Norman Francis Conant (9 March 1908,

Walpole, Massachusetts Walpole is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Walpole Town, as the Census refers to it, is located about south of downtown Boston and north of Providence, Rhode Island. The population of Walpole was 26,383 at the 2020 censu ...

– 23 April 1984, Durham, North Carolina) was an American medical school professor and one of the pioneers of medical mycology.

Education

Conant graduated in 1930 with a Bachelor of Science degree from

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

. At

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

he graduated in 1931 with a master's degree and in 1933 with a Ph.D. His doctoral dissertation was supervised by William H. Weston Jr. As a postdoc supported by a Traveling Fellowship from Harvard, Conant studied from 1933 to 1934 at the

Institut Pasteur The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines f ...

with Maurice Langeron and Paul Guerra and also spent some time with

Raymond Sabouraud Raymond Jacques Adrien Sabouraud (24 November 1864 – 4 February 1938) was a French physician born in Nantes. He specialized in dermatology and mycology, and was also an accomplished painter and sculptor. He studied medicine in Nantes and Par ...

Career and research

Soon after returning to the US, Conant became a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital and was invited by David Tillerson Smith to interview at Duke University for the position of instructor of mycology in the Duke University School of Medicine and mycologist for the

Duke University Hospital Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hos ...

. In 1935 Conant was appointed to the position, thus becoming "the first individual hired as a medical mycologist at a medical school." In 1943 he studied medical entomology and malariology for 3 months in a course offered by the

Army Medical School Founded by U.S. Army Brigadier General George Miller Sternberg, MD in 1893, the Army Medical School (AMS) was by some reckonings the world's first school of public health and preventive medicine. (The other institution vying for this distinctio ...

. Because of his knowledge of medical mycology, he became the instructor for the mycological part of the summer course, continuing in that role for the 3-month sessions from 1943 to 1946. In 1944 he also had postdoctoral training at Rio de Janeiro's

Oswaldo Cruz Foundation The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Portuguese ''Fundação Oswaldo Cruz'', also known as FIOCRUZ) is a scientific institution for research and development in biological sciences located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; it is considered one of the world's ma ...

and at the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the bes ...

. The Army Surgeon General asked him to write a textbook on medical mycology. With 4 physicians from Duke University Medical School, he published in 1944 the requested textbook under the title ''Manual of Clinical Mycology''. The textbook was a great success, with a 2nd edition in 1954 and a 3rd edition in 1971. He was also one of the editors of the 12th edition of ''Zinnser Microbiology''. Conant became a professor at the Duke University Medical School and from 1958 to 1968 chaired of the Department of Microbiology. From 1948 until his retirement in 1973, he taught an intensive 4-week summer course on medical mycology. The course acquired a worldwide reputation. He directed about two dozen doctoral students, including Lorraine Friedman and Carlyn Halde, and had an important influence on students around the world.

Personal life

In 1930, Norman F. Conant married Sylvia Clare Nute (1910–1996), who was a student at Bates College. They had seven children.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conant, Norman Francis 1908 births 1984 deaths Conant family American mycologists Bates College alumni Harvard University alumni Duke University faculty