| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |
Q: Do you remember anything about the content of the genetics that was taught at that time?
Ross: Well, it was primarily classical genetics based on Mendel's theories and how that applied to inheritance in mankind. I remember a discussion about the distribution of hair on the dorsum of fingers. This is a characteristic which is genetically related, as is also a certain tendon in the wrist. I remember Dr. Danforth presenting this information and everybody look in at their fingers to see what kind of heredity he had. But interestingly, he also pointed out that there was a very interesting genetic relationship between the shape and size of the human ear and the incidence of certain human diseases, namely pernicious anemia, which was the first time I'd ever heard of pernicious anemia. That also was really very fascinating and very exciting, but it was primarily classical genetics in the Mendelian sense.
Q: Was there any discussion on biometry or statistics in genetics at that time?
Ross: No, none.
Q: Do you remember the text book that was used?
Ross: We had a text book that I probably still have someplace. I can't remember the name of it. Again, it was classical mixed with drawings of how the distribution of chromosomes and genes took place. I can't remember the name of that book.
Q: No, it's just a particular interest of mine because it fits into the research I'm doing. Were there labs connected with the genetics course?
Ross: No, there was no laboratory with this course.
Q: You also had courses in embryology at that time?
Ross: Interestingly, to go to Stanford School of Medicine, it was possible to fulfill all your biological science requirements by going to the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove for the spring quarter of the year. This was an absolutely marvelous experience! There were superb teachers there! We had a course in marine zoology taught by a fellow named McGinnty who was a colorful character; a course in comparative anatomy that was taught by a Swedish gentleman named Skogsberg, who drank quite heavily but he was a superb teacher and very colorful.
Q: Do you remember how to spell his name?
Ross: S-K-O--with a two little dots over it--G-S-B-E-R-G. Then there was a wonderful old gentleman, Professor Heath, who taught us embryology. I was up there a couple of weeks ago, and went by the house he used to live in. He was a very kind and gentle fellow. I remember he sold me his microscope, which he had bought from his professor. It was an old rear-wheeler with a focusing device on top of the handle. I still have the microscope, which I esteem very highly. It has excellent optics. I used that all the way through medical school and I also used it when I began hematology.
Q: We can edit it.
Ross: Those were excellent courses and the Hopkins Marine Station was a lovely environment! We used to have field trips out along the tide pools, an absolutely magnificent way to learn about nature!! Incidentally, Professor McGinnty subsequently became the director of the Cal Tech Marine Biology Laboratory. He's the man that discovered a peculiar new species of animal that he called the "uricho caupo," which meant "the keeper of the inn." This is a creature that looks like a disconnected penis with a hollow body cavity open at each end--a kind of tunnel. In this tunnel lives a little crab--the crab lives inside the body cavity in a symbiotic relationship with the crab--the "keeper" which passes water through one end and out the other, and the uricho get their nourishment out of this stream of water. I saw one of these creatures up in the aquarium in Monterey a couple of weeks ago when I was up there. Tribute was paid to Professor McGinnty who discovered and named it! He called it "keeper of the inn" because of the little crabs that lived inside it.
This was a wonderful experience. We were blessed by being able to go to school three full days a week and three half days a week. The students rented houses in Carmel, which at that time was an idyllic spot without all the inundation of people that exist there now. We had three half days a week and Sunday off to enjoy life, which was the first time most of us had ever had such an opportunity. It was wonderful! We could swim and surf. There was no snorkeling at that time, unfortunately, so we didn't do that. We had a splendid time both educationally and recreationally! It was one of the greatest experiences I ever had. Unfortunately, Stanford doesn't provide that opportunity to pre-medical students anymore, which is a great pity!! I learned very good biological science, which was subsequently of great use in my medical education, particularly the courses in embryology and comparative anatomy.
The comparative anatomy text that we used was written by a woman named Libby Hyman. I still have that book, which is a descriptive comparative anatomy which is just wonderful! We also dissected creatures starting with very low life levels and working up to fish and frogs and turtles. Turtles have got the most complex internal anatomy of anything I've ever seen. Have you ever seen the anatomy of a turtle? Everything’s wrapped around everything else. A wonderful, wonderful experience! I'm very pleased I was able to participate!
Q: Were there any courses that you took at that time in biochemistry? Because I understand Stanford was one of the first places where they were actually trying to establish biochemical studies.
