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Charles Mayo Goss, AB, MD, ScD: An Anatomist's Anatomist Dr. Charles Mayo Goss, who at 78 has been appointed Distinguished Professor of Anatomy at the University of South Alabama at Mobile, was the editor, over a period of 26 years, of the last five American editions of Gray's Anatomy: the 25th in 1948, 26th in 1954, 27th (Centennial) in 1959, 28th in 1966, and 29th in 1973, all published by Lea and Febiger of Philadelphia. Henry Gray, FRS, FRCS (18271861), entered St. George's Hospital, London, at the age of 18. He became a perpetual student and was described as "a most painstaking and methodical worker, and one who learned his anatomy by the slow but invaluable method of making dissections for himself." He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1852 at the early age of 25 and in the following year was awarded the Astley Cooper Prize of 300 guineas for a dissertation, On the Structure and Use of the Spleen. He died from an attack of smallpox at the early age of 34. Gray published the first edition of his classic Anatomy in 1858, when he was 31. He survived for the preparation of a second edition in 1860. The book was an instant success in which the excellent illustrations by his friend, Dr. H. Van Dyke Carter, contributed significantly. Henry Gray knew how to use simple words for accurate expression. As the book went through many editions, both in England and the United States, the best parts remained those written by Gray himself. Many years ago the present writer told his class in anatomy that the three finest examples of English prose were the St James version of the
(C/arlesIs lavo (;Goss, ll)D
Bible, Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and Gray's Anatomy. His purpose was to stimulate the interest of the students in accuracy and economy in the use of words and to place this great scientific text in a frame of reference with the other two. He said that Gray's Anatomy was a good book for any home library. Although our students were free to use any of the standard textbooks and all were listed in the outlines given them, the impression seemed to become established that Gray was preferred. This aroused the ire of the representatives of the publishers of the other standard texts. There is an understandable tendency on the part of revisers of standard texts to try to impress their own stamp upon their revisions. Not so with the
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 70, NO. 1, 1978
editions of Gray's Anatomy produced under "Chiz" Goss. He endeavored with great success to keep the full, simple flavor of Gray's own prose in the additions made from the accumulation of new knowledge. This derived as much from his own character as from his appreciation of the classic entrusted to his hands. Dr. Goss is a full-fledged son of the Midwest. He was born in Peoria, Illinois, February 16, 1899, where his father was a wholesale grocer with the James McCoy Company. His mother, Frances Mayo Goss, was from Sunny Side, near Peoria, where the family farm was located. He received his early education at the Franklin School in Peoria and attended the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, now Bradley University, for four years of academy training and one year of college. Here he had five years of Latin, two of Greek, two of German, and two of French. He described the courses as having been so good that he can still read all four languages when necessary. Thus, before leaving his native Peoria, he had a solid classical background which he was to develop and apply so abundantly in his later work. Dr. Goss then came East to Yale College from which he received the AB in 1921, and the following summer took a bicycle tour through England and France. After a year working the family farm at Sunny Side with his brother, Henry H. Goss, he returned to Yale, which awarded him the MD, cum laude, in 1926. Here he earned a Goodrich Scholarship of $500 for two years and the Parker Prize as the Senior "best suited for the practice of 57
medicine." He had already been elected to the Sigma Xi (honorary scientific) and the Alpha Omega Alpha (honorary medical) societies. Dr. Goss began his illustrious career at his alma mater in 1926, serving for three years as instructor in anatomy at Yale. He then spent nine years at Columbia University, the last seven as assistant professor of anatomy, when he was called to the University of Alabama where he was professor of anatomy and head of the Department from 1938 to 1947. He then moved to the Louisiana State University Medical School where he was professor of anatomy and head of the Department from 1947 to 1966. In the latter year Dr. Goss and his wife Josephine came to Washington where he served as visiting professor of anatomy at George Washington University Medical School. This temporary stay stretched into nine years until 1975. The richness of the teaching of this now full-blown and world-travelled anatomist was such that he received the Golden Apple Award of the Student American Medical Association for "excellence in teaching in the preclinical sciences" from the 1970 sophomore class at George Washington. The new University of South Alabama at Mobile has done itself great honor in its recent appointment of this world-renowned physician-scientist as Distinguished Professor of Anatomy. From