About Our Founder: J. Murray Luck

J. Murray Luck was the founder of Annual Reviews, a nonprofit enterprise devoted to the advancement of science through the publication of critical reviews and analyses of the rapidly expanding scientific literature. The organization's first journal (1932) was the Annual Review of Biochemistry. For four decades, Luck taught biochemistry to Stanford medical students and led advanced courses for graduate students. His specialty was the role of proteins in carcinogenesis. He published more than 200 scientific papers. Today, Annual Reviews journals are published in 33 fields of study in the biomedical, life, physical, and social sciences. Below find an autobiographical chapter by Dr. J. Murray Luck, founder of Annual Reviews. This chapter appeared in the Annual Review of Biochemistry, Volume 50. Also available by Dr. Luck: • Reminiscences • J. Murray Luck—List of Publications

Confessions of a Biochemist
J. Murray Luck (1899-1993)
Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, Stanford University

I regard it as an honor to be invited to write the Prefatory Chapter for the fiftieth volume of the Annual Review of Biochemistry. Anyone who was born in the nineteenth century can only be flattered when those about him entertain the belief that he is still able to write something that might be worth reading.

That 50 is more significant than 49 or 51 in the commemoration of events is lacking in any rational explanation. Yet I confess that I have been charmed and enslaved for years by a peculiar attachment to the number 50. On April 18, 1956 I found myself at the Golden Jubilee dinner of the American Society of Biological Chemists. As President of the Society, it was clear that I should address the members and guests who were present, if only in obedience to a circular letter to the Council in 1912 which would oblige future presidents to address the Society, in order to "show to the world at large that the President of our Society is capable of exerting a function." At this event, with fiftieth anniversaries in mind, I mentioned the Biochemical Journal and the Biochemische Zeitschrift, both of which were launched in 1906, and told of several other notable events in 1906. When I had concluded my remarks, Newton Richards, my next-chair neighbor, lost no time in reminding me that I had failed to mention the great San Francisco earthquake, possibly the worst calamity, apart from forest fires and floods, in the history of California. This earthquake had occurred exactly fifty years earlier, to the very day.

The Editorial Committee of the Annual Review of Biochemistry, concerned lest I might forget another fiftieth anniversary--the birth of the Annual Review of Biochemistry in 1931—issued a strict injunction in its invitation to me that I should discuss the origin and early years of this Review.

I suppose it all began with my coming to Stanford University in September 1926, as Acting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry. The settling-in process lasted for two or three years, during which I wrestled with the problem of fashioning lecture and laboratory courses in biochemistry, appropriate to the presumed needs of medical students. The nature of laboratory instruction in biochemistry in those far-off days can be inferred from a laboratory manual entitled "Quantitative Analysis of Blood and Urine" which, as author, and until I knew better, I inflicted upon the students. Meyer Bodansky's book Physiological Chemistry was the recommended textbook for the lecture course, supplemented by a miscellany of fact and theory from other sources. The pearls of wisdom that dropped from the lips of this youthful novice were avidly seized upon by a few, some of whom behaved as if they were inspired. This was so rewarding to the lecturer that he decided to give a course on current research in biochemistry to a group of ten or fifteen graduate students. Chemical Abstracts and three or four of the principal periodicals in biochemistry provided the material for the course. I soon found myself knee-deep in trouble, and this brings us at once to the conception of the Annual Review of Biochemistry.

The chemistry and metabolism of amino acids and proteins and two or three other areas in biochemistry were the only parts of the whole field wherein I was sufficiently knowledgeable to feel comfortable before those advanced students. Doubtless there were those .gifted biochemists who could review with authority and confidence any area of biochemistry. But I was not among them. However, I was possibly not the only one who suffered from this painful ignorance: there must have been others and, among them, some kindred souls who sought to review for advanced students current research in biochemistry, only to find themselves as dismayed as I was by the immensity of the task. We must remember that even in 1930 Chemical Abstracts published about 6500 abstracts of papers on biochemistry, as it was then defined.

In mid 1930, I inquired of about 50 well-known biochemists in the United States and abroad whether an annual volume of critical reviews on the research of the preceding year or two in biochemistry would be a useful addition to the biochemical literature. The volume, of course, would be international in scope and the 30 or so cooperating authors would have, so it was hoped, the necessary expertise to satisfy the expectations of their fellow biochemists the world over.

The responses to the inquiry were numerous and encouraging. A suggested list of topics received the benefit of very helpful advice by many old hands at the game who knew more about the structure of biochemistry than the young fellow who made the inquiry. Out of this emerged a list of 31 topics for the introductory volume and 14 more to be included with others in Volume II. The names of possible authors were also submitted. The invitations were extended and the declinations were surprisingly few.
Carl Alsberg (Stanford), Denis Hoagland, and Carl Schmidt (both at the University of California, Berkeley) agreed to serve as an Advisory Committee. And so we were off and running—almost. All that remained was to find a publisher. Six commercial publishers regarded the project as interesting but not the kind of a venture they would choose to undertake. Stanford University Press would publish the Review if it were adequately subsidized. Fortunately, the Chemical Foundation came to the rescue. We needed $10,000 to cover the deficits anticipated during the first three years. With the help of Carl Alsberg, a man of considerable influence, and with a few letters to the "right" people, the Foundation granted our request. Very few strings attached, other than annual reports of course—those were the days! We had the money, we had a publisher, we were on our way. Volume 1, 724 pages, with authors from nine countries, came off the press in July 1932. All of the authors who promised to prepare the 30 reviews kept their word: there were no defaults! The volume sold for $5 as did succeeding volumes until 1948 when the list price was increased to $6.

The Advisory Committee, meanwhile, organized Volumes II and III, each with a lead time of two years. With myself as editor and chairman, the Committee functioned as an embryonic Board of Directors as well as an Editorial Committee for the Annual Review of Biochemistry. Except for occasional trivial spats between the publisher and the Advisory Committee (which had the money) in matters of policy regarding, inter alia, advertising and sales price, the relations between the two parties were most cordial and the Press served us well. However, on termination of our three-year contract, our relationship changed fundamentally. It had become more and more apparent that the Advisory Committee should assume a legal identity and accept the responsibilities of a publisher but with Stanford University Press continuing as our printer. On December 12, 1934, the Articles of Incorporation, signed by the four members of the predecessor committee, were filed with the California Secretary of State, and Annual Review of Biochemistry, Ltd., was formed (changed to Annual Reviews Inc. in 1937).

