The Chemical Club of Illinois Wesleyan University announced the election of its officers on this date. Five young men were named, but the name of only one could be traced with any confidence. the Pantagraph stated: "The Chemical Club is one of the most progressive organizations at the northside Institution and those making up the membership are wide awake to the advantages of research work and open discussion.
James Clyde Munch was born in Farmer City, Illinois and lived in Bloomington with his parents. His father was a grocer. He completed high school in 1912 at age 16, continued to IWU where he received his BS in 1915 and his MS in 1916. He then became a professor of chemistry at the University of Louisville until he joined the Army Medical Corps during WWI. He worked with the Army Sanitation Corps in France during the war. He continued to work for the Bureau of Chemistry until 1926 (now the Food and Drug Administration) after the war and became an internationally known pharmacologist. He was a professor at many universities and developed treatment for thallium (rat poison) poisoning. He was medical director for three different pharmacuetical compnaies and owned his own laboratory in New Darby, Pennsylvania.
A story told in a family genealogy was of Munch's enjoyment of expert witness testimony. On one occasion, in order to prove a point in a criminal trial, Clyde Munch ate a large dose of arsenic, and then, because the stomach could not tolerate it, vomited it up in the courtroom. The judge ruled in the defense's favor.
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