The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
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List of the most influential people in Medical,
#4151
Isaac Arthur Abt
1867 - 1955 (88 years)
Isaac Arthur Abt was an American pediatrician and the first president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He was one of the first U.S. physicians to specialize in pediatrics and he authored an influential textbook in the first part of the 20th century.
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Alfred Joseph Clark
1885 - 1941 (56 years)
Professor Alfred Joseph Clark MC FRS FRSE was a British pharmacologist and Professor of Pharmacology at the University College, London. He was a de-bunker of fraudulent remedies and did many early studies on the placebo effect of many claimed cures.
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Graham Lusk
1866 - 1932 (66 years)
Graham Lusk FRS FRSE was an American physiologist, and nutritionist. He graduated from Columbia University, and from University of Munich with a PhD. He was an expert on diabetes. He was profoundly deaf from the age of 30.
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Flemmie Pansy Kittrell
1904 - 1980 (76 years)
Flemmie Pansy Kittrell was the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in nutrition. Her research focused on such topics as the levels of protein requirements in adults, the proper feeding of black infants, and the importance of preschool enrichment experiences for children.
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Rezső Bálint
1874 - 1929 (55 years)
Rezső Bálint was a Jewish-Hungarian neurologist and psychiatrist. He discovered Bálint's syndrome. He was born into a German-Jewish family that had settled in Budapest. Rezso Balint’s first writings, published while he was still a medical student, were case studies examining muscular atrophy in hemiplegia. He went on to study tabes dorsalis and the treatment of epilepsy. In 1907, Dr. Balint recorded his observations of a patient who suffered from a unique constellation of neurologic symptoms including fixation of gaze, neglect of objects in his periphery, and misreaching for target objects. T...
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Richard Cassirer
1868 - 1925 (57 years)
Richard Cassirer was a German neurologist born into a Jewish family in Breslau. After receiving his medical doctorate in 1891, he became assistant at the psychiatric clinic in Breslau under Karl Wernicke . In 1893 he relocated to Vienna, where he furthered his studies with Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Heinrich Obersteiner . Later, he became professor of neurology at the University of Berlin, where he worked closely with Hermann Oppenheim .
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Franz Penzoldt
1849 - 1927 (78 years)
Franz Penzoldt was a German internist and pharmacologist born in Crispendorf, Principality of Reuss-Greiz. He was the father of writer Ernst Penzoldt . He studied medicine in Tübingen and Jena, where he was a student of Wilhelm Olivier Leube . From 1874 until his retirement in 1920, he worked at the University of Erlangen. In 1875, he obtained his habilitation at Erlangen, where he later became a professor of internal medicine and pharmacology. In 1903 he was appointed director of the medical clinic.
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Oskar Simon
1845 - 1882 (37 years)
Oskar Simon was a German dermatologist who was a native of Berlin. He studied medicine in Berlin, where he earned his doctorate in 1868. He furthered his education in Vienna, where he took classes from Ferdinand von Hebra and Hermann Edler von Zeissl . During the Franco-Prussian War he was an assistant-surgeon, and in 1872 became a lecturer of skin diseases and syphilis in Berlin.
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Julius Uffelmann
1837 - 1894 (57 years)
Julius August Christian Uffelmann was a German physician and hygienist born in Zeven. He studied medicine at the University of Göttingen, where he was a student of Jakob Henle , Karl Ewald Hasse and Wilhelm Baum . Following graduation he worked as an assistant in the surgical clinic in Rostock, later practicing medicine in the cities of Neustadt and Hameln. In 1876 he received his habilitation in pediatrics and hygiene at the University of Rostock, where in 1879 he became an associate professor. From 1883 until his death in 1894, he was director of the institute of hygiene at Rostock. In 18...
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Julius von Michel
1843 - 1911 (68 years)
Julius von Michel was a German ophthalmologist born in Frankenthal. He studied at the Universities of Würzburg and Zurich, and in 1866 served as a military physician in the Austro-Prussian War. From 1868 to 1870 he was an assistant to Johann Friedrich Horner at the University Eye Clinic in Zurich. During the Franco-Prussian War , he again served as a military doctor, and afterwards worked with Gustav Schwalbe at Carl Ludwig's Physiological Institute in Leipzig.
