The death of Logan Clendening on January 31, 1945, removes one of the most colorful and picturesque figures from American medicine. No one who ever met or talked to him ever forgot him, and few who only saw him ever failed to remember him. A tall, handsome man, straight but ample of girth, he produced always the impression of vigor, health and good spirits. A born raconteur with histrionic ability that made him in his younger days an outstanding amateur actor, his stories and anecdotes, whether recounted at a dinner party, in a classroom, or at a medical meeting, were invariably hailed with gales of laughter. An equally good listener, he was keenly perceptive of humor and had the unusual gift of initiating laughter, so that many speakers whose humor was not immediately effective were grateful to him for his infectious appreciation. Clendening was at his best as a raconteur at the table and, as was said of MacDonald, wherever he sat, there was the head of the table.

Logan Clendening was born in Kansas City, Missouri on May 25, 1884, the son of Edwin McKaig Clendening, a prominent citizen, and his wife, Lide Logan. The Clendenings were Scotch, and the original settler in America, a staunch Jacobite, left Scotland after the downfall of James II. Logan Clendening related that as a boy, his most vivid memory of his grandfather was on June 10 of each year when the old gentleman, wearing a white rose in his buttonhole, walked up and down the street swinging his cane and vowing confusion to the Hanoverian usurpers. Logan Clendening was educated in the public schools of Kansas City, Missouri, at the University of Michigan, and at the University of Kansas where he obtained his M.D. in 1907. He then studied and travelled abroad, visiting the principal medical centers in England, Scotland, and on the Continent. He began the practice of medicine in Kansas City and, in 1914, married Dorothy Hixon, a woman of unusual talent and ability, who encouraged his growing historical and cultural interests. She was his constant companion on his numerous trips abroad and at home, for he early developed a passion for visiting the shrines of medical heroes and viewing the scenes of their triumphs, a passion which led him all over Europe, Northern Africa and over both North and South America.

In 1917, Clendening was commissioned major in the medical corps and served for two years as chief of the medical service at the base hospital of Fort Sam Houston. Returning to Kansas City, he was appointed instructor in Medicine at the University of Kansas and threw himself with great enthusiasm into the teaching of medical students, particularly physical diagnosis, a subject which fascinated him throughout his entire medical career. His Workbook in Elementary Diagnosis, published first in 1938, is a brief outline of the course he taught for so many years. He was fond of quoting Osler to the effect that many correct diagnoses were based primarily on acute observation. "You recognize instantly what you have seen before," he would emphasize. "The process of reasoning is often only to defend your diagnosis before others who see less clearly. The Augenblicksdiagnose of Traube has nothing in common with snap diagnoses."

It is difficult to estimate at just what time the virus of collecting books and pursuing medical history entered his veins. His paper on "Centenary of the Stethoscope", published in the Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association in 1920, is apparently his first purely historical contribution and was inspired in great measure by his infatuation with physical diagnosis.

His first medical work, Modern Methods of Treatment, appeared in 1924. This work was not a dry-as-dust compilation of materia medica, indications, contraindications and dosages, but was filled with interesting bits of medical history, amusing anecdotes, and sound common sense. It was an eminently readable medical text and interested the reader while it informed him. It has passed through eight editions.

This book fell into the hands of the well-known Henry Mencken, who read it with great interest. Mencken had long wanted some doctor to write a medical book telling the American people just how their various organs were built and how they worked. Clendening seemed to be the man for the job. Mencken visited Clendening and explained the plan he and Alfred Knopf had in mind, but Clendening demurred and protested his inability to write such a book. Later, with the encouragement of his wife, he sketched an outline of such a book and wrote the first chapter. The other chapters, as he expressed it, rolled off his pen, and in 1927, The Human Body appeared. This work was an instantaneous success, and more than half a million copies have been sold.

Clendening shortly afterwards was urged to write a daily column on health advice. After long deliberation, he accepted. It was a hard decision. He felt that any physician writing a daily column should not engage in private practice, and he dreaded the loss of a professional life which was at once exciting, interesting and adventurous. From the first his column was a great success and, at the time of his death, appeared in 383 daily newspapers with a combined circulation of 25 million. His column, interesting, informative, and sparkling with wit and anecdote, was filled with homely philosophy and common horse sense.

Although Clendening withdrew from private practice, he did not withdraw from the practice of medicine. He worked harder in the dispensary than ever before. He initiated generation after generation of medical students into the mysteries of physical diagnosis, and no students ever slept or even dozed during his demonstrations of gastric lavage or of abdominal paracentesis.

With more leisure and increased means, he was now able as never before to gratify his passion for medical history. He soon assembled one of the finest private collections in the country of old medical books, which was at once the despair and envy of his bibliophilic friends. In 1939, Mrs. Clendening presented to the University of Kansas the Hixon Laboratory, one floor of which housed this library and was devoted to medical history, fulfilling a dream of Clendening. Medical history was now established as a regular course in the medical school of the University of Kansas and during the first year, Doctors Sanford Larkey, John F. Fulton, Henry E. Sigerist, and Chauncey Leake spoke to the medical students as guest lecturers. A description of this library and the department of medical history appeared in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine May, 1940. In 1942 Clendening was elected vice-president of the American Association of the History of Medicine and became president on the death of Dr. Jabez Elliott. He also organized the Quivira Medical Society, composed of physicians in the Kansas City area who were interested in the history of medicine. This society became a constituent member of the American Association.

In addition to the books already mentioned, Clendening published The Care and Feeding of Adults, (1931), Behind the Doctor, (1933), and Source Book of Medical History, (1942), a voluminous and scholarly work which should be in the library of all physicians interested in medical history.

Clendening's interest in books and literature extended beyond the range of medical writers. He was intensely interested in the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy and at one time had a very complete bibliographical collection on the subject. He was an avid reader of Dickens and possessed a fine collection of Dickensiana. In his interesting and amusing A Handbook to Pickwick Papers, 1936, he described a trip to the various inns and the countryside visited by Pickwick on his memorable journey. During the last years of his life he became much interested in philosophy and often lamented that he had begun serious reading of Plato first in his fifties when he should have commenced it in his twenties. For two years preceding his death, Clendening gave a course in logic as applied to medicine, and he planned some writings on this subject. Logan Clendening was a man of intense convictions and was never hesitant about expressing them. Yet he rarely wounded his opponent in a verbal encounter and even those upon whom he turned tables usually joined in the laughter at their own expense. He carefully separated individuals and causes, never damning individuals for supporting causes of which he did not approve, or damning causes because he did not like their champions. His wit was proverbial among his friends, but it did not have a sting or an unpleasant aftertaste. He was essentially tender and kindhearted and the carnage and destruction of the present war brought on moods of deep depression. This was reflected in his column for Christmas 1943, in which he stressed the mockery of the words "peace on earth, good will to men" and closed with the thought that his profession had lived up to the words of the Master and was binding the wounds of friends and foes alike. Few mothers with sons in the service could read it with dry eyes or without a lump in the throat.

Logan Clendening will never be forgotten by his friends. As for his enemies, I don't believe he had any. Generations of past students of the University of Kansas will always remember him, and future students will find evidences of him everywhere. His entire professional life was spent in the service of his Alma Mater and it never had a more loyal son.