SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Dr. William “Bill” E. Smith died peacefully with his daughter, Rose, at his side on Feb. 6, 2004, in Santa Monica, Calif. Bill was born Feb. 14, 1914, in Baltimore, Md. He attended the Gilman School and then majored in biology at Princeton University. After earning an M.D. from Johns Hopkins, he was disabled with tuberculosis for two years. He worked in pathology at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. At Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and as associate professor of Industrial Medicine at NYU, he headed tests on animals for carcinogens in refining petroleum. From 1958, Bill served for 25 years as director of Health Research Institute, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ. He and associates reported some of the early experimental evidence for carcinogenicity of asbestos. For lung cancers induced by asbestos in mice, they reported cures by a drug (PCNU) combined with an analog of vitamin A. In 1945 Bill married Elizabeth Hamilton. They had three children. They divorced in 1962. In 1970 he married Marye Collins. Bill and his family spent summers on Mount Desert Island, Maine. After retirement in 1983, he and Marye lived there. She predeceased him as did his sons Austin and Howard; and brother, Edgar ’37. He is survived by daughter, Rosalie; and five grandchildren. Bill had a very active social life on Mount Desert Island which included a very special group of friends and two special friends, Carol Dow and Jane Boschert. An informal memorial service will be held to celebrate his life in late spring.
DR. WILLIAM ‘BILL’ E. SMITH
