Historical Archive: Awards No Longer Given by the Foundation

Special Public Health Awards

1975 -Research Team of Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories: Karl H. Beyer, Jr. James M. Sprague, John E. Baer, Frederick C. Novello.

For their pioneering leadership in creating a new spectrum of medications-the thiazide diuretics, and, specifically, chlorothiazide—for the control of high blood pressure and of edema associated with cardiac failure. Such compounds are now universally accepted as a primary treatment for these conditions.

In creating these new agents, the designed research plan of the four scientists involved the conception, and subsequent validation, of new theories about kidney function in maintaining the integrity of electrolyte balance in the body.

The diligence of these collaborators has been rewarded by the saving of untold thousands of lives and the alleviation of the suffering of millions of victims of hypertension—a condition which afflicts more than 23 million Americans and is often the precursor of stroke, congestive heart failure, and renal disease.

Tailoring their research design to the concept of a drug that would safely eliminate excess body salt and fluids involved in those diseases, the team succeeded in revising many traditional medical concepts and in proving the effectiveness of chlorothiazide. For the brilliant blending of the individual contributions of: Dr. Karl H. Beyer, Jr., pharmacologist and physician, who hypothesized an ideal diuretic for hypertension; Dr. James M. Sprague, organic chemist, who directed the chemical search for sulfonamide compounds that promote the excretion of body salt; Dr. John E. Baer, pharmacologist, who directed exhaustive animal tests which demonstrated that chlorothiazide was effective and suitable for clinical trials in man; and Dr. Frederick C. Novello, organic chemist, who first synthesized chlorothiazide and invented the thiazide family of anti-hypertensive diuretics, this Albert Lasker Special Award is given.

1980 -The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

For the Hypertension Detection and Follow-Up Program, standing alone among clinical studies in its profound potential benefits to millions.

1984 -Dorothy T. Krieger

Special Award for the brilliant intellect, determination and vision she brought to the field of neuro-endocrine research and the scientific community.

1987 -Centennial Salute to the National Institutes of Health

For 100 years of leadership in biomedical research, establishing the pre-eminence of the United States in the fight against death, disease and disability.

Special Awards

1947 -Thomas Parran

For Outstanding Contributions to the National Health and to the World Health Organization

Dr. Thomas Parran has achieved world-wide acclaim for his dynamic leadership in public health, administration as well as for his successful pioneering against preventable disease. He is also the great advocate of support for medical research before the Congress and the American people.

Dr. Parran’s public health service career has been a succession of striking achievements. It began during World War I with responsibility for extra-cantonment sanitation in an industrial city and its environs. He then organized count health work in the rural areas of several states, headed a sanitary district in a mining area, served as chief of rural sanitation activities in another state. He was Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service in change of the Division of Venereal Disease in its early days. In 1930, he was loaned by President Hoover to Governor Roosevelt to become Commissioner of Health of the State of New York, where he served with distinction for six years. For the past eleven years, he has served as Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.

In 1946, he was president of the International Health Conference of delegates from seventy nations, which resulted in the establishment of the World Health Organization of the United Nations. Since then, he has been the United States Delegate to the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization.

Throughout his brilliant public health career, Dr. Parran’s activities have been signally characterized by the qualities of judgment, enthusiasm, courage, decisiveness, and vision. This has been especially true of his forthright approach to the control of the venereal diseases, which began with the breakdown of public prejudice against the use of the terms “syphilis” and “gonorrhea.” This was followed by successive steps leading to the appropriation of federal grants-in-aid to the States, and the eventual establishment of rapid treatment centers throughout the land. If syphilis is finally wiped out in this country, it will be due to Dr. Parran’s consistent courage and statesmanship, as much as to the discovery of a curative drug.

With a vigorous originality of approach, he has developed new concepts of health services for the American people and the world. In addition, he has been able to secure the understanding and interest of the people and the support of their elected representatives.

He has contributed substantially to the development of the World Health Organization, important both because of its life-saving mission and because it may prove to be a “rallying point of unity” in international affairs.

As Dr. Parran himself recently said in a foreword to a summary of the history of the World Health Organization—

“We in the United States must carry on two major jobs at once—we must maintain a place of leadership in world health affairs, and at the same time redouble our effort to attain a more comprehensive health program at home. We are faced with great opportunities for service to humanity.”

In recognition of these and other services to the people of America and the world, the Lasker Awards Committee of the American Public Health Association has recommended a Special Award this year to Dr. Parran, which will express the appreciation of this Association, for his inspiring public health leadership in domestic and world affairs.

1949 -Haven Emerson

Most recipients of high honors must accumulate the services of a lifetime in order to earn their reward. In Haven Emerson, however, we deal with a figure so unique that one episode alone out of a life of exceptionally distinguished service suffices to justify our appreciation.

During the last decade Dr. Emerson has demonstrated the power of an idea whose time has come. Although local health service under municipal government goes back at least 75 years, and though more than 40 years have passed since the founding of the first full-time rural health unit in the United States, there remains about one-third of our population and an even larger part of our land area without even the rudiments of an organized health service.

Since 1942 Dr. Emerson in almost singlehanded devotion has undertaken the task of solving this problem by overcoming public and professional complaisance with the status quo and thereby extending sound governmental programs for health to every part of the United States.

Studies directed by Dr. Emerson for the Committee on Administrative Practice have put on record for the first time the minimum basic services and the principles which should prevail in every community. The acceptance this report has received from organized medicine, from the various professions concerned, from voluntary health agencies and from Federal Government has been unprecedented.

A standard reference work, “Local Health Units for the Nation,” published in 1945, has become the pattern for public health planning in nearly every state. The influence and prestige of this movement are the more notable because the report has never had official status, yet cannot be ignored by any responsible health administrator today. The sheer perfection of the plan for the ends desired the basis of its popularity and usefulness.

The record shows that Dr. Emerson, with the backing of the American Public Health Association and of the National Health Council, has planned notable conferences held for state health authorities at the University of Michigan and for national civic groups at Princeton which, in turn, let to the creation of a committee representing fifty national civic agencies which has brought overwhelming influence to bear. A series of conferences has been held, each representing several states, to broaden the base of citizen understanding and to facilitate the permissive legislation required.

To have made such an impress upon a public matter touching so intimately the health and well-being of every citizen would be a worthy achievement for any man’s lifetime. Yet Dr. Emerson has undertaken this crusade and brought it far on the road to completion as one chapter in a long and distinguished life, full of honors and of achievement.

The Special Award is presented to Dr. Emerson in recognition of this part of his inspiring career because it promises to influence favorably the health and the lives of all Americans, and to provide the framework not only for the special services now recognized as essential to our civic health, but also for extensions into other fields which may open before us in the future.

1952 -Charles-Edward Amory Winslow

The American Public Health Association honors itself in selecting Charles-Edward Amory Winslow to receive a Special Lasker Award for extraordinary achievement in public health. For more than half a century Professor Winslow has been an inspiring leader, teacher and ambassador extraordinary of public health for the nation and the world. Trained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a brilliant student of Sedgwick, he has been identified for thirty years with Yale University.

Professor Winslow gained national prominence before 1915 when, as friend and counselor of Hermann Biggs, he assisted the State of New York in the development of what has become an outstanding example of public health administration. During these years, Professor Winslow also helped lay the foundations for our modern programs of health education and developed lasting interest in industrial hygiene. During this period he participated in international affairs as a leading member of Red Cross missions to Europe.

During the 1920’s Professor Winslow became first Chairman of this Association’s Committee on Administrative Practice and was President of the Association in 1926. He also served as a health expert with the League of Nations. During subsequent years he carried forward important basic studies in physiological responses of the human body to its thermal environment. His notable contributions to our understanding of the hygiene of housing began about 1935.

Professor Winslow has kept alive his interests in most of the fields that attracted him as a younger man. His recent outstanding monograph published by the World Health Organization on the Cost of Sickness and the Price of Health recognizes the widest concept of public health, involving medical, social and economic problems affecting all the nations of the world.

This recital of a few of his fields of interest and activity must carry with it appreciation also of Winslow the man, of the concepts he has introduced into the public health movement, of his deep, intelligent devotion to the common good of all mankind. Profound, thoughtful, imaginative and energetic, he has been a source of continuing inspiration to health workers in this country and abroad. His writings (numbering more than 600 titles); his provocative editorials; his lucid lectures to thousands of students; his penetrating and decisive participation in councils throughout the world— all these have been reflected in great achievements in public health through the light and understanding and feeling which he has brought to his professional colleagues.

1956 -Alan Gregg

Exemplar par excellence of “The Wellbeing of Mankind Throughout the World:” Public health statesman, influential medical educator, wise counselor and friend.

It is with particular pleasure that a special Albert Lasker Award is presented to Dr. Alan Gregg in recognition of the unique role he has played in the field of public health and of medical education and research in this country and throughout the world.

It is fortunate indeed that he was drawn early to the practice of public health and to the administrative side of scientific endeavor with the Rockefeller Foundation. For no matter how significant his personal achievements in teaching, practice and research might have been, it is scarcely to be imagined that they could have compared with those made by thousands of others through his inspiration, encouragement and wise counsel.

No man in our time has more benignly influenced individual scientific endeavor or more importantly and wisely influenced the development of medical education and of scientific aspirations and standards than has Alan Gregg. Constantly appealed to as counselor by national leaders and scientific bodies, he has never been too busy to give invaluable and friendly advice to the stream of scientists and medical educators, young and old, who have sought his guidance. Throughout his influential life he has sought especially to raise the level of professional education in public health and psychiatry which he has seen as cornerstones of medicine of the future.

Raconteur and public speaker of happy wit and effective exposition, he has employed these talents not only for the delight of innumerable scientific and lay gatherings, but also set forth guiding principles and philosophies which have had great influence on scientific thought. Warm personal friend of innumerable individual scientists he has truly been; also, elder statesman to science as a whole.

1959 -Lister Hill

For pre-eminent contributions to public health and the general welfare, exemplifying man’s noblest endeavors, through his inspired leadership in the Congress of the United States.

The name of Lister Hill, senior senator from Alabama, will shine brightly on the pages of history because of his pre-eminence in and his tireless dedication to the fostering of medical, dental, and biological research and to the expansion of our nation’s hospital and health research facilities. The people of this country, living and yet to be born, will ever be indebted to Senator Hill for his courageous leadership also in the fields of education, housing and welfare which bear so vitally on the health and happiness of every individual.

In nearly a half-century of public service, Senator Hill has applied himself untiringly to efforts for health progress. Has contributions include co- sponsorship of the Hill-Burton Act which has added over 120,000 hospital beds in communities throughout the nation; the Research Facilities Construction Act which provides $30 million dollars a year for grants-in-aid in the construction of facilities for research by laboratories, medical schools and other institutions throughout the country; co-sponsorship of the measure establishing the National Institutes of Health which today include institutions for research into cancer, heart disease, mental health, allergy and infectious diseases, arthritis and metabolic diseases, neurological diseases and blindness and dental ailments.

As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee handling funds for medical programs Senator Hill has always supported medical research as the key to medical progress. He has taken the lead in providing the financial support which has enabled the National Institutes to expand their researching cooperation with local institutions on an unprecedented scale. Seeking still further to carry medical research to its logical dimensions, Senator Hill introduced the “Health for Peace Act” which would set up an International Medical Research Institute to carry out specific programs and coordinate research throughout the world for a “common attack and a common advance against the crippling killers of mankind.

Son of a great physician, named for another great healer, Lister Hill has proved himself in his own right a statesman of world stature.

1959 -John E. Fogarty

For distinguished contributions to health through dedicated service in the United States House of Representatives, championing the advancement of medical research and public health.

Group Awards

1946 -National Institutes of Health

In recognition of its fundamental contributions to the prevention and control of disease.

One of the world’s outstanding centers for research in the medical sciences, an organization of devoted and able workers tireless in their efforts to advance human knowledge and well-being, the National Institute of Health is presented this award not only in recognition of its fundamental contributions to the prevention and control of disease during many years, but particularly in honor of its notable services to our country in World War II.

In tribute to its research in tropical diseases, including promising advances in the study of dysentery, and the development of potent and effective new drugs for the prevention and treatment of malaria; its studies of rickettsial and other infectious diseases, especially its work on typhus vaccine; its research on nutritional deficiencies, especially its studies of pellagra, riboflavin and folic acid; its studies of water purification, treatment of shock and aviation medicine; its research on fluorides and dental caries; its studies, in cooperation with the Manhattan Project, of nucleonic energy; its studies of the toxicity and potential dangers of chemicals used in industry; its control of industrial dermatoses; its effective control of the standards of safety, potency and purity of biologic products; its manufacture of yellow fever vaccine for our armed forces; the coordinated cancer research by its National Cancer Institute; its valued postwar work, through research grants-in-aid, in supporting and developing clinical and laboratory investigations by universities and other research institutions; its help in developing new scientific workers through fellowships for research and training; in recognition of all of these accomplishments, and above all in tribute to the modest and loyal scientists and technicians without whose skill and courage and insight, none of these achievements would have been possible, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation makes this group award to the National Institute of Health.

1946 -National Regional Research Laboratory of the USDepartment of Agriculture

For studies leading to the mass production of Penicillin.

The decade which followed the discovery of penicillin in 1929 by Sir Alexander Fleming, included the illness and death of tens of thousands of persons who might have been benefited by this life-saving agent had the methods for its production been studied and developed.

In July 1941, when Dr. H.W. Florey of Oxford University came to the United States to enlist aid in making penicillin available in quantity, he was referred to the Northern Regional Research Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois, because there was kept in this laboratory one of the largest collections of molds in the world, and a staff was available with long experience in the use of microorganisms in producing chemicals. At this time, clinical tests had already shown the curative properties of penicillin, but war conditions in England prevented the developing of large scale production there.

Within a year after this problem was presented, important discoveries at the Northern Laboratory had made commercial production of penicillin feasible. Among these discoveries was the fact that the yield of penicillin could be greatly increased by adding corn steep liquor (which is a by-product of corn starch manufacture) and milk sugar to the culture medium in which the mold was growing.