The company was organized as a nonprofit corporation which means, in effect, no shareholders, no dividends, no division of earnings among the members of the corporation, and, in the event of dissolution, no division of the assets among the members. Why did the incorporators not follow the usual route and become a commercial publisher? Briefly stated, "it was the only way to go." The enterprise was totally committed to the unstinted cooperation of all participants for the benefit of the worldwide community of scientists. From the beginning, the Directors and the Editorial Committee Members have donated their services, except for a modest expense allowance for meetings attended. The editors receive a token honorarium. The authors receive neither honoraria nor royalties. No less than 1974 of our colleagues have "done their bit" as authors during the first half century. Their only reward has been a short-term complimentary subscription to the Review, a number of reprints of their article, and the unsung gratitude of many fellow scientists. There is an implicit understanding that Annual Reviews Inc. is uniquely a service organization.

Life can be a grand adventure, rich in excitement and thrills of accomplishment, withal punctuated by many errors and narrow escapes. Annual Reviews Inc., now 50 years of age, has had a full life and has run the entire gamut of corporate hazards, perils, and modest achievements in the face of growing complexities.

At first, it was all delightfully simple. For 18 years, as editor of the Annual Review of Biochemistry, I could boastfully claim to know by name and close acquaintanceship all who had served on the Advisory Committee/Board of Directors and the Editorial Committee. It was easy. Apart from myself, only twelve were involved: Alsberg, Hoagland, and Schmidt—all three passed away in the 1940s—Herman Almquist (elected in 1940, retired in 1972), Herman Spoehr (1940-1953), H. Albeit Barker (1946-1962), Harry Deuel (1946-1953), John Fulton (1946-1950), Henry Eyring (1948-1969), Ernest Hilgard (1948-1973), Andrew Ivy (1950-1953), and Douglas Whitaker (1950-1956). Until 1950 the Board of Directors and the Editorial Committee were identical in composition. For the next seven years the Editorial Committee of the Annual Review of Biochemistry consisted of two or three directors and several other biochemists (Arnold Balls, Floyd Daft, Zev Hassid, Bernie Horecker, Tom Jukes, and Emil Smith), each of whom served for five-year terms. The Board members were gradually rotated into retirement. By 1956 the Editorial Committee was entirely external to the Board of Directors, except for myself, who is still "hanging in there," though rather tenuously. It is with pleasure that we list, in the front of this volume, the names of all those who have been or still are members of the Editorial Committee.

During my 33 years in office, I received invaluable help from those who served as associate editors: Carl Noller in 1938, James H. C. Smith (1939-1946), Hubert Loring (1946-1956), Gordon Mackinney (1946-1965), Frank Allen (1947-1963), Robert Sinsheimer (1965-1972), and Alton Meister (1964-present). Paul Boyer and Esmond Snell have served with conspicuous ability and devotion as editors, jointly or on an alternating basis, since 1962.

There have been many corporate adventures, the first in 1938 when Annual Reviews and the American Physiological Society (APS) agreed to share in the parentage of an Annual Review of Physiology (ARP). The numerous discussions with officers of the Society and their Board of Publications Trustees are minutely documented in the files of Annual Reviews. From the first it was perfectly clear to both parties that, ideally, they should initiate the new Review under a plan of joint participation. But it soon emerged that the obstacles to be overcome were numerous and the initial resistance within the Society was formidable. The details need not be recited. The names of those who were singularly helpful deserve to be mentioned. Their wisdom, good sense, integrity, and simple honesty had earned for them the deepest respect of their fellow physiologists: A. J. Carlson, Walter J. Meek, Wallace Fenn, Frank C. Mann, Carl J. Wiggers, and Ralph W. Gerard. Participation of the Society in publication of the Review was formally approved and a Joint Board of Management (JBM) was agreed to: Walter Meek and Chauncey Leake as representatives of the APS and Carl Schmidt and Murray Luck on behalf of Annual Reviews. Volume I appeared in 1939. After a few years of JBM direction, and a subsequent series of gradual transitions, the ARP became a full-fledged member of the Annual Reviews family with its own Editorial Committee responsible to the Directors of Annual Reviews.

It was just as well. Quite innocently, the two parties had fashioned a working arrangement that seemed to make sense: Annual Reviews would be the business partner, the APS would elect the Editorial Committee of the new Review, and the two parties, year by year, would share equally in any profits or any losses. But it was quite illegal: Annual Reviews Inc., in charge of operations, was thereby enabled to jeopardize the assets of its partner and might indeed run the APS into bankruptcy! So said the attorneys. A new agreement provided that the two parties would divide equally any profits, but any losses would have to be borne by Annual Reviews. Finally, at the request of the Society, the annual operating surplus, if any, ceased to be divided.
Without any special fanfare or problems the Annual Review of Microbiology was initiated in 1947. Until his retirement in 1972 Charles Clifton (Stanford) served as Editor and Sidney Raffel (Stanford) loyally did his part as Associate Editor from 1947 to 1979.

The inception of these two new Reviews presented scheduling problems to our printers. Stanford University Press, responsible as it was for the timely appearance of the University's Bulletins, Announcements of Courses, Schedules, and many other items, indicated that the production of our Reviews on rigid and rather inflexible time schedules would no longer be possible. Hence it came about that Annual Reviews Inc. contracted with the George Banta Company in Menasha, Wisconsin to print the Annual Review of Physiology from Volume I forward, the Annual Review of Microbiology from its beginnings in 1947, and the Annual Review of Biochemistry from Volume 16 forward. The cooperation of the George Banta Company was unstinted: it was more than we could reasonably expect and perhaps more than we deserved.

