KING, Lester S(now) 1908-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born April 18, 1908, in Cambridge, MA; died of heart failure October 6, 2002, in Chicago, IL. Physician, educator, and author. King made a name for himself as the author of books about the history and philosophy of medicine. A graduate of Harvard University, he studied both philosophy and medicine there, earning his M.D. in 1932. He then taught at Harvard and during the late 1930s was an assistant at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. From 1940 to 1942 he worked as a pathologist at a Connecticut hospital while also teaching the subject at Yale University. During World War II he continued to work as a pathologist for the U.S. Army. After the war King spent the remainder of his career in Chicago, where he was a pathologist at Illinois Masonic Hospital until 1963 and a professor at the University of Illinois Medical Center until 1964. From 1963 to 1973 he was on the staff of the Journal of the American Medical Association as a senior editor, continuing as a contributing editor until 1978. As a writer, King was noted for his insistence on clear prose, and his desire to teach other physicians how to write more effectively led to his book Why Not Say It Clearly? A Guide to Scientific Writing (second edition, 1991). He was also the author of The Growth of Medical Thought (1963), The Road to Medical Enlightenment, 1650-1695 (1970), Medical Thinking: A Historical Preface (1982), and Transformations in American Medicine: From Benjamin Rush to William Osler (1991), among other works.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2002, section 2, p. 8.