Simon Flexner

Flexner, Simon

(1863–1946) microbiologist, medical administrator; born in Louisville, Ky. (brother of Abraham Flexner). After researching and teaching as a pathologist at Johns Hopkins (1890–99), he went to the University of Pennsylvania (1899–1903); during this period he took time away to isolate a strain of the dysentery bacillus in the Philippines (1899) and to investigate the bubonic plague in San Francisco (1901). He joined the newly created Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1901 to direct the research laboratories but soon became the institute's de facto administrator; he served as its official director from 1924–35. He was the editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine (1904–23), and during World War I he was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps and charged with inspecting its medical laboratories in Europe. He made several other important contributions to his field, including developing a serum for cerebrospinal meningitis (1907) and laying the groundwork for the development of polio vaccines. He wrote The Evolution and Organization of the University Clinic (1939).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.