The Northern Laboratory, with skilled direction, made a world-wide search for strains of mold yielding larger amounts of penicillin, but curiously enough, the highest yielding strain was found growing on a cantaloupe in a Peoria market. These research workers also improved significantly the methods of recovering penicillin from the cultures and its purification.

As a result of these studies in the Northern Laboratory and elsewhere, the total production of penicillin in the United States was increased within a little more than two years from enough to treat some 400 serious cases each month to enough to treat 700,000. During this same period, and because of the higher yielding strain of mold and the improved production methods, the wholesale price of penicillin dropped from about 20 to 60 cents for 100,000 units, and the length of time that penicillin could be stored without losing its effectiveness was increased from three to eighteen months.

1946 -Board for the Coordination of Malarial Studies

For accomplishments leading to a rational approach to the eventual solution of the malarial problem.

The Board for the Coordination of Malarial Studies and its various panels was formed in December 1943, and functioned until June 30, 1946. Its purpose was to develop a more effective management of malaria. The Board was composed of representatives of the Army, the Navy, the Public Health Service, the National Research Council, the Committee on Medical Research, and civilians engaged in malaria research. Its functions were to direct the synthesis and workup of compounds in experimental animals; to select and supervise the clinical trial of those having potential value in man; to select and arrange field trials for those potentially superior to the antimalarials then available, and to advise the Surgeons General in matters relating to the use of antimalarials.

The discharge of these general responsibilities required the judicious management of extensive research facilities including laboratories of synthetic chemistry, pharmacology, biochemistry, and clinics in university hospitals, state mental hospitals, state and federal penitentiaries, and disciplinary barracks, as well as in Army and Navy installations.

The thoughtful use of these facilities, together with the diligent efforts of the investigators responsible to the Board, achieved four notable ends. A rational usage of available antimalarials was developed, with consequent removal of malaria from the field of tactical importance to the Armed Forces. New and more effective suppressive antimalarials were developed. These now permit more simplified management of malaria in civilian populations. At least one relatively well tolerated curative agent for vivax malaria was developed. This now brings the eventual eradication of the disease within prospect. Finally, a better understanding of the life history of the malaria infection was achieved, permitting a more rational use of antimalarials and a more reasonable approach to others more effective than those at hand.

1946 -Bureau of Entomology and Plant: USDepartment of Agriculture

In recognition of distinguished service in the solution of problems involving the health and comfort of the Armed Forces, with particular reference to insect-borne diseases.

At the request of The Surgeon General of the United States Army, the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine early in the war laid plans to assist in the discovery and development of methods to control some of the insects responsible for spreading diseases of man of particular significance especially in war time.

Among the problems attacked by the Bureau was that of finding more effective and practical methods of controlling body lice that carry epidemic typhus fever and for controlling mosquitoes that carry malaria, filariasis and other diseases. As additional problems were encountered in these studies, the Bureau with supplemental funds provided by the Office of Scientific Research and Development investigated many aspects, bringing a number to successful conclusion. The entomological and chemical laboratories of the Bureau at Beltsville, Md. and Orlando, Florida devoted a considerable part of their efforts to a solution of problems of urgent military importance. Specialists from the Bureau skilled in the identification of insects assisted the Army and Navy in the field of medical entomology by the accurate identification of thousands of specimens of insects, mites and ticks suspected of carrying diseases, and by training military personnel in this subject.

Within a few months after this work began, the Bureau had succeeded in determining the efficacy of methyl bromide for the destruction of body lice and had devised equipment for its application under military use. Before the invasion of North Africa by the American Forces, an effective louse powder had been developed and was made available to the field forces.

Another outstanding accomplishment was the development of the use of DDT for the control of body lice. This new chemical, brought from Switzerland during the war, was developed into an agent that was largely responsible for the prevention of epidemic typhus among our troops and the prompt checking of what might have become a catastrophic outbreak of the disease in Naples.

The search for materials to be used in the protection of our armed forces against mosquitoes and other disease-bearing insects involved the testing of some 10,000 compounds and the ultimate discovery and adaptation to military needs of a repellent mixture which proved valuable in avoiding disease among our troops, especially in the Tropics. The contribution made by the Bureau in the development of the aerosol bomb has been of inestimable value in combating malaria and in controlling mosquitoes and other annoying pests as well as in preventing the spread of these disease carriers and their introduction into the United States.

The determination of the value of DDT for the control of disease-bearing insects, especially mosquitoes through its application as a larvicide and for the destruction of adult mosquitoes was of great service in protection of troops both in combat and base areas. Equipment was devised by the Bureau for the dispersion of DDT insecticides to meet various field needs. These included devices for distributing the material from the air in various types of planes and for ground dispersal by a number of methods.

Basic information obtained through experiments with the common chigger in the South was adapted to the needs of the armed forces in the South Pacific and Asiatic campaigns and resulted in the development of dimethyl phthalate and later benzyl benzoate which gave a high degree of protection against the mite carriers of scrub typhus.

1946 -Army Epidemiological Board

For distinguished service in the control of infectious diseases, bringing a permanent enrichment to medical science.

The Army Epidemiological Board, originally called the “Board for the Investigation and Control of Influenza and Other Epidemic Diseases in the Army” was established by order of the Secretary of War on January 11, 1941 on recommendation of The Surgeon General, USArmy, dated December 27, 1940. The Surgeon General’s recommendation was based upon the memorandum and recommendation of the same date prepared by Brigadier General James s. Simmons, Medical Corps, US,Army, who was then a Lieutenant Colonel, and was developing the Preventive Medicine Service in the Office of The Surgeon General.

Francis G. Blake, M.D., Sterling Professor of Medicine, and Dean, Yale University School of Medicine, was appointed Consultant to the Secretary of War and President of the Army Epidemiological Board in January 1941, and served continuously as President of this Board throughout the war and until June 30, 1946. In addition to his great service as President, he rendered distinguished service in the field, during the period October to December 1943 as Director of a special commission sent to New Guinea by the Office of the Surgeon General and the United States of America Typhus Commission, to investigate scrub typhus fever (tsutsugamushi disease).

In 1941, the Board was promptly organized into commissions, which carried through the war. The names of the Commissions indicate the fields of work:

1. Commission on Acute Respiratory Diseases
2. Commission on Air-Borne Infections
3. Commission on Epidemiological Survey
4. Commission on Hemolytic Streptococcal Infections
5. Commission on Influenza
6. Commission on Measles and Mumps
7. Commission on Meningococcal Meningitis
8. Commission on Neurotropic Virus Diseases
9. Commission on Pneumonia
10. Commission on Tropical Diseases

The membership of the Central Board and Commissions included 125 of the leading American authorities in the fields of investigation and control of infectious diseases. Each man in this group held appointment as a Consultant to the Secretary of War. Their services were available at all times to The Surgeon General of the Army.

The Commissions, operating under War Department research contracts, carried on their fundamental and practical investigations in the laboratories of most of the chief universities and scientific institutes of the United States. In addition, members of the Commissions made field studies in posts and camps in the United States and on extensive missions to all theaters of operations overseas. The following are some of the most notable achievements of the Board and Commissions:

• Developing, testing and application of an inactivated virus vaccine against influenza.
• Development and application of a vaccine against Japanese B encephalitis.
• Basic studies and tests proving the efficacy of sulfadiazine prophylaxis against meningococcal meningitis.
• Demonstration of the virus nature of the agent of infectious hepatitis, with indications as to its mode of spread and ultimate possibility for control.
• Proof of the virus nature of the agent of atypical pneumonia.
• Extensive investigations of acute respiratory diseases and their control in Army camps.
• Basic studies and development of methods of immunization against measles and mumps.
• Fundamental advances in knowledge of the use of triethylene glycol vapors and aerosols for the purification of air and improvement in the use of these materials for the control of acute respiratory diseases.
• Fundamental and practical investigations on the epidemiology end spread of coccidioidomycosis, with development of method of control in certain dusty areas.
• Investigations on schistosomiasis in the Philippine Islands and Japan.
• Investigations on the characteristics and control of dysenteries and diarrheal diseases.

Thus far about 300 papers reporting the results of the work of the Commission have been published in scientific journals. All the knowledge acquired from this extensive Army medical research has been made available as rapidly as possible to civilians. The Board’s contributions have been made both to military preventive medicine and to civilian public.

1947 -The British Ministries of Food and Health

For the unprecedented program of food distribution in Great Britain, with resulting improvement in the health of the people.

Long before World War II, the Medical Research Council and the health authorities of Great Britain had been active in promoting research and in spreading the knowledge of nutrition among the people.

In 1937 an Advisory Committee on Nutrition was set up by the British Ministry of Health which undertook a survey of the national diet. The background had therefore been developed before the outbreak of the war for the first large-scale application of the science of nutrition to the population of the United Kingdom. A separate Ministry of Food was established with wide executive powers over the production and rationing of foods, the purchase of foods from abroad and the education of the public in the proper use of available foods.

By the effective employment of its great powers, the Ministry of Food, in consultation with the Ministry of Health and with the advice on all matters which might affect the health of the people of a Standing Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Medical Officer, succeeded to a remarkable degree in providing a diet for all the workers of the country in conformity with their physiological requirements, irrespective of income.

Although almost all other environmental factors which might influence the public health deteriorated under the stress of war, the public health in Great Britain was maintained and in many respects improved. The rates of infantile, neonatal and maternal mortality and of stillbirths all reached the lowest levels in the history of the country. The incidence of anemia and dental caries declined, the rate of growth of school children improved, progress was made in the control of tuberculosis, and the general state of nutrition of the population as a whole was up to or an improvement upon pre-war standards.

In the opinion of the Lasker Awards Committee, this has been one of the greatest demonstrations in public health administration that the world has ever seen. The Lasker Awards Committee of the American Public Health Association therefore takes great satisfaction in recommending awards for scientific and administrative achievement to the British Ministries of Food and Health and to the four great leaders in this historic enterprise, Lord Woolton, Sir Jack Drummond, Sir Wilson Jameson and Sir John Boyd Orr.

1947 -United States Committee on Joint Causes of Death

The Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association represents the appreciation of the workers in public health and medical care for the scholarly achievement of the USCommittee on Joint Causes of Death under the chairmanship of Dr. Lowell J. Reed. The work of this Committee will greatly facilitate the exchange of statistical information on health and medicine between the countries of the world and serve as one of the effective links in binding them together under the banner of the United Nations.

Although early classification of the causes of death for statistical purposes goes back to the great English medical statistician, William Farr (1855), the first international conference for the revision of the International List was called by the French Government in Paris in the year 1900 at which time the guiding force was Dr. Jacques Bertillon. There was early recognition of the need for an international list of the causes of illness to facilitate the collection and exchange of information by all the countries of the world, supplementing the causes of mortality.

At the Fifth International Conference held in Paris in 1938, to revise the International List, the US Government was requested officially to continue the previous studies of the Committee on Joint Causes of Death add to extend it into the field of morbidity classification. In 1945 the Secretary of State appointed the USCommittee on Joint Causes of Death to carry out this charge. The Committee included representatives of the Canadian and British Governments and the Health Section of the League of Nations as associates or consultants and was headed by Dr. Reed, Vice President and Professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins University.

Under Dr. Reed’s inspired leadership and with the cooperation of its British and Canadian associates, the Committee accomplished its task successfully. A preliminary draft of the proposed statistical classification of diseases, injuries and causes of death was then subjected to trials and reviews of various agencies and individuals in England, in the US and in Canada.

1948 -Veterans Administration-Department of Medicine of Surgery

Undaunted by the universal lack of medical personnel and the tremendous problem of America postwar demobilization, the Veterans Administration enlisted the whole- hearted cooperation and assistance of the entire medical profession and provided for our veterans the best medical attention and care available anywhere in the world. Modern medical facilities were assembled, efficient hospitals and clinics were established throughout the nation, and, with the aid of a committee of the Deans of the Medical Schools, a permanent medical staff of extraordinary ability was recruited.

Today, many Veterans Hospitals are affiliated with medical schools and maintain standards of medical service comparable with those of the best teaching institutions. This great demonstration of efficient medical service provides an opportunity to test out under practical conditions new methods and procedures which should help in the eventual development of a more effective program of medical care and public health in the entire country, The American Public Health Association has selected the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Veterans Administration and its former chief medical director Doctor Paul B. Magnuson for a Lasker Award of 1948 in recognition of extraordinary accomplishments on behalf of more than 18,750,000 veterans, and their significant contributions to medical administration in America.

1949 -The American Academy of Pediatrics

The American Academy of Pediatrics has concerned itself for more than eighteen years with securing better and more evenly distributed health services for the children of this country.

In line with its purpose to make medical care of high quality available to all mothers and children, regardless of race, creed, or economic circumstances, this distinguished national body of pediatricians initiated a comprehensive nationwide study of child health services and of pediatric education in 1945 with the active participation and support of the United States Children’s Bureau and the Public Health Service.

The study covered every state and county in the Nation during the course of three years. Its detailed findings, recently published by the Commonwealth Fund under the title, “Child Health Services and Pediatric Education,” clearly reveal the inadequacies of professional personnel and facilities peculiar to each state, which are dependent upon the nature of its population, its geography, and its economic status. These revelations also point the way to methods for early correction of the deficiencies, if the people of our country and the legislators can be made to realize their full significance.

In appreciation of this outstanding service to the mothers and children of our country, the American Public Health Association has selected the American Academy of Pediatrics as the recipient of its 1949 Lasker Group Award for meritorious achievement in the field of public health.

By its great accomplishment, the American Academy of Pediatrics has emphasized the dedication of the pediatricians of this country to unselfish public service. At the same time it has demonstrated that a national medical society motivated by these ideals can work in close association with our federal agencies in a spirit of mutual confidence and helpful collaboration.

1949 -The Life Insurance Medical Research Fund

The Life Insurance Medical Research Fund was established in 1945 by the cooperative participation of most of the important life insurance companies of the United States and Canada for the purpose of making grants in support of medical research, the results of which might be expected to reduce mortality and improve longevity. Under the able chairmanship of M. Albert Linton, the Fund initiated a program of aiding research on cardiovascular disease at a time when financial support for research in this field was very limited.

