Background
Thomas Francis Jr. was born in Gas City, Indiana on July 15, 1900.
Thomas Francis Jr. was born in Gas City, Indiana on July 15, 1900.
Thomas Francis JR was educated at Allegheny College and Yale University.
Francis was an intern and resident physician in medicine at New Haven (Connecticut) Hospital, 1925-1927, then an instructor in medicine at Yale University Medical School, 1927-1928.
Between 1928 and 1933 he was with the Rockefeller Institute Hospital and from 1936 to 1938, with the Rockefeller Foundation.
Francis was professor of bacteriology and director of biological laboratories at New York University College of Medicine, 1938-1941. From 1941 to 1969 he was professor of epidemiology and chairman of that department in the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. From 1941 until 1955 Francis was consultant to the secretary of war and director of the commission for the investigation and control of influenza and other epidemics.
He was one of five winners of the initial (1947) Lasker Awards of The Public Health Association, conferred upon him for leadership in the world battle against influenza. He isolated influenza virus B and aided in developing a vaccine against it. Francis was elected to the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board in 1955, and to its Presidency in 1958.
Quotations: "Epidemiology must constantly seek imaginative and ingenious teachers and scholars to create a new genre of medical ecologists who, with both the fine sensitivity of the scientific artist, and the broad perception of the community sculptor, can interpret the interplay of forces which result in disease. "
In 1933, Francis married to Dorothy Packard Otton, and they had two children.
