Virginia to her sons at Gettysburg and General Robert Lee

Prof. Pan and his lovely wife took us to take a quick tour to see Gettysburg Battle Field that we last visited more than 30 years ago, memory of which has since faded.

We lingered at the statue of “Virginia to her sons at Gettysburg” for a while.  Lee ordered the retreat on the night of July 4, 1863 during a heavy rain, telling one of his colonels, “This has been a sad day, but we cannot expect always to gain victories.”  Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had twice routed the Army of the Potomac during the seven months prior to that fateful day of now known as the Gettysburg Battle.

Prof. Pan took us along the route the Lee’s army retreated (now Route 30).  Prof. Pan also showed us the spot where the Army of Northern Virginia assembled the night before the battle began.

It was said the retreating Lee’s army burnt Chambersburg while retreating toward Potomac.  Two-third of Chambersburg was indeed burnt by Confederate army, but it happened one year (July 1864) after the Gettysburg Battle.  Confederate General Early staged a raid to Washington, although they didn’t take Washington but they “scared Abe Lincoln like hell.”  It was said that Lincoln actually came out to see this battle.

While passing through Chambersburg, General Early demanded a payment of “$100,000 in gold or $500,000 in greenbacks”.  When the citizens couldn’t “scrape together any such amount of money,” the town was burnt.

Lincoln asked Francis Blair, Sr. to talk to Robert Lee, asking him to take the command of the Army of Potomac; Lee declined. Lee wrote to General Scott, “Save in the defense of my native States I never again desire to draw my sword. . . . If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution) then I will still follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.” Lee basically said, “Regardless, if Virginia goes, I go!”

Before the Civil War broke out, Robert Lee’s family had been prominent in Virginia for 150 years.  Lee’s wife was the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington by her first husband. 

If the Civil War happened in Thomas Jefferson’s time.  Like Robert Lee, if “Virginia goes, I go”; Jefferson would go, too; this much I am sure.  In speaking of Virginia after retirement from the Presidency, he would say, “Virginia, my country!”  To Robert Lee, Virginia was his country.

The roles the body organs play in Chinese and Western literature

Mei-Yu and Charles showed me some examples of the beautiful exaggeration in Chinese literature and that stirred my interest in writing this post.

Bone

没有骨氣 is the same as “spineless”, referring to someone who has no moral character.

Bones are often used to refer to soldiers perished in battle in Chinese and Western literature alike.  It is fitting to read the line of “And those that leave their valiant bones in France” (in Act 4 Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Henry V) on D-Day.

隴西行 陳陶

誓掃匈奴不顧身，五千貂錦喪胡塵。

可憐無定河邊骨，猶是春閨夢裡人。

 (So sad/pitiful is that the bones scattered along the River Wu-Ding are still the Prince Charming in the dream of a fair lady in her romantic bed chamber.)

一將功成萬骨枯 (for one general to achieve fame, ten thousand skeletons must lie exposed.)

天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨 (If Heaven wants to assign great hard work to one, it will put utmost stress and burden to one’s body and mind.)

Heart

Dr. William Harvey was the one first described correctly the heart and circulation not even 400 years ago; that is why most of the uses of 心 are not correct physiologically, such as  用心, 小心, 細心,  粗心大意 , 勞心, 傷心 all of these are function of the brain. 

感時花濺淚，恨別鳥驚心 (by 杜甫), which is about 1,000 years before Harvey discovered the heart being the center of circulation.

We even throw in a liver (肝) to the heart (心), when call someone lacking conscience,  沒心肝.   Combination of heart and liver is at times of importance, you are my 心肝寶貝 (you’re my heart’s  

desire), not 心寶貝.

I never know it is 心花怒放 or 心發怒放, but I know it is exalted, burst with joy, rapture or even ecstasy.

I don’t know when or how heart and love are associated; the heart shape must have come from the shape of the “heart”.

When one has a heavy heart, one does feel heavy in the area one’s heart is located.

Teeth

咬牙切齒 is “gnashing one’s teeth”, displaying extreme anger.

