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John R. Brobeck (1914-2009)
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John R. Brobeck, MD, PhD, who served The American
Physiological Society as the Society’s 44th President from 1971-1972 died of
pneumonia on March 6, 2009, at age 94.
A native of Steamboat Springs, CO, Brobeck earned a bachelor’s degree from
Wheaton (IL) College, where he met his future wife, Dorothy Kellogg. After
graduating from Wheaton College in 1936, he spent three years at the
Institute of Neurology of Northwestern University in Chicago, where he
received the PhD degree in 1939. He was then able to continue his education
at the School of Medicine at Yale University and was awarded an MD degree in
March 1943. On the first day of April, he began an association with John
Fulton’s Laboratory of Physiology at Yale that continued until 1952, when
Brobeck moved to the Philadelphia area as professor and chairman of the
Department of Physiology of the School of Medicine of the University of
Pennsylvania. He was also chairman of the Graduate Group Committee in
Physiology. At that time, the University included another department of
physiology in the Graduate School of Medicine. Julius Comroe had made it one
of the strongest departments in the country. In 1957, however, Comroe
resigned from his positions at Pennsylvania to take up his new
responsibilities at the University of California in San Francisco. Two years
later, Robert Forster became chairman of this department. Brobeck meanwhile
held office in the School of Medicine until 1970. He then resigned so that
the two departments could be brought together under Forster’s direction.
From 1970 until his official retirement in 1982, Brobeck held the title of
Herbert C. Rorer Professor in the Medical Sciences. Then, for 10 years, he
was the assistant to the vice president for health affairs. He was also
Penn’s judicial administrator and served on several university committees.
Elected to membership in APS in 1943, Brobeck’s first assignment was as
chairman of the Education Committee in 1960. From 1963 to 1972 he served as
chairman of the Editorial Board of Physiological Reviews. He was elected to
Council in 1967 and became president-elect in 1970. In 1980 he received the
Ray G. Daggs Award. Brobeck was editor or coeditor of several books,
including one on the history of the American Physiological Society.
In the chapter written in the APS Centennial History about Brobeck, he
indicated that his research interests focused on the study of the control of
energy exchange and energy balance. Having learned from his own observations
and the work of other laboratories that stimulation or lesions of the
hypothalamus may alter body temperature regulation, food intake, body
weight, or motor output, Brobeck proposed integration of these several
variables into patterns of energy exchange. The basis for the integration
was hypothesized to be thermal signals. According to Brobeck, in adult
animals this integration usually leads to a balance between intake and
expenditure and consequently to a stable body weight.
Wheaton College, his alma mater, conferred three honors on Brobeck: the
Distinguished Service Award of the Alumni Association (1953), a Centennial
Award (1959), and the degree doctor of laws (1960). In 1959 he received a
Centennial Merit Award from Northwestern University. He was a member of the
American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Halsted Society, the
American Academy of Arts and Science (1969), and the National Academy of
Sciences (1975). In 1962-63 he and most of his family, with a grant from the
China Medical Board of New York, were able to spend nine months at the
National Defense Medical Center in Taipei, Taiwan. They also visited the
major medical centers in Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Bangkok, and New
Delhi, India.
Colleagues remember him for his bow ties and his commutes by bicycle from
Swarthmore to Penn. A talented trombonist, Brobeck played in a brass quintet
in college and later played duets with his wife, a pianist and organist. She
died in November 2008. In addition to his daughter, Brobeck is survived by
his daughters Elizabeth Thompson and Priscilla, his sons Stephen and John
T., a sister; and five grandchildren.
A memorial service for Brobeck was held at Aldan Union Church, 7 E.
Providence Rd., Aldan, PA 19018. Memorial donations may be made to the
church organ fund. |
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Earl H. Wood (1912-2009) |
Earl H. Wood, MD, PhD, who served APS as the
Society’s 53rd President from 1980-1981 passed away on March 18, 2009, at
age 97.
Wood was born January 1, 1912, in a house on Walnut Street in Mankato, MN.
