Background
Richard Weil was born in New York City, the son of Leopold and Matilda (Tanzer) Weil.
Richard Weil was born in New York City, the son of Leopold and Matilda (Tanzer) Weil.
His early education was obtained mainly at home and at private schools. Entering Columbia University, where he was graduated A. B. in the class of 1896, he attracted attention by his intellectual versatility, and was offered opportunities for advancement in teaching in several of its departments. He was early attracted to medical research, and with this in mind he devoted much time to biological work. His medical education was obtained at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where he was graduated in 1900.
After a two-year interneship in the German Hospital he went to Europe, where he spent a year and a half in the clinics and laboratories of Vienna and Strassburg. In 1904 he returned to New York to practise and to pursue medical investigation. In 1905 he was appointed demonstrator in pathology at Cornell Medical College, and in 1908, assistant in experimental pathology. Two years later he was promoted to instructor in experimental therapeutics, and in 1911 assistant professor in the same department. In 1915 he was made assistant professor of experimental pathology, which department was merged the next year with that of experimental medicine with Weil at its head. He held this position until his death. From 1904 to 1910 he was adjunct pathologist to the German Hospital. From 1908 to 1913 he was on the staff of the Mount Sinai hospital, and for about the same period served the Montefiore Home. In 1906 he joined the staff of the Huntington Fund for Cancer Research. Working at the Loomis Laboratory, he devoted himself to the field of the serology of cancer and to the general problems of immunity, a field in which he gained an international reputation. In 1910 he devised an exceptionally delicate clinical test for luetic infection, based upon blood hemolysis by cobra venom. Working upon the subject of anaphylaxis, he promulgated the theory that sensitization is essentially cellular in origin and adduced a wealth of demonstration and argument in its support. He was a member of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians. He held the office of vice-president of the American Association for Cancer Research and served as president of the Society of Serology and Hemotology and of the American Association of Immunologists. The council of the American Association of Cancer Research charged him with the duty of establishing the Journal of Cancer Research in 1915, of which he was managing editor until his death. He was an associate editor of the Journal of Immunology and of the American Review of Tuberculosis. Beginning in 1899, he contributed over sixty articles to the journal literature of clinical and experimental medicine. Shortly after the entrance of the United States into the World War in 1917, he offered his services to the government and was commissioned a captain in the medical reserve corps. After a short service at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Ind. , he was promoted to the grade of major and assigned as chief of the medical service at the base hospital at Camp Wheeler, Macon, Ga. He died there of pneumonia after little more than a month of service.
He was married in 1905 to Minnie, daughter of Isador Strauss of New York. They had three children.