Arthur T. McCormack
Arthur Thomas McCormack (August 21, 1872 – August 7, 1943) was an American physician best known for serving as the chief public health officer of the Kentucky Department of Health from 1913 to 1943. He was also secretary of the Kentucky Medical Association and editor of the Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association for more than thirty years. He served as president of the American Public Health Association in 1938, the Southern Medical Association in 1940 and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) in 1923. Every year since 1950, the ASTHO has presented the Arthur McCormack award to a distinguished North American public health official. Family Arthur McCormack was the only child of Joseph N. McCormack and Corinne Crenshaw McCormack. Born on a farm in Nelson County, Kentucky, he moved with his parents to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1876. In December 1897, McCormack married Mary Moore Tyler of Christian County, Kentucky. Together, they had four children, three of whom died in childhood. After the couple divorced in 1924, McCormack married Jane Teare Dahlman, former director of the Bureau of Public Health Education with the Kentucky State Board of Health. Education and medical practice After attending public schools in Bowling Green, McCormack graduated from Ogden College in 1892. He spent one year at the University of Virginia before enrolling in the College of Physicians and Surgeons (now Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons). He graduated in 1896 with a degree in medicine and after serving a residency at Paterson Hospital in New Jersey, he returned home to Bowling Green in 1897. He then joined his father's medical practice. The two men later invited Lillian H. South to join the practice and from 1908 to 1912 the three physicians operated St Joseph's hospital, the first hospital in Warren County, Kentucky. McCormack ended his practice of medicine in 1912 as his other professional duties increased in responsibility. Kentucky State Board of Health Joseph McCormack, as secretary of the Kentucky State Board of Health (KSBH) in 1897, appointed his son Arthur as health officer of Warren County, Kentucky as well as chief sanitary inspector for the KSBH. In 1911 the KSBH changed Arthur's title to assistant secretary, which allowed him to be appointed simultaneously as director of the Kentucky program of the Rockefeller Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease. In November 1913, Arthur was elected secretary of the Kentucky State Board of Health upon the resignation of his father, Joseph McCormack. Arthur McCormack oversaw the early 20th century expansion of the Kentucky State Board of Health into what is today the Kentucky Department for Public Health. In 1914, when the United States Public Health Service began a nationwide program for rural sanitation, McCormack assisted in the development of Kentucky's first full-time county health department in Mason County, Kentucky. McCormack took a brief hiatus from his duties at KSBH when he served in Panama during World War I. Upon his return to Kentucky in 1919, he lobbied for the enactment