Thomas H.G. Aitken  (1913-2007)

OBITUARY: THOMAS H. G. AITKEN A ProMED-mail post ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases Date: Fri 27 Apr 2007 From: Jack Woodall Tommy, as he was known to his numerous friends and colleagues, died in Corning, NY, on 19 May 2007, aged 94. He was born of British parents in [Porterville] California, and held American citizenship. Dr. Aitken obtained his BSc in entomology and zoology and PhD in medical entomology and parasitology from the University of California at Berkeley [1940], joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and was discharged in 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During that time he had served in Puerto Rico, in typhus control in Algeria, Egypt, and during the typhus epidemic in Naples, Italy, and as the Army's Chief Malariologist in the Mediterranean Theater, when he received the Bronze Star for controlling malaria in Corsica (France). In 1946 he joined the staff of the Rockefeller Foundation's (RF) International Health Division, and was assigned to the malaria eradication project in Sardinia, Italy. This succeeded brilliantly, and when he left the island in 1951 he was presented with a unique gold medal from the Sardinian government. In 1954, after a stint at the Rockefeller Foundation Virus Laboratory in New York City, Tommy was assigned to the RF's Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, West Indies, where he spent 12 fruitful years identifying every type of vector arthropod, isolating viruses from them, and carrying out virus transmission experiments with them in the laboratory. He also participated in the investigation of arbovirus outbreaks throughout the Caribbean and neighboring parts of South America. In 1967 he crossed over to the mainland to work at the RF's Belem Virus Laboratory in Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon, where besides continuing the same sort of research and field work that he had been doing in Trinidad, he studied parasitic mites of mammals and birds, and rodent botflies. Belem was where I got to know Tommy, with his wide knowledge and good humor. When the RF withdrew its staff from Belem in 1971, Tommy went to the RF-supported Yale Arbovirus Research Unit (YARU) in New Haven CT, where he continued laboratory work and published important papers on the vector capability of different geographic strains of _Stegomyia_ mosquitoes for yellow fever virus (YFV), and on the transovarial transmission of YFV by them, which explained the long-standing puzzle of the inter-epidemic survival of that virus. Tommy was recognized worldwide for his important contributions to tropical public health, and was counted on as a valued research collaborator and mentor by the faculty and graduate students at the Yale University School of Medicine. The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene presented him with the Richard M. Taylor Award for outstanding contributions to arbovirology throughout his career, and the Hoogstraal Medal for outstanding achievement in medical entomology. Tommy's wife, Virginia, predeceased him. He is survived by 2 sons, Bruce and Brian. -- Jack Woodall, Ph.D. Associate Editor, ProMED-mail

Label Abbreviation	T.H.G. Aitken
Other Names	T.H.G. Aitken

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