David A. Todd, MD (1947)
Background
Dr. David Alfred Todd was born on July 24, 1903 in Austin, Texas to J.D. Todd and Minnie Lucy Renick. He went to school in Corpus Christie but returned to Austin to get a Bachelor of Arts degree at The University of Texas. He married Helen Beissner in Galveston on November 5, 1931. They had two daughters, Jean and Laura.
Dr. Todd died on September 3, 1960 in Rochester, Minnesota following abdominal surgery for regional enteritis and chronic pancreatitis.
Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Todd received his MD degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1930. From 1930 to 1931 he served as a volunteer fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. Then, in 1931, Dr. Todd moved to San Antonio where he worked as pathologist for Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital. He was also a professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio (“UT postgrad school of medicine in San Antonio”)
Dr. Todd entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps in March 1943. He served as chief of laboratory services and chief of pathology to the Fifty-Sixth General Hospital and as laboratory consultant to the Eight Hundred Eighteenth General Hospital Center at Leige, Belgium.
He returned to the U.S. in 1945 and continued his work in pathology in San Antonio. He served as a consultant to the MD Anderson Hospital and Tumor Clinic in Houston, Texas. He continued his work as associate professor of pathology at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
He served as president of the International Medical Assembly of Southwest Texas in 1942. He was also a member of the American Society of Clinical Pathology, the Texas Medical Association, the Bexar County Medical Society, the Southern Medical Association, the Nix Tumor Clinic, the Inter-Society Cytology Council, the Pan-American Cancer Cytology Society, and the Association of Military Surgeons. Additionally, at the time of his death, he was president of the Texas Division of the American Cancer Society
Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Todd was among the charter members of the TSP when the State Pathological Society re-organized in San Antonio on May 16, 1934.
While Dr. Todd was serving overseas during WWII, the TSP sent him a letter acknowledging that if times were normal, Dr. Todd would assume office as president-elect in 1944. He eventually became president of the TSP in 1947.
Notable Publication(s)
Stout, B. F., & Todd, D. A. (1932). Report of a case of primary adenocarcinoma of the pancreas in a 4-year-old child. Texas J Med, 28, 464-467.
Jackson, D., & Todd, D. A. (1934). Sugar Tolerance in Cancer With Reference to Degree of Malignancy, Texas J. Med, 30, 197.
Jackson, D., Todd, D. A., & Gorsuch, P. L. (1951). Study of breast secretion for detection of intramammary pathologic change and of silent papilloma. The Journal of the International College of Surgeons, 15(5), 552-568.