Lawson Wilkins: portrait of a pioneer

Excerpt

September 27, 2013 was the 50^th anniversary of Lawson Wilkins’ death. After reading the two articles by his daughter, Betsy McMaster, and his devoted protégée, Claude Migeon, we can’t help but wonder what Dr. Wilkins would have thought if he could see how we practice Pediatric Endocrinology today. Lawson Wilkins was born in 1894, and his father (also a physician) would take him along on his rounds in a horse and buggy. After serving in World War I and graduating from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. Wilkins completed his pediatric residency at Yale and then settled down in his home town of Baltimore to practice general pediatrics. However, he quickly distinguished himself from other practitioners by his insatiable curiosity and careful attention to measurable physical parameters and the information they provided for diagnosis and clinical management. He became renowned for the meticulous graphs and charts that he hand-prepared as illustrated in the famous portrait. (Figure 1) As he studied growth and development of normal children and contrasted these with patterns in children with hypothyroidism, his interest in endocrinologic disorders increased. He developed a relationship with Dr. Edwards Park, Chief of Pediatrics at Hopkins. Dr. Park was eventually able to recruit Dr. Wilkins to a part time and then a full time faculty position. But much of his early work in hypothyroidism was conducted while he was working diligently in his pediatric practice. After giving up his practice in 1946, he devoted himself full time to endocrinology, resulting, with the help of his fellows and associates, in a rapid expansion of scientifically validated knowledge.

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