A History of the Rockefeller Institute, 1901-1953: Origins and Growth by George W. Corner (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS A History of the Rockefeller Institute, 1901-1953: Origins and Growth. By George W. Corner. New York: Rockefeller Institute Press, 1965. Pp. 635. $12.50. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was incorporated on June 14, 1901. This history covers the period from its incorporation to the retirement ofHerbert Gasser as director in 1953 and his replacement by Detlev W. Bronk, with the title ofpresident. There is only briefreference to the subsequent events, which include the transformation ofthe institute to a university faculty of science, with a change in the corporate name, in 1958, to the Rockefeller Institute, and again, in 1964, to the Rockefeller University. The charter ofthe institute was amended in 1954 to make it a part ofthe University of the State of New York, with authority to grant the advanced degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Medical Science and the degrees, honoris causa, of Doctor of Science and Doctor ofLaws. In a foreword by the president, it is stated that "The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research had so successfully fostered research in the academic world that a career ofteaching and research in a university had become more desirable than life in an intellectually limited research institute that lacked the vital stimulus of eager graduate students." The above paragraph constitutes a thumbnail sketch ofthe history ofthe Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, the Rockefeller Institute, and the Rockefeller University, which George W. Corner has expanded to a volume of 635 pages. Included as an Appendix is a memorandum by Frederick T. Gates to Starr J. Murphy, not previously published in full, which relates "the prenatal history of the Institute," as the idea originated with Mr. Gates and eventually came to fruition. To appreciate the history ofthe Rockefeller Institute, and especially its impact upon medicine in the United States, one needs some familiarity with the state of medical education, medical research, and of medicine itself at the turn of the century. Medical research was almost non-existent; medical education was in a backward state, largely under the control ofthe numerous proprietary schools until after publication ofa report by Abraham Flexner in 1910; and the quality ofthe practice ofmedicine reflected that of medical research and medical education. The history of the Rockefeller Institute, covering the period to 1953, is thus to a large degree the history ofthe progress ofmodern medicine in the United States in the first half ofthe twentieth century. Even the concept of medical research required revision to permit the Rockefeller Institute to make the contributions related in this volume possible. In 1910 the board 309 ofdirectors ofthe institute appointedJacques Loeb, one ofthe most distinguished biologists of his generation, as a member of the institute. Before this action was completed, however, Loeb had to meet the objections ofthose who did not regard biology, especially with its concern with the lower forms of life, as a medical science. Loeb wrote: "The question is whether or not the R.I. desires to add a new department, namely that of experimental biology—the latter on a physico-chemical instead ofon a purely zoological basis. In my opinion experimental biology—the experimental biology of the cell—will have to form the basis not only ofphysiology, but also ofgeneral pathology and therapeutics . I do not think that the medical schools in this country are ready for the new departure. . . . The only place in America where such a new departure could be made for the cause ofmedicine would be the Rockefeller Institute or an institution with similar tendencies. The medical public at large does not yet fully see the bearing of the new science of experimental biology (in the sense in which I understand it) on medicine." As the author of this history states, "When the Board of Directors installed Jacques Loeb as a Member of the Rockefeller Institute, they committed themselves, once and for all, to the principle he so clearly stated. The institute's definition of the key words in its title, 'Medical Research,' was henceforth to include any kind ofinvestigation that might contribute to the understanding of health and disease, no matter how widely it ranged, from the body of a suffering man to subatomic particles." What the...