FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
                           r**llb
The Story of a Mind
           l3Y
FLORENCE RENA SABIN
       DAI,TIiMORE
THE .JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

VIII
cLPass It On"
Mall's outstanding contribution to medical educa-
tion was in the stress which he laid on the training
of students in research. At the beginning he had
in large measure to build up a, staff through the
training of his own students since at that time there
were not only relatively few places where research
could be done, but also relatively few who were in-
terested in it. So from the start,, Mall began to put
the idea of research before the occasional student
whom he thought might be interested in it,. While
Mall believed thoroughly that a chance for self edu-
cation was the only thing that really counted in edu-
cation, he took seriously the duties which he felt
devolved upon the instructor. He considered first,
that the instructor could teach by example only if
he were a student himself; secondly, that he must
make all conditions right for work-quiet, good ma-
terial, and above all a spirit of freedom; and third,
he must have the power of inspiring students to want
to work. Mall did make the conditions right for the
entire student body, but his most outstanding con-
tribution to education came from his ability in di-
recting research. How successful he was may be
judged from the number of his students who pub-
200

RESEARCH STUDENTS         201
lished the results of investigations and from the
number of chairs in medical schools that were filled
from his department. His staff was called away to
other schools almost faster than he could train them.
About twenty-five chairs of Anatomy were filled from
his department.
In the last years of the last century, research was
new enough for the members of the faculty of our
medical schools but almost unheard of for students.
Mall believed in selecting a few whose bent might
be toward research and giving them a chance to start
early in their medical course; that is, when the work
of each department was near its close, he thought
that the students who had been specially interested
might be given a chance to start in original investi-
gat'ion. That he did not advocate research for large
numbers is clear enough from the fact that he often
said that an instructor, certainly unless he was very
experienced, ought not to take more than one at a
time and he himself never took more than three or
four. Here again the principle that the teacher
should not so overload himself with work that he
did not have his major energy for his own work pre-
vented him from believing that large numbers of
st,udents should be started in research. He made
his staff free either to t,ake a research student or
to give elective courses, and he was emphatic that
no instructor should be forced to take research stu-
dents; it should be a free choice on both sides, for it
was essential that student and teacher work together

202           FRANICIJN PAINE MALT,
in sympathetic understanding. Mall would never
take a student unless he judged that research was the
major interest to him so that he would put all of
his free time int,o it and not take on any other extra
work. If Mall already had enough students he would
never take more; also if a student asked him about a
problem really belongin g in another department he
always referred him to that department. In his views
of the research that a student might do, he always in-
tended that it should be a start toward truly profes-
sional work; the mere writing of a thesis based on
the stlldy of the invest,igatious of others he con-
sidered as suitable for required or elective courses
but not as research.
In an address written in 1904 for the Michigan
Alumnus, on the Value of Research in the Medical
School, Mall wrote these words : 1 " It may be men
t.ioncd that a bit of original research on the part of
t,he student is by all odds of the great.est educational
value to him. It gives him a standard by which he
weighs all things later in life, and enables him with
much more certainty to separate the real from the
bogus in our superabundant, medical literature.
Were the ranks of the medical profession filled with
men who had done some scientific, work in their
student days, we would not have witnessed the op-
position to the tubercle bacillus as the cause of tn-
1 F. P. Mall, "The Vdw of Rrsrarch in the Medical School,"
Mich. Al~um,~us, May, 19W 8, 39.5.

RESEARCH STUDENTS         "03
berculosis or lo the treatment of dil~hthcria with
anti-toxin. So much am I in favor of students of
medicine undertaking scientific work that I would re-
quire for the degree of M. D. a dissertation of some
merit from each candidate. I realize fully that but
a small per cent of the five thousand graduates of
1903 could present a satisfactory dissertation, but
we could make a beginning by being lenient, with
   7
those who do by   I 7.   3
            excustng them from a great deal
of the unnecessary work which is now crowded into
the medical course. In other words, the thesis work
might be placed in t,he elective list, and in many in-
stances it. would be undertaken by the better students.
If the disserta,tions could be encouraged in some
way it would stimulate scientific work in the medi-
cal schools, would tend to reduce the number of
graduates, and would improve the quality of the
physician."
At the same time it is also very clear that Mall
thought that the students who were fitted to go
into research professionally constituted a small and
selected group. Dr. Eliot R. Clark has in his pos-
session a diagram which Mall once traced, indicating
that from 10,000 students there might be selected
1000, and from them a group of 5 might start in
research. Of this group he said that all might make
specimens, but only one might really study them-
and that perhaps even he might or might not come
to any logical conclusions, that is develop into an
investigator.