Ross: Yes, there was a professor named Murray Luck. He taught the course in biochemistry which I took. I also had courses in organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and a terribly difficult course in quantitative analysis, which really taught us precision to the nth degree. Everything had to be absolutely clean and, interestingly, we were given "unknown" specimens and we had to analyze. One guy thought he'd pull a fast one and he got the results on somebody else's sample and reported them. The professor knew something wrong was going on so they substituted a different sample in his locker and then caught him red handed and expelled him, by God. That served him right, it seemed to me. They should do that more often. If somebody cheats in a chemistry class, he'll cheat when he gets to be a doctor, and that is intolerable. But we did have laboratory courses and Murray Luck was an excellent biochemistry professor. Eventually, interestingly enough, he married a girl who came from my home town, who was the same age that I was and I think he was about twice her age.
Q: There is probably at Stanford University, perhaps a number of years before you arrived, an attempt to establish a separate research institute for biochemistry. I was wondering if you were aware of it. It was an attempt to negotiate a compromise between the academic departments and the medical school.
Ross: I didn't know about that. I think that might have occurred subsequently. I'm not sure. At that time, the medical school was located in San Francisco. The first year of medicine was taken on the Stanford campus, so there was a separation of about forty miles between the basic science and the clinical science.
Q: This was the Cooper Medical College? Did it start then?
Ross: Well, I think the Cooper Medical College--I can't remember whether Cooper Medical College ultimately became Stanford or became the University of California at San Francisco.
Q: It became Stanford.
Ross: That was long before my time. Interestingly, another course that I took was taught by a very fine gentleman, Joseph Hinsey. He was an anatomy professor at Stanford. He subsequently became dean at Cornell medical school. He encouraged me to go east. He said, "Young man go east. That's what people from California need to do to complement their education." So he encouraged me to go east and to go to Harvard rather than to go to Stanford. But I didn't know about the biochemical institute at Stanford.
Q: It wasn't established. Apparently a number of people both in the biological department and in the chemistry department opposed it in the end. Perhaps you recall some of their names: Charles Taylor, a zoologist?
Ross: I don't remember him.
Q: Okay, Lawrence Irving?
Ross: I don't remember that one either. What was the year of that?
Q: These were during the 1920s. I don't have exact dates, but I know they were involved in this.
Ross: No, I didn't know them.
Q: Robert Swain?
Ross: How do you spell that?
Q: S-W-A-I-N.
Ross: He became president of Stanford for a time.
Q: He was chairman of chemistry.
Ross: He had been chairman of chemistry, but I never had a course with him.
Q: Did you have any ties to the Hoover Food Research Institute?
Ross: No, not at that time. Mr. Hoover was elected President during the time that I was at Stanford and that was great jubilation, and the president of Stanford, Ray Lyman Wilbur, went back to Washington to be Mr. Hoover's Secretary of the Interior. He had a son, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Jr. who was in my class at Stanford. He was a very nice gentleman. He's still living and around the area. I don't know what he does. I didn't know the professors with the other names that you mentioned. May I ask, is this the kind of stuff you want, or am I being too--
Q: No, no. This is fine.
Ross: I'm putting in all these things that interest me, but they may not have any estimable value.
Q: No, it's the combination of the personal anecdote along with the technical skills accumulated and the research done. That's fine.
Ross: I was also privileged to play football for Pop Warner, the football coach, when I was at Stanford. He was quite a distinguished man. This was his last job. He was pretty old and kind of irascible. He used to get a little "high" in the afternoons before football practice and he liked to hear people really smack into each other and get bloody noses. If they weren't doing that, he'd give 'em hell. That was a different kind of education than I got elsewhere, but it was worthwhile also.
Q: In 1932, you entered Harvard Medical?
Ross: I completed enough units to get my A.B. degree from Stanford at three years plus one quarter and I decided to go to Harvard Medical School because that seemed like a wonderful place. Also it was very discouraging to go to visit the Stanford Medical School in San Francisco. I went up there late one afternoon. It was an antiquated building and the light was terrible and it was just such a depressing place that I decided that I would rather go to Harvard.
Q: Did they also have a requirement of having an A.B. degree at Stanford?
Ross: No, you could get into medical school after three years, and get your A.B. degree at the completion of your first year of medical school. Harvard also did not require an A.B. degree although it advised the degree. So I got my A.B. degree after my first year of medical school. I didn't need the units, but there were a couple of required courses that Stanford allowed me to complete at Harvard medical school and gave me credit for my Stanford A.B. I can't remember what the courses were. They were very kind to me at Stanford to let me transfer those three or four units--to make up the requirements for an A.B. degree at Stanford after I had been gone for a year.