From its inception the Fund, in recognition of the well-established principle that research in the basic medical sciences often and sometimes unexpectedly provides the knowledge essential for the development of methods for the prevention or cure of disease, wisely adopted the policy of placing major emphasis on support of fundamental research.

It is already apparent that the activities of the Fund not only have served to focus attention on the need for cardiovascular research but also through its grants and fellowship program have given a great impetus to research in both the experimental and clinical fields.

Of perhaps even greater importance than its direct financial contributions to the solution of problems of cardiovascular disease, the Fund has set a pattern for the cooperative support of medical research by private agencies which possesses fundamental social significance for the public health and may well serve as an example for the establishment of similar undertakings by other private and quasi-public agencies.

In recognition of these constructive contributions to the advancement of medical science and public health, the American Public Health Association presents a group award for 1949 to the Life Insurance Medical Research Fund for outstanding public service.

1950 -International Health Division of The Rockefeller Foundation

For outstanding achievement in the control of infectious diseases and the education of health personnel throughout the world.

1951 – The Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York

It has become increasingly recognized that the benefits of modern medicine can be brought to the people most effectively through the pooling of health personnel and facilities in the group practice of medicine. To an unusual degree the basic validity of this principle has been demonstrated by the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York in its use of medical groups to provide comprehensive health care on a prepaid basis to more than a quarter of a million persons.

The Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York has established and maintained high standards for the participation of practitioners and has submitted the quality of its services to critical self-appraisal and evaluation. It has emphasized the key role in group medical practice of the general physician who, working close association with specialists and technical personnel, can serve effectively as family physician concerned with all aspects of care for individual in health and in disease. Major attention has been given to the development of health and in disease. Major attention has been given to the development of health education, public health nursing, health examinations and other methods designed to promote health and prevent illness.

The American Public Health Association is honored to present a Lasker Group Award to the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York for its courageous pioneering with a combination of group medical practice and prepayment to provide comprehensive health services of high quality. There is no doubt that these patterns of medical organization and practice have enormous significance for the health services of the future.

1951 -Alcoholics Anonymous

The American Public Health Association presents a Lasker Award for 1951 to Alcoholics Anonymous in recognition of its unique and highly successful approach to that age-old public health and social problem, alcoholism.

Since its founding sixteen years ago, Alcoholics Anonymous has brought recovery to more than 120,000 chronic drinkers formerly thought hopeless. Today this world fellowship of 4,000 groups, resident in 38 countries, is rehabilitating 25,000 additional persons yearly. In emphasizing alcoholism as an illness, the social stigma associated with this condition is being blotted out.

Alcoholics Anonymous works upon the novel principle that a recovered alcoholic can reach and treat a fellow sufferer as no one else can. In so doing, the recovered alcoholic maintains his own sobriety; the man he treats soon becomes a physician to the next new applicant, thus creating an ever-expanding chain reaction of liberation, with patients welded together by bonds of common suffering, common understanding and stimulating action in a great cause.

This is not a reform movement, nor is it operated by professionals who are concerned with the problem. It is financed by voluntary contributions of its members, all of whom remain anonymous. There are no dues, no paid therapists, and no paid professional workers. It enjoys the goodwill and often the warm endorsement of many medical and scientific groups— no mean achievement in itself for any organization run entirely by laymen.

Historians may one day point to Alcoholics Anonymous as a society which did far more than achieve a considerable measure of success with alcoholism and its stigma; they may recognize Alcoholics Anonymous to have been a great venture in social pioneering which forged a new instrument for social action; a new therapy based on the kinship of common suffering; one having a vast potential for the myriad other ills of mankind.

1953 -Division of Research Grants, National Institutes of Health

Our nation has demonstrated remarkable ability in applying new knowledge for the advancement of health. An increased awareness of the value of medical research has resulted from the brilliant scientific contributions of recent years. Without belittling the value of applied knowledge, greatest progress comes from “basic” or “fundamental” knowledge. Many factors influence the rate at which such advances occur. The ability, integrity, and imagination of scientists with favorable research opportunities play an important fostering role. Freedom to determine fruitful areas for investigation and factors of timeliness, irrespective of urgency and desirability of solving recognized problems, must remain the responsibility of scientists themselves .Many have considered it impossible for government to support medical research without disadvantageous restrictions, controls, and limitations. Outstanding success by a governmental agency in conducting a large research grants program becomes a noteworthy achievement.

Since 1946, the Division of Research Grants has shared in the administration of expending over one hundred million dollars for research support, including over seven thousand projects and one thousand fellowships. Using democratic methods and continuously exploring means for improving administrative procedures and policies, the Division has fostered an extraordinary degree of scientific freedom. This brilliant administrative achievement is of immeasurable value to public health.

1953 -University Laboratory of Physical Chemistry Related to Medicine, Harvard University

For more than thirty years, Dr. Edwin Joseph Cohn and his associates have made brilliant observations on amino acids, peptides, and proteins. These include fundamental contributions on the isolation, characterization, chemical differentiation, and biological functions of these substances.

Exceptionally meritorious has been the fractionation of human blood plasma into constituent purified substances of preventive and therapeutic value. These researches have already produced biological preparations extensively used to alleviate suffering and disease: albumin for combatting shock; isohemagglutinins for blood grouping; fibrinogen and thrombin for hemostasis; gamma globulin for passive immunization against epidemic disease.

Using new chemistries and biomechanical equipment, these scientists have been able for the first time to separate blood and other biological materials into constituent formed elements and chemical substances in a closed system and a continuous process. Using methods closely approximating chemical interactions used by nature in the process of continuous differentiation to meet complex and changing functions and equilibrium needs of biological systems, new vistas are opened for the preparation, study, and utilization of biological substances.

New concepts of the fine structure of proteins are now being formulated and hypotheses experimentally tested. These contributions are of untold benefit to man and form an important component of an emerging natural philosophy.

1954 -Streptococcal Disease Laboratory, Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, Francis E. Warren Air Force Base: Charles H. Rammelkamp, Jr., Director

For outstanding contributions to our knowledge and control of streptococcal diseases.

The Streptococcal Disease Laboratory at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base was established in 1949 under the joint auspices of the Commissions on Streptococcal Diseases and Acute Respiratory Diseases of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board. From its beginning the Laboratory has been directed by Charles H. Rammelkamp Jr. The success achieved is due in great measure to his deep originality, brilliant leadership of a group of young medical corps officers and civilian physician, and keen awareness of the advantages afforded by military populations in epidemiological analyses. The collaboration of the medical departments of all three military services in the work of the Laboratory, with minor exceptions, has been exemplary.

The Laboratory’s contributions to knowledge of streptococcal diseases are in the forefront of advances in preventive medicine in this generation and include: significant information on direct spread of streptococci from man to man with de-emphasis of the airborne route lately in fashions; the role of specific anti- bodies in active immunity of man; the efficacy of antibiotics in preventing rheumatic fever when used to treat the antecedent streptococcal infection; controlled studies of therapy of rheumatic fever; rational chemoprophylaxis of streptococcal infections; and the brilliant addition to our knowledge of acute kidney infections through discovery of strains of streptococci which cause kidney lesions.

1956 -The Food and Drug Administration

Recognizing a half century of public service in safeguarding the American people against contaminated or misrepresented products, achieving a deserved public confidence.

In commemoration of a half century of service in helping to assure the safety of the foods, drugs and cosmetics used by the American people, an Albert Lasker Award is presented to the Food and Drug Administration of the USDepartment of Health, Education and Welfare.

This organization is both a scientific institution and a Federal law enforcement agency. It was born of a need to safeguard the consumer from the consequences of carelessness and fraud. For over fifty years it has been motivated by the ideal of promoting and maintaining the highest degree of purity and safety of those articles which sustain life and health. Today, it is among the leading agencies of its kind throughout the world.

In a society of modern industrialism, it is a recognized function of the Federal Government to safeguard the public against contaminated or misrepresented products. In a world of constantly advancing technology—where new and complex processes and products are creating new scientific problems—it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to institute and exercise necessary regulations.

To fulfill these functions and responsibilities is the role of the Food and Drug Administration. The organization has filled its role so admirably that the people of the country may and do take for granted the reliability and quality of foods and drugs. They are justified in assuming the drugs will be pure and potent. They may well have confidence that the thousands of marketed food products are sound and wholesome. Much of this achievement, of course, is traceable to the wholehearted cooperation and honesty of manufacturers.

With a minimum of fanfare and a maximum of economy, the Food and Drug Administration has moved quietly and efficiently in the performance of its duties —manned by a career service which enjoys a reputation for integrity that has stood unblemished for fifty years.

1956 -Medical Care Program, Welfare and Retirement Fund of the United Mine Workers of America

The warmth of compassionate hearts, the planning of brilliant minds and the wisdom of dedicated lives has brought excellent medical services to those who provide fuel for the Nation.

You have brought together the warmth of compassionate hearts, the incisive planning of brilliant scientific minds and the wisdom of dedicated lives of service to create a Model program of health services to a million and a half workers and their families in the mining towns from Alabama to Alaska.

Your staff of specialists has taken modern scientific medicine to the backwoods. You have not been satisfied with simply providing hospitalization for the acutely ill, but, when hospitals were not available, you built your own—a chain of modern institutions, magnificently equipped and top-staffed, extending through the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia. You have brought specialist services when the patient needed them, and no drug has been too expensive if it were necessary for health and healing. No time has been too long to rehabilitate the paraplegic who had broken his back in the treacherous pits under the hills. Nor were the wives and children forgotten. Needed health services are theirs, too, for they are part of the great family who provide fuel for a nation.

The bold, comprehensive medical care program you have developed has demonstrated that private physicians and organized labor can work together in harmony for the good of the patient.

The Medical Care Program of the United Mine Workers of American Welfare and Retirement Fund created and operated by you and your colleagues exemplifies the best in medicine, in social accomplishment and in social consciousness. For your great humanitarian services and for your vision and achievement the American Public Health Association is honored to present to the Medical care program of the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund this Albert Lasker Award.

1960 -Crippled Children’s Program of the Children’s Bureau

For developing a unique program of medical care to the nation’s handicapped children which, for twenty-three years has brought scientific advances promptly to millions.

The Crippled Children’s Program has helped 4 1/4 million children who are might handicapped or with conditions which lead to handicaps. Not only were children helped but millions of other handicapped persons, young and old, have benefitted by the extensive services which were set up under its aegis, in and out of hospitals.

This program is unique in that it has stimulated the extension of the higher quality of services, developing new comprehensive ones when and where needed for cardiac cripples, polio victims, amputees, the epileptic, cerebral palsied, congenitally handicapped, those with speech and hearing defects, with nephrosis and other chronic diseases. Each year the demand for these services has increased, with the rate per 10,000 children served doubling in 22 years.

Existing private and public agencies professional and parent groups have been intensively involved in the program. Despite its meager funds, the Crippled Children’s Program has made wide use of the potential strength in each community, and has added thereto the scientific direction and the specialized knowledge necessary to develop better services. Its special project grants have also fostered regional and intrastate services for the very hard-to-care-for group. Training of specialists in short supply has been supported.

This federally supported medical care program with its emphasis on high quality care is widely approved by physicians, hospitals and local communities everywhere. An administrative triumph of no mean scope has been achieved.

The future health of the nation’s young and old would be greatly enhanced were other tax-supported medical care programs to strive for quality in the same spirit.

1960 -Chronic Disease Program of the California State Department of Public Health

In recognition of a concept, an organization, and a public health physician.

This group aware is in recognition of a concept, an organization and a public health physician.

The concept is that the prevention and control of chronic disease should be a matter of public health concern. While this is generally accepted today, it was not so fifteen years ago.

The organization is the California State Department of Public Health and its Chronic Disease Control Program. Started in 1946, this program has been steadfastly supported by the Department and its leadership role has been great. Proper concern with discovery of the extent and causes of chronic illness soon ted to the undertaking of research, and this in turn, to a broadening of the appreciation and application of available skills and knowledge in disciplines other than those to which we in public health were habituated—such as the behavioral sciences. Thus, the scientific team approach became an important part of this undertaking.

This farsighted activity on the part of the California State Department of Public Health was among the earliest organized programs by an official health agency in this country. However, as with any new group undertaking, it required leadership, so let us turn to the leader—the physician.

When Doctor Lester Breslow became the first chief of the newly-created Bureau of Chronic Disease Control in California in 1946, he did so with a vision and purposefulness that were, indeed, unique. For fifteen years he has devoted his efforts and abilities almost exclusively to the challenge of the chronic diseases. As statesman, administrator, and inspirer of group research, he ranks high among those who have carried our understanding of etiology, prevalence, and control to levels little thought possible two decades ago.

The many studies under his guidance in the fields of multiphasic screening, morbidity survey technics, etiology of chronic illness and, currently the ecologic setting in which illness occurs, are all of outstanding importance. He and his program stand among the foremost in this field.

And so, to the concept, to the public health physician, and to the organization that has so effectively sustained them, the American Public Health Association is pleased to make this award.

Lasker Awards given by the International Society for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled

1954 -Henry H. Kessler

Founder and Medical Director of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, Past President of the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples, Consultant in Rehabilitation of the Handicapped to the United Nations, leader in many other activities for the benefit of the disabled; distinguished surgeon, educator, author and humanitarian.

A pioneer in advocating that society accept its responsibility to make adequate opportunities for full and productive citizenship available to its disabled members, he has, through his own tireless and devoted service and through his encouragement of others, played an important role in the development of rehabilitation services in many countries. Recognizing the universal value and integrity of human life, he has urged the importance of cooperation among peoples and among nations to create the conditions for the best possible life for all mankind. The example of his own selfless devotion to these principles has served as a guide and an inspiration throughout the world.

1954 -Juan Farill

Chief Surgeon of the Shriner’s Mexico Hospital Unit for Crippled Children, Past President of the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples, Honorary President of the Latin-American Society for Orthopedics and Traumatology; pioneer in the organization of effort on behalf of the disabled; distinguished surgeon, educator and humanitarian.

