Irvine H. Page: A Man for All Reasons

IRVINE H. PAGE: A MAN FOR ALL REASONS EDWARD FRÖHLICH* Two years have passed since Irvine H. Page died, and from my perspective the impact of this giant in American medicine remains as acute as it was in his most productive years; therefore, it was with a warm and fond feeling of nostalgia and privilege that I accepted Dr. Richard Landau's invitation to write this personal reflection about Irvine Heinly Page, a founding member of the editorial board of Perspectives. Born at the outset of the twentieth century (January 7, 1901), Page made each moment of his active and productive ninety years a living testimonial to his existence. His personal, medical, scientific, and social contributions were not only remarkable and important, but monumental . Through the strength of his character, the power of his pen, the full commitment of his intellect and scientific resources, and the discipline of his mind and character, this unique man earned that special spot that we hold dear for our rare leaders. His family background sheds light on his personality. His father was an Indianapolis physician who, in his own right, was highly respected professionally and had a major national consultative practice. His mother had an intense commitment and high regard for the arts, encouraging Irv and his sister, Ruth. Fortunately for us, Irvine Page limited his musical performances to private gatherings as a young man while his sister Ruth Page went on to dazzle the Chicago and world dance community as a successful dancer-choreographer. She returned to the Midwest from her tenure with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (the first of the American ballerinas) to found her world-famous Chicago Ballet Company. Each year the Page family vacationed at their home in Hyannis Port, across the street from the Kennedy compound. It was there that young Irv began his interest in the sciences, writing his first paper on the algae of the local waters and joining the American Chemical Society when *Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, 1516 Jefferson Highway, New Orleans, Louisiana 70121.© 1994 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0031-5982/94/3702-0856$01.00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 37, 2 ¦ Winter 1994 | 197 just fifteen years old. (Incidently, he remained a compulsive reader of "chem abstracts" from that time into his retirement years.) He loved his home in Cape Cod, and it was in that very house that he died on June 10, 1991. During almost three-quarters of a century of scientific commitment, his contributions were many—including the identification of the reninangiotensin system, isolation and characterization of serotonin, elucidation of a neural component to the renin-angiotensin system, and demonstration of the role of baroreceptor resetting in hypertension. His original concept of the mosaic theory of hypertension, highlighting the multifactorial nature of the disease, continues to be a useful template not only for conceptualizing the causation of essential hypertension but for other complex clinical (and even social) maladies. Following his graduation from Cornell Medical College in 1926 and his two years of postgraduate medical training at the Presbyterian Hospital , he was invited to establish a laboratory of brain chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry in Munich; he worked at the institute for three years. His experiences and penetrating thinking stimulated his writing of the first book (a rather large tome) on brain chemistry , preceding this presently active and fertile era of psychobiology and psychopharmacology by several decades. With the clouds of World War II looming on the horizon, he returned to New York after thee years tojoin Donald Van Slyke at the Rockefeller Institute for six years. There the seed of his bedside and clinical research germinated. Perhaps the most far-reaching concept that developed was drawn from his background in Munich and the way his experience with Tigerstedt and Bergman kidney extract (renin) blended with the existing Rockefeller commitment to renal function and disease. It was his early thinking that the elevated arterial pressure in hypertension was not essential for renal perfusion. He frequently said there was "nothing essential about hypertension ." Page returned home to Indianapolis in 1937 to head the Lilly Laboratory for Clinical Research, bringing with him his colleague...