Interview with Hans Popper, MD, PhD by Albert S. Lyons

Hans Popper, M.D., Ph.D. (1903-1988) was a distinguished hepatologist and a central figure in the twentieth-century history of The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

He was born in Vienna in 1903, and during the 1920s and 1930s he rose quickly through the medical ranks of his native city, working as a research assistant to the pioneering pathologist Dr. Hans Eppinger. In March 1938, as a consequence of the Nazi annexation of Austria, he was dismissed from his post at the University of Vienna. He accepted a research fellowship in pathology at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where he quickly distinguished himself. In 1943 he was appointed Director of Pathology at the hospital; later that year he became a United States citizen. He continued an active research program in addition to his administrative duties, helping to establish the Hektoen Institute for Medical Research, and in 1944 he was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois with a dissertation on the use of fluorescence microscopy to study Vitamin A.

During the Second World War he served in the U.S. Army as a surgical pathologist, eventually rising to the rank of Major. In 1950 he helped convene the first conference of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, which he would serve as President in 1962, and in 1958 he became a founder of the International Association for the Study of the Liver, which he served as President the following year. In 1957, he was recruited to succeed Dr. Paul Klemperer as chief pathologist at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He would spend the rest of his career at Mount Sinai and would contribute greatly to the growth and development of the institution.

In 1967 he was elected President of the Medical Board. He was a major proponent of the creation of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which was chartered in 1963 and admitted its first cohort of students in 1968. In 1965 he was appointed the school's first Dean for Academic Affairs, and in 1968 he was invested as the first Irene Heinz Given and John Laporte Given Chairman and Professor of Pathology. Dr. Popper was intimately involved with all aspects of the School of Medicine, which he saw as a place to advance the teaching of medicine by training students who were simultaneously well-rounded and specialized. During this period he published extensively on his vision of the modern medical curriculum and its implementation at Mount Sinai, including an important article outlining what came to be known as the Mount Sinai Concept of medical education. With the unexpected death of Dr. George James on March 19, 1972, Dr. Popper became interim President of The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Acting Dean of the School of Medicine, serving for a year prior to the recruitment of Dr. Thomas Chalmers as a permanent successor to Dean James.

In 1973 Dr. Popper retired from teaching and administration. He spent that year in Bethesda, Maryland as a Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, which gave him an opportunity to reinvigorate his love of research. For the remaining fifteen years of his life he devoted himself to liver research, spending 70-hour weeks in the lab and becoming, in his own words, "a general practitioner of the human liver." During this period he kept up an extensive schedule of travel and correspondence, presenting at nearly every major hepatological conference and corresponding with his colleagues at other institutions, who would often send him slide samples and case reports for his comments. In 1977 he was invested as Mount Sinai's first Gustave Levy Distinguished Service Professor. Over the course of his career, Dr. Popper published over 800 scientific papers and wrote 28 books. He passed away in 1988.

A native of New York City, Albert S. Lyons was born in 1912 and graduated from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1936. After completing a two-year surgical internship at Beth Israel Hospital, he trained as a surgical resident at Mount Sinai under the tutelage of Dr. John Garlock. He went on to a long career as a surgeon at Mount Sinai, serving as Chief of the Intestinal Rehabilitation Clinic at The Mount Sinai Hospital and as Clinical Professor of Surgery at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He also maintained a private practice and served as an attending surgeon at several other hospitals, including the Cabrini Medical Center from 1955 to 1978 and the Elmhurst City Hospital from 1966 to 1984.

As Chief of the Intestinal Rehabilitation Clinic, Dr. Lyons played a major role in the establishment of patient self-help groups to help surgical patients cope with the challenges of life after surgery. In 1951 he helped a group of ileostomy patients at Mount Sinai organize a club to boost morale and help one another; nicknamed the “QT Club” after the letters of the surgical wards where patients recovered after their ostomies, the group proved a success, and in 1952 Dr. Lyons published an article on the club in the Journal of the American Medical Association that inspired the formation of similar groups throughout the United States. In 1963, representatives of ostomate self-help groups from across the U.S. and Canada met for the founding convention of the United Ostomy Association (UOA). Dr. Lyons served for many years as the UOA’s Medical Advisor, and when an International Ostomy Association (IOA) was formed in 1978, he served as a member of its medical board. In 1983 he was the first recipient of the Archie Vinitsky Award, the IOA’s highest honor. Throughout his life he gave generously of his time to help ostomy groups across North America and the world.

Dr. Lyons was active in many regional and national professional associations. He was a founding member of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, a Governor of the New York Area of the American College of Gastroenterology, and an active member of the New York Surgical Society. He served from 1963 to 1971 as Chairman of the Public Relations Committee of the New York County Medical Society, from 1971 to 1973 as the Society’s Assistant Secretary, and from 1973 to 1978 as its Secretary. In the early 1970s he chaired the New York State Medical Society’s Ad Hoc Committee to Study Professional Medical Liability Insurance, and in the late 1970s he was active in the American Cancer Society as Chairman of the New York Division’s Committee on Rehabilitation and Service. He was also an active member of the Physicians’ Wine Appreciation Society.

In addition to his surgical and professional accomplishments, Dr. Lyons was a passionate scholar of the history of medicine. During the early years of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine he was an active advocate of a strong role for history in the medical curriculum. He taught seminars in medical history and arranged a regular lecture series that brought many distinguished medical historians to the Mount Sinai campus. He served for many years as President of the Medical Archivists of New York and was President from 1970 to 1972 of the Friends of the Rare Book Room at The New York Academy of Medicine. His involvement with medical history led him to an engagement with the broader historical profession; he was a founding member of the Oral History Association and served as Chairman of its Nominating Committee. In 1978 he published a lavishly illustrated volume, Medicine: An Illustrated History (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishing), which brought together the work of many scholars to create a comprehensive history of medicine from ancient times to the present.

Dr. Lyons’s interest in medical history led him to establish the Mount Sinai Archives in 1966 so that the history of the Hospital (and, later, of the Medical School) could be preserved for future generations. In 1986 he obtained the approval of the President of Mount Sinai to hire a professional archivist and establish the Archives on a formal basis within the Levy Library.

Following the success of Medicine: An Illustrated History, Dr. Lyons turned his attention to other historical subjects. His interest in pre-scientific methods of medical prognosis led to a broader interest in the enduring human desire to know the future, inspiring him to carry out an extensive study of pre-modern fortunetelling methods such as tarot cards and astrology. In 1991 he published Predicting The Future: An Illustrated History and Guide to the Techniques, a lavish volume in the same format as his previous book on medicine. In correspondence with his agent at Harry N. Abrams Publishing he proposed an ambitious series of illustrated historical volumes covering all the major milestones of human life, including birth, childhood, marriage and death; although none of these books were completed, he accumulated an extensive collection of reference material on these subjects.

After his retirement from surgery, Dr. Lyons stayed active in medicine by working as a reviewer of workmen’s compensation cases while continuing to pursue his interest in history and the Archives. In 1974 he was awarded the Jacobi Medallion by the Associated Alumni of Mount Sinai, which he had served as President in 1969-1970, for his dedication to the Hospital and the School of Medicine. He died in 2006 after over 60 years of service to Mount Sinai.