An ancient Chinese philosopher is alleged to have said, "Since everything is full of something it is not possible to create anything new without pressing that which already exists into an uncomfortable position." In spite of this sage warning, the Company in 1950 plunged deeply into the unknown and, with the assurance of many knowledgeable colleagues in the sciences that the four proposed Reviews would satisfy a very real need, founded the Annual Reviews of Medicine, Physical Chemistry, Plant Physiology, and Psychology.

Something should be said about our relations with Stanford University. In 1931, the University generously made office space available to us to house the editorial and business operations of the enterprise. For 25 years we continued to occupy these premises on a rent-free basis with the University assuming almost all of the costs of utilities and general maintenance. In the meantime, the University became beset with serious occupancy problems. Pressures had developed for additional space for purely academic purposes. With great understanding, forbearance, and patience the Administration permitted us to continue occupancy of the very choice space that had been granted us, until we were able to find other appropriate quarters.
In 1956 we managed to construct a suitable building in nearby Palo Alto that served us well for the next 11 years. The county government, however, eventually cast its covetous and acquisitive eyes upon the building. By exercise of the right of eminent domain, the County forced us to move. Fortunately, they gave us plenty of time to acquire another building site and to construct a new and larger building which we moved into in 1968 and which should be adequate for quite a few more years. The company is now the publisher of 24 separate Annual Review series and a number of special publications.

During these first 50 years we have witnessed a progressive fragmentation of the sciences and a loss of any possibility to integrate the bits and pieces into a comprehensible whole. Biochemistry, almost by metastasis, has penetrated many other fields of science and may never again be reassembled into a neatly defined discipline with well-recognized boundaries. Nevertheless, the Annual Review series continue to provide a valuable overview of the important research being done in the various disciplines.
On rereading the text, I sense something nostalgic in much of the preceding—a "good old days" sort of flavor. In some respects, the good old days were good. In other respects, they were anything but good, as Otto Bettmann has pointed out in a book entitled The Good Old Days:—They were Terrible. Let me first of all mention some of the unhappy qualities of the past. I would have to emphasize the lack of adequate information about the cause and treatment of disease, and the absence of many diagnostic aids that are now virtually indispensable. As a child, I suffered through the common diseases that were rampant among the young: measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox, and perhaps one or two others. But so also did my playmates. Our parents believed that such diseases were inescapable; they were part of the business of growing-up. Among the adults, and perhaps also the young, diphtheria and typhoid fever were all too common. Respiratory diseases and epidemic influenza were experienced by many, especially in the winter months. As a freshman in the University of Toronto, I was hospitalized with many others in 1918 because of the terrible influenza plague. It was worldwide and more people died of the disease than were killed in World War 1. Hospital space was insufficient in many towns. In Brantford, Canada, a huge circus tent was erected to take care of the hospital overflow.

Sanitary facilities—outdoor privies in abundance—were not good. Waterborn diseases were common. There was little protection against infectious diseases. From the biomedical point of view, the good old days left much to be desired. The statistical summary presented in Table I concerns the state of the public health in the past 100 years. The data pertain to Switzerland, only because I happen to have it conveniently at hand. I suspect that the corresponding data for the United States, Great Britain, and Western Europe would be qualitatively similar. The remarkable progress in public health in recent years and the virtual elimination of many diseases is largely due to biochemical and microbiological research.

The good old days were also good; the underlying reason in the early years of the century was the low population density in the towns and countryside. All of us lived close to nature. The radio, television, and movies had not yet infected our lives with a sham sort of entertainment. We did not experience life in the shadows of a ghetto. A crowded life, attended by the mounting pressures of the 1970s, was unknown in much of Canada and the United States. Our present frantic concern over our diminishing resources, our energy needs, and the heavy hand of government was nonexistent. But unrestrained growth of the human population, which many seem to regard with great satisfaction, is now "doing us in."

The dusty or muddy unpaved streets in many towns and villages of my boyhood years never seemed to be worrisome until the automobile came into use. At first the automobile was a novelty and, among the wealthy, it must have been pleasantly ostentatious. I remember well that Brantford was almost free of motor vehicles. Kerosene lamps were abundantly used in the homes and how overjoyed we were as a family when natural gas was introduced and tungsten-filament lighting illuminated several of the rooms. The well from which we pumped the drinking water and the system where rainwater was stored, continued in use for many years. But while I was still young, water lines were laid down and indoor faucets came into use. Sewage lines also were installed and the outdoor privy disappeared. The electric light followed the tungsten-filament lamp and shortly thereafter we had a hand-cranked telephone. Especially in the rural areas, where six or more phones were commonly on the same line, all of the parties knew everything about each other. There were few secrets. Everyone for several miles around knew promptly when Mary Smith's baby was born, how much John Conway got for his corn, and that Henry Barber was trying to sell one of his old nags. One of my sisters was married to a farmer and rushed frequently to the phone when someone else on the line was being called. Listening in to other people's conversations was a favorite pastime and an excellent way to keep up with the local news.
And what about keeping up with the exciting news on the forefront of scientific research? The annual meetings of the professional scientific societies in the good old days were stimulating and delightful. A meeting was almost a family gathering! One knew almost all of the other participants and discussions were lively and exciting. Multiple contemporaneous sessions were not yet invented, thanks to the small number of papers. The huge meetings of the present are of dubious value and should be abolished. Our universities might be well advised to give to their research people a few hundred dollars for staying away from monstrous meetings rather than for attending.

My father was born in the good old days of the 1850s—the youngest of a family of sixteen children. He was a good man whose goodness had depth and substance; it was not a veneer. He seldom chastised or rebuked his own five children, even though the youngest was inclined toward waywardness and a questioning of the "eternal verities." Neighborliness in the good old days was common and it was good. The family was accepted and recognized as the irreplaceable unit in the social structure. I believe that the bonds between the members of a family were stronger then than now—perhaps a dubious generalization because great differences can exist from family to family and from one social order to another.

My father was a blacksmith and, later, a workman in an implement factory. He never enjoyed much of an income. It was a hand-to-mouth existence for the family, but none of us suffered. Brantford is an industrial town seven miles from Paris, where I was born in October 1899, the youngest in the family. All but a few in the town knew only a very simple life. Incidentally, strikes were unknown. Doubtless there was exploitation of the working class, but industrial peace, however shaky its foundations might have been, managed to prevail.

