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(His excessive volume, students said, was theresult of his training as an artillery officer duringWorld War I.)Hooker was 36 and just four years priorhad become the youngest chair of any anatomydepartment in the country. His ideafor remaking the subject at the University ofPittsburgh was bold, but not entirely new. Infact, the notion had been circulating throughthe minds of the anatomy staff for years: Wasit possible to teach the anatomical subjects—gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, grossneuroanatomy, embryology, and organs ofthe senses—not as five courses that inevitablyoverlapped, but as one course, seamless andcomprehensive?In those days, Hooker was a giant in theUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.He’d arrived at Pitt in 1914 as assistantprofessor of histology and neurology after abrief stint teaching anatomy at Yale, his almamater. By 1919, he was appointed professorand chair in the Department of Anatomy,posts he held firmly for the next 37 years.A small man, Hooker had blue eyes, sandyhair, and a dramatic manner. He would sit onthe balcony in the anatomy lab and watch hisstudents (he knew them all by name) dissectcadavers below. They worked four to a table,and a good number of them, mostly men,chewed tobacco to mask the room’s odor.in biological research. He spentsummers in college recordingthe behavior of newly hatchedloggerhead turtles in Florida.As a graduate student, he studiedthe development of embryonicfrog hearts. (He noted,to his great interest, that theanimal’s heart not only beginsto beat before being reachedby the nerve fibers, but alsocontinues to develop normally,though still unconnected tothe nervous system.) This earlyinterest in nerve-muscle relationshipswould later informhis life’s greatest pursuit, aseries of groundbreaking reflexstudies at the University ofPittsburgh.But in the spring of 1923,seated in his top-floor officein the medical school, Hookerpercolated about a new and better way toteach his students anatomy—one that wouldalso challenge his staff and train its mostjunior members.“The best way to learn a subject,” hewrote, “is to bear the responsibility for teachingit to others.”The correlated course in anatomy was toDavenport Hooker led the department for37 years and fundamentally altered theway Pitt students learned anatomy.they would spend another 66 hours learningthe anatomy of the nervous system.Hooker did not gloat over the boldness,newness, or inherent advantages he saw insuch a course. Instead, he wrote, “This typeNATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINEShould Hooker spot a mistake, he’d bellow the offender’s last nameand send the student racing up the stairs to face him.Should Hooker spot a mistake, he’d bellowthe offender’s last name and send the studentracing up the stairs to face him.Hooker’s insistence on time and punctualityearned him the nickname “HurryupHooker” among students. “The medicalstudent who arrived late for an eighto’clock lecture arose earlier thereafter,” wroteTryphena Humphrey, an MD/PhD colleagueof Hooker’s and eventually a professor of neuroanatomyin his department. “There was notolerance of the lazy or dishonest student, butevery effort to aid those in scholastic, financial,or other trouble. No one knows howmany students Dr. Hooker helped at criticaltimes in their lives, with encouragement,sound advice, a justly administered scoldingor financial aid,” Humphrey wrote in a profileof the doctor.At age 17, Hooker developed an interestbe offered for the first time in the fall of 1924.“The purpose of the course is to give the studenta more comprehensive and closely knitknowledge of the structure and developmentof the human body than was possible withthe older method,” Hooker wrote in notes onthe course. It was to occupy 704 class hoursduring the first year. As students dissected acadaver—from the head and neck to the thorax,abdomen, pelvis, and extremities—theywould encounter new organs and systems,studying at once gross anatomy, cell anatomy,and embryology. (“It was difficult teaching forthe anatomy staff since each instructor foundit essential to be prepared on all three phasesof anatomy rather than only one,” Humphreywrote.) Students hopped back and forthbetween the anatomy lab and microscopylab, towing pieces of tissue or organs recentlyharvested for study. During the second year,of course is merely a means to an end. As amethod it is valuable, but it is nothing more.”Still, the methodical doctor could notmask his growing anticipation that, in thisway, he might be able to teach his studentsmore, in less time.At the beginning of the school year,Hooker would issue his students awarning, says Perry Engstrom (MD’47), a former student later hired to teachin the department. “He would say, ‘Thereare medical schools where they accept 200students into a class with the idea that 100 ofthem are going to graduate. The Universityof Pittsburgh is different. In our class thereare 86 students. We expect every one of youis going to graduate, and we’re going to see toit that you do.” Engstrom says it was a threat,in a way, but the kind that a well-respected28 PITTMED