UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #265
HAROLD A. CAMPBELL

CAMPBELL, Harold A.  (1909-1996)
Graduate Student, Biochemistry; Senior Scientist, McArdle Laboratory
At UW: 1935-39; 1969-95

Interviewed: 1983	Length: 2½ hours
Series: Life Sciences
Interviewer: Laura Smail

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:00 Start of Interview

LS:	 —with   Harold Campbell. We're, talking in his office in McArdle Lab. The date is May 10, 1983. This is Laura Small.

00:00:19

HC: 	—Half the program in my own personal computer. They are tremendous computers, as you well know, with—people have tried to correct that name recently but I think they kind of misuse it. My own personal computer half-time and the other machine—I could do half and put it in and do another. And I was stuck. About a year ago we, up to that point and actually a year and a half going from what is the logic required to get from two dimension into three dimension. And it's not. You just can't treat it as though it were a single change, it requires a new and extended logic. Talk about biology and then you get microbiology. Bacterium, and then you get molecular biology, again littler, littler, littler. But you can't use the same logic all the way through. So it helps here too. Go from one to two to three. It requires a different logic to interpret the data. And it's the logic—-until we figure out how to do it in your personal computer, it's required first. After you can do it and figure out this is the logic required then it is a matter of coding and instructing, writing instructions, for the computer to do it so that a user can, without going,  spending that time in developing it in a personal computer, will be able to get the answers. And it also—so you can crank them out quick, fast. We are gonna crank out. Oh, thousands of these before July 30. You must because you have to get a big enough data bank to—so statistically it has some meaning.
LS:	And nobody had done this before?

HC:	They didn't even do a single. This is—

LS:	This is the single. This article is about the single application?

HC:	CI change only. And the logic required to carry this out for one change only. I say no one ever did it before, you know, there is nothing new under the sun. On the other hand, you know, it's also the same. There was one over in Switzerland did a very small of this some ten years ago. It's true. We don't start from scratch. None of us do. None of us,

LS:	Whoa. I guess—-Well, if you had to describe this in terms for a layman, what would you say it is that you—did you say yesterday?—were the final—you finished it? This morning? How would you describe it? 

HC:	I didn't quite.

LS:	This. This, what you have been working on and what you have finished and what now is to be put to the practical application. How do you? How would you say? The tape recorder is on. How would you describe it to a layman? That is. not the whole process but what it is you have done.

HC:	It is a method which we have now put on a computer because the computations are so lengthy and tedious that it takes more than one lifetime to get much data if we had to calculate it by hand or even a hand calculator. And the logic required is probably the part that I like to be identified with because, that is often the thing that is missing. If we don't have a logic to achieve something we just can't do it. So what we did first was to [?] and then published in this publication here of Campbell. Pitot. Potter and Laishes. describe the logic required to interpret data when we have available only a two dimension picture through the liver of changes. And these are enzyme changes in the cells before they have changed sufficiently so that there is any shape or morphology change so that the pathologist cannot recognize them as being abnormal cells like the pathologist recognizes a plant tumor cells. But the changes are precancerous in--well, this is difficult to prove, but the sequence seems to be consistent with that when these changes take place soon thereafter the cancer condition, shows up. So you have certain substantial
evidence but you can't say this one little, cell, and then we found it to be a cancer because once you killed—the rabbit’s killed and you can't do It a second time. So, but it is quite consistent that these are precancerous conditions, these enzyme changes. We can see these enzyme changes if we can stain using histochemical staining, which will stain for the end product of the enzyme. So if the enzyme is present and then we stain it so the product of that enzyme is red then we go and look for red, we don't see the enzyme itself, but we see its product. So if the cell had that enzyme in great excess compared to normal, it would show up as a red spot. We do this not for one enzyme, we do it for a group of enzymes. Important enzymes in the biochemistry of the liver, if you're working with liver. And after we do this, taking a slice about 1/5 of a cell diameter in thickness, we then can take, a second cell slice and have the same cell asking the same question but we can't stain it two stains or they interfere with one another. So we can ask it for one stain or ask it for the second question, ask it for the third question. But now this is still just a two dimension picture of a three dimension liver and three dimension world. So we don't know when we see a small spot whether we have hit. cut through, a large group of ceils with this characteristic or just a very small one. Or maybe it really only was a few cells. There is no way to know this just by looking through a microscope and seeing how big the red spot was. This is the dilemma. Has been and it has in the past been. Well, just tabulated, and say "Well, we saw so many red spots and so many little spots and so many big spots".    

00:09:10

The opportunity, then as an old chemical engineer like myself, is to recognize that that has only limited validity or usefulness because it cannot describe what's going on in the liver, itself. And not only that, the next thing—recognize that something is not true or not valid has some value. Saves us making some mistakes. But until you can say "Yes. and this is the way it can be done" we haven't made a great leap forward. This then is a challenge to a person like me with logic. I say "What is the logic required to get that from two dimension observations to a situation consistent with those two dimensional observations in the three dimension space of the liver, which is a matter of dealing mathematically with the area of, ah, or geometric probability. What is the probability of hitting an object in the center and off-center. Putting all these together and then reconstructing, reconstructing is probably the wrong word, to—constructing in a probabilistic manner what is probabilistically the situation in three dimension space that would give this two dimension data. It's a field that is known as quantitative stereology and it has been quite highly developed, very highly developed in the field of metallography. I'm an old chemical engineer and I come to it having some experience in metallography so my mind is pre-programmed so we say "This is the problem" we might have had a similar situation and the happy thought was "AH".  You know. I'm not the first one that ever had that problem. Maybe the first one to ever try to solve it on liver, but this situation must have been elsewhere and working as a machinist on a Bridgeport Mill making metal parts to build a machine to produce mountain climbing equipment (a small company that my son owns and I work as a machinist) say. Ah. The material I am using here is part of a throw away, part of a throw away test casting. We cast this and then saw it in half and then polish it and we look at it and the problem is the same as if we were looking at a slice of a liver because we only see the top edge.

LS: 	Yes.

HC:	So, let's go back and ask the metallographers and see.how it can be done in metallography because there is no merit in making these test castings and sawing this in half unless we can get some good data out of it. They could get some good data out of it. So I snooped this out. It's not readily described as such in the library, but finally found a man that's, that I knew. A graduate from. Ph.D. from metallurgy over here, from metallography, and 1 said "Ron. How do you do it?" He said "Well. I didn't have to do it but I know how—there is a book that describes how to do it." So [?] "What, what is the name of the book?" "The book is Quantitative Metallography." "Who wrote it?" He said "I forget the name, but it is right over in the library by the Union South." So I went over there and there is no such book in the card index. So, and it's the story of all our life, I mean, so, what do you do?  So I bet you Ron was using a book from a professor of his, probably in a professor's library on a shelf somewhere. So I went down in the lunch room and talked to the people and said "Alright fellows, you know Ron [?]." "Oh yes, we know that guy." "Well you know what Ron told me. What professor might have such a book that Ron might be acquainted with?"   Well you can imagine the argument and talking in the lunch room with different students and Ph.D. candidates and the like. And they finally said [?] Finally one fellow said "Professor Peer Pescall. He's the one that would have it. He's the one." And they all said "Oh yes, I bet you he is. Theoretical Metallography". I said "Well. Fine. Where can I find him?" And they said "Well, he's in a different department. This is an application metallography. Now you have to go into theoretical metallography. That's in that big building over in the next block." So I went over to see Professor Peer Pescall, up on the 12th floor, and said "Do you know Ron Kotche?" "Yes. I know him." I said " [?] Ron told me. What might he be talking about?" He said "Ah, the problem with Ron Kotche was that—sure. We used the word quantitative metallography when we were applying it in our own use. but the book is not titled Quantitative Metallography. The book is entitled Quantitative Stereology. Where stereology, of course, you can see we apply to metallography and this particular book. It is written by Professor Underwood. 

So, with this approach, he gave me a reference. I go down to the library and sure, we can find an elegant treatise on this field of how do the metallographers go about solving the problem in interpreting what goes on in a piece of steel when the only observations they obviously can make is that on the surface. This is no different than the problem I was hoping to solve for Professor Pitot. So now in applying this kind of thinking to our particular problem we—about a year ago have solved that and have published its application to our particular problem in histology stained liver slices. And. the last year, year and a half. I have spent carrying this a step further than used in metallography or in liver. By now, as I have described, apply it to situations where you have several alterations within the same cell and asking the question "Can we solve the logic required for this situation, which is now two, three, four changes within a cell and superimposing mathematically so we know, since we cannot see them morphologically, we can only see them after they are stained and we can only effectively make one stain at a time, superimpose these slices by matching up anatomical markers, blood vessels, so that we say "We are speaking about a particular cell. It did or did not have the second or third stain. And that's what we are about to apply in actual application, real data this week for the first time. And hope—and fully expect—that within three months now we will be able to get enough data and get enough experience so we have assurance that we know how to interpret this data. Right now on computer simulation what I can specify where the cells are and how big a group they are where I have no experimental error at all. The logic which I have devised over the last year is holding up. A year ago I said to Pitot "Pitot. what we are doing? A multiple phenotype again, like I did a year before that on single phenotype, is not valid. What we need to do now is to go one step further but my problem is, at that time, I don't know how to do it.    I think that's been pretty much the story of my life. I have been a problem solver rather than one carrying out experiments I knew how to run. I don't mean to bad-mouth those that run experiments they know how to run. If you don't know how to do something better than that or more, oh, closer to the cutting edge, that's fine. But if you can get away from that. Say "This is a problem that is real, for real people. We don't know how to do it. But with confidence in ourselves and those we can draw on around us. We believe we can figure out a way of getting the necessary data to solve it." You can stub your toe and fall flat on your face and maybe it is impossible. Sure. But, on the other hand, some of the things I have done, or did, when those around me would shake their head and say "Well, you know. He's barking up a tree that he can't climb." Some of them I haven't climbed but I assure you, some of them I have. And I go back on that just to give a quick run through. 

