SAMUEL J. KIMURA, MD BY Crowell Beard, MD

SAMUEL J. KIMURA was born in Stockton, California on April 21, 1912. He died in Granada, Spain as the result of a motor accident, on October 15, 1979.

Doctor Kimura was a graduate of the University of California where he received the Bachelor of Arts, the Master of Science (anatomy) and the Doctor of Medicine degrees, the latter in 1941. He interned at Alexian Brothers Hospital in Chicago following which he joined the Army of the United States. He served with the famous Japanese-American 442nd Division in the European theater during World War II.

Following the war, he returned to the University of California Medical School in San Francisco for a residency in ophthalmology under Doctor Frederick C. Cordes. Upon completion of his residency, he joined the faculty of the medical school as a teacher and entered private practice. He served as a member of the National Research Council's atom bomb Casualty Research Committee in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1949 and 1950. He was awarded a Markle scholarship by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation of New York. These scholarships were awarded to young medical faulty members nominated by their schools because of their promise of making significant contributions to medical knowledge.

Doctor Kimura was associated with Doctor Phillips Thygeson and with Doctor Michael J. Hogan in the Department of Ophthalomology and also was associated with the Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalomology at the University of California. His contributions in the fields of uveitis and external diseases were many and are well known. He was ever thinking of and developing new ideas in the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. His contributions to the literature were many. He was also an excellent general ophthalomologist and ophthalmic surgeon. Above all, he was a devoted teacher.

Doctor Kimura became Professor of Ophthalmology in 1962 and Professor Emeritus in 1979. Shortly after his retirement (which never really started) he and his wife, Pearl, embarked on a European trip where Sam presented a talk on uveitis at a meeting at the International Uveitis Study Group in Paris. The Kimuras were involved in an automobile accident near Granada shortly after the meeting and were both seriously injured. Doctor Kimura died ten days after the injury.

Sam was a well rounded person with many interests. The one that most of us remember best was his devotion to fishing. He spent as much time as he could fishing for winter steelhead in the rivers of northern California. He because an expert fly fisherman and usually tied his own flies. Sam could catch fish when most us could not. He knew where to fish, what to use, and how to use it.

Funds have been established at the medical center to perpetuate Doctor Kimura's memory. They will finance a postdoctoral fellowship, a visiting professorship and a lecture at the University of California.

Sam is survived by his wife, Pearl, and by his sister, Mrs. Oscar Rambo. They have the sympathy of all of us who knew him so well. He will be missed by his many friends and by his students, as well as by his patients to whom he gave so much.

Samuel J Kimura