JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS 311 Dr. Allan L. Lorincz, head of the Section of Dermatology at the Univer- sity of Chicago, Department of Medicine, acted as eulogist and described Dr. Wheatley's work. The presentation was made at the Special Award Luncheon, May 8th, at the Hotel Biltmore. Warren B. Dennis, president of the Society presented the Award to Dr. Wheatley and gave the following citation from the scroll: "The Society of Cosmetic Chemists presents to Victor Richard Wheatley, B.Sc., Ph.D., the Special Award for 1962 for achievement in basic studies of the biochemistry of epidermal lipids and particularly for his studies of human sebum."

VICTOR R. WHEATLEY, PI-I.D. A Eulogy by ALLAN L. LORNCZ, M.D. IT HAS BEES CLAIMED that the relation between chemists and derma- tologists in the arena of cosmetics is an uneasy one, aggravated more often than eased when there is direct contact between the two. As a dermatolo- gist hopelessly outnumbered by this overwhelming body of cosmetic chem- ists, I feel goaded to assume the customary physician's stance of infallibility and tell you all a thing or two--this time not about the abuse of drugs and hormones in cosmetics but about your very good sense in honoring by means of your Special Award and its accompanying palpable prize the magnificent scientific contributions of Dr. Victor R. Wheatley to the field of cutaneous lipid biochemistry. Dr. Wheaticy began his scientific career as a technician in the biochemical laboratories of the Westminster Hospital Medical School in England where, after a few years, he was put in charge of all routine clinical biochemical work and technical staff teaching. During the war he narrowly escaped with his life when his hospital was struck by bombs. After becoming qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technology, he served as a part-time lecturer in Chemical Pathology for that Institute and continued his studies in chemistry to obtain the B.Sc. degree from London University. During this period he also developed a number of im- proved clinical laboratory methods. In 1948 he first started working with skin as a hall-time research bio- chemist associated with the cutaneous biochemistry research program of Dr. R. M. B. MacKenna and Prof. A. Wormall at the Medical College of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. By 1950 he completed his thesis, an exhaus- tive study on the composition of sebum, and obtained a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from London University. His first major dermatologic discovery by that time was the definite demonstration of the presence of large amounts of squalene in human skin surface lipids. This finding of squalene on the human skin surface stimulated Dr. Stephen Rothman at the University of Chicago to speculate about its possible role in cholesterol synthesis. Dr. Rothman's discussions on this subject with the biochemist, Dr. K. Bloch, helped to spark the classic work which the latter and his associates at Chicago subsequently carried out in proving that squalene is a key intermediate in the biosynthesis of cholesterol. 312