Roswell Park

The following is a brief biographical summary of the man for whom the Medal is named.

ROSWELL PARK, M.D., M.A., LL.D.

Dr. Roswell Park was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, May 4, 1852, and died in the city of Buffalo, New York, February 15, 1914. He was educated in private schools at Pomfret; in the grammar school connected with Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin, and at Immanuel Hall, Chicago; also at Racine College, receiving his B.A. in 1872 and M.A. in 1875. For one year after graduation from Racine College, he taught at Immanuel Hall, Chicago, then entered the medical department of Northwestern University, he was graduated M.D., class of 1876. He was intern and house physician to Cook County Hospital and devoted his remaining available time to visiting other hospitals and work in morbid anatomy. In 1879, he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Women’s Medical College of Chicago, and in 1880, became adjunct Professor of Anatomy in the medical department of Northwestern University. In 1883, he resigned to study in

Europe, and upon his return from visiting the hospitals of Germany, France, and Austria, accepted appointment as lecturer on surgery in Rush Medical College, Chicago, and attending surgeon at the Michael Reese Hospital. Other appointments followed, and in 1892, Lake Forest University bestowed upon him an honorary M.D. On June 23, 1893, Dr. Park came to the University of Buffalo as Professor of Surgery and soon thereafter was appointed surgeon to the Buffalo General Hospital. His fame had gone abroad, and he received many flattering offers of high position in other cities, but he was loyal to the University of Buffalo, and declined all of these honors. He accepted an invitation to lecture at the Army Medical School at Washington, having been appointed Honorary Professor of Surgery to that institution, and he served by appointment of President Roosevelt as one of the board of visitors at West Point Military Academy. When the Medical Reserve Corps was formed, he was one of the first surgeons to receive appointment in this branch of the Army. There was great aim of his life which he never achieved; that was to know the nature of cancer, and though he strove hard to attain it, he was fated not to realize his ambition. His interest in this, however, led to the establishment, first in the University of Buffalo, of the Gratwick Laboratory, which became in 1911, the New York State Laboratory and Hospital for the Study of Malignant Diseases.

In 1892, Dr. Park delivered the Mutter Lectures on “Surgical Pathology”, which were published as a volume, a contribution of lasting importance to the professors. In 1895, he published a work of three hundred pages on the “Surgery of the Head and Brain”, and in 1897, a textbook on the “History of Medicine”, based on lectures delivered during 1893 in the University of Buffalo. He was the editor and principal contributor to a two-volume textbook, “Surgery by American Authors”, 1896, which ran through three editions, and soon afterward a large textbook, his magnum opus on “General Surgery”. He wrote a great deal for encyclopedias of surgery, pathology, and therapeutics, and contributed extensively to current medical literature. Some of the best of his shorter essays, philosophic and historic in nature, are to be found in his book, “The Evil Eye and Other Essays” (1913, with a second edition in 1914). In 1901, the Pan American Exposition was held at Buffalo and Dr. Park was made the Medical Director of the Exposition. He was president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, President of the American Surgical Association, member of the French Society of Surgery, the Germany Congress of Surgeons, the Italian Surgical Society, and other foreign associations, and also was Chairman of the American Committee of the International Society of Surgery. In 1895, he received from Harvard University the honorary degree of M.A., and in 1902, Yale University conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. He was brigade surgeon of the New York National Guard, holding the rank of Major.

Dr. Park married in 1880, Martha Prudence Durkee of Chicago, Illinois, who died in 1899. Dr. and Mrs. Park were the parents of two sons, Roswell and Julian.

A FRIEND CALLED HIM

“IDEALISTIC IN A PRACTICAL WAY”

Dr. Roswell Park Was A Pioneering Cancer Researcher and

“Living Encyclopedia” Whose Legacy Lives On In Two Great Lakes Cities

Of his many achievements, founding the world’s first cancer research institute in Buffalo in 1898 is the one for which Dr. Roswell Park is probably best remembered. Re-christened the Roswell Park Memorial Institute in 1946 and known today as the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, this vital research and educational center was born out of Park’s conviction that the increasing incidence of cancer around the turn of the century called for more immediate and constant attention. Although the severity of his claims was originally contested, he even went so far as to predict in 1904 that cancer deaths would one day outnumber deaths from tuberculosis. Park’s concern about the increase of cancer cases was as humane as it was scientific; he realized that both professional and public attitudes toward cancer patients during the nineteenth century were harsh, primitive, and counterproductive to finding a cure for the disease.

