William H. Park

William Hallock Park (December 30, 1863 – April 6, 1939) was an American bacteriologist and laboratory director at the New York City Board of Health, Division of Pathology, Bacteriology, and Disinfection from 1893 to 1936.

Park was born on December 30, 1863 in New York City.

In June 1883, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from City College of New York and entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons to study medicine. He studied pathology with Dr. Theophil Mitchell Prudden, planning to become a nose and throat specialist. After Park graduated in 1886, he interned at Roosevelt Hospital and had a year of post-graduate study in Vienna, Austria. On his return to the United States in 1890, Park worked on the bacteriology of diphtheria with Dr. Prudden.

In 1893, Dr. Hermann Biggs, Professor of Bacteriology at New York University and Chief Inspector of the New York City Board of Health, offered Park a director's position in the municipal laboratories to continue his work on diphtheria. In 1894, Dr. Biggs telegraphed Park with the news of the discovery of the diphtheria antitoxin by Drs. Emile Roux and Emil von Behring and instructed him to begin inoculating horses to produce antitoxin in New York City. The atypical strain of Corynebacterium diphtheriae most widely used for the production of diphtheria toxin was discovered by Dr. Anna Williams, who worked with Dr. Park.

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