ABSTRACT
The early 1940s in New York City. Every morning a little before 9:00 A.M. a short, slight man of about 100 pounds, possessed of sparkling eyes and a bulky dome of a head and dressed impeccably in a suit and necktie, walks the few blocks from his 67th Street residence to the hospital at 66th Street and York Avenue. The hospital is one of four buildings comprising The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Reaching his office on the sixth floor he sheds his jacket and dons a laboratory coat before entering the small bacteriology laboratory adjacent to his office. The fusty odor of bacterial cultures is everywhere, the breath of the microbial world. Both rooms are neat and clean but lack the photographs, pictures, unused books, mementos, and other items that often adorn (and clutter) such workspaces (Figure 2.1). The austerity of these rooms reflects how much doctorturned-research-physician Oswald Avery has given up in all aspects
of his life for the sake of complete concentration on his chosen professional goals. He exemplifies what he calls “the inwardness of research.”1