For many years a leader in the development of interest in the problems of disability and in the establishment of services for the disabled in an area where health and welfare facilities have been limited, his steadfast devotion to the importance of assisting his fellow men has made possible improved opportunities for the disabled in Mexico, throughout Latin America and in other of the world. His interest and effort have brought about training opportunities for professional personnel and educational facilities for disabled persons. His faith in the value of international cooperation for the benefit of the disabled has been a cornerstone in the continuing growth of mutual assistance among the countries of Latin America.

1954 -Viscount Nuffield

President of the Central Council for the Care of Cripples in the United Kingdom, President of the British Rheumatic Association, President of the Fourth World Congress of Workers for the Crippled in the 1939; Founder of Funds and Facilities for the Crippled in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa; leader and supporter of undertakings for the International improvement of services for the handicapped and of medicine in general, philanthropist and humanitarian.

His lifelong interest in medical and other services to improve the welfare of mankind has inspired many persons to devote themselves to the accomplishment of this goal. Understanding the importance of international communication and cooperation, he has enabled many students and practitioners of services for the disabled to secure training and experience in countries other than their own. His selfless devotion to the improvement of man’s welfare is an idea recognized and honored throughout the world. His leadership in activities for the welfare of the disabled and others has brought opportunity and happiness to many.

1957 -Howard A. Rusk

Chairman, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York University-Bellevue Medical Center; Director of the Institute for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York; Associate Editor of The New York Times; President of the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples; President of the World Rehabilitation Fund; laborer and pioneer in the service of the physically afflicted, consultant, eloquent spokesman, and distinguished rehabilitation mentor to the entire world.

Since he conceived and organized the rehabilitation program for disabled American airmen during World War II, his unflagging efforts to create and inspire a continuing international exchange of medical and therapeutic personnel and of information on the best means of salvaging, educating and employing the disabled, have contributed significantly to the increased diffusion and acceptance of rehabilitation concepts being witnessed all over the world.

As a vigorous missionary on behalf of the United Nations, World Veterans Federation, International Society for the Welfare of Cripples and the American Korean Foundation, he has studied and encouraged the development of rehabilitation programs in numerous countries and has personally projected abroad a larger understanding of the practical advantages of activities for the handicapped, emphasizing also that such activities are a natural outgrowth of mankind’s spiritual and moral character.

1957 -Fabian W.G. Langenskiold

President of the Council of the Invalid Foundation, Helsingfors, Finland; Vice President of the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples; distinguished surgeon, educator and prime mover in the cause of the disabled.

A devoted leader in the development and betterment of broad rehabilitation services, the influence of example of his long career has extended far beyond the boundaries of his native land. His confidence in and contributions to international collaborative action have helped significantly to create a more widespread awareness that the physically handicapped can be helped to help themselves.

In his own country, he was for many years in the forefront of a ceaseless movement to secure full legislative recognition by the Government of the need for employing therapeutic, social and vocational services to assure the physically impaired person’s return to the community and work. His driving force has been instrumental in making the Invalid Foundation one of the world’s leading institutions and a tribute to Finland’s signal rehabilitation program. As a noted surgeon, more than improving the physical condition of countless crippled per sons, he strove through total planning to equip their lives with a new dignity, purpose and meaning.

A man of dedicated practice and principle, his record epitomizes for the world the best aspirations, skills and rewards springing from the common ground of rehabilitation.

1957 -The World Veterans Federation

A far-reaching record of rehabilitation achievements for the welfare of disabled veterans and civilians has been established by the World Veterans Federation, as an integral part of its broad work program.

The Federation has not only given moral impetus but technical assistance and positive support to the planning and development of modern rehabilitation services in more than 30 nations. It has conscientiously exercised its collective influence to promote the employment of the physically handicapped everywhere and to arouse heightened universal interest in the economic and social value of rehabilitation. Its ardent program has accorded high priority to the training of specialized personnel, the exchange of basic information and techniques, the meetings of experts, the organization of seminars and the provision of scholarships. The Federation’s cooperative action in adopting the Solo Rehabilitation Center in Indonesia as a major joint pilot project has served to bring to the people of Southeast Asia living proof that the disabled can be given a useful, integrated role in Society.

By equating rehabilitation goals with its principal aim of promoting the cause of international good will, the World Veterans Federation has demonstrated in tangible terms that the dignity of the individual remains the foundation of civilization.

1960 -Mary E. Switzer

Mary E. Switzer has for ten years been a national architect of increased rehabilitation services, training of rehabilitation personnel, research in rehabilitation and close cooperation between government and voluntary effort.

As Director of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Miss Switzer has helped to make rehabilitation a prime instrument or national health policy with incalculable benefits to the welfare of our citizens and the enhancement of our economy.

During the ten years of her leadership, approximately three-quarters of a million disabled persons have been rehabilitated to useful employment in the United States. On an annual basis, the number has risen from 66,000 in 1951 to 881,000 in 1960. Before their rehabilitation these 88,000 persons earned $28,000,000. Since their rehabilitation, that earning power has increased six fold to the rate of $171,000,000 a year.

Miss Switzer began her government career in 1922 in the Treasury Department after graduating from Radcliffe College. In 1935 she became assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, during which time she developed an interest in nations health and welfare matters. When the Federal Security Agency was established in 1939 Miss Switzer joined it in order to work on expanding public health and welfare programs.

Miss Switzer represented the USat the First International Health Conference, which developed the constitution of the World Health Organization.

Through her international activities and her service with the American voluntary agencies, Miss Switzer has notably influenced progress in health, mental health and rehabilitation on a global scale. The disabled in body and in mind everywhere have been the beneficiaries of Mary Switzer’s decisive leadership.

1960 -Gudmund Harlem

Royal Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Norway, Dr. Harlem is a pioneer in modern rehabilitation philosophy and practice in Northern Europe. Consultant to the World Health Organization and the United Nations, he is also articulate spokesman for and champion of human dignity and social justice throughout the world.

When Dr. Harlem completed his medical education in the University of Osloin 1946, he was already well-known for his leadership among the students in the occupation of Norway during World War II and as Chairman of the Norwegian Student Society in 1945. As Physician-in-Charge, he helped establish the State Rehabilitation Center in Oslo in 1946. A number of his colleagues at the State Rehabilitation Center in Oslo have also served as international consultants in rehabilitation.

In the years following he engaged in research in social medicine and, in 1949-1950, he undertook postgraduate training at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York University Medical Center, as a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation. He also did short-term rehabilitation studies in the United Kingdom.

The youngest man ever to hold the responsibility, Dr. Harlem was a member of the Oslo City Council in 1946-1947; he was a member of the Oslo Board of Schools and Chairman its Committee on Special Education from 1948-1955; and he was a member of the Norwegian Research Council from 1949 to l955.

Dr. Harlem has been a member of the Council of the International Society and has served as consultant to the United Nations and the World Health Organization on the development of rehabilitation services in Egypt, Italy and Greece.

A man of action in the Norwegian resistance movement, a man of government, a dedicated physician, Dr. Harlem has placed his talents at the service of the disabled in all countries. The World Rehabilitation movement has been notably advanced as a result of his outstanding contributions.

1960 -Paul W. Brand

Medical missionary and orthopedic surgeon, Paul W. Brand has given completely of his compassion and his skill since 1946 to the world’s victims of leprosy. There are an estimated twelve to fifteen million persons disfigured by leprosy in the world today. Leprosy causes more disability to the hands than any other disease.

Dedicating himself particularly to this problem, Dr. Brand has become a major originator, leading researcher and teacher of reconstructive hand surgery for victims of leprosy.

This pioneer in the rehabilitation of persons with leprosy was born of missionary parents in S.W. India. Here he first became aware of the tragic suffering and need of persons with leprosy. He began his formal education in London at the age of nine and decided later to become a medical missionary. He received a medical degree at London University and worked with casualties of the London blitz during World War II. Specializing in orthopedic surgery, he served with distinction in the poliomyelitis ward at Children’s Hospital, London. In 1946 he returned to India to become the Director of Orthopedics at Vellore Christian Medical College.

Dr. Brand was appalled at the disability he saw around him resulting from leprosy. Drawing on his experience with polio-paralyzed and war-injured hands, he began research into the possibilities of the surgical reconstruction of hands deformed by leprosy. In 1947 he performed his first operation on the hands of patients with leprosy, transplanting healthy tendons to do the work of paralyzed ones. Currently he is training five surgeons at a time in these techniques.

To aid his patients in a return to community life, Dr. Brand has started the New Life Center, Vellore, South India to provide physical and vocational rehabilitation for victims of leprosy. Brand visited Nigeria in 1956 at that government’s request to hold teaching courses and to start reconstructive surgery units in leprosaria there. He was elected Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and gave the Hunterian oration on reconstructive surgery in leprosy.

To the unhappy millions who suffer from the oldest of recorded diseases, Dr. Brand has brought the promise of new hands and new life through his rehabilitation techniques.

1963 -Renato de Costa Bomfim

Founder and President of the Associaçao de Assistencia a Criança Defeituósa; leader in the creation and advancement of Brazilian rehabilitation services, noted orthopedic surgeon and benefactor of the disabled.

A practicing orthopedic surgeon since 1928, Dr. Bomfim has served as President of the Brazilian Orthopedic Association, Chairman for one of its national conferences, Vice President of the International Society for Rehabilitation of the Disabled and a member of its Council. He has been a major contributor to the development of national voluntary organizations for rehabilitation in Brazil, was primarily responsible for the establishment of large-scale children’s rehabilitation center recently opened by his organization, and was the principal organizer of a training course under which twenty-four makers of orthopedic appliances, now stationed in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, were instructed in their craft. He has written extensively for professional publications in South America, the United States and Europe, and is an active member of many international orthopedic and rehabilitation organizations. No one has done more for the advancement of the world rehabilitation movement in Latin America.

1963 -Kurt Jansson

Assistant Director of the United Nations Bureau of Social Affairs; architect of rehabilitation services for voluntary organizations in all parts of the world; internationally recognized advisor and leader in work for the physically handicapped.

A dedicated worker for more than twenty years in services for rehabilitation of the disabled, Mr. Jannson began his career in his native Finland, where he served from 1940 to 1945 as Director of Rehabilitation of the Disabled Veterans Association, from 1945 to 1948 as Director of the Finnish Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and from 1948 to 1952 as Secretary General of the Disabled Veterans Association. Since 1953, he has been a member of the United Nations staff concerned with rehabilitation; until 1957 as Chief of the Rehabilitation Unit, Bureau of Social Affairs; from 1950 to 1959 as Special Assistant to the Director, Bureau of Social Affairs; from 1959 to 1962 as Chief of the Regional Social Affairs Office for the Middle East, Lebanon, and since 1962 in his present position which included supervision of the Rehabilitation Unit. From 1952 to 1953 he served as Director of Rehabilitation Unit. From 1952 to 1953 he served as Director of Rehabilitation of the World Veterans Federation and as Acting Assistant Secretary General of the same organization while on leave from the United Nations in 1957.

Through his association with the United Nations and the World Veterans Federation, Mr. Jannson has had a hand in the development of rehabilitation services the world over, given direct consultation in many countries, planned seminars and training programs, developed special projects and supervised the awarding of fellowships. He had participated in nearly every major conference and seminar in rehabilitation held during the last decade. Probably no one in the world is known in more countries or more highly respected in his field for his leadership and judgment.

1963 -Leonard W. Mayo

Executive Director of the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children; benefactor of handicapped children and young; civic leader, teacher and administrator.

After serving in various staff and administrative capacities at the Maryland Training School for Boys; the Children’s Village, Dobbs Ferry, New York; on the faculty of the New York School of Social Work; the Emergency Relief Bureau of New York City and the Welfare Council of New York City, Mr. Mayo left New York in 1941 to become Dean of the School of Applied Social Sciences at Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1947 was appointed a Vice President of the University. Mr. Mayo was President of the National Conference of Social Work in 1948, Chairman of the National Commission on Chronic Illness from 1948 to 1956 and a member in 1955 of the United States Delegation to the first United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. In 1959, he was appointed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller as Chairman of “The Governor’s Council on Rehabilitation,” and was made Chairman in 1961 of President Kennedy’s Panel on Mental Retardation. He is a member of the United States Committee of the International Society for Rehabilitation of the Disabled, which he served as Chairman from 1958 to 1961, and has been President since 1956 of the International Union for Child Welfare, and, since 1960, Chairman of the Conference of World Organizations Interested in the Handicapped. His leadership in work for the disabled has inspired world-wide advances in rehabilitation services—particularly for handicapped children.

1966 -Poul Stochholm

President of the Union of Hospitals in Denmark, member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of Cripples, member of the Council of the International Society in the field of labor and social welfare.

Almost from the moment he received his degree in economics from the University of Copenhagen in 1930, Poul Stochholm has been actively engaged in the struggle to bring a better life to the disabled —first as a public servant in the Ministries of Labor and Social Affairs of the Danish Government; then as Director of the Society and Home for Cripples, in which post he helped establish orthopedic clinic departments in five provincial towns, two hospitals for physical medicine two homes for children with cerebral palsy, a boarding school for handicapped children and other significant services.

Extending his commitment to the disabled of other countries, Poul Stochholm joined the International Society. A member of the Society’s Council since 1945, he served as Vice President from 1957-1960. Meanwhile in Denmark, the National Association for Cripples, under his leadership, made innumerable contributions to international rehabilitation, including launching rehabilitation training courses in Denmark for foreign physicians and providing professional personnel to the World Health Organization and other international groups.

Tirelessly, modestly and unrelentingly, Poul Stochholm has advanced significantly the cause of rehabilitation in his country and internationally.

1966 -Wiktor Dega

Chief Consultant in Medical Rehabilitation in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of his country Chairman of the Polish Society for Rehabilitation of the Disabled, pioneer in rehabilitation in Poland and in Europe.

An orthopedic surgeon, Professor Dega had dedicated all his energies and talents from more than thirty years to rehabilitating the disabled. As a teacher, as an advisor to government and private agencies, as a leader of voluntary organizations, he has brought aid and new life to thousands. Professor Dega organized the rehabilitation curriculum in the Universities in Poland and in many other educational centers in Europe. The programs of the Orthopedic Clinic in Poznan, many of which Professor Dega initiated as Director, have for years stimulated new and advanced rehabilitation techniques in his and other countries.

