In 1963, shortly after Hermann Blumgart's retirement he... I was approached the then chairman of the Department of Surgery at Beth Israel Hospital, Jack Fine, who said to me, 'You're my candidate for this chair'. He said, 'It's time that...' I said, 'I'm really so involved, Jack, in, in lab work, it's just wonderful and I, I can't do it'. He says, 'It's time there was somebody with the experience that you've had who would look at the application of what you've been doing to medical issues'. That was in contrast to the view of the chairman of that department... of that committee. A very distinguished professor of medicine at Harvard, whom I had known both as my teacher and then as my colleague, who said to me, 'You know, your name has been mentioned as a candidate for the Blumgart professorship. But', he said, 'I don't see any relevance to what you've been doing to a department of medicine'. He said, 'You know, if you were a candidate for the chairmanship of the department of biochemistry here, I'd consider you very, very seriously'.

So, it was over, it was with that kind of reservation on the part of some of the people that my candidacy was looked at, and I really doubted that it would come to anything. But, I remember in 1963, I was in the cold room having done a sucrose gradient and taking drops, and at 5.30 in the afternoon, Jack Fine opened the cold room door, he said to me, 'Stop what you're doing'. I said, 'I can't, Jack'. 'No, no, stop. You've done it, you're, you're going to be the new chairman of the department of medicine'. And that was how that news came to me, in the cold room on the second floor of the Yamins Building. Well, I did think about it seriously. I did have reservations. But, the notion of really looking at what this new science might mean to medicine was very attractive, and I, without too much hesitation, I took the position. And, on April 1st, I think, of 1963 I took the chairmanship of the department.