Alexander Langmuir | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 22 November 1993 | (aged 83)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | |
Known for | Epidemic Intelligence Service |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Epidemiology |
Alexander Duncan Langmuir (12 September 1910 – 22 November 1993) was an American epidemiologist. He is renowned for creating the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) as a training program for epidemiologists.[1]
Early life and education
Langmuir was born on September 12, 1910, in Santa Monica, California to New York Life Insurance Company President Charles H. Langmuir and Edith Ruggles Langmuir. He was raised in Englewood, New Jersey with his brothers Peter, Charles, and David and sister Edith. As President of the Harvard Liberal Club, Langmuir led the university's delegation to the 1931 Conference of International Student Service at Mount Holyoke College, denouncing American college students for their detachment from politics, which he blamed for the poor economic policies that led to the ongoing Great Depression.[2]
In March 1932, Langmuir served on the student honorary board of a Model League of Nations conference with 28 New England universities, overseeing discussions of post-World War One disarmament, conflicts over the Polish Corridor, and the Second Sino-Japanese War.[3]
Langmuir graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Physics in 1931. Despite his initial interest in following his Nobel Prize-winning uncle, Irving Langmuir, by specializing in surface science, Langmuir found advanced mathematics too difficult, leading him to the biomedical statistics of epidemiology.[1] After receiving his Doctor of Medicine from Cornell University Medical College in 1935, he completed a two-year residency in internal medicine at Boston City Hospital. In 1940, he graduated with a Master in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.[4]
Career
Early work
On January 10, 1941, the Health Commissioner of Westchester County, New York, George H. Ramsey, appointed Langmuir as Deputy Health Commissioner, tasking him with opening a new office in Peekskill to serve the northern portion of the county.[5]
From 1942 to 1946, Langmuir served at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, assisting the US Army's Commission on Acute Respiratory Diseases during World War II. In 1946, he began working as an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, but he quickly grew disillusioned with academia.[1]
Consideration for New York City Health Commissioner
After New York City Health Commissioner Ernest Lyman Stebbins announced his intent to leave the position and become Director of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in July 1946, Mayor William O'Dwyer tasked a six-person commission led by Surgeon General Thomas Parran with nominating potential replacements. However, the February 1946 New York City tugboat strike led Stebbins to controversially close all businesses and schools to reserve fuel for public utilities, hospitals, and emergency responders. Frustrated with backlash to the 18-hour shutdown, O'Dwyer ignored all eight recommendations proposed on March 1, 1946, including Langmuir, and appointed New York City Hospital Commissioner Edward M. Bernecker. Despite Bernecker lacking the public health experience that the New York City Charter requires for the position, O'Dwyer figured that he could control Bernecker more than outsiders like Langmuir, who was currently stationed at Fort Liberty in North Carolina.[6]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In 1949, he became director of the epidemiology branch of the National Communicable Disease Center (now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, a position he held for over 20 years. He wrote extensively on all phases of epidemiology on a global basis and was recognized internationally as a leading contributor in epidemiology.
Critical of significant variation in the data collection and reporting of doctors and state health officials regarding malaria cases, Langmuir started the Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1951 to train doctors, veterinarians, statisticians, and other health workers in epidemiology.[1] The CDC ultimately determined that doctors in the southeastern United States were incorrectly attributing unexplained fevers to malaria without differential diagnosis.[7]
During the 1957–1958 influenza pandemic, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials convinced the US Public Health Service (USPHS) to appoint Langmuir to a 14-member technical advisory group that coordinated research between the USPHS and US Department of Defense.[8]
In March 1960, Surgeon General Leroy Edgar Burney appointed Langmuir, Albert Sabin, Assistant Surgeon General David E. Price, and NIH Division of Biologics Control Director Roderick Murray to attend a May 1960 conference with Soviet scientists on improving Sabin's live attenuated polio vaccine.[9] However, the US Department of State blocked the trip over the attendance of Chinese and East German scientists, claiming that the presence of American scientists would lend undue prestige to Communist delegations.[10]
After retiring from the CDC, Langmuir taught at Harvard Medical School from 1970 to 1977 and served as a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health from 1988 until his death in 1993.[1]
Personal life
In 1940, Langmuir married Sarah Ann Harper, and they had five children Ann Ruggles Langmuir (1941-2004), Paul Harper Langmuir (1942-2010), Susan Davis Langmuir (1945-), Lynn Adams Langmuir (1951-2012), and Jane Adams Langmuir (1954-1963). Their marriage lasted until Sarah Ann Harper's death in 1969.[11]
In 1970, Alexander Langmuir married former New York City Health Commissioner Leona Baumgartner. They lived together in Chilmark, Massachusetts, until her death on January 15, 1991, due to polycythemia.[12]
On November 22, 1993, Langmuir died of kidney cancer at his home in Baltimore, Maryland.[1]
Honors and awards
In October 1965, Langmuir received the American Public Health Association's Bronfman Prize for Public Health Achievement alongside New York City Health Commissioner George James and Puerto Rico Department of Health Director Guillermo Arbona.[13]
Since 1966, the Epidemic Intelligence Service has awarded the Alexander D. Langmuir Prize at its annual conference to the manuscripts of current EIS officers and first-year alumni.[14] The first recipient was a paper on smallpox vaccine complications by John M. Neff, J. Michael Lane, James H. Pert, Richard Moore, J. Donald Millar, and Donald Henderson, which was published in the The New England Journal of Medicine.[15]
Since 1972, the Epidemic Intelligence Service's annual conference has included a Alexander D. Langmuir Lecture, the first of which was delivered by Charles H. Rammelkamp Jr. on the prevention of rheumatic heart disease.[16]
In 1987, the Charles A. Dana Foundation conferred a Pioneer Achievement Award on Langmuir for establishing the United States' public health surveillance during his time as Chief Epidemiologist of the CDC.[17]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Altman, Lawrence K. (24 November 1993). "Alexander Langmuir Dies at 83; Helped Start U.S. Disease Centers". The New York Times. p. 90. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- ^ "Our Students Held Ignorant of Events". The New York Times. 5 September 1931. p. 16. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- ^ "28 Colleges Form League Assembly". The New York Times. 4 March 2024. p. 7. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ Pendergast, Mark (2010). Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780151011209.
