Morris, John M.

Morris, John M. (McClean) (1915–93) gynecologist, medical researcher; born in Kuling, China. Son of a Presbyterian missionary, he studied at Princeton, then took his M.D. at Harvard (1940). After a year's expedition studying the birds of the Pacific for the National Geographic Society and the American Museum of Natural History, he served four years during World War II with the U.S. Navy's medical corps. He spent most of his professional career as a professor and chief of gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine (1952–87). He first established his name by identifying a rare sexual disorder, testicular feminization, since known as "Morris's syndrome," but he became best known for developing (along with Dr. Gertrude Van Wangen) the so-called morning-after birth-control pill during the 1960s, a pill that caused a woman's body to eject a fertilized egg by preventing its implantation in the womb. He also developed new techniques in pelvic surgery, was an early advocate in the U.S.A. of radiation therapy for cancer, and was an outspoken proponent of the need to control the growth in the world's population.