1947-1948 Ralph Dougall Lillie, USA

IAMM President 1947-1948

Following the completion of his medical training, Ralph Lillie joined the US Public Health Service. From 1925-1960 he was employed in the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington D.C. – the precursor of the National Institutes of Health. The, at the age of 64 1948-1960 he was Chief of the Laboratory of Pathology and Histochemistry, National Institutes of Health. Then, at the age of 64 he was appointed Research Professor of Pathology at the Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans, Louisiana where he worked very productively for the next 19 years in spite of being blind for most of this time. Lillie was the driving force in establishing the new science of histochemistry. This was recognized by his appointment to the first Chair in this discipline, and by his founding of the Histochemistry Society in 1950. He was the founding Editor of the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry and he served in this capacity from 1953-1964.