The Life Extension Institute

At the very end of 1913, IN THE BOARDROOM OF THE GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY, the Life Extension Institute was formed, with former President William H. Taft (S&B 1878) as chairman of the board; Irving Fisher (S&B 1888), Professor of Political Economy at Yale, as chairman of its Hygiene Reference Board; and William H. Welch (S&B 1870) as a member of that board. Elmer E. Rittenhouse, Conservation Commissioner of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, was elected President. The board of directors was composed of Taft; Fisher; Rittenhouse; Harold A. Ley; Robert W. de Forest, Welch's Yale classmate and a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation; Frank A. Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank; Dr. E.R.L. Gould; Charles H. Sabin, vice president of the Guaranty Trust Company; and bankers Francis R. Cooley of Hartford, Conn. and Henry A. Bowman of Springfield, Mass. Ley was the Treasurer, and James D. Lennahan Secretary. Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk became its medical director.

Its Hygiene Reference Board, said to be comprised of "nearly a hundred leading experts on subjects pertaining to health, included Welch; Lee K. Frankel; Dr. Burnside Foster; Walter H. Page, one of Rockefeller's hookworm activists; Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, "inventor of the telephone and a deep student of eugenics"; Dr. C.B. Davenport "of the Eugenics Record office"; Dr. George H. Simmons, Secretary of the American Medical Association; Dr. William J. Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic; Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, Director of the Yale Shefffield Scientific School; Stanford President David Starr Jordan; Mabel Boardman of the Red Cross; Dr. Wickliffe Rose of the Rockefeller Hookworm Commission; former FDA Commissioner Dr. Harvey W. Wiley; Dr. William H. Tolman of the Americn Museum of Safety, "and some seventy others, mostly technical experts in scientific hygiene."

"On its Board of Directors are a number of men with large means at their command, and the new health-promoting agency is heavily backed with capital. Just how much could not be learned yesterday from any of the men connected with the institute, but it was estimated in well-informed quarters that $1,000,000 would be at the disposal of the founders, although it is not believed that anything like that amount will be required to start the work."

"...[I]t was said yesterday that the new Workmen's Compensation act which will become operative in this State beginning July 1 next year, would render the Institute of inestimable value to large employers of labor. The Metropolitan Life, the first large insurance company to subscribe to the service of the institute, will provide for the periodical examination of eighty thousand of its policy-holders by the Life Extension Institute on this basis: Holders of policies above $3,000, one examination annually; $3,000 policy-holders, one examination every other year; holders of policies of from $2,000 to $3,000, one examination in three years." (National Society to Conserve Life. New York Times, Dec. 30, 1913.) Haley Fiske was head of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at this time. Considering the health establishment's virtually nonexistent ability to cure its "beneficiaries," this gave participating insurance companies the opportunity to drop their policy-holders before having to pay out on the policy; while their health fascist-quack accomplices indoctrinated the populace that illness was all their own personal fault due to "unhealthy lifestyles."

In 1936, the New York Attorney General belatedly obtained an injunction restraining the Life Extension Institute "from making physical examinations, diagnosing physical conditions and from practicing medicine by any means or method, whether through the agency of licensed physicians or otherwise. It was said at the Office of the Attorney General the obtaining of this decree marked an important victory for the principles of the State Department of Education governing the corporate practice of medicine in the State of New York. The decree was the result of the extensive investigation conducted by Sol Ullman, Assistant Attorney General, who pointed out that the order did not prevent the Life Extension Institute from conducting a laboratory or disseminating propaganda for life prolongation, providing that none of its acts constitute the practice of medicine." The LEI agreed to cease conducting physical examinations, while claiming that its charter gave it the right to do so, and denying that these constituted "the practice of medicine." (Court Curbs Work of Life Institute. New York Times, Oct. 27, 1936.)

In 1937, its name was changed to Life Extension Examiners. Its 40th anniversary promotion in 1954 claims that "Life extension through the medium of periodic health examinations was an idea born in the mind of Harold A. Ley in 1909. Having achieved eminent success as an industrial contractor, he turned his efforts and devotion to the development and advancement of preventive medicine... In the late fall of 1913, at a banquet held at the Union League Club in New York City, the plan was brought before a group of life insurance company presidents and prominent men of affairs whose indorsement was spontaneous. The Life Extension Institute was promptly organized. (Life Extension Examiners Life Extension Institute. 40th Anniversary 1914-1954.)

As for the Union League Club: It had been founded in February, 1863, "to support the Lincoln Administration, when the requirement then set up that all members be 'absolutely and unqualifiedly loyal to the United States' was taken to mean that they should all be Republicans, an interpretation that has never been changed." (New York Times, Feb. 13, 1931.)

(The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Live, by Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk. 9th edition, Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1916.)

In 1995, the Life Extension Institute acquired its competitor, Executive Health Group. Both are privately owned. Its network of affiliated physician was 600 before and 1,100 after the merger. Paul W. Frankel, M.D., Ph.D,was its president; Steve Martinek, vice president of sales and marketing; Brian Posner, vice president of finance and administration; and Jeffrey Litwin, M.D., vice president of medial affairs. (Life Extension Institute acquires executive health group; Nation's largest provider of physical examination and preventive health care services. Business Wire, May 25, 1995.) It moved to new quarters at 10 Rockefeller Plaza.

