Dr. David Wolf on Pioneers of 20th Century Hematology

Sponsored by the Bay Area History of Medicine Society with The Grolier Club

The Bay Area History of Medicine Society and the Grolier Club of New York will hold their annual joint lecture and dinner meeting at the UCSF Library, Wednesday March 12, 2025.

“Pioneers in 20th-Century Hematology featuring Drs. Janet Vaughan and George Minot.”

Dr David Wolf will address us on the rise of organized hematology in the US and Great Britain.  This includes biographies of the Nobel laureate George Minot and and the relatively obscure but extraordinary British hematologist Janet Vaughan.  She organized the emergency blood transfusion service during the London Blitz, and then travelled to Belsen concentration camp after the WWII to refeed the surviving internees.  She was appointed Principal of Somerville College,Cambridge, was a life-long social activist, and one of six women featured in the1984 BBC’s series Women of our Century. The presentation also features appearances by Lady Osler, Virginia Woolf, and Margaret Thatcher!

Dr David Wolf is clinical professor of medicine at Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyternian hospital.  He is a clinical hematologist oncologist whose long career has involved patient care, teaching and research, with a special interest in immune thrombocytopenic purpura. He is a governor of the American Osler Society, and is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. In 2021, he established the David J. Wolf, M.D. Medical Archives Endowment which sponsors a Visiting Research Scholar Program at Weill-Cornell Medicine in New York.He has been a member of the Grolier Club since 2010 and has formed a large collection of medical books, especially early works on anatomy, pathology and hematology.  He recently bought three more incunables!

This is the seventh in the current series of joint meetings beginning in 2017, annually except 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid pandemic. The speakers have all been Grolier Club members who have distinguished themselves as librarians, book collectors, or historians of medicine. The previous lecturers were Christopher Lyons of the Osler Library at McGill, Paul Kligfield, M.D., Zlatko Pozeg, M.D., Brian Morrison, M.D., Jeremy Norman, the publisher and antiquarian bookseller, and Steven Lomazow, M.D.

The lecture will be streamed live, and archived by UCSF for later viewing. To receive a link contact Dr. Andrew Nadell: caius@caius.com

The lecture will begin at 7:15 pm Pacific and last for about 45 minutes, plus question time from the audience and online viewers.

IN PERSON ATTENDANCE:

The meeting will be held Wednesday March 12, 2025 in the Lang Room, at the Kalmanovitz Library, 530 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, California.

Reception and drinks at 5:30 pm, dinner at 6:15 pm.

The lecture will begin at 7:15 pm, and last for about 45 minutes, plus question time from the audience and online viewers.

$100 per ticket in person includes dinner buffet, wine, and other beverages.

Please send checks drawn to BAHMS to: J.Gordon Frierson, M.D., 140 Melville Ave, Palo Alto, 94301.

To reserve and pay by credit card, text or phone Sally Kaufmann Cowan, M.D., at 415-567-3535.