"1st To Isolate Influenza" Thomas Francis Jr Hand Signed 3X5.5 Card For Sale

Up for sale a VERY RARE!  "1st To Isolate Influenza" Thomas Francis Jr Hand Signed 3X5.5 Card. 

1900 – October 1, 1969) was an American physician, virologist, and epidemiologist. Francis was the first person to isolate influenza virus

in the United States, and in 1940 showed that there are other strains of

influenza, and took part in the development of influenza vaccines. Francis grew up in New Castle in western

Pennsylvania, graduated from New Castle High School in 1917 and Allegheny College on scholarship in 1921, and received

his medical degree from Yale University in 1925. Afterwards he joined an elite

research team at the Rockefeller Institute,

first doing research on vaccines against bacterial pneumonia, later

he took up influenza research. He became the

first American to isolate human flu virus. From 1938 to 1941 he was professor of bacteriology and chair of the department of the New York

University College of Medicine. In 1941 he was appointed director of

the Commission on Influenza of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), a position

which enabled him to take part in the successful development, field trial, and

evaluation of protective influenza vaccines. Later that year Francis received

an invitation from Henry F. Vaughan to

join the newly established School of

Public Health at the University of Michigan. At

the University of Michigan, Francis established a virus laboratory and a

Department of Epidemiology that dealt with a broad range of infectious

diseases. When Jonas Salk came to that

university in 1941 to pursue postgraduate work in virology, Francis was his

mentor and taught him the methodology of vaccine development. During this time

at the University of Michigan, Francis and Salk, along with other researchers,

deliberately infected patients at several Michigan mental institutions with

the influenza virus by spraying the virus into their nasal passages. Salk's work at Michigan ultimately led to his

polio vaccine. In 1947 Francis was awarded one of the first the Henry Sewall

University Professor of Epidemiology. In addition to his work at the School of

Public Health, Francis joined the pediatrics faculty at the University's Medical School. As

director of the University of Michigan Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center,

Francis designed and led an unprecedented $17.5 million nationwide field trial

to test the vaccine. Conducted by a staff of more than 100 people from the

University of Michigan, the year-long trial involved 1.8 million children in

the U.S., Canada, and Finland and an enormous network of

community volunteers. The results of the study were announced in Rackham

Auditorium of the University of Michigan on April 12, 1955, and signaled an era

of hope and success in combating infectious diseases and, more broadly, in the

development of large-scale efforts for the good of society. In 1933, Francis

married Dorothy Packard Otton, and they had two children. He died in 1969

in Ann Arbor, Michigan.