Irving Sherwood Wright, MD Papers

Irving Sherwood Wright was pioneer in the field of cardiovascular disease and blood coagulation and geriatric medicine. He was born in 1901 in New York City and grew up in Bloomfield, NJ. He was a double Cornell graduating from the Ithaca campus in 1923 and the medical college in 1926. His residency training was at the New York Post Graduate Hospital where he continued after his training to become their chairmen of Department of Medicine in 1938. During and after World War II, he served in the US Army as a consultant to the Surgeon General and was also consultant for the US Navy after the war. He organized teams that evaluated the heath of American POWs that had been held by the Japanese. He was also on a commission that assist with rebuilding German and Austrian medical schools after the war.

In 1946, he joined the faculty/attending staff of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He practiced cardiovascular disease and was the chief of the vascular disease division of the Department of Medicine. He eventually achieved the rank of professor of clinical medicine and attending physician. He retired from the medical center in 1968 but remained active in his field. In 1977, the Gladys and Roland Harriman Foundation donated one million dollars to established the Irving Wright Professorship in Geriatric Medicine at Cornell University Medical College, the first endowed geriatric professorship in the country. In 1996, the Irving Sherwood Wright Center on Aging was opened at the medical center. He also served on several community hospitals in New Jersey and New York City.

He conducted pioneer research in the field of cardiovascular medicine with a specialization in anticoagulant therapy and blood coagulation problems. In 1938, he worked with Dr. Charles Best to treat the first US patient with heparin, an experimental anticoagulant at that time. In 1936, he was one of the first physicians to use the anticoagulant, dicumarol. Later in his career, he became interested in geriatric medicine. He wrote numerous speeches and articles in his long career.

He was very active in his field serving in several professional organizations and commissions. Most noteworthy were President Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke; National Heart Council, International Committee on Nomenclature of Blood Clotting Factors, President of American Heart Association, President of American College of Physicians; President of American Geriatric Society; and founding President of American Federation for Aging Research, Trustee of Cornell University, and Physician of the Metropolitan Opera.

He received many honors including the Albert Lasker Award and the Gold Heart Award.

He died on December 8, 1997 at the age of 96.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Irving Wright Biography File, Medical Center Archives of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell