Speaker Abstracts

Editor of the Journal of General Physiology for almost 30 yr, from 1966 until 1995. During that time he became the de facto mentor to a generation of scientists through his demands for not just excellence but perfection! Under his stewardship, the Journal became renowned for the thoroughness of the editorial review received by all submitted manuscripts and the corresponding high quality of the papers that its authors were expected to deliver. Another characteristic that became ingrained in the Journal under Dr. Cranefield's editorship was fairness: fairness to the authors and fairness to the reviewers. Dr. Cranefield read and evaluated each manuscript, but he almost never made decisions based solely on his own opinion. If the two reviewers disagreed, or if he felt that one review of a manuscript was less than impartial, Dr. Cranefield invariably sought further independent advice. He expected each editorial review to be an intellectual masterpiece, and he enormously valued the judgment and advice of the Jour-nal's reviewers. Dr. Cranefield's editorial goal was to sustain the original mission of the Journal , which was founded in 1918 by Jacques Loeb and W.J.V. Osterhout to provide a forum for the publication of articles that dealt with basic physical, chemical or biological mechanisms of broad physiological significance. With that mission, the Journal aimed to redefine and broaden the scope of physiological research, which it accomplished. Major advances in understanding biology at the molecular level were published in the Journal , but the emphasis was invariably on function—on physiology. Dr. Cranefield was proud of that tradition , and he worked tirelessly to maintain and enhance the Journal as well as the scientific discipline it represents. We are all eternally grateful for his efforts on behalf of the community of physiologists. Dr. Cranefield was a true renaissance man. He made many important contributions to cardiac elec-trophysiology; among these was the monograph Electrophysiology of the Heart , published with coauthor Brian F. Hoffman in 1960, which for many years was a " citation classic. " In 1988, he and Hoffman received the Medal of the New York Academy of Medicine for their work that ushered in a " new era in cardiac physiology and pharmacol-ogy. " Dr. Cranefield was particularly interested in the genesis of cardiac arrythmias, about which he published two more books. For his work on the electrical activity of myocardial cells, he was awarded the Einthoven Medal from …