I'm a product of Karl Paul Link's lab. I learned some of this problem solving from Karl. He wouldn't run the experiments he knew how to run. He often was—he and his students— running, working on problems no one knew how to solve. Experiments he didn't know how to do. And I pulled out. Isolated, the material we now know as dicumarol. At that time it was the sweet clover disease. The only thing we knew it by. I pulled that out. Others. Mark Stahmann produced more of it after I left—after I had isolated the material, produced more of it. Charlie Hebner, The sharpest organic chemist that I remember in Karl's lab, solved what it was. Chemically. Both Charlie Hebner and Mark Stahmann then set about and made some, synthesized it to be sure that the synthetic material was the same as Campy had isolated out of the sweet clover, and it was. That—then, like the three-legged milk stool, in this case it was a five legged stool, The symbolism doesn't quite carry the same way, but the idea, the concept—if it is essential it is essential. No point in talking about how essential is this to the outcome. That's a misnomer. It's in itself inconsistent. If it is essential. It's essential. There is five things essential to that discovery, and the patent, and the patent is often a lot more honest than publications. Publications people get their name on for honorary reasons or for political reasons or other reasons and left off for the same reasons. But on a patent, if you leave a name off and anybody finds it out it's invalid. It can be proven invalid. And you can't enforce it. If you put a person's name on for honorary reasons, because he was the boss, and anybody can finds it out or suspects it, the patent can be proved invalid. The people there must make honest and solid contributions to the full concept or either way it's [?] So a patent often reads more honestly of really who made contributions rather than who talked about it. On those patents, dicumarol, application of dicumarol for the decrease of clotting time for an animal, it's a process patent. Those patents are Karl Paul Link. H. A. Campbell. Mark Stahmann. Charlie Hebner and Ralph Overman. Each one in their own right, like on a table, each one holding up his own corner. Making a solid contribution to the end result and without any one of them, the end result wouldn't have, didn't happen. I was going to say wouldn't have, you know, you can substitute names for someone else and so on.  Didn't happen is the right word and that is the situation there in Karl's lab on dicumarol. I made my contribution of isolating, obtaining from toxic sweet clover hay. The pure crystalline material. That was my contribution. Others made, as I mentioned, their contribution. Mark Stahmann producing more of it after I left.

LS:    Did you name it? Or was it already—

HC:	No. I did—No. after we got a crystalline material,  just a few nice little crystals like a little pile of sugar In your hand, no one knows what its name is. We just know what we—we just have that little pile of stuff. It wasn't until its chemistry, its identity, chemical identity, was known that a name could be applied and. Lo and behold,  it not only didn't require naming it was known in the literature and described bv a chemist way back in Germany at one time working on coumarins and its name becomes obvious once you know its chemistry. That is its chemical name. Now you can apply trick names
thereafter like aspirin, that's not a chemical name. Its chemical name is quite different.    But you can apply a trick name like Warfarin or Whomadin and things like that. But—and dicumarol is a trick name of that type. Knowing its organic structure you decided to call it dicumarol. I was not part of the naming, sematics, my speciality has never been sematics. My speciality has been as an active player not a spectator, of doing original, creative research right up on the cutting edge. That's where I get my kick. That's where—I got that from the Univerity of Illinois where Speed Marlow. Schreiner [?].
organicers down there that got this young guy. Campy,coming through their
organic department and caught him on fire.

LS:	As an undergrad?

HC:	The excitement of making discovery, real discoveries, not just talking about it. And then I came up here to Wisconsin and Karl picked me up as he had asked Homer Adkins if there was an applicant came in in organic chemistry to Homer Adkins, head of the organic department, that he didn't have room for. Karl says "If you see a good one over there--", and I blush when I say that, at least both my—the gang down in Illinois that I am a product of, wrote to their counterparts In Wisconsin because they didn't have a location for me there. There was a policy that they didn't carry on their own students. If I hadn't learned what they had to offer at Illinois in four years it isn't likely that in another four years I'd catch on. So I had either had it and move on or move out. And he said "But I have a friend up in Wisconsin, Homer Adkins, that I've done favors for him. He'll do a favor for me. I'll write to him and see if he will—" So he wrote to Homer Adkins and Homer Adkins didn't have a location and he called up Karl Paul Link. And he said "Karl. I got this guy. I'll send his application over." Karl gave me the job without ever seeing me. He just, on say so. He said if he comes out of Illinois, out of that gang down there, of organic chemistry and he's been to Carl Minor up in Chicago and Carl Minor is an industrial chemist at Chicago that Karl knew well in starch work. Carl Minor knew me because 1 had run. oh. analytical work in ??? in order to make enough money to hang on to school. And Carl Minor told Karl Link that. yes. he knew me. So Karl—sight unseen—Karl gave me the fellowship. $50/month for work in his lab.

00:30:27
Tape 1/Side2

LS:   What year was that?

00:30:34

HC:	I have here '35-'39. And when I arrived, came in the
door, and Karl said "What's your name?" And I said "My name is Harold
Campbell." "Oh, yes. I'm expecting you. We've got too many Harolds here
already. We'll call you Campy." Since that period I've been known technically
and to my friends as Campy. The only one that I—that calls me Harold
recently is my mother and she is now dead so I don't respond quickly to the
name Harold for some years. But those that know me know rue as Campy Campbell
and Karl knew me as Campy Campbell. This is true. There was four in Karl's
lab at that time, all our first names were Harold. He said that's too many.

LS:	He quit while he was ahead.

HC:	So dicumarol is one that I like to be identified with. Isolation, another one, besides industrial work. General Foods. I have a lot of things there that I achieved. Such things as discovery of the method making minute rice and things like that [?]. Soluble coffee, instant coffee and so on. But there—this is an application of the same kind of expertise. Same kind of—well, expertise is a fancy word. Some inquisitiveness: can we do it? Problem solving. If we want to make soluble coffee and soluble coffee is hard
to do because it goes off flavor, how do we do it? Organic chemistry, biochemistry, everything wrapped together. The problem is no different than dicumarol. It's just on a different product. And I've often been asked "Well didn't you feel very, you know, oppressed by not working in pure science in General Foods?" The answer is "No. of course not. They never understand, and don't understand, that the problem of solving what is in sweet clover disease for the farmer. You might perceive this as being high level theoretical chemistry or pure science. But the kind of mentality required, the kind of problem solving required is the same. If you are going to solve it. Now, you can do experiments on things and not have that kind of mentality or orientation, true, maybe that's pure science. But again, the ones that have solved things accomplish new things, like the antibiotics, penicillin. Those kind of breakthrough advances [?] people working on real problems they didn't know how to solve them. But had confidence enough and ability enough and agile enough to work around and find them. And this kind of finding is what I like to be identified with. Dicumarol. The next one was. mention it here and then I'll pass on. The chemical identification of the vitamin niacin. I did that. With Connie Eivehjem.    Not that I did all of the legs on the three legged stool. As on dicumarol. I mentioned there were five of them. On niacin, the vitamin anti-pellagra factor, we knew it as the PP factor because that was the only thing we knew. Pellagra prevented the factor. PP factor. On that one I did the identification. Eivehjem brought me the little crystals and I determined what that was chemically. And that is, for the record, published back then. That's a different kind of a skill required, an analytical skill [?] comes back to me as an analyst back before Karl ever taught me. Related to how do you. as an analyst, analyze something accurately enough to enable you to interpret the result. Not just get the numbers—lots of people can get the numbers. But interpret those numbers in a real problem solving way. It is niacin, nicotinic acid, we now needn't have people dying of pellagra. 

Number two. Number three is after working with General Foods some 22 years. I then went back to—for fun—excitement of discovery and medical research. Sloan Kettering. Sloan Kettering Institute of Cancer Research where I spent about 12 years there with another team of five of us. Myself, the biochemist, supplying biochemical thinking and preparation. The immunologist. Roy Old. The geneticist, Ted Boyce. After all, we didn't want to trip our toes in having just an artifact not—oh, a genetic novelty. Herb Erickson, the bedside clinician. The treatment of childhood leukemia by the enzyme allosperigenase. 

