Melvin David Yahr, MD (1917–2004)

Dr. Melvin David Yahr died of lung cancer on January 1, 2004 and left the world of neurology without one of its giants. Dr. Yahr was a world-renowned expert in Parkinson disease (PD) and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Neurology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He had served as President of the American Neurologic Association and American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, and was Founder and Chairman of the World Federation of Neurology Research Committee on Extrapyramidal Disorders. ⇓ Melvin David Yahr Dr. Yahr was born in New York City and attended New York University for undergraduate and medical studies. He interned and studied neuropsychiatry at the Lenox Hill Hospital between 1943 and 1945 and completed a residency in neurology under the direction of H. Houston Merritt at the Montefiore Hospital in 1948. After a year as a National Research Council Fellow, Dr. Yahr joined the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, where he rose to become the first H. …