William Holmes Crosby Jr. - Crosby As A Soldier and Physician

Crosby As A Soldier and Physician

In 1936 Crosby entered the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. During his third year, he left school to spend six months on his back, recovering from tuberculosis. He graduated in 1940 and enlisted in the army, beginning a military internship at Walter Reed Army Hospital. After the outbreak of World War II, Crosby served two years at as an instructor in the Army's Medical Field Service School at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. He then requested overseas duty and, in 1942, joined U.S. 85th Infantry Division. During this time Crosby, always seeking a something to study, studied Russian. He would keep vocabulary cards in his helmet. Crosby's battlefield duties resulted in a Bronze Star with an oak leaf cluster. Another cluster was added for his service in Korea.

After the war Crosby returned as an instructor to the Army's Medical Field Service School, now moved to Fort Sam Houston, Texas. From there, he enrolled in an internal medicine residency at Brooke General Hospital where he was put in charge of an over-flow ward. He discovered at that time that there was no hematology support in the state of Texas and thus was forced to engage in an intense self-study course in the field. During a visit by William Dameshek, then a leader in United States hemotology, Crosby so impressed Dameshek in his handling of hematologic patients that the latter contacted the then Surgeon General to request that Crosby be formally trained in hematology. Soon after, Crosby was transferred to Pratt Diagnostic Hospital, which later became the New England Medical Center, as a hematology fellow. In 1950 he went on to the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in London.

Upon his return in 1951, Crosby established both the hematology and oncology specialties at Walter Reed Army Hospital a position he would hold until 1965. It was during this period that he began his long career as medical researcher. He wrote seminal papers in the areas of hematology and iron metabolism. He and his colleagues often served as their own lab rats, voluntarily undergoing such procedures as self-induced iron deficiency anemia, sub-dermal bone transplantation, and consumption of radio-labeled iron.

In the winter of 1952-1953, he volunteered to be sent to Korea. There he directed a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit. At this time he studied and published on various aspects of blood transfusion following injury. It was also during this period he became aware that some of the soldiers coming through the MASH unit may have suffered from Coeliac disease (sprue). In addition he studied methods of blood transfusions and the quality of available blood and concluded that the procedures were safe and effective.

Following Korea, he returned to Walter Reed and established a "Sprue Team" in Puerto Rico to study that tropical disease of the small bowel. With his desire to further understand the condition of the intestine, Crosby developed the Crosby Capsule, a biopsy pod which permitted physicians to non-invasively acquire samples of small intestine tissue. The device is still used with young patients. Hereditary nonspherocytic hemolytic anemia or Crosby’s syndrome was described by Crosby in 1950. As a hematologist he continued in his research in the metabolism of iron, an essential component of red blood cells. This led to the study of the iron-overload disease hemochromatosis. He maintained a lifelong interest in this disease, battling the FDA for years on the advisability of iron-fortification of wheat products as well as increasing medical awareness of the high incidence of what was, until quite recently, thought to be a rare disease.

In 1965, after more than 25 years of service, he retired from the Army to succeed William Dameshek at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. Seven years later he moved on to Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in San Diego, Calif., where he established a training program in hematology-oncology. At this time he was awarded the Legion of Merit by the army.

In 1979, at the age of 65, he was recalled to active duty by the Secretary of the Army. He served another four years at Walter Reed and retired again into private practice in Joplin, Missouri where he spent the rest of his life, continuing to write papers on a variety of subjects. In 1983, Dr. Crosby was invited by the Veterans Administration to become one of 11 professors in its nationwide Distinguished Physicians Program stationed in V.A. Medical Centers throughout the country. He resigned from that post two years later to take up private practice in Joplin, where he would spend his remaining years.

Dr. Crosby authored nearly 500 research papers and served on the editorial boards of 12 medical journals and served on the editorial boards of nine medical journals. He is a laureate of the American College of Physicians. He also served on many committees over the years and was a member of numerous medical organizations.