Number three. It is in application now to pharmaceutical product. In a pharmacy you can find niacin, you can find dicumarol. You can find allosperigenase. Thousands of people now continue to walk that wouldn't otherwise walk having had the benefit of each one of those three. Each one in an entirely different field. Each one with an entirely different approach. I haven't just had a little red wagon and then piled another bag of sugar on it and carried it. Each one requiring quite a different approach. One isolation in dicumarol. one identification in niacin and at Sloan Kettering Institute of Cancer Research. New York City, quite a different thing applying to cancer and how now do we produce and isolate enough material, biological material. We got this out of the lowly E. coli. the allosparigenase. Looking for allosparigenase—an enzyme, which people might not be too immune reactive to. After all. you and I, we all have made our peace with the little intestinal fellow. E. coli. And he also has allosparigenase. Isolated from allosparigenase. This is the biological material which is now used for the treatment of childhood leukemia in the routine of several other materials. One in the rotation when the individual becomes resistant to one. you use the second, you use the third,  it's in a rotation of three to five, depending on the doctor's preference. And this is—you have read and recognized probably the most successful cancers that we
can now treat are the leukemias treated this way. Number three. 

Number four is here with Pitot. Again, not looking for a treatment, not trying to help
the farmer whose cow is dying by hemorrhage, sweet clover disease. Not the
person dying of pellagra because he didn't have niacin. Not the child in
there with leukemia that we could clobber with allosperigenase because the
cell, we knew, could not make his own but a normal cell could. So we clobber
them and in three to five days send them home clinically-or at least remission. And with a rotation some of them may be permanently cured. It hasn't been around that long. I don't know if we've permanently cured anybody because until the individual gets 72 years life expectancy we don't know.
LS:	Of course not.
HC:	But they are still walking around free. See. Here with Pitot I'm not on a cure, not a treatment of a disease. Here with Pitot I'm working on "Can we understand how this comes about." There is no assurance that understanding may automatically lead to a cure and treatment. But without understanding we are unlikely to find a cure or treatment.    And it's that—at this stage, now, on a understanding of what's going on. With Pitot we are stepping back one step. Pitot doing the biology, pathology, he's a trained pathology, top pathologist. And I helping Pitot with his numbers. His mathematics. Quite a different role. Quite a different situation. Quite a different challenge to me. Can we do it? Working on things that we don't know the answers to. But, you know, with some good fortune, I have had much good fortune, good fortune, some flexibility, find some answers. And that's what we're up to.
LS:	Where did you learn to work with numbers if you were a chemist, an organic chemist?
HC:	I came to the University of Illinois as an electrical engineer. My father was a contractor, a brick layer, and I was headed for contracting. I was going to be a contractor like my father.  My father didn't know his electrical engineering or house wiring, like. I took up house wiring in high school. I was going—Went to the University of Illinois as an electrical engineer. I had a course in chemistry and I liked it. So I thought. "Well, maybe. I'll be an engineering chemistry.” So I got into the engineering department but with chemistry. I still liked my chemistry so I moved over to another department in the chemistry department which was engineering chemistry, which is more chemistry and less engineering at that point. When I came up to getting my degree. Speed Margo, head of organic down there, he said "Capapy. You are going to have to make up your mind. This is your last year. You've been straddling this. You've been taking engineering, you've been taking organic. Are you going to finish up as an organic chemist or are you going—as a chemical engineer?" I said "Well, can I take an original thesis in organic research if I finish up as a chemical engineer?" And he said "No. If you want to be an organic chemist and you can have that or you can finish up as an engineer." I had that choice. It was up to one course.    
00:43:30
They were given at the same time and I couldn't take both of them at the same time so I decided I was going to be an organicer[?]. I was hooked by that time on the excitement of discovery. Not just chemistry, not just the textbook, not just theories, but the discovery right at the bench. Discovery. Something new. And in those days we could. I was a pretty irregular student. After all. it took me seven years to get my B.S. degree from out of high school. But. again. I had a lot of remedial work to do in the mean time and had to take some time out to get a little money to stay in school. But by doing research there as an undergraduate under Schreiner in quantitative organic chemistry. Again. I've always had an inclination to the quantitative mathematical end all
the way back to ray engineering. You don't have to be one or the other. I was the most maverick misfit to—when Speed—one Sunday morning there, working in the lab.    Marvel came in and said "Campy, what"—I misspoke there. He didn't call me Campy because I wasn't dubbed as Campy until I got here at Wisconsin. "Campbell" he said.    "How are things going?" And I said "Well. I'm going to need—-I'm going to get out in June." This would be in March, something like this. I said "I need a job. Will you give me a fellowship here?" He said "Oh no." Well, this pretty near laid me on the floor. And I said "Professor. I am an undergraduate you know. And I hold my own. I took your course in advanced math—organic last semester and I got a good grade." "Yes. I know you got a good grade." "And I did as well as all those Ph.D.'s that have come in from other schools."   He said "Ah, you miss the point. Of course, I expect my own students to be smarter than those guys coming in from the outside. But you've been here four years. You've got our philosophy, or if you haven't got it by this time you are not about to get it. It's time to go on." He said "It's time to take your Master's on the East Coast and your Ph.D. on the West Coast. Or you can turn them around." He said "Turn them around." "But" he said "I had missed you. I had forgotten. I didn't realize you were coming up this semester because you are so irregular." Sure. I was in there irregular so, you know, I was the most irregular student he can imagine, or I can imagine. "But" he says "I'll see what I can do." And that's—he said "It's too late. After all, most schools close their applications April 1st or something like that." He said "After all, it's too late." "But I have this friend up there, Homer Adkins," and I tied back to my previous story on that. That's when he got me out of there. But I have not been an organic chemist. I have not been an engineer. I have not been a, oh, a lot of things. I have been a maverick, a jack of all trades, not quite. But my mind has ranged widely and I have—when it comes down to this problem here with Pitot.  It's doubtful I would have been able to solve it or known where to look, others haven't, without my rather scattered or checkered or maverick background. You ask about where did I get my mathematics. I got my mathematics back from my father as a contractor. Figuring out how much it was going to cost to make a fireplace and have been interested in mathematics ever since. But I have studied my mathematics ever since too. Not that one is good and one is bad. You can't do all things. But I've been interested in mathematics. But I'm not a. Oh, not a medic either. You become a medic,
heart surgeon, you—if you are going to concentrate there you probably don't
have time to concentrate on being a—on your mathematics too. Many of them
don't and they are lost. You can't do all things. I can't do all things.
But I do have certain things I can do and I've devoted my life to it. The
last 20 years, used what life savings my wife and I had saved while I worked
for General Foods, because I don't do this kind of research—I am not funded.
Not just a paid researcher. With, along with Social Security and life savings. I am enjoying doing medical research. Discovery. That's why. But those are the areas that we want to talk about. Those four. This one included. It brings me up to date.