204           FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
In 1912, Dr. Cecil K. Drinker, now Professor of
Physiology in the School of Public Health, Harvard
University, then a third year medical student at the
University of Pennsylvania, published an article in
Science,l in which he made a plea from the stand-
point of the student whose interest was in research
and shortly afterward he received the following
letter from Mall :
Xy dear Mr. Drinker :
I congratulate you for your splendid article in the last
number of Science. It will do the cause of freedom of medi-
cal education much good. I have championed this cause for
20 years and am much of the opinion that a society, or re-
searc>h committee of students, in the enlightened medical
schools would do much to ha.sten research work among
students. Such a committee could keep the various research
students informed and ult.imately they might at last bring
about a condition by which students who present a thesis of
merit would be given due credit for it. In my opinion the
regular work could easily, and to advantage, be reduced to
two years, leaving two years for elective work. The new ex-
amination systems introduced here, as well as at IIarvard, are
intended to enable the student to make his course more like-
able, as well as flexible, than at present.
             Sincerely yours, F. I'. Mall.
It gave Xall genuine pleasure when students knew
what they wanted and had courage enough to ask for
it; his attitude in this might easily have seemed to
a less liberal colleague like an inciting of students
to revolt.
1 C. I<. Drinker, " Undergraduate Research Work in Medical
Schools," Science, 1912, 36, 725.

RESEARCH STUDENTS         "05
In dealing with his special students, Mall cer-
tainly carried out throughout his entire life the
watchword which Ludwig had given to him, namely,
" Pass it on," for he certainly gave richly to his
students of the inspiration which he had himself re-
ceived from Ludwig and looked upon his work with
students as a tribute to him. In his teaching Mall
was individual; he was neither like His nor like
Ludwig. Unlike His, he followed each problem care-
fully; at the start he either showed the student the
methods to be used or described them, but he never
made any preparations for the student. In this,
I think that he was unlike Ludwig, who did work
with his students. In his own work, Mall never
made but one experiment in a day, that is, he never
did his own work when he was fatigued, and after
the one experiment was finished he always had ample
time to visit his students. He loved t,o see new prepa-
rations, and if one had much to show him he would
linger. He never seemed in any haste if there were
new specimens or ideas to discuss; but he was a past
master in never taking from the student the pleasure
of discovery; all that the student could get for him-
self was left for him to do. When Mall had the
business affairs of the laboratory to consider, he
worked quickly and with decision ; he delegated such
matters quite freely to members of his staff and
then considered only such departures from the usual
procedures as it was necessary to refer back to him,
but when so consulted he acted quickly. But toward

306           FRANKLIN PAINE MALT,
research, for the study of new specimens or the
discussion of ideas, he always had abundant leisure,
he never seemed in any hurry, and yet he saw all of
his students each day. This sense of leisure for
thought and his love of playing with ideas would
be recorded by all of the students mhose research
he directed. All of them would also testify to his
great generosity. It is said of Ludwig that he gave
his ideas freely to his students; this Mall did too.
Nvcryoue of them he started with an idea, and then
Mall always identified t,his idea with the student's
name. He loved to SW ideas grow and was completely
free from any impulse to claim them as his own.
Never was a personality more completely objective ;
his pleasure lay so genuinely in seeing the reforms
which he instigated and t,he science which he loved
move forward, that there was no hidden ambition
to have the world recognize how great might be his
influence in the forwarding of these objects, To an
extraordinary degree he worked throug41 others and
set t,he stage so that they and not he might get the
credit. This was his characteristic with his research
students; only once did he ever do any joint, work
with any of them and that with A. IV. Xeyer in the
Monograph on pathological embryos t,oward the close
of his life. His own research, which he continued
throughout his entire life, never lessening it with
increasing adminstrative duties, represents his claim
for constructive thinking, while all the work that he