Roswell Park was born in 1852 in Pomfret, Connecticut, into the ninth generation of a prominent family that had arrived in America on the Mayflower (and had entered England with William the Conqueror). The first generation of Parks to venture from the East Coast, Roswell’s family relocated to the Midwest when his father founded Racine College in Racine, Wisconsin. After completing his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Racine, Roswell Park earned his M.D. at Northwestern University in 1876. After three years as adjunct professor of anatomy at his alma mater, Park left to pursue his medical studies in Germany, France, and Austria. Indicative of his growing reputation, he was appointed lecturer of surgery at Chicago’s Rush Medical College and an attending surgeon at Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital while still in Europe. Park soon moved to Chicago, and it was there that he began what was to be a long and successful medical career in two Great Lakes cities.

In 1883 Park left Chicago for the medical department at the University of Buffalo, where he became professor of surgery and later joined the new dentistry department. He also worked as a surgeon at the Buffalo General Hospital. Several things about the University of Buffalo appealed to Park: It had one of the oldest and best medical schools in the country, and was led by a well-known and well-respected medical faculty. Park also relished the challenge of establishing himself in a new city-and he was challenged. A piece published in the Buffalo Medical Journal commented on the acquisition of Park by the university, questioning why a Buffalonian couldn’t be found to fill the vacancy: “We fail to ascertain, after repeated inquiries in surgical circles, that the new appointee brings to this responsible position any extensive experience or reputation.” It wasn’t long, however, before Park’s indisputable character and aptitude won over the disgruntled columnist and the two achieved a friendly relationship.

In 1891, Rush Medical College tried to recapture Park by offering him the post of chairmanship of surgery—a tempting invitation that would have been an enormous promotion for Park. But a local group of influential medical professionals and public individuals coordinated a campaign to convince Park to stay in Buffalo, countering the Chicago offer with an offer of its own: Would Park be interested in a third building for the medical school, on High Street, to be constructed to Park’s specifications? Yes, Park would. Park worked diligently and, aided by his many government and professional contacts, launched an ambitious campaign to secure cancer-research funding. In 1898, he and Edward H. Butler, Sr., publisher of the Buffalo Evening News, won the world’s first public-fund appropriation for cancer study. This $7,500 from the New York State legislature helped establish the New York State Pathological Laboratory of the University of Buffalo, the first lab in the world devoted exclusively to the full-time study of cancer. Within two years, the three small rooms the medical school had designated for laboratory use could no longer meet the demands of Park’s research. Public donations and private giving from Mrs. William Gratwick made it possible for land to be purchased for construction of the Gratwick Research Laboratory at the University of Buffalo. Completed in 1901, it was, this time, the first lab in the world to be built and equipped solely for cancer research. Although by 1904 a New York State grant annually allotted the lab $15,000 for maintenance, it was not a state facility; that is, until 1911—thanks to the concerted efforts of Park, along with the support of the government officials and the public. It was renamed the New York State Institute for the Study of Malignant Diseases, a title it retained until 1946, when it was renamed after its initiator.

For thirty-one years until his death, Park served as a UB professor of surgery and Buffalo General Hospital’s chief surgeon. Both institutions would feel Park’s influence for another thirty-one years after his demise, as each was led by his former students.

Park’s medical expertise and reassuring professionalism earned him the presidency of the American Surgical Society, as well as American membership in the International Congress of Surgeons. As one of Buffalo’s most trusted and well-known surgeons, Park was appointed medical director of the Pan American Exposition of 1901, held in the city, and he was among the team of physicians who attempted without success to save the life of assassinated President William McKinley.

Park’s achievements in medicine alone would guarantee him a place among Buffalo’s most successful citizens; however, he did not rest at the border of this own profession. As a dedicated member of UB’s University Council, Park fought for the expansion of the university into the arts and sciences, prompting one colleague to describe him as “idealistic in a practical way.” His desire to be involved in creating a complete university led to the establishment of the College of Arts and Sciences shortly before his death—and his son Dr. Julian Park would become its first dean, a position he would hold for forty years. In men’s social circles, Park was called a “notorious mixer”; he held the presidencies of both the Buffalo Club and the Liberal Club. As a scholar, he wrote 167 textbooks, articles, and monographs dealing not only with medicine, but also with thanatology, student life in the early Middle Ages, and sixteen-century Italian philosophy. Considered among his most influential publications are the Mütter Lectures on Surgery, given in Philadelphia; the Lectures on Surgical Pathology; the Epitome of the History of Medicine; Surgery by American Authors; and the Practice of Surgery, deemed by many his finest work. As a musician, he was reported to be highly skilled; he privately published his musical pieces in a collection he modestly titled A

Little Music.

It is not surprising that one of Park’s admirers called him a “living encyclopedia.” “When others sought rest in novelty, gaiety, and change,” the friend explained, “Park could be found storing his splendid mind with fresh material.” Rarely did Park slow down, even as he got older and intermittently ill. Uncharacteristically, he made plans to go away and simply relax in 1914, but died two days later on February 15—almost certainly of heart failure—embodying perhaps his favorite and often-quoted aphorism: “the future reserves for us repose enough.”