Q: And at Harvard you also received a scholarship?
Ross: I again was very blessed. I was awarded the Cheever scholarship, which was funded in 1889 by Dr. David Cheever, the grandfather of Sergeant Cheever, a member of my Harvard class. David Cheever was a Harvard professor of surgery at the Boston City Hospital. He established the Cheever scholarship to provide tuition costs for students, one each year, who needed such support, and I sure needed it! I'm also going to try to contact the recipients of that scholarship and try to encourage them to make contributions to the Cheever scholarship fund hopefully to improve its ability to help students go to Harvard.
I just returned from my fiftieth medical school class reunion in Boston and, as I said, my classmate, Francis Sergeant Cheever is the grandson of the founder, and he pointed out that his father, who was also a Harvard professor of surgery, David W. Cheever, also had contributed significant additional funds to try to keep up the scholarship and Sergeant Cheever, my classmate, also had contributed additional funds. On the other hand, there's a Cheever professorship of surgery established in memory of Professor David W. Cheever. Sergeant allowed as to how he had to put what money he could into support of his father's memorial professorship, and probably not much more into the Cheever scholarship fund. I hope to be able to express my appreciation by encouraging my fellow recipients of the Cheever scholarship during the past fifty years to contribute funds to the support of the Cheever scholarship at Harvard.
Also, at Harvard, I waited on tables in the medical school dining room, which was one of the worst jobs I ever had! I had to get up at five-thirty in the morning, go down to the dining room and wait on tables. I waited on tables three times a day, for a year, and for all that glorious work, all I got was my food. I figured if I was going to get my food, I ought to have a lot of it, so that contributed to my obesity, unfortunately. But that was a very rigorous job, and after that first year I didn't do it any more, thank God.
It was quite a difficult situation, working like hell. I used to sleep through most of the lectures I attended as a consequence of working and then studying late at night. I think there was scarcely a lecture in medical school that I didn't go to sleep in. I remember on one occasion, we had a distinguished professor whose name was--Hans Zinsser. He got tired of seeing me asleep and he finally said, "Mr. Ross, it doesn't hurt my feelings, but I think you'd better wake up from your long winter nap and listen to what's going on around here." That embarrassed me so I stayed awake for about a week after that. On another occasion, Professor Bill Green, an orthopedic surgeon wasn't quite so gentle and he threw an eraser and hit me on the forehead when I was asleep. He commented, "Look, if you're that sleepy, I've got a nice soft sofa in my office on the second floor. Why don't you go up there and take your nap?"
Anyhow, it was a grand experience at Harvard medical school, and again I had very distinguished professors who were very stimulating as well as excellent teachers of the factual subjects. There was a professor of histology named Bremmer who was a very great gentleman and he was the immediate instructor in the particular section of the laboratory in which I worked. He stimulated interest by showing things that a novice medical student wouldn't ordinarily be able to see through a microscope.
There was another old guy named Duffy Lewis who had studied the structure of cells. He was a very peculiar looking guy with a great big long drooping gray mustache. He gave lectures which at the time we couldn't see why he was giving, but he talked about the number of sides on a cell and how they interacted with each other, which was tremendously important. He was a very stimulating teacher.
In anatomy, we also had very brilliant teachers. David W. Cheever, the professor of surgery, used to come and give initial lectures about the importance of the anatomy that we were learning as it related to surgery. I remember he fascinated all the students because he could draw simultaneously with both hands at the same time. That, of course, turned people on and kept them awake and it also indicated the relevance of what we were trying to learn to what we subsequently might be doing.
We had another very distinguished man named Wislocki, who was an anatomist. He taught the relevance of what we were doing in terms of anatomy also to what it might ultimately mean to one's subsequent career in medicine.
Also, we had a very distinguished professor whose name was Walter R. Cannon, who again was a superb teacher. He ran a magnificent course in physiology and stimulated great interest, to the point where I subsequently took a special tutorial in my last year of medical school in his department of physiology. Walter B. Cannon was the first man to study the gastrointestinal tract with X-ray. He did this in geese, and in the process of doing this, he got severe radiation exposure. He had multiple skin cancers all over the dorsum of his hand and he subsequently developed a neoplastic generalized disease. When he used to teach us, he had terrible pruritis (itch). So he used to be twitching his shoulders and scratching his arms and his back all the time. At the end of the lecture, half the class also would be itching and scratching their arms and their backs. He ultimately died as a consequence of this disease, which was believed to he caused by his overexposure to ionizing radiation.
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |