are. To help manage his philanthropy, Rockefeller hired the Rev. Frederick T. Gates, whose work with the American Baptist Education Society and the University of Chicago inspired Rockefellers confidence. With the advice of Gates and, after 1897, his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Rockefeller established a series of institutions that are important in the history of American philanthropy, science, and medicine and public health. THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now The Rockefeller University) for the purpose of discovering the causes, manner of prevention, and the cure of disease. From its laboratories have come cures for diseases, and new knowledge and scientific techniques, which have helped to revolutionize medicine, biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and other scientific disciplines. A few of the noted achievements of its scientists are the serum treatment of spinal meningitis and of pneumonia; knowledge of the cause and manner of infection in infantile paralysis; the nature of the virus causing epidemic influenza; blood vessel surgery; a treatment for African sleeping sickness; the first demonstration of the preservation of whole blood for subsequent transfusion; the first demonstration of how nerve cells flow from the brain to other areas of the body; the discovery that a virus can cause cancer in fowl; peptide synthesis; and identification of DNA as the crucial genetic material. THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD (1902-1965) In 1902, Rockefeller established the General Education Board (GEB) for the "promotion of education within the United States of America without the distinction of race, sex or creed. Between 1902 and its dissolution in 1965, the GEB distributed $325 million for the improvement of education at all levels, with emphasis upon higher education, including medical schools. In the South, where there was special need, the...