the beginning of his teaching career of over a half century the multilateral abilities of "Chiz" Goss pushed him forward into ever expanding areas of contribution. He was associate editor of Bailey's Histology, published by the Williams & Wilkins Co. of Baltimore, for the 8th, 9th, and 10th editions, 1930-1940, and managing editor of the Anatomical Record for 20 years, 1948-1968. On the international front, Dr. Goss served in 1953 as a member of a team composed of Dr. M. E. Lapham, dean of Tulane Medical School, and Dr. R. S. Berson, assistant dean of Vanderbilt Medical School, to survey the medical schools of Bogota, Colombia, and make recommendations for their improvement. This service was requested by the National University of Bogota through the Institute of Inter-American Affairs. In 1960, Dr. Goss trained the professor of anatomy and other teachers to 58
become faculty of a new medical school in San Jose, Costa Rica. He visited there to help design the anatomy department in the new building and in 1961 gave the first lecture in the new school, remaining to teach six weeks. Dr. Goss' scientific papers comprise about 130 titles, including a number of reviews which reflect the broad scope of his competence. His researches were in histology, embryology, gross morphology, and the history of anatomy, each leading in natural sequence into the other. Dr. Goss was always one to begin at the beginning. As the cell is the unit of life, we find his earliest work subcellular, dealing with microdissections of cells. But life being dynamic, he was swiftly into ongoing development, embryology. The range of his titles shows his progressive involvement in the ramifying problems of development and embryonic physiology. But "Chiz" was never one to lose sight of the forest for the trees. In 1938 he was the first to describe the beginning of contraction in the heart of a living mammalian embryo (rat). But despite the pressures of increased responsibilities in teaching, research, graduate-student supervision, administration, and organizational committee work, as late as 1961 he presented a full-length motion picture film, The Heart in Living Rat Embryos, at the 74th annual session of the American Association of Anatomists. His interest in medical history, particularly that of anatomy, grew of itself, so that he travelled to all the historic medical sites in Magna Graecia and Europe. Presently he spoke as one with authority and not as the scribes. His lecture to our Howard University medical students on Galen, in his easy conversational tone, was fascinating. Effortlessly covering all that was known of the Great Pergamene and his impact, including all the moot points, he created a "you-are-there" experience. Naturally, Dr. Goss came to serve on important national and international scientific bodies such as the Review Panel for Research Grants in Anatomy of the National Institutes of Health, 1963-1965; the Committee for the Handbook of Biological Data of the National Research Council and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1949-1952; and as associate editor of the Federation Proceedings Translation Project (from Russian pub-
lications), 1962-1966. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Anatomists, 1947-1951, and in 1965 was elevated to the presidency of this organization. At his instigation and under his leadership the revision of terminology in histology and embryology was conducted by the International Committee on Anatomical Nomenclature. In 1968 he sponsored the initiation of the Henry Gray Award of the American Association of Anatomists which has since been given annually to an anatomist of distinction. The award consists of a citation and $1,000. Perhaps the initiation of this award by Dr. Goss well symbolizes his own modest and forthright character. In the numerous additions from his own pen which illuminate the five editions of Gray's Anatomy emanating from his stewardship, it is the stamp of Gray which he has sought to keep and in the award to perpetuate the name of the young author of one of the great scientific works in the English language. Since Dr. Goss is no longer associated with the publication of the book, but is an active anatomist, it is to be hoped that the Association will salute, with the Henry Gray Award, a man who would do it great honor. The intimacy of "Chiz" Goss' knowledge of human anatomy in all its detail and variation would make him a humanist of broad perception, but his warmth of personality could not be learned, and the latter completes the picture making him the "compleat anatomist." In his hobbies Dr. Goss exhibits the same artistry as in his writing, tinged with his quiet sense of humor. With his own hand he has fashioned perfect facsimiles of Gray's Anatomy which are really wooden boxes in which special items may be stored on library shelves. The possessors of these facsimiles have great latitude as to what they may choose to keep in them. Dr. Goss married Josephine Cowell in 1928. They have three daughters, Elizabeth Cowell (Mrs. Henry Chodkowski), Frances Mayo (Mrs. Luis J. Vergne), and Marianna Cowell (Mrs. B. L. Slaten). The thousands of students who have used the Goss editions of Gray contribute satisfaction to "Chiz" in their unconscious movement to the measure of his thought. W. Montague Cobb, MD
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 70, NO. 1, 1978
