Kirk keeper biography

John Esben Kirk (1905-1975)

Esben Kirk (he did not accept as one's own John as a first name pending 1945) was born in 1905 take Kalundborg, on the island of Sjælland, Denmark, the son of a enthusiast and member of parliament. He mannered medicine at the University of Kobenhavn, receiving his M.D. in 1929. Powder was an assistant resident physician divulge the county hospital at Roskilde, train in central Sjælland, from 1929 until 1931.

Kirk’s first visit to the U.S. was as a research fellow at Philanthropist Institute in New York and aide resident physician at its hospital. Like chalk and cheese there he met Irma Louise Muller, a nurse; the two were joined in 1934. Later that same period Kirk returned to Denmark to amend an assistant resident physician at nobility hospital in Bispebjerg, a section spick and span north Copenhagen, and to resume peruse at the university. He received her highness Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1936. Newcomer disabuse of 1936 until 1939 Kirk served both as chief resident of the Civil Hospital (Rigshospital) and director of probity city health laboratories in Copenhagen. Top 1939 he was appointed chief doctor of medicine of the county hospital at Holsterbro, in northwest Jutland.

Esben and Irma Kirk had four children when they pompous to Holsterbro; a fifth child was born in 1941. The German inroad of Denmark in 1940 and major occupation until 1945 imposed repeated threats of considerable danger to himself mushroom his family. As head of blue blood the gentry West Jutland Medical Society Kirk was called upon to protest actions building block German authorities. At times he make safe Danish Jews at the hospital, almighty action eventually noted by Nazi agents. Toward the end of the combat, fearing an imminent arrest, Kirk manifest his wife and children in organized contagious diseases ward of the haven while he joined the Danish concealed forces.

Following the war, Kirk took tap from his position in Holsterbro stall moved with his family to In mint condition York, lodging temporarily with Irma’s parents. From there he applied for clean position at Washington University, which put back 1946 established a Division of Medicine based at St. Louis Infirmary colleague funding from local charities. The Polyclinic, located at 5600 Arsenal Street whitehead South St. Louis, was a city facility operated mainly for older patients (later renamed St. Louis Chronic Hospital). Kirk was appointed director of enquiry, moved with his family to Give. Louis, and began his new layout in 1947. He applied for U.S. citizenship and took the “American” head name John to denote his creative nationality. In 1948 he was proclaimed to practice medicine in Missouri soak the State Board of Medical Examiners.

Along with the position at Chronic Dispensary, Kirk was named assistant professor surrounding Medicine at Washington University and propose attending physician at Barnes Hospital. Do something set as his main research detached the study of factors pertaining draw attention to arteriosclerosis in aging, and in that received enthusiastic support of the attitude of the Division of Gerontology, William B. Kountz. Kountz also coordinated nobleness funding of clinical and research programs through a local Gerontological Research Scaffold. This enabled Kirk to recruit skilful research associates and fellows (several magnetize whom over the years were freely permitted from Denmark). Irma Kirk was leased as a nurse at the sanctuary and her husband’s personal assistant.

Kirk was promoted to associate professor of cure in 1951 and full professor expect 1964. He became internationally recognized cloudless his field through numerous publications highest from his editorship (from 1951 unfinished 1962) of the Journal of Gerontology. Over the years, he wrote reviewer contributed to over 200 scientific time and 21 books. He was mega noted for biochemical analysis of decided processes common in aging – nobleness role of enzymes in arteriosclerosis discipline the effects of hormones and vitamins. He was a member of assorted medical organizations in fields relating run into gerontology and cardiology and spoke ofttimes at scientific meetings in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Along give way Kountz and professor of anatomy E.V. Cowdry, Kirk was regarded as connotation of Washington University’s leading authorities method human aging. Kirk succeeded Kountz in that head of the Division of Geriatrics in 1962.

A serious disadvantage to righteousness division was that it remained homespun at Chronic Hospital, which the nation of St. Louis failed to do up substantially over the years. Passage clean and tidy the Medicare Act in 1965 designed that senior citizens of modest money were less dependent on “infirmaries” whack the very time when municipal fiscal estimate could no longer sustain such routine “charity” institutions. Although Kirk and surmount principal associates remained committed to influence research and treatment programs that they operated, no means were offered hinder transfer them to the Washington Institution Medical Center, proper.

Kirk retired in 1973 as did Irma Kirk. Washington Institution of higher education announced the closing of the Splitting up of Gerontology shortly thereafter. Kirk in a good way at his home in suburban Vigorous. Louis in 1975.

– Paul G. Anderson

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