00:49:16

LS:	Didn't you get anything on the patent?	
HC:	Yes. I got something on the patent. The patent. Wisconsin Alumni Foundation returns 15% to the inventors, as you well know. And there was four of us and so I got on the patent. 1/4 of 15%. That was not big money. It has paid my whiskey bill over the years. I received a check, even after coming back to Wisconsin this time, on the patent. It was just finished up. The largest amount I ever received on the patent was—I believe—$2,700 for the year.
LS:	I see. What do you—I thought it was a lot of money at one point. Oh, you got 1/4 of 15%.
HC:	Right.
LS:	I see.
HC:	All four names there. All four of us made the contribution. All four of us get 1/4 of 15%. The patent, dicumarol patent, did not pay a great deal of money. The Warfarin patent, which Warfarin being devised after dicumarol. patterned after dicumarol, leaving a little bit of the molecule off, and that has—there is a lot more return from the Warfarin patent. And I am not part of the Warfarin patent, as you well recognize. It's the dicumarol patent that I am party to. And I—Warfarin was an offshoot from—now we know dicumarol. We know what it will do. Then Karl turned a group of students loose on them. Said “Leave this piece off, leave this piece off. Leave this piece off. We'll test each one and see what piece we can leave off and still get physiological activity.” And in that approach, I don't know, some 40 or 50 compounds were produced. And one of them that seemed favorable and is cheaper to make and so on by leaving one of the eoumarins off, replacing it with a benzene group and an acetic acid group still has a good activity. A little different activity than dicumarol, although not much different. They both were used on people. They both [?] matter of fact maybe—Well we don't like to call, tell a person we are going to treat them with rat poison. Eisenhower received Coumadin, he didn't receive dicumarol. He received the rat poison. Well, most people don't like that so—it's a nicety. We rename it and when you use that same chemical, identical same chemical, in a person, we say "We're going to give you Coumadin." Which is fine and it's good. It has a little different characteristic. I think probably the most important difference in the characteristic depends on what the particular physician is experienced with. After leaving Wisconsin here, I went with General Foods, as I mentioned, East. Back In the East I spent my Saturdays and Sundays with Professor Shapiro. Shapiro Beine, in the cardiac department of New York Medical School there in Manhattan. Come Saturdays and Sundays I was in there with Shep treating people with dicumarol. The very early ones. These early trials, the first trial being here with Myers. The second one with Mayo Clinic and then Shapiro. Campbell and Roderick. They started a good deal of work there in New York Medical School. And on Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes during the week when Shep got into trouble, or his patient got into trouble. "Campy. Campy can you come over right now. I'm—I can't hardly help myself." "Yes. I can come over." And I was fortunate being In research in General Foods where you could--research often can wait until the researcher has no respect for time of day or day. So as long as I was doing the job and I could do it on a Monday or a Tuesday. And often did in those early days.  
00:54:19
And we applied in the early days now. use of dicumarol or Coumadin to application of patients, people. And that is published in the names of Shapiro. Campbell. Roderick and that group. Of course the application, that's after say Mark Stahmann had produced, following my instructions of isolation, more material. Charlie Hebner had jumped with his organic chemistry, identified the breakdown products and from the breakdown products could, mentally, put these--Ah. If these that are breakdown products, this is, must be what they were, is was before we broke it down. In his mind recombined it. Then Mark and Charlie Hebner said "Alright, if that's it, we will make some of that stuff and see if it's the same. It was the same and at that point, knowing the chemistry of it, Lilly was interested in producing the first material used for application to people. And it was Lilly material that we were using there in Bellevue Hospital, part of Mew York Medical School.
LS:      Wasn’t Ichawa—
HC:	Pardon?
LS:	Ichawa, isn't that his name? A Japanese—wasn't he in on that patent? That warfarin patent?
HC:     He might be in on the Warfarin patent.
LS:      You don't know?
HC:	That was after—see that's after I got out. All of Warfarin comes after I get out. When they say "What can we leave off?"
LS:	Why were they leaving something—why did they want to leave something off?
HC:	Well, there is no reason to believe that the—or for me to believe—that a material produced by apparently some microorganism in sweet clover that caused the cow to die of hemorrhage would be the optimum material to treat someone. It's quite obvious, and I've heard people ask me this question, and it's hard for me to give an answer. They say "Campy, isn't it remarkable that when you found what was killing cattle, on a Wisconsin farm, lo and behold. Isn't it very remarkable that it now can be used in therapy for human medicine?"And at this point, you know. I am just floored. I have to be indiscrete and say "You so and so. Don't you give us credit for having any sense at all? What the hell do you think we were doing? What the hell do you think I worked nights and days and was so excited about pulling this thing out? And now you say "isn't it remarkable it has something to do with human therapy?" It's true. I was trying to find out ‘cause sweet clover is the only thing I had to work on. But don't you give us credit for having a little bit of sense to realize that if we can find out what kills the cow of, with hemorrhage because the blood won't clot or won't clot fast enough, that if we could ever find that, out this is what we would like to have when a person is dying of a blood clot? Give us a little bit of common sense. That's what the hell we were working on. For $50 a month I wasn't surviving and it's true, it would be a nice thing for the farmer, but the farmer had his problem solved. He didn't have to make sweet clover hay he could make hay out of things other than sweet clover. It don't make much difference to the farmer. And I'm not going to help the cow that died. That's what it's all about. But that kind of perspective, not just run experiments we know how to run. There is too much of that. Not just doing the experiment that we know how to do. But these are real problems of society and the world and people, particularly people. Why did I come into—why did I get out of engineering? After I got out of the University of Illinois as an, almost an engineer, just a flip of the coin. I could have been either one. In organic, I said "What do I want to apply? My arithematic? My understanding of numbers?  Engineering? And an understanding of organic, chemistry? How things are put together and how to make them? I could apply it to rocks, you know. I could apply it to making steel. I could apply it to. Oh, a lot of things. But the important thing, I came to the conclusion, the important thing to apply it to, now, would be people things. People oriented things. Now that is probably rewriting history somewhat. We all do it. I do it. I'm not. Of course—I already told you that I came in to Karl's lab probably not by my choice but by his. But—and by happenstance at that. True. But at this point you catch fire with the situation. You say alright. Now if we can apply our arithematic and our organic chemistry and my analytical yen or inclination all together to solving real problems for people, people problems. Not rock problems or table problems. Real people problems. This is where I wanted to give my thrust. It's that kind of [?] you know. I might break my arm someday patting myself on the back but. Again, if I be so mild and so retiring that I don't even speak out. Who is going to know about it?
01:01:29
LS:      Was this Karl Paul Link's reason for working also?
HC:	Yes. Yes. Very definitely. I learned a lot of this from Karl Paul Link. Karl Paul Link was a tremendous teacher. He's a mosiac. You get some funny pictures from a lot of different funny people. He's a mosiac. But, yes.
01:01:57	End of Tape 1
Tape 2, Side 1
00:00:00
HC: 	[?] all of them were six. Let me say that—
LS: 	Let's just say this is the second tape of the interview with Harold Campbell.
HC:	We all of them were six. I learned this and brought it home so dramatically from Andy Peterson, one of Charlie Heidelberger's post does here that I worked with. Programming. I run programs for Charlie and his people while they were here. Modeling some of the systems that Charlie Heidelberger was running. But Andy Peterson and I—I have this as a picture in my mind. He often was inclined to say "Oh Campy. But, it's not all bad." Like there's no—Andy, nothing we ever got into—that Andy couldn't say "Oh but Campy. It's not all bad." I learned this from Andy and interpret it this way. It's not all bad. That's right. I don't know any all bad people or all bad situations. Or another one I go. It's a corollary to it. I don't know any of them all good. I have not found any all good and I sure I'm not and I haven't found others, see? Not all good. Karl was a tremendous mosaic. We all are. I am. Character. caricature. Not just a character, a caricature. Karl was a great mosaic. He had tremendous strong places and. of course, like all of us, not all good. None of us are. And we hear—a lot of stories come through, particularly those that stand off on the side and the moment, just tie Into his—it's like the three, blind people that went to the circus and saw the elephant. You know the story? It's easy to get stories about Karl Paul Link that are. No doubt, true, solid. But In that tremendous mosaic, let's not assume all of it was that way. Because Karl wasn't. He was a tremendous mosaic. And he played it up. He played it up to the limits. He, well, I've learned some of them front Karl. I probably wouldn't be talking the way I do today if I hadn’t, see? Sure. Karl was a tremendous showman. 
LS:	You liked him?
00:02:35
HC:	Oh, tremendous guy. I was very, very fortunate to fall under the influence of Karl Paul Link because Karl Paul Link didn't treat all people the same either. He didn't have just one pat way of doing it. He didn't—those that couldn't do better or didn't do better they did Karl Paul's bidding. His—he could—we see now so many Ph.D. candidates that turn out to be a glorified lab assistant doing the professor's research. Over and over again. Tremendous. Well. Karl wasn't adverse to treating a person in that way if that's, oh, if you're what, in his opinion, that was the way you were best treated. You could learn something and you could do research that way. On the other hand. Karl didn't—he was a tremendous teacher. He didn't treat everybody that way. He didn't treat Stan Moore that way. Working right across the bench from me. The Nobel Prize winner. Working on how do you analyze amino acids when nobody knows how to analyze amino acids and the amino acid content of proteins in those days. We had problems. We didn't know7 how to do it. That's the reason Stan was working on it. Encouraged by Karl.
LS:	So his different treatment of people was according to their quality. Is that right [?].
HC:	They were treated differently. Wow I'm not going to say why or how. But Karl was a tremendous teacher. He could do that. He did do it. Now why he did it or why. What ability, you can surmise. He did treat people different. When you come to me. Well, you know. I was—Campy's Campy. I mean I was one of them myself and not adverse to run and grab at something and go. And for all it's worth. Give it a college try. Puff, for all it's worth. And as I envision and remember Karl and the way he treated me. he was always right there if I needed help. Probably laying over on the couch half the time.
LS:	Couch? In the lab?
HC: 	I was right outside of Karl's lab. And the couch was right next to it. Sure he was there.    There if I needed him. But I—he never tried to make a glorified lab assistant or treated me as a glorified lab assistant. It was always "Campy, you can do it. Go, go, go. Campy, you can do it. go." Encouragement? Yes. Confidence? Yes. But not "Campy, why don't you try this next?" As soon as he did this, Karl would have had the experience of making, manipulating the experimental method and he might have been successful and he could have build on his strength in this field. I might have been better at following instructions.    But I wouldn't have had the experience of manipulating the experimental method and making new. creative discoveries. Someplace you have to—
LS:	So he didn't say? He didn't say "Why don't you do this next?" He let you think it up yourself? Is that what you're saying?
HC:	Of course. Yes! For me. There were some others. He always had to program for them to run.
LS:	And that's because they couldn't do it themselves, presumably. It wasn't because he was arbitrary?
HC:	I'm like—I can only think Will Rogers. Yes. I just know what I read in the newspapers. I only know what I saw. That's what I saw.
LS:	Yes. Did they object?
HC:	Not that I could observe. People that need that don't object. People that need that, need it.
LS:	Oh, okay. That's what I—
HC:	People that need it. Need it. They don't object.
LS:	So he was doing it according to the quality of—
HC:	And if you can't run fast enough. Karl would do it to anybody. And he would do it to anybody. But if you can run fast enough. Karl wasn't adverse to working with those kind of people and training them."Campy you can do it. Oh, let him go."
LS:      He actually would say that?
HC:	Oh, Yes. Not—maybe not in those words, but that's the message. I don't know what he said. That's the message I got. 
LS:	Yes.
HC: 	So that's what I did. I don't know what he said.
LS:      Did he understand what you were, doing all the time? Did he keep up with it?
HC:	As close as—yes, he—we were a very special group there. We had a—and special—different than the rest of the department. We had a key. There were two doors that came into the—link, oh if you like, complex. The rest of them had laboratories here, laboratories. The professor had his own laboratory somewhere else. Link had his laboratory within the Link complex. You come in with your key and when you were inside you were inside. I saw Link's door closed and locked maybe once or twice that I can ever remember in my life. Once you get in—and once you get in. Karl couldn't get to his office or no one else with almost pushing me up against my bench because I was just right outside.    
00:08:19
I mean—and inside we had a conference room back in the back. The tradition at 4:00 in the afternoon and we had tea and you sit down and talk about things of the day or things of the world or. Once in a while. 
LS:      The graduate students?
HC:	Only the graduate students. Karl's own Ph.D. candidates. His own students, right the re—.
LS:       And he was there too?
HC:	And Karl was right there. And once in a while we would have the good fortune of having Linus Pauling, one of Karl's friends, stop in and what a tremendous experience for the students. Because, you see, I sit there and say "Ah, you know, if I could figure out how that guy Pauling, his mind runs, boy wouldn't I be lucky?" See? So we ask him questions. See if we can find out how his mind runs because, after all, he had been out on the front and he’s at the front. How does it look at the front? How do you want to play it at the
front? How do you get there? How do you solve brand new problems when there is no guidelines at all? You know, these are the kinds of things that every student for himself, I don't know what the other students were thinking about, but I know what I was thinking about. I said "Boy, here's a brain I can pick If I can pick." The best I can. see? Tremendous experience there. Tea in the afternoon. An hour, two hours, you know? Every day we had tea time, oh, around 4:00. Karl was there. Of course Karl was there. Of course. There wasn't a day where world affairs, you know. I mentioned Linus Pauling. You recognize just what working with molecules. Sometimes working with people. We are all interested in people, real people. Even dicumarol is dealing with real people, see? Stan Moore working on how do we determine the amino acids so we can determine the amino acid sequences so we can then better understand the proteins from which those enzymes are the machines by which people operate. They gave him a ftobel Prize after he learned how to do this for ribonuclease, the enzyme. Of course. Of course. They are real problems. But real people problems, too. Problems we didn't know how to solve. Just applying what we—all we had available to us to solve. And so. Sure, Karl was there. We knew Karl within a particular little Karl group, Ph.D. candidates. There was no—everybody—once we get in the door everybody was the same. And Karl knew what was going on. Sure. Once, on Fridays, one person stood up in front and had an hour to explain. Oh, the discoveries he had made in the last two months. Taking turns. Rotation. See. So we—we—and getting evaluations and comments from your colleagues sitting there, the other students as well as Karl. Of course, we knew what was going on. And we could learn from others because we could learn from what they were doing and with our own personal computers figure out. Ah, that problem of Mark Stahmann, Mark Stahmann working on club root disease, a disease of cabbage being an important part in the Wisconsin, a split major between Karl and Walker in Plant Pathology. What Mark was trying to do was figure out some way to avoid how cabbage getting this disease, club root, so the farmers could have a better cabbage crop. Pathology. And that was his speciality. Karl was interested in plant pathology. He took his degree from Tottingham. Tottingham was still living when I was there. Karl's degree. Ph.D. was in plant chemistry. Yes. Plant pathology. Karl did his work on the red pigment of onions. I believe. Again, why did they—were they protected from certain diseases and others weren't. You know, plant pathology. Mark Stahmann was following that leg of Karl's interest. Real interest. Real problems. Not that we had answered. No just running experiments on it. Not just running another chemical reaction. What chemical reactions can we run to—so we'd better understand what's going on here, see? And that's what Stahmann was working on. Stan Moore working on. Amino acids. So we could better understand the proteins and the machinery which people are made and so we could better understand how they worked. And I say he finally learned how to do that. Learned enough about a very important protein, an eznyme. Ribonuclease. And he was awarded, along with three others, his associates. Stan Moore, also there at Rockefeller and his other fellow research—not a fellow researcher—another researcher in the same field. Three of them get the Nobel Prize for pulling that one off. And—but it built, and I could see it starting clear back In Karl's lab. Karl was a good chemist not just a plant chemist. He was a good chemist. And this is quite analytical, straight organic and inorganic chemistry with Stan Moore. But Stan was running, oh, oh, running on it. I was working on sweet clover until we figured out what was in that hay. Mark Stahmann trying to figure out what was—how the plant pathology—how the—but you see, Karl had many interests but they were all real problems of a diversified nature and where, do we learn and catch fire of problem solving? Oh. I got part of this through. I came up from Illinois with it. but Karl sure furthered it, see?    
00:14:49
And he was a tremendous teacher, tremendous teacher. Although Karl was a tremendous showman, sure. And I have learned some of it from him too. I still, oh I probably wouldn't be talking the way I do if I hadn't come up under the tutelage of Karl Paul Link, see? Sure. Of course.
LS:      Did he give you the subjects to look into? I mean—
HC:	Yes. Karl. Karl made the assignments as described well. If you have not read, I recommend you do read his Harvey Lecture. His Harvey Lecture is a lecture, where he described the dicumarol story at the University of New York. Given at the New York Medical College there in Manhattan. He was an invited guest. It was a great honor for him to be—have this awarded to him. He gave that, one of a grand series of invited lectures, and they are called the Harvey Medical Grant. The Harvey Lectures.
LS:	And they are published?
00:16:03
HC:	They are published. And I will give you that reference. Read that because that, in my opinion. I don't know in my opinion, after all. I was there. That gives as clean a story, as far as detail is concerned, as I believe is in print. There is other things missed, left out. Of course, but that is a good story. It's an early story. It was early in the—after—things evolved, of course, and get embellished and modified as things go on in oral tradition. That was an early story. It was an early write-up. It was a very serious write-up. It was a serious situation. It was a prestigious situation. Karl was careful to stay right with the solid taps. This was that kind of situation. Oh he was a showman. He was there in his showy dress. But, with others in tuxedo around him. But it was—it is a good story. There's many other stories and I don't mean to, you know, cast dispersions if that's the right word, on them. But Karl was not adverse to embellishing and he did that with a great flair. That doesn't mean he was being dishonest. He never was dishonest to me or Interpreted as such. Karl could—was an—like, when you called up you said "Well you are picking up some oral tradition." Maybe my understanding of oral tradition—often the oral tradition and oral history becomes embellished. It tells about and represents a very factual situation but the details are often modified or somewhat, maybe not exactly, historical. Karl was a master of this and did it. He was not adverse to doing it and he did it very well. The stories that I've read and I've read a lot of them. Karl wrote a lot of these. The stories that I have—they tell the situation, you get the feeling for the situation, you wouldn't say this is not true. It's true. But the detail often is not historically exact. But now that's the kind of situation it presents now with a person reconstructing this person. Or the history of this person. Presents them with a tremendous mosaic.
LS:	That's exactly the right word.
HC:	And think of it as a mosaic. Consider it as a mosaic. We are all mosaic. I'm a mosaic. Not all good and not all bad. Karl—tremendous, more so maybe of Karl than many others, although I don't know that I am any less. A tremendous mosiac. Think of it that way. The intent maybe or the general effect. Very valid. But don't believe all the detail because the detail is often contradictory and for a person like me that was there, you can say, you're there? Yes. I was there and maybe the details are not historically exact. See?
LS:	Why did Karl Stahmann and, I mean Mark Stahmann and Link have that serious falling out?
HC:	Have you talked to Mark Stahmann? You should, of course. He's out of town I think.    Mark Stahmann and his wife Trude are very good friends of ours. Very good. And very close friends. My wife and Trude, ah, you know, very close friends. They know—geeze up here in this—they’re out having coffee clutch at Rennebohms or someplace twice a week. I mean they are very good friends. And Stahmann is a good friend of mine. Very good friend of mine. Socially as well as professionally. He always was. And that situation, you ought to talk to Mark and Mark will describe that to you. That is a situation that. I think. I’m not going to try and make believe I'm a psychologist, although we are all psychologists. Whether we admit it or not. But we all practice psychology and often try to make like psychologists whether we are trained or not. But that is a very understandable situation where Mark was not part of the sweet clover isolation at all. You asked [?] how the assignment. Mark was assigned and interested in plant pathology and club root in cabbages. That's what he got his degree in. I got mine, after running through the obstacle course, as Karl described it in some places. And he put us through an obstacle course, not as such, but just as—like Will Rogers, you just know what you read in the papers. This is just what happened. And when people came in this is what happened. It happened to me. He had several projects, little projects, how do you determine lactic acid? Can you improve on it. Well, you really find out if the person is a sloppy analyst or an analyst at all. After the first two weeks on seeing if you can prove the lactic acid method because it is a slippery thing. Well, after I finished that one. Karl said "Campy you are going to be my microanalyst." Schoeffel was the first microanalyst he had and he trained me as a microanalyst. He couldn't train everybody as a microanalyst because it takes too much time and effort. But he kept one microanalyst in his lab to do the microanalytical work for the whole group. "Campy, you are going to be the microanalyst." Well, true, it was no surprise to me. I am analytically inclined, mathematically, numerically inclined. This is my nature. This is my forte and interest. It's not surprising. So, Alright. I was Karl's microanalyst. And if you have not read that story. I don't think that story on Karl is—has been appreciated nearly as much as it should. Karl Paul Link's contribution to microanalysis In the United States. Not in Wisconsin, not in that lab. In the United States.    He was first. Karl had the first good, sound microanalytical laboratory In the United States. He studied in Prego's lab in Germany. Yes. Basel. Germany. No that's—
LS: 	Edinburgh.
HC:	Yes. Well, he went to Edinburgh but that's not where he became a microanalysist. He was with Hutson. I mean Irving in Edinburgh. But after that he went to Germany and studied under Prego where he studied— And Prego got a Mobel Prize for discovering and his work in microanalysis. And Karl was there when it was just sure fresh. And Karl came back with equipment in his suitcases and imported equipment in this country and set up the first, sound microlab.    
00:25:27

