cooperative and took me to the Dean, who was good enough to let 

 me buy a whole new set of apparatus, a Harvard kymograph for each 

 group, and later allowed me to put in a small shop and to obtain 

 the services of an excellent machinist. Dr. Abel was not anxious to 

 have the shop and tried to dissuade me by pointing out that there was 

 no place to put it. When I suggested a corner of the large labora- 

 tory, he admitted that this would be all right and became quite de- 

 spondent; but all of a sudden he remembered that the fire escape was 

 right outside of the window where I proposed to put the shop, and 

 he told me that it would never do to put it there. When I pointed 

 out that there was already a chemical bench in front of this window 

 as well as two shelves and three lines of pipes across it, which made it 

 impossible to get out, he gave up and let me have the shop. 



I spent a great deal of time on this laboratory course, systematized 

 the whole procedure, and arranged for the entire class to take the 

 course. I had drawers put in so that each group could lock up its 

 own set of apparatus, and saw that a razor as well as the necessary 

 apparatus for each experiment was supplied to each group. The result 

 was very striking. Everything ran perfectly, the students obtained 

 good records and went ahead in a very orderly fashion, and I was 

 extremely proud of what I had done. But one day the Professor 

 happened to come into the laboratory in the middle of the after- 

 noon to ask me a question. In the midst of what he was saying, 

 he suddenly stopped and looked around the room in a dreamy kind 

 of way at the quietly working students and after a time said, "My 

 goodness, Lamson, you certainly have ruined this course. The stu- 

 dents used to have a good time here." There was much in this. Too 

 much refinement can obliterate all initiative, but where the line is 

 to be drawn is something for each generation to decide. 



After my first year in the laboratory, during which Professor Abel 

 was largely occupied with the writing of his Mellon lecture, I had a 

 chance to see him at work on research. He became interested in 

 secretin and with Dr. Pincoffs made more and more concentrated 

 extracts of the intestinal mucosa until he obtained fractions that were 

 ^ery active. Endless such fractions were separated, and each needed 

 io be tested by its effect on the rate of pancreatic secretion in the 

 dog. Dr. Pincoffs became very expert at preparing these animals. 

 The pancreatic duct was cannulated, the trachea connected with an 

 ether bottle, and the dog left to reach a state of equilibrium while 

 everyone had lunch. Everything worked perfectly for a time, and 

 then the dogs developed a peculiar habit of dying during the lunch 



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