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In Manhattan Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller Institute, who, 68, is just twice as old as Dr. Rhoads, demonstrated how stanch a friend he is to every member of his staff. They had worked together for two years on the in fantile paralysis problem, and Dr. Flexner could vouch for the validity of the explanation which Dr. Rhoads last week sent to Governor Beverley: "Regret very much that fantastic and playful composition written entirely for my own diversion and intended as parody on supposed attitude of some American minds in Porto Rico should have become public document and taken literally by any one. Of course nothing in the document was ever in-tended to mean other than opposite of what was stated. Nevertheless, if slightest seriousness is really attached to any aspect of this subject I will be glad to return to Porto Rico immediately and place myself at your disposal."
Dr. Rhoads was not obliged to leave his researches in Manhattan. But that, of course, did not terminate the agitation which was ricocheting throughout Porto Rico, an agitation typical of the prejudice with which the Foundation is obliged to contend in many backward countries.
As everyone in Science knows, the Rockefeller Institute, harbor of two Nobel Prize Winners in Medicine (Drs. Alexis Carrel and Karl Landsteiner) is where Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Sinclair Lewis' Dr. Martin Arrowsmith worked. Paul de Kruif, able bacteriologist, who gave Author Sinclair all the learned facts and scientific color for Arrowsmith, put in two years at the Rockefeller Institute.
Dr. Rhoads is no dour, highstrung, achey Dr. Arrowsmith. He is a jovial, rollicking young man who has topped every group he ever has been with. He was president of his high school graduating class at Springfield, Mass., marshal of Bowdoin, 1920, president of Harvard Medical, 1924. Both his A.B. and M.D. degrees were cum laude.
His six months' stay in Porto Rico was very productive, promises to be one of the best things that ever happened to the populace there. He and Dr. Castle developed a thoroughgoing and inexpensive remedy for pernicious anemia. They are waiting for a professional journal to publish the details.