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Alfred Einstein Cohn was born on April 16, 1879 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Abraham Cohn and Maimie Einstein. His father was a wealthy tobacco merchant who, although his business interests were centered in Georgia, spent much of his time in New York. The family had literary, artistic, and intellectual interests; Cohn's younger brother, Edwin Joseph, became a distinguished chemist.
Cohn was educated at Columbia University (A. B. , 1900; M. D. , 1904) and served a three-year internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. From 1907 to 1909 he studied with Wilhelm Trendelenberg and Ludwig Aschoff in Freiburg, and with James Mackenzie and Thomas Lewis in London.
Willem Einthoven's introduction of the string galvanometer had made electrocardiography an exciting new technique in medicine; Cohn helped Lewis set up a string galvanometer at University College in London. The first electrocardiograph in the western hemisphere was that brought to New York by Cohn in August 1909 and was used by him at Mount Sinai Hospital until 1911, when he brought it to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. It is now part of the George E. Burch Collection in New Orleans. The first string galvanometer for use in electrocardiography that was manufactured in the United States was made for Cohn in 1915, and is now in the Smithsonian Institution. Cohn joined the staff of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1911, became a member in 1920, and retired in 1944. Besides being an early worker in the field of electrocardiography and an early specialist in diseases of the cardiovascular system, Cohn was even more influential as a teacher. Among the men influenced by him were Carl A. L. Binger, Robert L. Levy (with whom Cohn published important studies of quinidine), Harold J. Stewart, the physician and psychologist Henry A. Murray, J. Murray Steele, A. Garrod Macleod, Henry A. Schroeder, Alfred E. Mirsky, and George E. Burch. Burch said of Cohn that although he "did little electrocardiographic research, he influenced others to work in the field and helped to demonstrate to the medical public in this country the clinical usefulness of the electrocardiograph. " Burch has told me in correspondence that Cohn was important both as one of the earliest American physicians to devote himself wholly to clinical research--"he began his work at the turn of the century when clinical research was non-existent"--and as a physician who could encourage young men to take up such research. Throughout his career Cohn participated in medical organizations and in public affairs. He was an early member of the Association for Prevention of Heart Disease (later the New York Heart Association, which formed a model for the American Heart Association). His interest in public health was reflected in an important study written with Claire Lingg, The Burden of Diseases in the United States (1950). In the 1930's and 1940's Cohn participated in many projects designed to help refugees, including the American Committee for Emigré Scholars, Writers and Artists (now the American Council for Emigrés in the Professions). That work brought him into close contact with many eminent figures, including Dr. George Baehr, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Edward R. Murrow. Cohn was also a longtime and close friend of Justice Felix Frankfurter. In addition to his publications in scientific and medical journals, Cohn wrote essays on medicine and society, on the history of medicine, and on art and its relation to medicine and science. These essays were collected as Medicine, Science and Art (1931) and No Retreat From Reason (1948). A single long essay was published as Minerva's Progress (1946). Cohn was a collector of art and a bibliophile; his working collection of scientific and medical books and his large general library are preserved in the Cohn Library of the Rockefeller University. He died in New Milford, Connecticut.
New York Heart Association
On April 24, 1911, Cohn married Ruth Walker Price, the daughter of Edward A. Price, a prosperous New York merchant; they had no children.
His father was a wealthy tobacco merchant who, although his business interests were centered in Georgia, spent much of his time in New York
He became a distinguished chemist