In general, the schools in the days of my youth were better than they are now. Teachers were overworked but dedicated. Much was demanded of the pupils, discipline was severe, and substantial homework assignments could not be taken lightly.
After exposure to a rigorous and highly disciplined schooling through the high school level, I was fortunate in being awarded a four-year scholarship that gave me tuition-free undergraduate instruction in the University of Toronto. In the final year, as a chemistry major, I was introduced to biochemistry through a research project on the effect of sodium chloride on the growth and metabolism of yeast. Haldane Gee, a fellow student, shared in the project and in the exhilaration of discovery. Whatever we discovered was modest but for us a real thrill. H. B. Speakman was our mentor and overseer. He encouraged us to use our own wits in designing and pursuing the study. We floundered around but eventually the inevitable bungling of such novices in research faded into the past. The days and nights were all too short. The "work" was fun: for us a new kind of excitement and pleasure.
I spent the summer of 1922 in research at the Marine Biological Station of Canada in St. Andrews, New Brunswick (Director: Professor A. G. Huntsman). While there I learned to my surprise that I had won an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship—nominated by the University of Toronto—for several years of postgraduate study in Britain. I chose Cambridge University, to which I was duly admitted as a research student after acceptance by Gonville and Caius College. Biochemistry was to be my field of research.
What an interesting collection of biochemists occupied the laboratory! Each was different from the next, and each, in his own way, contributed to the exciting, entertaining, and brainy atmosphere of the place. I can now recall only Sir Gowland Hopkins (the lovable Hoppy), Rudolph Peters, J. B. S. Haldane, Marjorie Stephenson, The Hon. Mrs. Onslow, R. A. McCance, Dorothy Moyle (later Mrs. Needham), Joseph Needham, Tim Hele, Robin Hill, Malcolm Dixon, H. F. Holden, Bill Pirie, J. H. Quastel, Margaret Whetham, (later Mrs. Bruce Anderson), Vincent Wigglesworth, and my research partner for a time, Trilok Nath Seth. There were others, many others, each pursuing his or her research in glorious independence.

Hoppy, with much on his mind, seldom knew what each of us was up to but was always interested in hearing about our biochemical doings, and was ever affectionately concerned about our welfare. Haldane was a walking encyclopedia. He came to Cambridge in 1922 as Reader in Biochemistry and soon knew what everyone was doing. In his constant roamings about the laboratory, and in frequent chance encounters, he would discuss with remarkable insight the intricacies of one's research activities.

Hoppy suggested to Robin Hill and me that it might be interesting, as a starter, to collaborate with Haldane. It was indeed interesting! He strongly believed in "being one's own rabbit." As such, he swallowed in three days a 3.5-liter aqueous solution of 85 grams of calcium chloride to induce a good acidosis. Robin and I were responsible for analyzing the great man's urine. He developed an acidosis that was noteworthy. I recall swimming in the river Cam on a Sunday during the height of the 13-day experiment. Haldane was also there. Soon, a punt, bent on ascending the river, made its approach. Seated therein were Hoppy, who had been knighted but recently, Lady Hopkins, and two distinguished-looking guests. Haldane at once swam under and around the punt, describing in his booming voice his experiment on acidosis: "I am now excreting the most acid urine that has ever been excreted. . . ." "Yes, yes," replied Hoppy, rubbing his brow in characteristic fashion. Later it emerged that someone, somewhere, had reached a slightly lower pH but Haldane took his "defeat" in stride.

In my post-Cambridge years, I have felt greatly indebted to Haldane for the introduction in physiology he gave to four or five of us from the lab. We met in his rooms in Trinity on frequent occasions. Questions and more questions always preceded a very informal but informative "lecture" by Haldane. At the first session, I remember he started off with the query "How big do you think my liver is?" He weighed 100 kg. We answered with widely differing percentages of his body weight. "How much blood do you suppose I have?" Answers: A few pints up to a few gallons. "How may one determine the blood volume?" And so on. At the end of the evening, there was always an unorthodox and entertaining summary by Haldane.

Shortly after finishing the acidosis collaboration I investigated sources of the amide nitrogen of caseinogen. The phosphotungstate precipitate of the basic fraction was extracted with an amyl alcohol/ether solution. A remarkable discovery followed: not only ammonia but methylamine constituted the volatile components of the bases! Fortunately, a control run established that the methylamine originated as an impurity in Kahlbaum's C. P. (chemically pure) amyl alcohol. Strange as it may seem, the "discovery" thrilled me immensely—almost as much as if methylamine had been proven to be a product of caseinogen hydrolysis. Years later I had a somewhat similar experience. I have had to conclude that the joy of discovery in research is not necessarily limited to the discovery of truth but can also stem from the discovery of error.

Apart from research I had the never-to-be-forgotten and humiliating experience of "baptizing" the new laboratory (the Sir William Dunn Institute) into which Hoppy's "family" moved in 1924. Seth and I occupied a laboratory on the top floor. Late in the day I opened several faucets to be sure that water running through a condenser was cold. An hour or so later, I left for home and forgot about the wretched faucets. One of them misbehaved; during the night the water overflowed, reached electrical outlets in the floor, shorted the building's electrical circuits, and soaked the beautiful, plastered ceiling below. All of this happened only days before the building was to be dedicated and a great assembly of distinguished visitors would be present. Hoppy, though visibly dismayed, never even hinted, at least to me, that biochemistry was possibly not my "cup of tea."

In 1925 I emerged with a Ph.D. degree and returned to the University of Toronto for a year as a Demonstrator in Biochemistry. Andrew Hunter, Hardolph Wasteneys, and Arthur Wynne constituted the top echelon. Speakman, by this time, headed a nearby institute for industrial biochemical research. During the year in Toronto I was offered an assistant professorship by T. P. Nash in the Medical School of the University of Tennessee. We were both interested in the origin of blood ammonia. I promptly accepted the offer but, unexpectedly, because of a citizenship problem, the opportunity came to naught. Shortly thereafter, Robert Swain of Stanford University offered me an assistant professorship in his Chemistry Department with responsibility for the teaching of biochemistry. I went to Stanford in September 1926 and remained as an active member of the Department until retirement in 1965.

