Tracy Putnam

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Tracy Jackson Putnam was an American brain scientist and doctor who lived from 1894 to 1975. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Harvard College (graduating in 1915) and Harvard Medical School (1920).

Putnam worked at Boston City Hospital and later at the New York Neurological Institute at Columbia University. He and colleagues helped develop the epilepsy drug phenytoin, known as Dilantin. In 1938, they showed that phenytoin could control seizures without the strong sedative effects of earlier drugs. He rose to directorship at Columbia because of this work, but in 1947 he resigned.

His resignation may have been tied to opposition to Jewish quotas for physicians at the time, and some accounts mention a personal tragedy—the possible death of his daughter Lucy in 1947—which contributed to his decision to leave scientific work.

Putnam also treated Johnny Gunther for a brain tumor; Gunther’s story became well known after his father, John Gunther, wrote about him in Death Be Not Proud (1949).

In research, Putnam and Alexandra Adler studied multiple sclerosis in 1937, using the brain of a person with MS. Their work added to knowledge about how the disease affects the body and its effects are still referenced today.

Earlier in his career, as far back as the 1930s, Putnam proposed that MS might be linked to vascular (blood vessel) issues. This idea was revived many years later in discussions about chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) and MS.

Fun fact: In 1963, he had a small uncredited role as a scientist in the science-fiction film The Slime People.