William Hallock Park
| Born | 1863 |
| Died | 1939 |
Related eponyms
Biography of William Hallock Park
William Hallock Park attended the College of Physicians and surgeon, New York. He obtained his medical doctorate in 1886 and subsequently stayed one year in Vienna for further education. From 1894 he was Director of the New York Health Department, Bureau of Laboratories, from 1897 professor of bacteriology and hygiene at the university and Bellevue Hospital Medical College (New York University).
In 1906, William Hallock Park founded what became known as the Antitoxin Laboratory of the New York City Department of Health. A laboratory/farm complex was constructed on a 175-acre site in Otisville, located approximately 65 miles northwest of Manhattan in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. The original mission of the Laboratory was to manufacture diphtheria and tetanus antitoxins from horse sera. These sera served as therapeutic inocula against the epidemics that followed the great immigration to the United States at the turn of the century.
From 1914 he was Consulting Bacteriologist at the State Department of Health, from 1917 medical censor of bacteriology, and from 1921 Consulting Bacteriologist to the U.S. Quarantine Service.
One of the most outstanding American bacteriologists of his time, Park particularly distinguished himself in the study of diphtheria.
Park was an honorary member of the American Society for Microbiology and of The Delta Omega Society. The William Hallock Park Memorial Library is named in his honour.
Bibliography
- Bacteria in Medicine and Surgery. New York and Philadelphia, 1899.
- Active immunization in diphteria and treatment by toxin-antitoxin.
With A. Zingher and M-H- Serota.
Journal of the American Medical Association, Chicago, 1914, 63: 859-861.
Park was an early advocate of diphteria immunisation with toxin-antitoxin.
A second paper is in the same journal, 1915, 65: 2216-2220. - Pathogenic Microorganisms Including Bacteria and Protozoa.
With Anna Wessels Williams. New York and Philadelphia, 1905. 9th edition, 1929. - Public Health and Hygiene.
New York and Philadelphia, 1920; 2nd edition, 1928. - Who's Who Among the Microbes.
With Anna Wessels Williams. New York, 1929.