Duke University School of Medicine - Aesculapian Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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PH TSIOLOGT PH ARMACOLOGT The Department of Physiology and Pharmacology seeks to provide a focus for growth of ideas in these disciplines within Duke University. Physiology is that branch of science which seeks to understand how living things work. Pharmacology is the study of how drugs modify physiological processes. To understand is to relate, in the mind, things new and unknown to things l already known and familiar. ln science, he things most known and familiar are the concepts of physics and chemistry. ln large part, physiology is the attempt to relate living processes to and through these concepts. Indeed, in IQI3 L. Henderson wrote uThe biologist studies living organisms as inhabitants of this world and, by holding fast to physics and chemistry, he has created modern physiology, a science which unites many, indeed, nearly all of the departments of physics and chemistry in the task of describing the processes of life. The De- partment of Physiology and Pharmacology comprises a group of scholars who are descendants in spirit from Henderson and the other founders of modern physi- ology. Like them, we are moved by the conviction that the modern physiologist and pharmacologist must ahold fast to physics and chemistry, but also, like them, our primary concern is to understand living processes. It is this emphasis on the actual function of natural cells, organs and organisms which distinguishes finsofar as a distinction is meaningfulj the physiologist from the biochemist and the biophysicist. DR. TosTEsoN In recognition of the fact that a few investigators working on closely related problems seem to proceed more effectively and happily than either a single scientist working alone or a large group, both Divisions of the Department fPhysiology and Pharmacologyj are or- ganized into a loose confederation of relatively autono- mous Laboratories. There are, at present, 7 such Labora- tories in Physiology and bg in Pharmacology. Upon completion of the new Medical Sciences Building fcon- struction will begin in the Fall of IQ64D, there will be X Laboratories in Physiology and 5 in Pharmacology. Since it is obviously impossible to represent the entire fields of Physiology and Pharmacology within any one DR. SALZANO DR. Kosryo fifteen

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BIOCHEMISTRY In concert with all other departments in the Medical School, this department has been heavily involved in planning a new curriculum. Until the day that such a completely overhauled curriculum can be inaugurated, we shall continue to engage in serious self-study and to experiment with our present program. Two principles seem paramount in this endeavor. CID Biochemistry is no longer an isolated discipline nor an exercise in blood and urine analysis. It is the language of biology and the only available intellectual framework for understanding of all living forms-in- cluding man. It is our obligation to provide a grasp of this language and its conceptual framework. Once so equipped, the student is in position to grasp much which comes later in the curriculum-and which will be revealed by research during his lifetime. In this sense, it is almost a cultural course which is offered, a position which can be taken only in the full confidence that many of the preclinical and clinical faculty to be encountered later in the curriculum are fluent in this language. The biochemistry faculty has become inured to the recurrent, What has all this to do with medical practice? If it is irrelevant, then surely mankind is doomed ever to live under the threat of the same diseases which now take so heavy a toll, and medical practice must remain as frus- trating as ever. If it is relevant, as we fully believe and frequently demonstrate. one day medical practice will he far more rewarding than is presently the case. And it is our task to prepare for that day. Accordingly, our emphasis must remain on fundamentals: others who follow will reveal the utility of the clinical chemistry laboratory. Czj The experience of the student in the biochemistry laboratory must he designed to illustrate how biochemical MQW'-Ns-. My DR. BYRNE DR. THIERS DR. HANDLER information is gathered-not to illustrate or prove the notions discussed in lectures or conferences. If this hope is to be realized, the 'cookbook' must disappear, the Work must seem more like real investigation, and the tech- niques used must be as sophisticated as possible. To this end, as rapidly as possible the laboratory experience is being remolded. For next year, each student will engage in only four or five units of work, each requiring four consecutive days for its accomplishment. New ap- paratus will be introduced, several entirely new ap- proaches attempted. And, as this year, the ratio of students to staff in the laboratory, at almost all times, will be about ?i:r. This is an ambitious, and expensive program. Hopefully, a year hence, next year's class will think it has been worthwhile. llut they cannot really Ignozu this for many years. PHILIP H.XXDLEIi, Pii.D. Chairman of fflf' Dc'pr1rZmc'nl lame: B. Duke Professor DR. MCCARTY fourteen

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department, the selection of the areas covered by the Laboratories involved decisions regarding the most promising frontiers in the two disciplines. Research in the Department can be viewed as directed toward two such frontiers. First, the goal of much of the work is to increase our understanding of the molecular basis of the energy transformations which underlie fundamental physiological processes such as muscular contraction, nerve conduction, active transport, and cell division. The second frontier involves the analysis of complex inte- grated physiological functions such as the mechanics of respiration, the activity of the brain, etc., with the use of modern analogue and digital computer techniques. Within the Division of Physiology the following Labora- tories are in being: Laboratory of Cellular Neurophysi- ology fChief, I. W. Moorej, Laboratory of Integrative Neurophysiology fChief, G. Somjenj, Laboratory of Muscle Physiology CChief, P. Horowiczj, Laboratory of Molecular Physiology CChief, I. Blumj, Laboratory of Cellular Endocrinology fChief, I. Kostyoj, Laboratory of Cardiopulmonary Physiology fChief, I. Salzanoj, and the Laboratory of Cellular Transport Processes fChief, D. C. Tostesonj. The Division of Pharmacology QI-lead, E. M. Renkiny presently comprises the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology QChief, E. A. Iohnsonj and the Laboratory of Circulatory Pharmacology QChief, E. M. Renkinj. The Department's view of the role of physiology and pharmacology in medicine is well expressed by the fol- lowing remarks of Claude Bernard in his brilliant treatise An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine cI865,I mln the empirical period of medicine, which must doubtless still be greatly prolonged, physi- ology and therapeutics could advance separately, for as neither of them was well established, they were not DR. RENKIN vv if.. Q- I -21.3 1 :.QE5' 4' ff M, 1' ' ij!! ? , 'f ...- - -. starr H . . 4 . A f4?v v'I, -.:':55:f5'3?.2f:,.z..2: 5 , , f nf. , . -, :--.. M.: + -,144 ,--:,-r-,.:-:...:.:- -vm-. ..-z..--...aa s w DR. BERNHEHXI called upon mutually to support each other in medical practice. But this cannot be so when medicine becomes scientific: it must then be founded on physiology. Since science can be established only by the comparative method, knowledge of pathological or abnormal condi- tions cannot be gained Without previous knowledge of normal states, just as the therapeutic action of abnormal agents, or medicines, on the organism cannot be scien- tifically understood without first studying the physi- ological action of the normal agents which maintain the phenomena of life. But scientific medicine, like the other sciences, can be established only by experimental means, i.e., by direct and rigorous application of reasoning to the facts fur- nished us by observation and experiment. Considered in itself, the experimental method is nothing but reason- ing by whose help we methodically submit our ideas to experience,-the experience of facts. ln the introductory courses, we seek not only to inform first and second year students about the most im- portant principles and facts in physiology and phar- macology, but also to provide an opportunity to practice the experimental method in Bernard's sense of sub- mitting ideas to experience, e.g., the experience of others as reported in scientific journals. An effort is made to reveal the relevance of physiology and pharmacology to clinical medicine by conducting clinical-physiological conferences in the introductory courses and by participat- ing in certain special courses for residents. To this end, the faculty of clinical physiologists and pharmacologists who hold appointments in a clinical department as well as in this Department has been very valuable. DANIEL C. TOS'fESON, M.D. Chairman of the Department sixteen