Henry Scammell, 72, writer whose medical work changed lives

Henry Scammell wasn't a doctor, but many readers of his nonfiction books say he steered them toward medical treatments that improved their lives.

``I personally feel I owe my life to him," said Diane Aronson, president of the Road Back Foundation, founded by arthritis patients after a 1988 book he co-wrote, ``The Road Back: Rheumatoid Arthritis -- Its Cause and Its Treatment," drew attention to treatments for the disease. ``He directly helped hundreds of people. He's really put a light on something that has changed people's lives."

Mr. Scammell, an author who could translate complicated medical and legal jargon into easy-to-understand prose, died Saturday after suffering a heart attack while fishing near Monomoy Island off Chatham. He was 72.

Born in Chicago, Mr. Scammell moved to Massachusetts with his family when he was about 7 years old. He graduated from Browne & Nichols school in Cambridge and attended Harvard College for a semester. He joined the merchant marine in 1951 and eventually returned to Harvard, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1961.

``It was a college professor at Harvard that told him he should get into writing," said his wife of 22 years, Caroline, ``and he never forgot that."

Despite the encouragement, Mr. Scammell went to work in other fields, including business and advertising. But he continued to write as a business freelancer.

In the 1970s, he started Scammell Associates, an advertising agency, which eventually grew into a four-story operation on Newbury Street in Boston with 30 to 40 employees, his wife said.

When two companies that hired his agency folded, his wife said, he was forced to sell the business to help pay some debt. In 1982, he moved to Orleans with the plan to become a full-time writer.

Being ``interested in everything," according to his wife, Mr. Scammell wrote for as many publications as he could. He wrote letters to the editor for newspapers; articles for magazines, including Air & Space for the Smithsonian Naval Air and Space Museum; and about a dozen books.

``The Road Back" was one of Mr. Scammell's earliest books, and it highlighted a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis that was ignored by mainstream medicine, Aronson said.

``He's meant so much to so many people," Aronson said. ``He really provided a ray of hope and an option of treatment that they would not have known about otherwise."

Mr. Scammel co-wrote the book with the late Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown.

Five years after ``The Road Back" was published, a group of patients formed the Road Back Foundation, which advocates research and education regarding the treatment and causes of rheumatoid arthritis and related diseases. For about 13 years, Mr. Scammell was a member of the foundation's board of directors.

Mr. Scammell also co-wrote a book on breakthroughs in scleroderma treatment.

In 2004, his last book, ``Giant Killers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-Blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions" was published. It tells the story of a team of crusaders who attempt to revitalize the False Claims Act, which allows a whistle-blower to sue on the government's behalf to recover stolen money and receive up to 25 percent of the judgment if the case is successful.

``He had an enormous ability to wrap his arms around a huge quantity of information, digest it, and translate it for a lay person," his wife said.

Among his volunteer activities, he and his wife went to South Africa last year, where they helped to construct homes, clinics, and day-care centers.

``He would say if he just helped one person in this world, it's why he was there," Aronson said.

Besides writing, Mr. Scammell had a passion for fishing and clamming. He could often be found in the waters near his home in Orleans looking for mussels.

``I think he was an inveterate hunter-gatherer," his wife said.

In addition to his wife, he leaves two daughters, Helen Grimm of North Truro, and Madeleine Kangsen of Chelsea; a stepson, Stephen Decker of Eastham; a stepdaughter, Caroline Keidan of Boulder, Colo.; two brothers, Thomas of Norwell, and Frank of Orleans; four grandchildren; and his former wife, Lorna Hoover of New Bedford.

A memorial service will be held tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Brewster Baptist Church in Brewster.