Cornell Memorial Statement for Professor Norman Slawson Moore,
April 17, 1901 — April 3, 1995

Norman Slawson Moore was born in Ithaca, the son of Veranus A. Moore, M.D., a pathologist who became the second Dean of the Cornell Veterinary College. Norm was an Ithacan and Cornellian all the way. As his steadfast friend Deane Malott pointed out, he lived in only two houses for his entire life: the one he was born in and the gracious home on Pleasant Grove Road where he died.

He was graduated, cum laude, from Cornell in 1923 and from its Medical College in 1926. He served as House Physician at Bellevue Hospital in New York City 1926-28 and as a Research Fellow at the Rockefeller Institute for the following two years.

Norm then returned to Ithaca and opened a practice in internal medicine, the first internist in the area. He also brought with him the first electrocardiograph instrument in Ithaca. He quickly developed a busy practice here; he became a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1938 and one of the early Diplomates of the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1947.

Very active in the medical and general community, Norm was one of the founders and the first chairman of the Tompkins County Board of Health and in 1952 the founder of the County Mental Health Clinic. In his role with the Board of Health and with the connections he had developed with the State Health Department, he was instrumental in converting the New York State Biggs Tuberculosis Hospital to the Tompkins County Hospital in 1960, thus replacing the antiquated community hospital on South Quarry Street.

In 1939, there was increasing uneasiness about the arrangements for health care provided to the Cornell students. The system was poorly organized, quite dependent on the local practitioners, and not oriented to the needs of the student population. Several cases of serious and even fatal illness in the previous year aroused concern in the campus community. President Day expressed his concerns to Dr. Moore, his personal physician; more than that, he implored and finally convinced Norm to give up his practice and to reorganize the University Health Services and become the department’s full time Director. A new Department of Clinical and Preventive Medicine, later called the Department of University Health Services, was established with Norm as Professor and Chairman.

After the busy days of the wartime period with its shortages of staff and resources, Norm’s department began to mature in the immediate post-war years. The idea of a comprehensive service oriented to the special needs of university students was conceived and implemented. Included were not only direct medical care of high quality but preventive medicine, health education, sports medicine, and psychiatric and psychological care. In addition, the department was made responsible for monitoring occupational and environmental health on campus. A new and expanded staff was assembled; the reliance on local practitioners was reduced to consultation for surgical and certain subspecialty problems. The need for a modern and convenient facility was defined, and Dr. Moore was instrumental in persuading the Gannett Foundation to fund the Clinic building. Always interested in teaching, he also developed a medical residency program which made use not only of the Clinic for outpatients but of both the old Sage Infirmary and the Tompkins County Hospital for hospitalized students.

Dr. Moore’s involvement with the University was not confined to clinical care or even the usual kinds of clinical research. Early in his tenure, he became interested in research in clinical nutrition, which was not a prominent area of study at that time. He worked with Leonard A. Maynard, Ph.D., to persuade President Day and Mr. Howard E. Babcock, Chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees, to support the establishment of the School of Nutrition in 1941. 
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In 1954, he was appointed to the New York State Public Health Council, the most important health policy group in the State Government, by Governor Dewey, who had come to know him during discussions in regard to the School of Nutrition. He remained as a member during the Harriman administration, and in 1968, was appointed Chairman by Governor Rockefeller. "