Background
Warfield Theobald Longcope was born on March 29, 1877 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of George von S. and Ruth Theobald Longcope.
Warfield Theobald Longcope was born on March 29, 1877 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, the son of George von S. and Ruth Theobald Longcope.
Longcope attended a private school in Baltimore and received the Bachelor of Arts degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1897 and the Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins in 1901. As a medical student he was influenced by two innovators in American medicine, William H. Welch, who was largely responsible for introducing the laboratory study of pathology in the United States, and William Osler, who was among the first effectively to correlate clinical observations with autopsy findings and who was chiefly responsible for initiating practical instruction of medical students in hospital wards.
About 1901 Longcope started his three year's service as resident pathologist at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia under the guidance of Simon Flexner. In 1904 he replaced Flexner as director of the Ayer Clinical Laboratory there, serving until 1911. During this period, Longcope laid the groundwork for a type of clinical and research activity that later developed into a full-time academic discipline. At the time, clinicians thought that laboratory workers engaged in theoretical medicine that had no practical importance and basic scientists believed that clinicians had no training or talent for investigation, but Longcope earned the respect of both groups. In 1909 Longcope became assistant professor of applied clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This appointment allowed him to correlate bedside clinical observations with the pathological findings derived from various laboratory tests and from autopsies. His laboratory activities included studies in pathology, biochemistry, bacteriology, and serology. When he left the University of Pennsylvania in 1911 to become associate professor of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, he was a "uniquely trained clinical academician who set a new standard of learning in several different scientific disciplines, all merging in a broader approach to the problems of disease. "
At the age of thirty-seven he was appointed Bard professor of medicine at Columbia and director of the medical service of the Presbyterian Hospital. By this time his activities involved work as a clinician, teacher, and laboratory scientist. In August 1917, after the United States entered World War I, Longcope took up active duty in the office of the surgeon general of the army in Washington. After the war he returned to Columbia. In 1922 he became professor of medicine in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and physician-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At both Columbia and Johns Hopkins, Longcope exerted a major influence on his associates and students. His early studies in experimental pathology and infectious diseases reflect the influence of Welch and Osler.
In 1913 he published his first article on the kidney, "The Production of Experimental Nephritis by Repeated Protein Injection. " He also studied the etiology of acute glomerular nephritis and its relationship to an altered tissue response to bacteria, notably hemolytic streptococci. Much of his work pointed to an analogy between the development of nephritis after exposure to streptococcal infection and that of serum sickness appearing after the injection of immune serum made from protein of another species.
Quotations:
"As I grow older I have less and less sympathy with conscientious efforts merely to extend life in old age. "
"Each patient ought to feel somewhat the better after the physician's visit, irrespective of the nature of the illness. "
Longcope was active in professional associations throughout his career. He served as president of the Association of American Physicians, the Society for Clinical Investigation, and the American Association of Immunologists.
Longcope was friendly and gentle but had a sharply critical mind. He was warmly regarded by fellow faculty and students alike for his mentorship and collaboration.
On December 2, 1915, Longcope married Janet Percy Dana. They had four children.