Arthur H. “Milt” Smith, PhD. died peacefully of congestive heart failure in his home on October 22, 2007. He was 91. He was born on March 28, 1916 in Santa Barbara, California and moved with his family to several communities before settling in Berkeley in 1921. His parents, both teachers, traced their ancestry to American pioneers: to Jamestown on one side, to the Lewis and Clark Expedition on the other. Milt attended public schools in Berkeley. As a teenager, he worked as a farmhand during the summers on the Mill’s Ranch near Mt. Shasta. There he met his future wife Rachel Scalise, who was raised nearby in Weed.
After finishing his studies in biochemistry at Cal, he took a job as a lab technician with Max Kleiber in Davis, at that time the farm campus for UC Berkeley. Milt and Rae were married in November 1939 and made a home in the little town of Davis. During World War II, Milt served as an Aviation Physiologist in the US Navy at several bases in the southeast, notably Jacksonville, Florida, where their first son Richard was born in 1945. Following the war, Milt returned to Davis and completed his PhD in Physiology. Their second son, Lloyd, was born in Sacramento in 1947.
Milt joined the faculty of the department of Animal Husbandry, later co-founded the department of Animal Physiology and went on to have a successful 36 year academic career at UC Davis. His research interests involved environmental effects on an animal’s growth, respiration, reproduction and body composition. He developed the Chronic Acceleration Laboratory at UC Davis to study the effects of high gravitational fields. He participated in the development of the White Mountain High Altitude Research Station and conducted many studies on the effects of high altitude. He was an elected Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and was one of the first physiologists to become board certified in Aerospace Physiology. He collaborated with many other scientists and was involved in experiments using orbiting space satellites to study the effects of weightless environments. Milt was a founding member of the International Society for Gravitational Physiology and the Galileo Foundation, organizations dedicated to stimulating international collaborations and research on gravitational and aerospace physiology. His work on gravity and body composition suggested the existence of a hormonal system controlling body fat stores, later found by others to be the leptin hormones. Over the decades, he authored over 150 scientific publications and mentored numerous graduate students, many of whom became his close friends. He became an Emeritus Professor in 1986 and spent much of his time rooting for Cal Bears football, traveling the world with Rae and enjoying the Grove Encampmemt in the summertime.
Milt Smith is survived by his wife of 68 years, Rachel Smith; son Richard Smith and daughter-in-law Deborah Crawford of Ferndale, California; grand daughter Rachel Smith, husband Eric Rowell and great grandson Mason Rowell of Missoula, Montana; grand daughter Tonya Smith of Garberville, California; son Lloyd Smith and daughter-in-law Peg Smith of Davis California; grand daughters Megan Smith of San Francisco, California and Caitlin Smith, of Albany N.Y.; grandson Duncan Smith, of Sacramento, California; nephew Glenn Smith and wife Cheri of LaFayette, California; and niece Patricia Smith of Boston, Massachusetts.
Milt was known by his many colleagues and dear friends for his intellect and encyclopedic memory, for his generosity, and especially for his unique sense of humor, as illustrated by one of his favorite limericks, as follows:
From the train, a young soldier named Jack
Said “goodbye” as he leaned out to smack
The lips of his chick
But the train took off quick
And he kissed a cow’s back down the track.
At Milt’s request there will be no memorial service. It is suggested that donations in his memory be made to The Galileo Foundation at P.O. Box 157, Davis, CA 95617-0157, or to the Yolo Hospice at PO Box 1014, Davis, CA 95617.
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