Old Salvelinus Fontinalis

OLD SALVELINUS FONTINALIS FRANKLIN C. BING* The work of a man's life is equal to the sum of all the influences he has brought to bear upon the world in which he lives.—Graham Lusk [Science, 65:555, 1927] The friend whom I affectionately thought of, without ever mentioning it to him or to anyone else, as "Old Trout," and sometimes as "Old Salvelinus fontinalis" when I wanted to diink in fancy terms and use the Latin name for the eastern brook trout, was dead. It did not seem possible —he had always been so much alive—but there could be no doubt about it. I got the information from the man who had been his first Ph.D. student at Cornell University in Ithaca. He and I, who was his first research student, practically his protégé in New Haven, used to trade news of mutual friends when we met. It was now clear, six months after the fact, that in the case of Clive McCay we would in the future be able to talk only reminiscently. Several years earlier, he had suffered a massive stroke. When he recovered enough to be taken home, he was unable to talk. Nursed by his devoted wife, who survives him, he showed slow improvement when taken to an island offSpain and, later, to Florida, where he, my friend for forty years, finally succumbed. I can only think ofhim as alive, and mostly as he was when I first met him in the fall of 1926. He was then, I think, twenty-eight years old and single. He was born in Indiana , not far from Chicago, and his mother, a registered nurse, continued to live in that area. Meet Dr. Clive M. McCay I met Dr. McCay in my very early days as a graduate student in the Department ofPhysiology and Physiological Chemistry in New Haven, Connecticut. This is the department designation then listed in the catalog * Address: 2651 Hurd Avenue, Evanston, Illinois 60201. This paper was read to the Chicago Literary Club in November 1969 and is published here with their permission. 563 of the Graduate School. It was this catalog which in large measure had attracted me to Yale; it seemed from the courses described that Professor Lafayette B. Mendel, the head ofthe department with the dual title, operated a graded program of studies which had been carefully thought out. Besides, when I wrote to the professors ofthree universities for information , Professor Mendel was die only one who had personally written a letter inreply. The othershad simply sentform letters signedby some clerk in the registrar's office, plus catalogs that did not seem to offer much to a young instructor, two years out ofcollege, who was eager to move back to the other side of the classroom teacher's desk and to become involved in research. Yes, it was a desire to do original research in the laboratory that motivated me to go to New Haven—and then, within a few weeks after arriving, I felt that I had made a mistake. I was taking courses according to a plan spelled out for me by my professor , but I felt like a college freshman attending lectures and quiz sections , studying textbooks, and following a routine that seemed to be ordered by the ringing ofbells. Professor Mendel must have learned ofmy discontent, because he went out ofhis way to accompany me down the street when we chanced to be going out ofthe building at the same moment one noon. He asked mehow I liked my studies; it was then that I found the professor to be a wise and kindly man. He arranged for me to spend what time I could with Dr. McCay. In addition, he promised that, beginning the next semester, I could have an assistantship which would bring me a small stipend. "You'll have to work for it," he admonished, as my face lighted up at this news. Work I did, making up solutions for various laboratory classes and doing other chores that were the lot oflaboratory assistants everywhere—and I suppose in large measure they still are. These obligations, plus trying to make myselfuseful to Dr...