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Carnegie Human Embryo Collection Becoming a Science Franklin P. Mall Exceptional Scientist Staging Expansion New Direction Molecular New Era |
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Sectioning embryos with a wet knife technique. A revolving dish with ten small containers held the sections after they were cut. Sections were handled with a camel's hair brush. |
In 1913, the Carnegie Institution of
Washington was eleven years old. Though the trustees had provided grants in
embryology to several individual researchers (Mall himself had received one
in February 1913), there had been no organized attempt to support a
department devoted to embryology. A likely reason is that no "exceptional"
scientist had stepped forward to lead such a venture, no person with the
necessary judgment, skill, and command.
But now there was Mall. Mall's JAMA plea caught the eye of Carnegie president Robert Woodward. Woodward found Mall "uncommonly frDuitful in original ideas and possessed of unusual capacity to work in cooperation and harmony with other men." By 1914, plans were under way to start a new department of embryology in Baltimore. Although a European site was originally considered, Baltimore seemed the better choice. It was one of the first American cities to develop a department of public health, and Mall believed that cooperation from physicians at public health clinics would help in the collection of additional embryos for his collection. Indeed, after six months of intense campaigning, Mall was able to augment his collection by 150 new specimens. |