RESEARCH STl;L)ENTS         207
directed was given t'o his students with the greatest
generosity.
The mental freedom which Mall gave to a research
student can be gleaned so clearly from the following
letters t,hat. I venture to quote them, even though
they refer to my own work.
voii Frey to Mall :
I)~nr frirnd :
March 14, 1913.
The excellent work of Prof. &bin I have now made Dhc basis
of my lectures on t,he lymph following the very clear presenta-
tion of the subject in the Reibel-JIa11 Handbook. I am how-
ever not convinced concerning the relationship between the
tissue spaces and thr lyml~hntic: vessels. If the lining of the
lymphatic channels were a closed membrane without. any open-
ings, then the passage of the fluid from tissue space into lymph
cllannel rvo71lcl have to be accomplished under conditions
similar to those affec4ing the passage of plasma from blood
vessel to tissue space, that is to be affect,ed by lowering of pres-
sure and of protein concentration. This seems to me to be
very unlikrly. Rather would it seem to me that the lymphatic
endothclium should be fenestrated, and the evidence you your-
self presented from the injections of the central lacteals of
the villi some time since i:: in favor of that view. Your in-
jections showd the injection mass entering the reticular tissue
spwes from the tip of the cwtral lymphatic.
                  Yours, van Frey.
To t,his letter Mall replied:
                     April 12, 1915.
Dear Professor Frey :
  *      *      *      *     8      *      *      *      *
I read with interest what you sa.y about Miss Sabin's work,
and the objwt.ion you wise to clowd lymphatics is the one that

208           FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
I have constantly held up against her in her work. \Vhile 1
have gradually become convinced that practically all lym-
phatics arc closed, it still remains to be explained how such
large qnantities of chyle flow into them in the villi of the in-
testine. A bcttcr example is the one obtained from the terminal
lymphatics of the liver. As you know, an injection in tbc
portal vein or gall duct reappears in the lymphatics immedi-
ately, but over against the argument i77 favor of open lym-
pbatics in the villus is the one in favor of a closed epithelial
covering. You know we used to think that the epithelial cov-
ering fell off during absorption, but now it remains intact and
there are no direct communications between the lumen of the
intestine and the stroma of the villus. Furthermore, we have
repeatedly observed the lymphatics in the tadpole's tail taking
entire red blood corpuscles in through openings formed by
moving protoplasm. Still I do not think that open and closed
1,vmphxtics necessarily bear on their mode of development. T
am very sure that as the 1ympbntics grow out, they arc always
closed. Then you probably remember that Professor llis was
never convinced t,hat open lymphatics as described by Ludwig
co77ld bc proved to exist. I think Miss Sabin's discovery re-
garding the growth of lymphatics is one of the very greatest
importance for it allows us to separate most distinctly lymph
spaces from tissue spaces. It is an extremely small point, but
has causrd an immense amount of trouble for the last 200
years, and I am afraid when I go abroad again, we shall have
to fight it out; but at any rate this fighting will be more in-
teresting tl7a.n the present European war which seems to be
so pain tless.
Wit.11 bc3t wisl7es,
           \,-cry sincerely yours, F. P. Mall.
In this connec.tion Mall's openmindedness is also
well illustrated by a letter from him to Dr. McClure
who had asked Mall if he would receive on his staff

RESEARCH STUDENTS         209
a young man who represented a different point of
\*icw on lymphatics from that which was being dc-
vcloped in Mall's laboratory. Mall's reply accepting
the new instructor was as follows: " We would
give him every reasonable opportunity to develop
himself. Furthermore he will be able to teach any-
thing which he believes is true, and if he brings
forth the necessary evidence, I would not be adverse
to taking up the old theory which I supported for
quite a while. You may be surprised t,o learn that I
antagonized closed lymphatics for a number of years,
and it was only with difficulty that a member of the
staff forced me to change my views. I was brought
up by t,he Ludwig school which believed that the
lymphatics were open at the periphery and that all
lymphatics rose near the mid-dorsal line or in the
extremities then gradually grew to the axis of the
body, Some idea like this you will find running
through Budge's papers.
" I think it would be fine if people who held dia-
metrically opposite views regarding any scientific
question would work together in a neutral laboratory
for a while to see whether bet,ween them they could
not find the t&h."
All of these letters show that Mall maintained a
critical attit,ude toward all of the work of his stu-
dents; he stressed at all times the t,rue scientific
attitude that one must be ready to give up cherished
theories as soon as evidence for them failed. But,
on the other hand, he t,horoughly enjoyed the stimu-

