Julius H. Comroe, Jr.

Education Julius Hiram Comroe, Jr. was born in York, Pennsylvania. (Both his father Julius H.Comroe and his older brother Bernard Comroe were medical doctors.) In 1931 he graduated first in his class from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1934, he graduated first in his class from the UPenn Medical School with an M.D. degree. He became an intern at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, intending to become a surgeon, but had to give up that goal after he lost one of his eyes to an infection.

Career In 1936 Comroe became an instructor at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. He was promoted to Associate in 1940 and Assistant Professor in 1942. Between 1946 and 1957, Comroe continued to study breathing. With his colleagues, he developed scientific instrumentation and methods for evaluating human respiratory performance under normal conditions, while exercising, and during illness. Many of the pulmonary function tests still used are based on this work. Comroe investigated topics including reflex control of breathing, rate and depth of breathing, and the effects of drugs and oxygen. He and anesthesiologist Robert Dunning Dripps showed that the method of manual artificial respiration used at that time was inefficient, which eventually led to its replacement by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Comroe was a founder of the Institute of Medicine (later National Academy of Medicine). Comroe became a member of the American Physiological Society in 1943, served on its council and committees, and was its president for 1960-1961.

Comroe served on a number of national-level scientific advisory boards, including the National Advisory Heart Council, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Heart Institute, and the National Advisory Mental Health Council. He expressed repeated dissatisfaction with its operations and public statements, and resigned in 1960. Comroe also served on national-level educational committees of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the American Physiological Society.

1961, Member, National Academy of Sciences 1964, Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1968, Honorary Fellow, American College of Cardiology 1968, Research Achievement Award, American Heart Association 1970, Founding Member, Institute of Medicine 1971, Fellow, Royal College of Physicians of London 1974, ACDP Teaching Award, Association of Chairmen of Departments of Physiology 1975, Gold Heart Award of the American Heart Association 1976, Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal, National Academy of Sciences 1977, Harriet P. Dustan Award, American College of Physicians 1977, Ray G. Daggs Award, American Physiological Society 1979, Eugenio Morelli International Award, Accademia dei Lincei 1980, Honorary member, Royal Society of Medicine 1981, Presidential Citation, American College of Cardiology 1984, Honorary member, The Physiological Society (London)