Edward T. Hoak; Investigated Disease

Edward T. Hoak, the Pennsylvania American Legion leader who alerted state health officials to the outbreak of legionnaires’ disease in 1976, has died. He was 67.

Hoak, who retired last month after serving as legion state adjutant for 28 years, died Sunday at Holy Spirit Hospital after suffering a heart attack, his family said.

Hoak was the first to learn that legionnaires who had attended a Philadelphia convention in July, 1976, were falling ill after they returned home.

Shortly after the convention ended, Hoak learned that two legion members, who were 48 and 54 years old, had died and that others were ill. Hoak started investigating and found that more conventioneers had died.

He consulted with state Health Department officials, who issued a statewide alert and put more than 100 people to work tracking down cases and a cause.

The death toll reached 29 and the malady was named legionnaires’ disease. In January, 1977, the federal Centers for Disease Control announced that it had isolated the previously unknown, bacterium-like organism that experts believe was in an air-conditioning cooling tower at the Philadelphia hotel where many legionnaires stayed.