Albert Lasker
Public Service Award
John Grant
For his work as an international statesman of public health, a recognized authority on the problems of preventive medicine and medical care.
For more than 40 years as a public health leader first in China and India and during the post-war years as an international consultant on medical care, John Black Grant has served humanity with distinction and mature understanding.
Born in Ningpo, China, he joined the staff of The Rockefeller Foundation in 1918 and spent almost two decades in the Far East as a key figure in the Peking University Medical College and The Rockefeller Foundation's China program. He recognized early the necessity of raising the standard of living by improvements in agriculture, education, and village administration as a basis for a permanent public health program.
From China, Dr. Grant moved to India to serve as Director of the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, which today plays a major role throughout the Orient. Later he became interested in the crucial problem of providing better medical care in those countries with progressive systems of conventional medicine, surgery and public health. This led him to his present post as technical consultant to the regionalization project in Puerto Rico.
International statesman of public health, a recognized authority on the problems of preventive medicine and medical care, John Grant has exerted tremendous influence on modern health programs in many parts of this world.
Abel Wolman
For his work as a leader of both lay and professional health groups, consultant to industrial companies and advisor to government bodies: his engineering skill and organizational genius contributed much toward achieving a healthier environment for many people.
Over a period of nearly a half century, Abel Wolman has had three distinguished careers: first in public service, second in professional education, and third in statesmanship and world citizenship.
During the 24 years he was on the staff of the Maryland Department of Health, the last 17 of which he served as Chief Engineer, he evolved a progressively broadened concept of environmental hygiene and pioneered in programs that sought to exploit new horizons for public health engineering.
While on the staff of The Johns Hopkins University from 1921 to 1959, when he retired as Professor of Sanitary Engineering, he brought to education the unique admixture of the precision of thinking of the engineer, the breadth of view of the ecologist, the curiosity of the intellectual and the humanity of the citizen.
As a leader of both lay and professional health groups, as consultant to great industrial companies and advisor to government bodies in this and other countries, his engineering skill and organizational genius have contributed much toward achieving a healthier environment for many peoples.
Out of the integration of these unique qualities emerged a wisdom that has been recognized and acclaimed by his peers throughout the world and in the exercise of which he has brought honor to the profession of public health.