George H. A. Clowes, Jr, MD, who died September 10, 1988, was indeed an admirable and remarkable man whose surgical career was influential in germinating many of the critical movements in American surgery and surgical research. He was born in Buffalo, NY, in 1915, the child of a distinguished British-American scientist who was himself instrumental in translating the monumental discovery of insulin by Banting and Best into a purified and stable compound that could be administered as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of diabetes.
Stimulated by his heritage, George studied hard and achieved Harvard College (BS, 1937) and Harvard Medical School (MD, 1941), and completed his surgical residency at the Fifth Harvard Surgical Service and the Massachusetts General Hospital (1948). His interest in fundamental problems in physiology and biochemistry led him to spend two separate periods of research fellowship, one in 1942 with Dr Cecil Drinker at the Harvard