Dr. Alexander D. Langmuir; Chief of Epidemiology at CDC

Dr. Alexander D. Langmuir, 83, chief of epidemiology at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 21 years. Langmuir, who served in the post from 1949 to 1970, founded the Atlanta-based CDC’s Epidemiology Intelligence Services, which alerts medical agencies and facilities worldwide to outbreaks of communicable disease. The unit, which helped turn the fledgling Atlanta center into an internationally beneficial federal agency, sent experts anywhere on a moment’s notice to investigate epidemics or unusual clusters of cases. Born in Santa Monica, Langmuir was educated at Harvard, Cornell and Johns Hopkins universities. In his later years, he taught at Emory, Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities. On Monday in Baltimore of kidney cancer.