Schoeffel was his first microanalyst. Schoeffel left at the time I came in and. after running an obstacle course, is was no surprise to me because I am an analyst by. I don't know where I got it, but by training. My personal computer already had been programmed in analytical thinking when I arrived here. Karl recognized it as a tremendous teacher. He said "Campy, you are going to be my microanalyst". This was kind of an assignment and he did. Saturdays and Sundays do my regular research. After all, you can't spend all week on it. Do dicumarol. This is after running my carbohydrate obstacle course. Produced two new compounds. Straight chains, five membered zylose and arabinose. Gunky stuff. Sticky stuff. It is apt to get loused up your shirt and get loused up in that carbohydrates. But Karl assigned a small project to the man. You find that out pretty quick. After I got through that one he said "Campy, I'm assigning you the dicumarol job". That was the biggy. If that was your cup of tea. So I started dicumarol, still the microanalyst. Microanalyst so we could—on Saturdays and Sundays. Dicumarol the rest of the week. It was that analytical leg of Karl's. And a tremendous personal as well as technical story there in the discovery of the vitamin niacin.    
00:27:20
I don't know if you've—tremendous story. And actually, we can get into that. I'd like to tell it sometime. But there is a tremendous story in itself there. At that time, due to the situation, you are about the right person at the right time, right person for the age or the time or the situation. Karl had me honed up like a razor blade with microanalyses Saturdays and Sundays on other work. Sugar—until you know how to get the right answers in sugar there is no point in working on something else. I was doing any microanalytical—a man came out with a new product in Karl's lab. Give it to Campy and Campy would run a carbon-hydrogen and see if it really was what he thought it was. See. That was that kind of—and it [?] part of my fellowship if you like. Not my first assignment, but my technical expertise in the lab. And Karl had other people with specialties that were for the lab. As long as their own research, they were carried forward. And so, at that time. Elvehjem had isolated crystals. My friend came up from Illinois at the same time as I, Madden, both came up here at the same time. Madden for Elvehjem. I for Karl Paul Link. Madden had pulled out from 500 pounds of beef liver a few little crystals that Elvehjem's group didn't have the expertise or were not. That kind of people. 
LS: 	Strong?
HC:	Strong didn't know how to do this. So he brought it into me and I did it. I was the man that Karl had honed up and it was only one of maybe three or four labs in the United States, by that time it had caught on. Karl was the first but there was a few others that could then do a similar thing. It could have been done in three or four labs in the United States.    Campy was honed up and "Campy will do it". "Campy will tell you what it is

