- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Edward Conrad Reifenstein jun.

Born  1908
Died  1975

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American physician and endocrinologist, born 1908, New York; died 1975.

Biography of Edward Conrad Reifenstein jun.

Edward Conrad Reifenstein graduated in medicine from the University of Syracuse, New York, in 1934. In 1937 he became interested in endocrinology through a course given in Boston by Fuller Albright (1900-1969), and was accepted for postgraduate training with Albright.

During World War II Reifenstein undertook investigation of the metabolic aspects of convalescence, including bone and wound healing. This work resulted in a number of publications with Albright and other colleagues, the more important being The parathyroid glands and metabolic bone disease; selected studies (1948). After the war he became chief of the endocrine unit at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, which is a part of a biomedical research complex that includes SKI, the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and The Rockefeller University, new York. After the war, Reifenstein in 1950 accepted an appointment as director of a division of medical research in the pharmaceutical industry. He retired in 1974. In his leisure time Reifenstein enjoyed mountaineering, the piano and his home.

"He remained as true to his principles as to his friends, and he commented that he was almost glad to be retiring from a profession which had grown too large for close teamwork and was tending to loose the disinterested devotion that he had found in, and given to, academic medicine. He also welcomed retirement, because he hoped it would give him more time to work. He envisioned remaining at his desk, reading and writing and serving as an editor and consultant. He was accustomed to being a pillar of strength, reliability and integrity in these capacities; by his many friends and colleagues he will be remembered and he will be missed."
Anne. P. Forbes, Frederic Crosby Bartter (1914-1985) in his obituary.

Bibliography

  • F. Albright, E. C. Reifenstein:
    he parathyroid glands and metabolic bone disease; selected studies.
    Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1948. 393 pages.
  • A. P. Forbes and F. C. Bartter:
    Edward C Reifenstein, Jr.
    Recent Progress in Hormone Research , 1976, 32: xiii-xvii.

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