His family eventually moved to a 20-acre farm overlooking the Minnesota
River near Mankato. His father, William C., who worked in real estate, also
acquired a large Victorian lakeside hotel overlooking Lake Washington where
the family spent summers. On December 20, 1936, he married Ada Peterson of
Big Lake, MN. A graduate of Macalester College, she helped to put him
through medical school. In later years the couple bought a farm along the
Zumbro River, where they hiked and nurtured walnut trees.
Wood attended Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, graduating in 1934. He
then 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 MS degree in 1939. In 1941 he was awarded
both the MD and the PhD degrees, the latter for research on water and
electrolytes of cardiac muscle, especially under the influence of digitalis.
He spent 1940-41 at the University of Pennsylvania as an NRC fellow in the
Department of Pharmacolo-gy, and for the following year he was instructor in
pharmacology at Harvard. In 1942 Wood 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 became an APS 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).
With his colleagues, Wood played a pivotal role in the design of
investigations to clarify the problems of sudden pilot blackout related to
increased gravitational force caused by dive-bombing and high-speed combat
maneuvers. A human centrifuge was installed in the Mayo Medical Sciences
building. Wood often served as a research subject, testing human exposure to
G-forces. The anti-G suit, developed with the cooperation of a female
undergarment manufacturer, became standard equipment in the Air Force.
Following World War II, Wood organized a laboratory at Mayo for the study of
human circulation resulting in the development of an ear oximeter, which
could provide immediate readings of oxygen saturation levels in the blood.
The instrumentation was sometimes tested on three of his young children. His
lab also perfected cardiac catheterization as a diagnostic tool which led to
real-time monitoring of circulation during cardiac surgery. By the 1960s
Wood’s research and teaching attracted graduate students from Mayo as well
as from institutions around the world.
His later interests centered on a high-speed, computer-based X-ray scanning
system that would provide three-dimensional views of the moving heart,
lungs, and circulation. It was an idea he hatched while watching football
instant replays on television. Although the imaging machine, called the
“dynamic spatial reconstructor,” he developed while head of the Biodynamics
Research Unit at Mayo was superceded by other techniques, his early dream of
non-invasive, accurate diagnosis has become common practice.
Wood has published over 700 articles and numerous book chapters. His
prolific academic career resulted in countless honors, awards, and
distinctions from many professional associations. Wood’s awards include the
Presidential Certificate of Merit from Harry Truman in 1947 for his
development of the anti-G suit. He received from Macalester College an
honorary degree of DSc 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, the Mayo Foundation, and
the Biomedical Engineering Society have all honored him with lectureships.
He is an honorary member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences and of the American College of Cardiology. 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 US Scientists by the government of West Germany and the John
Phillips Memorial Award of the American College of Physicians. In 1995 Wood
received the Ray G. Daggs Award for his long-term service to physiology and,
in particular, to APS. His most recent distinction particularly pleased his
children: in 2002, former Mayo fellow Peter Osypka, who founded a successful
medical instrumentation company based on his work in Wood’s lab, dedicated
“Earl H. Wood Strasse” in Rheinfelden, Germany.
Wood is survived by four children, Phoebe Wood Busch (Nancy Miller) of
Denver, Mark G. (Molly) of Fresno, CA., Guy H. (Julie Croy) of Corvallis,
OR, and E. Andrew (Krista Coleman) of Rochester; four grandchildren and a
great-granddaughter (in utero); a sister-in-law, Helen Nichols Wood of
Montrose, CO.; and numerous nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by
his wife in 2000, and his five siblings.
His legacy will live on in his numerous fundamental contributions to the
fields of Physiology, operational Aerospace Medicine, and most importantly
through the countless trainees and students that have had the privilege to
work with him and get to know him as a world class research, teacher, and
wonderful family man and human being. |
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Howard E. Morgan (1927-2009) |
Howard E. Morgan, MD, who served APS as the
Society’s 58th President from 1985-1986 passed away on March 2, 2009, at age
81.
