Francis Gilman Blake

Francis Gilman Blake (22 February 1887–1 February 1952) was an American immunologist. He served as dean of the Yale University School of Medicine, president of the American Association of Immunologists, and physician-in-chief of the Yale–New Haven Hospital.

Early life and family Blake was a native of the small Pennsylvania town of Mansfield Valley. His father, a mining engineer, died when he was three years old. He spent much of his childhood in Massachusetts, where he was an enthusiastic observer of nature; at the age of 15, along with one of his brothers, he submitted an ornithological paper which was published in The Auk in 1902. He received his A.B. from Dartmouth in 1908, after which he spent a year as a tutor to save enough money to pay for his further education. He then enrolled in Harvard Medical School, where he received his MD in 1913. While completing his medical internship at Peter Bent Brigham, he met Dorothy P. Dewey, a nurse; they married in 1916 and had three sons. During his time at Harvard, he acquired a deep interest in infectious diseases and applied microbiology, reflecting the influence of Theobald Smith, who Blake much admired.

Academic career Blake joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1917, and the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in 1919. Also during this time, he accepted a commission with the Medical Reserve Corps, entering as a First Lieutenant in January 1918 and promoting to Captain within three months. He was part of a commission studying the transmission of influenza within army camps, which was a significant problem at the time. He spent 20 months working with Major Russell Cecil at the Army Medical School, primarily on the production and prevention of bacterial pneumonia in monkeys, the result being a series of ten papers in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Some of the notable recipients have included Hal Blumenfeld, Lynn D. Wilson, Robert A. Chase, and Alvan Feinstein.