George W. Thorn
January 15, 1906 - June 26, 2004
As
published on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Web Site
 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.
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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