But there were many interruptions and discontinuities: life was not characterized by total immersion in research and teaching. Like other scientists I was drawn into many extramural committees and organizations during those 40 years: as an administrative officer of the Pacific Division, American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences (AAAS) for about 15 years; as a member of fund-granting committees of the American Cancer Society, the National Institutes of Health, the Medical Fellowship Board, one of the panels of the National Research Council, and the National Science Foundation. For several years I was head of the Section on Biological Chemistry of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry—a more time-consuming diversion than I ever expected. But it was a memorable time because the groundwork was already being laid for the International Union of Biochemistry.

When I was a young fellow, even as old as 30, I was eager to see injustice corrected and the institutions of our country, if not of the world, reshaped into something that savored of heaven on earth. The severe depression of 1929-1933 was a tremendous incentive to the young to single out the misdeeds and mistakes of their elders. I became interested in the Mooney-Billings case which stemmed from a bomb explosion in San Francisco in July 1916. Ten persons were killed and forty wounded. Mooney was convicted and sentenced to death. Billings was sentenced to life imprisonment. Even before the remaining three defendants were tried, it was established that gross perjury had been committed by the principal witnesses for the prosecution. The three were acquitted but it was too late, because of legal technicalities, to release Mooney and Billings. They were still in prison in 1930. In March 1930, I joined a delegation that waited upon Governor Young who had the power, but not the inclination, to release the two men. Shortly thereafter, I visited Mooney in San Quentin and Billings in Folsom prison. Not until 1939 were the two men released. I wrote a report of the case (1).

At about the same time, I became interested in a nine-year old boy in the State of Washington whose parents were members of the Elijah Voice Society. The parents, in September 1925, withdrew the boy from school because of their objection to compulsory participation of children in flag-salute exercises in the schools. The father served eight days in jail for refusal to send the boy to school. After a succession of court orders, the boy was transferred by order of the court in January 1926 to an orphanage. In June 1926, all intercourse, direct or indirect, with the parents was prohibited. The parents refused to compromise their beliefs and, in June 1927, the court ordered that the boy be held for adoption. In November of that year, Judge Hardin, who succeeded Judge Brown in the County Superior Court, ordered that the boy be returned to his parents. I wrote a long account of the case but never submitted it for publication (2).

In 1935, supported by a General Education Board Fellowship, I spent three months in Cambridge and three in Copenhagen in research on the liver proteins. For visiting biochemists, the Chemical Department of the Carlsberg Laboratory, headed by S. P. L. Sø rensen, was a sort of Mecca. Sø rensen, I suspect, was a very kind and considerate man of the old-school type. He made frequent rounds of the laboratory and derived, so it seemed to me, a special pleasure in finding everyone hard at work. I never felt able to confide in him, partly because he seemed to be very formal and I regarded him as up there somewhere among the Olympians of science, quite distant from the mere mortals in the lab. When I mentioned to him that I was planning a hurried pre-Christmas trip to Paris, Brussels, Gö ttingen, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Prague, and Budapest to meet certain biochemists, I felt that he considered such a departure from the laboratory as a wasteful fortnight.

Sø rensen was 67 when I studied in the Carlsberg Laboratory. He died at the age of 71. "Time made him gentler, he became a delightful old man, calm and wise ... just, unselfish, and warm-hearted. He expected a lot from his pupils, but that is no more than every good teacher ought to do" (2).

Sø rensen's first assistant, later his successor, was Kai Linderstrø m-Lang. I am sure that everyone who knew Kai loved him. He was friendly, affable, helpful, and possessed of a delightful charm and good humor. Like Sø rensen, he was a superb and imaginative scientist-at that time engaged in the development and use of ultramicro analytical techniques. I was especially interested because of his identification of the cells in pig gastric mucosa in which urease activity is localized.
Organization of the Annual Review of Biochemistry apparently caused me to be regarded by some as an authority, not only on reviews, but on abstracts, and on many other facets of the dissemination of science information. In 1948 I was sent to London as a US delegate to the Royal Society Conference on Science Information, and in 1949 to Paris as a US delegate to the UNESCO Conference on Science Abstracting.

At several conferences, beginning in 1946, on documentation, storage, and retrieval of information, it was quite the thing to point to the rising flood of science papers and to bemoan the gaps in our abstracting services. Crash programs to attain a total coverage in abstracting were proposed by some. I recall also a proposal at an International Conference, by an expert on snails, that we busy ourselves in abstracting papers published anywhere at any time in journals that have perished—the defunct literature of science.

Others have pointed to the "incredible waste in time and money" through duplication of effort. Hubert Humphrey, in 1961, as Chairman of a Senatorial subcommittee concerned with government operations, reported that an estimated 160,000 projects in research and development in the United States cost about $12 billion, of which the federal government's share approximated $8.1 billion. He stated that the various agency information systems were a "hodgepodge" . .. . "overlapping, underplanned, undernourished and under-used."

I participated, with Chancy Leak and Maurice Visscher, in a conference called to consider the Humphrey report and the role of government in the management of our information services. His subcommittee had recommended a total view of the information problem, commencing with the very conception of a project. Publication of the ideas and research plans of scientists prior to initiation of a contemplated investigation would be a beginning. Negative results from projects that turned sour should be published. Papers delivered orally at scientific meetings should be drawn within the compass of the overall government-managed information service—the argument, among others, being that "if they had not been registered, abstracted, and indexed on a pre-publication basis, they may "disappear" except within the circle which will have heard the oral presentation." Also to be included would be the squeezings from progress reports and from projects canceled without reaching formal publication; . . . "unless this is done, the chances are 'pretty high' that in later years scientists may needlessly and unwittingly repeat the earlier work of canceled projects" (3).

