JOURNAL OF BACTERIOLOGY
Vol. 87, No. 4, p. 751-754 April, 1964
Copyright © 1964 Anmerican Society for Microbiology
Printed in U.S.A.
8 1 elb Clarf
illt'am f84an-
ISS4-1964
On Sunday, 19 January 1964, William Mans-
field Clark, DeLamar Professor Emeritus of
Physiological Chemistry, died of a heart attack
at his home in Baltimore. Seventy-nine years of
age at the time of his death, he had been a mem-
ber of the faculty of The Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity School of MIedicine for 37 years.
Dr. Clark was born in Tivoli, N.Y., on 17
August 1884. He graduated from the Hotchkiss
School at Lakeville, Conn., in 1903 and from
Williams College in 1907. After receiving his Mas-
ter's degree at Williams in 1908, he became a
candidate for the Ph.D. degree in chemistry at
The Johns Hopkins University under the direc-
tion of H. N. Morse. His doctoral dissertation was
entitled, "A Contribution to the Investigation of
the Temperature Coefficient of Osmotic Pressure:
A Redetermination of the Osmotic Pressures of
Cane Sugar Solutions at 200."
Of his professor, he N-as later to write affection-
ately as follows:
"MIorse was a very dull lecturer. On
one occasion he described an apparatus
that included a Bunsen burner. He drew
all parts of the burner, including the
zones of the flame. Drawing provided
the opportunity to drop the eraser, in
bending for which he got rid of tobacco
juice. I saw in that sketch of a Bunsen
burner more than met the eye. Morse
must have in mind all parts of an ap-
paratus so that no detail might escape
his thoughtful attention. I cannot be too
thankful for having had this drilled
into me, and when I recall how often it
stood me in good stead, I forgive the
grand old man for his having diverted
me from some parts of experimental
chemistry. Indeed the training he gave
me may be said to be justified in that
when I undertook independent in-
vestigations, there was no hesitation in
making a direct attack, if not with the-
oretical insight, at least with apparatus
that I understood and, if necessary,
made myself.
"There are many stories of Morse's
care for detail. One will suffice. One day
751
I found, him checking calculations. He
was multiplying and dividing the long
way. I said, 'Professor, why don't you
use logs?' He replied, 'There might be
an error in the tables.' "
During several summers while in graduate
school, Dr. Clark worked for the U.S. Fish Com-
mission at Woods Hole. There he came in contact
with Carl Alsberg, of the Harvard Faculty, to
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whom he later wrote in a letter:
"I wonder if you remember a hot
night in Woods Hole when I confessed
to you that the Fish Commission had
given you a mighty ignorant assistant,
and you took me to your room to tell
me about the beginnings of biochemistry
and how Spallanzani discovered pepsin
by the mean trick of tying a string to a
bait and deluding a duck. When you
play with your grandchildren and fame
has lost some of its glamour, please re-
call that night as one on which you
started a kid on his ambition to learn the
heritage left to us by Spallanzani, Ber-
nard and Pasteur."
Immediately after receiving his Ph.D. in 1910,
Dr. Clark joined the Dairy Division of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture as a research chemist.
In this, his first research post, he was left very
much to his own devices and was allowed to pur-
sue without hindrance his personal interests in
research. His work on the chemistry of milk, with
special reference to the production of cheese, led
him eventually to make a systematic study of the
physicochemical principles involved in the control
of hydrogen ion concentration. The results of
these classical studies, first reported in the Journal
of Bacteriology in 1917, were later summarized and
extended in The Determination of Hydrogen Ions,
published in 1920. The impact of this superb
monograph is said to have made the measurement
of pH by biochemists nearly as commonplace as
the measurement of temperature.
In the same year, Dr. Clark was called to the
Hygienic Laboratory of the U.S. Public Health
Service as Head of its Division of Chemistry.
There he began his important studies on oxida-
tion-reduction potentials. A system of O-R indi-
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J. BACTERIOL
OBITUARY: W. M. CLARK

