George Huntington Williams (1892–1992): Baltimore's Commissioner of Health

Abstract

GEORGE HUNTINGTON WILLIAMS was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1892. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1915 and his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1919. William Henry Welch, who was one of the founding professors at the School of Medicine as well as a close friend of the Williams family, personally persuaded the young man to make a career in public health.1 Williams entered the first class of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1918, and in 1921 graduated with a doctorate in public health. After graduation, and again with the advantage of Welch's guidance and influence, he worked under Hermann Biggs (a former student of Welch and a friend who was perhaps the most powerful and progressive health reformer of the period) for 10 years as a district state health officer for the New York State Health Department. In 1930, the newly elected mayor of Baltimore, Howard Jackson, decided to begin the search for a new commissioner of health. The city's then commissioner of health, C. Hamson Jones, was elderly and in poor health. Jackson turned to Welch (who had long been grooming Williams for the position) for advice, and their consultation resulted in Williams being given a temporary assignment in the city health department. When Hamson Jones died in 1932, Williams was duly appointed commissioner. In the article excerpted here, he speaks of the challenges he and other health officers faced during the Depression. Williams brought new energy to the job. Whereas some commissioners of health owed their loyalty to a political leader, a party machine, or the economically powerful, Williams owed his loyalty to Welch, who had groomed him; the Hopkins professors who had taught and inspired him; and the example of Biggs, who had shown him what an effective public health organization should be. Williams nurtured good relationships with successive mayors and used the media brilliantly to promote the public's health. He started a weekly health program on a local radio station and began a constant stream of health education messages through leaflets, newspapers, and a popular health department monthly magazine, the Baltimore Health News. By recommending Williams, Welch set the stage for future cooperation between the city Department of Health and the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Williams and Welch selected an area around the school—to be called the Eastern Health District—as a training area for public health students and personnel, and a demonstration unit for developing and testing new public health procedures. The whole enterprise was generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.2 Williams used the Eastern Health District as a testing ground for public health initiatives in the city, such as the development of prenatal care and well-baby clinics, medical care for recipients of public assistance, lead paint abatement, rat control, and rehabilitation of old and dilapidated housing. In 1945, the Eastern Health District was used to help evaluate the new and successful treatment of syphilis by the “miracle drug” penicillin. Williams served as commissioner of health for 30 years and retired in 1962. In 1992, he died in Baltimore, the city he loved, at 99 years of age.