Miller, Benjamin Frank, 1907-1971

Benjamin F. Miller was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 1907. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering in 1928 and from Harvard Medical School, M.D., in 1933. After interning at the Cornell Medical Center and the New York Hospital, he started a three-year National Research Council Fellowship in Medicine at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1934. In 1937 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago and held that position until 1947. From 1947 to 1950, he was concurrently Research Associate in Medicine at the National Research Council and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the George Washington Medical School, and from 1950 to 1954, Senior Associate Physician at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Lecturer on Medicine at the Harvard Medical School (1952-1954). Miller spent the next ten years, 1954-1963, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, serving as Director of the May Institute for Medical Research as well as Associate Professor of Experimental Medicine. He was appointed Associate Professor of Surgical Research at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 and stayed in that position until his death in 1971.

For many years Miller focused his research on two subjects, cardiovascular diseases and the transplantation of the kidney. He shared the Francis Amory Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his work in initiating research on kidney transplants. He was member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Society for Biological Chemists, Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, Council on Arteriosclerosis of the American Heart Association, Central Society for Clinical Research, and American Society for the Study of Arteriosclerosis.

Miller wrote and compiled a large number of books for general readers on health and medicine. Among his lay medical and health publications are You and Your Doctor (1948), When Doctors are Patients (1952), The Complete Medical Guide (1956), Man and His Body (1960), Modern Medical Encyclopedia (1964), Good Health (1966), Modern Medical Encyclopedia of Baby and Child Care (1966), Family Health Guide and Encyclopedia (1970), Investigating Your Health (1971), and Freedom From Heart Attacks (1972). In addition to medical works, Miller also wrote poems. He published a collection of poems under the title of Poems: Partly Medical in 1978.

Miller expressed much concern for the situation in Middle East. He visited Israel and the neighboring Arab countries in 1969 and was an active member of the American Professors for Peace in the Middle East.