Thomas Milton Rivers

Thomas Milton Rivers ( born September 3, 1888 in Jonesboro, Georgia; † 12 May 1962 Forest Hills, New York) was an American bacteriologist and virologist, the "father of modern virology ."

Biography

Born in Jonesboro (Georgia ) studied Rivers initially at Emory College in DeKalb County on the outskirts of Atlanta. In 1909 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and received a place at the medical faculty of Johns Hopkins University. Due to a neuromuscular degeneration he could not realize at first to be his plans doctor. He left the university and worked as a laboratory assistant in a hospital in the Panama Canal Zone. As to 1912, the disease had not worsened, he returned to the Hopkins University and graduated in 1915 with a doctorate. He remained at the University until 1919 and then moved to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. In 1922 he became head of the Department of Infectious Diseases, and from 1937 to 1956 he was Director of the Institute. In the 1930s and 1940s, he helped to make the Institute a leading institution in the field of virus research.

In the years 1933/1934 he served as president of the American Association of Immunologists. In 1934 he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in section 10 ( Pathology and Microbiology ). In the National Foundation for polio, he was chairman of the Committee for Research and vaccination advice and supervised the clinical vaccine trials of Jonas Salk.

Rivers served in both world wars as a military doctor. During World War II he headed the Medical Research Department of the Navy in the South Pacific and brought it up to Rear Admiral.

1948 gave Rivers a standard work on viruses and Rickettsialinfektionen out.

In 1958 he was honored by inclusion in the Polio Hall of Fame in Warm Springs (Georgia ).

Rivers was married to Teresa Jacobina Riefle from Baltimore. Rivers died in 1962 in Forest Hills (New York) and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery because of his military rank.