Robertson, O. H. (Oswald Hope), 1886-1966

Oswald Hope Robertson was a physician and naturalist. He worked mostly at the Rockefeller Institute, the Peking Union Medical College, and the University of Chicago (Professor of Medicine, 1927-1951). Robertson investigated pneumonia and the disinfection of air with glycol vapors. He also studied the biology of salomonoid fishes. Robertson is acknowledged as the creator of the first blood bank for use in France during World War I.

The pathologist who established the first blood banks, Oswald Hope Robertson was born in Woolwich, England in 1886, and moved to the San Joaquin Valley, California, at the age of two. Following completion of his BS and MS at the University of California, Robertson entered Harvard for his medical degree (1913), and remained in Boston as an intern at Massachusetts General Hospital. From his days as a graduate student, he took an active research interest in haematology, winning a Dalton post-graduate Scholarship to study pernicious anemia, and working under Roger I. Lee on transfusion and clotting. Blood would remain with him throughout his career.

In 1915, Robertson was recruited to the Rockefeller Institute to work under the direction of Peyton Rous. His career at the Rockefeller was to be brief, however. With America's entry into the war in Europe, he enlisted with a medical team from Massachusetts General Hospital to serve with the American and British Expeditionary Forces in France. There, he and J. R. Turner put their knowledge of blood cell survival to use, introducing a citrate and glucose solution that extended the life of blood for several days by preventing clotting and providing nourishment to the cells, respectively. With Rous's input, Robertson and Turner recognized the potential to establish a series of "blood depots," forerunners to the modern blood bank, in which preserved blood was collected from O-positive (universal) donors to store for use in emergency deployment, without the need for verifying blood type of the donee. For his efforts, Robertson, still a British citizen, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order of Great Britain in 1919.

Although Robertson returned to the Rockefeller briefly after the completion of his military obligations, in 1919 he accepted an associate professorship at the newly established Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, later becoming Full Professor (1923-1927) and head of the department. Still hoping to pursue his interest in anemia, medical necessity again called, as he turned to the study of pneumonia and pulmonary infections.

Robertson's work on pneumonia and pulmonary diseases gathered steam after he returned to the United States in 1927. Accepting a position as head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago, Robertson explored the use of glycol vapors as a means of preventing the spread of airborne infection. As it had in 1917, his research brought him to the attention of the military, and with the outbreak of Second World War, earned him a position as the civilian Director of the Commission on Air-Borne Infections (1941-1950). Along with Rous, he was also instrumental in establishing the first civilian blood bank in the United States at the Cook County Hospital. He remained at Chicago until retiring to emeritus status in 1951.

From the 1930s onward, Robertson was increasingly absorbed in projects only distantly related to his medical research. Having begun college intending on a career in biology, and following a holiday to the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming, Robertson indulged his interests in the ecology and physiology of the salmonid fishes. After his retirement from Chicago, he moved to California and took up research on fishes full time, culminating in an important experimental investigation of the salmonid endocrine system, based on the trout and salmon native to the area around Santa Cruz where he had settled.

He died in Santa Cruz on March 23, 1966, leaving his wife, Ruth, and three children.