Mallinckrodt Gift Funds Six Chairs

President Pusey announced yesterday the creation of six Mallinckrodt Professorships in the natural sciences--the largest number of endowed chairs ever named for one man.

The chairs are financed from the $9 million bequest of Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. '00, who died early last year. Harvard professors were named to four of the chairs yesterday. Two scientists from outside the University will be chosen this year to fill the other two posts in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The four new Mallinckrodt Professors are Robert V. Pound and J. C. Street in Physics, William von Eggers Doering in Chemistry, and Paul M. Doty in Biochemistry.

While he was alive, Mallinckrodt gave the University an additional $4 million in gifts. His final bequest will total several million dollars more when the additional parts of his estate left to Harvard are liquidated. James R. Reynolds, assistant to the president for Development, said yesterday the additional funds could make Mallinckrodt the University's most generous benefactor.

The Corporation divided the endowment, giving three-quarters to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the remainder to the Medical School. Five of the six chairs will each be financed by an income from $675,000 of Mallinckrodt's endowment. One of the Physics chairs will be charged to the Program for Harvard Science. The Medical School has not yet announced plans for its funds.

Father Donated Building

It was Mallinckrodt's father, Edward Sr., who donated the chemistry building north of the Yard bearing his name. Both father and son operated the Mallinckrodt Chemical Co., which in World War II processed large quantities of uranium for use in the Manhattan Project.

The four new chair-holders are all distinguished researchers.

In 1943, Doering was the first to synthesize quinine (with Robert B. Woodward, Donner Professor of Science).

One of the founders of Harvard's new Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Doty was a pioneer in the study of macromolecules.

Pound is a former Junior Fellow of Harvard's Society of Fellows and an authority on the electrical activity and inner magnetic forces of atomic nuclei.

Street is one of the developers of radio navigation and group and ship radar. He has done important research on cosmic rays and on devices for detecting atomic particles. He is co-author of the a college text, General Physics. Since 1966, he has been assistant dean of the Faculty.