1953-1954 Averill Abraham Liebow, USA (Austria)

IAMM President 1953-1954

Averill Liebow was born 31 March 1911 in Austria and died 31 May 1978 in La Jolla, California.

He received his BS from the College of the City of New York in 1931 and his MD from Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut in 1935. From 1935 – 1968 he had a distinguished career at Yale University School of Medicine, and in 1968 he was appointed Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology, University of California San Diego,

La Jolla, California. He remained in this position until 1975 when he had a fatal stroke while conducting a course in pulmonary pathology. He was one of the leading world experts in pulmonary pathology. He described many new pulmonary entities and authored many of the seminal books on pulmonary diseases. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Averill was part of a team sent to survey the medical consequences of these atomic explosions. His knowledge of shorthand enabled him to keep accurate records, from which he later published a memoir of the assignment.