Officers and Directors, 1916

Harold A. Ley, Treasurer

Harold A. Ley was the president of the Fred T. Ley Co., which was sued by the US government for "great and unconscionable waste" in constructing the US Army's Camp Devans. The June 11, 1917, contract "was declared to be the first of the 'cost-plus' awards made during the war." (Sues Fred T. Ley Co. to Regain $5,000,000. New York Times, Jan. 4, 1923.) The company later constructed the Chrysler Building in New York City. Ley, who claimed to be the originator of the Institute, died in 1956. (Harold A. Ley, 81, Contractor, Dead. New York Times, May 12, 1956.)

Robert Weeks de Forest, Scroll & Key 1870

Robert W. de Forest's name headed the list of "seven men whose names are to be found again and again on lists of public Directorates.... Robert W. de Forest is to the world of public-spiritedness what J. Pierpont Morgan is to the realm of finance." Morgan's name was next on the list. De Forest was, among many other things, vice president and a director of Presbyterian Hospital. ("Interlocking Directors" in Charities and Good Works. New York Times, Dec. 29, 1912.)

President of the Russell Sage Foundation; Vice President of the American Red Cross, 1919; President of the New York Charity Organization Society (later called Survey Associates) from 1888 to 1928. De Forest was a Yale classmate of William H. Welch, whose correspondence includes "Press clipping with photo Yale class of 1870." In 1900, fellow IHR advisory committee member Lee K. Frankel was manager of the United Hebrew Charities, one of the COS member groups. In 1929, de Forest and fellow LEI founders Frankel, Mayo and Welch were on the advisory board of Yale's Institute of Human Relations.

John S. Kennedy, Seth Low, Otto T. Bannard (S&B 1876) and Henry L. Stimson (S&B 1888) were also longtime officers of the Charity Organization Society.

Robert W. de Forest was a member of Scroll & Key. He studied law in the offices of Evarts [William M, S&B 1837] and at the University of Bonn, Germany in 1871. LL.B. Columbia 1872. He was managing clerk in the law offices of his father, Henry Grant deForest (Amherst 1839), Weeks, Forster & deForest and a partner 1872-74. He was a partner of his uncle, Francis H. Weeks, in deForest & Weeks from 1874-93, and since then of deForest Brothers with his brother Henry W. deForest '76 and sons Johnston deForest '96 and Henry L. deForest '97. He was general counsel 1874-1924 and a vice president 1902-24 of the Central Railroad of New Jersey He was a director of All American Cables, the New York Trust Company, and Niagara Fire Insurance Company, and a trustee of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Hudson Trust Company of New Jersey, and Title Guarantee and Trust Company. He founded the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York in 1882, and was a member of the board of managers of Presbyterian Hospital from 1890 to 1931, and a vice president from 1910-15. He was a vice president of the American Red Cross since 1908, and Chairman of the New York County chapter. (Robert Weeks deForest, B.A. 1870. Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased During the Year 1930-1931, pages 26-29.)

The Charity Organization Society was merged with John D. Rockefeller's New York Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor in 1939, and was renamed the Community Service Society, headed by Walter S. Gifford, the president of A.T.&T. Bayard F. Pope, who became a director of Philip Morris in 1953, was elected vice chairman of the board. Mrs. Ruth V. Twombly, Mrs. August Belmont, Cornelius N. Bliss and Albert G. Milbank were elected vice presidents. The administrative committee included Morris Hadley (S&B 1916), Thomas S. Lamont, Robert A. Lovett (S&B 1918), and Frederick A.O. Schwarz, longtime trustee of Presbyterian Hospital. (Merger is Completed by Welfare Groups. New York Times, Apr. 13, 1939.)

Robert W. de Forest's son, Johnston de Forest, Yale 1896, was a trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation; also a trustee of the Central Union Trust's successors, the Central Hanover and the Hanover Bank, from 1918 to 1951.

Irving Fisher, Skull & Bones 1888

"For most of his life, Fisher was a physically strong and healthy man. As a boy he had already been very much interested in a healthy way of living. But in the earlier part of his professional career, just after he had become a full professor, he contracted tuberculosis and had to be treated for several years in a sanatorium. This experience added to his addiction to everything that could contribute to his own health as well as to the state of public health, in the first place abstention from alcohol and smoking." (Commemeration of Irving Fisher. Scholar in pursuit of the common good. Speech delivered at the Inaugural Meeting of the Irving Fisher Committee, Istanbul, August 20, 1997, by Hans van Wijk, Chairman of the Committee.The Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics.)

His father was Rev. George W. Fisher. He won the first deForest mathematical prize his sophomore and senior years. Among his publications were "Health for the Soldier and Sailor," 1918. "In 1910 invented visible card index system and founder in 1913 Index Visible Inc., later Rand-Kardex, Inc., Rand Kardex Bureau, Inc., and from 1926 Remington-Rand, Inc. (president and chairman board of directors 1913-20, member executive committee and board of directors 1927-47)." He was a founder of the National Tuberculosis Association in 1904, and also of the American Eugenics Society. He was president of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health in 1909, and treasurer of the Committee to Study the Tobacco Problem in 1923. (Irving Fisher B.A. 1888. Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased During the Year 1946-1947, pages 14-16.)

