University of California: In Memoriam, 1990
Salvatore Pablo Lucia, Medicine; Preventive Medicine; Medical History and Bibliography: San Francisco
| 1901-1984 | |
| Professor Emeritus | |
| Lecturer |
Salvatore P. Lucia, Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine and Medicine, and Lecturer in Medical History and Bibliography, one of the University of California's most distinguished physicians and medical educators, died on March 31, 1984. Dr. Lucia had been a faculty member of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco for 53 years.
Lucia was born in San Francisco, California on March 9, 1901. He matriculated to the University of California, Berkeley, by special examination in 1922, never having attended high school. He received the A.B. degree, with honors, in 1926, and the M.D. from the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco in 1930, first in his class. He interned at the University of Calfornia Hospital and, in 1931 as a National Research Council Fellow in Medicine, was a Research Fellow in Clinical Pediatrics, Instituto Di Clinica Pediatrica, University of Naples, Italy, and Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. These experiences stimulated his later interest in preventive medicine.
Lucia became Instructor in Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco in 1932, and in the ensuing years progressively advanced through the ranks, reaching in 1947 the position of Professor of Medicine, Lecturer in Medical History and Bibliography, and Chairman of the Sub-Division of Preventive Medicine. In 1956, he became Professor of Preventive Medicine and Medicine and Chairman of the newly created Department of Preventive Medicine, a position he held until 1968, when he became Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Epidemiology and International Health. He was a sensitive, warm and supportive father figure to students and to his junior colleagues. His patients literally worshipped him.
Lucia was a “polymath,” with wide ranging interests and curiosity in the fields of medicine, biological, physical and social sciences, medical history, geography, psychology, and music. He was the author of over 200 scientific papers and 8 books on clinical medicine, hematology, immunohematology, and on the medical and social aspects of wine. In 1939, Lucia established the first blood classification laboratory in the Western United States and with his colleagues conducted research on erythroblastosis, hemophilia and other hematologic problems.
Lucia stressed an ecological view of disease and its prevention. He viewed man as a sensitive organism adrift in a social sea, constantly buffeted by biological, chemical, social and psychological forces which tended to break him down. The role of the physician was to appreciate the interplay of these forces on the individual, and by education and the use of specific procedures, to assist him to regain the equilibrium and to adapt. He noted that man was constantly struggling with “the harassing part of his environment to shape it for his benefit,” but he warned that man himself was responsible for much of this harassment by polluting most of his environment with its health consquences. A favorite phrase given to students was “beware of the withering hand of man.” Lucia saw that the duty of the physician was in the preservation of health and the promotion of longevity. He was a pioneer and strong proponent of the Health Promotion and Maintenance examination and was an early advocate of the importance of nutrition teaching in medical schools. In the intellectual environment of the 1940s and 1950s, Lucia's ecologic perspectives were often far ahead of many of his colleagues. Today these views are an integral part of the thinking in epidemiology and preventive medicine.
Lucia received the Sc.D. (Hon.) from the University of Antioquia, Columbia in 1948, the Seal of the State of El Salvador and the Diploma of Honor form the Collegio Medico de El Salvador in 1950, and he was a founder of the University of the Andes in Bogota, Columbia. He was one of the founders of the San Francisco Wine and Food Society in 1935 and the Society of the Medical Friends of Wine in 1939. He was the medical research director of the California Wine Advisory Board, California State Department of Agriculture.
Dr. Lucia is survived by his wife, Marilyn Reed Lucia; sons, Salvatore Pablo Jr. and Daryl; and a brother, George.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb5f59n9gs&brand=oac4
Title: 1990, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: 1990
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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