10
THE TORONTO DAILY STAR. TUESDAY,
Prof. J. J. R.Macleod honored
At Dinner of Medical Men
Tribute Paid Outstanding Physiologist and Associate Wi
Nobel Prize on Return From Europe—Would
Train All Students for Research

Dr. Robert T. noble last evening
gave a dinner in honor of Professor
J. J. R. Macleod, co-winner with Doctor
Banting of this year’s Nobel prize
for Medicine. A prophet may be
without honor in his own country,
but not a professor physiology who
is, said his confreres in praise of
him, if o he greatest, on of the
greatest physiologists in the world.
In the dining hall of the Faculty Union
overlooking the great hall of Hart
House were gathered 70 medical men
and the president of the university
Perhaps not since the days of Aesulapius
has a chapel been erected to medicine,
but this beautiful Gothic refectory with
its vaulted ceiling and stained glass
windows looked like a chapel, and on
its table long as a mark of admiration
burned two score of candles as on some
altar of praise. Dr. Noble’s guests
were splendidly representative of the
medical profession in Toronto and
throughout the province. It was
impossible for any scientist to receive
a heartier expression of approval from
professional brethren. Professor MacLeod
has just returned from five months
absence in Scotland where he delivered
the Cameron lectures in physiology.
Th e banquet was arranged not only to
express Toronto’s relief at receiving
safely back the coping stone to its
foundation of medical science, but
also to acknowledge long-standing
indebtedness to one who has made
many remarkable contributions to the
advance of modern physiology. Famous
as a Teacher. Dr. Noble opened
the flood-gates of praise by toasting
Professor Macleod as a scientist
famous not only for his own discoveries,
but for his ability to teach and to guide the in-
vestigations of others. Dr. H. B.
Anderson, in a lengthy speech, point-
ed out the significance of such phy- |
and to the practice of medicine. It
had been a happy inspiration to in-
vite all branches of the profession to
extend congratulations to Professor
Macleod upon the recognition he had
received from the foremost scientific
bodies in Great Britain and on the
continent for many years of distin-
guished work as an investigator, author and teacher
Dr. Noble had already read Professor
Macleod's inscriptions on teh
roll of physiological fame. He was
a graduate of Aberdeen and a post-
graduate of Lelpzic and Camrdige.
He won the Anderson traveling fellowship
from Aberdeen and for fifteen
years from 1903 to 1918 was pro-
fessor of physiology at Western Reserve
University in Cleveland. From
there he came to Toronto, ws made
president of the American PPhysiological
society in 1921, and this year
became a fellow of the' Royal Society
• of London.
He had already to his credit a lengthy list
of books and monographs, but honors still came
to him. He was awarded this year the Cameron prize
at Edinburgh, and last and not least the Nobel
prize in association with Dr. Banting. “The
discovery of insulin was brilliantly conceived
by Dr. Banting,” said Dr. Anderson, “and admirably
worked out in the physiological laboratory of
the University of Toronto. Never in the history
of medicine, has a discovery received such
quick recognition. Professor Banting and
Professor MacLeod will be stimulus to Canadian
effort for years to come. The one Canadian by
birth, the other by adoption, they are a matter
for national pride, but I have heard they are
already being called ‘eminent Americans.’”
He considered the dinner especially significant
because it was given by a practicing physician
to an eminent physiologist. It was a good omen
to find collaboration between those representing
the fundamental sciences and those engaged in
practice. There should be not conflict between
the knowledge got in the laboratory and the
experience gained at the bedside.
He humorously recalled, however, the Harvey,
who discovered the circulation of the blood,
had a first been a general practitioner but
has lost his practice after he made his famous
discovery. The qualities of the scientist were
not always those which appealed to patients.
Practitioners, like patients, were sometimes
sensitive of what he called “toploftiness” in
physiological scientists. They did not like
the attitude of the master of an Oxford college
who said that what he did not know was not
knowledge. But Professor MacLeod has known
how to co-ordinate the science with the practice
of medicine. His helpfulness has extended from
the classroom to the profession generally whom
he had kept in touch with progress in his department a
nd has enabled to do work such as in the past only
great clinicians could do. Summing up his tribute,
Dr. Anderson declared that clinical medicine from
Jenner, Bright, Addison and Lister down to Osler,
McKenzie and Horseley had been greatly indebted to
such men as Macleod and that it was of inestimable
value to have him
associated with the medical profession Toronto.
When the guest of honor spoke, these distinguished
doctors showed that they are just like other people
in the matter o applause. They did not shout at
professor MacLeod the contents of the pharmacopoeia
as the medical students do in their yells. They were
cheery, not gloomy.. They did not sing of dissection.
They sang “He’s Jolly Good Fellow.” He proved it by
an address which indicate how closely the laboratory
is related to the coupe and the night bell and what a
friendly felling of co-operation physiology had for
clinical and practical medicine. Those who discovered
insulin were not insulated from the bedside science.
Prof. Macleod in short shared with the general practitioner
his own high honors. Research in medical practice had a
role as important as research in laboratories and clinics.
There were problems of the incipient stages of disease
which could only be investigated by the rank and file
of the profession.. “Physiology,” said he, “with its related
sciences, is still and must always be, the keystone
of the arch of medicine and surgical knowledge. IT is
the junction toward which converge the line of the
premedical sciences and from which run out those that
run into the fields of clinical investigation and practice.
