Death of Telford H. Work, M.D.

[Charles H Calisher]

Telford Work died last night, at home and essentially pain-free.  His health 
had been in serious decline for many months.  Funeral and memorial 
arrangements have not yet been finalized.

For those of you who did not know him, Telford had an outstanding career with 
the Rockefeller Foundation, most notably being the discoverer of Kyasanur 
Forest disease and KFD virus in India.  He described the ecologic interface 
of West Nile and Japanese encephalitis viruses.  Moving to CDC in 1962, he 
was the Director of the Division of Virology, always emphasizing his first 
love, arbovirology.  Under his guidance, studies of Venezuelan equine 
encephalitis in Florida, St. Louis encephalitis, and eastern encephalitis 
were undertaken.  He led the group that showed that California encephalitis 
is an important pediatric disease and that La Crosse virus is widespread in 
the U.S.  He established CDC's W.H.O. Reference Center for Arbovirus 
Reference and Research.  He hired Bernie Fields, Fred Murphy, Brian 
Henderson, Blaine Hollinger and many others and served as our mentor and 
supervisor.  Some of the nice things that Dr. Harold Varmus said about the 
character of Bernie Fields last week could be attributed to Telford's 
influence on Bernie's career and life.

A controversial person with a controversial personality, Telford will be 
missed by those of us who loved him.

Charlie Calisher