CPP 2/012-05: George Blumstein papers, 1970-1971

Series — Box: 1, Folder: 5

Scope and Contents

This small collection of George Blumstein’s presidential papers dates from 1970 to 1971 and includes memoranda and newsletters sent to College Fellows during Blumstein’s presidency.

Dates

1970-1971

Biographical / Historical

George Blumstein was born in Philadelphia on 26 November 1904, the third child of immigrant parents who arrived from Latvia in their childhood, Aaron Harry Blumstein and Sarah Deborah Lazer. He completed his pre-medical education at Temple University, and then went on to Temple University Medical School, graduating in 1929. After serving an internship at Mt. Sinai Hospital (later to be a part of Albert Einstein Medical Center), Blumstein joined the medical staff of both Mt. Sinai and Temple University Hospital and opened a private office for the practice of medicine. In 1935, he married Molly Goldman, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania; they had one son.

He became an instructor in medicine in 1932, and rose to be a clinical professor of medicine and immunology in 1964. At that time, he also became the chief of the Clinic of Allergy and Immunology at Temple, where he continued to work until 1975, when he became Clinical Professor Emeritus. In 1983 he received Temple's Distinguished Service Faculty Award which reflected the opinions of both faculty and students. Blumstein also attained the rank of attending in medicine and chief of allergy at Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he served as chairman of the Committee on Postgraduate Education.

In 1944 he was elected president of the Philadelphia Allergy Society, and in 1961 president of the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology. Because of his dedicated involvement in all of the educational and structural activities of the Academy, he was given its Distinguished Service Award in 1970, and in March 1990 he posthumously received a Distinguished Clinician Award from the same organization.

Blumstein became a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1949. He was the chairman of the S. Weir Mitchell Associates Committee, which raised the endowment supporting the library's medical periodical collection; more than two hundred journals were endowed by 1967. At that time, he was elected vice-president of the College, and served as its president from 1970-1972. The next fund raising activity in which Dr. Blumstein had a leading role was the Third Century Fund Campaign, which brought together enough money to renovate the Mutter Museum and establish the Francis Clark Wood Institute for the History of Medicine.

In 1983, he became a member of a committee called "Medicine and Society," which initiated a series of lectures for the general public. These were supported by a grant from the Meyer Goldman Foundation, of which he was the executor. Eight lectures were given annually until 1986 on subjects ranging from "Various Perspectives of Aging" to "Health Care: Theirs and Ours," which presented comparisons of our health care system with that of England, China, Scandinavia, and Canada. Many other medical and ethical issues were addressed in various forms, leading to interesting and instructive discussions.

He died in 1989, on his way to medical rounds at Temple University Hospital.

Source: Stupniker, Sonia. “Memoir of George I. Blumstein, 1904-1989.” Transactions and Studies of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia 5, no. 12 (1990): 111-114.