1912

Doc Henry Viets has been named Chairman of the Medical Board of the newly formed Myasthenia Gravis Foundation. The Medical Board will advise the Foundation on the granting of funds for research into the cause and cure of myasthenia gravis, a disease characterized by extreme muscle weakness which usually strikes adolescent females and older men. The disease was once quickly fatal, but about 15 years ago, a British physician demonstrated that the use of a drug called prostigmin is effective in many cases in the prevention of death, although it is considered a palliative rather than a cure. Henry is the dean of doctors in this country interested in this relatively little-known disease, which for vears has been considered rare, but the members of the Foundation, formed last April, have found evidence to indicate that it is considerably more common than had been supposed.

The Research Bureau of Retail Training of the University of Pittsburgh, will become the School of Retailing and Bureau of Retail Research at that institution after the close of the present academic year next July with BishopBrown as the head of the new school with title of Dean. Bishop has been Director of the Research Bureau of Retail Training for the past 16 years. The new school will have the power to grant the degree of Master of Retailing. The primary function of the new school will be the education of junior executives for retail stores, including positions in advertising, merchandising, personnel, management and control. The research activities of the present Bureau will be continued by the new school.

The Industrial Products Division of B. F. Goodrich Company has issued an attractive booklet entitled My Dear Whitney that contains a letter dated May 1, 1917, to the late Red Whitney from the Sales Manager of the Line Shaft Bearings Division of Hyatt Roller Bearing Company on the occasion of Red's appointment as salesman. The letter is characterized as"one of the greatest sales letters ever written." Red was with the B. F. Goodrich Company for 29 years until his death in Washington in 1951. The booklet was sent to me by Henry Van Dyne who received it from an official of the B. F. Goodrich Company.

Eailier in November, Doc O'Connor presided at a five-day conference of the State Advisers of Women's Activities of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to prepare for the annual January March of Dimes campaign. Doc hailed the first successful prevention of paralytic poliomyelitis by the use of gamma globulin. "We have moved beyond the purely theoretical and into the sphere of human trials, said Doc "and find ourselves now on firm, solid ground." He warned the 150 women leaders who were present, however, against "generating false hopes that the disease is conquered. We do not as yet have a vaccine for polio," pointing out that gamma globulin appears to be effective only as a temporary preventive, and that it is not in sufficient supply to give "even temporary protection to the 46,000,000 children and adolescents who are in the age group most susceptible to poliomyelitis."

Changes of address: Joseph L. Richards, Box 74, Harvard, Mass.; Barrow Lyons, 130 Eleventh Street S. E„ Washington 3, D C

Apparently, from the Dartmouth Club (New York) News, Cliff Sugatt was the only classmate who attended the Club's mid-November cocktail party.

Another classmate who appears in the latest edition of Who's Who in America, is HoraceEugene (Cap) Allen, one of the outstanding lawyers of Massachusetts, who has practiced law in Springfield, Mass., since graduating with my class from Harvard Law School in 1915. Cap was born at Swanton, Vt., July 10, 1890, the Son of Clarence Eugene and Minerva Saxe Drury Allen. With an AB degree from Dartmouth with our class, he received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School with the Class of 1915. On July 13, 1918, he married Mary Frances Ballantine. His children are Hortense Ballantine (Mrs. Warren F. Walker Jr.), Richard Ballantine, Nancy Ballantine (Mrs. Paul D. Hubbe). I remember in the fall of 1940 a letter from my boy Kim (who was killed as a Navy flyer in the fall of 1942) saying that across the hall from him lived the son of a classmate of mine, Cap Allen. As I recall it, this boy Dick has received a graduate degree in either chemistry or physics, and is a brain as was his old man. Cap was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar on his graduation from Harvard Law School, and since 1923 has been the senior partner of Allen, Yerrall & Appleton, the leading law firm of Springfield. He is a director of several corporations, and since 1947 has been a member of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners. He is also a Trustee of the Horace Smith Fund. In World War I he served as First Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps. He is a member of the American Bar Association, of which he served in the House of Delegates for four years, and the Massachusetts State and Boston Bar Associations. In 1947-48 he was a member of the Conference of Bar Examiners; is, as might be expected, a Republican; is a Congregationalist, having been Clerk of his church since 1923, and following my recollections with him as a member of the Outing Club, he now belongs to the Appalachian Mountain Club. Cap is one of the many member of our class of whom we can feel proud for his contributions to his profession and his community.

Secretary, 120 Broadway, New York 5, N. Y. Treasurer, 4 Bank Building, Middleboro, Mass.