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Scenic & Historic Mississippi #1 After the Hawk is Gone by Benjamin Root, Sr.The hawk shifted its weight to an adjacent limb as the broken branch fell away into the dark woods below. It was an event which occurred more frequently now as the deadened pine tree gave way to its slow demise. Lightning had struck along its massive trunk some many months before. Now it only lingered and was going into its grave in bits and pieces. Like some unbelieving giant, it was reluctant to accept the bitter knowledge of its perishability. The hawk was also affected, but mainly by the inconvenience of having to change to a different limb as the need arose. The days and nights fell in somber procession as these strange companions shared together the slow death of one and the disturbing effect of that on the other. For a long time I could not understand the reason why a hawk would choose a deadened tree in which to stand guard over the territory which he so loudly claimed. Finally it became evident to me. Because so many of the limbs had fallen away, the hawk had from that vantage point a clearer view of the land around. He could dominate from that high and open perch. Unfortunately, he was slowly losing his stand, and eventually would have to readjust to the disadvantages of healthy growing trees with enclosing branches. More troubling yet, could this mean that the hawk himself, like the tree, would diminish? Would he lose, over time, his innate and keen sense of observation? The dying tree sooner of later would provide the answer. Theirs was an arrangement which would not long endure. But in keeping with the universal pattern of life, death and tragedy would give way to opportunity, although the momentary acceptance of loss is hard. Tomorrow the hawk will find yet another dying limb upon which to stand ?perhaps again the day after. But eventually he must circle above the broken remains of his once-stately pinnacle. He then must have a better place upon which to land. And when he finds it, it must offer something to replace that which he cherished and lost. It must be above all else around it, and he must have faith in what it can provide. The hawk could not understand how lightning struck his tree, and therefore he had no way to understand its gradual departure. The tree had offered false hope and he would eventually have to trust another. The right tree for him will be one which will still be there long after the hawk is gone. Sound Mind & Sound Body Dr. Arthur Guyton's Legacy by Kathy Root Pitts. Arthur Guyton, born in Oxford, Mississippi on September 8, 1919, was one of the great medical minds of the Twentieth Century. Dr. Guyton felt that education was best when the student was given the chance to question and experience learning on his or her own as a dynamic and exploratory process. This was his approach to academics as a teacher at the University Medical Center (UMC). At a young age, Arthur had opportunities to explore his early interests in electricity, carpentry, mechanics, and athletics at home. He enjoyed tennis, track, football. With his neighbor and friend, William Faulkner, Guyton played chess, sailed on Sardis Lake in a boat that Guyton constructed, and flew planes. While studying at the Oxford Campus of the University of Mississippi, Guyton learned the value of combining sciences ? the principles of one to inform another. He recognized patterns. When he continued his studies at Harvard Medical School, he missed that freedom of academic exploration that he had at the University of Mississippi, but he did enjoyed working in the machine shop at Harvard, and it was while in Boston that he came up with his prototype of the first commercial sensor for arterial pressure suction tube used in intestinal surgery. He was gifted in the area of electro-chemistry. In 1943, Guyton married Ruth Waigle from New Haven, Connecticut. Arthur and Ruth would have ten children. When asked why so many children, Ruth good-humoredly stated, ?The incredible truth is, simply, that we happen to like children. ? (Inventing 74) During World War II, Arthur enlisted into the Navy and served at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Massachusetts in the Department of Surgery, and then at Camp Detrick, Maryland in the Bacterial Warfare Department. There, he invented apparatii for studying the behavior and air-dispersal of bacteria, toxins, and viruses. After military service, and back in Boston, Arthur and Ruth settled into a home with their first baby, David. Dr. Guyton planned to specialize in cardiac surgery, but he contracted polio and suffered partial paralysis. With undaunted spirit, he directed his creativity to inventing the electric wheelchair, walking leg braces, hoists, and other devices for the use people with disabilities. He declined monetary compensation for these, as he would not benefit from the suffering of others. In 1947, Dr. Guyton and family returned to Oxford as Head of Physiology at The University of Mississippi. There, his researches into his primary passion, physiology, led to the first federal grants given to the University of Mississippi Medical School in 1968. More federal research funds followed. Arthur Guyton was rapidly receiving country-wide recognition. The University of Mississippi expanded their medical school into a four-year program and moved it to Jackson in 1955. Jackson would become the Guyton ?s home, and true to form, Arthur Guyton built his own house (see photo on page 10). While at UMC, Dr. Guyton used his concepts of complementary sciences to determine the relationship between the kidneys and the circulatory system, the Theory of Infinite Gain: ?Ott was able to prove the true relationship between blood, veins, heart, and kidneys, and that kidneys are the true regulators of long-term blood pressure control....Arthur C. Guyton [is considered] to be the Father of Modern Cardiovascular Physiology. ? (Inventing Ott 75). Dr. Arthur Guyton wrote approximately 40 books and 600 papers for medical literature, but his most renowned work, Textbook of Medical Physiology, in 1956, is the ?best selling medical book of all time ? (Inventing 78). Unlike other medical volumes that take many medical scholars and several years to compose, Dr. Guyton wrote his text on his own inside of one year, drawing from the notes that he used to teach his classes. The most recent editions of Textbook of Medical Physiology were coauthored by Guyton ?s honored and respected former student, Dr. John Hall. Dr. Hall admitted that Arthur Guyton ?s way of understanding physiology is difficult, but once mastered, the doctor has a deeper understanding of the body ?s processes. (Guyton 86). Guyton did not lecture his students so much as showing them ?how to think. ? In a ceremony at the Mississippi Trade Mart a few weeks before his retirement in 1989, Arthur Guyton was honored for his brilliant career with the naming of ?Arthur Guyton Day ?: August 25th. Mississippi ?s Congress had made this official the previous March. Tragically, on April 30, 2003, Arthur Guyton and his wife, Ruth were in a car accident not far from their Jackson home. They were delivered to the University Medical Center and died within a few days of each other. Still, the Guytons ? support of each other, their love of family, their strength, and Dr. Guyton ?s gifts to the field of medicine, will certainly be remembered.”