We invited Dr. Sporn to respond to this letter, and he replied as follows: "Dr. Barchilon is indeed correct in his critique, though his statement that 'writer Jennifer Durgin got it wrong' has no basis in fact. She did a superb job on the article. I am sure she quoted my esteemed colleague Gordon Gribble accurately, though I have no recollection of ever talking with him about sequoias.

"This was a well-thought-out project from the start, not just serendipity. Natural triterpenoids have long been known to be useful medicinal substances. What got us started in 1995 was a gift of some oleanolic acid from a scientific friend at Rutgers. I started reading about triterpenoids and found that there are dozens of medicinal plants in use in Asia that have triterpenoids as their active ingredients. The new twist we added was to take a weak, natural medicinal agent (oleanolic acid) and modify it with the skills of excellent organic chemists like Gordon Gribble and Tadashi Honda to make much more potent agents. This is a classic approach in pharmacology. Maybe, indeed, I did say something 12 years ago about sequoia trees, but we had a much better rationale than that—we knew before we began that natural triterpenoids are significant medicinal agents.

"I appreciate the opportunity to explain this point."

Not even six degrees
I greatly enjoyed the Editor's Note ("The butterfly effect") in the Winter 2006 issue. The description of Dean Strickler's many contributions to international medicine, and of the influence on him of the Great Issues course instituted by President John Sloan Dickey, was very interesting.

I would like to point out that the "Dartmouth effect" is even more profound than indicated in the essay. Edward Norton Lorenz [who first applied the butterfly effect to the scientific realm] graduated with a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938. He attempted to predict the weather for the D-Day invasion in June 1944 and developed the field of chaos theory.

John D. Bullock, M.D., M.P.H.
DC '65, DMS '66
Kettering, Ohio

The subject of this Winter 2006 feature—Dr. Michael Sporn, pictured above—responds below to a reader's question about the origin of his research interest.

Make that the "Ed" Note
I enjoyed the reference to Edward Lorenz in the Winter Editor's Note. Long ago, I climbed Tripyramid in Waterville Valley with him. This was before his work on chaos theory—and before I had angina, for which I had a quadruple bypass about 18 years ago. I think the bypass may be the greatest find of the 20th century. One medical question still unsolved is the cause of cancer. I think researchers should look more closely at resonant energy exchange as a possibility.

Rowland B. French, M.D.
DC '41, DMS '42
Eastport, Maine

Round the girdled earth
Your Winter 2006 issue was outstanding. I especially enjoyed the Editor's Note on Jim Strickler—a brilliant, concerned physician. I had the good fortune to work with him at the community clinic at Alice Peck Day Hospital in Lebanon, N.H. His work in global health is particularly inspiring. Thank you for highlighting this unusual and caring physician.

John Radebaugh, M.D.
Falmouth, Maine

Radebaugh is an associate professor emeritus of community and family medicine at DMS.

More snaps for Strickler
I thought the article on the history of Dartmouth Medicine in the Winter 2006 issue was superb. And having it in the same issue with the Editor's Note about Jim Strickler's impact on DMS made it even more powerful, at least for me. I'm one of Jim's greatest admirers, not only because of what he did for DMS but also because of his work in the international health arena since leaving the deanship.

It was during his time as dean of the Medical School, in the mid-1970s, that we launched an independent (of the College) alumni program, annual fund, and alumni magazine—all at the same time. The M.D. program had just been reinstituted and there'd been some criticism of it from alumni loyal to the twoyear program that had been in place for the preceding 60 years, and even from some faculty. But most of them just weren't aware of changes in medical education that had made the two-year program essentially obsolete, and a magazine would give us a chance to make our case.

But in the climate of those times, the decision to support and fund a magazine was an act of courage on Jim's part. Money was exceedingly tight back in those days, and spending some of the School's scarce funds on a magazine would, in essence, be giving critics a forum where they could air their disapproval. Fortunately, however, the critics were few and the love and loyalty that alumni had for their experiences at DMS simply astonished me.

It may sound like hyperbole today to call the establishment of the magazine a courageous act, but it truly was. Every reader who enjoys this magazine owes a debt of gratitude to Jim Strickler for getting it off the ground.

Barbara Blough
Hanover, N.H.

Blough doesn't come out and say so, but it was she who, as DMS's first director of alumni affairs in the mid-1970s, managed the simultaneous establishment of alumni relations and annual fund programs and of a magazine.

Another voice from DM's past
I spent some serious time last night with the Winter 2006 issue of Dartmouth Medicine. While I enjoy each issue, this one was of particular interest to me for two reasons:

1) The article about the magazine turning 30 brought back a lot of memories from my own involvement with it many moons ago. I have a great memory for details, and all those old covers reminded me of people and events during my time at DMS. Of all the covers I've put on publications over the past 30 years, I still