lus of controversy and thought t.hal as long as the
evidence seemed adequate one should defend his
theories. Mall loved to talk of his theories and
needed a good listener to his monologues in which
he really thought out ideas; while he might seem
wholly wrapped up in his ideas, he was, neverthc-
less, practically clairvoyant in understanding the
person to whom he was talking.
Mall was a real companion to his staff and his rc-
search students. When one realizes how much he
accom~~lished, it is remarkable how many hours hc
had to give them. This was due to the precision with
which he did his owl experiments and the speed
with which hc made judgments about the problems
of running his department. Thus each day he had
ample leisure for his students. Not only did ho see
t,hem in the laboratory but he invited them over
and over again to his home.
Mrs. Mall did not complet,c her medical course,
but, she went far enough to be able to grasp Mall's
work. Her training and her intcrest,s qualified her
to follow the progress of scientific medicine and the
problems of medical education which absorbed him.
Perhaps no one understood so well or sympathized
more completjcly with the f'act, that Mall's basic in-
terests were those csl)ressed in the simple life of
the scholar. She read his papers and followed his
research; she was an intellectual companion, shar-
ing his ideals and accomplishrncnts and supporting
him in all of his intellcctnal adventures. She shielded

KESEAXCH STUDENT8         211
him from every care in the home and during his last
years she helped him in his research in the new de-
partment of embryology. Their two daughters were
in college at the time of Alall's death so that hc did
not follow their advanced work, the older, Margaret
Mall, studying architecture and now teaching at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the
younger, Mary Louise Mall, t,aking advanced work
in chemistry at The Johns Hopkins Medical School.
Mrs. Mall had a genius for entertaining and loved
to have young people in the home. She joined with
Dr. Nall in making the home a center for hospitality
and culture. All that Ludwi g gave so abundantly
to Mall in the way of culture, both Dr. and Mrs. Mall
gave to us and when some of us would say that they
did too much for us they would both reply: " Well,
pa.ss it on to your students later on."
Mall spent most of his evenings at home; he was
too frail for much social life. He was fond of walk-
ing and there were many st,ories of a walking trip
which he and Dr. Welch had taken together in the
Hartz Mountains in their student days. I remember
that there was an annual fishing trip to the Gun-
powder, a stream near Baltimore, in which it was
reported that there were gudgeon, but I do not rc-
member seeing' any fish. Dr. Welch has told me that
Mall was very popular with his collengucs ; that his
remarks were Ilithy and caustic; and that. his judg-
ment was superb. His oldest, fririids in Raltimorc
WC~I'C Dr. ~~~1~1~ and Dr. IIalsted; ill one of his earl;-
1.5

212           FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
letters to his sister, Mall wrote of Dr. Welch that
he longed for real friendship with him, not just an
acquaintanceship, and indeed he had it in full mea-
sure. During his first year in Baltimore, as Fellow
in Pathology, Halsted and Mall formed a friendship
rich in enjoyment and Dr. Welch told me t,hat after
Nail left Baltimore there was never a vacancy in
any department of the University whatsoever for
which Halsted did not urge Mall's appointment!
The Flexners were among his dearest friends and
he followecl their work with the closest interest.
Dr. Simon Flexner's work at the Rockefeller In-
stit,ute had great influence upon Mall in the founding
of his department of Embryology, as will appear
later; and Mr. Abraham Flexner says freely that in
all his work for the advance of medical education
there was none on whom he relied as much as on Mall.
In a certain sense Mall was more of a giver than a
receiver from his friends; frorn lhc start his ideas
always seemed advanced here in America. There
was one of his early letters to His, in which he said,
about a paper he had written, " These ideas will
not seem new and strange to you, but here I am
counted as a radical." He was more interested in
the full range of educational problems than those
about. him. Thus, for example, Halsted's mind was
absorbed with the problems of research, and he took
relatively lit,tle interest, in Mall's continual crusade
for bet,ter medical education. `Thus, Nail was to some
extent alone ; most of the summers he took his family

