Edgar Mathias Medlar

Edgar Mathias Medlar was named Acting Head of the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology to fill the vacancy caused by Albert’s leave of absence in 1921. Medlar was a 1913 graduate of Harvard Medical College. He became Hospital Pathologist in Iowa City after leaving a position in Pathology at the University of Tennessee. He held that position for two years. He remained only one year as Acting Head, and resigned to accept a position with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company where he spent the next 25 years. Among other accomplishments, he attained international recognition for his research in tuberculosis. At the time of his death in 1956, at the age of 69, he held the rank of Associate Professor of Pathology at Columbia University.

Frederic W. Mulsow

Frederick W. Mulsow, MD, PhD succeeded Medlar as Acting Head of the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology in 1922. Mulsow was a 1919 graduate of Rush Medical School, who previously had served in the Department of Hygiene and Bacteriology at the University of Chicago. He held the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department during 1921-22 and was promoted to Associate Professor when he became Acting Head. He remained in this position until 1926, but was never confirmed as Department Head, and resigned to enter private practice of Pathology in Cedar Rapids in 1925. He died October 24, 1974, at the age of 81, some years after retiring from practice.

George Henry Hansmann

George Henry (Gus) Hansmann, MD replaced Mulsow as Acting Head of the Department in 1925, and retained that position until 1930 without promotion in rank or confirmation as Head. Hansmann was a native Iowan and 1918 medical graduate of the University of Iowa. After graduation he had spent three years in the Department at Iowa City before accepting a pathology position at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. After two years in Boston he returned to Iowa City. He was listed as Assistant in Pathology in 1923-24 and as Hospital Pathologist in 1924-25.

As the new Acting Head, Hansmann began his tour of duty with the rank of Assistant Professor. His staff was comprised of six associates, none of whom had rank higher than Instructor. The 1926-27 University Catalogue listed the staff members as "Instructor and Demonstrator," and one, Dr. Baldridge, had his major affiliation in Internal Medicine. Only one, Richard Palmer, Instructor in Bacteriology, later attained prominence in Pathology and within the American Medical Association after leaving Iowa City. One new member, Granville A. Bennett, MD, an Iowa Graduate, is listed as Assistant. Granville Bennett was gone the following year, but continued his career in Pathology to later become Head of the Department at the University of Illinois and ultimately Dean of the University of Illinois Medical College.

The process of staff depletion continued for Hansmann, and by 1928-29 his original staff had all left. Only three assistants were listed as supporting staff in the Department. This was to be Hansmann’s last year as Acting Head of the Department. He stayed on as a member for several years after Harry Pratt (H.P.) Smith was brought in from Rochester, New York in 1930 as Professor and Head of the Department of Pathology and Bacteriology.

"Gus" Hansmann left Iowa City in 1933 to join the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., where he attained the rank of Associate Professor of Pathology. He later left Georgetown to become a Staff Pathologist at Milwaukee Children’s Hospital, and died in January, 1949, aged 58. Hansmann was regarded as an excellent Anatomic Pathologist and diagnostician, according to Dr. Warner and others who knew him, and was also said to be an effective teacher. He apparently made enemies among the clinical staff because of his caustic personality, and was not an experimentalist or publisher of papers.

When Hansmann left Iowa City to accept a position at Georgetown, he was accompanied by John Rudolph (Rudy) Schenken, MD, who had been an Instructor in the Iowa City Department. "Rudy" Schenken later joined the faculty of Louisiana State University, where he became Head of the Pathology Department. His next move was to the University of Nebraska, where he again attained Department Head. He became one of the most widely known Pathologists in the country, and was especially influential in Pathology organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Pathologists and the College of American Pathologists, as well as the American Medical Association, and other medical organizations. He died in Omaha, March 6, 1982, at the age of 77.