I was horrified by the recommendations, which would generate, if implemented, a flood of information of dubious value and at an outrageous cost. Having little trust in the ability of government to manage anything, and believing that government should do nothing for people that people can do for themselves, I made a very negative contribution to the conference. I have had a lasting interest in the science of nutrition since those unforgettable years in Cambridge. Hopkins, in his discovery of tryptophane and "accessory food factors," laid a firm foundation for much that followed, the world over, in our knowledge of essential amino acids and vitamins. About all that I myself ever published on nutrition appeared in two brief papers (4, 5), and as a book which dealt with human nutrition, poverty, and consumer cooperation (6). In case this leaves the impression that the book must have been a curious Gemisch, or catch all, I hasten to point out that nutritional disease is sometimes a result of poverty. Poverty, in turn, can find a partial solution in cooperation whereby groups of people, through a united attack on the economic problems that beset them, can do much through a great variety of cooperative enterprises to pull themselves out of the mud by tugging on their own bootstraps. Unfortunately, with the encouragement of politicians, we find ourselves beseeching our Washington uncle to provide salvation through a multitude of giveaway programs. And all such demands to government, at all levels, are compounded by the insistence of many that we be enabled to live in a risk-free environment. I see about me an almost universal hysteria over food additives and the products of our chemical and pharmaceutical industries, expressed in strident voices by many who should know better, that everything we eat, drink, breathe, wear, and look at be convincingly proven to be absolutely safe. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, hedged in by a massive burden of legislative directives, are the unfortunate instruments of Congress in seeking attainment of such impossible goals.

In 1957, as President of the Pacific Division, AAAS, I gave an address on the population problem: Man against his Environment: the Next Hundred Years (7). It contained the sentence: "Abortion, at the request of the prospective mother, should not only be permitted but, in some instances, encouraged." To me, this was an innocent and reasonable proposal, but what a storm of protest it generated! About 90 letters of outrage were received in the weeks that followed, and 110 clippings of editorials and letters to the editor that appeared in the daily press arrived by mail. Protests and approvals were almost equally divided. One concerned citizen urged that I be fired from Stanford and another that I merely be castrated. The whole collection gives an illuminating picture of Americana in 1957.

My interest in the population problem has continued undiminished. In 1960, the following quotation expressed a widely shared concern: The dilemma that unfolds before us involves an explosively burgeoning population in a world that is threatened with the loss of many of its natural resources and increasing assaults upon its precious personal freedoms. The years before us may prove to be chastening in the extreme, and I would respectfully urge that the problems before us today be faced with all the courage, humanity and intelligence that we can summon to the task (3).

In the last year or two preceding my retirement from Stanford, I conducted a senior-student discussion group on the population problem. We had several exciting sessions devoted to possible solutions. One suggestion that caught my attention, as if approaching the scaffold, called for the painless dispatch of all people on attainment of age 65: "On the average, they have nothing more to contribute to society." Like the aging Eskimo, we should wander out in the dark of night and disappear.
In 1960, as a member of an exchange mission, I went to the USSR. There were five of us in the group (Henry Sebrell Jr.., Clifford Barborka, Floyd Deft, Currier McEwen, and myself). As guests of the Ministry of Health, we visited a number of institutes in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Sukhumi, and Yerevan hoping to learn something about the status of research on arthritis and metabolic diseases. Although assured by our hosts that we could go anywhere in the USSR that we wished, practical considerations, such as shortage of time, limited us to European Russia.

Something like 15 million Russian men were reported to have lost their lives in the Second World War. Hence, we were not surprised that the directors and many staff members of most of the institutes we visited were women. Many other occupations, including heavy labor (e.g. hod carriers) in building construction, usually restricted to men, were at this time taken over by women. As an official policy designed to restore population losses, special encouragement and allocation of resources were then given to pediatrics. The research in progress, notably in biochemistry in the institutes visited, was quite pedestrian, partly because of wartime destruction of facilities, inadequate access to foreign periodicals, and constant bureaucratic political meddling. In 1961, I attended the biochemical congress in Moscow. I was accompanied by my wife who is of Russian parentage. After the congress we escorted a party of twelve American colleagues on a prearranged tour from Moscow to Leningrad, Kiev, and Yalta. All of us were Intourist "hostages." The heavy hand of the bureaucracy and the inefficiency of the system plagued us throughout the tour—from a near inability to learn which of the 12 were lodged in the Hotel Ukrainya (and to communicate by telephone with any in the same hotel) to the daily insistence by Moscow, from Leningrad on, that we were six in number even though only two had left at Leningrad for Helsinki. Of course, a head count always revealed a remainder of ten, each with the appropriate Intourist travel documents. In retrospect, the daily war of words for accommodations in hotels and on planes for a party of ten instead of six was highly entertaining.

The Luck family lived in Switzerland from March 1962 to the spring of 1964. A stranger in Washington—an official in the Department of State—phoned me in 1961 to inquire if I would be interested in serving for two years as the Science Attaché in the American Embassy in Bern. How could one fail to be interested in a two-year tour of duty in Switzerland? Nevertheless, months passed before the prospective appointment became a reality. Involved in all of this was also a cherished belief that the human organism needs a real jolt from time to time—a radical change of scene, a new type of intellectual or physical activity, a greatly altered human and physical environment. A two-year change seemed to be about right=-long enough to be jolted out of those comfortable ruts that had become deeper and deeper in the preceding wonderful years at Stanford, but not long enough to require another severe jolt to effect a return to California and to Stanford.
As the two years came to an end, I learned that I would be expected to prepare a report on science in Switzerland and to indicate to the State Department what its Science Attachés had been up to during his tour of duty. I labored over that report for two years. It became so obese that the Department was obliged to approve its publication as a book (8): photocopies of the manuscript—100 or so for interoffice distribution—would have made unreasonable demands upon the filing space available to recipients.