William Aanftielb Ctlark

752
Vol.. 87, 1964 OBITUARY: W. M. CLARK
cators, analogous to acid-base indicators, was
developed, and the changes in oxidation-reduction
potential which occur' in culture media as a result
of bacterial growth were described. Painstaking
electrochemical measurements eventually led to
modification of the Nernst equation to include
terms representing the energy of dissociation and
association of acidic and basic groups in organic
molecules. There then followed a precise formula-
tion of the ielationship between oxidation-reduc-
tion potentials and changes in pH. Much of this
im)ortant work was later described in a collection
of papers p)ublished in 1928 by the U.S. Printing
Office, entitled Studies on Oxidation-Reduction.
On a number of occasions during these produc-
tive years, Dr. Clark was invited to become a uni-
versitvy professor. Each time he declined on the
grounds that he had no formal training in any of
the subjects he was supposed to "profess."
Finally in 1927, however, he learned, without any
preliminary warning, that he had been appointed
DeLamar Professor of Physiological Chemistry in
The Johns Hopkins University School of MIedi-
eine. Accepting the assignment with great mis-
givings, he immediately enrolled in the course in
anatomy, where he dissected a human body in
company with the first-year medical students to
whom he was to teach biochemistry later in the
year. For a quarter of a century thereafter, he
conducted a medical school course which became
renowned throughout the academic world for its
rigor and excellence. His lectures, which were
models of clarity, were delivered with great
enthusiasm and force. The emphasis was always
on basic principles. No student who heard him
could fail to appreciate his joy in the grandeur of
science and his respect for objectivity. Of the
latter he wrote a few years before his death:
"Scientists have no monopoly of the
objective attitude, but their easier and,
therefore, more frequent use of it may set
patteins of conduct for a distraught
world in its attempts to solve some ex-
tremely complex problems-problems
for which science itself has now no solu-
tions."
A master of science writing, Dr. Clark, begin-
ning in 1933, served for 18 years on the editorial
board of the Jouirnal of Biological Chemistry. His
address as President of the Society of American
Bacteriologists, published in the Journal of Bac-
teriology in 1934 and entitled "Evolution Toward
753
a Mature Scientific Literature," will riemain a
lasting testimony to his uncomp)romising stand-
ards of excellence.
During World War II he served as Chairman
of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical T'ech-
nology of the National Research Council. This
heavy responsibility forced him to spend much of
his time in Washington, where he first became
involved in problems concerned with the phvsi-
ological action of toxic gases. Later he served as
one of the outstanding medical scientists assigned
to the development of antimalarial drugs.
On his retirement from the Mledical Faculty in
1952, he was appointed Research Professor of
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Chemistry and given a laboratory in the Depart-
ment of Chemistry on the Homewood campus.
There, for a number of years, he gave a graduate
course in the Department of Biology on "Topics
in Physical Chemistry"-the title of the book he
had published in 1948. In addition, he spent much
time in the library, and in 1960 l)ublished his last
monograph, Oxidation-Reduction Potentials of Or-
ganic Systems, a book which is certain to be re-
garded as the authoritative treatise on the subject
for many years to come. His -ears of retirement
also provided him a little extra time to indulge in
golf and gardening, his two favorite avocations.
It is said by some of his closest friends that the
greatest day in his life was the day he shot a
hole-in-one.
Besides being President of the Society of
American Bacteriologists in 1933, he served for
two y-ears as l'resident of the American Society of
Biological Chemists (1933-1935), received the
Nichols Medal of the American Chemical Society
in 1936, the Borden Award in 1944, and the
Passano Award in 1957. He was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences in 1928 and to the
American Philosophical Society in 1939.
A pillar of strength in the Johns Hopkins
faculty, he was beloved and admired by his
students and colleagues. To those who knew him
well, his most outstanding characteristic was his
devotion to teaching. His convictions as to its
iml)ortance are eloquently exlpressed in his own
w*ords:
"Thoughtful easement of the acquire-
ment of knowledge is an essential )art of
the economics and of the estheties of
education. It should not be regaIded as
less than among the tougher of intel-
754 OBITUARY: W. M. CLARK J. BACTERIOL

lectual jobs. A department that leaves
instruction in the basic parts of a science
to persons of low rank, no verve, and
little appreciation of the magnitude of
the task contributes stupidly to a dull
future. "
William Mansfield Clark's contributions to the
future were anything but dull. Indeed, it can
truthfully be said that, through his brilliant re-
search, his writings, and his devotion to teaching,
he profoundly influenced the science of his day.
W. BARRY WXOOD

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