Benjamin Paul, founding father of medical anthropology, dead at 94

By Lisa Trei

Benjamin David Paul, a leading anthropologist who introduced the behavioral sciences into medical teaching and research, died May 24 in Atlanta from complications following a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 94.

A memorial service for Paul, who became a professor emeritus in 1976 but lived on campus until 2003, is scheduled for 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, June 13, in the Faculty Club.

Paul joined Stanford's faculty in 1963 as a professor in what was then the Department of Anthropology following a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. From 1963 to 1971, he directed the Program in Medicine and the Behavioral Sciences, and from 1967 to 1971, he oversaw the Department of Anthropology's rapid growth. "He played a major role in helping to build [it] into one of the premiere departments in the country," said his son, Robert A. Paul, dean of Emory University's undergraduate college and also an anthropologist.

Sylvia Yanagisako, professor of cultural and social anthropology, said Paul hired Michelle Rosaldo and Jane Collier, the department's first tenure-track female faculty members. "That had a huge impact," she said. "He moved the department forward at a crucial period. He clearly increased its national stature."

Before coming to Stanford, Paul worked at Harvard University from 1946 to 1962 in a variety of teaching, research and administrative positions related to social anthropology and public health. In 1951, he was invited to start a new program in the School of Public Health that introduced social science methodology to the medical curriculum. "He was the founding father of medical anthropology," his son said. While at Harvard, Paul edited Health, Culture and Community: Case Studies of Public Reactions to Health Programs, a textbook published in 1955 that became influential in the emerging field of medical anthropology. The book is still in print and used by students today.

As an anthropologist, Paul wrote on a variety of subjects in the field of Mayan ethnography, from bone setting and midwifery to coffee production, education and the emergence of an indigenous tradition of painting. According to Paul's son, his best-known and most influential paper, which he co-authored with William J. Demarest, is "The Operation of a Death Squad in San Pedro La Laguna." In the 1988 account, his son said that Paul "used his matchless intimate knowledge of the players to unravel the layers of meaning and motivation in a case of political murder and betrayal" in the Mayan Indian village in highland Guatemala that he first visited in 1941 as a graduate student.

Paul returned to live and work in San Pedro throughout his life, most recently visiting when he was 89 years old. "He was beloved in that town," his son said. "There is a school named after him. When he died there were three days of mourning. A Mass was said at the Roman Catholic church."

Paul was born in Manhattan on Jan. 25, 1911. Soon after his birth, Paul's Jewish immigrant parents moved to Gunnison, Utah, to join an agricultural commune formed under the Homestead Act. Although the group, known as the Clarion Community, collapsed after about two years, Paul's parents remained farmers their whole lives and raised cattle, alfalfa and corn, and later hogs, on a farm in Indiana. Paul's son said his father's rural upbringing explains why he was drawn to the village of San Pedro. "He really loved simplicity," Paul said. "He felt at home there."

Paul earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago in 1938 and 1942, respectively, after attending a two-year "experimental college" program at the University of Wisconsin. He served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946 as a clinical psychologist.

Paul often worked as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, UNESCO, the U.S. Public Health Service and state health departments. He was a former president of the Society for Medical Anthropology. In 1994, the American Anthropological Association honored him with its Distinguished Service Award.

Paul's wife, Lois, a research associate in the Stanford Department of Anthropology, died in 1975. He is survived by his sister, Fannie Zuckerburg of Chicago; his brother, Elias Paul of Phoenix; his son, Robert Paul of Atlanta; his daughter, Janice C. Paul of Ann Arbor, Mich.; two grandchildren and a daughter-in-law.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to a charity of one's choice. Paul's own philanthropy favored groups helping American Indian people and the indigenous people of Guatemala, his son said.

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