The Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
February 11
1913
My dear Miss Turner:
You could very well offer the work we spoke about for the Ph.D. degree. The point is to demonstrate that you can do "original work." The problem regarding the percentile vs the absolute blood pressure as a criterion is very important and would excite wide interest.
What you say about the degree per se does not seem to me to be correct. If you are well informed, as you certainly are, and if you have a true feeling for investigation, and you have shown this by two years work, you evidently possess all that Mt Holyoke can reasonably ask. However, if you want the degree, from Harvard, you can certainly get it, if you will only produce some results justifying the belief that you can do investigation by yourself. Many Ph.Ds, perhaps most, show nothing original whatever, but I could not well recommend any one who did not.
It is doubtful whether the turtle artery would do. Besides, it is not near enough to the highest mammals. Fasten the artery on two metal tubes, each serving as an electrode. The lower tube can go through a cork and thus support the preparation from below. The upper tube can be connected with a glass tube in which the normal saline or blood serum filling the artery may rise. Stimulate with induction currents. Measure the diameter of the blood vessel and the height to which the liquid column is raised when the artery contracts. Repeat the observation with the artery under varying degrees of pressure. Use always the same stimulus. Study the relation between the constriction of the vessel and the change (rise) which it makes in the level of the liquid column Your first difficulty will be to make the artery contract. Please let me know how you get on especially if I can be of any service.
I enjoyed the glimpse we had of you.
Faithfully yours
W. T. Porter