Albert Lasker
Public Service Award
R.E. Dyer
For his scientific accomplishments in the field of microbiological research and for his distinguished service as Director of the National Institutes of Health during the war and post-war years.
Dr. R. Eugene Dyer is being honored in dual capacity, for his scientific accomplishments in the field of microbiological research and for the administration of the National Institutes of Health during the war and the post-war years, and, more recently, of the Research Grants Division of the Institute of the United States Public Health Service.
As a modest man of science, Dr. Dyer would undoubtedly have preferred to have the names of his associates and collaborators in the United States Public Health Service included in this citation. Yet with all due recognition of their valuable contributions, it was Dyer who consistently devoted most of his scientific career to the advancement of our knowledge of the rickettsial diseases of the United States, which culminated in the demonstration that the reservoir of New World typhus fever was in the rat, and that the rat flea was the vector responsible for transmission of this so-called "murine typhus" to human beings.
Dr. Dyer's unusual administrative abilities and scientific distinction led ultimately to his appointment as director of the National Institute of Health. In this capacity, he greatly expanded the physical facilities of that agency and broadened the scope of its research programs in many directions. The scientific contributions of the National Institute of Health, especially during the period of the war, have never been adequately recognized by our government or by the people of this country. Under Dr. Dyer's leadership during the war years, the Institute concentrated all its resources upon the advancement of scientific knowledge important for the war effort and unselfishly contributed its labors to the common effort in collaboration with the research services of the armed forces, the Committee on Medical Research of the National Research Council, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and many other official and non-official scientific agencies. Throughout the war, the important scientific contributions of the Institute were pooled with those of others without thought of reward or even recognition. It is therefore not surprising that they remain unheralded.
Shortly after the end of the war and the termination of the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development, Congress continued an important program of financial assistance to medical research with annual appropriations allocated to teaching institutions and research centers through the Public Health Service. As director, it was Dyer's responsibility to devise the operational organization for the study of hundreds of applications for the support of research from scientific investigators and institutions throughout the country, to evaluate their relative merit and to determine the reasonableness of their financial needs. This was accomplished in part through the creation of a National Advisory Health Council, consisting of eminent experts in the various medical sciences, together with representatives of the research divisions of each of the armed services and other government agencies.
The National Advisory Health Council is, in turn, served by scientific study sections for each of the major divisions of medical research. These study sections, which include some of the best scientific minds in this country with a fair measure of geographic representation, study in detail all applications for grants-in-aid for research projects in their respective fields, and recommend appropriate action to the National Council.
With remarkable efficiency, an extraordinary number of applications have been processed by the staff of the Research Grants Division of the National Institute of Health, and millions of dollars are awarded annually in an effective and impartial manner by this Division to support and stimulate medical research throughout the country and to train hundreds of young investigators under a broad program of fellowships.
Martha Eliot
For administrative achievement in the organization and operation of the Emergency Maternal and Infant Care Program.
For more than two decades, Dr. Martha Eliot has been a courageous and inspiring leader for improvement in standards of medical care for mothers and infants. As director of the Division of Child and Maternal Health, Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, and subsequently as assistant and associate chief of the Bureau, she has been a militant advocate of increasing government participation in the improvement of health services.
The passage of the Social Security Act of 1935 with the allotment of federal funds to the states for the provision of direct services brought new responsibilities and new opportunities. It is impossible to evaluate fully at this time the effect of the new services made possible by these funds upon the health of mothers and children throughout the nation. It is not without significance, however, that during this period maternal and infant mortality rates dropped sharply. One cannot look at these years of achievement without seeing in them a continuing theme, a calm and determined insistence that a better quality of care could and must be available to all mothers and children.
Early in the war, it became apparent that, among the many problems resulting from the dislocation of populations and the development of large military establishments distant from medical centers, medical services for mothers and children were not being maintained at a satisfactory level. This difficulty was further aggravated by the depletion of the limited medical resources of many of these communities, inevitable in a country at war.
The rapidly increasing birth rate associated with the war made increasing demands for obstetrical and pediatric services for the wives and children of servicemen, all too frequently in communities where these services were at a low level. Martha Eliot was quick to recognize the need for new methods to meet these new problems. Funds allocated to the states for general maternal and child hygiene were promptly diverted to meet this emergency need. Out of this beginning grew a nationwide Emergency Maternal and Infant Care program, organized and operated by Dr. Eliot, to provide adequate medical service for the wives and infants of servicemen of the four lowest pay-grades, financed through generous appropriation by Congress.
This huge program was extraordinarily difficult to administer, for the need for quick action did not permit slow and cautious planning or the leisurely arbitration of differences of opinion among the many interested groups. A new pattern for efficient cooperation between government and hospitals and physicians and community agencies was developed, which worked.
As a contribution to the mental health and the morale of the men in the armed forces as well as their families, it made a unique contribution to the success of our war effort. Millions of mothers and babies benefited by the program. Quite possibly, the greatest good that history will attribute to the program will be the demonstration of the possibilities of government cooperation with hospitals and with physicians and nurses in the provision of good medical service.
It is not surprising that other nations and various international groups have called upon Dr. Eliot for advice and counsel. She gives unstintingly of herself, not only for the solution of post-war problems at home, but also through the U.S. Children's Emergency Fund and the World Health Organization, to the problems of the mothers and children of war-ridden countries throughout the world.