RESEARCH STUDENTS        213
t,o Europe and when the war broke out I think
that Mall felt in a very special way cut off from
his own group, from that certain maturity of mind
which is more charact,oristic of Europe than of young
America.
His influence, in directing the research of his staff
and his students can be best estimated by considering
the work which was done by them under his direc-
tion and stimulus. The study of the vascular sys-
tem was one of his outst,anding interests. The ana-
tomical laboratory in Baltimore was situated only
a block away from an abattoir, where a large num-
ber of pigs were killed each day. It has often been
said that the embryo pigs which were so abundantly
obtained from this source made Mall's department.
Early in his work in Baltimore he started applying
the methods of inject,ion to the study of the blood
vessels in pig embryos.  The first student to use
this material was Dr. John Bruce MacCallum, a most
brilliant student, in whose early death Mall lost, as
it were, a son. This material was then taken over
by a series of students. It formed the basis of the
brilliant studies on the development of blood vessels
by Dr. Herbert Evans, published finally in the Keibel-
Mall Embryology; likewise it was used by Dr. George
L. Streeter, myself, and ot,hers, whose studies were
published in t,he Americart Journal of Anatomy and
the Co~~~tributions to Embryology of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington. All of this work was
finally summed up by Dr. Streeter in the generaliza-

Con that the pattern of the blood vessels at each
stage of development is to be considered not so much
as foreshadowing the adult pattern ht as adapted
to subserve the needs of the developing embryo at
each stage. Closely allied with the study of the de-
velopment of the blood vessels which was thus made
so outstandingly a problem of Mall's department
was the work on the development of the lymphatics.
The st,udies on lymphatics by Eliot and Eleanor Lin-
ten Clark, arid now of their students in turn, were
of the greatest significance. All of this work cul-
minated in the view that the lymphatic system is a
part of the vascular system and develops under the
same principles and that like blood vessels, lym-
phatics are in the main closed vessels. The modifi-
cation, " in the main," is necessary for it is now so
convincingly established that in one organ, namely,
in the spleen, the blood vessels arc open; for in
the spleen the fenestr= of the lining of the veins are
as clearly to be seen under the microscope as the
open door of a room.
In embryology the mantle of His fell upon Mall
and he in turn became the leading embryologist of
his time. Mall's own work in embryology was largely
with human embryos and it was Minot `R laboratory
at the Harvard Medical School where comparative
embryology was chiefly developed. The work of the
st,udents in Baltimore was in part with human and
in part with comparative material. Their work in-
cluded the studies on the development of the mus-

culature of human embryos by Dr. C. R. Bardeen and
Dr. Warren Lewis; t,he development of the lung by
Dr. Joseph Flint ; and of the pancreas by Dr. George
Corner.
Fully as characteristic of Mall's interests as the
preceding work was the neurological research of his
department; there were the early studies of the de-
velopment of the fiber tract,s on the human brain
which have already been mentioned; and then later,
the problem of the development of the brain, where
the work was left. off by His, was taken over in Mall's
laboratory, notably by Dr. George L. Streeter, and
has become one of the major interests of the Car-
negie Institution for Embryology. Finally, there
were the more physiological aspects of the subject,
represented by the work of Lewis H. Weed and his
students.
In this connection must also be mentioned again
one of the most, significant advances from Mall's
department; not, however, from t,he work of a stu-
dent but rather of one of his staff. I refer to the
outstanding discovery of Harrison of the method of
tissue culture, which grew out of his efforts to prove
that the nerve fiber could grow out from a single
nerve cell to its charactcrist,ic ending without t-he
aid of any accessory cells, either of its sheat,h or
of the mesoderm t,hrough which it made its pat,hway.
This was done by showing that nerve could grow
outside the body. This epochal discovery, with all
of the developments of the methods of studying

216           FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
living cells, is one of the most outstanding Ameri-
can contribut,ions to scientific medicine and biology.
In the next chapter it will be made clear that Rlall
did not simply devote his energies to the running of
his own department but extended his influence widely
in America largely by means of the development
of t,he anatomical journals and the American Asso-
ciation of Anatomists. He was constantly on the
alert to find the young men who were interested in
research in the country, and the following letter
which he wrote to Dr. Charles R. Stockard in 1907
is a characteristic example: " I wish to thank you
very much for your papers, the one on cyclopia being
of great importance to me. I would like to ask
you two questions:  (1) Do you wish to join the
anatomists? If so, I would be glad to propose your
name. (2) Are you so wedded to pathology that you
are unwilling to go into anatomy? Where do you
belong? " Then in January, 1911, he wrote again
to Stockard :
I saw Donaldson in Philadelphia a few day ago and he
informed me that you had succeeded in producing spina bifida
in mammals by subjecting the mother to the vapors of alcohol.
If this is correct, you have outdone yourself by making another
great discovery. Please inform me whether this information
is correct and if so I should be much pleased to learn how
constant are your results. It is also clear to me that if your
services can be secured, you will make a great professor of
anatomy. If your university were wide awake, they would
put you into that vacant chair which Polk announces in
Suhurman's last report. Anatomy is not so bad a science and