"As Samuel Hays has illustrated, US President Theodore Roosevelt and his cabinet were very interested in conservation through scientific management and efficient use of resources. Further, as Hays has pointed out, health conservation was a logical expansion of the ideas and language of forest and water conservation. As part of a drive to conserve the health of the nation, the National Resource Commission, the group chaired by Gifford Pinchot [Skull & Bones 1889 -cast] that worked for conservation of natural resources, expanded its efforts in order to provide a perspective on health conservation. President Roosevelt appointed Irving Fisher to head a group to address issues of health conservation. Fisher's Committee of One Hundred for National Health, a committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was founded in 1907 to help push for a national health department. Fisher and the Cornmittee of One Hundred prepared a Report on National Vitality for Pinchot's National Resource Commission in 1909.... Although the Committee of One Hundred did not succeed in its mission to influence President Roosevelt to create a national department of health, Fisher's committee set up a connection between health preservation and business interests that Fisher later used with the LEI. The Report on National Vitality had identified the importance of business activities to be directed toward health conservation: 'In industrial and commercial establishments employers may greatly aid the health movement, and in many cases make their philanthropy self-supporting by providing social secretaries, lunch and rest rooms, physiological (generally shorter) hours of work, provision for innocent amusements, seats for women, etc. Life insurance companies could properly and with much profit club together to instruct their risks in self-care and secure general legislation and enforcement of legislation in behalf of public health.' As a report on the committee indicated, "Since the results for which the committee is working are a matter of vital consequence to life insurance companies from a business standpoint, it was apparent to the committee from the beginning that such companies could be a powerful aid in accomplishing those results.' In the years following the Report on National Vitality, Fisher worked to establish ties with life insurance companies that had expressed great interest in the increased efficiency promised through improved health and extended lives.... Fisher and Ley brought in Eugene Lyman Fisk (1867-1931), the former director of the periodic physical examination service at the Postal Life Insurance Company, as the new medical director of the LEI. Fisk was a regular physician who had graduated from the medical school of New York University in 1888, and was a member of the American Medical Association, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.... Harvey W. Wiley, the founder of the Food and Drug Administration and the health editor for Good Housekeeping, offered his testimonial on the importance of individual health maintenance in Institute mailings. Finally, John Harvey Kellogg had a profound effect both on Irving Fisher's persona1 health habits as well as on his publications. Fisher spent time at Battle Creek with Kellogg, and also corresponded regularly with him, particularly in the early 1930s, about health issues. Kellogg offered additions and corrections to How to Live, although Fisher did not always implement his suggestions. Their correspondence also indicates that, even when Kellogg's name was not explicitly mentioned, Fisher derived a great deal from Kellogg's opinions." (Masculinity, Work, and the Fountain of Youth: Irving Fisher and the Life Extension Institute, 1914-31. By Laura Davidow Hirshbein, Deparhnent of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. CBMH/BCHM / Volume 16: 1999 / p. 89-124.)

In 1915, he was co-author of "How to Live" (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co, 1915) with Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, the medical director of the Life Extension Institute. William H. Taft, S&B 1878, wrote the foreword. It was reportedly "used as a text-book of hygiene in the University of California, Yale, Mills College, and elsewhere." "At Yale and at Amherst it has been found, by actual measurement, that students not using tobacco during the college course had gained over the users of tobacco in weight, height, growth of chest, and lung capacity."

"1917, Apr. 6 Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University spoke on "Life Extension" under the auspices of the Ellen S. Richards Memorial Fund. His talk was published as the first Ellen S. Richards monograph." (Vassar History 1915-1922. Last updated: 10 November, 1999, by Jeremy R. Linden, '00.) Ellen S. Richards was the aunt of Junius A. Richards, director of Tobacco and Allied Stocks, which acquired Philip Morris.

Fisher's articles were staples of anti-smoking propaganda during the 1910s - 1920s: "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in its session, 1918, deplored the alarming increase in the use of cigarettes, urged all people to discourage this 'harmful habit' and that increasing attention be given to this subject by our state legislatures, schools, pastors, Sunday Schools, etc." "In the Bibliography we have listed three text books, which are used in the Public Schools. These are characteristic, and an examination of Physiologies used in the schools throughout the country will probably show about the same amount of space devoted to the tobacco question, in each case, as well as the same unscientific treatment. The antiotobacco propaganda thus gets its start in the very first grade of school and is carried through to the high-school, as the teaching of Physiology & Hygiene is compulsory." "Chancellor Day of Syracuse University (Syracuse, N.Y.) is against studemts smoking: 'For Young Men, it is not only foolish in appearance, but harmful to ones health'. Stanford University: (Stanford, Calif.) gives courses in smoking, to determine effects of tobacco." "Prof. M. F. O'Shea of University of Wisconsin (Madison,Wisc.) is conducting experiments on a class of 24 girls, to determine effects of smoking. Tests will take 6 months, and were begun in July, 1920." "At the Fullerton (Calif.) High School, Dr. Davis of the staff of the American Efficiency section of the American Bankers Assn. addressed the pupils on 'Why Some People Fail.' The cigarette habit was given as an outstanding cause of failure in school work." "The Y.M.C.A. is apparently undertaking a new educational work among high school pupils, and is forming what are called 'Hi-Y' Clubs in high schools throughout the country." "A new and apparently active way of connecting up the schools with educational work against smoking is through the 'Parent-Teacher's Associations'. The International Anti-Cigarette League in a circular letter of March 15th states that they have secured the co-operation of the Federated Parent-Teachers Association and have mailed letters to members of these Associations." (Summary of Anti-Smoking Educational Activities. By the Tobacco Merchants Association of the U.S. June 1, 1920.)

Fisher was a member of the "Committee of Fifty" anti-smoking conspiracy, headed by Dr. Alexander Lambert (S&B 1880).

"In November 1924, the Reader's Digest began what proved to be an ongoing educational campaign, first to convince readers to think carefully before they decided to smoke, and later, when the medical data began to come in, to convince smokers to quit. In an article entitled "Does Tobacco Injure the Human Body?" author Irving Fisher reviewed the opinions of a series of physicians on the effect of tobacco on health and concluded: 'From every indication, it behooves the man who wishes to remain fit to omit tobacco from his daily schedule.' This article contained information ranging from speculation and personal opinion to real scientific data [sic]." (The Cigarette Hit Parade: 1920-1940, p. 65. In: The Smoking Gun: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away With Murder. By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H., Executive Director American Council on Science and Health. Edited by Stephen Barrett, M.D. George E Stickley Co., 1984.)

