Walter C. Alvarez
Encyclopedia
- For his grandson, the American geology professor, see Walter AlvarezWalter AlvarezWalter Alvarez is a professor in the Earth and Planetary Science department at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most widely known for the theory that dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid impact, developed in collaboration with his father, Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis...
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Walter Clement Alvarez (1884–June 18, 1978) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
doctor of Spanish
Spanish American
A Spanish American is a citizen or resident of the United States whose ancestors originate from the southwestern European nation of Spain. Spanish Americans are the earliest European American group, with a continuous presence since 1565.-Immigration waves:...
descent. He authored several dozen books on medicine, and wrote Introductions and Forewords for many others.
He was born in San Francisco and spent his childhood in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, where his father was a government physician. In 1910, having received his medical education in Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, he began his practice.
From 1913 to the end of 1925, Alvarez practiced internal medicine in San Francisco and conducted research at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. In 1934 he became Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
(Mayo Foundation) and later served as Consultant in Medicine Emeritus.
His father was Luis F. Alvarez
Luis F. Alvarez
Luis Fernández Álvarez was a Spanish American physician and researcher who practiced in both California and Hawaii.Fernández was actually his principal surname...
, who worked as a doctor in California and Hawaii and developed a method for the better diagnosis of macular leprosy. His sister was California artist and oil painter Mabel Alvarez
Mabel Alvarez
Mabel Alvarez was an American painter. Her works, often introspective and spiritual in nature, and her style is considered a contributing factor to the Southern California Modernism and California Impressionism movement..-Life:She was born to a prominent Spanish family who lived on the island of...
.
Alvarez was married to the former Harriet Skidmore Smythe and the couple had four children: Gladys, Luis
Luis Alvarez
Luis W. Alvarez was an American experimental physicist and inventor, who spent nearly all of his long professional career on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley...
, Robert and Bernice. Luis later became a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning physicist.
His grandson is Walter Alvarez
Walter Alvarez
Walter Alvarez is a professor in the Earth and Planetary Science department at the University of California, Berkeley. He is most widely known for the theory that dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid impact, developed in collaboration with his father, Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis...
, a Professor of Geology at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
Beginning in the 1950, Alvarez began writing a medical column which soon became syndicated throughout North America in hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers. The Walter C. Alvarez Memorial Award is named in his honor and is presented to a member or nonmember of the American Medical Writers Association
American Medical Writers Association
The American Medical Writers Association is the world's leading professional association for medical communicators. AMWA has more than 5,600 members in the United States, Canada, and 26 other countries. AMWA is governed by a board of directors composed of a 14-member executive committee and...
to honor excellence in communicating health care developments and concepts to the public.
Alvarez' syndrome
Alvarez' syndrome
Alvarez' syndrome is a medical disorder in which the abdomen becomes bloated without any obvious reason, such as intestinal gas. It may be caused when the muscles of the superior abdominal wall contract and push the contents of the abdomen inferiorly and anteriorly. It may be a psychogenic...
, a syndrome of hysterical or neurotic abdominal bloating
Bloating
Bloating is any abnormal general swelling, or increase in diameter of the abdominal area. As a symptom, the patient feels a full and tight abdomen, which may cause abdominal pain sometimes accompanied by increased borborygmus or more seriously the total lack of borborygmus.-Symptoms:The most common...
without any excess of gas in the digestive tract, and Alvarez-waves, painless uterine contractions occurring during the length of pregnancy, are named after him.
Alvarez was the first to investigate electric activity of a stomach and, thereby, became the founder of a new diagnostic gastroenterology branch — electrogastrography
Electrogastrogram
An electrogastrogram is a graphic produced by an electrogastrograph, which records the electrical signals that travel through the stomach muscles and control the muscles' contractions...
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His personal papers are held by Lane's Archives and Special Collections.