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Oskar Fehr
1871 - 1959 (88 years)
Oskar Fehr was a German ophthalmologist. Among his medical specialties were swimming pool conjunctivitis, tumours of the eye, and retinal detachment. He was an internationally renowned eye surgeon. Life Fehr was born in Braunschweig to a Jewish family. He studied in Heidelberg, Berlin, and Kiel, receiving his doctorate at Heidelberg in 1897.
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Leo von Zumbusch
1874 - 1940 (66 years)
Leo von Zumbusch was an Austrian-German dermatologist. He was the son of sculptor Kaspar von Zumbusch . He studied medicine in Vienna, where he later worked as an assistant to dermatologists Moritz Kaposi and Gustav Riehl. In 1906 he obtained his habilitation for dermatology and syphilology, and in 1912 became an associate professor.
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Ralph Stockman
1861 - 1946 (85 years)
Dr Ralph Stockman MD LLD was a Scottish Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics at the University of Glasgow. He was an expert on iron deficiency anaemia. Life Stockman was born on 3 August 1861 at Wellington Street in Leith the son of William J. Stockman. The family moved to 2 Bonnington Place in his youth, soon after the birth of his younger brother, Stewart Stockman.
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Sujoy B. Roy
Sujoy Bhushan Roy was an Indian cardiologist and the founder Head of the department of the Cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. He was the president of the Cardiological Society of India in 1972. He was known for medical research in cardiology and was reported to have coined the name, Juvenile Rheumatic Stenosis. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1972, for his contributions to medical science.
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John Taylor
1703 - 1772 (69 years)
Chevalier John Taylor was an early British eye surgeon, self-promoter and medical charlatan of 18th-century Europe. He was noted by Samuel Johnson, and associated with the surgical mistreatment of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, and perhaps hundreds of others.
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Richard von Krafft-Ebing
1840 - 1902 (62 years)
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis . Life and Work Background and Education Richard von Krafft-Ebing was born as the eldest of five children to Friedrich Karl Konrad Christoph von Krafft-Ebing, a high-ranking official in the Grand Duchy of Baden.
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Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann
1815 - 1890 (75 years)
Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann was a German obstetrician and gynecologist born in Gadebusch, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He studied medicine in Halle, Würzburg and Berlin. In 1845 became an associate professor at the University of Greifswald, where during the following year he was appointed professor of general pathology and therapy. During this time period he published a study on the physiology of pregnancy titled "Physiologie der Schwangerschaft und des weiblichen Organismus überhaupt" . In 1849 he became a professor of obstetrics and director of the Frauenklinik in Kiel. In 1862 he ...
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Thomas Fillebrown
1836 - 1908 (72 years)
Dr. Thomas Fillebrown was an American dentist and the head of the American Dental Association from 1897–1898. Life Dr. Fillebrown was born in Winthrop, Maine. He was son of Dr. James Bowdoin and Almira Fillerbrown. He attended Towle Academy and Mount Weslyn Seminary from which he graduated in 1859. He began his career as teacher in a Public School and then began helping his father J. B. Fillebrown, who was a dentist himself. Thomas Fillebrown was a dentist and a professor of dentistry at Harvard University from 1883-1904. He was a successful oral surgeon and performed operations to fix cleft palates.
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Moriz Heider
1816 - 1866 (50 years)
Moriz Heider was an Austrian dentist born in Vienna. He studied medicine in Vienna, where he was an assistant to Georg Carabelli . In 1858 he became an associate professor at the University of Vienna.
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Ernst Grawitz
1860 - 1911 (51 years)
Ernst Grawitz was a German internist remembered for his work in the field of hematology. He was a younger brother of pathologist Paul Grawitz . He studied medicine in Berlin, earning his degree in 1882. Following graduation, he served as a military physician, subsequently working as a prosector at the Augusta Hospital in Berlin . Afterwards, he was an assistant at the Berlin-Charité.
