Dr. Leon Eisenberg, at 87; affirmative action advocate

A pioneering researcher who initiated early studies of autism and attention deficit disorder, Dr. Eisenberg focused his medical attention on children whose disabilities excluded them from social acceptance.

Then he used the clout that came with an international scientific reputation to spearhead Harvard Medical School’s affirmative action efforts, creating a ripple effect that opened the profession’s doors to minorities across the nation.

“When Dr. Eisenberg learned that he was terminally ill, he wrote a memo, and in the top paragraph he said that one of the most important things he accomplished was opening up Harvard Medical School in 1969 to diversity, bringing in African-American students and later Latinos and Native Americans,’’ said Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry and faculty associate dean for student affairs at Harvard Medical School. “He felt that was his most important legacy, and was very proud of and glad to have contributed not just to Harvard in this way, but to the entire country when Harvard took the lead and medical schools all over the country followed. That’s an enormous legacy and one which I salute and honor him for.’’

Dr. Eisenberg, who also raised early ethical concerns about potential conflicts of interest involving physicians and pharmaceutical companies, died in his Cambridge home Sept. 15 of cancer. He was 87.

“He was an enormously broad thinker - comprehensive, insightful,’’ said Dr. Felton Earls, a professor of social medicine at Harvard Medical School and a professor of human behavior and development at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In the 1950s, when Freudian psychoanalysis held sway, Dr. Eisenberg sampled Sigmund Freud’s work, notably the book “The Interpretation of Dreams,’’ but soon believed it was “politically unacceptable’’ to treat patients that way.

“How could you use a treatment that would take so long per person when the burden of mental illness is so high? And second, there was no real evidence that it worked,’’ Dr. Eisenberg said in an interview last year with Focus, a publication of Harvard Medical School.

During a residency in child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he began working with Dr. Leo Kanner, who about a decade earlier was the first to identify traits that became known as autism. Several years later, Dr. Eisenberg initiated the first clinical trials of psychiatric medicine with children as patients.

“I would say he was a seminal figure in American psychology in the last half century,’’ said Arthur Kleinman a professor of social medicine and psychiatry at Harvard and Harvard Medical School. “He was a major voice in American medicine.’’

In 1967, Dr. Eisenberg became chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. The following year, after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he became chairman of a Harvard Medical School commission on black community relations. He also chaired the medical school’s admissions committee for several years as affirmative action was implemented.

Though his was not the only voice welcoming more minorities, Dr. Eisenberg’s position as chairman made him a key player at a key time when segregation battles raged across the country, particularly in Boston during the years of busing, Poussaint said.

“He was also a big supporter of women coming into medicine,’’ Poussaint said. “He adopted a much more holistic approach to the applicants. He didn’t just go by high grades and test scores, he looked at them much more broadly, at what they had done for the community. Because of that, the admissions process became much less narrow.’’

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Eisenberg was the son of Russian immigrants. His father wanted him to go to medical school, but he applied when there were strict quotas for Jews and several schools turned him down. “My father knew a Pennsylvania state legislator, who he went to in his despair, carrying copies of my report cards,’’ Dr. Eisenberg told Focus.

The lawmaker intervened, and he attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

That experience informed his career choices and “played a very important role in his life and his understanding of human beings,’’ said his wife, Dr. Carola Eisenberg.

Dr. Eisenberg’s first marriage ended in divorce and he married Carola Guttmacher 42 years ago.

In 1980, he was asked to create Harvard Medical School’s department of social medicine. Although he previously blazed paths in the testing and treatment of children with drugs such as the stimulants Dexedrine and Ritalin, and challenged physicians about medical ethics in recent years, Dr. Eisenberg was quite clear about what he saw as his biggest achievement, his wife said.

“I think if any people asked him at 3 o’clock in the morning, I think he would say without hesitation that it was his contribution to getting African-Americans into medical school,’’ she said.

Colleagues also praised some of Dr. Eisenberg’s less heralded talents and achievements.

“Under 3,000 words, he was, I would say, our greatest medical essayist,’’ Kleinman said.

Because of Dr. Eisenberg’s deep grasp of science and psychology, Mass. General had “the best department of psychiatry in the world in the years Leon directed it,’’ Earls said.

He added that Dr. Eisenberg “was extraordinarily serious about society and its problems, including race and social class impediments. And he also was very funny . . . and told jokes all the time. So he had these two sides that could come out simultaneously.’’

In the Focus profile published last year, Kleinman recalled a 60th birthday celebration held for Dr. Eisenberg.

After thanking those who came to celebrate his life and career, the guest of honor encouraged colleagues to be just as ground-breaking as he was.

Dr. Eisenberg, Kleinman said, looked at the audience and said: “You know, I just want to be honest with you. You’ve all become professors now, and you’re all outstanding in what you do, but I want to ask you this - have you used your tenure to go up against the system that we’re in? Have you spoken out?’’

In addition to his wife, Dr. Eisenberg leaves a daughter, Kathy of Philadelphia; a son, Mark of Boston; two stepsons, Alan Guttmacher of Washington, D.C., and Larry Guttmacher of Rochester, N.Y.; two sisters, Essie Ellis and Libby Wickler, both of Philadelphia; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be announced.