Robert Wayne McCollum Jr. (January 29, 1925 – September 13, 2010) was an American

virologist Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, their ...

and

epidemiologist Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and risk factor, determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decision ...

who made pioneering studies into the nature and spread of

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

hepatitis Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice), poor appetite, vomiting, tiredness, abdominal pa ...

and

mononucleosis Infectious mononucleosis (IM, mono), also known as glandular fever, is an infection usually caused by the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV). Most people are infected by the virus as children, when the disease produces few or no symptoms. In young adult ...

while 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 ...

, after which he served for nearly a decade as Dean of the

Dartmouth Medical School The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is the graduate medical school of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The fourth oldest medical school in the United States, it was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith. It is o ...

Early life and education

McCollum was born on January 29, 1925, in

Waco, Texas Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the ...

, and earned his undergraduate degree there in 1945 from

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the fir ...

. He received his medical training at

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

, graduating in 1948. He did

internships An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...

pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

and at

Vanderbilt University Hospital The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is a medical provider with multiple hospitals in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as clinics and facilities throughout Middle Tennessee. VUMC is an independent non-profit organization, but maintains acad ...

in internal medicine and completed a

residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgrad ...

in internal medicine at

Yale – New Haven Hospital Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) is a 1,541-bed hospital located in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System. YNHH includes the 168-bed Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, the 201-bed Yale New Haven ...

and began his career as a research assistant in

preventive medicine Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for the purposes of disease prevention.Hugh R. Leavell and E. Gurney Clark as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental hea ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Medical research

Working together with Dr.

Dorothy M. Horstmann Dorothy Millicent Horstmann (July 2, 1911 – January 11, 2001) was an American epidemiologist, virologist, and pediatrician whose research on the spread of poliovirus in the human bloodstream helped set the stage for the development of the polio ...

, McCollum isolated

poliovirus A poliovirus, the causative agent of polio (also known as poliomyelitis), is a serotype of the species ''Enterovirus C'', in the family of ''Picornaviridae''. There are three poliovirus serotypes: types 1, 2, and 3. Poliovirus is composed of an ...

in blood samples taken from those afflicted with the disease and from their family members, verifying that the virus was present in the bloodstream before it entered the

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the spi ...

and caused paralysis. This discovery set the stage for the development of the

polio vaccine Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). Two types are used: an inactivated poliovirus given by injection (IPV) and a weakened poliovirus given by mouth (OPV). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends all chil ...

.Hevesi, Dennis
"Robert W. McCollum, Dean of Dartmouth Medical School, Dies at 85"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', September 25, 2010. Accessed September 26, 2010. McCollum was a captain in the

United States Army Medical Corps The Medical Corps (MC) of the U.S. Army is a staff corps (non-combat specialty branch) of the U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an M.D. or a D.O. degree, at least one ye ...

during the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

studying

hemorrhagic fever Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a diverse group of animal and human illnesses in which fever and hemorrhage are caused by a viral infection. VHFs may be caused by five distinct families of RNA viruses: the families ''Filoviridae'', ''Flav ...

at a

Mobile Army Surgical Hospital Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals were U.S. Army field hospital units conceptualized in 1946 as replacements for the World War II-era Auxiliary Surgical Group hospital units, which had become obsolete. MASH Units were in operation from the Korean ...

, serving from 1952 to 1954. Attending the

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The inst ...

, McCollum earned a doctorate in public health in 1958. Back at Yale, McCollum and Dr. Saul Krugman performed studies at

Willowbrook State School Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities located in the Willowbrook neighborhood on Staten Island in New York City from 1947 until 1987. The school was designed for 4,000, but by 1965 ...

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, involving ethically dubious human experimentation on mentally disabled children. They found that a form of hepatitis was spread through blood transfusions and that transmission of serum hepatitis (now known as

hepatitis B Hepatitis B is an infectious disease caused by the ''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) that affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. It can cause both acute and chronic infection. Many people have no symptoms during an initial infection. Fo ...

) could be blocked using

gamma globulin Gamma globulins are a class of globulins, identified by their position after serum protein electrophoresis. The most significant gamma globulins are immunoglobulins ( antibodies), although some immunoglobulins are not gamma globulins, and some ga ...

New York State Senator The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan compo ...

Seymour R. Thaler had raised ethical issues in the 1960s and had been an outspoken critic of how the Willowbrook studies were conducted and how

mentally handicapped Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...

children had been used, but in 1971 stated that he was satisfied that the hepatitis research had been performed properly. McCollum found increased hepatitis risk in using the blood of paid donors. Other research isolated Epstein-Barr virus as one of the causes of

infectious mononucleosis Infectious mononucleosis (IM, mono), also known as glandular fever, is an infection usually caused by the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV). Most people are infected by the virus as children, when the disease produces few or no symptoms. In young adult ...

. McCollum was appointed Chairman of Epidemiology and Public Health in 1969.Staff
Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale: A Yale Tercentennial Exhibit

. Accessed September 26, 2010. McCollum was named dean of the Dartmouth Medical School and Professor of Community and Family Medicine in 1982, where funding for research, new endowed faculty positions and

Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), the flagship campus of the Dartmouth Health system, is the U.S. state of New Hampshire's only academic medical center. DHMC is a 422-inpatient bed hospital and serves as a major tertiary-care referral ...

Lebanon, New Hampshire Lebanon is a city in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,282 at the 2020 census, up from 13,151 at the 2010 census. Lebanon is in western New Hampshire, south of Hanover, near the Connecticut River. It is the home ...

were developed during his tenure.Corriveau, David
"DMS mourns former Dean McCollum"

press release dated September 14, 2010. Accessed September 26, 2010. He stepped down as dean in 1990, but continued to teach until 1995. McCollum died at age 85 on September 13, 2010, at his home in

Etna, New Hampshire Etna, originally named "Mill Village", is a small community within the town of Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is located in southwestern Grafton County, approximately east of Hanover's downtown and south of the village of Hano ...

due to

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

. He was survived by his wife, the former Audrey Talmage, as well as by a daughter, Cynthia, a son, Douglas and two grandchildren, Justin and Zachary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCollum, Robert W. 1925 births 2010 deaths United States Army personnel of the Korean War American virologists Baylor University alumni Geisel School of Medicine faculty American public health doctors Johns Hopkins University alumni People from Hanover, New Hampshire People from Waco, Texas Yale School of Medicine faculty United States Army Medical Corps officers Military personnel from Texas