- Email: [email protected]
Professor Henry Seymour Kaplan, FACR, FRCR
264
CLINICAL RADIOLOGY
Obituary
PROFESSOR HENRY SEYMOUR KAPLAN, FACR, FRCR
Dr Henry Kaplan, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and for 36 years the guiding light of the Department of Radiology at Stanford University, diedon 18 February, aged 65. He was a truly remarkable man of widely varied interests and achievements, with a deep, compassionate commitment both to people and to causes. He was gentle, understanding and considerate with his patients, kind, loyal and demanding with his colleagues and tough and fiercely uncompromising with authority when he wanted to get something done. It was said of him that he drove Deans to despair. He was one of those rare scientific physicians of international repute who are equally at home in the clinic and in the laboratory. He is, of course, best known for his work on Hodgkin's disease, but he discovered the first mouse virus responsible for radiation-induced lymphoma, created one of the great departments of radiation oncology, was a driving force in the campaign to establish his speciality in the United States and fought notable battles to create and maintain the highest standards throughout his own medical school. I first met Hank Kaplan at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, before he went to Stanford, and there saw him delicately tranferring thymuses from one
mouse to another as he worked on radiation induced lymphoma and an associated virus, which should have been named 'The Kaplan Virus'. This work, as it proceeded, would alone have secured his reputation as a notable experimentalist in cancer research, in 1948 he went to Stanford to run the department of radiology and this he did until 1972 when he became Director of the Cancer Biology Research Laboratory, retaining his clinical interest and doing further important work on monoclonal antibodies. More than any other single individual, Henry Kaplan was responsible for the present day success in the treatment of patients with Hodgkin's disease. With his team, particularly Saul R0senberg the Professor of Clinical Oncology, he took this almost invariably fatal disease to a survival rate of over 80%. Their success was largely due to the use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in combination, based on clear concepts of the systemic nature and modes of spread of the disease and backed by the great improvement in drugs and in radiation equipment available. A major factor was the introduction of the linear accelerator, a British invention which Henry Kaplan and Edward Ginzon were the first to develop for clinical use in the United States. Henry Kaplan was immensely hard working; he wrote some 480 papers and eight books, of which the one on Hodgkin's disease is a masterpiece: a comprehensive survey of all aspects of the disorder and its literature, compiled and revised by one man alone. Generations of colleagues and students who were privileged to know and to work with him remember him with gratitude and admiration. Recognition of his work and high personal esteem came to him from around the world. He was the first radiologist to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the only physician to receive the Atoms for Peace Prize and one of the first three recipients of the prestigious Charles F. Kettering Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. He was awarded the Order of Merit from Italy and became a Chevalier of the L6gion d'Honneur of France. The American College of Radiology and the American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology presented him with their gold medals. A complete issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics, containing papers by those who have been associated with him, is shortly to be dedicated to his memory. His passionate commitment to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and his outspoken condemnation of some aspects of official policy were not always sympathetically received by those in authority. He always spoke his mind; he was resolute, formidable and provocative in scientific debate, so that those who wished to disagree with him did well to be properly prepared. Henry Kaplan had a great love for literature, art and music. His home was filled with interesting and beautiful things. His charming wife Lee is well known in Britain where she has long been especially welcome. To her, and to their children Ann and Paul, we extend our deepest sympathy in their sad and untimely loss. David Smithers
CLINICAL RADIOLOGY
Obituary
PROFESSOR HENRY SEYMOUR KAPLAN, FACR, FRCR
Dr Henry Kaplan, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and for 36 years the guiding light of the Department of Radiology at Stanford University, diedon 18 February, aged 65. He was a truly remarkable man of widely varied interests and achievements, with a deep, compassionate commitment both to people and to causes. He was gentle, understanding and considerate with his patients, kind, loyal and demanding with his colleagues and tough and fiercely uncompromising with authority when he wanted to get something done. It was said of him that he drove Deans to despair. He was one of those rare scientific physicians of international repute who are equally at home in the clinic and in the laboratory. He is, of course, best known for his work on Hodgkin's disease, but he discovered the first mouse virus responsible for radiation-induced lymphoma, created one of the great departments of radiation oncology, was a driving force in the campaign to establish his speciality in the United States and fought notable battles to create and maintain the highest standards throughout his own medical school. I first met Hank Kaplan at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, before he went to Stanford, and there saw him delicately tranferring thymuses from one
mouse to another as he worked on radiation induced lymphoma and an associated virus, which should have been named 'The Kaplan Virus'. This work, as it proceeded, would alone have secured his reputation as a notable experimentalist in cancer research, in 1948 he went to Stanford to run the department of radiology and this he did until 1972 when he became Director of the Cancer Biology Research Laboratory, retaining his clinical interest and doing further important work on monoclonal antibodies. More than any other single individual, Henry Kaplan was responsible for the present day success in the treatment of patients with Hodgkin's disease. With his team, particularly Saul R0senberg the Professor of Clinical Oncology, he took this almost invariably fatal disease to a survival rate of over 80%. Their success was largely due to the use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in combination, based on clear concepts of the systemic nature and modes of spread of the disease and backed by the great improvement in drugs and in radiation equipment available. A major factor was the introduction of the linear accelerator, a British invention which Henry Kaplan and Edward Ginzon were the first to develop for clinical use in the United States. Henry Kaplan was immensely hard working; he wrote some 480 papers and eight books, of which the one on Hodgkin's disease is a masterpiece: a comprehensive survey of all aspects of the disorder and its literature, compiled and revised by one man alone. Generations of colleagues and students who were privileged to know and to work with him remember him with gratitude and admiration. Recognition of his work and high personal esteem came to him from around the world. He was the first radiologist to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the only physician to receive the Atoms for Peace Prize and one of the first three recipients of the prestigious Charles F. Kettering Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. He was awarded the Order of Merit from Italy and became a Chevalier of the L6gion d'Honneur of France. The American College of Radiology and the American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology presented him with their gold medals. A complete issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics, containing papers by those who have been associated with him, is shortly to be dedicated to his memory. His passionate commitment to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and his outspoken condemnation of some aspects of official policy were not always sympathetically received by those in authority. He always spoke his mind; he was resolute, formidable and provocative in scientific debate, so that those who wished to disagree with him did well to be properly prepared. Henry Kaplan had a great love for literature, art and music. His home was filled with interesting and beautiful things. His charming wife Lee is well known in Britain where she has long been especially welcome. To her, and to their children Ann and Paul, we extend our deepest sympathy in their sad and untimely loss. David Smithers