Truly international in outlook, Professor Dega has transcended national boundaries and offered his knowledge and service to all mankind. By his commitment to the welfare of his fellow men, by the respect and love he has earned by all who work alongside him, Professor Dega today stands as an inspiration to all in the field of rehabilitation.

1966 -Eugene J. Taylor

Adjunct Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York University College of Medicine; member, Editorial staff, New York Times; Consultant, Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Secretary-Treasurer, World Rehabilitation Fund Inc.

Known internationally for his incisive writings on the concepts and techniques of rehabilitation, and for his role in the planning of facilities and programs in many countries, Eugene J. Taylor can truly be called a world leader in rehabilitation. Few others have contributed so much and in so many ways to its cause. From his work as Chief of the Educational Branch of the Convalescent-Rehabilitation Division of the USArmy Air Forces in 1944 to his mobilization of resources for the most recent rehabilitation program, Jack Taylor has ranged the world to serve the disabled.

His years of unselfish and untiring service to the United Nations, the International Society, and scores of governmental and volunteer organizations around the world have made him a symbol of the dedicated servant of humanity. His organization of training programs for foreign students at the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York, his pioneering awareness of the contribution paramedical personnel can make in everyday rehabilitation have dynamically expanded his field’s resources. The kindness and understanding he has given fellow workers seeking advice and help have won him a special place in thousands of hearts—while his years of unique service and devoted loyalty to Dr. Howard A. Rusk have earned him an equally special place in rehabilitation history.

As teacher, writer, consultant, sympathetic friend, Jack Taylor stands today as the prototype of the new man—International man.

1969 -Gustav Gringas

Executive Director, since its founding in 1949, of the Rehabilitation Institute of Montreal; Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal and Director of the Schools of Rehabilitation of the Universities of Montreal and Laval.

Dr. Gingras has been a dynamic motivator in international rehabilitation since 1953. Requested then by the United Nations to survey rehabilitation programs in Venezuela, he returned to that country several times to organize treatment programs for patients and training programs for professionals. His work in Venezuela has had a lasting influence upon rehabilitation services not only for that country, but for all Latin America.

In 1959-1960, as Senior League Delegate and Medical Liaison Officer of the League of Red Cross Societies International Relief Action, he played a leading role in setting up programs for more than 10,000 Moroccan patients paralyzed by crude oil poisoning and in the establishment of modern rehabilitation services in a country where they had heretofore been unknown.

As a representative of the Canadian Overseas International Development Mission to Vietnam in 1965, Dr. Gingras developed a plan for a rehabilitation center which was completed in 1968 and partially staffed by Canadian therapists. Vietnamese medical personnel have subsequently been trained at the Rehabilitation Institute of Montreal under Dr. Gingras’ direction.

In his concern for the world’s disabled people, Dr. Gingras has given unstintingly of his time and talents. Under his leadership the Rehabilitation Institute of Montreal has provided training opportunities for students from more than 20 countries who have returned to their own lands to apply the precepts of rehabilitation and the inspiration instilled by Dr. Gingras. His international vision and unselfish commitment have paved the way for improved services for the handicapped in countries far from his native land.

1969 -Dr. and Mrs. Raden Soeharso

Raden Soeharso, humanitarian and orthopedic surgeon, inspired architect and director of the Solo Rehabilitation Center, and Mrs. Soeharso, tireless worker for the disabled and founder of the Indonesian Society for the Care of Crippled Children.

Dr. Soeharso, Indonesian Red Cross surgeon during World War II, established the first rehabilitation center in Southeast Asia in 1947. Hampered by lack of funds and an on-going war, he saw the plight of the Indonesian casualties and visualized the importance of services that would bring the disabled soldiers back to the mainstream of society. Through a program of heroic improvisation, he displayed ingenuity and perseverance in providing prostheses and vocational training for disabled soldiers and civilians. His success has demonstrated principles and methods of rehabilitation applicable to the needs of developing countries.

Aware of the vast needs of the disabled throughout the world, Dr. Soeharso has traveled tirelessly to make the results of his pioneering efforts available to other countries with similar problems.

Sharing her husband’s concern for the disabled, Mrs. Soeharso applied herself to the problems of handicapped children and, in 1953, founded the Indonesian Society for the Care of Crippled Children which now has branches in all major cities of Indonesia. Mrs. Soeharso’s gentle modesty has been matched only by her determination to provide the best possible care for children disabled through birth, accident or disease.

Dr. and Mrs. Soeharso are that unique example of a husband and wife devoted to a single goal, complementing each other’s efforts and providing inspiration and leadership to their country. Together, they have introduced a new concept in Southeast Asia of total care for the handicapped.

1969 -Andre Trannoy

Seriously disabled by polio at the age of 18, Andre Trannoy has become a symbol of hope to the handicapped people of the world who see in his achievements their own possibilities.

From his deep and intimate acquaintance with suffering and the problems of the disabled, Professor Trannoy is uniquely able to understand and help his fellowmen. In 1932 he founded the Association de Paralyses de France, an organization which has had enormous influence in advancing public acceptance of the handicapped not only in France but in all Europe.

Professor Trannoy received his Doctorate in Letters from the Sorbonne in 1942 and taught Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Angers until 1949.He has been President of the Federation des Association de Post-Cure and a public health officer. In 1962 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, one of the highest awards his country can give.

Professor Trannoy’s life has been an example to disabled people in all countries; his intellectual vigor and uncompromising efforts have helped to create a milieu of understanding for the handicapped. As scholar, writer, and humanitarian he has dedicated his talents and his time to interpreting the problems of a minority group to his country and to the world.

1969 -The International Labour Organization

Upon the occasion of its Fiftieth Anniversary, grateful recognition is given to the International Labour Organization, champion of the rights of the worker and devoted to advancing the cause of social justice throughout the world.

The ILO has contributed significantly to the development of standards of vocational rehabilitation and has assumed the responsibility of ensuring that, wherever possible, disabled persons are prepared for and accepted as working members of the community. It has promoted the initiation and improvement of national vocational rehabilitation programs through its technical assistance activity and has aroused universal interest in the economic value of rehabilitation.

Through the efforts of the ILO, governments have acknowledged that disabled workers, whatever the origin of their disabilities, should be provided with all opportunities for rehabilitation, specialized vocational guidance, training, retraining, and employment in useful work.

Working since 1945 in close cooperation with the United Nations family of organizations, the ILO has improved the economic and social well-being of the world’s handicapped. It has created a new understanding of the dignity of work and the right of the handicapped to be considered an integral part of the productive labor force of his country.

1972 -James F. Garrett

Assistant Administrator for Research, Demonstration and Training of the Social and Rehabilitation Service, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, psychologist, leading proponent and innovator in the application of research and demonstration techniques for the training of rehabilitation personnel and for improved delivery of services, dedicated internationalist.

Since 1951 Dr. Garrett has played a key role in the formulation of policy for the world’s largest combination of research and demonstration programs devoted to the field of rehabilitation. He has administered such programs expending some $32,000,000 annually in the United States and more than $28,000,000 in counterpart funds for research and demonstration in other countries during the period 1960 through 1971.

Keenly aware of the values for all disabled persons to be found in exchanges among countries of personnel, knowledge and skill; he has given high priority to projects with international impact and has tirelessly devoted both professional and personal time and effort to them.

Hundreds of institutions, thousands of rehabilitation workers and untold numbers of disabled persons have benefitted, and will continue to benefit, from the programs designed and administered under the leadership of James F. Garrett.

1972 -Kamala V. Nimbkar

Editor of The Journal of Rehabilitation in Asia, founder of the first school of occupational therapy in Asia, motivator of schools, services, and institutions helping the disabled in India, advisor to governments, constant advocate of the rights of disabled persons.

First training herself in occupational therapy, Mrs. Nimbkar introduced the profession to Asia by founding the first school and the first service in Bombay. She has stimulated the establishment of other training schools and the introduction of both physical and occupational therapy and other rehabilitation procedures in various parts of India.

To meet an important need for communications among those interested in rehabilitation in Asia, she founded The Indian Occupational Therapy Journal and expanded it into The Journal of Rehabilitation in Asia, a valued resource for the disabled in Asia and for all those seeking to assist them.

Most important, she has been a pioneer and an example followed by many of what can be accomplished by the application of perseverance, leadership, skill and devotion to action designed to protect the rights of disabled persons. The history of rehabilitation in Asia will always honor the faith and the work of Kamala Nimbkar.

1972 -Jean Regniers

Businessman, philanthropist, Rotarian, humanitarian who, for more than twenty years, has given voluntarily of this time, energy and experience so that work for the disabled in his native Belgium, in Europe and in the world might progress.

Senior statesman of the world rehabilitation movement, he has worked tirelessly in various official capacities and informally as a concerned individual to strengthen international action for the disabled. He has brought to the movement a combination of organizational and financial acumen, pragmatic humanitarianism and grace in inter-personal relations that will never be forgotten.

Among the first to understand the need for European unity within a larger world order, he has sought in the rehabilitation movement to create patterns of regional cooperation that would bring greater benefits to the disabled of Belgium and of Europe and, at the same time, make positive contributions to the world-wide growth of services for the disabled.

Inheriting the spirit of a father who was among those responsible for the dedication of Rotary International to the cause of handicapped children, he has for two decades directed the work of the Belgian National Association for the Aid of Handicapped Children, seeking for it a stronger role in the provision of services in its country and insisting that it participate effectively in the development of programs in Europe and in the world.

For his service as an officer of Rehabilitation International, as an enlightened citizen of Belgium, of Europe and of the world, and as an ambassador of friendship and goodwill among all concerned with rehabilitation of the disabled, it is appropriate to honor Jean Regniers.

Lasker Awards given by the National Committee Against Mental Illness

1944 -William C. Menninger

For his outstanding contribution to the Advancement of Mental Health in the Field of War Psychiatry the field within which the award is made for the year 1944.

1945 -G. Brock Chisholm

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, having reviewed the recommendation of the Jury of Award and the record of achievement of one of its nominees, Major General G. Brock Chisholm, hereby designates General Chisholm to share in the receipt of the Lasker Award. This award, for the year 1945, is given for outstanding contribution to mental health work in the field of rehabilitation.

As a psychiatrist, soldier, philosopher and administrator, Major General Chisholm has played a pivotal role in safeguarding the mental health of Canadian soldiers, and in laying sound foundations for the rehabilitation of ex-service men and women. During the early stages of the war, General Chisholm occupied the newly created post of Director of Personnel Selection for the Canadian army and was successful in developing an effective program for the psychiatric and psychological screening of recruits. In 1942, the General was promoted to the post of Director General of Medical Services for the army, a position that is equivalent in status to that of Surgeon General in the armies of other countries. As the chief medical office of the Canadian army, the General brought about a needed re-organization of medical services and was responsible for the placing of emphasis on activities for the promotion of positive mental and physical health. His achievements were so great in this regard that, in 1944, when the end of the war was in sight, he was drafted by the Canadian Government to become the first Deputy Minister of National Health in the newly created Department of National Health and Welfare. This latter transfer was affected to take advantage of General Chisholm’s leadership in the development of a comprehensive post-war national health program.

One of the secrets of General Chisholm’s success in the various posts he has held since 1939 has been the circumstance that he has never personally sought positions of great responsibility, but, when once placed by army or governmental authorities in an official job, he has always preserved the right to conduct his work unhampered by political or irrelevant interference. It is interesting to note that the General’s personal ambition was to be a combatant officer in the front line, as he was in World War I. Between 1914 and 1939 he was a keen student of military strategy. He was much more interested in military strategy and tactics than he was in military medicine. But the higher command of the Canadian army ignored the General’s personal interests and ordered him to take a medical post. As a good soldier, he obeyed, but he took to his medical tasks the outlook of the fighting man in the field. Because of this orientation, he was eminently practical and was accepted by all ranks as a sound man, as a man whose advice must be heeded even if he recommended the incorporation of psychiatry and mental hygiene into the very fabric of military organization. Such advice he freely offered and he was always given the opportunity to put his ideas into effect. Fortunately, the General had been well trained in psychiatry and his policies were invariably in line with good medicine and good military common sense.

During the period of his attachment to the army, Major General Chisholm was chiefly responsible for the following achievements: (1) The development of strong Divisions of Psychiatry, Personnel Section (a corps of psychologists), and Social Science (a corps of social workers, with activities closely integrated with the work of medical and other officers to insure a total health approach in the Canadian army with mental hygiene as the central core of the program. (2) The inauguration of the PULHEMS system of examination of enlisted personnel to furnish profiles based on mental and physical characteristics, to assist in suitable army placement. This system in conjunction with job analyses of the 640 occupations in the army facilitated the placing of square pegs into square holes. (3) The focusing of attention of all army medical officers upon the necessity for a psychosomatic approach in military medicine. Toward this and General Chisholm arranged for the development of training courses of six months duration for groups of medical officers— having them exposed to hospital work in psychosomatic medicine under psychiatric supervision. (4) The development within the army of arrangements to foster good morale, with special emphasis upon officer selection and training, wherein competence to deal with the human factor was given prominence.

In his new post as Deputy Minister of Health (a similar post to that of Surgeon General in the United States Public Health Service), General Chisholm is attempting to make available for returning soldiers and for the civilian population, an even broader range of mental health facilities than was enjoyed by the military forces. He is active in securing Dominion Government funds for the improvement and extension throughout Canada of mental hygiene clinics and counseling services; for the integration of psychosomatic medicine into general hospital and public health endeavor; for the support of mental hygiene research and training; and for the raising of standards of all psychiatric agencies in the country.

His attitude toward returning men is that they should not become “career veterans,” but that as soon as possible they should become citizens. The General is convinced that governmental agencies by themselves cannot do an effective mental hygiene job. For this reason he remains as President of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene of Canada and is mapping out partnership activities between this voluntary organization and the Department of National Health and Welfare.

This citation would be incomplete without a reference to the fact that Major General Chisholm dares to think for himself and to share his thinking with his fellows. Since his mind is not shackled by considerations of orthodoxy if prevailing attitudes offend his inner judgment, he is not reluctant to express convictions that may on occasions dismay those of his fellow citizens who are more conservative. In following this course, the General is rediscovering the truth that it requires as much courage to be a good soldier in peace as it does in war.

