Biographical Memoirs Volume 53 (1982) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 178-211
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From page 179... ...
It was not by chance that this clevelopment coincided with the time anal span of Ralph Gerard's scientific career, for he was one of a small number of intellectual leaders who brought it about. Born in Harvey, Illinois at the beginning of this century, Ralph Gerard was blessed with an uncommon intellectual enclowment, a heritage that has traditionally held scholarship and ethics in high regard, and a remarkable father who nurtured his scientific curiosity.
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From page 180... ...
Margaret Wilson Gerard went on to train in pediatrics and psychiatry and to become an outstanding scholar and practitioner of child psychiatry until her death in 1954. Ralph Gerard took an internship at the L`os Angeles General Hospital, at the end of which he was faced with what he felt was the major career decision of his life.
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From page 181... ...
After the death of Dr. Margaret Gerard, he accepted an invitation from Ralph Tyler to join the first group of distinguished fellows of the Center for Advanced Stucly in the Behavioral Sciences, which had been established adjacent to the campus of Stanford University.
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From page 182... ...
In the course of the fellowship year at the Center, another salutary event occurred when James Miller invited Gerard to join him and Anato! Rapoport in founding the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan, and Ralph Gerard spent many hours discussing with Anato!
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From page 183... ...
This enabled him to revive the imaginative interest in teaching and eclucational philosophy that earlier hac3 made him one of the most stimulating contributors to the new concepts of undergraduate education introcluced by Robert Hutchins shortly after Ralph Gerard's appointment to the University of Chicago. At Irvine he continued his nurture of neuroscience, participating in the establishment of the important Department of Psychobiology.
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From page 184... ...
He wanted them to know that he was eager to rejoin them and to carry his share of the loacl. Two months later he was among them." For the next three-andone-half years Ralph Gerard remained active; he ctied of coronary insufficiency in 1974.
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From page 185... ...
Ralph Gerard aptly clescribed the motivation anti significance of his scientific career as a commitment to "the minute experiment and the large picture.": His contributions fulfi~lect that commitment generously, for they demonstrate his remarkable ability to design and conduct rigorous research that crucially examines a specific hypothesis. They also epitomize his vision, imagination, and courage to perceive the implications of the experimental results to the broact picture *
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From page 186... ...
Although the heat generated in muscular contraction had been clemonstratect and measured for a long time, the much smaller amounts associated with nerve conduction had remained elusive. Hill, thirty-three years after this successful demonstration, recounted his many previous unsuccessful attempts and those of others going back to Helmho~z's first attempt in 1848, explaining its importance: Why did people go on trying to measure the heat production of nerve, in spite of repeated failure?
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From page 187... ...
cluring stimulation, and found evidence for the development of an oxygen debt in nerve cluring anoxic stimulation. The increased oxygen consumption of stimulated nerve was soon challenged as an artifact resulting from unphysiological stimulation rather than the physiological activity that resulted.
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From page 188... ...
The oxygen consumption when "natural" nerve impulses were carried was established, and a valuable microrespirometer became available. Since our time commitments were such that we had less than a week to work together, experiments were continued day and night and neither of us was out of his clothes for the entire period.*
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From page 189... ...
Using immature animals, impeccable surgical techniques, and following a suggestion of Cajal by implanting pieces of peripheral nerve to serve as a scaffold on which the sprouts might climb, they providecl the first demonstration that functional as well as structural regeneration could take place. Because of the prevailing belief that regeneration was impossible in the mammalian spinal cord, the report receiver!
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From page 190... ...
Caffeine-induced epileptiform waves were shown to travel across a complete transection of the frog brain. It became apparent that extracellular fields of electric current flow could provide a significant mode of neuronal interaction and synchronization.
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From page 191... ...
RALPH WALDO GERARD 191 tional studies on isolates! frog brain and fragments thereof showed that spontaneous rhythmicity in brain tissue could be a function of localized neuron groups anti their immediate ionic environments.
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From page 192... ...
Using these, Ling and Gerarc! were able to report in 1949 a membrane potential (78 + 5 mV)
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From page 193... ...
In a later series of ingenious experiments, it was possible to show that by interrupting or confounding the electrical activity of the brain by induced hibernation or electroshock, recently acquired memories would be erased while those that had been former! an hour or more before would persist.
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From page 194... ...
There have been thousands of experiments carried out since that time with more sophisticated physiological and biochemical techniques anct the general thrust of all of the research has been to support the idea that short-term memory is consoliciated in long-term memory by means of chemical processes, and that in that process RNA and protein synthesis may play essential roles. Gerard was also proud of his contributions to psychiatry in recognition of which he was made a distinguishect fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
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From page 195... ...
be distinguishecl an cl characterized as well by clinical and behavioral observations. Ralph Gerard's recognition of the importance of both genetic and environmental components in mental illness and the heterogeneity of the classical syndromes is by this time well established ant!
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From page 196... ...
196 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS some of the peaks of Ralph Gerarcl's scientific work. There were other peaks as well, and all rose from a high plateau of phenomenal productivity extending over fifty years and more than 500 publications.
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From page 197... ...
A dedicated, creative, and compassionate person in her own right, she had made the two clecacles they spent together a happy and mutually enriching experience. Many of his colleagues and former students have tried to put into words the unique qualities of Ralph Waldo Gerard.
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From page 198... ...
I The influence of oxygen lack on heat production and action current.
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From page 199... ...
Studies of single muscle fibers.
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From page 200... ...
Tang. The oxygen tension-oxygen consumption curve of fertilized arbacia eggs.
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From page 201... ...
The influence of blood constituents on oxygen consumption in nerve.
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From page 202... ...
Electrical activity of the central nervous system of the frog.
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From page 203... ...
Orthophenanthroline as accelerator of brain tissue oxygen consumption.
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From page 204... ...
Membrane potentials and excitation of impaled single muscle fibers.
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From page 205... ...
Ling. Effect of external potassium concentration on the membrane potential of single muscle fibers.
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From page 206... ...
Membrane potential and threshold of single muscle fibers.
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Falk. Effect of micro-injected salts and ATP on the membrane potential and mechanical response of muscle.
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From page 208... ...
Press. 1961 The program of the Mental Health Research Institute.
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From page 209... ...
Halick. Fixation of experience in the rat spinal cord.
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From page 210... ...
of New York. The minute experiment and the large picture.
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