RESEARCH STUDENTS         217
it will not be bad much longer if it procures ello'ugh eminent
leaders to make it good. Loeb has written an a.rticle for the
Record on teaching of anatomy which will interest you.
When Dr. Stockard was appointed to the Profes-
sorship of Anatomy at the Cornell University Medi-
cal College in New York City in Xarch of this same
year-1911--Mall regarded it in a sense as the fru-
ition of the things he had been working for. He wrote
to Stockard: " I am immensely elated over your ap-
pointment to the chair of anatomy at Cornell. . . .
You will do ever so much to add dignity t,o the pro-
fession of anatomy. I also congratulate you upon
your great opportunit,y. I have only one bit of ad-
vice to offer. Master your whole field and be your
own demonstrator of anatomy. To carry through a
reform you must take charge of the important course.
. . . Your great opportunity, as I see it, is cxperi-
mental anatomy, a field you can lead in so easily,
which is bound to be the anatomy of the future. The
old anat,omy is bankrupt and I see no reason why
you should attempt to revive it.
" Don't worry about, the halter you have missed
in failing t,o serve an orthodox apprenticeship. The
lack of this halter, although you will miss it, will
save you." Then, a few days later, Mall wrote to
St,ockard that he wanted to prepare a notice of his
new appointment for the Anatomical Record,l and
said : " You may not like my suggestion t,o ` do
1 Unsigned editorial; " Reorganization," etc. Anal. Rec., 1911,
5, 415.

"18           FR$KIiLIN PAINE MALL
you ' in this way but my motive is altruistic. I set
myself the task twent,y years ago to reform anatomy,
and now, since the last important post of the enemy
has fallen, you cannot blame an old promoter for
wanting to write a farewell note. If the reform, as
far as it has taken place, is a good reform, the newer
generation will have to be more productive and medi-
cal men will have to become more scientific than they
have been." This I regard as one of the most im-
portant of Mall's letters. It shows so clearly that he
worked as a general, planning a campaign for years
in advance. It shows, too, what were the reasons for
his campaign-to make the next generation more
productive and more scientific. The note in the rec-
ord, which was unsigned, is in part as follows :
  . . . The improvement in medical education which has
taken place in America during the past t.wenty-five years is in
large measure clue to the absorption of medical schools by
universities. As a result of this, the quality of the work in
the fnnilamental wicntific branches hw I)een raiw~l to a unj-
rersity standard. The same reformation has not yet taken
plaw in the clinical branches. The departments teaching the
funtlamental scientific branches have been reorganized and
competent specialists have taken the place of amateur teachers
who wre often mere exploiters. . . . Growth of anatomical
sriellce roultl not take place ill departments of nnatomy which
(lxiV4e(l only for the sake of surgt'ry, but illstead it took root in
ttw ciclpartnieuts ol' eoiilopy, ptlgsiology and pathology wh(lre
the use of t11c micro~scope was nntlerstood. (~raclually this
p~~lleral tlevelopnient rrat+tl on ana,tonry ancl professional
allatomists were enlist4 in the ~aupr. These natnra,lly de-

RESEARCH STVDENTS         219
manded as their field of work the whole science of anatomy,
and the part-time professor of gross human anatomy began
to find himself without a vocation. Anatomy of the living body
displaced anatomy of the cadaver. The scope of the work
was necessarily extended to include general anatomy aud
embryology.
The election of Professor Rtocknrd to this (ahair of anatomy
in the Cornell IJnirersity Medicsal College, is au event, of much
importance, for he is a modern, progressive and scientific:
anatomist, whose invest,igations give assurance that the work
there will be of high quality. There is every reason to hope
that this new department will in the near future take a promi-
nent position in this country. Dr. Stockard's investigations
have shown that activity and rest have no influence over the
rate of regenera.t.ive gro'wth, and that the process of regener-
ating tissue has a most esha#usting effect upon the animal body.
He has also shown that by means of chemicals, defects may
be produced which oBer favorable material for the analytical
study of complex organs and by changing the chemica,l en-
vironment in which eggs develop it is possible to cause them
to form a great ilumber of monsters of exactly the same type
as those occurring in nature. Thus by properly arranging
the chemical treatment he produced froru normal eggs with
rema.rkable regularity a specific: type of monstrosity, for es-
ample, cyclopean monsters, which observation must be re-
garded as one of the most important in csperimental teratol-
ogy. His work shows acumen in ascertaining the important
points of a problem and sifting the value of the evidence. It
is clear that it is his belief that scientific anatomy concerns
itself with ~~roblcms rather than with the indiscriminate col-
lection of data for their own sake. Dr. Stockard is an experi-
mental anatomist whose broad foundation insures scientific
anatomy at Cornell. He will stimulate a. scientifically pro-
ductive attitude to develop broadly along the several phases of
anatorniral investigation. Of necessity this will make the

