Roswell Park

Roswell Park (1852 to 1914) was an American surgeon and cancer researcher who spent most of his career in Buffalo, New York. Born in Pomfret, Connecticut, he took his medical degree at Northwestern University in 1876 and moved to Buffalo in 1883, where he taught surgery at the University at Buffalo medical school and operated at Buffalo General Hospital. In 1898 he founded the Gratwick Research Laboratory, a laboratory for cancer research, which later grew into the cancer centre that carries his name. Park advanced a parasitic theory of cancer, arguing that the disease was caused by an organism, but the wider medical community was unconvinced because no cancer parasite was ever found. He is also remembered for his part in the care of President William McKinley after the 1901 shooting in Buffalo, when he arrived by special train from an operation at Niagara Falls. He also published a surgical textbook in 1907.