Allan Macy Butler(I894-I986)

JANE PACHT BRICKMAN

*a;G LLAN MACY BUTLER, academic pediatrician

^ and political activist, was born in Yonkers, New
York, one of eight children of parents descended
from colonial stock. Butler'sfather, George Prentice
Butler, a banker, raised his family in comfort. But-
*e A ler'smaternalgrandfatherhad moved the family from
Long Island to West Virginia, where he ran an oil business that was
eventually forced into the Rockefeller domain. His paternal grand-
father was a lawyer and chancellor of New York University. Benja-
min Butler,Allan Butler'sgreat-grandfather,an author of the New York
State Constitution, servedas U.S. attorneygeneraland secretaryof war.
For five months after graduation from Princeton in 1916, Butler
worked as a bond salesman. In January 1917 he left for England,
where he took a job with the Cunard Steamship Company until he
could join a unit fighting in the world war. Until American entry, he
served in an officers' infantry training corps at Oxford. He became a
second lieutenant (later captain) in the 6th Field Artillery of the
American Expeditionary Force in France. Following the war, he par-
ticipated in the American Relief Administration in Poland. Dis-
charged in July I919, Butler returned to Cunard, serving as opera-
tions manager in New York, where he expected to oversee the
Cunard and New York Central Terminal Corporation under con-
struction in Weehawken, New Jersey. Passage of the high Smoot-
Hartley tariff in I92I and new immigration restrictions derailed
plans for the terminal. Without a job, Butler went to Phillipsburg,
Pennsylvania, to evaluate the charges of antilabor activity made by
the United Mine Workers. For three weeks he mined coal, working
alongside a young boy who had just lost his father in a mining acci-
dent. This experience, along with his relief work in Poland, drove his
decision to become a physician.
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BRICKMAN * ALLAN MACY BUTLER 357
ButlerenteredColumbiaUniversityin i9zi to completeprerequi-
sites in chemistryand biology.In the sameyearhe marriedMabel H.
Churchill, daughter of the American novelist Winston Churchill
(amonghis most popularworkswere The Crisisand RichardCarvel).
Butlermatriculatedat HarvardMedical School in Septemberi9zz,
at twenty-eightthe oldest medicalstudentin Harvardhistoryand the
firstmarriedfather,a statusthat cost him a residencyposition when
he graduatedin i9z6. He worked a year at the RockefellerInstitute
in New York City, leaving to become a tutor in the Departmentof
BiochemicalScienceat Harvard.In Boston, he began working with
Dr.JamesGambleat the Infantsand Children'sHospital.
In I930, Butler moved into an academic line in the pediatrics
departmentat HarvardMedical School, while remaininga clinical
assistantat the Children'sHospital, workingwith Dr. Gamble.Pro-
motions followed; he became assistant professor in I937 and full
professorin I944. In I942 hejoinedtheMassachusetts
GeneralHos-
pital,wherehe becamechiefof the Children'sMedicalService,a posi-
tion he held until his retirementin I960.
Seemingly successful in every aspect, Butler'scareer combined
componentsof clinician,administrator,researcher,teacher,reformer,
civil libertarian,and cold war critic. His researchcenteredon nutri-
tion and metabolic disease. For twenty years Butler and Gamble
collaborated,contributingto understandingthe biochemistryof ill-
ness and electrolytemetabolism-the criticalfunctionof serumelec-
trolytes.He advocatedthe introductionof multipleelectrolytesolu-
tions, especially for infants, to restore the body's normal fluid
balance.
Butlerwas amongthe firstto call attentionto the role of high blood
pressurein kidney disease and to demonstratethe importanceof
potassiumtreatmentfor starvationand dehydration.He developed
methods to determinethe level of sodium and vitamin C in body
fluids and tissues. In the late I930s, he establishedthe Adolescent
EndocrineClinicat Children'sHospital. DuringWorldWarII, Butler
superviseda group of conscientiousobjectorsat MassachusettsGen-
eral, where he led tests of antimalarialsand determinedthe utility of
chloroquine,justwhen quininesuppliesbecamescarce.His studiesof
the nutritionalrequirementsfor survivalled to the recognitionof the
importanceof carbohydratesin preventingketosis.
Butler himself recognizedhis "Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde roles in