He was an organizer of the Security Management Company of Maryland, whose directors included Lindsay Bradford (Yale 1914), William S. Gray Jr., and Artemus L. Gates (S&B 1918). (Trust Company Organized. New York Times, Oct. 19, 1928.)

Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk

Eugene Lyman Fisk was born in Brooklyn in 1867, and graduated with honors from New York University Medical College in 1888. He practiced medicine in Brooklyn until 1891, when he took charge of a western medical division of the Equitable Life Assurance Society for seven years. Then, he became medical director of the Provident Savings Life Assurance Society of New York, where he established the first periodic medical examinations. It merged with the Postal Life Assurance Company in 1910. He was a fellow of the American Medical Association and the New York Academy of Medicine, and a member of the American Public Health Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, American Eugenics Society, American Heart Association, New York Academy of Sciences, the Committee to Study the Tobacco Problem, American Statistical Association, American Economic Association, the Royal Institute of Public Health in London, England, and numerous other organizations. He died suddenly at age 64 in Dresden, Germany, where he had gone to visit the Museum of Hygiene "in connection with an exhibit which had been lent to the Life Extension Institute by the museum." (Dr. Eugene L. Fisk Dead in Dresden. New York Times, Jul. 7, 1931; Dr. Eugene L. Fisk Buried. New York Times, Jul. 31, 1931.)

Fisk was a member of the "Committee of Fifty" anti-smoking conspiracy, headed by Dr. Alexander Lambert (S&B 1880). "In speaking of the plans of the Committee of Fifty, he [Fisk] says: 'There is no authoritative analysis of the situation as yet. The matter is just now being brought to the fore and is destined to occupy a conspicuous place. Therefore the public should have the true facts [sic - before they have any!]. We propose to get them, the work may take us years. When it is finished we shall render a report covering all phases of the tobacco question and people can then decide inteliigently [sic] what they want to do about it. To facilitate the investigation the Committee will be divided into separate sections, such as physiological, medical, and sociological. The use of land for tobacco cultivation; spread of fires by smoking 'and various collateral matters involving public welfare' will be considered...."

Lee K. Frankel

6th Vice-President and Head of Welfare Department, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in 1887, and Ph.D. 1891. He was a chemistry instructor there from 1888 to 1893, then a consulting chemist in Philadelphia until 1899. He was vice president and president of the Franklin Institute between 1895 and 1898. "He came to New York in 1899 as manager of the United Hebrew Charities, and in 1908 went to the Russell Sage Foundation as a special investigator. Since 1909 Dr. Frankel had been associated with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, where his work along health promotion lines won for him wide recognition. President Roosevelt appointed him a member of the Ellis Island Commission in 1903." He was also treasurer of the American Public Health Association and its president in 1919, and a member of the planning council of the White House child health conference under President Hoover. "In November, 1929, moved by a declared interest and concern for the Zionist movement, Associate Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court joined with Dr. Frankel, Mr.[Felix M.] Warburg, Bernard Flexner and other prominent Jews at a conference in Washington, in a decision to form an American business corporation for the investment of funds with a view to furthering the economic development of Palestine." Frankel died of heart disease in Paris while making a special study of insurance in Europe for the Metropolitan. He was accompanied by his wife and two Metropolitan officials, actuary James D. Craig and Roderick Olzendan. Frankel had been elected joint chairman of the Council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine that month. He was born in Philadelphia in 1867 to Louis and Aurelia Lobenberg Franken [sic]. He married Alice Reizenstein of Philadelphia in 1898. She and their daughter, Mrs. Rafalsky, and son, Lee K. Frankel Jr., survived him. (Dr. Lee K. Frankel Dies on a Tour. New York Times, Jul. 26, 1931.) Lee Kaufer Frankel's 1887 classmates at the University of Pennsylvania included James Alan Montgomery and George Wharton Pepper. (The College Graduates. Philadelphia, North American, Jun. 9, 1887.) As an instructor in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, his course was chosen as the most disliked by the sophomore class, and he was burned in effigy in their annual ceremony. (Jubilant Sophs. North American, Philadelphia, June 16, 1892.)

Frankel and Milton J. Rosenau of the Harvard School of Public Health were both from Philadelphia. Lulu Rosenau of 1631 Franklin St. was married to Perry Frankel. (In Jewish Circles. North American, Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 1892; Mrs. Perry Frankel. New York Times, Feb. 15, 1950.) Louis Frankel & Sons (Isaac & Perry) held a wholesale liquor license in the Sixth Ward of Philadelphia. (Court of Quarter Sessions. North American, Philadelphia, Feb. 15, 1893.) Lee K. Frankel was Director of Summer Assembly of the Jewish Chautauqua in Philadelphia (Rain Dampens Ardor and Spirits, North American, Philadelphia, Jul. 24, 1897), and a member of its Educational Council. Perry Frankel was an Honorary Trustee. (Zionism's Hope Here, Says Jacob H. Schiff. New York Times, July 29, 1907.) Dr. Lee K. Frankel headed a committee appointed by the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Relief Commission to visit Jewish centers in Europe. David L. Brown of Detroit, who was chairman of the fundraising committee there; David M. Bressler, Chairman of the New York committee that raised $5 million; Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, Professor of Preventive Medicine at Harvard; Morris Wolf of Philadelphia; and Samuel A. Goldsmith, director of the Bureau of Jewish Social Research went also. The committee had $18 million to spend. (Jewish Advisors to Sail. New York Times, June 17, 1922.) Rosenau and Frankel were among eleven members of the Public Health and Medical Reference Board of Hadassah. (Doctors to Aid Hadassah. New York Times, June 22, 1930.)