1945 -John Rawlings Rees

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, on the recommendation of its Jury of Award, has designated Doctor John Rawlings Rees as one of the two outstanding leaders in mental health to receive the Lasker Award for the year 1945, in special recognition of his leadership and inspiration in the field of rehabilitation.

As Consultant in Psychiatry to the Directorate of Psychiatry in the British Army with the rank of Brigadier, Doctor Rees brought together a remarkable group of psychiatrists, brilliant, energetic and resourceful in the development and application of new and old psychiatric concepts and practices. Under his aggressive and shrewd leadership and genial encouragement, this group functioned with extraordinary effectiveness in applying the best available scientific knowledge of human nature to aid the Army in the use of its man power. Under heavy pressure they yet managed to maintain that continuous scrutiny and intelligent questioning of procedures and principles which made their experiences yield a maximal gain of increased wisdom and insight.

In particular, Brigadier Rees and his associates developed the preventive aspect of army psychiatry. Eminently practical contributions thereto were made through the systematic use of psychological and psychiatric skills in the selection of officers for qualities of leadership and through the application of psychiatric principles in the assignment of men to special duties. Our military leaders and the leaders of the armed forces of Canada gained much from the straightforward and energetic Presentation of such principles by Brigadier Rees, on his visits here and a wide civilian group was stimulated and enlightened by his Salmon lectures last November, published this year under the title “The Shaping of Psychiatry by War.”

Rehabilitation of psychiatric casualties for reassignments army duties or in civilian work was a continuing interest of Brigadier Rees and his associates. His basic determination to maintain a sound and progressively improving foundation for rehabilitation efforts is quite clearly shown in the Directorate’s files of reports of special studies, such as the employment of the blind in industry, the emotional, social, and economic situation of the war-disabled, the psychological problems of repatriated prisoners of war, and the development of techniques of popular education with respect to rehabilitation. In military psychiatric hospitals and in civil resettlement units shrewd use was made of group discussion, social therapy and democratic ward meetings psychiatrically guided to help the soldier toward good social adjustment and the self-confident resumption of civilian living.

So keen a man, Doctor Rees must know that the title of his book, “The Shaping of Psychiatry by War,” is a misnomer. It is not war but men who shape psychiatry and John Rawlings Bees has been an outstanding leader among those who have been shaping psychiatry to serve in the war effort and to aid men and women to achieve healthy and satisfying lives in peace.

1946 -W. Horsley Gantt

For years Doctor Gantt with unusual devotion to a specific scientific goal has applied his talents to the experimental modification and analysis of behavior. For the most part this experimentation has followed the style of Pavlov. His scientific writings, now nearing the century mark, have for the most part been addressed to his experimental confreres and so have not brought him to public attention. However, his works are intensely important to the mentally ill and those who serve them. His recent monograph, “The Experimental Basis for Neurotic Behavior” is timely when psychiatric education is shifting its focus toward the neurosis, when general medicine is beginning to develop a responsibility for the vast neurotic patient population whose ills do not come within the framework of traditional medical sciences, and when the pressures of a war have forced a higher public consciousness of neurotic disability.

1946 -Jules H. Masserman

Doctor Masserman is widely known and respected both for his experimental research into behavior, especially neurotic behavior, and for his interest and activity in the field of human affairs outside the laboratory. He has sought to translate the experimental work into the range of practical psychiatry, medicine and sociology, and himself to take part in the affairs of the day. At a time when the neurosis has assumed such great significance, not only as a human ill, but as a factor in world affairs, experimental work in this field is crucial.

1946 -Walter Lerch and Douglass Rice Sharpe

In 1943 a group of religious objectors who were serving as attendants at the Cleveland State Hospital protested the outrageous treatment of patients in that institution. To Mr. Walter Lerch of the Cleveland Press this was a challenge to employ his skill and his medium for the enlightenment of the public. To Doctor D.R. Sharpe the Cleveland Baptist Association it was an imperative call to arouse the public conscience. Together and in complementary role these men devoted themselves toward the softening of a thick social callus and the correction of a great inhumanity. Not discouraged by repeated meaningless gestures disguised as official investigation they forced the appointment of a commission to redesign the whole state program. Not only was the Cleveland State Hospital renovated and restored to a minimum status as a hospital, but a new central direction for the state was created and put into operation .Extensive funds were obtained from the legislature for needed improvements. Additional hospital space was gotten, and a permanent state society for mental hygiene with Dr. Sharpe as president and wide citizen membership was organized. Even more significant than to the mentally ill of Ohio is this demonstration of what two men can do in an unaroused state. Lerchs and Sharpes surely exist in other states. Like action by similar men, firm and bold, will be the highest price paid to the gentlemen to whom this award is given.

1946 -Lawrence K. Frank

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, on recommendation of its Jury of Award, has designated Lawrence K. Frank as one of two leaders in the field of mental health to receive the Lasker Award in 1947. The award for 1941 is given for outstanding contribution to mental health through popular adult education, particularly in parent-child relationship.

For 26 years Lawrence K. Frank has been giving impetus and direction to the entire field of child development, parent-child relationships, and adult education. As an executive of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, the Spelman Fund, the General Education Board, and the Josiah Maoy Jr. Foundation, and during the war and post-war years as a consultant to many government agencies, he initiated and translated into action a broad plan of systematic study and interpretation of human behavior. In his work at the Caroline Zachary Institute of Human Development, he is now providing a rich and varied program in research, training, and service which reaches out into many communities.

Today his influence is felt in teaching centers all of all kinds throughout the world: in teachers’ colleges, in medical school and other professional training schools, in graduate and. Undergraduate courses in colleges and universities everywhere, in nursery centers and in the programs of many national and local health and welfare organizations.

It is possible to name here only a few of the ways in which Lawrence Frank’s leadership has been outstanding. He has helped to formulate some of the basic concepts of psychosomatic medicine as applied to the understanding of the whole child. He has succeeded in breaking down any of the artificial barriers between the disciplines. He has built up a lively sense of the wholeness of knowledge and the common task ahead for those who are attempting to interpret growth and behavior.

Through his splendid creative imagination and his selfless devotion to his work, he has brought a new unity into child research and adult education, and a new appreciation of the fundamental needs of the child and his family.

1947 -Catherine Mackenzie

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, on recommendation of its Jury of Award, has designated Catherine Mackenzie as one of the two leaders in the field of mental health to receive the Lasker Award in 1947. The award for 1947 is given for outstanding contribution to mental health through popular adult education, particularly in parent-child relationships.

Through her weekly column, “Parent and Child,” in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and through her news stories in the daily New York Times, Catherine Mackenzie carries on a continuous development of children. Her writings have been estimated as equaling in volume to some two full-length books a year. Because her articles appear several times a week in a newspaper which reaches nearly a million people daily, it is also estimated that Miss Mackenzie’s writing is placed before more people than the work of any other writer on mental health.

Through her passion for accuracy, enforced by a unique policy of submitting all material quoted to its original source before publication, through the constructive approach of her writing her sane, unsensational point of view, coupled with keen recognition of news value, and through her ability to synthesize and integrate where differences of opinion exist, Miss Mackenzie has won the confidence of both the press and the mental health professions.

With this confidence she has been able to perform a long-needed service to both groups. News-shy psychiatrists and other workers for mental health have been convinced that the publicity their work so greatly needs can be handled suitably and helpfully. Her fellow journalists respect her ability to turn mental health into the kind of news readers beg for. The regard in which Miss Mackenzie’s writing is held by the mental health profession is attested by the fact that her column is frequently posted in many kinds of schools and social agencies and is often assigned as required reading in university classes.

Therefore, Catherine Mackenzie deserves recognition for her singularly intelligent and devoted service to the task of translating mental health teaching and research into a language and a medium that reaches millions of individuals who otherwise would not even know such work was being done.

1948 -C. Anderson Aldrich

It would have been hard to foresee in 1916 when C. Anderson Aldrich began work as a general practitioner in Winnetka, Illinois, that he was to become the leader of a profound shift in pediatric philosophy, the first integrator of pediatrics with preventive psychiatry, and a potent force for mental health, not only in America but throughout the world.

In 1927 when pediatric thought was largely pre-occupied with physical disease and physical quantities and when accepted child training rules had reached a peak of arbitrariness and rigidity, Dr. Aldrich had the wisdom and courage to write “Cultivating the Child’s Appetite.” It persuasively set forth the child’s own attitude toward feeding, which up to then had been largely ignored in the science of nutrition when distressing results. In 1938, Dr. and Mrs. Aldrich wrote “Babies Are Human Beings.” Its title became the rallying cry for the varied professional groups and parents who were concerned with the importance of understanding broadly the nature and needs of children. In these books Dr. Aldrich provided the inspiration, leadership and authority, from within the field of pediatrics that was vitally necessary for this point of view to prevail. “Feeding Our Old Fashioned Children,” also written in collaboration with Mary Aldrich, appeared in 1941. These books have been translated into four languages and have reached a vast influential audience.

As officer of pediatric societies and the American Board of Pediatrics, as author of medical papers, and as teacher of physicians in training, Dr. Aldrich has constantly and successfully drawn the attention of the profession to the developmental and humanistic aspects of pediatrics.

In 1944 he was asked by the Mayo Clinic to organize the Rochester Child Health Project. Under his leadership, pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, nursery school educators, nutritionists work in cooperation with city health officers, public health nurses and the schools to discover and provide the best preventive care, physically and emotionally, for all the children of the city.

Dr. Aldrich’s soundness in psychological approach to pediatrics is not due to any formal psychiatric training but to love of people, unprejudiced observation and a natural immunity to fad and dogma. His success as leader and persuader comes from many qualities but perhaps the most important are his imperturbable goo nature, his disarming selflessness, and a perseverance which never irritates but never gives up.

1948 -Mike Gorman

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc., having reviewed the recommendation of the Jury of Awards and the records of achievements of its nominees, hereby designate Mike Gorman of the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, to receive a Lasker Award for Public Information Leading to Public Action in Mental Health.

Mr. Gorman, through his work in the Daily Oklahoman, made intensive investigations and startling exposes of the deplorable conditions existing in the mental hospitals of Oklahoma.

He has also made positive presentation of more adequate psychiatric treatment programs in many states.

He has stimulated a grass-roots citizens’ reform movement which resulted in the formation of the Oklahoma Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc.

He has personally fostered the foundation of the only mental health clinic in Oklahoma.

His journalistic efforts have resulted in new mental health legislation and greatly increased appropriations.

His insight and clear interpretation of the professional viewpoint to the lay reader, and his untiring energy and relentless dedication to the cause of the mentally ill, have constituted an outstanding contribution to the advancement of Mental Health.

1948 -Al Ostrow

The Board of Directors of The National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc., having reviewed the recommendations of the Jury of Awards and the records of achievements of its nominees, hereby designates Al Ostrow of the San Francisco News, San Francisco, California, to receive a Lasker Award for Public Information Leading to Public Action in Mental Health.

Mr. Ostrow, as a writer for the San Francisco News, succeeded in focus sing public attention on the plight of the mentally ill and the mentally deficient as an advocate for the “People in the Dark,” revealing deplorable conditions in our State mental hospitals following an intensive survey which he made.

He has helped gain public and legislative support for a better program of mental health through timely and effective articles and an inspired singleness of purpose.

He has served in the forefront in combatting the lingering prejudices concerning mental disorders and is recognized as an outstanding spokesman for better mental health.

His newspaper, through his contributions, played a major role in establishing state sponsored mental hygiene clinics after it had appeared that the cause was lost.

He has sustained the interest of his newspaper as a force for public service in making mental health one of its permanent major projects.

His work encouraged mental hygiene personnel to continue their efforts toward improved programs.

Because of his efforts many mental patients are better off today.

The Governor’s Conference on Mental Health, the first of its kind, attended by almost 1,000 representatives from parts of the State, and called to study existing problems of mental health and determine unmet needs, was a tribute to Mr. Ostrow’s success in arousing social consciousness.

His devotion to the cause of the mentally ill and his clear presentation of their needs to his readers and others have constituted an outstanding contribution to the advancement of mental health.

1949 -Mildred C. Scoville

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene Mildred Clare Scoville the Lasker Award for 1949 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the integration of mental health concepts in medical education and practice.

Miss Scoville’s professional life has been a wise tireless force in the mental hygiene movement. For many years she has been a ready source of stimulation, guidance, and support for those whose work gave promise of increasing psychiatric knowledge and extending its application in meeting human needs.

Although she characteristically submerges he accomplishments in the record of the Commonwealth Fund, Mildred Scoville’s leadership in the Fund’s mental hygiene program has long been recognized and appreciated by all who know the field. The Board of Director and the staff of the Commonwealth Fund deserve public gratitude for supporting a program which has significantly influenced the development of the mental hygiene movement during the past three decades.

When Mildred Scoville first undertook to stimulate the introduction of mental health concepts into medical education, there were many who thought the move was premature. Similarly, when the first institute for general practitioners was planned several years later, there were many who applauded the idea but envisioned insurmountable obstacles. But the problems and the obstacles were no mate for the vision and sound judgment of this seasoned leader. Under her guidance, the program has moved forward on two fronts—in basic medical education through fellowships and guests to medical schools, and in special institutes and refresher courses for general practitioners- with the result that the integration of mental health concepts in medical education and practice to fall on its way today. The skills and talents of many have contributed to its progress but it was Mildred Scoville who had the vision, the conviction and the dogged determination that gave it substance and direction during the crucial early years.

1949 -Albert Deutsch

The Board of Directors of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc., having reviewed the recommendation of the Jury Awards and the records of achievements of its nominees, hereby designates Albert Deutsch of New York City, to receive a Lasker Award for Public Information Leading to Public Action in the field of Mental Health.

For more than ten years Mr. Deutsch has devoted himself very largely to assembling and publicizing facts regarding the needs of the mentally ill for more considerate care and more thorough scientific treatment. The extensive research which went into his “Mentally Ill in America” first published 12 years ago made him one of the best informed men in America in this field. This volume, brought up to date in the 1949 revised Edition, is still much in demand as a basic text for students in the field of mental health.