Upon taking the duty of the prime minister, Churchill said, “I received in so full a measure from my colleagues the authority necessary to give a unified direction. . . This was accomplished in teeth of the air attacks.”  In teeth of the air attack is in defiance of the London Blitz, taking it as it came. London can take it.

Bile

“Having bile” (有膽量) in Chinese means “courageous”.  We got it wrong as far as the bile function is concerned.  When we eat fat, bile is released and that is the first step of fat digestion, which is mechanical, not yet chemical; no enzymes involved yet.

So scared that one “ruptures the gall bladder” (驚得破膽) is really scared to death.

Combined use of two organs makes a good emphasis

Combined use of two organs makes a good emphasis, examples abound, the likes of  心驚膽顫 (frightening, fearful, nerve-racking, scared), 心惊肉跳 (palpitation due to anxiety and fear; trepidation in face of danger), 赤膽忠心 (wholehearted loyalty).

肝膽相照 is showing the deepest sincerity and candor to each other. It is a good idiom considering the interrelationship between the liver (肝) and the gall bladder (膽) anatomically and functionally.

Shakespeare also didn’t get it right when he wrote in The Comedy of Errors,

“Lest it make you choleric”.  Chole is bile in Latin; choleric means hot-tempered, irascible or easily irritable.

Spleen

East and West got the spleen (脾) wrong in the same way.

We say “發脾氣” (exasperated, got upset), and that is exactly the way Charles Dickens and Shakespeare interpreted the function of the spleen (脾).

In a letter to Maria Beadell (his first love), Charles Dickens wrote,

“I shall be the mark at which all the anger and spleen will be directed--and I shall take it very quietly, for whatever she may say I shall positively decline to enter into any further controversy with her.”

Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar uses the spleen to describe Cassius' irritable nature.

Must I observe you? must I stand and crouch

 Under your testy humour? By the gods

 You shall digest the venom of your spleen,

Brain

“ 絞盡腦汁 用腦筋 洗腦” are, I am sure, relatively modern as they got the physiology right.

Kidney

The traditional Chinese medicine says 腎虧 is impotency; kidney (腎) is of course, innocent to get this blame.

Stomach, intestine or bowel

Charles said “historically, food is a paramount necessity since ancient China 民以食為天” thus we see, not surprisingly, many literary use of the digestive organs.  Napoleon also said, “An army marches on its stomach”, though.

When England stood alone in facing the mighty Nazi Germany, Churchill wrote like a Chinese, obsessed with their digestive tract (stomach and bowel), “But this mortal danger to our life-lines gnawed my bowels.”

Chinese do have many terms and idioms related to the digestive tract: 胃口大開, 開胃, and 笑破肚皮 are just a few examples.  Then again Chinese may not be the only one obsessed with their digestive tract.

We read in a D.H. Lawrence’s letter, “. . . but my stomach, my stomach, it has a bad habit of turning a complete somersault when it finds itself in the wrong element, like a dolphin in the air.”

The Saint Crispin’s Day speech by Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt is the best “pep talk” to rally the troop; we heard,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart. His passport shall be made,

While the Armada was still off the coasts of England Queen Elizabeth I reviewed the army at Tilbury and addressed them; the followings are among the stirring words we heard,

“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, . . .”

It was said the literary use of our organ systems reflects our understanding of physiology at the time when the use began.  I myself am not too convinced that was the case; otherwise we got more physiology wrong than the western literary world.  Cheng [our friend] said Chinese are more imaginative and romantic whereas the western literature is more realistic.

Su Tungpo had a penchant of using “斷腸” (“ruptured intestines”) describes extreme sadness or sorrow