Charles Mayo Goss, AB, MD, ScD: An Anatomist's Anatomist Dr. Charles Mayo Goss, who at 78 has been appointed Distinguished Professor of Anatomy at the University of South Alabama at Mobile, was the editor, over a period of 26 years, of the last five American editions of Gray's Anatomy: the 25th in 1948, 26th in 1954, 27th (Centennial) in 1959, 28th in 1966, and 29th in 1973, all published by Lea and Febiger of Philadelphia. Henry Gray, FRS, FRCS (18271861), entered St. George's Hospital, London, at the age of 18. He became a perpetual student and was described as "a most painstaking and methodical worker, and one who learned his anatomy by the slow but invaluable method of making dissections for himself." He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1852 at the early age of 25 and in the following year was awarded the Astley Cooper Prize of 300 guineas for a dissertation, On the Structure and Use of the Spleen. He died from an attack of smallpox at the early age of 34. Gray published the first edition of his classic Anatomy in 1858, when he was 31. He survived for the preparation of a second edition in 1860. The book was an instant success in which the excellent illustrations by his friend, Dr. H. Van Dyke Carter, contributed significantly. Henry Gray knew how to use simple words for accurate expression. As the book went through many editions, both in England and the United States, the best parts remained those written by Gray himself. Many years ago the present writer told his class in anatomy that the three finest examples of English prose were the St James version of the
(C/arlesIs lavo (;Goss, ll)D
Bible, Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and Gray's Anatomy. His purpose was to stimulate the interest of the students in accuracy and economy in the use of words and to place this great scientific text in a frame of reference with the other two. He said that Gray's Anatomy was a good book for any home library. Although our students were free to use any of the standard textbooks and all were listed in the outlines given them, the impression seemed to become established that Gray was preferred. This aroused the ire of the representatives of the publishers of the other standard texts. There is an understandable tendency on the part of revisers of standard texts to try to impress their own stamp upon their revisions. Not so with the
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 70, NO. 1, 1978
editions of Gray's Anatomy produced under "Chiz" Goss. He endeavored with great success to keep the full, simple flavor of Gray's own prose in the additions made from the accumulation of new knowledge. This derived as much from his own character as from his appreciation of the classic entrusted to his hands. Dr. Goss is a full-fledged son of the Midwest. He was born in Peoria, Illinois, February 16, 1899, where his father was a wholesale grocer with the James McCoy Company. His mother, Frances Mayo Goss, was from Sunny Side, near Peoria, where the family farm was located. He received his early education at the Franklin School in Peoria and attended the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, now Bradley University, for four years of academy training and one year of college. Here he had five years of Latin, two of Greek, two of German, and two of French. He described the courses as having been so good that he can still read all four languages when necessary. Thus, before leaving his native Peoria, he had a solid classical background which he was to develop and apply so abundantly in his later work. Dr. Goss then came East to Yale College from which he received the AB in 1921, and the following summer took a bicycle tour through England and France. After a year working the family farm at Sunny Side with his brother, Henry H. Goss, he returned to Yale, which awarded him the MD, cum laude, in 1926. Here he earned a Goodrich Scholarship of $500 for two years and the Parker Prize as the Senior "best suited for the practice of 57
medicine." He had already been elected to the Sigma Xi (honorary scientific) and the Alpha Omega Alpha (honorary medical) societies. Dr. Goss began his illustrious career at his alma mater in 1926, serving for three years as instructor in anatomy at Yale. He then spent nine years at Columbia University, the last seven as assistant professor of anatomy, when he was called to the University of Alabama where he was professor of anatomy and head of the Department from 1938 to 1947. He then moved to the Louisiana State University Medical School where he was professor of anatomy and head of the Department from 1947 to 1966. In the latter year Dr. Goss and his wife Josephine came to Washington where he served as visiting professor of anatomy at George Washington University Medical School. This temporary stay stretched into nine years until 1975. The richness of the teaching of this now full-blown and world-travelled anatomist was such that he received the Golden Apple Award of the Student American Medical Association for "excellence in teaching in the preclinical sciences" from the 1970 sophomore class at George Washington. The new University of South Alabama at Mobile has done itself great honor in its recent appointment of this world-renowned physician-scientist as Distinguished Professor of Anatomy. From the beginning of his