220           FRANKLIN PAINE MALL
department more useful to the practical courses which follow
and depend upon it.
I quote this at, length for two reasons, first, because
I remember so distinctly Mall's excitement and ela-
tion over Stockard's experimental production of
cyclopia, and that he said to me at that time, " How
seldom one sees research workers as hal)py over
t,hc discoveries of their fellows as over their own,
and yet they ought to be for the real motive is to
understand nature." The second is that the whole
episode brings out so well Mall's concept of en-
larging the field of anatomy to cover every phase
of the subject and the clearness of his view that the
fundamental scientific branches in medicine had to
become experimental no matter how predominantly
descriptive they had been in the past.
The note by Jacques Loch to which Mall referred 1
brings out this idea in a most interesting fashion,
for he said that anatomy had originally been iden-
tified with the search for the nature of life and that
originally the anatomists were primarily physiolo-
gists, devoting their energies to understanding the
functions of the human body and the nature of dis-
ease. Loeb thought, that it was Johannes Miiller
whose enormous productivity in descriptive mor-
phology led anatomy away from physiology and post-
poned the development of an experimental phase.
Then he went on to say that his understanding of
Mall's program was a ret,urn to a functional or physi-
ological mode of teaching anatomy.
1 J. Loch, `I On the kaching of nmtomy," Annt Rec., 1911, 5, 306.

RESEARCH STUDENTS         221
From the evidence which has been presented here,
it is clear that nearly a century ago the ideas of
liberal training for advanced education were formu-
lated by von Baer. These ideas were self-education
for the student under skilled guidance, the concen-
tration system to enable him to work from the very
start as a professional rather than an amateur, and
the significance of research for the advance of medi-
cal knowledge. It was Mall who saw that this pro-
gram could be put into effect. These ideas are similar
to those of modern progressive education. Mall had
extraordinarily clear vision, indomitable purpose
and limitless patience ; he could wait years but he
never relaxed from a persistent driving force in
putting his views into practical operation. He laid
far too much stress on the idea that it was the stu-
dent who should do the work and gave too great an
advantage to the abler ones to be a popular teacher.
But how great a teacher he was may be judged by the
fact that today there is no dearth of able men to fill
the departments of anatomy in all of the medical
schools of this country; he founded a school of anat-
omy. Teaching a science which has had the longest
descriptive phase of any science in history, he
trained a group who readily passed on int,o the
newer experimental phases of the subject.
He was a reformer ; he found anatomy in this
country not a science at all but merely subservient
to the surgeon's art. He made it here a productive
science, able to carry on its own work and to influence

other medical l~ranclics. He found the tciwliin$ of
anatomy archaic and made it advanced, and, as
Sir Arthur Keith said, his influence changed all the
anatomical departments of the country. He was
criticized for not bending his cnergics toward train-
ing students to l)ass State Board Examinations
handsomely. He thought that they should master
enough to pass them but that it was far more im-
portant to train them to contribute to the advance
of medical science. Hc gave students leisure for
thought, liberty to follow their own bent, and treated
them as mat,ure and rcs~~onsible scholars. Many of
the advantages which medical students now take for
granted mere won for them by Mall. His claim to
be considered a great teacher is that he changed
the type of anatomical teaching in every laboratory
in the country, that he found it one of the most re-
stricted branches in the medical curriculum, and
made it one of the broadest, and that he developed
a school of anatomy and influenced the teaching of
his subject by his colleagues in other departments
as well as through his own pupils.