Friedrich Wassermann, 1884-1969: A Life in Experimental Cytology

FRIEDRICH WASSERMANN, 1884-1969 A LIFE IN EXPERIMENTAL CYTOLOGY FRANZ W. WASSERMANN, M.D.* Two years ago, my father's friends at the Argonne National Laboratory encouraged him to write a short autobiography. He had written a curriculum vitae from time to time, including one which was intended for use by the University ofMunich and ran to twelve typewritten pages. After his death, I found in his study two folders which contained various essays of an autobiographical nature, some in English, some in German. In his desk there were more scattered notes. I have made selections from these writings and have pieced them together into a reasonably coherent story. Except for translation, for very slight stylistic changes, and for the addition of a few remarks for clarification, I have not taken any liberties with his text. Dr. Ilza Veith, the medical historian, who was a close friend of my parents for many years, went over my father's notes with me and helped me to define the scope of this story. Many times before, she had put finishing touches on my father's papers; she did this once more with this paper. I am very grateful for her guidance and I know that she gave it gladly. Flooded with memories which, to me, are my father and thereby a major part ofmy life, I was disappointed, as I looked through his papers, to find so little which would show his more personal and human side. Instead , he had written, what he called, an "ergography," a record ofthe work done during his long life. I would like to share a few of my memories and hope that they will make it easier for the reader to sense this man's character as it comes through in his own story. * Address: 1855 San Miguel Drive, Walnut Creek, California 94598. 537 My early childhood fell into the period when my father was working on the Handbuch. We spent our Sunday afternoons at my grandmother's house in the Frauenhoferstrasse in Munich, where my sister and I played with our cousins. I can still see my father and mother sitting there in the alcove behind a mountain ofslips ofpaper which were abstracts from the literature. Almost every evening, from dinner until two or so in the morning , my father worked athis desk, but after my sister and I had been put to bed, he would come into our room and tell us whathad happened that day in the fives of two characters my father had invented for us, Philip Fünfle, the son of a physician, and Kaspar Bitterbrot, the son of poor parents; they were supposed to be a few years older than we so that their adventures foreshadowed our own experiences. In his youth, my father used to write skits which he and his friends would perform. My sister and I were in his last production, which was staged in my grandmother's laundry room. My father played the lead as an old gypsy fortune-teller; my sister and I had a single line, an awestruck "DerBürgermeister!" My father used his flair for the dramatic to good advantage in his teaching. Whenhe lectured he wore a black academic gown because he thought that it made him appear taller. His performance at die blackboard often evoked applause: He would spring onto a footstool and, reaching outwith bothhands simultaneously, he createdhishuge drawings in rapid elegant sweeps. He did everything with a touch of showmanship. During our winter vacations he was out on the ski slopes anhour or two at the most, morning and afternoon, and did a few cautious stem turns but he posed as the "master skier." When we acquired a car, he became the "master driver" and would crouch down and squint through the steering wheel; he was Carraciola, the greatest racing driver ofthat day, and he looked and talked the part. He was, really, a good photographer, and as we traveled through the countryside he would teasingly get us to ask, "Vati, take a picture." When once I came home heartbroken because I had been scolded by a policeman, he pretended to be the policeman; when we had trouble in...