Thomas Turner, 100; Former Dean of Medical School
Thomas Bourne Turner, 100, a former dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died Sunday in Baltimore. The cause of death was not specified.
Turner led the medical school as dean from 1957 to 1968.
During his tenure, the faculty doubled in size and departments were established in biophysics, laboratory animal medicine and biomedical engineering.
The school’s principal auditorium is named after him.
He was also an expert in infectious diseases, including polio. During World War II, he developed the Army’s program to eradicate venereal disease and joined a secret group studying Nazi Germany’s biological warfare capabilities.
Turner came from Calvert County, Md., where his father built riverboat wharves.
He graduated in 1921 from St. John’s College in Annapolis and earned his medical degree at the University of Maryland.
He arrived at Hopkins in 1927 as a postdoctoral fellow in medicine assigned to study syphilis and related diseases.
In 1937, after several years studying other infectious diseases in Haiti and Jamaica, he returned to Johns Hopkins as a professor of microbiology.
He closed his career at Hopkins as its archivist and wrote a history of the school’s medical institutions.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