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Charles Wilson Greene
1866 - 1947 (81 years)
Charles Wilson Greene was an American professor of physiology and pharmacology from Indiana. Biography Greene was born in Milltown, Indiana. He graduated from DePauw Normal School in 1889 and from Leland Stanford in 1892. He was a physiology instructor from 1893 to 1896, when he began his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins with Henry Newell Martin. In 1895, Greene married Flora Hartley. He completed his Ph.D. in 1898 and taught at DePauw Normal and Preparatory schools from 1889 to 1891, and at Stanford University between 1891 and 1900, when he became professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Missouri.
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Ralph Frederick Sommer
1898 - 1971 (73 years)
Ralph Frederick Sommer is known as one of the two leading pioneers in the development of endodontics. He is also noted as a pioneer in the treatment of root canal infections and the development of the root canal operation.
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Anthony Todd Thomson
1778 - 1849 (71 years)
Anthony Todd Thomson was a Scottish doctor and pioneer of dermatology. Life Anthony Todd Thomson was the younger son of Alexander Thomson and was born in Edinburgh, where his parents were staying temporarily, on 7 January 1778. His father was postmaster-general and a member of the council of the Province of Georgia, and collector of customs for the town of Savannah. Anthony returned to America with his parents soon after Anthony Todd, postmaster of Edinburgh, had stood sponsor to him as his godson; but when peace was declared after the American War of Independence, his father, in common with ...
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Meta Given
1888 - 1981 (93 years)
Meta Hortense Given was an American entrepreneur, nutritionist, home economist, photographer and best-selling cookbook author. Given grew up working on her family's farm in Missouri. There, little variety in foodstuffs were available, and after studying nutrition as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and she also did undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Chicago, Given grew interested in devising recipes that maximized the culinary and gustatory value of farm staples but minimized the cost to the consumer.
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Thomas Bell
1792 - 1880 (88 years)
Thomas Hornsey Bell FRS FLS was an English zoologist, dental surgeon and writer, born in Poole, Dorset, England. Career Bell, like his mother Susan, took a keen interest in natural history which his mother also encouraged in his younger cousin Philip Henry Gosse. Bell left Poole in 1813 for his training as a dental surgeon in London. He is listed in 1817 as having an address at number 17 Fenchurch Street, and as being a committee member of the newly formed London Peace Society. By 1819 his address is given as 18 Bucklersbury, also in the city of London. He combined two careers, becoming Professor of Zoology at King's College London in 1836 and lecturing on anatomy at Guy's Hospital.
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Charles Karsner Mills
1845 - 1930 (85 years)
Charles Karsner Mills, M.D. was an American physician and a pioneer in neurology. He founded the first neurology department in a general hospital in the United States at the Philadelphia General Hospital in 1877 and served as chief of neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He was a professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1877 to 1915. He founded the Philadelphia Polyclinic and taught there as professor of diseases of the mind and nervous system from 1883 to 1898. He led major reforms to psychiatric hospitals in the Philadelphia area including the cl...
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Joseph Wattmann
1789 - 1866 (77 years)
Joseph Wattmann von Maëlcamp-Beaulieu was an Austrian surgeon. He studied medicine at the surgical academy associated with Vienna General Hospital, afterwards working as a physician and surgeon in Wels. He then served as an assistant to Vincenz Ritter von Kern in Vienna. In 1816 he was appointed professor of theoretical and practical surgery at the Lyceum in Laibach.
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Edgar Hull
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Edgar Hull Jr. , was a Louisiana physician. He was part of the founding faculty of the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, and later served as Dean of the Louisiana State University School of Medicine at Shreveport .
