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Joseph E. Rall Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MS C 622

Abstract

Scrapbooks, diaries, reprints, speeches, photographs, awards, correspondence, and audiovisual material document with a broad brush Rall's personal life and professional career as a research endocrinologist, scientific director at NIAMD and deputy director for intramural research at NIDDK and NIH.

Dates

  • 1920-2011

Extent

7.64 Linear Feet (10 boxes + map drawer folder)

Creator

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Language of Materials

Collection materials primarily in English

Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access.

Copyright and Re-use Information

Donor's copyrights were transferred to the public domain.

Privacy Information

Archives and manuscript collections may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in any collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications for which the National Library of Medicine assumes no responsibility.

Biographical Note

For over 40 years, Dr. Joseph Edward "Ed" Rall (1920-2008) was a leader in the realm of thyroid hormones, thyroid diseases, and their treatment through the use of radioactive isotopes of iodine. His research at the Mayo Clinic at the University of Minnesota and later at the Memorial Sloan Cancer Center in New York City earned him numerous awards and respect nationwide. His "second act" at the National Institutes of Health was just as important where, as scientific director at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases (NIAMD) and later, as deputy director for intramural research at the renamed National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIADDK), he defined NIH's modern intramural program. In addition to his own research, he recruited and mentored many young scientific investigators both nationally and internationally, several of whom would later earn Nobel Prizes for their work.

Joseph Rall was born February 3, 1940 and raised in Naperville, Illinois, a town outside of Chicago, where his father was president of North Central College (which Rall attended.) He later moved and attended Northwestern University, where he earned his M.S. in 1944, his M.D. in 1945, and an early exposure to research. He was not only an excellent student, but also a teaching assistant in pharmacology and research fellow with Carl Dragstedt, working on the parasympathetic nervous system of the heart and upper gastrointestinal tract. The first five of his published papers were based on that work. He later joined the Mayo Clinic, where he was located until 1950 (excluding a brief period with the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II.)

At the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Rall came under the influence of a group of scientists that started his career in endocrinology and thyroidology. He became involved in some of the very early work on the use of radioactive iodine to study thyroid function. His work earned him a Van Meter Award in 1950 and recruitment to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City where he advanced his work.

In 1955, Rall was recruited to organize and lead a new laboratory, the Clinical Endocrinology Branch, in the newly created National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. Within a few years he assembled one of the world's leading centers for the study of the thyroid gland. Alongside fellow scientist Dr. Jacob "Jack" Robbins (whom he first met at Sloan Kettering), Rall introduced hormone treatment to thwart the development of thyroid nodules and cancer from radiation fallout from atomic bomb testing near the Bikini atoll in the Pacific Ocean. In a landmark scientific paper, "Proteins Associated with the Thyroid Hormones", Rall and Robbins surveyed everything known about thyroid hormones in circulation and the effect of binding proteins on the bioactivity of the hormones, and developed the then revolutionary, now classic, hypothesis that it was the free hormone, only a tiny fraction of the total, that was the active molecule. Their expertise in this area was later sought in other occasions, such as preparation for a possible disaster at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and following the actual catastrophe at the Chernobyl plant in Russia.

By 1962 (after a brief stint abroad in France and England), Dr. Rall was appointed Director of Intramural Research at the NIAMD (later renamed the NIADDK.) The NIADDK soon became one of the largest and most successful intramural programs at NIH. Rall's extraordinary intellect, understanding of all aspects of science, and his administrative skill and personality, helped him recruit some of the best scientific minds in the country and beyond (especially Italy.) Among them were future Nobel Prize winning scientists Marshall Nirenberg, Christian Anfinsen, and Martin Rodbell.

In 1981 Rall was appointed Acting Deputy Director for Science at NIH and became Deputy Director for Intramural Research in 1983. In 1991, he returned to the lab as Senior Scientist and Scientist Emeritus.

In addition to his central role at NIH, Rall was an active and influential participant in the wider scientific community for many years. Besides his numerous research publications, he was a valued lecturer and contributor to scholarly reviews and textbooks. Among his varied activities, he has served as President of the American Thyroid Association and Editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and of Hormone and Metabolic Research. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the National Academy of Sciences, and multiple honorary degrees at institutions both nationally and internationally.

Outside of work, Rall was a warm and inviting man, who had an excellent command of the English language in both writing and speaking, enjoyed sailing, skiing, skating, and tennis, and loved having parties at a large working farm off the Potomac river that he shared with Dr. Robbins and a few other scientists.

Rall passed away February 28, 2008 at the age of 88.

Collection Summary

Scrapbooks, diaries, reprints, speeches, photographs, awards, correspondence, and audiovisual material (1920-2011, bulk 1960-1990; 8 linear feet + oversize and one map drawer) document with a broad brush Rall's personal life and professional career. While Rall was an important figure first as an expert in thyroid diseases, and later as someone who helped define the National Institutes of Health (NIH) modern intramural research program, the collection contains little primary source scientific documentation of his research on the effects of radiation fallout from the Bikini atoll bomb testing in the 1950s and later at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Dr. Rall's earlier work at the Mayo Clinic and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is also represented.

Dr. Rall's personal life is widely, though perhaps not deeply, chronicled in Series 1: Personal and Biographical in family scrapbooks and travel diaries, a few albums in Series 5: Photographs, and a collection of home movies in Series 7: Audiovisual Materials. Some of the scrapbooks are correspondence-based -- often called "round robins" as the letters were addressed to the family at- large and circulated round-robin -- while others are photograph and memorabilia-based. There are also scrapbooks dedicated to Rall's brother, Dr. David Platt Rall, who directed the National Institute of Environmental Health Science from 1971-1990 and was Assistant U.S. Surgeon General for a time. Both the travel diaries and home movies cover the extensive national and international travel Rall and his family took both personally and professionally. The many honors and awards he received are captured in Series 6: Awards and Certificates.

Outside of his comprehensive collection of writings and manuscripts in Series 4: Writings and Publications, there is limited material on his thyroid research although there are digital files (mostly photographs) in Series 8: Digital Photographs and Document Surrogates that include images of his field and lab research, page-by-page photographs of his lab reports and notebooks as well as images of his tools and other artifacts. Donor Priscilla Rall retained the original materials represented by these digital copies. Series 8 also includes images throughout his life including his stint in the military and at NIH, and images of his brother David.

Dr. Rall's administrative life at NIH is reflected in Series 2: Scientist and Administrator, which includes his calendars, maps related to his thyroid research, clippings, and professional events he attended. It is also covered in Series 3: Speeches and Lectures, many of which are from 1980s and cover biomedical research in general rather than his own personal research.

Abstract

Scrapbooks, diaries, reprints, speeches, photographs, awards, correspondence, and audiovisual material document with a broad brush Rall's personal life and professional career as a research endocrinologist, scientific director at NIAMD and deputy director for intramural research at NIDDK and NIH.

Physical Location

Materials stored onsite. History of Medicine Division. National Library of Medicine

Provenance

Gift, Priscilla Rall; 11/10/2011, 1/10/2012. Accession #2011-045, 2012-003.

Provenance

Transfer, NIH Office of History, 6/9/2022. Accession #2022-008.

General

Processed by
Greg Pike
Processing Completed
Oct. 2017
Encoded by
Greg Pike
Title
Finding Aid to the Joseph E. Rall Papers, 1920-2011
Status
Unverified Partial Draft
Author
Greg Pike
Date
Oct. 2017
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
Finding aid is written in English
Edition statement
1.0

Collecting Area Details

Part of the Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collection Collecting Area

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