1961-1962 Benjamin Castleman

IAP President 1961-1962

Ben Castleman was born in Everett, Massachusetts and graduated MD from Yale University Medical School, 1931 and MD (Honorary) from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 1966. He joined the staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1935 and remained there (for much of the time as Chief of the Department of Pathology) until 1974. In his fourth year of residency, Ben published the classic treatise: ‘The Pathology of the Parathyroid Gland in Hyperparathyroidism’ with Dr. Mallory as his junior author. He continued to elucidate the clinicopathologic features of parathyroid disease until he wrote his final article 38 years later, ‘an analysis of 70 cases of parathyroid carcinoma.’ He wrote the AFIP fascicles on Tumors of the Parathyroid Glands’ and ‘Thymic Tumors.’

Ben became universally known for being Editor of the famous Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital.

These Clinicopathologic conference reports appeared weekly in the New England Journal of Medicine (some 2000 case reports) over a period of 23 years. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, an interviewer asked him to identify the highlight of his distinguished career. He immediately responded, ‘The creation of the Castleman Award at the USCAP meetings for the best research paper of the year by a young pathologist.’ Just 2 weeks before his death, he attended a ceremony establishing the Benjamin Castleman Professorship of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.

Castleman’s ‘Case Records of the Massachusetts General Hospital’ were a feature of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The printed proceedings were made available together with 8 x 35mm transparencies for purchase by interested teachers. Some of these

were distributed free of charge to doctors in underserved countries