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Trinidad Arroyo
1872 - 1959 (87 years)
Trinidad Arroyo Villaverde was a Spanish ophthalmologist. She was the first woman ophthalmologist in Spain and the third to receive a doctorate degree, obtaining her doctorate in 1896. She was a teacher and researcher at the University of Madrid, and she operated an ophthalmology practice with her husband Manuel Márquez. They were forced to flee the country in 1939 due to the Spanish Civil War, and they resumed their practice in Mexico City, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
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Liverij Darkshevich
1858 - 1925 (67 years)
Liverij Osipovich Darkshevich was a Russian neurologist who was a native of Yaroslavl. His surname is sometimes spelled Darkschewitsch in medical literature. From 1882 to 1887 he studied medicine at the University of Moscow, and afterwards worked and studied at the laboratory of Theodor Meynert in Vienna, the laboratory of Paul Flechsig in Leipzig, Karl Westphal's clinic in Berlin, and at the Salpêtrière in the clinic of Jean-Martin Charcot . During this time period, he also collaborated with Joseph Jules Dejerine and Sigmund Freud on a number of important medical papers.
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Martine J. Piccart
#4182
Leopold Auerbach
1828 - 1897 (69 years)
Leopold Auerbach was a German anatomist and neuropathologist born in Breslau. He is best known for discovering the myenteric plexus aka Auerbach’s plexus, which helps control the GI tract. Education and career Auerbach studied medicine at the Universities of Breslau, Berlin and the Leipzig. He became a physician in 1849, obtained his habilitation in 1863. From 1872 he was an associate professor of neuropathology at the University of Breslau.
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Hermann von Tappeiner
1847 - 1927 (80 years)
Hermann von Tappeiner was an Austrian pharmacologist. He was the son of anthropologist Franz Tappeiner . He studied at the universities of Innsbruck, Göttingen, Leipzig, Heidelberg and Tübingen, receiving his doctorate in 1872. As a student, his influences included Carl Ludwig and Gustav von Hüfner at Leipzig, and Robert Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg. In 1877 he obtained his habilitation at the University of Munich. Two years later, he began teaching classes in physiology and dietetics at the veterinary school in Munich, and in 1884 became an associate professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology at the university.
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Heinrich Albers-Schönberg
1865 - 1921 (56 years)
Heinrich Ernst Albers-Schönberg was a German gynecologist and radiologist. He was a native of Hamburg. He studied medicine at the Universities of Tübingen and Leipzig, where in 1891 he earned his medical doctorate under the guidance of Heinrich Curschmann . From 1892 to 1894 he was an assistant at Hamburg-Eppendorf Hospital, afterwards working as an assistant to gynecologist Paul Zweifel at the University of Leipzig. Soon afterwards, he settled in Hamburg as a medical practitioner.
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Trevor J. Orchard
Trevor J. Orchard is a British-American hold epidemiologist currently a Distinguished Professor at University of Pittsburgh. He received the Kelly West Award in 1993.
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Heinz Otto Schild
1906 - 1984 (78 years)
Heinz Otto Schild , was a pharmacologist now known for the development of the Schild plot. Life H.O. Schild was born into a Jewish family in what was Fiume, Austria-Hungary, and is now Rijeka, Croatia. During the rise of fascism he was schooled in Munich then Budapest . He studied medicine in Munich and Berlin in the 1920s, with later studies focused on Pharmacology. In 1932s he moved to England to work in Henry Dale's laboratory, working also with John Gaddum.
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Ludwig Andreas Buchner
1813 - 1897 (84 years)
Ludwig Andreas Buchner was a German pharmacologist. His father was pharmacologist Johann Andreas Buchner . Academic background After attending classes in Munich, he continued his education at the Universities of Giessen and Paris. In 1839, he obtained his PhD, followed by his doctorate of medicine in 1842. In 1847, he became an associate professor of physiological and pathological chemistry at Munich, followed by a full professorship of pharmacy and toxicology in 1852.
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Wade Hampton Frost
1880 - 1938 (58 years)
Wade Hampton Frost was born in Marshall, Virginia. He was the son of a country doctor. Before college, he was first homeschooled by his mother, and then spent the final two years in boarding school. He received his B.A. in 1901 and his M.D. in 1903, both from the University of Virginia.
