One medical hero replaces another this week as head of the National Cancer Institute: Virginia-born Dr. Roscoe R. Spencer, 54, succeeds Swiss-born Dr. Carl Voegtlin, 63.
Dark, shy Dr. Voegtlin has headed the Institute (in Bethesda, Md.) since 1938. Since he joined the Public Health Service in 1913 he has headed research which compared the acidity and oxygen consumption of cancerous and normal cells, calculated the amount of vitamin C in tumors, discovered chemicals which produce cancer, studied the effect of radio waves on cancer.
Dr. Spencer, his successor, is as modest as he is short. But his work in proving the tick...