Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 19 text:

Berne and Frankfort. To crown all his achievements, it was in this year that Miss Bessie C. Herron, of Freeland, Pa., did him the honor of becoming his life partner. In 1914 Professor Kolmer and his colleagues of the D.R.L. succeeded in solving the closely-guarded German secret preparation of salvarsan and neosolvarsan at a time when the need of these important drugs was acute, due to the cessation of German importation during the World War. The sizable sums accumulated from the preparation of these drugs for the Army, Navy ond Public Health Service were segregated ond in 1920 the entire funds were given into the custody of the Board of Trustees of the newly-organized Research Institute of Cutaneous Medicine to be perpetually dedicated to medical research and the alleviation of human suffering. In 1914 Dr. Kolmer received the degree of Dr. P. H. from the University of Pennsylvania, and five years after this honor, he was promoted to the Chair of Pathology and Bacteriology in the Graduate Schol of Medicine of that institution, a post he honorably filled until August, 1931, when he resigned to dedicate himself to the broader field of Medicine, occupying that Chair at Temple University School of Medicine. Honorary degrees, awards and prizes followed each other in rapid succession; three years after receiving his Ph D., Villanova College awarded him an M.Sc. In 1926 that same institution honored him with the degree of D.Sc. and two years later that of LL.D. The following year he was made recipient of the coveted Mendel medal for generol excellence in the Sciences. The Philadelphia County Medical Society awarded him the 1931 Stritfmatier medal, in recognition of his splendid services to medicol science. The major part of Dr. Kolmer's career has been devoted to research in immunology and bacteriology, and he has published over four hundred papers in the past 'twenty-two years, all of which are characterized by the same careful, unbiased, painstaking spirit of the medical investigator par excellence Among his works are included Infection, Immunity and Biologic Therapy; The Principles and Practice of Chemotherapy with Special Reference to the Treatment of Syphilis; Serum Diagnosis by Complement Fixation; Laboratory Diagnostic Methods (with Dr. Boerner); Acute Infectious Diseases (with Dr. Schamberg); Approved Laboratory Technic (with Dr. Boerner). Many standard works, including Keen's Surgery; Frazier's Surgery of the Spinal Cord, ond others, contain some of his brilliant contributions to their respective fields. Dr. Kolmer is a Fellow of the College of Physicians; Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and member of o large number of other nationol and international societies too numerous to record in the brief scope of this short biography. He was formerly President of the Pathological and Pediatric Societies and of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists and is a member of Sigma Xi and Alpha Kappa Kappa fraternities. Eleven

Page 18 text:

Biography of John A. Kolmer IUST south of the Mason ond Dixon line, in the gently rolling hills of verdont West-ern Maryland, nestles the beautiful village of Lonoconing. It was early spring in this peaceful hamlet when to Leonard and Selma Kolmer, an industrious, substantial German couple of Lonoconing, was born their third child, John, on April 24, 1886. It wos in this same region that the boy grew up and developed in the sturdy, untiring, conscientious ways that for time immemorial have been the heritage of tillers of the soil. Like his teutonic ancestors, the lad soon evinced a solid, substantial character in which was early oustanding a very real sense of responsibility, made necessory in no small part because of the reduced circumstances of his parents. In spite of the many hardships and obstacles confronting him, John Kolmer struggled through the public schools, aiding his parents in the bitter strife for existence, yet at the same time excelling in his studies to such a degree that at the age of sixteen the State of Maryland awarded him a scholarship to Charlotte Hall Military Academy, ot Charlotte Hall, Maryland. Here, as in public school, this ambitious youth earned more laurels, so much so that by the end of the two-year course he had been awarded no less than seven gold medals for scholastic attainments and general excellence. Thus it was that at the oge of eighteen he registered os a Freshman in the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland in Baltimore. After honorably completing his first year ot that institution, he transferred in 1905 to the University of Pennsylvania, where his arduous application to medical work earned for him, in June of the year 1908, graduation with honors and the award of the Packord Prize in Clinical Medicine. He early decided to acquire thorough practical hospital training, and in the ensuing six months he interned at St. Vincent's Hospitol in Philadelphia where he published his first paper, a monograph on the blood changes in pertussis. The next twelve months he continued his troining at St. Agnes' Hospital, in the same city, where he did such outstanding work that at the completion of his service he was appointed at the early age of twenty-four as pathologist to the Philadelphia Hospital for Contagious Diseases, a post he wos to creditobly fill for the enusing five years. It was in 1912, for him a banner year, that honors crowded upon honors. It wos in this year that Dr. Kolmer wos appointed Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology at Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduates in Medicine It was in this year that he wos named Assistant Bacteriologist to the Bureau of Health of Philadelphia. It was also in this year that, in collaboration with Dr. Jay F Schamberg, he organized the Dermatological Research Laboratories, destined to ploy a vital role in the health of the Nation It was in this year thot Dr. Kolmer went abroad to further increase his knowledge at the leading European medical centers—Vienna, Berlin, Ten

Page 20 text:

To the Class of 1934: February 12, 1934. IN the words of Robert Louis Stevenson there ore men and classes ■ of man that stand above the common herd; the soldier, the sailor, and the shepherd not infrequently; the artist rarely, rarelier still, the clergyman; the physician almost os a rule. He is the flower (such os it is) of our civilization; and when that stage of man is done with, and only to be marvelled at in history, he will be thought to have shared os little os any in the defects of the period, and most notably exhibited the virtues of the race. Generosity he Indiscretion, tested by c hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand embarrassments; and what ore more important, Herculean cheerfulness and courage. So that he brings air and cheer into the sick room, and often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing. Such is the great and honorable profession for which you have been so carefully prepared and which you ore now privileged to enter Success requires endurance and perseverance. As so well stated by Osier, all things come to him who has learned to labour and wait, who bides his time, ohne Hast, abter ohne Rast, whose talent develops in der Stille, in the quiet fruitful years of unselfish work. That yours may be such a measure of equanimity as will enable you to bear success with humility, the affection of your friends without pride and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief comes to bear it with the courage befitting a man is the sincere good wish of Your friend and teacher, Twelve