臨江仙（送王緘）

忘卻成都來十載，因君未免思量。憑將清淚洒江陽。故山知好在，孤客自悲涼。

坐上別愁君未見，歸來欲斷無腸。殷勤且更盡離觴。此身如傳舍，何處是吾鄉。

臨江仙

冬夜夜寒冰合井，畫堂明月侵幃。青缸明滅照悲啼。青缸挑欲盡，粉淚還垂。

未盡一尊先掩淚，歌聲半帶清悲。情聲兩盡莫相違。欲知腸斷處，樑上暗塵飛

鷓鴣天

笑捻紅梅翠翹。揚州十裡最嬌饒。夜來綺席親曾見，撮得精神滴滴嬌。

嬌後眼，舞時腰。劉郎幾度欲魂消。明朝酒醒知何處，腸斷雲間紫玉簫。

浣溪沙

縹緲紅妝照淺溪。薄雲疏雨不成泥。送君何處古台西。

廢沼夜來秋水滿，茂林深處晚鶯啼。行人腸斷草淒迷。

天仙子

走馬探花花發末。人與化工俱不易。千回來繞百回看，蜂作婢。鶯為使。谷雨清明空屈指。

白發盧郎情未已。一夜翦刀收玉蕊。尊前還對斷腸紅，人有淚。花無意。明日酒醒應滿地。

We also read 「雲雨巫山枉斷腸」in 李白的「清平調」

The movie “D-Day the Sixth of June” is “六月六日斷腸時”.

柔腸寸斷 depicts the deepest sorrow that is almost unbearable.  Charles said “ 斷腸比傷心更傷心”, I couldn’t agree more.

Even Lin Yutang (who is 滿肚子學問) wrote,

“A thinker's writing consists of borrowings from idea in his own intestines, and the greater thinker a man is, the more he depends on his own intestinal juice.”

vein

I never figure out why “vein”, instead of “artery”, is used in western literary language.

When John Adams went to London as the American Ambassador.  Knowing his ancestors were from England, the British asked about his British ancestors, Adams responded saying his father was an American, his grandfather was an American and “I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.”

Churchill once wrote his encounter with the wife of Ribbentrop before the war broke out.

“At one time I came in contact with Frau von Ribbentrop, and in valedictory vein I said, ‘I hope England and Germany will preserve their friendship.’ ‘Be careful you don't spoil it,’ was her graceful rejoinder.”

Shakespeare’s knowledge of physiology

In Shakespeare’s time, it was believed that human nature was governed by four fluids called ‘humours’: blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholy), yellow bile (choleric), and phlegm (phlegmatic).  Out of balance among these humours are responsible for the change of temperament (complexion).

sanguine 
Sanguineus in Latin is blood, thus sanguine complexion is having a healthy, red color; it is naturally cheerful or hopeful. The 30-year War of Roses were actually the Civil War of England fought between the two branches of the same family (House of York and House of Lancaster) between 1455 and 1485. In the Temple Garden scene of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, the contending factions pluck red (Lancaster) and white (York) rose to choose side. Shakespeare might be the one to blame to link the exquisitely beautiful rose to the war.

Basset to King, of the red rose of Lancaster:
Crossing the sea from England into France,
This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,
Saying the sanguine color of the leaves.
                Part 1 Henry VI Act 4 Scene 1

melancholy 
Melanos in Latin is black, thus melancholic is ‘black bile’, which is due to higher bilirubin concentration, leading to gloomy mood, ill-temper or sullenness for sure. King John to Hubert: if that surly spirit, melancholy, / Had baked thy blood.

phlegmatic 
Phlegm in Latin means sputum, cold and moist, phlegm is supposed to cause sluggishness; thus phlegmatic means sluggish bordered on indifference. We read “I beseech you be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it” in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In The Riverside Shakespeare, it was explained that Shakespeare’s use of ‘phlegmatic’ here is a blunder, he meant to use ‘choleric’ (angry).  Shakespeare might have mixed up with the physiology of his days!

choleric (this was mentioned above)

buttock (屁股)

There is no better organ than buttock (屁股)—at the end of our body—to end this post.  This idiom is unique to the vernacular Taiwanese.

If one cannot answer so easy a question, the questioner would say, “you can get the answer just thinking with your buttock” (“用屁股想”,of course, Taiwanese said “用Ka-Tseng 想”).  That is to say the question is so easy; one doesn’t have to use brain (用腦) or even heart (用心) to think.

Buttocks may be “in good shape”; but they’re always treated disparagingly and unfairly, “用屁股想” for the simple, easy question is to belittle 屁股, 放屁 (to say something untrue, irrelevant or stupid) is to treat the 屁股 (buttock) with contempt.  I am hoping you do not think this writing is a “屁股文章”.

