Banker Gives $400,000 to Endow Medical School Heart Disease Chair

New York investment banker Charles E. Merrill has given the University $400,000 to endow a medical school professorship of cardio-vascular and heart diseases, George P. Berry, Dean of the Medical School, announced yesterday.

Merrill, a senior partner in the investment firm of Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, has instituted the professorship in honor of a leading heart specialist, Dr. Samuel A. Levine '10. Levine is a personal friend of Merrill's who, the financier said, "has helped me to a great degree from time to time--indeed, I believe he has saved my life."

When Berry made the announcement of the professorship, he said that Merrill's endowment has made secure Harvard's leadership in the field of heart conditions, "one of the most significant areas of medicine for some time to come."

The name of the holder of the new chair will be announced within a month, Levine said. "I have an idea who the man will be, and I'd endorse him in a minute; but his name is not ready for publication."

Internationally famous as a specialist in diseases of the heart, Levine is the author of the leading text on cardiac disorders, "Clinical Heart Disease," now in its fourth edition.