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Ernst Kromayer
1862 - 1933 (71 years)
Ernst Kromayer was a German dermatologist. He was the younger brother of historian Johannes Kromayer . He studied medicine at the universities of Strasbourg, Würzburg, and Bonn, receiving his doctorate in 1885. From 1888 he worked as an assistant to Karl Koester at the pathology clinic in Bonn, and in 1890 qualified as a lecturer at the University of Halle. At Halle he established a clinic for skin and venereal diseases that eventually acquired the status of a university clinic. In 1901 he received the title of professor at the university, then in 1904 relocated to Berlin, where he opened a p...
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Ruth Morris Bakwin
1898 - 1985 (87 years)
Ruth Morris Bakwin was a noted pediatrician and child psychologist and the first woman intern at the Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City . Bakwin and her husband, also a pediatrician, were long associated with New York University School of Medicine.
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Suzi Gage
Suzanne H. Gage is a British psychologist and epidemiologist who is interested in the nature of associations between lifestyle behaviours and mental health. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool and has a popular science podcast and accompanying book, Say Why to Drugs, which explores substance use.
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Clay Johnston
S. Claiborne "Clay" Johnston is the former Dean of the Dell Medical School and Frank and Charmaine Denius Distinguished Dean's Chair at the University of Texas, Austin, United States. Dell Medical School opened in 2016 with Johnston being named as the inaugural dean in January 2014 In July 2021, Johnston announced that he would step down as the dean of the Dell Medical School. He officially left his position on August 31, 2021.
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Carl Pfeiffer
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Carl Curt Pfeiffer was a physician and biochemist who researched schizophrenia, allergies and other diseases. He was Chair of the Pharmacology Department at Emory University and considered himself a founder of what two-time Nobel prize winner, [Pauling, PhD.], named orthomolecular psychiatry and published in the Journal Science. 1968 Apr 19;160:265-71.
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Elmer Ernest Southard
1876 - 1920 (44 years)
Elmer Ernest Southard was an American neuropsychiatrist, neuropathologist, professor and author. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Southard lived in the city for nearly his entire life. He attended Boston Latin School and completed his education at Harvard University. At Harvard, Southard distinguished himself as a chess player. After briefly studying in Germany, he returned to the United States as a pathologist at Danvers State Hospital. Southard held academic appointments at Harvard University and its medical school.
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Edith Bülbring
1903 - 1990 (87 years)
Edith Bülbring, FRS was a British scientist in the field of smooth muscle physiology, one of the first women accepted to the Royal Society as a fellow . She was professor of pharmacology at the University of Oxford and professorial fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, later emeritus professor .
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Isaac Schour
1900 - 1964 (64 years)
Isaac Schour was a dental scholar, educator, researcher, and administrator. He is best known for his tooth development chart. By studying the histolotgic sections of the teeth of animals, he inspired a new discipline: the histo-physiology of teeth and surrounding structures.
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André Barbeau
1931 - 1986 (55 years)
André Barbeau, was a French Canadian neurologist. He was known for his research into Parkinson's disease and Friedreich's ataxia and taurine research. Born in Montreal, Quebec, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Collège Stanislas and his medical degree from the Université de Montréal.
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Abraham Lilienfeld
1920 - 1984 (64 years)
Abraham Morris Lilienfeld was an American epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. He is known for his work in expanding epidemiology to focus on chronic diseases as well as infectious ones.
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Paul Anton Cibis
1911 - 1965 (54 years)
Paul Anton Cibis was a clinical ophthalmologist, surgeon and pioneer of modern vitreoretinal surgery. As part of Operation Paperclip Cibis came to the United States and performed research for the U.S. Air Force and studied the effects of atomic weapons testing on the eye. He was an internationally recognized expert in retinal detachment surgery and pioneered the use of liquid silicon for this procedure.
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Cornelius P. Rhoads
1898 - 1959 (61 years)
Cornelius Packard "Dusty" Rhoads was an American pathologist, oncologist, and hospital administrator who was involved in a racist scandal and subsequent whitewashing in the 1930s. Beginning in 1940, he served as director of Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research in New York, from 1945 was the first director of Sloan-Kettering Institute, and the first director of the combined Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center. For his contributions to cancer research, Rhoads was featured on the cover of the June 27, 1949 issue of Time magazine under the title "Cancer Fighter".
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