my room, an open journal in his hand, and almost apologetically show 

 me where this had already been done some time before. As far as I 

 know. Dr. Rouiller never did anything but work, except to read on 

 the streetcars to and from the laboratory. He was always there the 

 first thing in the morning and, as far as I know, never left the labora- 

 tory until at least twelve o'clock at night. He had an even greater 

 dislike than Dr. Abel for changing methods and an utter scorn for 

 biological methods, particularly the one on which he worked for some 

 eight or ten years to the exclusion of all others. This consisted in 

 comparing the activity of Professor Abel's pituitary fractions with 

 that of histamine by recording their effects upon the guinea pig 

 uterus. Although Rouiller was a very quiet and self-contained per- 

 son, what he had to say about the guinea pig's uterus cannot be 

 recorded here. Anyone who knows these organs well, knows that it 

 takes more than a saint to put up with their erratic behavior. They 

 were strung up in a bath of Locke's solution and tied at one end to a 

 writing lever, which needed to be constantly agitated so that it would 

 not stick on the smoked paper of the kymogiaph. In order to produce 

 this agitation Dr. Abel and Dr. Rouiller devised an apparatus con- 

 sisting of a pencil stuck through the hole of a rubber stopper, and it 

 Avas the experimenter's task to sit there and pound the desk with this 

 rubber stopper, often for five or six hours at a time, while the uterus 

 was trying to decide whether to behave itself or not. It was utterly 

 impossible for me to convince either Dr. Abel or Dr. Rouiller that a 

 mechanical agitator would work just as well, and I will admit that it 

 was none of my business, but hammering a bench for hours at a time 

 was one of those things which seemed to me to be obviously incom- 

 patible with the abilities of a great man. 



For many years Dr. Abel carried out this work in spite of continued 

 setbacks. He used to drop into my room at the end of the day and 

 talk over his experiments while putting on his coat. Although at 

 times he was discouraged, it was much more likely that he would say, 

 "I've got it this time. I'll show it to you in the morning," but in 

 the morning the fractions of which he had expected so much were 

 apt to turn out in as disappointing a way as ever. This would never 

 upset him, and he would begin all over again with as exactly as much 

 enthusiasm as ever. 



For a time Dr. Abel was assisted by Dr. Helen Graham, and as 

 a sidelight on Dr. Abel's character it might be interesting to record 

 a remark which he made about her. He said one evening to me, 

 "Lamson, I have seen a good many women in science, and, to tell 



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