Some Explorers of Inner Space

5OME EXPLORERS OF INNER SPACE JAY TEPPERMAN, MD.* Introduction We are constantly being reminded ofthe fact that we live in the Age of Exploration ofOuter Space. Each probe by space explorers on either team is greeted with a loudjournalistic fanfare, and our ten-year-old sons talk confidently ofECHO, TIROS, and the re-entry problem. Unbelievably large sums ofmoney and human effort are being expended on these problems and, while our space effort is represented as the purest kind ofresearch in some quarters, everybody recognizes the fact that there are prominent components of defense planning and considerations of national prestige in the programs of both major participants in this astonishing game of cosmic baseball. Sometimes I find myself wanly hoping that we would put the packages in orbit for the Soviets to try to catch in the manner ofa kind ofcollective Willie Mays. I do not mean to belittle the achievements or question the motives of the small army ofpeople who are engaged in this kind ofresearch. In fact, I am lost in admiration for the quality of human imagination that is brought to bear on it. Certainly many ofthe technological advances that have been stimulated by this development will one day filter into our private lives, and I am all for encouraging enthusiastic people to explore any part ofthe universe they find entertaining. However, Ijoin Grandma Moses in her concern for the possibility that the drama ofthe spectade of outer space exploration may conceivably obscure the fact that other facets * Professor ofExperimental Medicine, Department ofPharmacology, State University ofNew York, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, New York. This paper, illustrated with lantern slides, was presented as an after-dinner diversion at a symposium on genetics and diabetes sponsored by the Clinical Society ofthe New York Diabetes Association , November n, i960, in New York City. The author is grateful to Professor George WaId for permission to quote the final paragraph. 445 ofthe universe are at least equally worthy ofexploration. I am sure you will agree that one ofthe most worthy ofthese is the life process, which, for us, is Inner Space. It would be deplorable ifgovernments and men got so transported by the joy of exploring Outer Space that they were to neglect directing a substantial part oftheir energies to the study ofbiology, including human biology, in all ofits manifestations. One sometimes has the impression that our present emphasis on Outer Space research represents an attempt to escape from the necessity of gaining a better understanding of ourselves on the grounds that we are pretty hopeless as a species. I submit that, ifwe measure our history on a geologic time scale, it's a little too early to throw in the sponge! Therefore, I am going to ask you tojoin me in a small, harmless orgy ofancestor worship. For there is no better way to show the excitement, the quiet drama, the improbable routes ofinvestigators to profound understanding than to give a brief account of the lives and achievements of a handful ofour professional ancestors. The story ofInner Space exploration is not simply a catalogue ofdisembodied ideas, theories, and syntheses. It is the story of men in whose minds these intellectual events occurred. While truth may be impersonal, the pursuit oftruth is a very private kind of enterprise indeed, in a sense in which those words are not ordinarily used in this country. Each ofthe people I am going to discuss had something important to do with discovering the ideas on which most of today's symposium was based. I ask only that those among you who may be trained geneticists or trained historians (I am neither) forgive me for any egregious mistakes I may make in either field. I cannot apologize for the fact that much ofwhat I say will sound familiar. I can only hope that the verbal montage I have constructed out of biographical gossip and old obituary notices will be interesting to you. In the twelve-year span from 1859 to 1871, three men published three monumental theses: Origin of Species (1859), Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1866), and On the Chemical Composition ofPus Cells (1871). Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Friedrich Miescher were neighbors in time, but, with...