LS: 	So they came to you and said "What is this?" Is that what they did?

HC:	Yes. That's all you know

LS:	Van Potter said there were two possibilities. One is "Is this side?”

HC:	No. They didn't know what it was at all. What is? They only had the crystals. No way of knowing. They had tried and couldn't find out. But that's the analytical, microanalytical leg that I have not seen played up or talked about except the microanalysts—the microanalytical people know about it. The analytical history. But here, locally, in Wisconsin. Locally at the University. I haven't seen nor have people seemed to hold Karl in high regard as a mosaic for this particular thing, technically for the tremendous thing he did.
LS: 	Yes.
HC:	It's not surprising they don't know that I did it. Whose Campy, you know? Whose Campy?  It's not been known. Microlab in the United States. But we knew that. Of course we knew that. But, you know, we are all doing our things. You write up on the progress and, of course, we know we are in the front. After all, we are running like hell. We know we are in the front. There is no surprise. It only surprised other people. We knew it. Of course we knew it. But, of course, it’s just documented.
LS:	Oh good. Well, thanks.
HC:	But this points out that Karl set up—
00:31:32
But, by the time I got there, there was probably three labs in the United States set up that Carbon/Hydrogen/Nitrogen. The next thing, and we often don't give as much credit to this as I believe we should: what are you going to do with the numbers when you've got them?    Lots of people can get numbers. You know, good numbers. But the mental construction, the constructive of how, what does this mean to real people, is—takes a different logic or extended logic. Different synthesis, mental, in the brain, synthesis. How do you go about bringing that together? How do you go back—that is interpretation. And often that is crucial. It is crucial. It's probably always crucial. Always crucial.
LS:	In this case, in niacin?
HC:	Always crucial in, on all of these things. Anybody can get numbers. Or you can teach them how to get numbers. What are you going to do with it? Dicumarol. How are you going to do it? Stan Moore, amino acid analysis. Now that you've analyzed it and you know there is this much glycine and this much alanine, what are you going to do with it? What is it going to mean? Good project there. Rob a nucleus and tremendous advance. Understanding of how this machine works in real people. Gave him a Nobel Prize. Of course.
LS:	How was Elvehjem? What kind of a researcher was he? When you say problem solving is—
HC:	Elvehjem was a real problem solver. Steenbock was a real problem solver. E.B. Hart was a real problem solver. E.B. Hart was still there. I took my first course in nutrition from E.B. Hart. Iron, necessary—well, you think way back then. Like I said, we always knew we needed a little iron for our blood. But no. E.B. Hart, his advance, his discovery. Right. And I had the tremendous experience of not just seeing these people on the stage but studying, under E.B. Hart.
LS:       Was he a good teacher?