- ^ "Gets Westchester Health Post". The New York Times. 10 January 1941. p. 17. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- ^ "Bernecker Named City Health Head". The New York Times. 5 March 1946. p. 27. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ Altman, Lawrence K. (17 April 2001). "The Doctor's World; A Correspondent Recalls His Days as a Medical Sleuth". The New York Times. Section F, Page 1. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ Furman, Bess (27 September 1957). "14 to Advise U.S. on Fighting Flu". The New York Times. pp. 21–22. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ "Sabin and 3 Named for Moscow Parley". The New York Times. 24 March 1960. p. 5. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- ^ "U.S. Bars Officials From Soviet Parley". The New York Times. 12 May 1960. p. 11. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
- ^ "Alexander D. Langmuir Papers". Harvard Library. 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ Fowler, Glenn (17 January 1991). "Dr. Leona Baumgartner, 88, Dies; Led New York Health Department". The New York Times. p. 34. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ "3 Doctors Get Public Health Awards". The New York Times. 14 October 1965. p. 42. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- ^ "Alexander D. Langmuir Prize Manuscript Award". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2023-05-08. Retrieved 2024-04-13.
- ^ Neff, John M.; Lane, J. Michael; Pert, James H.; Moore, Richard; Millar, J. Donald; Henderson, Donald A. (1967-01-19). "Complications of Smallpox Vaccination: National Survey in the United States, 1963". New England Journal of Medicine. 276 (3): 125–132. doi:10.1056/NEJM196701192760301. ISSN 0028-4793.
- ^ "Alexander D. Langmuir Lecture". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2024-03-13. Retrieved 2024-04-13.
- ^ Teltsch, Kathleen (18 October 1987). "Award Made to Professor for Cell Study". The New York Times. p. 72. Retrieved 13 April 2024.
- "Alexander D. Langmuir--a brief biographical sketch with emphasis on his professional activities". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S1–10. October 1996. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S1. PMID 8928702.
- Brachman, P S (October 1996). "Alexander Duncan Langmuir". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S74–5. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S74. PMID 8857846.
- Foster, S O; Gangarosa E (October 1996). "Passing the epidemiologic torch from Farr to the world. The legacy of Alexander D. Langmuir". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S65–73. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S65. PMID 8857845.
- Tyler, C W (October 1996). "Contributions of Alexander D. Langmuir to the epidemiologic study of population change and family planning". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S51–7. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S51. PMID 8857843.
- Steele, J H; Schultz M G (October 1996). "Veterinary public health and Alexander D. Langmuir". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S47–50. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S47. PMID 8857842.
- Stroup, D F; Smith J C (October 1996). "Statistical methods in public health: the influence of Alexander D. Langmuir". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S29–33. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S29. PMID 8857839.
- Thacker, S B; Gregg M B (October 1996). "Implementing the concepts of William Farr: the contributions of Alexander D. Langmuir to Public Health Surveillance and Communications". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S23–8. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S23. PMID 8857838.
- Schaffner, W; LaForce F M (October 1996). "Training field epidemiologists: Alexander D. Langmuir and the epidemic intelligence service". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S16–22. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S16. PMID 8857837.
- Foege, W H (October 1996). "Alexander D. Langmuir--his impact on public health". Am. J. Epidemiol. 144 (8 Suppl): S11–5. doi:10.1093/aje/144.Supplement_8.S11. PMID 8857836.
External links
- The Alexander D. Langmuir Collection Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
- The Alexander D. Langmuir papers can be found at The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.