The contributions of George Herbert Hitchings, PhD, to the welfare of mankind during the last quarter of a century have encompassed not only the development of a series of unique and most valuable therapeutic agents, but also the formulation of a set of important strategic guidelines for their rational design. Of this work it may truly be said that the process by which these discoveries were made is equal in interest and importance to the discoveries themselves. Because of the imaginative and unusual nature of these concepts, I wish to give you some measure of the man himself, and the manner in which he set about his life's work.
George Hitchings was born in the town of Hoquiam, Wash. Situated in Gray's Bay at the confluence of two rivers, some 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean and in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, the community concerned itself with lumber,