A. C. Ivy papers, 1799-1984

Andrew Conway Ivy (1893-1978) was born in Missouri and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1913. He received his M.D. at Rush Medical school in Chicago in 1922 and from 1923-1946 he served as chair of the Physiology and Pharmacology department at Northwestern University. From 1946-1953 Ivy was the vice-president of the University of Illinois in charge of its Chicago colleges. He resigned his vice-presidential position in 1953 amid the controversy over the use of the cancer-fighting drug krebiozen and continued as a professor with the University of Illinois until 1961. Krebiozen was proposed to treat patients with a prognosis of terminal cancer. An American Medical Association study in 1951 determined krebiozen had no value and led to an investigation by Illinois General Assembly in 1953-1955; the drug was banned in 1963. From 1961-1976 Ivy was a research professor with Roosevelt University on the body's mechanisms against canc er and with the Ivy Cancer Research Foundation. Ivy's professional medical research covered nearly all aspect of gastrointestinal physiology and he wrote more than 1500 scientific articles and several books. He also served as a consultant to the Secretary of War on medical war crimes during the Nuremberg trials.