Scientists, Medical Doctors and Economists
There was also Josiah Willard Gibbs whom William Lyon Phelps had had in mind when he wrote that perhaps one day present unknowns would be elected such as Gibbs, “who has been called [by Einstein] the greatest mind in America.” No one questioned the assertion, though one of Gibbs’s biographers described him as “essentially a student.” His work in thermodynamics was said by fellow scientists to be the basis of modern physical chemistry and chemical engineering. Few have challenged his greatness, but thirty years and six elections passed before he was declared famous. If he still has fame, it is discussed quietly among the cognoscenti and at Yale, where he taught and worked; and the subsequent work of other scientists hasn’t helped Gibbs very much in public notice. Scientists are aware that fame may be short-lived, even for Nobel Prize winners.
They are a breed apart, working out of sight day after day, alone and in teams, unknown to a public largely ignorant not only of their work but of their existence. They receive little press attention. Every now and then, one or two of their number get restless and announce a “breakthrough,” and are told, sometimes bluntly, by their fellow scientists, not to be so precipitate as, for example, to announce atomic fusion before it has happened. Or to proclaim the efficacy of a lotion by a company which has supported their research. Or otherwise “sell out,” at home or abroad.
By and large, however, scientists, along with our engineers and architects, rank with our greatest men and women. There are too few of them at work in a nation that at times seems to be well on the way to losing its technological reputation and gaining one for litigation.
Physicians and Surgeons, we have noted, were kept separate from Scientists. General William Gorgas, medical doctor and sanitary engineer, was elected in 1950 for getting rid of Yellow Fever. He shares the honors of his segregation with William T.G. Morton and Walter Reed. Morton gave us ether, but may be called a physician only if dentists who also studied medicine without getting a degree may be called physicians.
Dr. Reed’s fame is based in large measure on the work of one Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban-born physician, who discovered the mosquito as the cause of Yellow Fever. His investigations were the basis for the final conclusions of Reed and his associates and the work of Gorgas.
Later in the Sockman term, when Fidel Castro was consolidating his power, the Hall of fame received more than a thousand letters of nomination for the deserving Finlay. Assistant to the Director Freda Hliddal, who was running the Hall of Fame office, rightly declared him ineligible. Finlay could not get on a ballot, she said, unless Congress were by vote to declare him an Honorary Citizen. No way, fame or no fame. Not with Castro acting up.
The scarcity of doctors in the Hall of Fame comes as no surprise. Fame can come quickly to this quiet profession, and leave quickly too, unless the name of its bearer is institutionalized: Walter Reed Hospital, Salk Institute, Mayo and Lahey clinics.
Enshrinement is another matter. In 1900 MacCracken thought it unaccountable that no American physician of five nominated that year “impressed himself” deeply enough to be elected. Columbia professor of economics C. Lowell Harries accounted for it some 70 years later when he was heard to say that “it wasn’t until about the turn of the century that the medical profession did more good than harm.” He added pointedly, “I wish I could say that for my profession.” Since 1950 no physician of 31 nominated has been elected to the Hall of Fame — and to date not a single professional economist.
The most noteworthy events of the period took place at the University in the various aspects of postwar growth. Harry Woodburn Chase resigned in 1951. One of the finest, he had been a college president with considerable success for many years: first at the University of North Carolina, then the University of Illinois, where he was famous for removing the ban on student smoking,; and finally at NYU. During his 18-year tenure, the University became the largest in the nation. He had worked with all the Directors of the Hall of Fame — Johnson, Finley, Phelps, Angell and Sockman — and had taken a keen interest in its affairs and known as few others did its successes and failures.