Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons - P and S Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 12 text:

.vgx ROBERT H. E. ELLIOTT, JR. Associate Dean Professor of Clinical Surgery B.A., Princeton, 1928 M.D., Columbia, 1932 Med. Sci.D., 1938 MELVIN D. YAHR Associate Dean Professor of Neurology B.A., New York University, 1939 M.D., 1943 1 SHIRLEY C. FISK Associate Dean Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine B.A., Yale, 1936 M.D., Columbia, 1940 W I 0 . . as. - Qrfx TN Y DOUGLAS S. DAMROSCH Assistant Dean Associate Professor of Pediatrics B.A., Columbia, 1937 M.D., 1940

Page 14 text:

A Bum Steroid or Send a Salami to an Ex-Medical Student in the Army Sheep are gregarious, bacteria are clonalg The endocrine system is steroid hormonal, And it's not such a problem to catch them and tame them: It's more of a problem to draw them and name them. lt seems that one day a squalene went berserk, Put his tail in his own mouth and started to work, And he wound up condensed into four lovely rings With all sorts of places for side groups and things. And to all the scientists' great consternation There were two or three names for each variation. But it serves them right: not content with cholesterol, They rolled up their sleeves and invented stilbesteroll Then came estradiol and lots of ergosterol: The sequence was getting completely preposterol. Both those in the fast lane and those in the slow lane Are just going ape over etiocholane: And if you think that is too much for one man alone Just write down the formula for etiocholanolone. Or maybe this will burst your complacent bubble: When a girl has got pregnane, then is she in trouble? And the corticosteroids drive me up a wall, Like 11-dehydrocorticosterol. But the finest-named steroid l've ever known Is pregn-5-ene-3-beta-ol-20-one. And it's bad enough learning the way these are treated, But then we go on and learn how they're excreted, And we work all the day and we go without rest To measure them all by the Zimmermann test. Comes the end of the term and we cram and we cram, And then they throw at us the final exam. On your knowledge of structures you may very well pride yourg Now try to explain what steroids do inside you. One double bond makes you a boy or a girl, Another may make you a mouse or a squirl. The test might as well have been written in Braille, For I fear the whole class is way out in one tail. We'lI go to Dr. Nachmansohn to recover our nerve, Then we'II get Dr. Fertig to work out the curve, And assuming they can't flunk an entire class, By the grace of some First Cause we'lI probably pass. Let's hope we all put down the proper amount- From Abernathy-Kiess and from Lambert-Yount, And wish the biochemists a Christmas serene, Full of DNA HlSStone and HlSStamine. Don Feinfeld 10 IA. .six Seymour Lieberman What is this class - a bunch of snakes or something? ., , -6 'S' T' ' . it Lui Allen M. Gold Y0u'lI eat those lpidsfn frxwvw' - . si., f 'se P33 5 'iii Parithychery Srinivasan I'l1 show them what an untouchable can HU do..