I fell completely in love with Switzerland, her people, and their institutions, tempered though my affection was by recognizing that "all is not gold that glitters." I later found myself immersed in writing a general history of Switzerland which may never be finished, because I have been so fascinated with the subject and have loaded the manuscript with so much trivia and detail that any professional historian would probably be aghast in its presence. The history of preceding centuries was difficult enough to encompass, but the twentieth century posed problems that, to me, were insuperable. In short, a retrospective view of 50 or 100 years may be required to understand current events and discuss them intelligently. So what was the solution? In 1975 I discussed the problem with a number of friends in Switzerland. Out of our conversations emerged a volume Modern Switzerland in which 27 Swiss, possessed of the necessary expertise in different topical areas, cooperated in authorship (9).
I returned to Stanford in 1964, confident that my life as a science attachés had come to an end. But it was not to be so. The State Department sent me to the US Embassy in London for two months in 1967 and to our Embassy in Stockholm for a similar period to serve as the acting science attachés during temporary absences of the regular appointees. Since 1964 I have returned to Switzerland annually, for a month or so, to study in the National Library, where an enormous collection of works on Switzerland, wherever published, plus stacks of newspapers, journals, and reference materials are to be found. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Raetus Luck (unrelated to me), the Vice-Director of the Library, for his interest and frequent help.
And now, deserting science and chronology, I return to the distant past. I was always a lover of books. As a boy I read everything by G. A. Henty and Horatio Alger that I could find. Some of the works of Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain were delightful. And there were many others. As a freshman in the University of Toronto, I became interested in an opportunity to spend the summer in Western Canada as a book salesman. The book to be sold was a very large volume entitled Better Farming or Farm Economy—I forget which. It was not difficult to persuade a few fellow students to join in the venture. We took the required Knox Course in Salesmanship, then, youthfully confident that we could sell the book to anyone, we went to Saskatchewan, where each was assigned a huge block of the province as his exclusive territory. We almost felt as if we were mediaeval counts, each with vested property rights in a few hundred square miles of prairie. The Hauptstadt in my vast territory was the small town of Lanigan. Each of us traveled by bicycle over roads of a sort to reach our "tenants," some of whom farmed an entire square mile (640 acres) while others had a mere 160 acres. The distances between farmhouses were considerable and we spent the night in the last place we visited in the late afternoon. We were always received as welcome guests (lodging and meals freely provided) because social gatherings were infrequent and visitors were few in number in such sparsely populated regions.

The selling procedure was marvelous. In the distance, several hundred yards away, we might see the farmer at work on the land. We knew his name for it had been given to us by one of his neighbors. "Good morning, Mr. Brown," we would say with a friendly handshake, "I am Dick Turpin (or whoever). Such wonderful weather for the crops—but also for smut, which of course goes after everybody's wheat at some time or other." "It sure does," says Brown. "Well, I'm here as a representative of the Better Farming Association to talk to everyone I meet about plant diseases." Taking two small vials from a pocket, I continue, "You will recognize, Mr. Brown, this one here is a specimen of wheat infested with 'loose smut', the other is 'stinking smut.' Which one do you usually have around here?" Before he can answer, I reach for a good-sized prospectus in my rucksack and continue "I just happen to have here some very good pictures of both." If lucky, I open the prospectus at the right page instead of one which pictures a cotton plantation or a watery field of rice. Then the real sales talk begins and I answer all possible objections against purchase—we had teamed the answers in the course on salesmanship! Finally, opening the prospectus at the last page, where I had already inserted the names of a few of the prominent farmers in the area, and holding it so Brown could see the names, I give him the final thrust "I'm sure, Mr. Brown, you want one of these books like the rest of your neighbors." The reply that I always received was, "No, I don't want it." To this, as we had teamed, there was no triumphant reply and I had to accept defeat.
As itinerant salesmen we were supposed to carry a provincial license, obtainable for a significant fee. If, however, one was selling hymnals, bibles, or religious publications, the license was not required. In consequence, we also had in the rucksack a second prospectus descriptive of religious literature. If we ever saw a uniformed member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police approaching in the distance, we were instructed to switch promptly from one prospectus to the other and engage Brown in a serious conversation about the Bible. I never met an RCMP under such circumstances, though later I met one who served in the Lanigan area and I accompanied him on several occasions when he held court in neighboring towns as judge and jury to adjudicate various petty crimes. As a salesman of books, I was a total failure and soon abandoned the job. Instead, I served as bookkeeper for the Ford/McLaughlin garage in Lanigan, wrote the tax notices for the town, "audited" the books of the Lanigan branch of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association, and worked part-time in the local dairy determining the fat content of milk received daily from Lanigan-area farmers.

My love of books was not without its problems. In Paris, in 1949, I tried to purchase two books by my fellow Californian, Henry Miller. The bookstore, finding them temporarily out of stock, offered to send them by mail a few days later. Shortly thereafter, I received a polite but peremptory request from an officer of the US Customs: "A package of books by Henry Miller addressed to you is being held by the US Customs. Their importation into the United States is not permitted. Please be good enough to sign the enclosed form to authorize their immediate destruction" (or words to this effect). I replied, "Thank you for your kind letter of recent date. However, I do not choose to sign the enclosed form." Soon a second and similar request arrived. In the meantime I transferred title to the books to Stanford University Libraries, the Director being happy to add them to the library's collection of Americana. The US Customs disapproved of the pending transfer and again asked permission to consign the books to the flames. I refused to join in this contemplated burning of books—a shameful practice which for many centuries has impaired the study of history and literature. The American Civil Liberties Union, Western Division, then proposed to the judge of the appropriate court that a committee of 12 or so professors of English literature be appointed to pass upon the alleged obscenity of the books. The judge replied that a professor in one of our West Coast Catholic colleges had already convinced him that the books were obscene. The cost of a legal challenge to the judge's decision would have been prohibitive. This closed the case, but sometimes I doubt if the books were ever destroyed: I hope not.

During my student days in Toronto, Henri Lasserre, a Swiss professor of French, entertained a few of us in his home on frequent occasions to discuss consumer cooperatives, especially in a greatly expanded setting as total cooperative communities. The pleasure of these "bull" sessions was enhanced by the tea and cookies which Mme. Lasserre regularly provided. A few years later, as a student in Cambridge, I joined the local Consumers' Cooperative Society. It was in the local coop food store that my wife and I bought our groceries. The society was clearly a partial realization of the expansive economic organization that Lasserre had talked about. The coop appealed to me as a reasonable way to do business—the ultimate in free enterprise, and a valuable adjunct to the usual type of retail stores.

