Name Eleanor Macdonald | ||
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Eleanor Josephine Macdonald (4 March 1906 – 26 July 2007) was a pioneer American cancer epidemiologist and cancer researcher influenced and mentored by Edwin Bidwell Wilson and Shields Warren. One of the earliest proponents of the idea that cancer was a preventable disease. She established the first cancer registry in the United States in Connecticut.
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Life and times
Eleanor Josephine Macdonald the daughter of Angus Alexander and Catherine Macdonald was born in the Boston suburb of West Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1906. She died in Houston, Texas, in 2007. Angus Alexander, whose family had come from Scotland, was an engineer at A.T. & T. and Catharine Boland Macdonald, whose family were of Anglo-Irish descent was a concert pianist. She attended Radcliffe College and graduated in 1928 with A.B. degrees in music, history of literature, and English. For 4 years following graduation, she performed as a professional cellist.
Epidemiology career
Robert B. Greenough, M.D., chairman of the Cancer Committee in Massachusetts, and friend of the family asked Macdonald for assistance in writing a research paper on cystic mastitis. This led her to become an epidemiologist. Macdonald studied the fundamentals of epidemiology and statistics at Harvard University School of Public Health. At Harvard she worked with Edwin Bidwell Wilson who tutored her in statistical approaches and the Ronald Fisher methods. Macdonald was then appointed as the Epidemiologist in Boston's State Cancer Program at the Division of Adult Hygiene for director Dr. Herbert L. Lombard. She was an early adopter of the new computer technology that became available to researchers. Since about 1930 Macdonald worked with Remington Rand punch cards. From 1940-1948 she worked for the Connecticut State Department of Health as statistician. Then to Memorial Hospital in New York. Macdonald was asked by Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., U.S. Surgeon General to set up a national cancer registry as she had done in Connecticut. In 1948 her work in Connecticut led to publishing the seminal work "The Incidence and Survival in Cancer". After this she went on to M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas.
Her work in New England caught the attention of Dr. R. Lee Clark who recruited her to be the head of the newly created Department of Epidemiology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute. In 1948 she went to Houston to become Professor of Epidemiology at MD Anderson. During her tenure she developed a 200-code (referred to as the anticipatory code) method for transcribing patient charts that provided statistical information to M. D. Anderson's physicians and researchers. In 1982 Macdonald retired from MD Anderson and from 1974 continued to serve as professor emeritus. She died at home in Houston, Texas on 26 July 2007.