Paul Bruce Beeson (18 October 1908 – 14 August 2006) was an American physician and professor of medicine, specializing in infectious diseases and the pathogenesis of fever.

Biography

After undergraduate study at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in Seattle, Paul Beeson studied medicine at

McGill University Medical School The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1829 after the Montreal Medical Institution was incorporated into McGill College as the college's first faculty; it was t ...

, where he received his MD in 1933. After two years as an intern at the

University of Pennsylvania Medical School The Perelman School of Medicine, commonly known as Penn Med, is the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1765, the Perelman School of Medicine is the oldest medi ...

, he joined his father's and elder brother's practice in

Wooster, Ohio Wooster ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. Located in northeastern Ohio, the city lies approximately south-southwest of Cleveland, southwest of Akron and west of Canton. The population was 27,232 at t ...

. In 1937 he became a research fellow at Manhattan's

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

. There he worked for two years in the laboratory of

Oswald Avery Oswald Theodore Avery Jr. (October 21, 1877 – February 20, 1955) was a Canadian-American physician and medical researcher. The major part of his career was spent at the Rockefeller Hospital in New York City. Avery was one of the first molecula ...

. In 1939 he relocated to Harvard Medical School's teaching affiliate Peter Brent Brigham Hospital to work under

Soma Weiss Soma Weiss (January 27, 1898 – January 31, 1942) was a Hungarian-born American physician. Early life Soma Weiss was born in 1898 in Bistriţa, Transylvania, Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied physiology and biochemistry in Budapest. Immediat ...

. At Atlanta's

Emory University School of Medicine The Emory University School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of Emory University and a component of Emory’s Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center. Before it was established as the Emory School of Medicine in 1915, the school fi ...

Beeson became in 1942 an assistant professor and in 1946 a full professor and chair of medicine. From 1952 to 1965 he was chair of medicine at the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

. As successor to

Leslie John Witts Leslie John Witts (1898–1982) was a British physician and pioneering haematologist. Biography L. J. Witts received secondary education at Boteler Grammar School, where he won in 1916 a scholarship to the University of Manchester. During WWI ...

, Beeson was from 1965 to 1974 the

Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine The Nuffield Professorship of Clinical Medicine is a chair at the University of Oxford. Created by the endowment of William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, it was established in 1937. The chair is associated with a fellowship of Magdalen College, Oxf ...

at the University of Oxford. He gave the

Bradshaw Lecture The Bradshaw Lectures are prestigious lectureships given at the invitation of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. List of past lecturers at Royal College of Physicians List of past lecturers at Royal C ...

in 1968. When he left Oxford he donated all the money from his Oxford pension for the upkeep of

William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first Residency (medicine), residency program for spec ...

's old house at 13

Norham Gardens __NOTOC__ Norham Gardens is a residential road in central North Oxford, England. It adjoins the north end of Parks Road near the junction with Banbury Road, directly opposite St Anne's College. From here it skirts the north side of the Oxford ...

. The house became the warden's lodge of Green College. Beeson persuaded

Cecil Howard Green Cecil Howard Green (August 6, 1900 – April 11, 2003) was a British-born American geophysicist, electrical engineer, and electronics manufacturing executive, who trained at the University of British Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Tec ...

, founder of

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

, to endow the first one million British pounds to establish the college. (In 2007 Green College and Templeton College were merged to form

Green Templeton College, Oxford Green Templeton College (GTC) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. The college is located on the previous Green College site on Woodstock Road next to the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter in North Oxford and ...

.) In 1974 Beeson became the VA distinguished professor of medicine at Seattle's

University of Washington Medical School The University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) is a large public medical school in the northwest United States, located in Seattle and affiliated with the University of Washington. According to ''U.S. News & World Report''s 2022 Best Gr ...

, retiring in 1981 as emeritus professor. Beeson and Petersdorf published a clinical study of patients with persistent fevers of unknown cause – they suggested guidelines for diagnosing the causes. In 1981 the Yale School of Medicine established the Paul B. Beeson professorship in internal medicine. From 1950 to 1954 he was editor for ''

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine ''Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine'' is an American textbook of internal medicine. First published in 1950, it is in its 21st edition (published in 2022 by McGraw-Hill Professional ) and comes in two volumes. Although it is aimed at a ...

'' (London, McGraw-Hill). From 1959 to 1982 he was a co-editor for the ''Cecil-Loeb Textbook of Medicine'' (Philadelphia/London, Saunders). He published ''The Eosinophil'' (Philadelphia/London, Saunders) in 1977. For ''The Oxford Companion to Medicine'' (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986), he was a co-editor with Sir Ronald Bodley Scott and then with Lord Walton after Bodley Scott's death. William Hollingsworth's ''Taking Care: The Legacy of Soma Weiss, Eugene Stead and Paul Beeson'' (1995) and Richard Rapport's ''Physician: The Life of Paul Beeson'' (2001) explain the importance of Beeson's career. Beeson married in 1942. Upon his death he was survived by his widow, two sons, a daughter, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

References

External links

Paul B. Beeson Papers (MS 1789).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Beeson, Paul Bruce 1908 births 2006 deaths University of Washington alumni McGill University Faculty of Medicine alumni Emory University School of Medicine faculty Yale School of Medicine faculty American infectious disease physicians Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Members of the National Academy of Medicine