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Lester S. King

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American pathologist (1908 – 2002)

Lester Snow King, M.D. (April 18, 1908 – October 6, 2002) was an American pathologist, medical editor, medical journalist, and medical historian.

Biography

Lester S. King was born in a Jewish family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his father, Myron L. King, M.D., was a general practitioner. Lester S. King studied philosophy at Harvard College, where he graduated at age 19 with a bachelor's degree. At Harvard Medical School, he graduated in 1932 with a medical degree and after graduation was a Workman Fellow in anatomy. In December 1931 he married Marjorie Meehan, who was a medical student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In the summer of 1935 he completed two papers written in collaboration with Raymond Alexander Kelser. Lester and Marjorie King had two children Alfred (b. 1933) and Frances (b. 1935). King with his family spent 15 months from the autumn of 1935 to the end of 1936 in Madrid and London. They were from 1935 to 1936 in Madrid, where he studied silver-staining techniques and neuroanatomy under the supervision of Pío del Río-Hortega. King and his family left Spain in March 1936, a few months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. After leaving Madrid, he did research on demyelinating diseases at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London.

King completed his medical residency at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where he worked until 1939. From 1940 to the beginning of 1942 he worked as a pathologist at a Yale-affiliated Connecticut hospital and also taught pathology at Yale Medical School. At the entry of the USA into WW II, King volunteered for the U.S. Army and was sent to El Paso, Texas, where he worked as a pathologist at the William Beaumont General Hospital. He attained the rank of major. At the end of WW II in 1945, he moved with his family to Chicago. There he was a staff pathologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, an affiliate of the Chicago branch of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, where he was a professor until 1964. He resigned as a staff pathologist in 1963. His first book The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century was published in 1958.

At the Journal of the American Medical Association, King was a senior editor from 1963 to 1973 and a contributing editor from 1973 to 1978. He was a lecturer in the history department of the University of Chicago from 1967 until near the end of the 1980s. He was a book collector and donated more than 200 historical medical books to the University of Chicago Library.

Toward the end of his life he lived in the Hallmark Retirement Community, located at 2960 N. Lake Shore Drive, immediately to the north of Lincoln Park in Chicago. At his retirement home, he lectured regularly on many subjects, including art and literature. He was predeceased by his wife. Upon his death he was survived by his son and daughter, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Awards and honors

Lester King received in 1964 the Boerhaave Medal from Leiden University and in 1977 the William H. Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM). In 1975 he delivered the AAHM's Garrison Lecture (named in honor of Fielding Hudson Garrison). In 1988 King became the first recipient of the AAHM's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Selected publications

Articles

Books and monographs

  • King, Lester S. (1958). The medical world of the eighteenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LCCN 58007332.
  • King, Lester S. (1963). The growth of medical thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. LCCN 63009729.
  • King, Lester S.; Roland, Charles G. (1968). Scientific writing. based on a series of articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, with corrections and supplemental illustrative material. Chicago: American Medical Association. LCCN 73005812; vii+133 pages, illustrated{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • Bodemer, Charles W.; King, Lester S. (1968). Medical investigation in seventeenth century England. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California at Los Angeles. ASIN B000LRCMQW. LCCN 76626038; Embryological thought in seventeenth century England by Charles W. Bodemer; Robert Boyle as an amateur physician by Lester S. King; papers read at a seminar held in William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, October 14, 1967; 55 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • King, Lester S. (1970). Road to medical enlightenment, 1650-1695. London, Macdonald & Co.; New York, American Elsevier. ISBN 0444196854. LCCN 79111293.
  • King, Lester S. (1978). Why not say it clearly: a guide to expository writing (1st ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0316493465. LCCN 78069907; xi+186 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
    • King, Lester S. (1991). Why not say it clearly: a guide to expository writing (2nd ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0316493538. LCCN 91060017.
  • King, Lester S. King, ed. (1971). Mainstreams of medicine; essays on the social and intellectual context of medical practice. Austin, Texas: Published for the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio by the University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292701128. LCCN 78149564; introduction by David A. Kronick; originally presented at a 1969 symposium sponsored by the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • Hoffmann, Friedrich, 1660-1742 (1971). Fundamenta medicinae. London, MacDonald & Co.; New York, American Elsevier. LCCN 74132639; translated from the Latin and introduced by Lester S. King; xxvi+142 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • King, Lester S., ed. (1971). History of medicine; selected readings. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140802207. LCCN 74030461.
  • King, Lester S. (1978). Philosophy of medicine: the early eighteenth century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674665856. LCCN 77024645; viii+291 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • King, Lester S. (1982). Medical thinking: a historical preface. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. LCCN 81011965.
  • King, Lester S. (1984). American medicine comes of age, 1840-1920: essays to commemorate the founding of the Journal of the American Medical Association on July 14, 1883. Series of essays ran for 24 consecutive months from July 1982 to June 1984. Chicago, Illinois: AMA. ISBN 0899701779. LCCN 84210446; vii+115 pages{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  • King, Lester S. (1991). Transformations in American medicine: from Benjamin Rush to William Osler. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801840570. LCCN 90004662.

References

  1. "Remarks at the celebration of the golden wedding anniversary of Sophie (Snow) and Myron L. King". The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. October 22, 1955.
  2. ^ Roland, Charles G. (2003). "Lester Snow King (1908-2002)". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 58 (3): 362–366. doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrg004. PMID 14524341.
  3. ^ "Dr. Lester King, 94". Chicago Tribune. 10 October 2002.
  4. Kelser, R. A.; King, L. S. (1936). "Studies of a Paralysis Syndrome Produced in Rabbits and Guinea Pigs by Extracts of Normal Primate Bone Marrow". The American Journal of Pathology. 12 (3): 317–332.3. PMC 1911073. PMID 19970269.
  5. Kelser, R. A.; King, L. S. (1936). "Studies of a Paralysis Syndrome Produced in Rabbits and Guinea Pigs by Extracts of Normal Primate Bone Marrow". The American Journal of Pathology. 12 (3): 317–332.3. PMC 1911073. PMID 19970269.
  6. King, Major Lester S.; Sullivan, Major Maurice (1946). "The Similarity of the Effect of Podophyllin and Colchicine and Their Use in the Treatment of Condylomata Acuminata". Science. 104 (2698): 244–245. Bibcode:1946Sci...104..244K. doi:10.1126/science.104.2698.244. PMID 17809742.
  7. ^ "A Bibliographical Avocation: The Lester King Collection". University of Chicago Library.
  8. Blake, John B. (1959). "review of The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century by Lester S. King". Science. 129 (3341): 92. doi:10.1126/science.129.3341.92.a.
  9. Pellegrino, Edmund D. (1985). "review of American Medicine Comes of Age, 1840-1920. Essays to Commemorate the Founding of the Journal of the American Medical Association, July 14, 1983 by Lester S. King". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 60 (4): 548. doi:10.1086/414689.
  10. Ferngren, Gary B. (1991). "Book Review: Transformations in American Medicine: From Benjamin Rush to William Osler by Lester S. King". New England Journal of Medicine. 325 (5): 365. doi:10.1056/NEJM199108013250521.
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