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Friday. Nov. 9. 1956
Research Minded Alumni Have Helped World Health
From the discovery of Vitamin A to the finding of secret German V-2 rocket plans, graduates of KU have distinguished themselves in medicine and science.
For his research on nutrition, food, and vitamins, Dr. McCollum received the John Scott Medal at the same time F. G. Banting was awarded one for his discovery of insulin and Marie Curie for her discovery of radium.
The discoverer of Vitamin A, E. V. McCollum, graduated from Kansas in 1903. As a faculty member of the Agricultural School at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. McCollum made the first of his brilliant discoveries—the first fat soluble vitamin, Vitamin A. It is necessary for normal vision.
Later at the School of Hygiene and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, he became interested in the relationship of the diet to malformation of bone structure in animals. With associates, Dr. McCollum studied factors affecting calcium and phosphorus deposition in bone formation. The work was climaxed by the discovery of Vitamin D, the ricket preventive.
Another KU alumnus, Col. Robert T. Gants, chief of surgery at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., since 1953, was one of the consulting physicians in the operation President Eisenhower underwent in June.
Has Military Commendations
Col. Gants entered the army soon after graduation from KU in 1930. He has won the Legion of Merit and Army Commendation Ribbon.
The first woman commissioner of health in New York City is Dr. Leona B. Elias, a graduate of 1923.
After receiving her doctor's degree, Dr. Elias was at various times on the faculties of the Universities of Montana, Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard. Prior to taking over her
She was the first to cultivate the richettha of typhus fever outside the animal body and her work along this line contributed to control of disease among American troops during the war.
present position in 1953, she served as aide to the United States Public Health Service and adviser to the French Ministry of Health.
The annual Albert Lasker award of the American Public Health Assn. was given to Dr. Elias in 1954 "for distinguished achievements in public health administration, strengthening personal and community health, our greatest resource."
As director of virus research laboratories of E. R. Squibb and Sons in New Jersey, Clara Nigg, a KU graduate of '29, has done outstanding work in developing vaccines to combat various diseases.
Added To Cancer Knowledge Her discovery and study of tyrosinosis and other contributions to the knowledge of cancer won for her the Garvan Medal, the highest award for women given by the American Chemical Society.
Grace Medes, research chemist since 1933 at Lankenau Hospital Cancer Research Institute, was graduated from the University of Kansas in 1913 and went on to Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania for her doctorate.
Added To Cancer Knowledge
In an underground hiding place in Germany near the close of World War II, Richard W. Porter, a Kansas graduate, discovered an instruction book describing the V-2 rocket. This opened the way to American development of the rocket.
As one of America's leaders in the field of guided missiles, Porter is now general manager of General Electric's guided missiles department.
Band Will Give Traditional Show
The word "homecoming" derived a new connotation with the development on American college campuses of an annual gathering-of-the-clan type of festivity participated in by the current crop of students and alumni of the school.
This type of Homecoming, as it has evolved, now is not complete without queens, convertibles, crepe paper decorations, parties, dances, and of course, the perennial half-time performance of a marching band.
KU's marching band will present its traditional half-time ceremony at the Nebraska game Saturday, lending a note of pomp and grandeur to the coronation of the Homecoming Queen. Assisted by the women of the Jay James and Red Pepper organizations, the 90-member marching band will form a giant heart, pierced by a broken arrow. In the center of this heart, the 1956 Homecoming Queen will be crowned as the band plays a medley of such songs as "Sweethearts," and "Girl of My Dreams."
To conclude their performance, the band members will form block letters of "KU" and "NU" and serenade the two cheering sections.
He went to work for GE in 1937 as a test engineer and during the war worked in the inventive phase. Under his direction some significant devices were created, such as remote control for plane gun barrels which enable a gunner to sight his gun in another part of the ship, the mechanical brain which automatically calculates the distance from plane to target while allowing for wind factors, and the radar automatic tracking system.
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
Insects? You'll Find 1,700,000 Of 'Em Here
By GEORGE ANTHAN (OI The Daily Kansan Staff)
If you're looking for insects, you can find all you want on the second floor of Snow Hall.
The museum's main source of specimens is from an annual summer field trip by students and professors.
Last summer the group collected in Mexico. An Alaska trip is planned for the coming summer.
Tucked away in the south corner is the largest known university collection in the United States. It's known as the Snow Entomological Museum, and was founded by the late Chancellor Francis H. Snow in the 1880's.
Prof Byers pointed out that the Snow Museum is primarily a research museum and has little space for public display of specimens. However, many interested in entomology frequently visit the museum. Visitors come from all over the world to study at the museum.
The museum is now in charge of Dr. G. W. Byers, assistant professor of entomology.
The Snow Museum contains specimens from most of the insect species of North America as well as many spiders, centibeds and arthropods. A collection of insects from other parts of the world is gradually building up. Many former students send back specimens.
The museum contains 1,700,000 specimens which have been identified and classified. There are, however, Dr. Byers said, untold thousands of specimens which have not been identified and even if they were there would be no place to put them. The museum is jammed full, and the specimens are coming in at the rate of 50,000 to 100,000 a year.
As is usual in a science with many aspects, entomologists specialize in one or two phases and in the case of Snow Museum, this speciality is bees and waterbugs.
Specimens of bees and waterbugs from all over the country are sent to Dr. Michener and Dr. Hunterford for identification. When the museum receives a specimen which may be difficult to identify, it is sent to a specialist in that particular field.
One of the big problems of the museum, according to Dr. Byers, is the protection of the specimens from pests which feed upon dead insects. About 300 pounds of paradichlorobenzene, a fumigant, is used to keep the pests away.
The specializing in these two fields is because Dr. Charles Michener, professor of entomology, is a specialist in waterbugs.
Included in the museum is a fossil collection from the region around Elmo, Kansas. The fossils are from the Permian Age which was about 280 million years ago.