In 1900, fellow IHR advisory committee member Robert W. de Forest was president of the Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, and Frankel was manager of the United Hebrew Charities. In 1914, Frankel was involved with CEA Winslow's centralization of the New York City health establishment, and in the late 1920s centralization of the US health establishment. In 1929, Frankel and fellow LEI founders de Forest, Mayo, and Welch were members of the advisory committee of Yale's Institute of Human Relations.

Francis Rexford Cooley, Scroll & Key 1886

Francis R. Cooley was a member of Wilson & Cooley, bankers and brokers, Hartford, 1889-91; a dealer in stocks and bonds, 1891-1915; senior partner of Francis R. Cooley & Company, members of the New York Stock Exchange, from 1915-21 with his son, Francis B. Cooley, and a special partner since 1921. He was president of the Hartford Stock Exchange 1912-19; vice president and a director of Morris Plan Bank, Hartford, 1915-31; vice president Hartford Gas Company 1915-32, and a director since 1904; Hartford Hospital 1918-29 and chairman of the finance committee 1919-31; director of Whitlock Coal Pipe Company 1903-25; Landers, Frary, & Clark since 1905, National Exchange Bank 1905-16, Connecticut Fire Insurabce Company 1906-32, Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company since 1915, and the First National Bank of Hartford 1916-30. His father was Francis Buel Cooley. (Francis Rexford Cooley, B.A. 1886. Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased During the Year 1933-1934, pages 56-57.)

Francis R. Cooley's son, Charles P. Cooley Jr., carried on his firm as Cooley & Co. (New Firm on Exchange. New York Times, June 29, 1934). His other son, Francis Browne Cooley, Yale 1917, was a director of the Aetna Life Insurance Company, the Aetna Casualty and Surety Company and the Automobile Insurance Company. (Joins Insurance Directorates. New York Times, Dec. 10, 1947.)

Francis R. Cooley's brother, Charles Parsons Cooley, Yale 1891, was also a director of the Aetna Life Insurance Company, the Connecticut General Insurance Company, Hartford National Bank and Trust Company and Hartford Gas Co. (Charles P. Cooley Sr. New York Times, Jan. 20, 1954), and the Fidelity Trust Co. His grandson, Charles Parsons Cooley 3d, Yale '78, was an assistant secretary at the Maufacturers Hanover Trust Company. He married Lucy Grosvenor Robinson, Yale '79, daughter of Dwight Edwards Robinson, Prof. Emeritus of Business Administration at the University of Washington, and granddaughter of Edwin Prescott Grosvenor, a senior partner of Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft. (Lucy Robinson Wed in Seattle. New York Times, Aug. 16, 1981.) His grandson, John Withrow Cooley, Yale, was a vice president of the Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. (Maggie Ferdon Wed to John W. Cooley. New York Times, Jan. 3, 1988.) His grandson, Peter Alexander Cooley, Yale, was also with the Morgan Guaranty Trust. Their father, Samuel P. Cooley, was executive vice president and chief credit officer of the Connecticut National Bank in Hartford. (Allene R. Smith Becomes Bride. New York Times, Aug. 13, 1989.)

The Hygiene Reference Board

Russell H. Chittenden, Berzelius 1875

Russell H. Chittenden was professor of physiological chemistry at Yale for 40 years. Most of his work was on the chemistry of digestion. (Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1943-1944, p. 205; Biographical Memoir of Russell Henry Chittenden 1856-1943, by Hubert Bradford Vickery. National Academy of Sciences, 1944, Vol. 24.) One of his students was Harold C. Bradley, PhD 1905, who established the medical school at the University of Wisconsin.

Henry Walcott Farnam, Skull & Bones 1874

Henry W. Farnam (1853-1933), Professor of Economics, Yale University, was among the Organized Philanthropy group of the Life Extension Institute. His father, Henry Farnam, was president of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad. William Whitman Farnam, S&B 1866, and Charles Henry Farnam, S&B 1868, were his brothers. Two ggg uncles, another brother, his brother-in-law, his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Farnam Jr. '28 Art, five nephews, his niece, Mrs. Thomas M. Debevoise ex-'97 Art, and four grandnephews also graduated from Yale. His wife, Elizabeth Upham Kingsley (certificate in Art 1884) was a niece of Henry Coit Kingsley, S&B 1834, and the granddaughter of Prof. James L. Kingsley B.A. 1799. His daughter, Louise Whitman Farnam, got her PhD '16 and MD '20 at Yale, and Katherine Kingsley Farnam married Samuel C. Harvey '07. Farnam was one of the collaborators of the Department of Economics and Sociology of the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., reorganized as the Board of Research Associates in American Economic History in 1916, of which he was chairman and treasurer until his death. He was a director of New Haven Hospital since 1881. (Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1933-1934, pp. 25-28.) Thomas M. Debevoise was one of the founders of the American Society for the Control of Cancer in 1913, and was an officer and fundraiser of the ASCC until 1927.

