The family rented out the second-floor apartments and lived in the eight rooms on the third floor (Schmitt, 6–8).

in 1924 and a Ph.D. in physiology in 1927 from Washington University in St. Louis, where he met and was mentored by John Paul Visscher.

[2][3] During a summer research program at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1923, he worked with Haldan Keffer Hartline under the supervision Jacques Loeb and Thomas Hunt Morgan.

He collaborated extensively with Arthur H. Compton to develop x-ray diffraction techniques for biological macro-structures like muscles and nerves.

Schmitt became an authority on electron microscopy and conducted innovative studies on kidney function, tissue metabolism, and the chemistry, physiology, biochemistry, and electrophysiology of the nerve.