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SESSION I
33
of separating dust electrostatically. In the kingdomof the blind where
a one-eyed man is king, I] was teamed up with a fellow whom manyof
you knew, and who joined the group about the same time, I refer to
the late Charles Williams, a petrographic geologist of considerable
talent who taught mo some useful techniques for identifying dust particles by their optical properties. At the age of twenty-three [ couldn't
differentiate a wilicotic nedule froma sarcoma but I could look ata
thin section through a microscorp: and tell whether a man was exposed
to silica dust; the physical side of the pneumoconioses was fascinating
and I became a dustologist.
When the war came, although I had never heard of the Manhattan
District, Iwas assigned to parts of it and was actually working ona
problem of berylium poisoning in the latter part of the war, andl
had also some exposure to radium poisoning. Whenthe war ended,
I guess the punch cards were in my favor. Actually, this isn't generally known except to a few close friends, but I decided at the end
of the war to go to medical school and wae admitted to Tufts, and
was supposed to be the oldest man of the class of fifty. Then in 1946
the Commission offered me a job, which I couldn't turn down, andl
took it and worked in a position which was extremely interesting,
during which time I-sas one of Chuck Dunham's people and got in-
volved in a number of things which will be the subject of the discussion
Finally, like many of you, I had to make a decision because as
time went on I found | was getting away from where the work was being done. I had just about given up hope of ever being where the
fun was. I thought I would have to spend the rest of my time in administration, when things began to stir in the field of environmental
health in 1958 and [ found myself with three offers from three universities. {I selected the one that i had then been associated with ina
part-time capacity for, at that time, almoat fifteen years, nowalmost twenty-five. So I went to the New York University as their
professor of environmental medicine. When [| got there | tried to dignify the title of "Mister." As < say, my only degree was in electrical
engineering. I had no problem «t all except inthe parking lot. They
had a protocol in which if you were a doctor you were in the front,
and if you were not a doctor vu went to the back. I would drive in
and the fetlow would say, “Are you a doctor?" and I would say, ‘No,
and he would send rae around the back.
Wel!
[think word got out that something had to be done about this,
and? isd myself with an honorary doctor of sciences Jegrec, which
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this week.
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