Martin I. Wilbert and Murray G. Motter, ‘Pioneer’ Drug Dependence Epidemiologists Responsible for Initial USPHS(NIH) Contributions to Our Field

Few scientists or practitioners in our field know about the United States Public Health Service “Laboratory of Hygiene” set up on Staten Island, New York, in 1887 with Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun, Marine Hospital Service physician-bacteriologist, at the helm, and with a scientific staff restricted to medically trained physicians. The history of the US National Institutes of Health traces its roots back to this Hygienic Laboratory and indicates that the laboratory was moved to Washington, D.C., in 1891. In 1902 the laboratory received an appropriation that expanded its mission and allowed employment of non-physician scientists (https://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/index.html)

Photo of JJ Kinyoun as a younger man, and Laboratory of Hygiene colleagues:

[Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)].

Photo of oil portrait of JJ Kinyoun as an older man:

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (US)

 

In the 1902 appropriation, the US Congress allowed the Hygienic Laboratory to expand and include new Divisions, including a Division of Pharmacology. The staffing restriction was removed to permit employment of non-MD scientists as professional staff members (https://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/docs/page_02.html). Two of these scientists were Martin Inventius Wilbert, Phar.D., and Murray Galt Motter, who together became responsible for what appear to be the first US Public Health Service and possibly the first NIH contributions to the epidemiological study of the now-internationally regulated drugs (IRD) formerly mis-labeled as ‘narcotic drugs’ and including compounds as diverse as cocaine, cannabis, and opium.

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This is the earliest of Motter’s contributions I’ve been able to find:

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The earliest of Wilbert’s ‘firsts’ I’ve been able to find:

The elimination of the nostrum traffic, an evident duty of American physicians

 The record of Wilbert’s USPHS/(NIH) ‘firsts’ of this type also appears to be an initial early note in ‘occupational epidemiology’ or ‘occupational toxicology’ which concerning occupational intoxications:

Photo of MI Wilbert as a young adult. This photo accompanied his obituary in 1916, cited below:

Wilbert’s contributions were not limited strictly to pharmacology. They also covered legal issues, preventive medicine, and public health initiatives in the domain of prevention:

JSTOR link to this article from 1916.

D. Burkholder wrote a historical note about Wilbert, and published it in the American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy in 1968.

A Wilbert obituary was written in 1916 by George McCoy, who was then the Director of the laboratory.

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As is regrettably true for some contemporary epidemiologists and practitioners in our field, Wilbert sometimes used hyperbolic language and went ‘over the top’ in a fashion that tends to heap stigma upon affected individuals. Alas!

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