<ul><li><p>In Memoriam </p><p>Philip Levine, 1900-1987 </p><p>Philip Levine, a giant figure in human blood group serology, died on October 19, 1987. This distinguished scientist was born in Kletsk, Russia, on August 10, 1900. He came to the United States with his family at the age of eight and settled in Brooklyn, NY, where he quickly adapted to American life. He was graduated from Boys High School, obtained his Bs from City College of New York (tuition-free at that time), and, in 1923, his MD from Cornell Medical College. He worked every summer to help support himself until after his second year of medical school, when he received a small Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Scholarship. This allowed him to do research with the eminent and cha- rismatic Arthur Coca, founder of American allergy, under whom Levine obtained an additional MA in 1925. In his senior year of medical school, Levine published a report concerning a hypothetically dangerous universal blood donor, this type 0 person was Jennie Mabee, a medical stu- dent who sat next to him in class and whose serum could hemolyze Levine's red cells. Jennie Mabee was undoubtedly a dangerous universal donor because Philip Levine was sub- type A*. Ironically, the report was misinterpreted by some European readers, who thought that Philip Levine had died of a hemolytic transfusion reaction. </p><p>Levine learned much more about human blood types from Karl Landsteiner, under whom he worked at The Rocke- feller Institute from 1925 until 1932. Indeed, Levine became world-famous by the age of 27 for his co-discovery with Landsteiner of the M, N, and P blood types. </p><p>From 1932 until 1935, Levine left blood group serology to work on bacteriophage at the University of Wisconsin, where he published over 20 reports relating phage specificity to the serologically defined Salmonella serotypes. Unfortu- nately, it was several decades before the scientific world could appreciate such sophisticated analysis, and Levine never received adequate credit for this work. </p><p>Levine returned to the New York area in 1935 and until 1944 was transfusionist at the Beth Israel Hospital of Newark, N.J. and also a consultant to the Blood Betterment Association of New York City. In 1939, he published an important report about a patient who hemorrhaged follow- ing delivery of an erythroblastic stillbirth and then suffered a severe hemolytic reaction when transfused with her hus- band's blood. This woman's serum agglutinated her hus- band's red cells and the red cells of 80 percent of blood samples from white subjects in a pattern that differed from those expected of anti-A, -B, -M, -N, or -P. In the following year, Landsteiner and Wiener described rabbit anti-rhesus with its agglutination of 85 percent of blood samples from whites and, on comparing this a little later with the serum of Levine's patient, found not only that the two specificities coincided exactly but also that Levine's serum made a far superior reagent for blood typing. </p><p>With human IgG anti-Rh as yet totally undemonstrable, Levine nevertheless showed in 1941 that at least 90 percent of erythroblastosis fetalis was associated with Rh-negative mothers and Rh-positive fathers. His strong suggestion that </p><p>Rh incompatibility was the major pathogenesis of erythro- blastosis fetalis was enthusiastically received locally, when Levine lectured in 194 1 at the New York Academy of Medi- cine, and internationally by a medical world that had some- times considered erythroblastosis fetalis to be the result of sero-negative syphilis. Rh promptly assumed enormous importance as a clinically potent allogeneic antigen and as a genetic factor that exerted profound evolutionary pressure. Although the latter expectation was not borne out, Rh was the magnetic topic that attracted a significant number of hematologists to meet with Levine in 1946, first in Dallas, TX, and then in Mexico City. These meetings were designed to summarize and up-date the subject of Rh and also to plan for a much larger international hematology meeting in 1948 in Buffalo, NY, where the International Society of Hematol- ogy was formed. </p><p>In 1943, in another remarkable study, Levine demon- strated that ABO incompatibility between an Rh-negative wife and her Rh-positive husband afforded distinct protec- tion against maternal Rh immunization. This observation became the stimulus years later for the development of Rh immune globulin for prevention of maternal Rh immuniza- tion. </p><p>Levine joined the newly established Ortho Research Foundation in Raritan, NJ in 1944, where he founded and developed a major research and reference blood group cen- ter that he directed until his obligatory retirement in 1965. This center was then named the Philip Levine Laboratories, and Levine continued an active emeritus association for an additional 20 years. Levine made many important scientific contributions from these laboratories, including discoveries of s, Mi', and Tja in 195 I , the Bombay-Lewis relationship in 1955, the distinction between LW and Rh in 1961, and Tj' as the specificity of Donath-Landsteiner cold- warm hemo- lysins of paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria in 1963. </p><p>Levine and A.S. Wiener had started out as friends, and it was Levine who brought Wiener to The Rockefeller Institute in 1929 and introduced him to Landsteiner. Later, however, the relationship between them was sadly and unfortunately marred by mutual misunderstanding and antagonism. De- spite this, the two men were joint recipients of seven presti- gious honors: the Lasker Award and the Ward Burdick Award in 1946, the Passano Award in 195 I , the Karl Land- steiner Memorial Award in 1956, the Kennedy Award in 1966, the William Allan Award in 1975, and Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians, Levine in 1973 and Wiener in 1974. Additionally, Levine was elected in 1965 to the National Academy of Sciences. </p><p>Philip Levine is survived by two sons, Mark of Denver, CO, a doctor, and Victor of Madison, WI, and a daughter, Phyllis Klein, of New York City. Philip Levine's wife, Hilda, died in 1975. </p><p>RICHARD E. ROSENFELD, MD Polly Annenberg Levee Hematology Center </p><p>Mount Sinai Medical Center New York, NY </p><p>97 </p></li></ul>