Farnam was a member of the "Committee of Fifty" anti-smoking conspiracy, headed by Dr. Alexander Lambert (S&B 1880). He was the author of 'Wasteful Investments' and 'Tobacco and the Soldier'. "In the first pamphlet he discussess the waste in land thru tobacco production; waste in business thru reduction in efficiency in workers and losses thru fires caused by careless smokers. In 'Tobacco and Soldiers' he argues that tobacco impairs military efficiency. He is also the author of 'Our Tobacco Bill' in the Unpopular Review of January, 1914." (Committee of Fifty. Tobacco Merchants Association of the U.S., Dec. 1920.)

Prof. James Luce Kingsley (1778-1852), B.A. Yale 1799, was the uncle with whom Daniel Coit Gilman, S&B 1852 lived while attending Yale. Kingsley's daughter, Mrs. Farnam's aunt, married Henry Taylor Blake, Skull & Bones 1848. (James Luce Kingsley. Her father was William Lathrop Kingsley, Yale 1843, and his brothers were George T. Kingsley '32 and Henry Coit Kingsley, S&B 1834. (Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College: With Annals of the College History. By Franklin Bowditch Dexter [S&B 1861]. Henry Holt & Co., 1911.)

William L. Kingsley was a founder of Scroll & Key: "The 'Kingsley Trust Association,' which is the legal style thereof, was incorporated at the May, 1860 session of the State Legislature, in the names of John A. Porter, of '42, William L. Kingsley of '43, Samuel C. Perkins of '48, Enos N. Taft of '51, Lebeus C. Chapin, George E. Jackson, and Homer B. Sprague of '52, Charlton T. Lewis of '53, Calvin G. Child and Josiah W. Harmar of '55, and Edward G. Mason and Mason Young of '60. These comprise its best-known names, and were perhaps chosen on that account, since only the president, Mr. Kingsley, is a resident of the city." The society was active since at least 1845, when their symbol was parodied in a campus publication as "the historical fox reaching after the equally celebrated sour grapes." (Four Years At Yale. By A Graduate of '69. Henry Holt & Co., 1871.)

Henry W. Farnam Sr.'s daughter, Louise Whitman Farnam Wilson, PhD 1916, was the first woman graduate of the Yale School of Medicine (1920). She wa a medical missionary with Yale-in-China from 1921-27 and 1929-33 in Hunan. She retired from medical practice and lived in England since 1934. (Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased during the Year 1948-1949, pp 145-146.)

Walter H. Page

Walter Hines Page (1855-1918) was appointed US Ambassador to England in 1913. He was a member of the Educational Section. In 1910, he founded the publishing house of publishing house of Doubleday-Page with Frank Doubleday. Earlier in Boston, he had been editor of The Atlantic Monthly and an adviser to the publishers Houghton Mifflin. His son, Arthur Wilson Page, joined the firm in 1905 after graduating from Harvard. He was vice president and a director of AT&T. His grandson, Walter Hines Page 2d, was president and chairman of the Morgan Guaranty Trust and J.P. Morgan & Co., and a longtime trustee of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. (Walter Hines Page II. By James D. Watson. 1998 Annual Report, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.)

Mrs. Benjamin N. Duke, Mrs. W.W. Fuller, Mrs. Walter H. Page, Mrs. Rufus L. Patterson, and Mrs. T.B. Yuille were patronesses of the North Carolina Society. (North Carolina Society Gives Dance. New York Times, Apr. 20, 1912.)

W. Gilman Thompson

William Gilman Thompson M.D., Professor of Medicine, Cornell University Medical School, was a member of the Industrial Hygiene group. He was the son of Rev. Joseph Parrish Thompson, S&B 1838, and a nephew of Daniel Coit Gilman, S&B 1852. He was one of the New York University physicians who seceded to found Cornell University's Medical College in 1898, which was funded by Oliver Hazard Payne.

Amos Alonzo Stagg, Skull & Bones 1888

Irving Fisher's Bones classmate, Alonzo Stagg, Director Gymnasium, University of Chicago, was in the Physical Training section. He was was first Athletic Director and football coach for the University of Chicago from 1892-1933 and football coach for the College of the Pacific from 1933-1946. He was born in 1862, in West Orange, New Jersey. (The Amos Alonzo Stagg Papers. University of Chicago.)

Public Health Administration of the Life Extension Institute, 1916

HERMANN M. BIGGS, M.D., Commissioner of Health, State of New York.; RUPERT BLUE, M.D., Surgeon General, U. S. Public Health Service; H. M. BRACKEN, M.D., Secretary Board of Health, State of Minnesota; J. B. GREGG CUSTIS, President Board of Medical Supervisors, District of Columbia; SAMUEL G. DIXON, M.D., Commissioner of Health, State of Pennsylvania; OSCAR DOWLING, M.D., President Board of Health, State of Louisiana; JOHN S. FULTON, M.D., Secretary Dept. of Health, State of Maryland; S. S. GOLDWATER, M.D., Supt., Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York; WILLIAM C. GORGAS, Major General U.S. Army; CALVIN W. HENDRICK, Chief Engineer, Sewerage Commission of Baltimore; J. N. HURTY, M.D., Secretary Board of Health, State of Indiana; W. S. RANKIN, M.D., Secretary and Treasurer, Board of Health, State of North Carolina; THEO. B. SACHS, M.D., President The Chicago Tuberculosis Institute; JOSEPH W. SCHERESCHEWSKY, M.D., U. S. Public Health Service; GUILFORD H. SUMNER, M.D., Secretary—Executive Officer, Dept. of Health and Medical Examiners, State of Iowa; GEORGE C. WHIPPLE, Professor Sanitary Engineering, Harvard University; C. E. A. WINSLOW, Professor of Public Health, Yale Medical School.

