Dr. Thomas Bourne Turner, dean emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died yesterday afternoon at his Bolton Hill home, where he had lived for nearly 60 years. He was 100.
"He just took a nap and fell asleep," said his daughter Pattie Turner Walker of Ipswich, Mass.
The medical school's dean from 1957 to 1968, he also studied infectious diseases, including polio. During World War II, he played a leading role in the Army's program to eradicate syphilis.
During his stewardship, the size of the medical school's physical plant doubled, the annual operating budget increased 500 percent, the faculty nearly doubled, and biophysics, laboratory animal medicine and biomedical engineering departments were added. The school's principal auditorium at Monument Street and Rutland Avenue is named in his honor.
"He brought a wonderful combination of knowledge of medical science and the charm of Southern Maryland to lead the Johns Hopkins through 11 years of growth and expansion," said Dr. Richard S. Ross, another dean emeritus of the School of Medicine, who lives in Baltimore. "He had a fine sense of humor and could defuse conflicts with a joke. He was a warm counselor, an old-time dean who led by charm and force of personality."
Recalled by colleagues as unaffected, engaging, unpretentious and egalitarian, he once aspired to be a country doctor.
"He was a true citizen of Baltimore and particularly of Baltimore medicine, a gracious person, collegial. Any time you were in his company it was very cheering," said Dr. Paul R. McHugh, Hopkins' former psychiatrist-in-chief and a professor of psychiatry.
"When I and others arrived, he wanted to be sure we understood what a great institution we had joined, an institution he was deeply devoted to. He just took me under his wing to make sure I met all the people in Baltimore medicine -- not only at Hopkins but at the University of Maryland as well," said Dr. McHugh.
"He was a phenomenally important figure in the history of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions," said Dr. Victor A. McKusick, university professor of medical genetics and former physician-in-chief.
"He made history as such an important figure in the institution. He was a very wise person to have around you. He was always very much in evidence."
Humble dreams
Born in Prince Frederick, Dr. Turner grew up in Calvert County, where his father built riverboat wharves, tobacco was king and juleps were properly made with rye whiskey. He traced his ancestry to Commander Robert Brooke, who organized the county in 1654.
Dr. Turner had planned to become a lawyer, but his father reminded him that two of his great-grandfathers had been doctors and that the county needed doctors.
"So I decided to be a doctor," he said in a 1995 Sun interview. "I was always going to be a country doctor in Calvert County. But I never made it back.
After graduating from St. John's College in Annapolis in 1921, he earned his medical degree at the University of Maryland, where he was third in his class. He never applied to the Hopkins medical school.
"I didn't have all the chemistry and physics I needed," he said in 1995. "I'm sure I never would have been accepted at Hopkins."
He arrived at Hopkins in 1927 as one of six postdoctoral fellows in the Department of Medicine. He was assigned to the syphilis unit. Research in syphilis and related diseases became his lifelong specialization.
Dr. Turner's resolve to return to Calvert County as a country doctor was cut off by an assignment to Haiti in 1929 to research yaws, a tropical skin disease. He also did plenty of country doctoring in the poor nation.
In 1932, he went to Jamaica to head a Rockefeller Foundation study of yaws. "The first year I worked very hard," he told a Sun reporter in 1989. "The second not quite so hard. The third year I found myself playing polo most of the time. I thought it was time to come home."
After leaving Jamaica, he was lured to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York for another year by Dr. Wilbur Sawyer, an eminent researcher in yellow fever.
But in 1937, Dr. Turner returned to Hopkins, became professor of microbiology and never again left, except for service with the Army during World War II.
He joined a secret group studying Nazi Germany's biological warfare capabilities, then developed the Army's venereal disease control program. He ended his service as a civil affairs officer in North Africa and Europe.
"I think of myself as an internist with a patient-doctor relationship," he said in 1995. "That's something that's just stayed with me all these years. I never quite gave up my stethoscope. I always thought I might get back to being a country doctor. But I've never made it."
Known to his friends as Tommy, he joined in the Professors' Luncheons on Monday and Thursday. Until the past few years, he regularly attended the Saturday grand rounds, the teaching device pioneered at the Hopkins medical school where specialists or medical experts present and discuss interesting cases of the week with other physicians.
Friends recalled a courtly man, erect in chalk-stripe navy-blue suits -- with vest and gold pocket watch -- and a genial patrician in the style of the amiable Baltimoreans. They said he enjoyed talking with colleagues.
They also recalled him as a cordial host at his Bolton Hill townhouse. In his study on the second floor overlooking Park Avenue, he was often diverting and stimulating during long conversations.
"I'll tell you, I like young people," he said in the 1995 interview. "I spot coming youngsters. I never feel out of place with my grandsons."
In his 1993 Christmas card, he included a list of aphorisms gleaned from his then 91 years. He called it "A Few Things Learned During a Long Life (not necessarily in the order of importance)."
A couple of times a week Dr. Turner visited the 14 West Hamilton Street Club for lunch and part of an afternoon's conversation. A member for more than 60 years, he dropped in regularly on Saturday for a drink and to talk with old friends.
He drank American beer, white wine and Scotch whiskey -- in moderation, two drinks a day. He once wrote a paper suggesting two drinks were good for the constitution.
'I loved it'
Dr. Turner rounded out his career at Hopkins as its archivist. He wrote a history of the medical institutions, Heritage of Excellence: The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, 1914-1947.
He often said, "There's one thing I've never been very good at -- retiring." He last visited his Hopkins office earlier this month.
Several years ago, Dr. Turner looked back on his years in medicine with great satisfaction. "I loved it," he said. "Medicine is just fascinating. It's an enormous umbrella."
Dr. Turner outlived two wives. Anne Parran Somervell Turner, whom he married in 1927, died in 1960. His second wife, Lorna Caithness Levy Turner, died in 1982.
A funeral is being planned.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by another daughter, Anne Turner Pope of New York, N.Y.; a stepdaughter, June Bruxner-Randall of Lyndhurst, England; five grandsons; and seven great-grandchildren.
Sun staff writer Carl Schoettler contributed to this article.
'Things learned'
A few things learned during a long life:
Date what you write. Otherwise, neither you nor anyone else will likely remember whether it was written months or years ago. (Of course, no one may care.)
Almost all soups can be improved by a dash of sherry.
The quality of life and the effort to improve it are what it's all about.
When given a book, thank the giver within 48 hours; otherwise you really will have to read it.
Love, affection and compassion are allied, but not the same. Reciprocated love is rare; cherish and guard it well. Affection supports life's infrastructure; compassion underpins the world.
Hold on to the banisters going down stairs.
By Dr. Thomas B. Turner, September 1993