teaching career of over a half century the multilateral abilities of "Chiz" Goss pushed him forward into ever expanding areas of contribution. He was associate editor of Bailey's Histology, published by the Williams & Wilkins Co. of Baltimore, for the 8th, 9th, and 10th editions, 1930-1940, and managing editor of the Anatomical Record for 20 years, 1948-1968. On the international front, Dr. Goss served in 1953 as a member of a team composed of Dr. M. E. Lapham, dean of Tulane Medical School, and Dr. R. S. Berson, assistant dean of Vanderbilt Medical School, to survey the medical schools of Bogota, Colombia, and make recommendations for their improvement. This service was requested by the National University of Bogota through the Institute of Inter-American Affairs. In 1960, Dr. Goss trained the professor of anatomy and other teachers to 58
become faculty of a new medical school in San Jose, Costa Rica. He visited there to help design the anatomy department in the new building and in 1961 gave the first lecture in the new school, remaining to teach six weeks. Dr. Goss' scientific papers comprise about 130 titles, including a number of reviews which reflect the broad scope of his competence. His researches were in histology, embryology, gross morphology, and the history of anatomy, each leading in natural sequence into the other. Dr. Goss was always one to begin at the beginning. As the cell is the unit of life, we find his earliest work subcellular, dealing with microdissections of cells. But life being dynamic, he was swiftly into ongoing development, embryology. The range of his titles shows his progressive involvement in the ramifying problems of development and embryonic physiology. But "Chiz" was never one to lose sight of the forest for the trees. In 1938 he was the first to describe the beginning of contraction in the heart of a living mammalian embryo (rat). But despite the pressures of increased responsibilities in teaching, research, graduate-student supervision, administration, and organizational committee work, as late as 1961 he presented a full-length motion picture film, The Heart in Living Rat Embryos, at the 74th annual session of the American Association of Anatomists. His interest in medical history, particularly that of anatomy, grew of itself, so that he travelled to all the historic medical sites in Magna Graecia and Europe. Presently he spoke as one with authority and not as the scribes. His lecture to our Howard University medical students on Galen, in his easy conversational tone, was fascinating. Effortlessly covering all that was known of the Great Pergamene and his impact, including all the moot points, he created a "you-are-there" experience. Naturally, Dr. Goss came to serve on important national and international scientific bodies such as the Review Panel for Research Grants in Anatomy of the National Institutes of Health, 1963-1965; the Committee for the Handbook of Biological Data of the National Research Council and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1949-1952; and as associate editor of the Federation Proceedings Translation Project (from Russian pub-
lications), 1962-1966. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Anatomists, 1947-1951, and in 1965 was elevated to the presidency of this organization. At his instigation and under his leadership the revision of terminology in histology and embryology was conducted by the International Committee on Anatomical Nomenclature. In 1968 he sponsored the initiation of the Henry Gray Award of the American Association of Anatomists which has since been given annually to an anatomist of distinction. The award consists of a citation and $1,000. Perhaps the initiation of this award by Dr. Goss well symbolizes his own modest and forthright character. In the numerous additions from his own pen which illuminate the five editions of Gray's Anatomy emanating from his stewardship, it is the stamp of Gray which he has sought to keep and in the award to perpetuate the name of the young author of one of the great scientific works in the English language. Since Dr. Goss is no longer associated with the publication of the book, but is an active anatomist, it is to be hoped that the Association will salute, with the Henry Gray Award, a man who would do it great honor. The intimacy of "Chiz" Goss' knowledge of human anatomy in all its detail and variation would make him a humanist of broad perception, but his warmth of personality could not be learned, and the latter completes the picture making him the "compleat anatomist." In his hobbies Dr. Goss exhibits the same artistry as in his writing, tinged with his quiet sense of humor. With his own hand he has fashioned perfect facsimiles of Gray's Anatomy which are really wooden boxes in which special items may be stored on library shelves. The possessors of these facsimiles have great latitude as to what they may choose to keep in them. Dr. Goss married Josephine Cowell in 1928. They have three daughters, Elizabeth Cowell (Mrs. Henry Chodkowski), Frances Mayo (Mrs. Luis J. Vergne), and Marianna Cowell (Mrs. B. L. Slaten). The thousands of students who have used the Goss editions of Gray contribute satisfaction to "Chiz" in their unconscious movement to the measure of his thought. W. Montague Cobb, MD
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 70, NO. 1, 1978
