Doctor dedicated to lung-cancer fight

Dr. William Weiss, 87, of East Falls, a physician who was involved in cancer research, died of a stroke Thursday at Roxborough Memorial Hospital.

For almost 20 years, Dr. Weiss was involved in the Pulmonary Neoplasm Research Project in Philadelphia. The project began in the 1950s with more than 6,000 male volunteers who agreed to have a chest X-ray every six months.

"It was hoped," Dr. Weiss told a reporter in 1973, "that we could pick up cancer earlier and cure more patients. But it didn't work out this way. By the time lung cancer shows up on an X-ray, it usually has progressed beyond the curable stage."

"He wasn't just a lung specialist," said Lee Greenspon, a pulmonologist at Lankenau Hospital. "He was an admired senior epidemiologist. He used statistical evidence to understand findings."

In the 1960s, Dr. Weiss researched so-called safer cigarettes. He found that paramecia (single-cell organisms used in research) exposed to tobacco filtered through water or charcoal lived longer than those exposed to filterless tobacco, but died nevertheless. And lettuce cigarettes were as hard on the lungs as those made of tobacco.

A significant part of his research involved examining working conditions.

In 1973, he cowrote a landmark article in the New England Journal of Medicine presenting scientific evidence that workers exposed to chloromethyl ether were at risk for developing small-cell cancer.

The chemical was widely use to make several types of polymers, resins and textiles. Now it is highly restricted.

In an Inquirer article in 1980, he expressed concern that "poorly informed lay advisers" were telling workers of dangers in the workplace that had not been adequately researched.

"Unfortunately," he said, "there are large gaps in the knowledge of work-related diseases, particularly since many toxic substances now in use are new."

A native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Weiss graduated from Overbrook High School in 1937. Though a talented violinist, he chose to follow in the footsteps of his father, William, a doctor.

He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in three years, then a Penn medical degree in 1944. He completed an internship at Chester Hospital and a residency in pathology at Penn.

After his father died in 1946, Dr. Weiss briefly took over his practice in West Philadelphia but decided he preferred research.

After residencies in internal medicine and in pulmonology in New York and California, he joined Philadelphia General Hospital in 1950 as director of the pulmonary disease service, his daughter Winifred said. His 24-year career at the hospital was interrupted from 1953 to 1955 by his service in the Air Force at Baker Air Force Base in California.

Dr. Weiss, who wrote more than 200 medical articles, compiled amusing stories about his experience as a military physician in Khaki in a Long White Coat, a book he self-published in 2002.

For more than 30 years, he was a professor at the former Medical College of Pennsylvania. He was on the staff of Hahnemann University's medical college from 1966 until 1984, when he was named professor emeritus. He also lectured at Temple University's School of Pharmacy and Penn's School of Nursing.

He received many professional awards, including the Strittmatter Gold Medal from the Philadelphia County Medical Society in 1991.

Dr. Weiss enjoyed photography, gardening - especially growing dahlias - and playing the violin for family and friends.

In addition to his daughter Winifred, he is survived by a son, Seth; another daughter, Deborah; four grandchildren; and a sister. His wife of 49 years, Esther Sabul Weiss, died in 1990.

The funeral and burial were private.

Family and friends will gather to remember Dr. Weiss at at 1 p.m. Saturday at his residence.