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Leslie Fisher and Theodore M. Brown

Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. Leslie Fisher is a safety/management consultant based in South Delmar, NY.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Theodore M. Brown, PhD, Department of History, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (e-mail: theodore_brown{at}urmc.rochester.edu).

Photographs courtesy of the Archives of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

DONALD BUDD ARMSTRONG AND W. GRAHAM COLE collaborated on their 1949 article just as injury control activities were achieving a higher level of recognition within the American public health community.^1,2 At that time, injury control was still conceived primarily as "accident prevention" and was often understood from a "victim-blaming" perspective. Nonetheless, the field advanced in 1943, when an American Public Health Association (APHA) subcommittee on Accident Prevention surveyed state and local health department accident prevention programs,³ and in 1947, when the US Public Health Service hired its first full-time staff member to work with state health departments on home accident prevention.^4,5 At the November 1948 APHA meeting, Harvard epidemiologist John Gordon reported a study of the distribution and causes of injury events employing the techniques generally used to investigate infectious diseases.⁶ Building on these earlier efforts, Armstrong and Cole’s contribution was an instance of the alliance-building, multi-organizational work increasingly popular in the injury prevention field in the 1940s. It was also an example of the health-promotional activities aggressively pursued in the early 20th century by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.⁷

Armstrong was born in 1886 and graduated from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1912.⁸ He then did graduate work in public health with William T. Sedgwick at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before returning to New York City to head the Bureau of Public Health and Hygiene of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. In 1915, he became director of the Anti-Tuberculosis Demonstration Project in Framingham, Mass, a joint venture of the National Tuberculosis Association and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. At the conclusion of the Framingham Demonstration in 1923, Dr Armstrong joined the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company full-time, working in the health and welfare program then headed by Dr Lee K. Frankel. On Frankel’s death in 1931, Armstrong took over Metropolitan’s program, which included the company’s extensive home nursing service and health education efforts. He eventually became second vice president of the company. He was a pioneer in the use of popular magazines, radio, and motion pictures to promote health and safety. Armstrong was one of the first physicians to identify accidents as a major public health problem. He was the first chair of the APHA’s Committee on Home Accidents and first vice president for home safety of the National Safety Council. Dr Armstrong died in 1968 at the age of 81.

W. Graham Cole was born in 1890 and graduated from the University of Maryland in 1910 with a BS in Civil Engineering. In 1912, he obtained another civil engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cole then went to work for the Baltimore Sewage Commission, where he aided in the development of the first sanitary sewage system of that city. Cole next held successive safety engineering positions at a number of companies, including the Bethlehem Steel Company, the Southern Pine Association, and the American Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company. He also served as secretary of the Washington, DC, Safety Council. Cole joined the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1925, where he directed the accident prevention work of the company while also serving in several national safety roles, including stints with the New York Safety Council, the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety, and the National Safety Council. In 1943, he was appointed assistant secretary of Metropolitan Life. Cole died in 1953, when he either jumped or fell to his death from his eighth-floor apartment.

Acknowledgments

Information and photographs regarding W. Graham Cole provided by Daniel B. May, Metlife Company Archivist (dmay{at}metlife.com).

Accepted for publication December 17, 2003.

References

1. Fisher L. Childhood Injuries—causes, preventive theories and case studies. J Environ Health. 1988;50: 355–360.

2. Waller JA. Reflections on a half century of injury control. Am J Public Health. 1994;84:664–670.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

3. Subcommittee on Accident Prevention, Committee on Administrative Practices, American Public Health Association. Accident prevention, an essential health service. Am J Public Health. 1945;35:216–220.

4. Fisher L. Historical timeline. Inj Control Emerg Health Serv Section Newsletter. 2002:9:5–13.

5. Fisher L. Hard times a coming . . . or just challenging opportunities in injury control. Inj Control Emerg Health Serv Section Newsletter. 2003:10: 13–18.

6. Gordon JE. The epidemiology of accidents. Am J Public Health. 1949; 39:504–515.

7. Rothstein WG. Public Health and the Risk Factor: A History of an Uneven Medical Revolution. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press; 2003:146–173.

8. Donald Budd Armstrong, MD—1886–1968. Am J Public Health. 1968;58:2007–2009.

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