Lester S. (Lester Snow) King

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1908, Lester Snow King trained first in philosophy at Harvard College and then in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He went on to work in pathology and research, including study in Madrid and London in the mid-1930s, before later serving as a pathologist during World War II.

After the war he built a career in both medicine and writing. He worked in Chicago as a pathologist and teacher, then became a senior editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association. Alongside that work, he developed a strong reputation as a medical historian and also lectured in the history department at the University of Chicago.

King is remembered for books that connect scientific ideas with the wider culture around them, including The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century. He died in Chicago in 2002, leaving behind a body of work valued by readers interested in the long history of medicine.