Page 4
University Daily Kansan
Friday. Oct. 26, 1962
School of Pharmacy Grows Under Reese
By Tom Winston
To tell about Dean J. Allen Reese of the KU School of Pharmacy is to tell about the school he helped to build.
When Dean Reese came here 22 years ago, school facilities were neither modern nor designed for pharmacy. There was no graduate program and most of the faculty was near retirement age.
TODAY THE SCHOOL is housed in modern Malott Hall, and has a younger faculty as well as a graduate's program including one-third of the school's enrollment.
Dean Reese will retire as dean June 30 to assume full-time duties as a KU professor of pharmacy and a state drug analyst, but he still vividly recalls the school as it was when he first arrived.
"When I came to KU, I was the only Ph.D. on the pharmacy faculty," he said recently. "The curriculum hadn't been revised in a long time and the physical facilities were inadequate, to put it in a mild way.
"We spent considerable time trying to remodel the old laboratories so pharmacy could be taught as it should be. Buildings and grounds was called nearly every hour of the day to mend some leak or to make some necessary repair.
"THEERE WERE NO facilities for animals, so temporary quarters were fixed with a type of air conditioning. One night the thing went bad and all the animals were roasted."
The school was then in Bailey Hall, now the School of Education, along with chemistry. Then, in 1940, school enrollment was low, but that soon changed.
"Building of staff was hard because World War II came on," Dean Reese said. "I taught subjects that should have been taught by somebody else. But there were just a few students, so we could give them considerable personal attention.
"However," Dean Reese continued, "we had 90 students in the mid-term beginning class just after the war. The labs were built to accommodate a maximum of 12, but we did squeeze 18 into them.
"THEY WERE good students," he said, "able to accomplish more with the same amount of ability because they were better motivated. They were veterans, you see."
Planning for a new building began in 1948 and Malott Hall was finally erected in 1952. Pharmacy and chemistry moved from Bailey Hall and the School of Pharmacy now has the central portion of the third, fourth and fifth floors in Malott Hall.
"With the move to Malott Hall we got more faculty as well as more room," Dean Reese said. "As of next year we will have three people on the staff within the school in pharmaceutical chemistry. We should have a total of seven of professional rank and five or six instructors."
Dean Reese said the school's undergraduate program has been completely revised several times. Most recently in 1958 when the school initiated its five-year program of two years in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and three in the School of Pharmacy.
CATACOMBS CAVERNS
Live Bands on Weekends
FRIDAY; The Flames
We provide fire extinguishers
SATURDAY: Jive Tones
Cover Charge:
IN THE LAST three years the School of Pharmacy has had 35 graduate students and 105 undergraduates. Students in the five-year program are called 3, 4 and 5 instead of junior and senior.
Men Women
$1.00 Free
Dean Reese said a development in the field of pharmacy and the reason the school is revamping programs is that fewer and fewer persons are becoming professionals. "Our pharmacies are becoming larger and many of the smaller ones—those in stores, for instance—are becoming absorbed or being run out of business by larger firms. But sales are up," he said.
"The state's average volume of drug sales was $19,000 a year when I came here, but now it is over $100,000. And salaries for beginning pharmacists were $90-$100 for beginners in 1940, but they are $500-$800 a month now.
"The average store in 1940 sold not over 5 or 10 per cent of its business in drugs. Now the figure is 30 per cent."
DRUGS TODAY cost no more, in terms of percentage of consumers' incomes, than did drugs in 1940, Dean Reese said. He added that the actual cost of treating diseases is lower in many cases today because of more efficient drugs and medical care.
Please bear with our help, as the crowds have been too wild to handle!
"Today's drugs are more potent, generally speaking, and are given in smaller doses," he said.
"We are always synthesizing drugs and trying to find the basic reactions to them," Dean Reese
said. "Drugs have some contact point, some site of action. They hit somewhere and do something and we have to find out what that is."
The dean took me to see the experimental animals on the fourth floor of Malott—rats, mice, guinea pigs and larger animals. Then he showed me the rest of the laboratories.
IN THE LABORATORIES are instruments costing thousands of dollars. One of these is a gas chromatograph, which records temperatures and structures of gases.
"One of our difficulties is the servicing of this sort of thing," he said. "We wish we had someone in the department who knew how."
Then Dean Reese showed me a room with several sets of balance scales, then an electric scale that automatically tells the weight of an object or substance directly and accurately without any manual work.
Pointing to another complex machine he said, "You can get some idea of why a pharmacist has to be an electrician and more to get the job done."
Fraternity Jewelry
Badges, Rings, Novelties,
Sweatshirts. Mugs, Paddles,
Cups, Trophies, Medals
LIKE THE MODERN pharmacist, Dean Reese is many-sided. The non-professional, personal Dean Reese likes fishing, pharmaceutical antiques and history, particularly the history related to pharmacy, medicine and the American Civil War.
411 W.14th VI 3-1571 AL LAUTER
In various places in Malott Hall Dean Reese displays antique mortars and pestles and in his office he keeps old hand-blown glass drug containers. Several of them are filled with brightly colored paint powders, a reminder of the time when one had to buy linseed oil and mix his own paint.
$100,000 Bequest Aids Physicians' Study
The training of physicians studying blood diseases at the KU School of Medicine has been advanced by a $100,000 bequest from the late George Hudson Wood, former executive of a Kansas City investment firm.
Income from the fund, administered by the KU Endowment Association, will be used for fellowships in hematology and for medical student loans.
Quality Watch Repair
Lowest Prices
DANIELS
FRIDAY FLICKS
Shows at 7 and 9:30
FRASER THEATER
THE GREATEST GUNFIGHTER OF THE WEST!
35c admission—tickets for both shows on sale at Union on Friday till 6 p.m. and then at the door
Allen's 'Cram-A-Rama'
Allen's invites all KU Fraternities, Sororities and Resident Halls to participate in establishing a
NATIONAL RECORD
Nov. 3rd
Nov. 4th
The house that can cram the most people inside ALLEN'S volkswagon will not only set a NATIONAL RECORD, but will also win
$ 50
Plus an outstanding trophy
Make arrangements for your "cramming" time by Phoning VI 3-5000 before Wed., Oct.31