Dr. Charles LeMaistre, Who Helped Write 1964 Surgeon General's Cancer Report, Dead at 92

Dr. Charles Aubrey "Mickey" LeMaistre specialized in epidemiology, pulmonary disease and university administration.During his tenure at Dallas' UT Southwestern Medical Center he was a member of the surgeon general's advisory committee that drafted the 1964 landmark report linking smoking to lung and laryngeal cancer in men.LeMaistre died Jan. 28 of natural causes at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he was past president.Services were Friday at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church in Houston. Burial will be in the Texas State Cemetery at 1 p.m. March 7, followed by a 5 p.m. reception at the Headliners Club in Austin."My dad was very much a servant leader," said his son Dr. Fred LeMaistre of Nashville. "He was passionate about bettering the human condition at every level, from the individual all the way to public policy."Fred LeMaistre said he admired his father's ability to instantly recall the names of people and what they did."I think it was because he cared deeply about the people he met," his son said.LeMaistre was undaunted by obstacles to solving a problems and relentless in pursuing answers, his son said.Born in Lockhart, Ala., LeMaistre was 5 when his father died. His mother moved the family to Tuscaloosa, where she thought her six children would have a better chance at a college education."In his early years, he used to follow a couple of physicians around in Tuscaloosa," his son said. "He became deeply interested in what they did and went on house calls with them."LeMaistre graduated from high school in Tuscaloosa and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Alabama, where he was in ROTC. After graduating from there in 1943, he attended medical school at Cornell University.During World War II, LeMaistre served with the Army Reserve Corps at Fort McClellan in Alabama.After the war, he finished his medical degree at Cornell, graduating in 1947. He completed his internship and residency in New York and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Cornell.In 1951, he joined what is now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. He was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, serving as an epidemic intelligence officer. He developed an interested in chest diseases.In 1954, LeMaistre joined the faculty of Emory University School of Medicine, where he worked until coming to Dallas in 1959.  Continue reading...