The teacher of physiology is the signal man. He must
direct the traffic. He must indicated the constant changes
in the relative importance of the lines. Medical as
well as surgical science is after all but an application
of the basic sciences of physics, chemistry and biology
to the alleviation of human suffering. “ In discussing
the kind of guidance that a teacher of physiology
should give to his students, Professor Macleod gave
admirable rules not only for medical but for all education.
Facts were not so important as methods. The student
should get away from the test books, should observe
and interpret. The problem of the teacher was to
get the student tot think form himself. To
illustrate this he reviewed systems of physiological
education in Great Britain and America. In
Oxford, with a limited number of students,
there was in his opinion, almost a perfect system.
At the outset, the student was not allowed to use
test books. He performed laboratory
experiments and wrote original papers and summaries
of his observations He was then assigned to a
tutor, who guided his readings. He then passed
from experimental methods to the study of monographs.
It was only just before his final examination that
he was allowed to consult text books. The purpose
of this system was to encourage independent thinking
and to turn out investigators. At Cambridge there
was a less successful application of this
instructional method, owing to the fact that there
were more students. But the ideal was the same – a
movement away from dogma and authority. In the
Scottish medical schools the students devoted hours
to lectures. After the lectures, there was what the
students called “a little frog jumping.” There was
not enough practical experiment and training in
independent thought. “In the United States,
physiology was taught almost as well as at
Oxford. He mentioned with approval, Johns Hopkins,
Cornell, Western Reserve and Chicago. Owing to
expense there was not sufficient personal contact
between student and instructor. “In Toronto,” said
Professor MacLeod, “let us copy the goo feature of
others, set up no particular type, but pick the
choicest fruit we can find. I try to copy the
best that is available and to blend the systems
of the old country and of the United States.
In recent year we have cut lectures 50 per cent.
And favor small
Groups, permitting personal contact with the instructors.” The chief feature, he tried to develop, was a traing in not, so much in facts as in thinking. Physiology was not an acquisition of facts, but an appreciation of principles. The student should not cram it and dismiss it, but return to it every year in order to get the benefit of a summation of stimuli. “There is,” he went on, “sometimes a tendency to consider that research in medicine can be carried out only by a selected few, who are skilled in the use of elaborate methods of investigation, and that the general practitioner is unqualified and incompetent to do his part. The great object of the teacher of medical science, should be to break down this false idea and in its stead to impress his students with the fact that in the varied experiences of general practice there exists a multitude of problems of disease that can never be elucidated unless they are made the subject of investigation by minds trained to think independently and to detect the relationships between cause and effect. There are many problems which can never fall within the scope of the experimental laboratory, nor indeed of the hospital clinic; problems that are related tot he premonitory stages of disease not to the disease itself, problems that demand for their elucidation a skill that can be acquired only by experience backed by a trained, scientific attitude of mind.” How else,” said Professor Macleod “than through the study by scientifically trained minds of such symptoms as those of pain and headache, of gastro-intestinal disease, of perverted metabolism, can we ever hope to understand their causes and, thus, to learn how to treat them, and how are we to become acquainted with the incipient stages of malignant disease, of tuberculosis, of diabetes, unless it be by lifelong scientific observation on the part of the general practitioner. His training for this important work must be the aim and object of medical education; it must have its beginning in studies in the premedical sciences, undergo its development in the institute of medicine and reach its maturity in the hospital clinic and dispensary. It is in training based not so much on experience as on investigation; it should be designed to prepare the mind to observe, and having observed to interpret correctly. He sat down amid great applause. In this clear exposition of the guiding principles of his research work he had shown how Toronto in further might be the scene of further medical discoveries and the nursery of future Nobel prize winner. Toronto University is becoming one of the greatest medical magnets on the continent. It has recently drawn back to itself after 21 years absence, Dr. Klotz, its new professor of pathology. The toast to the new professor of pathology was proposed by Dr. H. B. Anderson. Dr. Klotz in reply paid a tribute to Professor McLeod. “When I as in Pittsburgh,” said he, “Guthrie, the professor of physiology, said: “Watch this man Macleod in Cleveland.” Later, in Brazil, his attention had been again drawn to Macleod, “I could not get away from him,” said Dr. Klotz. “It is now a pleasure to associate with him and enjoy the stimulus of his ability, his technique and encyclopedic knowledge. He is well flitted to guide the profession. The qualities for which he won the Nobel prize will continue to make the university a centre of growing influence.” He had noticed amongst medical students an increasing reluctance to accept control. He had been in the Argentine. There in the medical schools the student ruled and not the professors. They went on strikes to have the curriculum amended to their liking. Even in Toronto there was something of the same spirit. "they need," said Dr. Klotz, “Strong guidance such as Professor MacLeod can give to teach them to appreciate in the practice of medicine the value of the science of medicine.” In conclusion, Dr. Noble pointed out tat the eyes of the whole world was focused on Toronto and that the cynosure of that prolonged medical examination was the department an personality of Professor Macleod, in whole hands physiology would be the key to unlock many hidden mysteries of medicine. MR. I H. Cameron proposed a toast to host, Dr. R. T. Noble which was warmly received. After the speeches at this notable banquet even a layman could appreciate apart from insulin and the Nobel prize the preeminent position that a professor Macleod occupies in the great series of medical sciences of which physiology is the master science.