Joseph W. Schereschewsky

Dr. J.W. Schereschewsky was director general of the 50th Session of the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, which was held at the Red Cross Hall in Washington, DC. William H. Taft was honorary president of the exhibition. (Health Exhibit Opens. Washington Post, Sep. 17, 1912.) As Assistant Surgeon General in 1922, Schereschewsky established the Office of Cancer Investigations of the US Public Health Service at Harvard University, which was subsequently merged into the National Cancer Institute. Joseph Williams Schereschewsky was the son of Rt. Rev. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, who was the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of China from 1875 to 1888. (Schereschewsky, Physician, Is Dead. New York Times, Jul. 11, 1940.) Schereschewsky was "instrumental in persuading the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service that cancer was a public health problem," and the Office of Cancer Investigations was established in the department of Dr. Milton J. Rosenau, Professor of Preventative Medicine. When Rosenau retired in 1930, Howard B. Andervont became the first professional staff member of Schereschewsky's Office of Cancer Investigations. (Howard B. Andervont: An Appreciation. By Michael Shimkin. J Natl Cancer Inst 1968 Jun;40(6):XIII-XXV.) The Surgeon General in 1922 was Hugh S. Cumming, later a member of the advisory committee of the Yale Institute of Human Relations. Edwin B. Wilson was another member of this Harvard group, who became an original membersof the Scientific Advisory Board of the Tobacco Industry Research Council in 1964, when Andervont replaced him. Andervont in addition was Chief of the Laboratory of Biology at the National Cancer Institute from 1947-60, and Scientific Editor of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute from 1961-67.

Photo description: "Shown is the Office of Cancer Investigations from Cambridge, Massachusetts who became part of the first NCI staff during the summer of 1939 shortly before moving into building 6 in october. Front (l-r): J. Trovato, D. Howard, R. Robin, T. Shovelton, R. O'Gara, D. Silverman, F. Linnell, J. Stasio, F. Turner (Medical Director). Center: M. Shear, H. Stewart, H. Grady, H. Andervont, E. Lorenz, J. Leiter, A. Perrault. Rear: F. Kennedy, W. McEheney, J. Hartwell, M. Shimkin, J. Murphy, W. Gately, H. Meyer. See also AR000174. Credit: Unknown photographer/artist." (Photo Album: Cambridge. Webster's Online Dictionary, accessed Jan. 18, 2008.)

Medicine and Surgery, 1916

LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University; GEORGE BLUMER, M.D., Dean Tale Medical School; GEORGE W. CRILE, M.D., Professor Clinical Surgery, Western Reserve University; DAVID L. EDSALL, M.D., Professor Clinical Medicine, Harvard University; HENRY B. FAVILL, M.D., Professor Clinical Medicine, Rush Medical College; J. H. KELLOGG, M.D., Superintendent Battle Creek Sanitarium; S. ADOLPHUS KNOPF, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Department of Phthisiotherapy, New York Post Graduate Medical School; WILLIAM J. MAYO, M.D., Ex-President American Medical Association; VICTOR C. VAUGHAN, M.D., Dean, Dept. of Medicine and Surgery, University of Michigan, Ex-President American Medical Association; HUGH HAMPTON YOUNG, M.D., Assoc. Professor of Urological Surgery, Johns Hopkins University and Hospital.

Lewellys F. Barker

Lewellys Franklin Barker (1867-1943) was Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He studied at the universities of Leipzig, Munich and Berlin. He was a vice president of the American Society for the Control of Cancer in 1916. (Call Surgery Only Remedy for Cancer. New York Times, May 19, 1916.)

In 1910, Barker was a member of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, co-founded by Johns Hopkins psychiatrist and fellow IHR advisory committee member Adolf Meyer. Other future IHR advisory committee members were Jane Addams, Edwin A. Alderman, Arthur T. Hadley, Adolf Meyer, and William H. Welch; and James R. Angell's father, James B. Angell; plus assorted Bonesmen and other allies.

Lewellys Franklin Barker was the Johns Hopkins physician in charge of the blastomycosis case of A.J. Frey, who was vice president of the US Shipping Board under Albert D. Lasker. Frey was associated with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company since 1902, and was Assistant General Manager for eight years until to 1918. (A.J. Frey Succombs To A Rare Disease. New York Times, June 14, 1922.) Barker was a correspondent of William H. Welch from 1901 to 1931. He was a member of the advisory committee of the Institute of Human Relations in 1929.

A namesake Lewellys F. Barker, M.D., of the National Institutes of Health, was a member of the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board from 1965-1976. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, Dean of the Yale School of Medicine, who directed the 1964 Surgeon General report on smoking, was a member from 1941-1947 and 1957-1965. Jonas E. Salk was a member from 1944-1969; [NIH director] James A. Shannon from 1944-1945; [Lasker Foundation] Robert Glaser from 1957-61; [Lasker Foundation] Purnell W. Choppin from 1968-1973; [CTR SAB] Clayton G. Loosli from 1942-1973; [CTR SAB] Paul Kotin from 1976-1979; Lester Breslow in 1976; Richard D. Remington 1980-1983 and 1987-1990. (The Armed Forces Epidemiology Board. Its First Fifty Years. By Theodore E. Woodward, M.D.) Chlamydia pneumoniae researcher J. Thomas Grayston was a member from 1965-1975, Epstein-Barr virus investigator Werner Henle from 1953-1973; Reuel A. Stallones 1972-1983.

In 1982, a namesake of Lewellys Barker was Vice President, Health Services, of the American Red Cross when it passed an anti-smoking resolution. He and Red Cross Executive Vice President Robert G. Wick met with Horace R. Kornegay, Chairman of the Tobacco Institute.

