A Personal Tribute

Table of Contents

To borrow from George Bernard Shaw, Eberhard Mammen's life can be summed up thus:

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

Together with Hanna, his childhood sweetheart and wife of 53 years, they educated four children to become outstanding individuals. In 1973, Eberhard Mammen was named Dean of the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and in 1975, the College was moved to the old, shabby Chrysler Building. Together with Hanna, and with the help of their four children, flowers were planted around the building, the rooms were painted, and classrooms were renovated before classes began for some 400 students. This outstanding feat was on a par with the seminal medical articles that Eberhard published, that on Fibrinogen Detroit[1] [2] (a molecular defect in the N-terminal disulphide knot of human fibrinogen) being one among many others, and with the international journal that he created and nurtured for decades—Seminars in Thrombosis and Hemostasis. No one can accomplish so much alone, and I am honored to credit Hanna Mammen, as she was credited by Eberhard during his lifetime, for her share in contributing to the stature of that great man.

REFERENCES

• 1 Blombæck M, Blombæck B, Mammen E F, Prasad A S. Fibrinogen Detroit—a molecular defect in the N-terminal disulphide knot of human fibrinogen?.  Nature. 1968;  218 134-137
• 2 Mammen E F, Prasad A S, Barnhart M I, Au C C. Congenital dysfibrinogenemia: fibrinogen Detroit.  J Clin Invest. 1969;  48 235-249