AHS Press Releases

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January 2005

Obituary, Dr. William H. Crosby, Jr. (see text below)

June 1, 2004

June 1, 2004

Championing the Cause (GEORGE SKENE/ORLANDO SENTINEL)

Home-test kit aids early detection of disease
Sandra Thomas knows that, when it comes to your health, knowledge is power. Had her mother known early about the blood disorder she inherited, it would have saved her life.

© Orlando Sentinel, June 1, 2004

November 17, 2000
Iron overload easily cured, often ignored

By Diana Louise Carter
Democrat and Chronicle

March 10, 2000
Irish descendants at higher risk for disease

By John Hejkal
Daily Nebraskan

March 15, 2000
Irish in the Blood

by Colleen Dougher
CityLink

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                                                            January 2005

Obituary - Dr. William H. Crosby Jr.

Dr. William H. Crosby Jr., a retired U.S. Army colonel and a world-renowned hematologist, died Saturday, Jan. 15, 2005, in Joplin, Mo.

Born in 1914 in Wheeling, W.Va., he was the son of W. Holmes and Frances Crosby, an architect and a schoolteacher.

Dr. Crosby was raised in Oil City and graduated from Oil City High School. He received both his A.B. and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1940) on a full scholarship during the Depression years.

Anticipating the United States entry into World War II, Dr. Crosby served his internship in 1941 at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.

Following Pearl Harbor and leading to his overseas deployment, Dr. Crosby served in a number of administrative and training positions at Army posts around the country, including the Army's Medical Field Service School at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Dr. Crosby was then assigned as regimental surgeon of the 338th Infantry Regiment.

As a field surgeon, he soon became acquainted with the horrors of triage, when wounded GIs overwhelmed the Army doctors with their sheer numbers and often-hopeless conditions. His service in Algeria and Italy (1943-1945) included episodes in which he distinguished himself at great personal risk. He was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the first of many career awards.

Following the completion of his specialization training in Boston in the late 1940s with Dr. William Damashek, the dean of American hematology, Dr. Crosby was "seconded" to the Royal Army Medical Corps and spent a year at The Queen Alexandria Military Hospital in London. On returning to Walter Reed, his assignment was to establish hematology, the medical study of the blood, as a specialty in the U.S. Army. Five years later he established a second Army specialty: oncology, the treatment of cancer.

Dr. Crosby was chief of hematology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research from 1951-1965.

In the winter of 1952-53, he was sent to Korea to become director of the Surgical Research Team in the combat zone. Following Korea, he returned to Walter Reed and established a "Sprue Team" in Puerto Rico to study that tropical disease of the small bowel. Dr. Crosby developed the "Crosby Capsule," a biopsy pod which permitted small intestine tissue analysis without intrusive surgery, as well as describing blood diseases like PK Deficiency, known for some time as "Crosby Syndrome." He also began to study the disease hemochromatosis, where the body overloads itself with iron to cause diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, sterility, arthritis, heart failure and other disabilities. He maintained a lifelong interest in this disease.

In 1965, after more than 25 years of service, he retired from the Army to succeed his mentor 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.

In 1979, he was recalled to active duty by the Secretary of the Army. He served another four years at Walter Reed and retired again after 30 years with the Army.

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 more than 500 research papers and served on the editorial boards of 12 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.

He is survived by his wife, Ann; a brother, Forrester "Foss" Crosby, of San Diego, Calif.; a sister, Marian "Krispy" (Crosby) Wolke of Waynesboro, Va.; four sons and their spouses, John and Karen Crosby, of Chesapeake, Va., Dr. Seth and Tally Crosby and children, Abram, Racheal, Samuel, Haley and Shayna, of St. Louis, Mo., David and Daniela Crosby and children, Nadine and Aaron, of Milan, Italy, and Jonathan and Susan (Belau) Crosby and son, Simon Holmes, of San Francisco, Calif.; two daughters and their husbands, Mary Ann (Crosby) and Doug Blankenship and children, Erik and Adam, of Damascus, Md., and Susanna and Jon Perrin and children, Samantha, Jonas and Alexandra, of Tigard, Ore.; a granddaughter, Olivia Crosby, of Rockville, Md.; two stepsons and their spouses, Jeffrey and Lynette Ball