Cecil Kent Drinker

Cecil Kent Drinker (March 17, 1887 – April 15, 1956) was an American physiologist, educator, and occupational hygiene expert. He was a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1923 to 1935, and served as Dean from 1935 to 1942.

Along with his wife, Katherine Rotan Drinker, he co-edited the Journal of Industrial Hygiene and conducted research on the impact of industrial contamination on worker safety. He differed from other occupational hygienists in that he conducted laboratory experiments rather than direct examination of the workplace and workers. His studies on the impact of polychlorinated biphenyl exposure at the Halowax Corporation and the Radium Girls at the United States Radium Corporation advanced the field of occupational hygiene and improved worker health.

Early life and education

Drinker was born March 17, 1887, in Philadelphia to Henry Sturgis Drinker and Aimee Ernesta Beaux. He was from a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker family and his father was the president of Lehigh University. Cecil graduated from Haverford College with a B.S. degree in 1908 and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School with an M.D. degree in 1913. He did his residency at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He became an expert in the treatment of manganese poisoning in the United States.

Drinker was convinced that the employee's continuous exposure to radium was causing health problems. The company president, Arthur Roeder, disagreed and blamed the health problems on an infection outside of the factory. Roeder threatened to sue when he found out that Drinker planned to publish his findings and Drinker acquiesced. A Harvard School of Public Health colleague, Alice Hamilton, learned that the United States Radium Corporation had submitted a forged version of Drinker's report to the New Jersey Department of Labor with the results altered to show the company in a better light. With this evidence that Roeder had acted in bad faith, Drinker ignored the threat of lawsuit and published his unaltered report.

Drinker suffered from alcoholism and lost his leadership position at Harvard in 1942. He retired in 1948 and lectured at Cornell Medical School from 1948 to 1949. He was interred at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Personal life Drinker married Katherine Rotan Drinker, in 1910, and together they had two children.

Publications Carbon Monoxide Asphyxia, Oxford University Press, 1938 The Clinical Physiology of the Lungs, C.C. Thomas, 1954