Biographical Memoirs Volume 65 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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19. Cecil James Watson
19. Cecil James Watson
Pages 354-373
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From page 354... ...
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From page 355... ...
Cecil Watson was far ahead of his time in recognizing the in(lispensability of chemical and biochemical exploration for the unclerstanding of disease. His pioneering scientific work on the metabolism of hemogIobin, porphyrins en cl bile pigments emanated largely from puzzling clinical observations for which his restless mind clemandecl explanations.
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From page 356... ...
endowed him with a superb command of the English language which, cluring his professional life, was reflected! in the brilliance of his lectures en cl the lucidity of his scientific publications.
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From page 357... ...
This romantic islancI, accessible only by boat, became a lifelong second home to the extended Watson family, as both of his brothers and sister and their families built cabins of their own, located around a common dining and recreation area. In later years, Cecil was fond of inviting intimate friends or clistinguished foreign colleagues to his island retreat, where they couch relax in congenial informality, spoiled by Cecil's generous hospitality.
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From page 358... ...
In 1928, equipped with every academic degree which a medical school can confer, an independent professional position beckoned and Cecil and his young wife, the former Joyce Petterson, moved to the recently founded private clinic in Minot, North Dakota. In his new position he was the resident pathologist and director of laboratories, but also functioned as an internist and, most importantly, found time to continue laboratory studies which he had begun in Minneapolis.
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From page 359... ...
George Fahr, a pioneer carcliologist at the University of Minnesota, he was successful in obtaining a fellowship in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Hans Fischer in Munich, who was then the worId's leading expert in the chemistry of hemoglobin, bile pigments, and porphyrins. The two years in the Bavarian capital were among the most stimulating and enjoyable periods of CeciT's life.
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From page 360... ...
A violet by-product that fell out during the crystallization was iclentified as mesobiliviolin, which was the first time that occurrence of this pigment was clemonstrated in nature. But apart from these remarkable research achievements, Cecil was enormously stimulated by the scientifically exciting atmosphere of the Fischer laboratory and the Technische Hochschule Munich, as well as Professor Friedrich van Mueller's meclical clinic at the University of Munich, which he often visited.
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From page 361... ...
Unfortunately, these busy and happy (lays were soon interrupted by his war-relatecI assignment to the Manhattan Project. In 1943 Cecil was appointed associate clirector of the Health Division of the so-called Metallurgical Laboratory, a top secret position which for the next two years required him to divide his time between clepartmental responsibilities in Minneapolis and supervision of novel toxicity studies of uranium and related radioactive substances in Chicago.
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From page 362... ...
He was a tower of intellectual strength and inspiration and contributed in a major way to make the University of Minnesota one of the nation's outstanding institutions of teaching and research. As his pioneering scientific achievements gained national and international recognition, Cecil was increasingly askocl to serve on national committees or boards and to chair scientific conferences or research meetings.
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From page 363... ...
Another area of great interest to him was the formation and structure of the various heme derivatives which are formed in the intestine from bilirubin and are in part reabsorbed and re-excreted in urine or bile. His studies supplied the essential experimental proof that excreted porphyrins represent intermediates formed in the course of heme synthesis, whereas the tetrapyrroles of the urobilin group are degradation products of heme formed by stepwise microbial reduction of bilirubin in the intestine.
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From page 364... ...
On the other hand, the very rare congenital erythropoietic porphyria was shown to be due to a recessively inherited defect of hemoglobin synthesis in maturing normoblasts of the bone marrow. With his coworker Samuel Schwartz, Cecil in :~941 devel.
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From page 365... ...
Recall that he had originally been attracted to bile pigment metabolism as a medical student after contracting viral hepatitis. The methods he cleveloped for distinguishing and quantitating different bilirubin fractions in the serum are still in use today for the clifferential diagnosis of jaundice.
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From page 366... ...
On the other hancI, in more advanced liver disease which interferes with the excretion of bile into the intestine and produces deep jaundice, urobilin-type pigments almost completely disappear from the excrete. This fancying had mystified him when he had a period of severe jaundice during his illness with viral hepatitis.
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From page 367... ...
This observation anticipated the modern concept that some cases of acute viral hepatitis develop a chronic smoIclering form of the disease which eventually progresses to cirrhosis. Another was a critical evaluation of the usefulness and limitations of liver function tests, which at that time were being introclucecl as a means of differential diagnosis of liver ailments.
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From page 368... ...
During the subsequent fourteen years, he publisher} a total of seventyseven papers, eleven of them in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the last of which appeared when he was seventy-eight years old. This was the time when he and his coworkers discovered the beneficial effect of hematin infusion for aborting acute porphyric attacks, but he also returned to his first love, the structural characterization of bile pigments excreted in the feces.
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From page 369... ...
NOTE 1. "Life without teaching would be just an image of death," a quotation found in one of Cecil Watson's laboratory notebooks.
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49:641-43. 1944 Cirrhosis of the liver: Clinical aspects, with particular reference to liver function tests.
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The problem of prolonged hepatitis with particular reference to the cholangiolitic type and to the development of cholangiolitic cirrhosis of the liver.
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Repression of the overproduction of porphyrin precursors in acute intermittent porphyria by intravenous infusion of hematin.
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