Comparative Parasitology 67(2) 2000 - Peru State College

Comp. Parasitol.
67(2), 2000 pp. 261-263
Anniversary Award
The Helminthological Society of Washington
FRANK W. DOUVRES
J. Ralph Lichtenfels, right, presents the 1999 Anniversary Award to Frank W. Douvres
Mr. President, Members and Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, as Chair of the Awards Committee,
I am honored to be able to present, on behalf of the Helminthological Society of Washington, the
1999 Anniversary Award to an outstanding scientist, the world authority on the in vitro cultivation
of nematode parasites of livestock and a friend and mentor to many in our society, Dr. Frank W.
Douvres.
Frank was born to immigrant parents in the Borough of Harlem in New York City, April 16,
1927. He grew up there, speaking Greek at home, and received an outstanding education at Benjamin
Franklin High School, where he graduated in 1943 at the age of 16, ranking third in his
class, just behind his classmate Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Frank's classmates correctly predicted
that Moynihan would go into politics, but they were off the mark when they predicted that Frank
Douvres would become a Russian Commissar. This prediction was based on Frank's outspoken
support for the Russian war effort against Germany in World War II.
Frank completed 2 years of premed at Fordham University in December 1944. He transferred to
the University of Maryland in January 1945, again in premed, but April 12, 1945, just before his
eighteenth birthday, he enlisted in the navy as a hospital corpsman. On learning that Frank had
enlisted, Germany immediately surrendered. Later, when Frank completed basic training, Japan
surrendered!
Frank was discharged from the Navy in 1947 and returned to the University of Maryland, where
he switched his major to microbiology and received his B.S. degree in 1948, before reaching the
age of 20 yr. At the University of Maryland Frank began to meet some really interesting people
who called themselves parasitologists, so he decided to stay and work on a graduate degree. He
was interested in ichthyology and completed his Master of Science degree at Maryland in 1951
after completing a study program that included a survey of the parasites of fish.
The parasitologist at Maryland was William O. Negherbon, who counted among his students
Frank Tromba, T. Bonner Stewart, Conrad Yunker, Will Smith, and Les Costello. Professor Negerbon
was studying rabies and he hired Frank Tromba to collect little brown bats, for which he
paid $2 each. Douvres helped Tromba collect bats and along the way discovered a new stomach
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