Johns Hopkins introduced me to two defining events in my life: commitment to biomedical research and meeting my future wife, Mary.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I fell in love with science and decided to continue for my Ph.D., and from there on, I was a scientist.
This familiarity with a respected physician and my appreciation of his work, or the tragedy I experienced with the long, tormented agony and death of my mother might have influenced me in wanting to study medicine. It was not the case.
Her death contributed to my later interest in studying biochemistry, an interest that has not been fulfilled in the sense that my accomplishments remain more at the basic than the applied level.
I'm a medical doctor and a biomedical scientist.
The University of Maryland was an inspiration for me, and the relationships I made there have lasted a lifetime.
Pierre Curie came to see me and showed a simple and sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and he asked me to share that life.
I met my wife, Jennifer, while sitting next to her on the airplane on the way to England. I was heading to Oxford as a Marshall scholar.
I am passionately devoted to the study of life, and particularly to the higher forms of life.
I was married to Margaret Joan Howe in 1940. Although not a scientist herself she has contributed more to my work than anyone else by providing a peaceful and happy home.
I've always been interested in medicine and was pleased when my brother became a doctor. But after thinking seriously about that field, I realized that what intrigued me was not the science, not the chemistry or biology of medicine, but the narrative - the story of each patient, each illness.