Morgan was born in Bloomington, IL, and began his college education there
with one year at the Illinois Wesleyan University (1944-45). He then moved
directly into medical school at Johns Hopkins University, where he received
his MD degree in 1949. His original intention was to become an
obstetrician-gynecologist, a career he began on the house staff of the
hospital of Vanderbilt University (1949-53). The following year (1953-54) he
was instructor in these disciplines. He then became a fellow for a year in
medical research in the unit of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
established in the Department of Physiology at Vanderbilt (1954-55). But the
following year he was back in obstetrics and gynecology as assistant chief
of that service on active duty in the US Army Station Hospital at Fort
Campbell, KY. He then returned to Vanderbilt, and for the next 10 years
(1957-67) he was an investigator in the Hughes Institute, with faculty rank
that progressed from assistant professor (1959-62), to associate professor
(1962-66), and professor (1966-67). Morgan then became the first professor
and chairman of the Department of Physiology in the College of Medicine of
the Pennsylvania State University in Hershey, PA. From 1973 he was also
Associate Dean for Research, and in 1974 was honored by designation as the
Evan Pugh Professor of Physiology. In 1982 he was further honored by
appointment as a scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Morgan was elected to APS membership in 1965. He was elected to APS Council
in 1983 and became president elect the following year. During the three
years he was in presidential offices, Morgan became closely involved in
planning for the Centennial Celebration. He was instrumental in making the
final agreement for a project many years in the making—-the joint
publication with IUPS of News in Physiological Sciences. He also took an
active part in the lengthy consideration of how to ensure a broader
representation of the sections by modifying governance of the Society.
Finally it was in the year when Morgan was president elect that Orr E.
Reynolds retired from the position of executive secretary-treasurer of APS
and Martin Frank was appointed to that office. Morgan became, therefore, the
first president to hold office in collaboration with Frank, as Berne had
been the first to serve with Reynolds in 1973. Morgan brought to the office
extensive experience, not only with the Society’s journals but also in the
deliberations of the Porter Physiology Development Committee (1968-1980).
Another important feature of Morgan’s career was his association with
scientific journals. Beginning with the Editorial Board of the American
Journal of Physiology (1967-73), he became editor of Physiological
Reviews (1973-78), associate editor of the American Journal of
Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism (1979-81), and editor of the
American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology (1981-84). For much of
this time he served on the Publications Committee (1979-85; chairman,
1981-85). Other journals for which he provided editorial assistance include
Circulation Research (1971-76 and 1982-), the Journal of
Biological Chemistry (1973-78 and 1980-85), the Journal of
Cardiovascular Pharmacology (1977-82), and the Journal of Molecular
and Cellular Cardiology (1974-; associate editor, 1979-83). Of this
listing, his influence was perhaps the greatest on Physiological Reviews.
During his tenure as editor it grew significantly in international
reputation and influence.
Morgan was internationally regarded as one of the greatest experimental
cardiologists of the 20th century. Morgan’s research focused on the
physiological regulation of intermediary metabolism. For many of his studies
he used the isolated and perfused rat heart. Later in his research career,
Morgan’s interest shifted to identification of factors that control growth
of the heart and that can lead to cardiac hypertrophy. His strong commitment
to excellence in heart research, his clear vision for blending the basic
sciences with clinical cardiology, and his deep devotion to helping young
cardiovascular scientists reach their potential demonstrated his outstanding
ability in the creative organization of medical research.
He wrote more than 250 scientific publications. His work was named three
times as a “Citation Classic,” a paper with more than 500 citations in
published research for each article.
Morgan was also president of the American Heart Association, 1987-88 and
president of the International Society for Heart Research, 1983-86. He was
founding president of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences,
1996-2002. He served as coordinator of the US/USSR exchange program dealing
with cardiovascular biology and medicine for 20 years. He was a member of
Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was also the
recipient of the Abigail A. Geisinger Award. Morgan was the Evan Pugh
Professor of Physiology, emeritus, of Pennsylvania State University and
senior vice president for research, emeritus, Geisinger Clinic and was a
consultant to the Reynolds Foundation, Whitaker Foundation and the Bugher
Foundation.
He is survived by his wife, Donna of 21 years. In addition to his wife, he
is survived by one daughter and son-in-law, Patricia L. and Nelson Wehler of
East Berlin, PA and two grandsons, Jonathan and Geoffrey Morgan of Ann
Arbor, MI. Howard was preceded in death by two sons, Stephen L. and Howard
L. Morgan. |
