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30th APS President (1957-1958)
Louis N. Katz
(1897-1973)
Louis Katz assumed office in July 1957 after serving on Council for six
years, the last as president elect. Born in Poland in 1897, he arrived in
the United States in 1900. His education was at Western Reserve University (A.B.,
1918; M.D., 1921; and M.A. in medicine, 1923). He received a National
Research Council Fellowship in 1924 to work with A. V. Hill in London. He
then served in the physiology program at Western Reserve until 1930, when he
was appointed director of the Cardiovascular Research Department (designated
the Cardiovascular Institute in 1941) of the Michael Reese Hospital in
Chicago. Concomitantly he held professorial appointments in physiology at
the University of Chicago from 1930 to 1969.
Elected to APS in 1924, Katz served on the Membership Advisory Committee
(1952-54; chairman, 1953-54) and was chairman of the Program Advisory
Committee (1954-57). During his term as president of APS, Katz was
responsible for establishing the Bowditch Lecture with sufficient financial
support to continue it for several years. He was especially interested in
the organizational and financial stability of the Society; he initiated the
Operational Guide (a handbook of Society procedures supplementing the
constitution and bylaws), clarified committee responsibilities, and worked
to bolster the General Operating Fund of the Society. After his presidency,
Katz served on the Finance Committee (1962-65), which he chaired for a year
(1964- 65).
Widely respected for his contributions to the physiology of the heart and
clinical cardiology (over 500 papers in journals), Katz played leading roles
in the American Heart Association and in a large number of national and
international organizations devoted to the heart and circulation. He became
director emeritus of the Cardiovascular Institute in 1967 and remained
active in study and writing until his death in 1973.
Selected Publications
1. Fenn, W. O. History of the American Physiological Society: The
Third Quarter Century, 1937-1962. Washington, DC: Am. Physiol. Soc.,
1963, p. 42-43.
2. Fishman, A. P. Louis N. Katz, M.D. (1897-1973): an appreciation.
Physiologist 16: 691-696, 1973.
3. Katz, L. N. Physiology and physiologists: a swan song. Physiologist
1(5): 18-25, 1958.
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