Throughout my career--in fact, since my early adolescence--I have been fascinated by the history and sociology of science. Indeed, it's quite likely that a book my uncle gave to me at the end of my freshman year in high school--John D. Bernal's The Social Function of Science--was the spark that ignited my incipient interest in research and influenced my eventual decision to make a career for myself in the science community.
As a Columbia University undergraduate, I wrote a paper on biblical treatments of medical problems; later, as a young chemist at Johns Hopkins University--where my investigations of information retrieval were launched--I worked under Sanford V. Larkey, a physician-librarian with an abiding interest in Elizabethan medicine; and at the Institute for the History of Medicine, I met scholars like Richard H. Shryock, the "dean" of American medical history.
Chauncey D. Leake--pharmacologist, dean, medical historian, and one of the leading mentors ...
