re

Science, and he was a memberof various

scientific, academic, and honorary societies, He served on both state and national
committees that were concerned with
ecology andits applications. As ecologist

with the OklahomaBiological Survey, he

participated with his students in many

field excursions, and his own published

outputof scientific contributions was augmented by their work.

Dr. Weese was the recipient of many
distinctions within the university, such as
the deanship of the graduate college for
a period, the chairmanship of the Com-

mittee on Faculty Research for some
years, and, during the last years of his

life, the David Ross Boyd professorship

of zoology. He held elective offices in

such local organizations as Sigma Xi, the
American Association of University Professors, and others.

His most significant trait was his wide
and profound knowledge; his reading and
study were extensive and not limited to

his field of research. He was an able in-

vertebrate zoologist, he was interested in
the quantitative aspects of genetics as
well as bioecology, and he developed a

course in quantitative biology. He was
able to penetrate obscure problems and

to give advice and illumination on matters both inside and outside his ownfields.

He contributed greatly to the development of the departmental library at the

university and was responsible for many
of its acquisitions. Since his death, this
library has been namedin his honor.
A kindly, interested, and cooperative
scholar, he left a moving and permanent
impression on all with whom he camein
contact. He bore his own burdens simply
and fully shared those of his colleagues
and his community, which, in a growing

university, were often not light. Like so
many whose accomplishments remain
long to tell their stories, he will never be
replaced, and hewill live on in the deeds
of his students and associates.
A. RicHarps
Department of Zoology,

University of Oklahoma

role of the cortex. We described this
work in our joint book (1930), which

brought us both the Herpin prize of the

Academy of Medicine.
De Jong and I were then separated. I
remained in Paris, and De Jong went to
the United States to teaching posts at

H. H. De Jong,
Experimental Neurophysiologist

Duke University and Johns Hopkins
University, where he discovered experi-

The history of experimental catatonia
is the history of the collaboration by in-

I approached De Jong, and we agreed to
collaborate.

united in the love of science and in the

taken in Paris in the

vestigators

from

different

countries,

Our first joint experiments were underlaboratory

of

enjoyment of scientific research, as well

Claude. We comparedin detail the symp-

ogy, biology, and clinical experience—a
synthesis indispensable to the future progress of neuropsychiatry.

human catatonia. We found in the ani-

as by the synthesis of data from physiol-

H. Holland De Jong was born in 1895
in Sneeck, Holland. In 1928 at a meeting
of the Société de Neurologie de Paris, he

presented a paper on the treatment of

tremors by bulbocapnine, an alkaloid

that he regarded as an “antagonist of
tremors.” In the course of plethysmographic investigations of many patients,

De Jong had discovered a “vascular rigidity” in catatonics that he failed to find
in other patients. He thought of the pos-

sibility of the experimental reproduction
of this illness, and, on the advice of Magnus, became interested in bulbocapnine.
But being unacquainted with clinical
catatonia, he had not begun this work.
At that time, I had, with others, undertaken a systematic study of Kahlbaum’s
catatonia, with a physiological exploration of this illness by new processes and

a comparison of the physiological data
with precise clinical data based on a

study of many patients, [ had reached
the conclusion that catatonia constitutes
a psychomotor syndrome of toxic origin.
478

toms that were produced by bulbocapnine in the cat with the symptoms of

mal, as in human beings, the various
manifestations of catalepsy: active and
passive negativism, barriers, catatonic
hyperkinesis, and neurovegetative disturbances, including salivation and respiratory disturbances. The same parallelism was also found in electromyograhic
curves and in disturbances in chronaxie.
as in the experiments of Bourguignon and

De Jong, and in man by Claude, Bour-

guignon, and Baruk.
Our next experiments were in Amsterdam in the laboratory of Brouwer. We

were able to study in detail the action
of bulbocapnine for a wide range of doses
and for the entire vertebrate series. In

this way, we formulated laws describing

the stages that follow increasing doses,
from sleep to catalepsy, from catalepsy

to negativism, from negativism to hyperkinesis, and finally, with still stronger
doses, to epilepsy and the rigidity of decerebration. In similar fashion, the study
of the animal scries, starting with fish

through batrachians, reptiles, and birds

to mammals, permitted us to verify the

mental hormonal catatonia (adrenaline,
acetylcholine, and so on), surgical catatonia, mescalinic catatonia, and so on.
Duringthis period, I discovered, in Paris,
experimental catatonia that was induced
by the toxin of Escherichia coli (1933),
biliary experimental catatonia (with Camus, 1934), and other types of experimental catatonia, induced by cerebral
edema, ACTH, chlorpromazine, and so
on. Duringhis last years, De Jong investigated the role of intestinal and hepatic
factors. His research on catatonia by obliteration of the intestinal lumen and by
ligature of the biliary ducts must have led
himto consider again conceptions of the
tole of hepatointestinal factors in catatonia and schizophrenia, conceptionsthat,
after the work of Buscaino and our work
on this subject had converged toward our
present conclusions, have had important
therapeutic results.
Recently, De Jong and I began to think
about collaborating again in Paris. Alas,
his premature death on 16 February 1956,
at the age of 61, in Osawatomie, Kansas.
where he was director of research and

education at Kansas State Hospital, pre-

vented the realization of this plan. This
great misfortune abruptly ended a life
dedicated to science and deprived medicine of a scientist of exceptional intelligence and perspicacity, a scientist whose
goal it was to discover the causes of men

tal illness.

H. Baruk

Maison Nationale de Charenton,
Paris, France

SCIENCE, VOL. 124

Select target paragraph3