Super Bowl LI: The anatomy of a game

Why am I writing this post when the Bostonians are probably no longer walking with halos above their heads?  There is no good sport writing unless there is a good game.  This is why sport writers love Super Bowl LI.

天將降大任於斯人也，必先苦其心志，勞其筋骨

What Mencius (孟子) said is that if the Heaven is about to place a great hard work on Tom Brady, it would put the utmost stress, frustration and burden to his mind and body.  This was what happened to the first half of the game or even toward the end of the third quarter, as the Patriots was still trailing at 3-28 with 2:06 left in 3Q.

Sport writing of a good game also let you relish the moment of glory and ecstasy one more time especially if you’re the Patriots fans.  Generations from now people will still talk about this game embodying the greatest come back or the greatest collapse depending which team you root.

Having two daughters at Boston and visiting the Beantown every so often I naturally root for Red Sox and Patriots, even though the latter deprived the Steelers the chance of going to Super Bowl this year, but we had good reason to blame ourselves.

Falcons QB Matt Ryan is the player to watch and to admire

But I was not too disappointed when the Atlanta Falcons appeared on the way to clinch the Super Bowl champion, as they are well deserved.  During the Division championship game with Seattle Seahawks, the Falcons fans at Georgia Dome chanted “M.V.P, M.V. P.” during the 4Q, as its quarterback Matt Ryan completed 26 of his 37 passes with 3 touchdowns and zero interceptions.

The last game at Georgia Dome (Atlanta Falcons will showcase their new $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium next season) was to host Green Bay Packers for the NFC championship and the Falcons was once leading 31 to 0.

Matt Ryan was indeed honored with the NFL MVP award as well as the Offensive Player of the Year award the day before the Super Bowl.  Ryan’s success came from the hard work; he spent last summer honing his throwing skill in a Los Angeles training camp.  Being 6 feet 5 inches, he has a good wide view of the battle field to match his strong and accurate arm.

Richard Feynman liked to say how he was impressed by meeting great scientists in his own field, under circumstance when he knew so well the reason of their greatness.  So if you know the reason of the greatness of the quarterbacks, the likes of Matt Ryan, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rogers, and Russell Wilson, you will be more impressed.

You will see and hear about Matt Ryan more and more next season, take my words.

Divine intervention

A quarterback cannot win a game alone, even if he is Tom Brady, who has had amassed five Super Bowl rings.  With 2:03 left in 4Q, the Patriots Julian Edelman made a dramatic catch fighting with two wild falcons around (the video review confirmed the ball indeed never touch the ground—see photo on right).

I think the turning point is the moment when with 8:24 left in 4Q Patriots forced a fumbled from Falcons, even though with 5:56 left in 4Q Patriots still trailed at 12-28, at which time Patriots had a touchdown and a two point conversion.  It is now 20-28.  All hope was not lost.

During the coin throw for the Overtime, the Patriots picked the head and got the ball and managed to engineer a dramatic touchdown, causing “sudden death” of the Falcons.

These are all signs of “divine intervention”.  I normally cannot tolerate superstition or even un-scientific thinking.  But with so many “improbable” games in sports, I think divine intervention is the only explanation. 

I am not alone or original in this thinking.  In 1986 when the Harvard professor, Dudley Herschbach, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry (with whom Prof. Yuan-Tseh Lee shared the prize).  Prof. Herschbach wore a Red Sox cap to the press conference and all he wanted to talk was Red Sox and baseball and he said “divine intervention” was at play.

The Overtime rule needs to be changed to be fair to all parties, and not subject to divine intervention

As we know flipping the coin at the beginning of the game has no or little impact to it.  But flipping the coin for the Overtime is a very big deal.  The current rule ensures the team (that didn’t get the ball initially) will have a chance to get the ball unless the team (that got the ball, Patriots in this case) had a touchdown, causing the sudden death of Falcons, who never had a chance for the offence in Overtime—the very strength of Falcons, recall Matt Ryan was voted the NFL Offence Player of the Year.

This unfair rule deprived the more than 110 million viewers watching the final offence by the best NFL Offence Player of the Year.  It is ironic, isn’t it?

The kicker’s miss set up the high drama

With 2:06 left in 3Q, Patriots still trailed at 3-28, at which time Patriots had a touchdown, but the kicker (Gostkowski) missed the extra point kick.  This ‘improbable’ miss set up the stage of high drama for Tom Brady to engineer two touchdowns with two two-point conversions to tie the game with 57 seconds left in the game (4Q), a feat rarely achieved by any quarterback.

The commentator said this is the 5^th time Gostkowski has missed the extra point kick, insinuating he is no good this season, but to be fair the commentator should have said the percentage of the failure of his kicks, as missing 5 in 10 is different from missing 5 in 50; sports are all about statistics as you know.

With 5:56 left in 4Q, the Patriots still trailed at 12-28, at which time they had a touchdown with 2-point conversion, bring the score to 20-28.  Then with 57 seconds left they repeat the same feat to tie the game 28-28.  So the two touchdowns with two two-point conversions were achieved in less than 5 minutes.

The breathtaking Belichick-Brady pair

Since 2002 Patriots have gone to Super Bowl seven times and won five of them (the only two defeats were all handed by NY Giants) and these were done by the breathtaking Belichick-Brady pair.

Prior to this Super Bowl they never came back to win with more than 10 points deficits, and they never let the opponents score more than 24 points except in 2004 the Panthers scored 29 points, but they beat it with 32 points.  So when they’re still trailing 3-28 with 2:6 left in 3Q, they must be thinking this is it; this will be the year to do us in.  In fact, Brady said “hard to imagine us win” after the game.

We’re here to make you feel good

Provided we cannot measure the degree of happiness and treat all happiness (whether a little bit happy or ecstatic) the same, then the Atlanta Falcons fans were all happy, screaming, or laughing throughout the game until the last six minutes when Patriots had a touchdown to make it 20-28 or the last eight minutes when the Falcons fumbled.

Lady Gaga said “We are here to make you feel good”; that is why we went to the Stadium or like hundreds of millions watching TV or streaming.  We want to be entertained to feel good.  The Falcons fans shouldn’t complain as they felt good almost the entire game until the last moment.

Unfortunately one cannot be happy unless one wins the game.  When Red Sox was beaten again in the 1986 World Series (they last won the World Series in 1918), a Harvard professor, director of expository writing program, who wrote a biography of Thomas More (My mind was with Thomas More when I visited The Tower of London), who said he rode his bicycle around Cambridge for hours to try to dispel his desolation.

Lady Gaga is another winner

I was never a big fan for Lady Gaga and was disappointed when I heard that Lady Gaga will perform the Super Bowl Halftime show.  But based on what I saw, what she sang, said and danced; it is all glamor and glitter.  A spectacle.  I am sold.  I previously wonder why I was falling so far behind the mainstay popular culture, then I realized I only read about Lady Gaga and never saw her performance.

She sang God Blessed America, This Land is Your Land and said “one nation indivisible”, very appropriate given the divisive political climate.

My personal solute to the owner of the Atlanta Falcons owner, Arthur Blank

When the Home Depot co-founder, Arthur Blank, retired at age of 58 in 2001, he needed to find a way to do away with billions of fortune.  He paid $545 million to own Atlanta Falcons and has been working tirelessly to make the fans feel good.

Arthur Blank with his wife on field

He said “I want to create an organization Atlanta is proud of.  I see the joy the team brings to the community when we win.  It does make me happy.” The Falcons’ next season will open the game at the new $1.5 billion Mercedes Benz Stadium.  Blank also spent lots of money and resource trying to improve the run-down neighborhood next to the stadium.  It was said Blank has “an insatiable desire to succeed”; I wish him well.  The new stadium will host the 2019 Super Bowl.  I have a bold prediction: it will be Steelers vs. Falcons.