In the first few years at Stanford, I found myself invited to give talks—formal lectures or in discussion groups—on consumer cooperatives. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, during the severe economic depression, self-help enterprises of many types were organized throughout the country. At Stanford, several students urged me to take the initiative in organizing in Palo Alto a consumers' cooperative society. The Stanford community was fertile ground. The Founding Grant of the University contains the interesting injunction to the trustees "to have taught in the University the right and advantages of association and cooperation."
Despite many difficulties, the Palo Alto Consumers' Cooperative Society was founded in 1934 and by the end of the year had enough members to operate a small grocery store. In subsequent years, most of the initial difficulties vanished and the growth of the Society has been considerable (4).

A few years later, nine of us, as members of the Palo Alto Coop, organized the Palo Alto Credit Union, which now has about 5500 members and assets in excess of five million dollars.

Another adventure in consumer cooperation was formally initiated on April 17, 1944. I was invited by an officer of the Stanford YMCA/YWCA to attend a Christmas vacation conference (1942/1943) in Santa Cruz, California, at which many subjects of student interest were to be debated. I would be expected to preside over a discussion group on consumer cooperatives. Quite unexpectedly, I had the good fortune to meet Sumner Spaulding, a Los Angeles architect, who led a discussion group on city and community planning. Summer and I realized at once that our two discussion groups shared a common interest—cooperative housing. The land for a prospective housing development would be acquired by the collective action of the future occupants. Continuing to act collectively, the group would engage a planner to lay out the tract—roads, walkways, utility systems, etc. An architect, engaged by the group, would design the houses, which would be of ten to fifteen different plans according to size and interior and exterior design. Finally, advantage would be taken of the economies inherent in the coordinated construction of all the residences by a single firm of contractors.

In the months that followed, the Peninsula Housing Association (PHA) was incorporated (April 17, 1944). Many meetings of the members and prospective members were held and addressed by architects and community and regional planners. A news bulletin "The Four Hundred" was issued biweekly. When our resources permitted we purchased, at auction, for $155,000, a beautiful 253-acre tract of rolling land a few miles from Stanford's 8000 acres. Roads were laid out and utilities partially installed. However, the difficulties in carrying the plan to completion were insuperable: it was much too ambitious, and the Federal Housing Administration ceaselessly objected to this and that. Eventually PHA sold out to a Palo Alto firm of realtors who stripped the original plan of some of its attractive features in order to maximize the number of building lots. Members had each invested $2500 as a down payment on a stated building lot designated in the original PHA plan. In time, the new owners returned to the members the sums thus invested. Lots were sold and houses constructed according to conventional practices, and the community of Ladera, named by PHA, came into being—a mere shadow of the wonderful creature of which the founders had dreamed.
In 1976, 1 became involved with others in organizing a nonprofit tax-exempt enterprise-the Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship Inc. (SPOSS Inc.)—to encourage the publication of scholarly works that our university presses and commercial publishers, for financial reasons, are frequently prone to reject. The Society has published three scholarly works and is committed to several others.

The professional lives of many of my research students and associates have been centered in biochemistry or kindred sciences. Their encouragement in some of the peripheral activities in which I have indulged so heavily and, above all, their lasting friendships constitute precious fringe benefits that are rewarding beyond words. I can mention only a few of these colleagues: Paul Boyer, Emmett Chappelle, David Comwell, Denis Fox, Clark Griffin, Erik Heegaard, Janet Ingalls, Venkataraman Jagannathan, Donald Kupke, Kenneth Murray, Lafayette Noda, Gordon Nordby, and Kazoo Satake. John Eudin, for years, was a most helpful research assistant. In certain specific projects, I enjoyed a happy association with John Marrack (London) and with David Bassett, Arthur Giese, Victor Hall, and C. V. Tayloi, formerly active members of the Stanford University faculty.
It will be clear to the reader that much of my life has been given over to the organization of this and that. As one consequence, my contributions to biochemical research may have been meager. An enormous amount of time has been given to activities that were remote from science and far afield from biochemistry in particular. Yet it was my initial explorations into chemistry and biochemistry as a student that opened to me many of the doors and opportunities that have helped make my life as a biochemist, professor, and publisher a full and rewarding one. I have greatly enjoyed almost everything in which I have engaged and have had the lasting pleasure of association with many students and others in teaching, research, and other activities. Should one ask for more?

1. The number of biochemical abstracts published by Chemical Abstracts in 1979 was over 148,000, the increase being attributable to a more comprehensive coverage of the literature, a more expansive definition of the subject, and an enormous increase, worldwide, in the number of research projects being pursued in biochemistry.
2. History of the Case of Russell Tremain. Photocopies are available from the author.
3. Concluding paragraph of an address on "Hunger and Want or Population Control" at the Founding Conference of the World Population Emergency Campaign, Princeton, NJ, March 20, 1960.
4. The Palo Alto Society now has approximately 23,000 members and five supermarkets.

Literature Cited

1. Luck, J. M. 1930 Friends Intelligencer. Fourth Month 26, pp. 326-29; see also p. 324
2. Linderstrø m-Lang, K. 1938. S. P. L. Sø rensen (1868-1939). C R. Trav. Lab. Carlsberg, Ser. Chim. 23:27
3. Committee on Government Operations (US Senate) and its Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Chairman. Rep. dated Sept. 20, 1961, p. xix. See also Report #263, May 18, 1961, Coordination of Information on Current Scientific Research and Development supported by the United States Government. Washington DC: GPO
4. Luck, J. M. 1941. Fortification of foodstuffs. Science 94:31-33
5. Luck, J. M. 1945. Nutrition-retrospect and prospect. Nutr. Rev. 3:65-69
6. Luck, J. M. 1945. The War on Malnutrition and Poverty-The Role of Consumer Cooperatives. New York: Harper. 203 pp.
7. Luck, J. M. 1957. Science 126:903-8
8. Luck, J. M. 1967. Science in Switzerland Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Columbia University Press. xvi + 419 pp.
9. Luck, J. M., ed. 1978. Modern Switzerland. xvi + 515, pp. Palo Alto, California: SPOSS (Soc. for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship