"1st To Isolate Influenza" Thomas Francis Jr Signed 3X5.5 Card For Sale
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"1st To Isolate Influenza" Thomas Francis Jr Signed 3X5.5 Card:
$699.99
Up for sale a VERY RARE! "1st To Isolate Influenza" Thomas Francis Jr Hand Signed 3X5.5 Card.
1900 – October 1, 1969) was an American physician, virologist, and epidemiologist. Francis was the first person to isolate influenza virus
in the United States, and in 1940 showed that there are other strains of
influenza, and took part in the development of influenza vaccines. Francis grew up in New Castle in western
Pennsylvania, graduated from New Castle High School in 1917 and Allegheny College on scholarship in 1921, and received
his medical degree from Yale University in 1925. Afterwards he joined an elite
research team at the Rockefeller Institute,
first doing research on vaccines against bacterial pneumonia, later
he took up influenza research. He became the
first American to isolate human flu virus. From 1938 to 1941 he was professor of bacteriology and chair of the department of the New York
University College of Medicine. In 1941 he was appointed director of
the Commission on Influenza of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), a position
which enabled him to take part in the successful development, field trial, and
evaluation of protective influenza vaccines. Later that year Francis received
an invitation from Henry F. Vaughan to
join the newly established School of
Public Health at the University of Michigan. At
the University of Michigan, Francis established a virus laboratory and a
Department of Epidemiology that dealt with a broad range of infectious
diseases. When Jonas Salk came to that
university in 1941 to pursue postgraduate work in virology, Francis was his
mentor and taught him the methodology of vaccine development. During this time
at the University of Michigan, Francis and Salk, along with other researchers,
deliberately infected patients at several Michigan mental institutions with
the influenza virus by spraying the virus into their nasal passages. Salk's work at Michigan ultimately led to his
polio vaccine. In 1947 Francis was awarded one of the first the Henry Sewall
University Professor of Epidemiology. In addition to his work at the School of
Public Health, Francis joined the pediatrics faculty at the University's Medical School. As
director of the University of Michigan Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center,
Francis designed and led an unprecedented $17.5 million nationwide field trial
to test the vaccine. Conducted by a staff of more than 100 people from the
University of Michigan, the year-long trial involved 1.8 million children in
the U.S., Canada, and Finland and an enormous network of
community volunteers. The results of the study were announced in Rackham
Auditorium of the University of Michigan on April 12, 1955, and signaled an era
of hope and success in combating infectious diseases and, more broadly, in the
development of large-scale efforts for the good of society. In 1933, Francis
married Dorothy Packard Otton, and they had two children. He died in 1969
in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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