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(continued)
The practical application of his basic studies on pneumonia was an effective antipneumococcal serum. It was the first specific therapy against the dreaded lobar pneumococcal pneumonia and enjoyed only a brief period of success, as the new sulfa drugs, which had much more rapid action and were far less expensive, were soon discovered.
Beginning in 1939 under Robertson's leadership a laboratory group directed their efforts toward elucidating the factors of significance in air-borne infections and especially to the discovery of techniques for aerial disinfection. These studies made necessary an excursion into many new fields, including physical-chemical studies of aerosol behavior; the epidemiology of respiratory infections in experimental animal populations and in human groups; the toxicology of various chemicals designed to kill air-borne bacteria and viruses; the pathogenesis of bacterial and viral infections transmitted via the aerial route; and the design and testing of engineering equipment for application in the field of some of the measures that were devised in the laboratory. In the period which followed, the laboratory group expanded and included the following persons: Edward Bigg, Morton Hamburger, Henry Lemon, Clayton Loosli, Benjamin and Zelma Miller, Theodore Puck, Henry Wise, and William Lester. In 1942 Robertson was named the director of the Commission on Cross Infections in Hospitals of the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office. The name of this commission was later changed to the Commission on Air-Borne Infections.
Dr. Robertson's laboratory then undertook a double program of field studies in hospitals, army barracks, and industrial installations and laboratory experiments in an effort to develop methods of combating the spread of air-borne infections, which had become an exceedingly important source of attrition of human effectiveness during the war. Studies were carried out on the physical chemistry of aerosols containing viable infectious agents. Effects of various parameters on the viability of these agents were studied and the mechanism of air sterilization by chemical agents was worked out in detail. Such studies showed that the previously held theory that bactericidal action was exerted through collision of aerosol particles of germicide with aerosol particles of the infectious agent was erroneous, and that the actual mechanism of action required action of the bactericidal agent through the vapor phase. New agents were developed which were enormously more effective than previous materials, and which were shown to be without toxic effects to human populations. The physical chemistry of aerosol vapor interactions was studied, and a number of fundamental papers were published in this field. While the use of chemical air sterilization was developed to the point where it became a practical measure, it never proved possible to obtain clear-cut epidemiological data demonstrating beyond any question that these measures would reduce respiratory disease in ordinary situations of human habitation. Nevertheless, the fundamental advances obtained in the course of these studies have been useful in a variety of ways, in both pure and applied science.
The hectic pace of the scientist with important contributions to make to the military effort during World War II held little appeal to Robertson and after the peace treaties were signed he requested an early retirement from the University of Chicago. He had a nostalgia with which most native Californians are afflicted and in 1950 he moved to the West Coast, where he established a laboratory in the Santa Cruz mountains. Here he began another successful research period. To the amazement and envy of most of his colleagues, salmon and trout occupied his attention. The problem was the cause of death of all Pacific salmon shortly after spawning, an almost unique phenomenon in the vertebrate world. Characteristically he began with the basic ingredients -- a study of piscatorial anatomy and physiology during the migratory period. He found marked changes in the fatal journey of the salmon to the spawning grounds. The pituitary glands became hyperactive as their adrenals become overstimulated. This created a condition similar to Cushing's syndrome in human beings. The destructive alteration of function and structure was directly related to the hyperconcentration of cortisone and hydrocortisone in the blood, plus the starvation which the salmon undergoes on its final voyage.
His last studies, terminated by death in 1966, were attempts to create artificially the most amazing natural phenomenon by injecting hormones in the immature rainbow trout; also, he tried to prevent or postpone degeneration and post-spawning death through the use of adrenal-suppressing compounds.
Robertson became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1943.
During his California period Stanford University was of great assistance and made him a member of its faculty. He quite naturally joined the ranks of the zoologists and was accepted as he was in medicine, a top-quality scientist. As one of his closest and most respected friends, Peyton Rous, said, "During recent years, working as a medical scientist still, you have revealed biological truths of such magnitude that their implications for natural phenomena have yet to be realized." He said this as he presented Robertson the Kober Medal, the most illustrious ornament medicine has to offer to one of its scientists.
The scientists working in his laboratory never failed to be deeply and permanently affected by his example of courtesy and gentleness in dealing with people, which reflected deep inner conviction about the worth of every human being. It was a joy to see how he manipulated scientific problems in order to reduce them to relatively simple questions, each of which could be approached by laboratory experiments. He was a masterful experimenter who designed techniques which were deceptively simple. This simplicity, however, resulted from his deep consideration of the essential process underlying the phenomena studied. This analysis enabled him to eliminate many of the disturbing processes so as to isolate the single element which his subsequent experimentation was designed to elucidate. He taught young men by example, by gentle criticism, and by generous approbation.
-- L.T. Coggeshall
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