December 18, 1939
Dear Mr. Crane:
I greatly appreciate your letter of December 12th and am happy that you and Professor Wells and Dr. Howe feel that I could carry on with Section G of Biological Chemistry, which Professor Wells has kept at such a high level of interest for so many years.
I do not feel, however, that I have the breadth of knowledge or interests with which to conduct the Chemical Pathology section.  I would, however, to be interested in starting for you a Section J, Immunochemistry.  In the last dozen years or so the chemistry of immunity has claimed an increasing number of workers and is still expanding and extending its usefulness.  It would seem to me that serology, as it was formerly understood, is not necessarily related to pathology, nor are the immune processes other than normal chemical mechanisms.
At present, papers on Immunochemistry are divided among Methods, Microbiology, Pathology, and occassionally Pharmacology, and I think it would be advantageous to have them in a section of their own.
I am wondering what you will think of this idea.
With kindest regards,
Sincerely,
Michael Heidelberger