00:34:22

HC: 	Excellent teacher. Excellent teacher. One thing that is not known about E.B. Hart. Well, it may be known by quite a little, it was that E.B. didn't kill himself. E.B. Hart had. Oh, trouble. It might have been arthritis or gout or something else. He figured out that he had—his trouble was uric acid crystallized in his joints and painful and it is a gout situation and has an understanding of biochemistry and nutrition. He said "You know you probably could dissolve that." We have it out here in a beaker we dissolve it in hydrochloric acid because it has some nitrogens on it. It would be soluble in an acetic solution. And, you know, if I ate a little ammonium sulfate I would use the ammonia and excrete it in ureal, just—we have a body mechanism for doing that. And I would be stuck with all of that sulfuric acid. And. Boy, that sulfuric acid running around the blood. Boy that might solubilize those crystals." So he self diagnoses his self treatment, took, well a number comes to my mind but I probably shouldn't name it because I may have forgotten the exact number. But it was 15 grams of ammonium sulfate. Nowadays, 15 grams, well you'd say "My goodness that would kill a person." And maybe it's a wonder he didn't get killed.    But he felt much better. He was that kind of a guy and we knew this. Us students around him and amongst us. It was kind of part of the folklore that along with us we wonder, oh, we always called him the old man, wonder the old man is still walking, you know? Saw the old man today. And the other fellow would say "Well I wonder if he's still walking. He hadn't better take anymore ammonium sulfate." You know this kind of stuff. But this is. Yes, he was a good teacher. Steenbock. I took my first course in vitamins under Steenbock. And the story that might be of interest under Steenbock. I don't know how common this is, but Steenbock talking about vitamin D. of course his specialty. Talking about well how much does a—How much vitamin D do you need? It wasn't
only D. of course,  it was all the vitamins. And we did experimental work. We had our own little rats and so on. He said "Well, you know, as an adult doesn't need much vitamin D. As a growing individual, of course you need D to put on bones and the like.    But as an adult you don't need and maybe you shouldn't have it. After all, it might lay down calcium where you don't need it and give you trouble as an old person." He said "Actually, you don't need much. You can make your own." Of course irradiation, of course. Of course. How do you make vitamin D? You have some of these steroids and you irradiate it and with irradiation you call it artificial but is it artificial or is it natural? You do the same thing in your skin. A person does the same thing, see? So you make your own. You don't have to buy it. And he said "Incidentally, a person in business clothes, outdoors 15 minutes a day, makes all the vitamin D he needs." And he said "Incidentally, if he happens to be a one armed man he still makes enough to get by." And so, this is. I've often thought of that and used it. How much vitamin D does an adult really need. Yes. Elvehjem. Oh, let me see. I had a course from Tottingham. Tottingham was still around in those days. Plant chemistry. Karl came up and took his degree with Tottingham. Plant chemistry. Elvehjem. I don't think I ever had a course from Elvehjem. He was head of the department when I was there. Successor to Hart. Hart was there when I first came as head of the department and then Elvehjem took over, replacing Hart, although Hart was still there and doing like emeritus research while Elvehjem was head of the department.
LS:	That's going to be confusing because you left you said in '39. Elvehjem became chairman in '44. It may be that Elvehjem was doing most of the work and—could you mean that? 
HC: 	Elvehjem?
LS:      He didn't become chairman, officially, until. I think. '44.
HC:	I—you know, of course, because you have the record. I doubt it though. I doubt it. I would recommend you check that figure because it seems very unlikely to me. Very unlikely. Because—
LS:      It doesn't matter anyway. It's the sort of thing—
HC:     No. no. but it is important. It's important. Let's come back and I will maybe —
LS:      What I mean by saying it doesn't matter is we can easily find—
HC:     Right. Maybe you have the wrong dates. The University of Wisconsin—
LS:      You see I've got 1944. Elvehjem chairman.
HC:	I think it's wrong. As a matter of fact I'm sure it's wrong. Not only do I think it's wrong. I'm sure it's wrong. I was there during that period. Now, took my degree in agricultural chemistry. Not biochemistry.
LS:	It wasn't called biochemistry yet, was it?
HC:	When I—my last year—Elvehjem came in my last year. This is after I did the niacin job for him. We'll return to that if you want to get to that someday but that's another little block. Elvehjem came in one day at my bench and said "Campy, you've been here three years now and this year is your fourth year. I understand you are going to receive your Ph.D." I said "Well. I hope so." He said "Well, we have a decision and we've talked about it and I'm going to--we have decided, collectively, not me. We have decided that we would leave the option up to you. Last year the department was renamed Biochemistry, as you know." "Yes. Yes. I know that." "You were here for three years now. Two years as an agricultural chemist and now one year as a biochemist. We think it's just fair that you could decide. Do you want your name Ph.D. of biochemistry or do you want agricultural chemistry?" Well. I still remember the personal computer, [a whirling sound]. What do I want, see? So he's standing there and I'm standing there and [sound] one. two. And my mind seemed to run this channel. Here we've got agricultural chemists. McCollum, E.B. Hart. Steenbock, all these very—people that I hold in high esteem. They are agricultural chemists. I couldn't go wrong in siding in with them. On the other hand, biochemistry is something new. But you know, it might not last. After all. the department has been renamed but. you know, it might not last. "Professors. I want my degree in agricultural chemistry." And I probably or might be the last agricultural chemist this University ever turned out. I'm not sure, there might have been one or two others. There was one or two others, maybe four of us. That got out that year and I don't know if they elected to be biochemists or not. But I am an agricultural chemist, took my degree in agricultural chemistry, and at that time it was Elvehjem who came to me.
LS:	Yes. He was most of the—
HC:	I believe head of the department. Although he may have been, as you point out, may have been acting head of the department or something of that nature, that is true. But he functioned at that point as head of the department. And so the actual date. I'm not sure. But to my- as I recall, think back, in my mind he was head of the department, acting that way. And, to me, I considered head of the department.
LS:    That's interesting. Yes. Could you have stayed on the faculty?

00:45:38

HC:	I was not invited to stay on. I don't know that I was inclined to stay on. I was not told to go.  I don't know. I don't know if-I suspect at that point I had been sufficiently indoctrinated by Speed Marvel, University of Illinois, that I don't know if I wanted to stay on. There is a lot of inbreeding going on at Wisconsin.
LS:	Oh yes.
HC:	And a lot of inbreeding, I had been indoctrinated with, that might not be for the best.    I came to the University of Wisconsin due to the good offices. Services, of Speed Marvel at Illinois. Speed had recommended I go to the East Coast, get my Master's and the West Coast to get my Ph.D. But he says "Campy, it's too late. I have to work with my friends. I have a friend up at Wisconsin." It was ray good fortune.  I fell under the tutelage of Karl Paul Link. Very good fortune. I think, probably being so indoctrinated. I had done my thing. I had isolated the crystals of dicumarol. I believe I was psychologically ready to move on to other things. And I did.
LS:	I don't think any of Link's students stayed.
HC:	Pardon?
LS:      I don't think any of Link's students stayed now that I think about it.

00:47:26

HC:	Mark is the only one that came back but that was after a tour with Rockefeller Institute.
LS:      But he wasn't a friend of Links.
HC: 	Pardon?
LS:      He wasn't a friend of Links when he came back. Wasn't that a pretty—
HC:	I wouldn't—that is not correct. That one. The other one I will accept. The fact that you mentioned is not true. Not true. So this is that mosaic that we are talking about.
LS:	They continued to be friends?
HC:	That mosaic. Not forever. But you said when he came back. 
LS:	Sorry.
HC:	Not forever but not as it was stated. It's that mosaic. Mark. Let's pick up on Mark. Mark went to Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. Karl had connections there, good connections. Charlie Heidelberger's father was there, an immunolog1st. Ah. Tremendous. Mark went and studied under, well. Carl Neiland. Just before me. Karl, first round of Karl's students, first group, Carl Neiland was in that group. He went to Rockefeller and when Carl went to Rockefeller I came in. I didn't take Carl's-one one took anyone's position but Carl went out and I came in at that time. He studied at Rockefeller for about four years then he went with Linus Pauling and was in Linus Pauling's laboratory in California-Pasadena as—well headed up the organic department. Pauling kind of an overseer and Carl being second or maybe first in the department. Then Mark went and studied with, and I'm still trying to pick up the same name, working on proteins and amino acids there at Rockefeller. He spent, oh, maybe three or four years there and then came the War. The War shook us all up and the War—he got, I guess, essentially drafted. He worked. I believe, in Bethesda. On a War assignment. And after that, rather than go back to Rockefeller he came here. Now why that choice I don't know. And he came back to Wisconsin. I don't know by what—what motivated him to do it. He was here at Wisconsin, to my knowledge, not—under good graces, no problems at all. Not any outs with Karl at all. In the department Karl then for his bout with TB was laid up in a hospital for some time. It was an opportune situation, as you recognize, a favorable, very favorable situation.    I can well see without straining my program, being a psychologist, Mark could envision himself as being heir apparent. It was there. The lab was open and it needed him. They needed him. Karl had students there, he needed him. And Mark was the man. As I was the man in microchemistry, when, but when niacin and Elvehjem. The man of the day and at the time and home to do it, Mark was the man to take over, at least he thought he took over. At least filled the gap. And he did. And I think very well, I suspect very well. I don't know. Nobody had to judge him. Mark continued to teach in the field of amino acids, which Is a follow-up of Van Potter's book of amino acids which he published on the amino acids. And Van had studied this and taught this course for many years. Mark. Then, having this experience in Rockefeller on the amino acids there, there and not here. See. Brought this information and an interest back, continued and wrote—continued to write and publish in this field and do research in this field. And lectured, his lecture course was on the amino acids at that time. He did that, but in Karl's lab. Was available and then carried on research in that lab. I—at this point, I do not know detail. But I like my old story of Will Rogers. I read—What I read in the newspaper; what I see. What happened. The rest of it is hearsay. The, Karl, now out of the hospital, back. Karl thought it was his lab. And once upon a time it was his lab. But who knows why. That it isn't still Karl's lab. Stahmann had been in there and what a delight. All the fancy equipment and the students and. Well. And he could envision himself as. Yes. I filled in when there was a need. What am I going to do
now? Just fade away? He's not comfortable. There is the makings, there, of an awkward situation. And with the awkward situation, it turned out awkward. I'll leave it to Mark Stahmann to tell you detail. I know them by hearsay. I'd rather you hear them directly from Mark. What the awkward situation led to. But I can—although I—and I do understand. I believe, and recognize well the situation. After all, it was Karl's lab. It always was Karl's lab. I can understand Mark and he's a good friend of mine. Mark had been the man of the day. Filled in. And what a disappointment when you realize, it's not my lab anymore. The University of Wisconsin supplied Stahmann with an excellent laboratory of his own in the new wing with as much room as Karl ever had. An excellent situation. But that's, you know, at that point Mark might not have preferred to have the new lab. He might have preferred to have the old. It never was his own but I can also see that he might have felt he might have inherited it. Heir apparent and—I know that's a synthesis on my own part. I leave it to Mark to fill in the details.
00:55:44

LS:       I thought it was over the Warfarin patent.
HC:	It was. But when Mark came in he thought he owned Warfarin too. The lab and the Warfarin. He thought he inherited the whole thing. Yes, of course. But he never had put his hands on the dicumarol project until after I left and we had isolated crystals. He took over at that point. He did work with Karl during the Warfarin days. Right. I think by that time he had his Ph.D. and, I guess nowadays we might talk of him as a postdoc. Post doctoral fellow. I believe he supervised some of these fellows that were making these 48 or 52 compounds as kind of a strawbone supervisor. Whether he owned Warfarin at that point, I don't know. And it was over Warfarin that they came to a skuffle. And they had words. But I can understand the situation and particularly the way the thing, well, particularly with the way things happened. It never probably would have happened if Karl hadn't been out to the hospital because, after all there would have been continuity. Well with the lack of continuity I can well recognize it was a situation that was just made for maybe misunderstanding and maybe not just misunderstanding, for, you know, an awkward situation.
LS:      You have to understand that you say "Ask Mark Stahmann about it."
But the fact is that he is an interested party and he-So what one needs is a third person's view, where— 
HC:	I've been open to give that. 
LS:	Yes.
HC:	And it has taken certain, well. I learned some things of Karl. Karl is an outspoken person. I claim I'm a candid cuss. Now you have to be both. There is no point in being one. Or the other. If you're going to be candid, you'd better be cussed enough to speak out. And if you are going to be cussed enough, you'd better be candid. I've treated you that way. And Karl—and Mark and his wife are very good friends of ours. But that's the way. I can understand the situation but I—it's very easy and I could have got sucked into the same—talk about black holes, you know. I could have got sucked into the same situation myself. I don't know. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. A little—well, alright. I'll stop there. Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn't. I got my own bets.

