Editorial: The Dwight J. Ingle Memorial Award

PERSPECTIVES IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Volume 37 ¦ Number 4 ¦ Summer 1994 EDITORIAL: THE DWIGHTJ. INGLE MEMORIAL AWARD Dwight Ingle was a professor of physiology and chairman of the department at the University of Chicago when he founded this journal some 38 years ago. He had persuaded Dean Lowell T. Coggeshall to allow him to fund the publication from the departmental budget for the first few years of its existence. During what might be termed the adolescence and young adulthood of modern endocrinology, Dwight was an immensely productive investigator . He developed a number of very sensitive bioassays for pituitary and adrenocortical secretions in rats, and carried out studies that defined their role in homeostasis. Much of this research was done while he worked at the Upjohn Co. who supported these independent investigations without question. However Ingle's strict conscience forced him to resign from the firm, because Dr. Upjohn insisted on marketing an adrenal extract that had no biological activity when tested with the Ingle assay. Charles Huggins, who pioneered in demonstrating the hormonal influence on cancer growth, persuaded him tojoin the Chicago faculty. Dwight, whose PhD was in psychology, became convinced that active scholars of medicine and biology would profit from a broadening publication , one in which authors would attempt to provide real meaning for the results of experimental biology and careful clinical studies. His own proposal for the permissive action of glucocorticoids was such an example . And so Perspectives. The zeal and talent of a small town newspaper editor was required in order to get thejournal started. Dwight assembled an editioral board composed of thoughtful biologists and physicians from several disciplines and an advisory board of exceptionally gifted and distinguished scholars from several nations. He then worked on some of his friends, persuading them to write essays based on ideas he knew they had from personal discussions. It was not easy. The conception of a scientificjournal devoted exclusively to the publication of essays was brand new. A Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 37, 4 ¦ Summer 1994 471 good number of the early articles didn't measure up, and neither did the number of subscriptions he anticipated. But when he retired from the University and turned over the editorship, the only financial support the publication needed and received from The University of Chicago was a room for the editorial office. It was the provocative needling of the managing editor which resulted in the first of our young writers contests in 1975. She was confident that it was notjust the mature and aging scholars who had something to say and knew how to say it. Younger physicians and biologists only needed some encouragement, she thought, and the assurance that the seniority of authors provided no favoritism for publication. Each of the six contests held prior to this one resulted in the publication of several excellent essays; and now between contests more youthful authors are not hesitant to submit papers for publication. The award for this writing competition honoring Dwight's name, funded in part by his friends and family, isjust the recognition he would have loved to see.—R.L.L. 472 Editorial ...