During the past decade Mr. Deutsch has been devoted to the cause of exploring and publicizing facts regarding the care of the mentally ill and their unmet needs through various media communication, especially his daily column in PM and subsequently in the NYSTAR, the NYPost and THE DAILY COMPASS. His series of articles, “Shame of the States,” published in PM, probably did more than any one piece of writing to awaken the citizens of our country to the need for better care and treatment of the mentally ill. His untiring effort, zeal and fearlessness in the writing of a series of 52 articles in 1945 on the medical and the mental hygiene programs in the Veterans Administration brought about lasting improvement in these programs.

Part of Mr. Deutsch’s effectiveness as a columnist and publicist in the interest of the mentally ill springs from the fact that he consistently relates this problem to other major social issues and needs. He has been just as interested in promoting sound social legislation and proper treatment for delinquents. He has been just as quick to praise individuals and organizations in the psychiatric and related fields devoted to scientific research and improved care of the ill as to criticize those who are content with the status quo. Through his broad perspective and interest in all groups whose rights are not well assured and whose needs are poorly met, he has been a potent force not only in encouraging social legislation, but also in pushing professional groups, especially psychiatry and social work, into making educational and preventive use of what they know.

Lasker Awards given by Planned Parenthood – World Population

1945 -John McLeod

To John McLeod, PhDof the Department of Anatomy of the Cornell University Medical College, the Lasker Award is presented in appreciation of his years of basic research on the physiology of human fertility.

Dr. McLeod’s many papers bear on standards of normal function in man and mammals, in several phases, including metabolism and motility of spermatozoa, and are of a type bound to prove of value in the diagnosis and cure of sterility as well as in aiding in control of fertility.

It is for the encouragement of such fundamental investigations that these awards were instituted, as well as for practical applications of new knowledge.

1945 -Felix J. Underwood

On the practical foundation of physician in private practice he has built a distinguished career in public service in the State of Mississippi and throughout the nation. The long list of his responsible positions reveals his activity in almost every branch of Public Health, and led, logically to his election as president of the American Public Health Association in 1944, and to his appointment by the President of the United States, as an official delegate to two Pan American Congresses.

His deep concern for children, coupled with his scientific spirit, made him realize the importance of including planned parenthood services as an integral part of the public health program in the state of Mississippi. Under his direction a scientific approach to this vital aspect of infant and maternal welfare has been made available to physicians, Public Health nurses and County Health officers throughout the state.

For this outstanding achievement in a field which is now being recognized by those responsible for maternal health care, the Planned Parenthood Federation gratefully grants the Albert and Mary Lasker Award for 1945.

1946 -Robert Latou Dickinson

For his texts on the Techniques of Conception Control: for wedding Science and Art in picture and Sculpture in Medical Teaching.

For organizing research in anatomy and physiology and clinical test, looking toward success in marriage and motherhood.

1946 -Irl Cephas Riggin

Our southern states continue to lead the country in recognizing the importance of planned parenthood in maternity care programs conducted by State Departments of Health. North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Texas and Mississippi had introduced birth control services in their Public Health Clinics during the period from 1937 to 1945.In 1945 another illustrious southern state through the vision and courage of her State Health Commissioner, joined our group of pioneers in this neglected field of preventive medicine – the State of Virginia.

On this 25th Anniversary of our National Federation, we welcome Dr. Riggin as a new leader in the field of planned parenthood. Former President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers and the Southern Branch of the American Public Health Association he has served the State of Virginia as its Health Commissioner for the past twelve years. His interest in the fields of epidemiology, heart disease and tuberculosis increased his conviction of the importance of including planned parenthood services in the Public Health program of his State. Under his leadership all the health officers in Virginia were informed November, 1945, of the State’s Public Health policy of making contraceptive advice available under medical direction. The program he has initiated also includes noteworthy cooperation between the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood and the State Health Department in making available under joint financing a full time Public Health educator to interpret the value of planned parenthood throughout the State. To Dr. Riggin we have the honor to present the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation Award for 1946.

1947 -Alan F. Guttmacher

To Dr. Alan F. Gutmacher in recognition of conspicuous service toward healthier and happier marriage and parenthood to which he has contributed in his professional capacity and as a popular educator.

1947 -Abraham Stone

To Dr. Abraham Stone for distinguished leadership in marriage counsel and in many roles; as author, editor, speaker and organizer as well as personal advisor and clinic director.

1948 -John Rock

As clinical professor of gynecology in the Harvard Medical School, as Visiting Surgeon at the Free Hospital for Women in Brookline, and as Director for twenty years of the Fertility and Endocrine Clinic, he has pioneered in research in the cause of infertility and contributed significant knowledge for the treatment of childless couples.

With his colleagues, he defined the progressive changes in the lining of the uterus, and helped to establish an important method of study of the function of the ovary, as well as of its defective action. For twenty years he has striven to keep the diagnosis and treatment of infertile couples to sane standards, and to discourage many unwarranted claims.

He initiated and provided material for studying the only series in the world of human embryos in their earliest stages of development, and thus contributed invaluable information concerning the first two weeks of human existence. Again with his associates he proved that human conception can be achieved in the laboratory. He is one of the best examples of scientific research providing practical foundation for relief of human disorders.

In addition to his scientific endeavors, Dr. Rock has been one of the leaders in the medical profession in Massachusetts in the fight to repeal the existing law making it illegal for physicians to provide contraceptive advice for the health and welfare of married couples.

1948 -Richard N. Pierson

Richard N. Pierson,in recognition of his pioneer leadership in enlisting the support of the medical profession in behalf of the educational and service program of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

As attending obstetrician and gynecologist at Sloane Hospital for Women and director of the American Hospital for Women, in Istanbul, he became a leader in his profession.

He helped to organize in 1930 the Medical Committee of the Federation’s predecessor, the American Birth Control League. He served as President of the Federation’s Board of Directors from 1938 to 1943 and as Chairman of the Medical Committee from 1944 through 1946.

Dr. Pierson’s courageous leadership has been largely responsible for enlisting medical recognition of and support for Planned Parenthood and for making its medical services available outside the physician’s office under careful medical supervision.

1949 -George M. Cooper

To Dr. George M. Cooper,for his brilliant and humane leadership in establishing birth control as an integral part of the public health service of North Carolina, the first State in the Union to take this step. As head of the Division of Preventive Medicine, he displayed extraordinary talent and vision as organizer, educator and administrator in bringing the benefits of child spacing to under-privileged couples. To him we owe much of the improvement in material and child health and family stability.

1949 -Carl G. Hartman

To Carl Hartman,in appreciation of his outstanding scientific investigation of problems that must be solved if contraception and fertility services are to be improved.
His basic research in the physiology and time of ovulation in women and the viability of egg and sperm has brought us nearer to a firm foundation of knowledge in this vital field. As the first biologist to establish the exact resemblance between the embryos of other primates and human beings, he has contributed greatly to the progress of science and the happiness of mankind.

1950 -Margaret Sanger

To Margaret Sanger, foremost in teaching families wise planning in birth control: Leader in influencing nations toward balanced population; living to see her beginnings in city slums grow into plans for a planet.

1950 -Bessie L. Moses

To Bessie L. Moses,in recognition of her brilliant record of forwarding the cause of Planned Parenthood among the public and the medical profession. Her twenty-three years of service in organizing contraceptive clinics, lecturing, and teaching have raised the standards of clinic practice, spread knowledge and interest in conception control among physicians and nurses, and made large segments of the public aware of the medical advantages of Planned Parenthood. The practice of medicine in office, clinic, hospital and public health is the better for her work and example.

1951 -Guy Irving Burch

To Guy Irving Burch, pioneer in the field of population analysis and education in recognition of his vigorous advocacy of birth control wherever and whenever it could contribute to a rational human population policy. As founder of the Population Reference Bureau in 1929 and its Director until his untimely death on January 13, 1951, he became an acknowledged authority on the analysis and interpretation of world population figures. As Editor since 1940 of the Population Bulletin; as co-author of the book, “Human Breeding and Survival,” and as frequent contributor to leading magazines, he exerted vast influence on public opinion in the lucid presentation of the world problem of population pressures and their solutions. Perhaps more than any other individual he was responsible for today’s awareness of the population problem and the need for positive action to resolve it.

1951 -William Vogt

To William Vogt, scholar and scientist, in recognition of his investigations in the field of conservation and his achievement in bringing world population problems home to a vast number of people in many lands. His studies and articulate leader ship have aroused public opinion to the problem of diminishing natural resources and expanding birth rates. His clarity of presentation through the medium of his best-selling work, “Road to Survival” already translated into nine languages, has brought a worldwide audience to recognition of the most pressing problem of our times. His continuing mission now at its peak bears promise of exerting the most profound influence for good upon the relationships of nations and peoples across the fact of the earth.

1952 -John William Roy Norton

To John William Roy Norton, for his far-sighted and energetic leadership in making effective an integrated birth control program in the public health services of North Carolina. As Professor of Public Health, he was a leader in the movement establishing in 1937 the first state supported birth control clinics in the United States, and later directed the integration of planned parenthood into the programs of local health department service. As State Health Officer since 1948, he has achieved complete local coverage in the state’s one hundred counties with adequate financial backing, local autonomy and balanced services. His efforts have made for continuous improvement in courageous local leadership and enlightened administration in a program bringing the benefits of childspacing, formerly available only to the few, to the indigent and underprivileged of his state.

1952 -Herbert Thoms

To Herbert Thoms, teacher and scientist, in recognition of his contribution to marital health and happiness in the related fields of obstetrics, marriage counseling and treatment for infertility. As Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine, he has pioneered in research and development of methods of natural childbirth and rooming-in for mother and child. As founder of the first infertility clinic in Connecticut, he has extended knowledge in this field for the fuller achievement of family happiness. His courageous leadership over the years, through a campaign to modernize Connecticut’s archaic birth control laws, has kept alive the fight for freedom of medical action. As prime mover in organizing the first marriage counseling clinic under medical school auspices, he is contributing greatly to the marital well-being of his community.

1952 -Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury

To Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury, for her unique contribution to the well-being of American family life in our generation. Thrice chosen President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she met the challenge of her election in the spirit of the great women of our time, giving unsparingly of her singular abilities to forward a movement that brings hope to the highest and humblest of families. Endowed with an understanding of needs and the faith that they can be met, she has filled the role of the volunteer extraordinary in the field of human relationships. Her great competence, generosity and charm have combined to place her among the authentic pioneers for social betterment in one of the most critical periods of history. Through the strength of the Federation that her leadership has developed, Planned Parenthood has reached a new era as a national force and international influence.

1953 -Harry Emerson Fosdick

To Harry Emerson Fosdick, great moral leader of our generation in Americaand the world, in recognition of his contribution over the years in safeguarding the rights of motherhood in the pattern of constructive family life. Affirming, in his own words, that “birth control is a Godsend,” he has been steadfast in espousing the ethical values of family planning for the advancement of Christian life. In the face of misunderstanding and opposition, he has with zeal and courage defended the rights of free choice and democratic procedure in community endeavors. His clear voice and unswerving integrity have heartened and uplifted all those who have a concern for the future of the family, and a respect for men and women everywhere as children of God.

1953 -Elise Ottesen-Jensen

To Elise Ottesen-Jensen of Norway and leader in setting Sweden’s family planning movement at the forefront in Europe and the world. Overcoming years of opposition, she has through her wisdom, idealism and dedicated service been the prime mover in developing a healthy and ethical sex education program for the Swedish people and in winning support and approval by the public, the labor movement and the government. In frequent visits to neighboring countries she has been an ambassadress for Planned Parenthood throughout Northern Europe. More than a teacher and administrator, she has herself travelled hundreds of miles on foot to bring family planning services to remote farm homes. Few, if any, individuals have contributed more the happiness of her people.

1954 -Dhanvanthi Rama Rau

To Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, for her contributions to the progress of family planning in India, Asia and the world. As Chairman of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, she has combined the pioneer child spacing experience of America and Europe with the profound needs and insights of the Orient to give a new vitality to the entire movement.

A humanitarian first and feminist second, she has dedicated herself to the advancement of her country and her people. A mother and grandmother, she has been especially sensitive to the problems of the family and the child. She has displayed a genius for breaking the right tradition at the right moment, and has proved time and time again her skillful generalship in the long war for the rights of the family and the individual in a world of change.

1954 -M.C. Chang

To M.C. Chang— living proof that when East meets West in mutual respect and cooperation all humanity profits. For over fifteen years he has been an amiable but indomitable exponent not only of scientific methods but also of emotionless accuracy in the interpretation and presentation of results. Indelible observation in his native land strengthened his drive to help release humanity from the biological slavery of uncontrolled reproduction. He has focused this energy through the lens of his own talents to illuminate the reproductive physiology of human beings. The results have brought man and woman substantially close to more effective planning of their families and thereby to more thoughtful control of their destinies.

1954 -Howard C. Taylor

To Howard Canning Taylor— physician, scientist, teacher. As chairman of the Committee on Human Reproduction of the National Research Council, he has taken a leading role in furthering knowledge of human fertility. As an educator, he has taught the care of childbearing women to a generation of physicians. Long a friend of Planned Parenthood, his active participation in the councils of the Federation has added wisdom and dignity to its program and achievements. His work as a research investigator has advanced the science of medicine and contributed immeasurably to the reduction of maternal mortality and illness. He has taken important factors of fear and chance from the precious task of having babies, permitting parents to build their families less on anguish and accident, more on love and reason.

1955 -Warren O. Nelson

To Warren Nelson—Researcher, teacher, distinguished leader in science. His studies of biology and spermatogenesis have made a fundamental contribution to the field of human reproduction, and he had gone beyond his own laboratory to give direction and assistance to countless other scientists. As president of the American Endocrine Society, and as a participant in the research planning activities of the USPublic Health Service and the National Research Council, he has labored long and well for the advancement, through science, of man’s knowledge of his problems and their solutions. In the past two years, as medical director of the Population Council, he has concentrated his strong talents on the physiologic control of conception. Touring the world as a veritable ambassador of science, he has inspired, advised, and guided investigators all over the globe on the problems of reproductive physiology allied to population control.

