Intended for healthcare professionals

Obituaries

Julius Benjamin Richmond

BMJ 2008; 337 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a1615 (Published 09 September 2008) Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1615
  1. Caroline Richmond

    US surgeon general who founded the head start programme for disadvantaged children

    Julius Richmond worked in the US Office of Economic Opportunity during the Lyndon Johnson administration and later was US surgeon general during the Carter administration. In the first of these posts he inaugurated the head start programme for underprivileged children. In the second he increased public awareness of disease prevention. He authored a 1979 report on the risks of smoking and fought for stronger warnings on cigarette packets. It was said of him—by former US senator Joseph Califano—that “There may have been more famous surgeons general, but there was none more dedicated, tenacious, or courageous.” He was also professor of child health and preventive medicine at Chicago, Syracuse, and Harvard Universities.

    Richmond was born in Chicago, of Russian Jewish origins. He got his BS and MS degrees at Illinois university at Urbana-Champaign, followed by his MD at the University of Illinois Medical School, qualifying in 1939. He spent 18 months as rotating intern at Cook County …

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