November 20, 1972

Dr. Bernard D. Davis
Bacterial Physiology Unit
Harvard Medical School

25 Shattuck Street

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Dear Bernie,

I have your letter of November 7gh, and I have talked with
Preston Cutler about their response to you.

I would still very much enjoy seeing you here next year and
will persist in taking on the burden of finding you office space.
I appreciate your understanding of the possible difficulties and
constraints, but I am certain that we can meet your minimum requirements
and I will do my best to get you accommodations that would go beyond
that standard.

As to the title of "Visiting Professor" this has traditionally been
applied to professors who have been invited to teach, usually as re-
placements for existing faculty, and whose salary is paid in part at
least from Stanford University funds. However, this may not be a completely
inflexible policy, and if you will send me two copies of a routine CV
and bibliography I will find out. Regardless of title there will be no
problem in getting you the commensurate privileges.

The one thing I would not look forward to is your connecting the
department in any special way with the book you are planning to write.
I am personally quite sympathetic with your goalsbut I would prefer not
to have to put them to the test of formal acquiescence by the rest of
the department and by others at the school which might be entailed by
any implication of offering "credentials" for the book. Appointments as
visiting professor are scrutinized by an all university advisory board,
and I think they might reasonably ask embroiling questions if it were
asserted that your appointment was for the purpose wf writing a popular
book. We are more than happy to offer you hospitality but your credentials
rest on your general reputation and your long held position at Harvard.

I hope you will have had a chance to see the Gardner Lindzey manuscript
or will have an opportunity to do so soon and to hear your reaction to its
content.

There is another problem Sfamome than philosophical interest that I
meant to bring up in our all too brief discussion, and that is the alleged
evolution of a number of infectious diseases (syphilJis, scarlet fever,
diphtheria, plague ?). It is often asserted that these have varied, historically,
in virulence in a way that may reflect genetic changes in the pathogens as
well as the environmental milieu and therapeutic responses. I can well believe

over

 
Dr. Bernard D. Davis -~2- 11/20/72

this but I think the issue deserves to be looked at more critically

than has been done before, even by Burnetf#. As the issue might have some
bearing on whether we may expect a global pandemic of great severity
from some now relatively inoculous infection it may have some ?

as well as antiquarian and scientific importance.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr