NOBEL RECIPIENT JOHN ENDERS, 88; VIRUS WORK LED TO POLIO VACCINE
Author: By Edgar J. Driscoll Jr., Globe Staff
Date: Tuesday, September 10, 1985
Page: 85
Section: OBITUARY
Dr. John F. Enders of Brookline, who received the Nobel Prize in medicine
in 1954 for growing the polio virus in tissue cultures, died Sunday night at
his summer home in Waterford, Conn., while reading T.S. Eliot aloud to his
wife. He was 88.
Described as "one of the most modest, magnificent men in the history of
American science," Dr. Enders received his doctorates in languages and
biology, not medicine.
His landmark work led directly to the development of vaccines against
polio, measles, rubella (German measles) and mumps and indirectly to many of
the major advances since the 1950s in virology.
Dr. Enders and two younger colleagues, Thomas Weller and Frederick
Robbins, received the Nobel Prize for demonstrating how to grow the polio
virus in tissue cultures other than nerve tissue. Their test tube achievement
eliminated the main obstacle to the production of a vaccine.
At the time, Dr. Enders was professor of bacteriology and immunology at
Harvard Medical School and chief of the research division of infectious
diseases at the Children's Hospital Medical Center.
He had held the latter post from 1947 until he retired 20 years later. At
the same time, when he was 70, he stepped down as a University Professor at
Harvard, a seat he had held for five years. On his retirement, Harvard
established the $750,000 John F. Enders University Professorship in tribute to
him.
Dr. Enders' contributions were long-leap deductions and intuitions that
guided the research of others.
Characteristicaly, when Time magazine named him one of the "Men of the
Year" in 1961, he insisted that inspiration has little place in research. ''As
a rule," he said, "the scientist takes off from the manifold observations of
his predecessors. . . . The one who places the last stone and steps across to
the terra firma of accomplished discovery gets all the credit."
When he won the Nobel Prize, he said: "I am so happy that three of us who
have worked together have shared this honor. . . . In a way it is symbolic,
because no discovery in scientific work is due to the efforts of any one man,
but always results from the work of many people."
Dr. Enders, a trim man of medium height, spent his entire scientific career
in the immediate vicinity of the research tower on Longwood Avenue that bears
his name - the John Franklin Enders Building of Children's Hospital.
He had been associated with Harvard Medical School since receiving his PhD
from Harvard in 1930. He rose from assistant to full professor of bacteriology
and immunology in 1956, then to University Professor in 1962.
Dr. Enders was born in West Hartford, Conn., on Feb. 10, 1897. His
grandfather was a founder of the Aetna Insurance Co. and his father, John
Ostrom Enders, was chairman of the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co. His
mother was Harriet G. (Whitmore) Enders.
The future scientist was a graduate of St. Paul's School, Concord, N.H.,
and of Yale in 1920. His college education was interrupted during World War I
while he served as a flight instructor in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps.
After college, where he majored in English, he briefly tried selling real
estate but found "I just didn't like business."
He went to Harvard, where he received a master's degree in English in 1922,
then went on to study for a PhD, concentrating on philology. His thesis was on
the origin of genders and he worked for two years on the subject before
learning that a student at Heidelburg had covered the same ground earlier.
"I mouth the strange syllables of 10 forgotten languages, letting my
spirits fail, my youth pass," he wrote at the time. Then, through a graduate
student in bacteriology rooming in the same Brookline boarding house, he met
Hans Zinsser, one of Harvard's great teachers and professor of bacteriology
and immunology. Filled with Zinsser's enthusiasm, Dr. Enders decided in 1927
to forgo English for science.
Of the switch he wrote a friend: "This antipodal revolution of my studies
has been of large value in helping me to obtain that Pisgah sight of things
and people that perhaps is the ultimate aim of my apparently inconsistent,
faltering and obscure action." He was referring to the mountain where Moses
viewed the Promised Land.
For nearly 15 years he worked in Zinsser's department, where his early use
of tissue cultures for the growth of viruses in vitro began in collaboration
with the professor.
When Dr. Enders, who favored bow ties, tweed suits and vests, received the
Boston Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 1965, the citation read: "From
the confines of the laboratory, he wrested the secrets of mankind. To the vast
vault of man's burgeoning knowledge he brought priceless gifts."
The scientist also received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Trinity
College, Northwestern, Western Reserve, Tufts, Tulane and Hartford
Universities and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Dr. Enders also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He also held the scientific achievement award of the American Medical
Association, the Albert Lasker Award of the American Public Health
Association, Germany's Koch Medal, the Diesel Gold Medal, both the Bruce and
Modern Medicine Awards of the American College of Physicians, the Gordon
Wilson Medal, the Kimble Methodology Research Award, the Cameron Prize of the
University of Edinburgh, the Chapin Award of the Rhode Island Medical Society,
the Dyer Award of the US Public Health Service and the Passano Foundation Inc.
Award.
A prolific author and former editor of the Journal of Immunology, Dr.
Enders documented his research in more than 150 publications and contributed
chapters to numerous textbooks on immunology and viral diseases.
He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary
fellow of the American College of Surgeons, past president of the American
Association of Immunologists and a member of the American Philosophical
Society, the National Academy of Science, the Society of American
Bacteriologists and the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.
During World War II Dr. Enders served as a civilian consultant on
contagious diseases to the secretary of war.
Dr. Enders leaves his wife, the former Carolyn B. Keane; a daughter, Sarah
Steffian of Baltimore, by his first wife, the former Sarah F. Bennett, who
died in 1943. He also leaves two grandchildren. A son, John O. Enders 2d, died
several years ago.
A graveside service will be held 2 p.m. Thursday at Fairview Cemetery in
West Hartford, Conn. A memorial service will be held in Cambridge at a date to
be announced.
EDRISC;07/13,11:32 LDRISC;09/10,21:11 ENDERS10
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