_James Demarest Richmond _
_Albert Arthur Richmond _|
| |_Alice Genevra Flinn _____
|
|--Albert Marion Richmond
|
| _John Marion Durham ______
|_Della Beryl Durham _____|
|_Harriet Anne Walker _____
Albert Marion Richmond was born in Cottage Grove, Oregon, on April 14th, 1906, to a family most of whose members had settled in Kansas after the Civil War and had moved to Oregon in the early 1880šs because of the very severe drought in the Midwest. He attended the public schools in Cottage Grove, and graduated from the University of Oregon (at Eugene) in 1928. His medical education at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, was followed by a rotating internship at St. Louis City Hospital. After a brief attempt at general practice in western Oregon in the depth of the Depression, he passed the competitive examination for the US Army Medical Corps, graduated from the Medical Field Service School (then at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania) and was commissioned in 1934. Stationed first at Vancouver Barracks in Washington state, he provided medical care for a time to members of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Service with artillery units at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was followed by a tour in Hawai'i. A varsity heavyweight boxer in college, he was much in demand as a highly knowledgeable ring surgeon at Army boxing matches. It was in Hawai'i that he began the study of anatomic and clinical pathology. He did not however witness the battle of Pearl Harbor, having been transferred to Fort Devens, Massachusetts in August 1941. Not long after Americašs entry into World War II he shipped out to Australia, where he assumed command of the Fifth Medical Laboratory. This unit moved to the northeast coast of New Guinea, where their mission was the investigation of potential tropical disease threats to the health of American troops. A severe attack of infectious hepatitis forced his return to the US, where after several months he organized the 242nd General Hospital (see a history of this unit on Robert S. Richmond's Web site 1999), commanding the unit at Sissone in France, where they received casualties from the Battle of the Bulge. During this time he worked with General James Gavin. Immediately after VJ day he enrolled at Harvard School of Public Health, where he received the degree of Master of Public Health, with distinction, in 1946. After service at Fort McPherson near Atlanta he finally was able to begin a residency in pathology at Brooke General Hospital in 1948, and was chief resident there in 1950. After his residency he commanded the Fourth Army Area Laboratory at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and was promoted to full colonel during that time. In 1953 he was transferred to Germany to command the Fourth Medical Field Laboratory (later USAREUR Medical Laboratory) at Landstuhl, where for eight months he commanded Landstuhl Army Medical Center. During that time he was also Consultant in Pathology for USAREUR, and in that capacity was able to bring the eminent surgical pathologist Lauren Ackerman from Washington University as a guest consultant. During this time he published a paper on the prevalence of errors in field blood typing that attracted considerable attention from a number of workers engaged in blood typing studies under field conditions. This paper had the dubious distinction of being abstracted in the old Confidential magazine under the title "Death on a Dog Tag". With retirement from the Army in 1955, Dr. Richmond entered the private practice of pathology at the Nix Memorial Hospital in San Antonio, where he became the owner and director of laboratories in 1960. He retired from medical practice in 1978. Dr. Richmond was a Fellow Emeritus of the College of American Pathologists and of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, and a member of the American Medical Association, the Texas Medical Association, and the Bexar County Medical Association. He was a Freemason and a member of Alzafar Temple, AAONMS. His first wife, Alice Evelyn Southwick Richmond, of Portland, Oregon, died in 1981. His second wife, Betty Jones Pettit Richmond, survived him, dying December 31st, 1996. He had a son, a daughter, and three granddaughters. Dr. Richmond died in San Antonio, Texas, June 3rd, 1993.
Bibliography:
Adrenal insufficiency in infancy: a clinical classification, review, and report of a case. Geppert Leo J, Spencer William A, Richmond Albert M. (Pediatric service and pathology service, Brooke General Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, Texas). The Journal of Pediatrics 1950:37;1-22.
Evaluation of serum potassium levels. Webster JH, Neff J, Schiaffino SS, Richmond AM. The American Journal of Clinical Pathology 1952:22;833-842.
contributor to articles on brucellosis, plague, and tularemia in Mackie, Thos. T., Hunter, George W., and Worth, C. Brooke. A Manual of Tropical Medicine. W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia. 2nd ed., 1954.
Richmond, Albert M.; Chorpenning, Frank W.; Moose, John W.; Edmonson, George B. Blood grouping discrepancies. U.S. Armed Forces Medical Journal 1955:6;850-8.