Postal Service Honors American Thoracic Society Founder by Issuing Dr. Edward Trudeau Stamp on May 12

Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau, who founded the organization that became the American Thoracic Society, will be recognized by the United States Postal Service with the issuance of a Distinguished American stamp on May 12.

In 1905, Dr. Edward Trudeau helped create the American Sanatorium Association to promote the scientific study of tuberculosis through collaboration and dissemination of information. This interest led him to establish an annual scientific meeting for other sanatorium directors.

“As a researcher and clinician, Dr. Trudeau still inspires members of the medical society he founded more than a hundred years ago,” said ATS President David H. Ingbar, reflecting on values fundamental to the organization he now leads. “Dr. Trudeau’s belief that hope comes from compassion and from advances in medical science defines everything we do.”

While the ATS and its members remain leaders in treating and eradicating TB, the Society’s mission and scope of activities encompasses all respiratory diseases, critical care and sleep-related disorders. The ATS has also grown into an international organization. About 28 percent of its more than 15,000 members work outside the United States.

Edward Livingston Trudeau was born to a family of physicians in New York City in 1848. He completed his medical training at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1871. Two years later, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In 1884, Dr. Trudeau started the nation’s first sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in a little red cottage he built in Saranac Lake, New York. He, himself, was infected with the bacterium. Despite his illness, he was engaged in basic science research and developing better ways of treating patients throughout his career. His guiding principal, borrowed from a 15th century folk saying, was “to cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.”

In 1938, the American Sanatorium Association was renamed the American Trudeau Society. In 1960, the organization changed its name to the American Thoracic Society.

Today, the annual meeting started by Dr. Trudeau is widely recognized as the preeminent scientific and clinical meeting in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. This year’s conference, in Toronto, is expect to draw more than 16,000 attendees from around the world and will feature more than 5,600 research presentations.

Attendees at ATS 2008 will be able to purchase several items commemorating the issuance of the stamp, including a mug with the stamp and the ATS logo printed on it, cachets (a collector’s envelope with the Trudeau stamp canceled by the Saranac Lake Post Office) and the stamps themselves in blocks of 20, 10 and 4.