Toward the end of game I saw Blank, with his lovely wife at his side, standing at the edge of the field.  I think he was probably too excited, wanting to be close to his players when they clinch the Lombardi Trophy.  What a disappointment for such a nice guy.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is also the big loser

Winning this Super Bowl is a sweet revenge for Patriots fans

Roger Goodell

against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who suspended Brady for four games for his alleged role in the so-called Deflategate scandal.  During the postgame ceremony and Brady’s MVP award ceremony next day, the Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, Belichick, Brady never said anything un-nice, but practically ignored Goodell.  The displeasure was not voiced, but the actions spoke volumes.

I read some ESPN reporters are writing a book (Powerball) detailing the enormous power struggles among the powerful and wealthy owners of NFL teams.  To be the NFL commissioner is not an easy task.  Goodell is a graduate of our local college, Washington and Jefferson College.

Dr. Emil Frei III and Dr. Emil Freireich and the conquer of the childhood leukemia: The incomparable pair

Of the many books and ebook Christmas gifts I received this year, one is a Kindle ebook (The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis), which is a story of the friendship and collaboration between two Israel psychologists, about whom I knew nothing before receiving this gift.  I must have talked about the collaboration and the friendship between two scientists all the time, as my daughters told me that was the reason why the ebook was chosen.

I never tired of telling the stories of James Watson and Francis Crick, Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein (LDL receptor), Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn (nuclear fission and the gender discrimination of Nobel Prize).

Fathers of combination chemotherapy and the conquer of childhood leukemia

The focus of this post is about the story of the fathers of combination cancer chemotherapy and the conquer of the childhood leukemia.  It is less well known to the general public, but no less important or impact to the clinical medicine.

It is a story of the two “near-namesakes” physicians.

Dr. Emil Frei III

Dr. Emil Freireich

‘Personal connection’ to a medical giant

I am writing this with reverence as well as “affection”, as we have a slight ‘personal’ connection to Dr. Emil Frei, who is the uncle of one of our best friends in Waynesburg.  We heard the first-hand stories about him from time to time until his passing in 2013.  Dr. Emil Freireich, ages 89, is still at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Through our friend’s kind consideration and arrangement, Janice, during her freshman year in Boston, was fortunate to be invited to a party in Dr. and Mrs. Frei’s home, at which time Dr. Frei was the Director of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. 

Janice was overwhelmed by the cordial, friendly and intellectual gathering.  She said, without knowing his profession, one would guess Dr. Frei is a musician.

The birth of combination chemotherapy

Up to early 1950s the childhood leukemia is always fatal.  Dr. Sidney Farber (the founder of Dana Farber Cancer Institute) was considered the father of modern chemotherapy.  His article, using amniopterin (an anti-folic acid agent) to treat leukemia, at NEJM in 1948, was made with ridicule.

The response to the single agent chemotherapy was very temporary and dismal.  The breakthrough came from the idea of combination chemotherapy that was pioneered by Dr. Frei and Dr. Freireich in mid-1950s.  By 1965, the invariably fatal childhood leukemia had achieved the long term survival of 40%.  It is now more than 80%.

Even Dr. William Dameshek, the opinionated Harvard-trained hematologist and one of the most prominent early opponents, was convinced and wrote, “The mood among pediatric oncologists changed virtually overnight from one of ‘compassionate fatalism’ to one of ‘aggressive optimism’.”

The “butcher shop” and the “meat market”

However the road was not easy and smooth; to administer multiple toxic drugs to a very fragile and sick child was considered insane and cruel by many.  For a while the leukemia ward at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) was dubbed as “butcher shop”. 

In his “The Death of Cancer”, Dr. Vincent DeVita had a candid and vivid description of what Dr. Frie and Freireich had to endure.  The medical community was scandalized.  When the two doctors talked in the Grand Round at the National Cancer Institute, it was a verbal bloodbath.  Some of the doctors in the audience would scream out loud, “This is meat market!  What a butcher shop!”

Without the resilience and perseverance of Dr. Frei and Freireich, the fruit of the sweet success cannot be born.

The complementary and synergistic relationship

The two doctors arrived at NCI almost the same time; Dr. Frei a few months earlier. In an interview Dr. Freireich recalled how they first met at NCI.  It was Dr. Freireich reporting to NCI.

