author
Charles W. Bodemer
1927–1985
A historian of medicine with a scientist’s training, this University of Washington scholar explored how medical ideas and institutions took shape over time. His work ranges from seventeenth-century embryology to the medical history of the Pacific Northwest.
1 Audiobook
Medical investigation in seventeenth century England
by Charles W. Bodemer, Lester S. (Lester Snow) King
About the author
Born in Denison, Iowa, in 1927, he studied zoology at Pomona College and later earned a Ph.D. in anatomy from Cornell University. Before his academic career, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1944 to 1947, including time in Japan, China, and the South Pacific.
He joined the University of Washington faculty in 1956 and became one of the key figures in building the school’s work in medical history. At UW he founded the Department of Biomedical History in 1967, and he also served as an associate dean in the School of Medicine.
As a writer and historian, he is best known for work on the history of medicine and science, including studies of embryological thought in seventeenth-century England and essays on the development of medicine in the Pacific Northwest. He died in 1985, but his influence continued at the University of Washington through programs and lectureships established in his name.