230 GUTH
it gave an opportunity to dissect and observe comparable organs in
higher and lower vertebrates. However, no attempt was made to explain
the functional purpose of such phylogenetic specializations as pronephric,
mesonephric or metanephric kidneys. Many years were to pass before I
realized how exciting the study of comparative anatomy could have been
had the teacher only explained the relationships between structure and
function in these and other organs.
Here indeed was the paradox: despite my interest in animal life, the
subject of biology was unexciting. Perhaps it was fortunate that I was kept
so busy memorizing trivial details that little time was left for me to question
whether such a biological catechism was the best way to teach the subject.
In my final year came a course in embryology, which was taught in much
the same fashion–this time requiring rote memorization of facts contain
ed in our remarkably uninspiring textbook of descriptive embryology.
Not even mentioned in the book or the lectures were the remarkable ex
perimental embryological studies for which Hans Spemann had recent
ly won the Nobel Prize.^2 Quite by chance, in the midst of this course, I
happened upon a book by Paul Weiss titled Principles of Development.^3
This magnificently written and scholarly textbook of experimental
embryology revealed biological science as a subject in which hypotheses
were tested experimentally. It conveyed the sense of excitement at the
questions being studied by experimental embryologists, and it inspired
me to participate in the world of experimental science. In short, the book
was for me an epiphany, and from that day forward, I studied Weiss’s
research publications in the hope that I might some day undertake
graduate studies in embryology under his direction.
But this was not to be, and after graduating from college in 1949, I
matriculated at the NYU School of Medicine. I enjoyed especially the
laboratory components of the courses in physiology, pharmacology,
and microbiology and was especially pleased to find that students were
encouraged to participate in biomedical research. I also had the good
fortune to be accepted to the summer student programs of the Jackson
Memorial Laboratory in Maine where, during the summers of 1949 to
1951, I worked under the supervision of Eugene Roberts, who had re
cently discovered the unique presence of gamma-aminobutyric acid in
central nervous system (CNS) tissues. This work led to an invitation from