Charles Marcel Poser (1923-2010) was an American neurologist. He was a Fellow of the

Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) is a medical royal college in Scotland. It is one of three organisations that sets the specialty training standards for physicians in the United Kingdom. It was established by Royal charter ...

(FRCPE). Poser was born on December 30, 1923, in

Antwerp, Belgium Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. He died on November 11, 2010 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Early life

His parents, fearing the outbreak of World War II, tried to move to the United States. Their travel plans were derailed by the German invasion of France and the low countries. The Luftwaffe's aerial bombardment of Antwerp caused them to evacuate to

De Panne De Panne (; french: La Panne ) is a town and a municipality located on the North Sea coast of the Belgian province of West Flanders. There it borders France, making it the westernmost town in Belgium. It is one of the most popular resort town dest ...

. De Panne was near

Dunkirk Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Evacuation of Dunkirk The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the ...

. His family did make it to New York City, where he finished high school in 1941. He started studying at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

, but left to enlist in the United States Army. He was assigned to the Army military intelligence due to his ability to speak French, Dutch, and German. Poser was stationed in Bastogne, when it was surrounded by German troops, during the Battle of the Bulge. He was present during the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Career

After the war, he finished his degree at CCNY, and earned a medical degree at the Columbia Medical School. After earning his medical degree, he was a resident in Neurology at the

New York Neurological Institute The Neurological Institute of New York, is an American hospital research center located at 710 West 168th Street at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue in the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center in the Washington ...

of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, where he worked under

H. Houston Merritt Hiram Houston Merritt Jr. (January 12, 1902, Wilmington, North Carolina – January 9, 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts) was one of the pre-eminent academic neurologists of his day. He was chair of the Neurological Institute of New York and Neurolog ...

. He studied at the Institute Bunge, in Antwerp, in 1955, after earning a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, where he studied under

Ludo van Bogaert Ludo (; ) is a strategy board game for two to four players, in which the players race their four from start to finish according to the rolls of a single die. Like other cross and circle games, Ludo is derived from the Indian game Pachisi. The ...

. According to a profile of Poser by the FRCPE, he credited his two mentors, Merritt and Bogaert, with inspiring the research that made him famous. Upon his return to America, Poser first joined the faculty at the University of Kansas. He would later teach at the

University of Missouri in Kansas City A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. In 1969 he moved to the University of Vermont as Chair of the Department of Neurology. In 1982 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he was associated with Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Veterans Administration Hospital. Poser's particular interest was diseases of the myelin. His major scientific accomplishment was ''"the first definitive system for measuring and describing MS"'', the

Poser criteria Poser criteria are diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS). They replaced the older Schumacher criteria, and now they are considered obsolete as McDonald criteria have superseded them. Nevertheless, some of the concepts introduced have rem ...

unveiled in 1983.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poser, Charles 1923 births 2010 deaths City College of New York alumni Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni Jewish American military personnel Jewish physicians Belgian emigrants to the United States United States Army personnel of World War II University of Kansas faculty University of Missouri faculty University of Vermont faculty 21st-century American Jews Belgian Jews