William Thompson Sedgwick, Yale 1877

"Until 1910, there were no facilities for the training of public health workers in the United States. In that year the University of Michigan awarded the first specific public health degree. The first school, however, was organized in 1912 by William T. Sedgwick at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1913, Sedgwick joined forces with Milton J. Rosenau, professor of preventive medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and George C. Whipple, statistician and sanitary engineer, also of Harvard, to form a school of public health. In 1918, the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene was opened with William H. Welch as its first director." (A History of Public Health. By George Rosen. JHU Press, 1993.)

William T. Sedgwick was born in West Hartford, Conn. in 1855, and died in Boston in 1921. He was of pre-1638 Colonial ancestry, a lineal descendant of Gen. Robert Sedgwick. "He was prepared for Yale at the Hartford Public High School, and took ther biology course in the Sheffield Scientific School. He divided a German prize in Freshman year and spoke at Commencement. He served as vice president of the Christian Union and as treasurer of the Yale Society of Natural History, and was president of the Class in Senior year and a Class Historian.

"He studied in the Yale School of Medicine for two years after graduation, and during the second year was an instructor in physiological chemistry in the Scientific School. In 1879 he was offered a fellowship in biology at Johns Hopkins University. He spent the next four years there, becoming an assistant in biology in 1880 and an associate in 1882, and receiving the degree of Ph.D. in 1881. Since 1883 he had been connected with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served successively as assistant professor, associate professor, and professor of biology (afterwards biology and public health).... [he was] chairman of the administrative board of the Harvard-Technology School of Public Health, and a member of the committee of the Technology War Workroom. He spent the summer of 1920 in England as exchange professor at the universities at Leeds and Cambridge....

"Professor Sedgwich had been a member of the Public Health Council of the Massachusetts State Board of Health since 1914, and of the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation since 1918. Since the latter year he had held the rank of Assistant Surgeon General in the U.S. Public Health Service Reserve. He had served on the advisory board of the hygienic laboratory of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service since 1902... Since 1897 he had been curator of the Lowell Institute and had charge of all the arrangements for the Lowell lectures. He was one of the incorporators and original trustees of Simmons College." He was a vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Royal Institute of Public Health. He belonged to the First Parish (Unitarian) Church in Brookline. (Bulletin of Yale University. Obituary Record of Yale Graduates 1920-1921, pp 205-208)

Francis Walker, the president of M.I.T., who had known Sedgwick as a student at Yale, brought him to that institution. "When the Massachusetts State Board of Health was reorganized and the Lawrence Experiment Station was established in 1888, he was appointed biologist to the board and with Mills, Drown and Mrs. Richards and their pupils, Hazen, Whipple, Fuller and Jordan, he laid the foundation of modern sanitary science in its bacteriological and engineering aspects..." (William Thompson Sedgwick. By C.-E.A. Winslow. J Bacteriol 1921 May 1;6(3) i -262.) Ellen S. Richards was the aunt of Junius A. Richards, director of Tobacco and Allied Stocks, which acquired Philip Morris.

Lowell Institute, an educational foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., providing for free public lectures, was endowed by the bequest of $237,000 left by John Lowell, Jr., who died in 1836. Under the terms of his will 10% of the net income was to be added to the principal, which in 1909 was over a million dollars. The first trustee was Lowell's cousin, John Amory Lowell, who administered the trust for more than forty years, and was succeeded in 1881 by his son, Augustus Lowell, who in turn was succeeded in 1900 by his son Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who in 1909 became president of Harvard University. In 1952, the Lowell Institute created public radio station WGBH of Boston. (Wikipedia, accessed Jan. 18, 2008.) He and his wife had no children.

The Life Extension Institute, circa 1920

"A hardly less interesting bit of propaganda against the use of tobacco is a leaflet—'What It Costs to Smoke Tobacco ' — which bears the imprint of the Life-Extension Institute of New York City. This leaflet, which was sent to me recently by the Institute, asserts that the Honorable William H. Taft is Chairman of the Board, and that the other officers include Professor Irving Fisher, Chairman of the Hygiene Reference Board; Eugene Lyman Fisk, Medical Director; Harold A. Ley, President; James D. Lanahan, Secretary; Henry H. Bowman, Arthur W. Eaton, Robert W. deForest, Edward L. Pierce, and Charles H. Sabin — the latter President of the Guaranty Trust Company. Interest in the potential influence of the Life-Extension Institute upon the use of tobacco is justified, not only by the personality and importance of the men whose names are used in connection with it, but also by the fact that this organization recently carried on a national advertising campaign which, no doubt, considerably increased the funds at its disposal for the support of its policy and programme. The LifeExtension Institute provides primarily a service of health-examinations and educational letters and advice, 'available at a moderate cost to individuals applying directly, to life-insurance companies for their policy-holders, employers for their employees, and to members of clubs, societies, schools, etc.' Its so-called 'Keep Well' leaflets are supposedly concerned solely with the prolongation of life and its betterment; but the authors of its publications do not restrict themselves to the field of health and physiology in their opposition to smoking. In fact, I find in the leaflet in question a most illuminating presentation of the financial aspects of the national consumption of tobacco. After showing that the United States is consuming tobacco at the annual rate of seven pounds per capita, while the United Kingdom consumes only two pounds per capita, and estimating that our annual expenditure is more than a billion dollars, the Life-Extension Institute authority essays an accounting of the other side of the ledger." (Is a Tobacco Crusade Coming? By L. Ames Brown. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 126, July- December, 1920.)

cast 04-19-10