1955 -Robert Carter Cook

To Robert Carter Cook — Geneticist teacher, writer, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to wider understanding of the world population problem. His studies have added greatly to many facets of demographic knowledge. His writings have interpreted vividly, to scientists and the public at large, the mechanisms and human consequences of population growth. His leadership of the Population Reference Bureau has nurtured a broader acceptance by leaders of thought that uncontrolled human reproduction is the gravest dilemma of our time.

By his sensitive approach to often controversial information, he has enabled many people in many lands to find insight in this difficult area, and to seek the best in each other’s minds. His work gives substance to the hope that nations may yet develop intelligent population policies in time to avoid catastrophe.

1958 -Harrison S. Brown

For his brilliant contributions to our knowledge of the resources man needs to sustain himself abundantly to the creative synthesis of ways to develop them, and to the growing awareness that resources development must be coupled with worldwide family planning in order that freedom may survive and man’s lot improve everywhere— in sum, for his enrichment of the understanding necessary to meet the challenge of man’s future.

1959 -Julian Huxley

To Sir Julian Sorell Huxley—Fellow of the Royal Society, ornithologist, biologist, teacher, conservationist, poet, and humanist in recognition of more than three decades of study and lucid interpretation of population phenomena. He bas brilliantly and courageously carried on his family’s tradition of staunch support of scientific truth even— or especially—in areas of sharpest controversy. He has used his scientific pre-eminence to define the demographic problem in qualitative as well as quantitative dimensions, in a way that has moved it beyond the realm of reasonable doubt, to the arena of compelling urgency. He has been able to catch the respectful attention of parliaments of the people, as well as of his scientific peers. Ever an opponent of obscurantism, he has sought to place the clear beacon of science as a light on the way of man. From university to UNESCO to the British Broadcasting Company’s “Brains Trust” he has stimulated, inspired and delighted millions, and brought to them the joys of understanding. He has probably given more people a comprehension of the importance of the population problem, and the necessity of confronting it, than any other man of his time.

1960 -Gregory Pincus

Gregory Pincus for his leadership in the development of norethynodrel as an oral contraceptive, by which man has taken the first bold and successful step toward limiting his own fertility through physiologic means.

With brilliance and tenacity Dr. Pincus applied the knowledge of reproductive physiology and steroid metabolism to the quest for a safe and effective means of preventing pregnancy through biochemical regulation of the reproductive process. Initially, with the aid of a grant from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, he instituted studies at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology to determine the efficacy of various compounds in inhibiting ovulation. This led to studies of the 19-nor group of steroids and thence to norethynodrel. After thorough work in laboratory animals, he began tests on humans in collaboration with medical clinicians. Subsequent field trials demonstrated consistent affectivity of the material, and in May, 1960, norethynodrel became available for routine prescription as a contraceptive. From the first laboratory benchwork to the large scale trials in Puerto Rico and Haiti, Dr. Pinus guided the enterprise with restless energy. He would be the last to suggest that his work is complete, and among the first to insist that other physiologic contraceptives must be developed before family planning can make its maximum contribution to the solution of the world population problem. Nonetheless his achievement with norethynodrel stands whole and firm, and as a consequence, science has just made the most singular and significant advance in contraceptive technique in the world’s history.

1961 -John D. Rockefeller, III

To John D. Rockefeller III— for his contribution to the awakening of public as well as scientific understanding of the unprecedented growth of world population in the Twentieth Century. Mr. Rockefeller was among the first to discern the importance of population expansion as a crucial factor, often a negative one, in efforts here and abroad to improve living standards for great numbers of people. He has applied vision, generosity and leadership Ðin sponsoring scientific research to define and deal with the population crisis, in supporting the efforts of established organizations to expand medical family planning services, and in broadening public awareness of the world population crisis. Through his leadership, at once courageous and scholarly, Mr. Rockefeller has helped to make clear that while private groups are essential in dealing with the problems of population, only governments, supported and inspired by private initiative, can attack them on the scale required. In a manner retiring yet tireless, truly objective while warmly human, he has carried these traditions of public service forward.

1964 -Cass Canfield

To Cass Canfield—who has made a major contribution to the advancement of Planned Parenthood in the United States, and who has, with a clear appreciation of the gravity of the world population crisis, acted with extraordinary vigor, wisdom, and dedication to help mold a strong international movement for voluntary population control. To this task he has brought an unusual combination of management skills and a unique gift for enlisting the talents of many others in a common cause. In a scant five years, he has served as catalyst to great achievements. He was author and prime mover of The Statement of Conviction about Overpopulation by more than 200 world leaders, ranging from Nobel Laureates to heads of state, which focused on the need for action by the United States and by the United Nations on the population crisis. He was principal architect: and tireless negotiator or the unification of the American family planning movement, which has multiplied its effectiveness. He has attracted new minds and new energies to Planned Parenthood—especially those of distinguished men from industry, science, and public affairs and the humanities. By his example, he has inspired men and women everywhere to express the courage of their convictions on the need to curb global population growth, courage of their convictions on the need to curb global population growth, as an essential ingredient of peace and progress throughout the world.

1965 -C. Lee Buxton and Estelle T. Griswold

For their courageous leadership in advancing the cause of voluntary parenthood in their home state of Connecticut and throughout the United States. Confronted by a statute which made the practice of birth control illegal, they chose to risk their personal and professional reputations by exercising their rights as free citizens and as leaders of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut to challenge archaic and iniquitous laws. Not only was the Connecticut law struck down but the freedom of couples to plan their families free of government interference was established as a fundamental human and Constitutional right, thus embodying in American law the basic precept on which the Planned Parenthood movement is founded. For their efforts, over nearly a decade, which brought forth this historic decision of the United States Supreme Court, this Award is given.

Albert Lasker Medical Journalism Awards

1949

William L. Laurence,The New York Times, series on Cortizone and ACTH.
Herbert and Dixie Yahraes, Collier’s, “Our Daughter Is An Epileptic.”

1950

Don Dunham,Cleveland Press, series, “Fluorides and Your Children’s Teeth.”

Berton Roueche,The New Yorker, “The Fog” and” A Pig From New Jersey,” two articles on air pollution and trichinosis.

1951

Bob Considine, International News Service, “How Soon Will We Conquer Cancer?”

Albert Q. Maisel,Life, “Scandal Results in Real Reforms,” conditions in mental institutions.

Selig Greenberg,Providence R.I. Journal, “Medicine in Crisis,” series on issues in American medical education.

1952

Cathy Covert, Syracuse, N.Y.,Herald-Journal, two series on community health programs: “Your Hospital—The Story of A Revolution” and “Exploring Medical Mysteries.”

C. John Lear, Collier’s, “Science May Give You a Second Heart.”

1953

David Dietz, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, series on care of iron-lung polio patients.

Bill Davidson, Collier’s, “The Truth about the TB Miracle Drugs.”

The New York Times, for the excellence of its daily medical reporting, with a citation to Waldemar Kaempffert for his authoritative weekly columns, “Science in Review.”

1954

Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press, “Secrets of Life” series on scientific research at the Marine Biological Laboratories, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Robert Coughlan,Life, “Tracking the Killer,” development of the Salk polio vaccine.

Milton Silverman,Saturday Evening Post, “The Drug That Fooled the Doctors,” on the first uses of the Rauwolfiadrugs in hypertension and mental diseases.

1955

Selig Greenberg,Providence, R.I. Journal, series, “Hormones: Revolution in Medicine.”

Joan Geyer, Provo, Utah,Daily Herald, “The Secret Sickness-Mental Illness.”

Steven M. Spencer,Saturday Evening Post, “Mystery of the Blinded Babies,” on retrolental fibroplasia.

“March of Medicine,” documentary on the latest developments in medical research, produced by Smith, Kline & French Laboratories, and broadcast over NBC network.

1956

Robert S. Bird,New York Herald Tribune, series on venereal disease.

Roland H. Berg,Look, “The State of the Nation’s Health.”

Public Affairs Department, CBS and Station WCBS-TV, New York, jointly, for documentaries: “Out of Darkness,” on mental illness, and “The Wassaic Story,” on mental retardation, televised over CBS network.

1957

Earl Ubell,New York Herald Tribune, series, “Will You Have A Heart Attack?”

Victor Cohn,Minneapolis Tribune, series on need for a children’s mental illness treatment center in Minnesota.

Lois Mattox Miller and James Monahan,Reader’s Digest, “The Facts Behind Filter-Tip Cigarettes ” and “Wanted—And Available—Filter-Tips That Really Filter.”

1958

Joseph Kahn,New York Post, series, “Controversy Over Contraceptive Counseling in New York Municipal Hospitals.”

Francis Bello,Fortune, “The Murderous Riddle of Coronary Disease.”

“Today,” NBC- TV, for the excellence of its coverage of significant events in medical research, including the notable mental health program “The Open Door.”

Albert Wasserman, CBS Television Network, two programs, on “The Addicted” in “The Twentieth Century Series.”

1959

Fern Maria Eckman,New York Post, series, “Children in Trouble,” on the problems of emotionally disturbed children.

Special Award—Dr. Howard Rusk, for his editorial leadership in advancing medical research and public health programs in his weekly columns inThe New York Times.

Robert Coughlan,Life, “World Birth Control Challenge.”

KMOX, St. Louis, Mo., series, “The Changing Mind,” 13 programs on progress in treating the mentally ill; and series, “Eye on St. Louis,” recognizing especially the broadcast of a corneal transplant eye operation.

Special Award to Fred W. Friendly, Howard K. Smith, and Av Westin, for CBS REPORTS: “The Population Explosion.”

1960

Don Seaver,Charlotte Observer, series on North Carolina’s Neglected Mentally III Children.

Berton Roueche,The New Yorker, “Annals of Medicine: Alcohol.”

KCRA-TV, Sacramento, “The Face of Despair,” written by Stan Atkinson, on the plight of the mentally ill.

CBS for the CBS REPORTS “Biography of a Cancer,” originated by Gene De Poris and produced in collaboration with Fred W. Friendly, Albert Wasserman, and Howard K. Smith.

1961

Michael Mok,N.Y. World Telegram & Sun, series, “I Was A Mental Patient.”

Gilbert Cant,Time, “Medicine Gains on Viruses, Virologist—John Enders.”

WBAL-Baltimore, Maryland, “The Dark Corner,” written and narrated by Rolf Hertzgard, on mental retardation.

1962

Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press, series, “New Treatments for the Mentally Ill.”

John Osmundsen,The New York Times, “Biologists Hopeful of Solving Secrets of Heredity This Year.”

CBS Television Network, CBS REPORTS, “Birth Control and the Law,” produced and written by Stephen Fleischman; Executive Producer, Fred W. Friendly.

Richard Heffron, “In Mortal Combat,” broadcast over KSD-TV, St. Louis, Missouri.

1963

Bill Burrus,Dallas Times Herald, series, “Tomorrow’s Damned.”

Gilbert Cant,Time, “Surgery, the Best Hope of All.”

Lois Mattox Miller and James Monahan,Reader’s Digest, “The Cigarette Controversy: A Storm is Brewing.”

Paul Cunningham, NBC “Today,” network series on mental retardation.

1964

Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press, and Jeremiah Stamler, M.D., series, “Your Heart Has Nine Lives.”

Matt Clark,Newsweek, “Birth Control: The Pill and the Church.”

CBS REPORTS, “The Business of Heroin,” produced, written and reported by Jay McMullen, Executive Producer, Fred W. Friendly.

Edgar T. Bell, “The Twilight World,” documentary on mental retardation; written and produced by Harlan Mendenhall, broadcast over KWTV, Oklahoma City.

1965

Joann Rodgers and Louis Linley,The News American, Baltimore, front-page series, “Your Health and Medicine.”

Gerald Astor,Look, “Stroke: Second Greatest Crippler.”

WABC-TV, New York, “Who Will Tie My Shoe?” —documentary on mental retardation, written by Edward Magruder Jones, produced by him and Pat Powell, with Edwin Silverman, Executive Producer.

1966

Barbara Yuncker,New York Post, series, “The Pill.”

Lawrence Lessing,Fortune, series, “The Biology Revolution.”

The American Broadcasting Company, “The Long Childhood of Timmy,” written by Susan Garfield, produced by Stephen Fleischman, directed by Nicholas Webster, narrated by E. G. Marshall.

WXYZ-TV, Detroit, for the “End Measles Sunday” campaign.

Albert Rosenfeld, Life, for his leadership in medical journalism.

1967

Carl M. Cobb,The Boston Globe, series “Mississippi Medicine.”

Matt Clark,Newsweek, “The Heart: Miracle in Capetown.”

CBS News, for The Twenty-First Century series program, “Man-Made Man,” written by Fred Warshofsky, produced by Isaac Kleinerman, with Burton Benjamin as Executive Producer.

1968

Barbara Yuncker,New York Post, series, “The Human Brain.”

C. P. Gilmore,The New York Sunday Times Magazine, “Instead of a Heart, A Man-Made Pump.”

NBC News. “The American Alcoholic,” written, produced and directed by Len Giovannitti. Associate, Raphael Abramovitz; Narrator, John Daly.

Municipal Broadcasting System (WNYC/WNYCFM/WNYC-TV), “The Voice of the City.” Accepted by Seymour Siegel.

1969

Judith Randal,Washington Evening Star.

Gene Bylinsky,Fortune.

Network Award, CBS News, “The First Ten Months of Life,” produced by Isaac Kleinerman, written by Judy Towers; Executive Producer, Burton Benjamin; Narrator, Walter Cronkite.

ABC, “Heart Attack,” Producer, Lester Cooper; Director, Aram Boyajian; Narrator, E.G. Marshall; Cameraman, Richard Roy.

WNED-TV, Buffalo, “Smoking and Health: The Tar Factor.” Executive Producer, John L. Hutchinson, Jr.; Director, Hugh Downing; Writer, Mildred Spencer; Cameraman, Robert Lehmann.

WITI-TV 6, Milwaukee, “A Change of Heart,” written, produced and directed by Fred Cowley; Narrator, Carl Zimmerman; Cameraman, James Pluta.