Some aphorisms on research and writing.

When Dr. Giebisch called to ask me to speak at this dinner celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Salt and Water Club, I violated a long standing principle. I said yes immediately over the phone, rather than giving his offer the mature consideration it deserved. After-dinner speaking is definitely not my forte. Then when Dr. Levitin called to reinforce the invitation, I asked him what I should talk about. His reply, "About 30 minutes," was no help to me in my dilemma. However, I do consider Dr. Giebisch's and Dr. Levitin's offer to speak as a signal honor. Most of you know that I was never allowed to be a party to the deliberations of this august body. Presumably as a Departmental Chairman I would have dominated your discussions and inhibited the free expressions of younger men. But at least after 20 years you have mellowed to the point where you will tolerate a garrulous old man as long as he has a specified time limit. I shall certainly not exceed my limit. We all share a common interest in two types of activities: biomedical research and writing, namely the reporting of the results of our investigations to our colleagues and to the broader scientific public. I have now been in laboratory research for 40 years. Perhaps these 40 years, which began during the second year of my Ph.D. studies and continued throughout my medical training to the present, give me license to discuss from experience these two mutual interests. In considering a title, I finally settled on "Aphorisms on Research and Writing" as a mechanism of sharing my thoughts with you. Aphorism is not the most appropriate word. An aphorism is a short, pithy maxim. A maxim is a generally accepted truth. I doubt that all of you will accept my thoughts as truth. In fact, I'd prefer you would not; instead I'd rather needle you a bit. My first aphorism is related to selection of a problem area, i.e., the subject matter that will occupy an investigator's interest for several years. My advice is to pick an area in which there is no, or at least little current research activity. Why? There are several reasons. The investigator will have free rein to develop his ideas without pressure to publish to establish priority. He will have no competition; he can take his time for a careful ex-* Professor of …