1930-1936 



XIII 



FRIENDS and requests awaited Wherry when he reappeared 

 in town. Things in the Institute for medical research of 

 Christ hospital needed ordering. Back in 1927, its persistently 

 generous supporter, James Norris Gamble (*1836, son of the 

 Gamble of Procter & Gamble "mfrs of soaps, candles and oils," 

 bachelor out of Kenyon college at 1 8, and master therefrom at 

 2 1 , chemist, mayor once of Cincinnati's Westwood, since the 

 age of 26 a member of his company and for forty years its 

 vice president, "fl932) had "created for, and endowed in the 

 hospital an institute for medical research." He wished it 

 operated as were similar institutions elsewhere in U S A; and 

 to make the plan practicable, pushed a million and a half 

 across the table to the hospital's trustees. In charge of this 

 brilliant idea was his son-in-law, Alfred K Nippert (U C 

 graduate, attorney, ex-judge, husband of Maud Gamble) ; 

 while first to be drawn upon for counsel had been Wherry. 

 The two were clear-headed as to what needed to be done — a 

 floor of the newly-building hospital was set aside for the pur- 

 poses of the new enterprise and men to staff it were looked 

 for. Wherry should have been placed in direct command as 

 obviously best gardener of the scientific upshoot. He de- 

 murred; and no proper pressure was put upon him. He had 

 nominated for the place Herman Mooser ( Swiss out of Mexico, 

 authority on typhus and rat-bite fever; sponsor for the idea 

 that chronic immunity is the product of chronic infection) . 

 None better could have been chosen as productive worker; 

 but scientific philosophy and foreign manner did not go so 

 well in a place not free of all sectarianism, and American 

 primarily in its regard for the sick. So, before long, Mooser 

 was to return to his Mexico, and Christ hospital's grand project 

 was to shrink again to the safer routines of urinalyses and 

 negative August von Wassermann reactions. Even so, the 

 lungs of the new baby had breathed a little — Mooser had en- 

 larged his studies on the carriage and harboring of typhus 



