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July 01, 2004
In Memoriam
George W. Thorn, 1906-2004
George W. Thorn, who played an integral role in the creation and
development of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and whose prominent
career in American medicine spanned seven decades, died Saturday, June
26 in Beverly, Mass. He was 98.
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George W. Thorn, former HHMI president, trustee, dies in Massachusetts at age 98
Photo: William K. Geiger
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Over the course of more than 40 years, Dr. Thorn served HHMI in a
number of central and significant capacities. His tenure began in 1955
as director of research and member of HHMI’s Medical Advisory
Board. Thereafter, Dr. Thorn served as a member of the Executive
Committee, President, Trustee, and Chairman of the Trustees. Upon
completion of his service to HHMI in 1998, he was honored with the
title Chairman Emeritus.
Dr. Thorn first met the wealthy industrialist Howard Hughes in the
1940s and became his medical adviser. Their professional relationship
helped inspire Hughes to donate money for medical research grants under
Dr. Thorn’s leadership. The grants evolved into a formal program
of Howard R. Hughes Research Fellowships, and culminated in the
creation of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1953.
Dr. Thorn’s contributions to HHMI were so varied and his
service so long and so vital to the success of the Institute that
“it is impossible to measure their full impact,” said
Purnell W. Choppin, the Institute’s president emeritus. “He
played an incomparable role in shaping the Institute’s future with
wisdom, dedication, and great good humor.”
So intimately was Dr. Thorn’s service to HHMI entwined with its
history that many considered him the embodiment of the Institute’s
growth and success. His vision for the future of HHMI was broad and
expansive. His dedication, demonstrated time and again, included
service as interim president in 1987.
Born in Buffalo, New York on January 15, 1906, Dr. Thorn was
educated at the College of Wooster in Ohio and a recipient of an M.D.
degree from the University of Buffalo in 1929.
A world-renowned endocrinologist, Dr. Thorn served for three decades
as Chief of Medicine at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, now
known as Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a pioneer in the use
of cortisone for treating Addison’s disease; a member of the
medical team that was responsible for the worlds’ first successful
kidney transplant in the 1950s; and a founding editor and
editor-in-chief of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a
landmark medical textbook.
Dr. Thorn’s outstanding medical service resulted in his
achieving the positions of Physician-in-Chief, Peter Bent Brigham
Hospital and Hersey Professor of The Theory and Practice of Physick,
which is this country’s oldest Chair in Medicine, at the Harvard
Medical School.
Dr. Thorn was the recipient of 13 honorary degrees from such
institutions as Boston University, Temple University, and the
University of Geneva; three emeritus positions in the Harvard
community, and a seemingly endless list of professional honors and
societal memberships. He was the author of more than 400 publications,
and taught at Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins, and Harvard Medical
Schools, and the Royal College of Physicians in Great Britain.
An active tennis player well into his 90’s, Dr. Thorn’s
interests extended well beyond science and medicine to include music
– he paid for medical school by playing tenor banjo in a dance
band – horticulture, and travel. The desire for discovery led him
beyond the usual array of museums and attractions to include the
exploration of the interiors of active volcanoes.
Dr. Thorn is survived by his son Weston, his daughter-in-law Karen,
his grandchildren Nicholas and Tyler, all of New York, and by two
step-children from a second marriage, Susan Poverman and Alan Steinert
of Cambridge, Mass., and their families. Dr. Thorn was predeceased by
his first wife, Doris Weston Thorn, who died in 1984, and by his second
wife, Claire Hyman Steinert Thorn, who died in 1990.
A memorial service is planned in the fall.
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Howard Hughes
