing but had never written anything together - joined forces to write The Life and Death of Smallpox, published in 2004 by Profile Books, in the UK, and by Cambridge University Press, New York, in the USA. (There is also a Chinese translation published in Beijing, but it lacks notes and an index.) At present I am working on a third book, which I hope to complete this year, but until I am sure it’s going to work I had rather not talk about it. “And after that. Who knows? “With all good wishes.” |
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