LS:	You don't think so.
HC:	I didn't—my past. Let's talk about a better projection mathematically than I am on other things. If my past experience and life course has said something it wasn't to come back to the old thing and the old thing and the old thing. Every time I've taken a move it's been to a field I didn't know anything about but had guts enough to see if--what I could deliver to it might be applicable to it. I doubt like hell if I'd ever come back and try to pull the old little, apple cart with a new. That doesn't mean—now I'm not bad mouthing anybody by that. Other people live their life differently.
LS:	Oh sure.
HC:	But you asked me the question and I don't think I would and I don't think I would have.    

01:00:00

It's been said. Elizabeth told me this. Link. That Campy was Karl's favorite student. I had rapport with Karl. I worked hard for Karl. You read Karl's Harvard lecture. I pulled out for Karl. Dicumarol out of a hay stack. Others could have but others didn't. Karl had built and established that himself on that, as you recognize. And Karl knew it. I knew it. Karl, like I: not all good, not all bad. I got hurt at times but. Again, I was young at that point, and that's another story. But it is true. Elizabeth has stated that, not just to me, but to others and it came back to me by a long route. Thinking that "Campy, maybe you'd do this." Elizabeth told me that you'd be the most likely one to do this because of your respect for Karl and what your high regard you held of Karl and Campy was Karl's favorite student. Something from Karl's memorial.

01:01:47 

End of Tape 2/ Start of Tape 3

00:00:00

HC:	There are two stories that, when the time is right, should be told. I to others, but they are interesting stories but particularly the people relations in science and discoveries of the type I have enjoyed during my lifetime. One is a story the cattle dying having eaten toxic sweet clover up in Northfield. This story has been reported in part by Karl Paul Link. I believe in his Harvey Lectures, referred to. It was a winter experience of James King, a student and I. Campy Campbell, a student. On a very winter day,  in a snow storm, we went up to this farm where, the cattle were dying. This is a story that, when the conditions are right, or maybe more precisely when my brain is right, could well be told. The other story is the identification of niacin, vitamin nicatinic acid. A story that has not been recorded anywhere because the story hasn't been told. I have not told this story and for that reason, obviously not recorded. This story, too, when the time is right could well be told. The one that knew7 the story, in part, and that's Harry Waisman. Now no longer living. Harry Waisman sought me out on several occasions, international meetings. Federation meetings, for example, and would, on several occasions, say "Campy, will you sit with me at the meeting?" And on a couple of these occasions Waisman then would say "Well, Campy. I know this story, what happened on niacin. And I feel awfully bad about it." Not from anything he did. But he knew the situation others and other people—we needn't—it wasn't necessary to talk further on that nor to make a point of it here. But Harry Waisman is not about to write this story and I'm not—my mind is not conditioned at this time to get into that dark closet either. But it is a story that might be of interest. I don't know if it would do anyone else any good because it's important that I know what was done, what I did. what others did and had the stimulation, the excitement, the experience of discovery because without that it is for sure, I wouldn't be doing the things now do in science up on the front again to the limit of my ability to push myself or stretch, which has always, in my experience, been the case. If you are doing your best and got something that you are trying to solve, and just beyond the. grasp of I or anyone else, a week, two weeks, a month,  two months. But, with the courage, if you like, having been in that situation in the past, it can be done. And do it. I have-and it's rather arrogant, maybe, it is arrogant on my part, to make the comment but I've mentioned St. Georgie, the discoverer of vitamin C and many other things, but St. Georgie made the comment one time and I have taken consolation in it. And his saying that "If I had not—not me Campy, but St. Georgie—St. Georgie, I quote "If I had not attempted things that others were convinced were impossible, I, St. Georgie, would not have achieved the things I have done." That is a, oh, scary, but, on the other hand, challenging and an exciting situation to be in. I, too have often, at a different level, found that if I had not attempted things that others had not, couldn't envision, or were sure were impossible or untrue, most new discoveries are of that type. They don't fit the dogma. To follow the dogma is easy. But it just follows the dogma. I, too, would not have done many of the things that I have done. I would not have achieved many of the things I have achieved, the present things I'm doing no exception.
LS:      The early work on toxic sweet, clover.
HC:	Toxic—the early work on toxic sweet clover was carried out by—under the supervision of Karl Paul Link with an investigator known as Schoeffel in Link's laboratory. This was soon followed up in more detail by Willard Roberts, working in conjunction with Bill Smith of Agronomy on the problem of the taste in and bitterness, in particular, of sweet clover. And in conjunction with this work, the toxicity problem of sweet clover hay. This early investigative work was turned over to me. 11, A. Campbell, as Willard Roberts obtained his degree and left Karl Paul Link's laboratory. The early work thus was published after Roberts had left although Roberts and Smith had published, with Link, previously on the early work. The remaining was published as Campbell, Smith, Roberts and Link, depending on the emphasis given to the particular phase of the research.    Finally coming to the point of the isolation, crystallization, obtaining the pure material from toxic sweet clover hay published, naturally, by Campbell and Link. The previous investigator's work had been previously reported. Following this the report runs Overman, Stahmann, Sullivan, Hebner, Campbell and Link. These individuals being on the particular phase of the investigation at that time. The chemical identification and characterization of the dicumarol being carried out primarily by Overman, Stahmann, Sullivan and Hebner. Hebner being the organic chemist. My name being included since this was a follow-up or a continuation of work that was ongoing at the time I was carrying out the investigation. Subsequent to this we see a report by Shapiro, Reddish and Campbell. This is the application of dicumarol to the treatment of people, humans with blood clotting problems. This was after I had left the Karl Paul Link's laboratory and I was working In the New York City area and Shapiro was there—the head of the cardiac group there at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where these early applications of dicoumarol to the treatment of human disease was carried out.
LS:      Yes, I see. Did you know Charlie Heidelberger well?
HC:      I would say well, yes.
LS:      Hum. Was he like—

00:12:39

HC:	I ask a rhetorical question by that write-up. It's a good write-up from the Capital Times, some time ago, of the preparation for the 100th celebration here. We look at the things that are singled out here for. Ah. Oh, singled out for comment or recognition. I think there are seven of them there: the Berklin testing of cattle, soil acidity, food irradiation, vitamin D. cure for pollegra, prevention of blood clots. Nobel Prize given for process in bacteria and drafting of the first rural zoning ordainanee. I ask a rhetorical question. Who, living or dead, had a crucial, significant part In two of these seven operations? The answer is H. A. Campbell. These are an outstanding list of accomplishments listed here for the accomplishments of the University of Wisconsin. Not that I did any one of them by myself, not that anyone else did any one of them by their selves. This is not the nature of scientific discovery. At this stage it is so sophisticated that if one is making a large advance, these are usually accomplished by several groups if not individuals, working in collaboration. This never happens, and it has never happened in human history as I know human history. We all build on those that have gone before us. Contributed to them. Profitted by. And then may do our thing and add to them. So I, likewise—but there is often, at the time this particular new advance or plateau is mounted, a group, each one. doing his own thing In his own right and contributing in his own expertise. Like a three-legged milk stool, essential to the end result. And I, and each one of these—the cure for pellagra, I did the chemical identification of the crystals and identified, recognized, not only with the ability to do the analytical work but to put together the numbers to what they mean. That this compound was nicotinic acid. The chemical identification. Others had purified it. carried out the biological test, and so on. In dicumarol, my role was to obtain from the toxic sweet clover a purified material. In other words, in this case, isolate the material. Others. Mark Stahmann. Hebner, in particular, did the identification, chemical identification. The functional operation that I did on niacin. 
LS: 	Yes.
HC:	In that case. But in both eases, like a three- legged milk stool, it was my good fortune to be the. If you like, the person prepared at that time with the expertise and skills necessary to carry out a particular crucial, If not crucial at least there is nothing as crucial in this life as I know. If I don't do something someone else eventually will come along and do it. But had the good fortune of having the skills to—applied to this situation and supply a particular piece of information making the composite mosiac such that we could mount a new plateau of understanding. 
LS:	 Yes.
HC:	My personal intrigue involved in both of these but I'm not prepared to get into that dark corner.
LS:      Well, that's as far as we should go, is that right?

00:18:53

End of Interview