“I looked up; I was looking at the name of the doors. It was rows of rooms. Twelve---said, Emil Frei III. ‘Damn! It's government typical government stuff--cannot even spell my name!’ So I walked into this room. And here is this tall, skinny guy with no hair.  So I said ‘Sir! Dr. Zubrod told me this was my office.  You're in my office. ’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? This is my office! What's your name? ’ So that's how Frei and Freireich met the first time.  He said ‘You got the wrong number: You're next door. ’ It actually was next door. . .. so we've been friends from April 10, 1955 to this day--friends and intellectual collaborators.  I have very high regard for Emil Frei III, and we really fought the war there in the clinical center.”

These two intellectuals didn’t share the same personality.  Dr. Freireich was as aggressive and impulsive as Dr. Frei was calm and serene.  Their personal and professional relationship was complementary and synergistic.  Many doctors at NCI wondered they both were maniacs or geniuses in those days of trial and tribulation, though.

In his “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee said of Dr. Frei, “He was charming, soft-spoken and careful. To watch him manage critically ill children and their testy, nervous parents was to watch a champion swimmer glide through water—so adept in the art that he made artistry vanish.”

After the passing of Dr. Frei in 2013, Dr. Freireich reminisced, “It turned out my office was next door, and Tom and I became friends and colleagues then and for the rest of our lives.  He provided administrative and psychological leadership and served as a buffer for me at NCI. He was the perfect person to lead programs that innovate.”  Dr. Freireich also pointed out that Dr. Frei had saved him from being fired three times. It has been known within NCI that Frei’s job was to keep Freireich from getting in trouble.

Dr. Emil Freireich

“I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood.” is how James Watson began his Double Helix.  Dr. Frei once quipped, “I have never seen Freireich in a moderate mood” along the same line.

Dr. Frei left NCI for MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1965; Dr. Freireich followed him there shortly thereafter and never left.  Dr. Frei then moved to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 1972 and took over as the director when Dr. Farber died in 1973.  No one would argue that Dr. Frei was the one who made NCI, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of what they are today.  His administrative skill and leadership matches his medical prowess and innovation.

A friend recalled Dr. Frei used to say, “We’re here to move the field.”  That was his mantra.

A great doctor and a great man

Dr. Frei, known to his colleagues, family, and friends as Tom, was optimistic, kind, generous and supportive, a great educator, training generation of first-rate oncologists.  One of them is Dr. Vincent DeVita, who also shared the 1972 Lasker Award with Dr. Frei and Dr. Freireich.  He was a favorite of young cancer patients in Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic when he dressed up as Big Bird or Darth Vader for parties. “His sense of humor is legendary at Dana-Farber.”

In Dr. Frei’s obituary of Oncology Times, I read,

“Frei and Freireich used the same approach for Hodgkin lymphoma, also making it curable in many instances,. . .”

This is not quite correct; it was Dr. Vincent DeVita who used combination chemotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma (for which he had the honor to share Lasker Award), not Dr. Frei or Dr. Freieich.

Dr. Emil Frei and Edward Kennedy Jr.

Dr. Frei’s most famous patient, Edward Kennedy, Jr.

While at Dana-Farber he turned his research to osteogenic sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  Famous physician tends to have famous patient, no exception for Dr. Frei.  In 1973 Edward Kennedy Jr., then aged 12 lost a leg to osteosarcoma.  He underwent intensive chemotherapy for two years.  In NY Times obituary of Dr. Frei, we read of what Edward Kennedy Jr. said, “I honestly believe that Dr. Frei saved my life. My father obviously had incredible resources in terms of being able to identify the most capable people. And of all the people in the world, he asked Dr. Frei to take care of me.”

Dr. David Ho: 1996 Man of the Year

Combination chemotherapy is a revolutionary concept

Recall 1996 Time’s Man of the Year, Dr. David Ho (who was born in Taiwan) who pioneers combination anti-retroviral therapy that helped lifting a death sentence for HIV patients.

The concept of combination chemotherapy that Dr. Frei and Dr. Freireich pioneered not only benefited leukemia patients, it also opened the paths to much more successful combination chemotherapies for other type of cancers.  The field was moved, indeed.