In memoriam

Death of a Giant
John G. Bartlett

The infectious diseases community mourns the death of Dr John Bartlett, who passed away on 19 January at the age of 83.

John graduated from Dartmouth College in 1959 and Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse in 1963. He served in Vietnam. He did his Infectious Disease fellowship at UCLA with Sidney Finegold, where he did pivotal research on anaerobic infections, his major initial research theme. He followed his fellowship with a 6 month period of painting in Paris and was an accomplished artist. He stayed in Los Angeles until 1975, when he joined the caravan led by Sherwood (Sherry) Gorbach to join the legendary Infectious Diseases division at Tufts University in Boston. A new problem had arisen relevant to anaerobic infections. Pseudomembranous colitis was reported to complicate 10% of recipients of clindamycin, the lead new antibiotic for Bacteroides fragilis infection. John led the team which identified Clostridium difficile as the cause and developed the first diagnostic test and treatments. John was travelling the country teaching about his discovery and soliciting stool samples. Clinicians graciously obliged, sending even 24-hour stool collections of diarrheal patients, in paint cans.

In 1980, he moved to Johns Hopkins University to found and head an Infectious Diseases division. He remained at Hopkins, as division chief until 2006. His career took a major twist soon after his arrival, with the advent of HIV/AIDS. John was quick to recognize the magnitude of the issue and quick to respond. He established the first HIV clinic east of San Francisco and was pivotally involved in research and care. There developed a pattern in the succession of issues in which John was involved, of scholarship and national leadership, driven by compassion, guided by intellectual excellence and rigor and enabled by an extraordinary work ethic. Those of us who knew him in Boston, all of us who felt hardworking, had to contend with the model of John, who arrived in the lab around 3 every morning, in order to be with his family for dinner. When a series of his fellow’s animal experiments warranted injections in the middle of the night, he volunteered to do them. After all, he was there anyway.

Over the years, John took on leading roles nationally and internationally in a variety of areas related to infectious diseases, including antimicrobial stewardship and bioterrorism. He served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) in 1999 and was awarded the Society’s highest honour in 2005, the Alexander Fleming Award, for lifetime achievement.

His academic output was prodigious. He was at the cutting edge of any area of which he was involved.

John was a wonderful human being, and most generous to his fellows and faculty and to all who had the good fortune to know him. He will be sorely missed.

Raphael Saginur, MD, FRCPS, FIDSA, FISAC
Tufts ID fellow 1978-80

Photo from John Hopkins University