Clayton Sam White

Clayton "Sam" Samuel White (October 11, 1912 – April 26, 2004) was an American physician, nuclear physicist, and medical researcher best known for developing the field of "blast and shock biology" which explored the effects of blast and shock waves from atomic bombs and other explosions.

By bringing together the disciplines of mathematics, physics, biology, and anatomy, White measured the impact of atomic weapons on physical structures and the human body.

His studies, many of which were conducted at above-ground nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site, paved the way for precision bombing in support of troops in the field and helped determine how to build adequate bomb shelters and treat blast victims.

White studied the biological effects of inhaling small fission particles produced by nuclear tests in a related field.

He also examined, with "remarkable prescience," the environmental impact of consumer aerosol products on the atmosphere and the health risks of inhaling man-made fibers, diesel exhaust, and other substances.

Another area of White's focus was the physiological effect of the high atmosphere on the human body.

Clayton Samuel White, known as "Sam," was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1912 to Alpha Albert White, a sheep ranch hand and lumberyard manager, and Maude Elizabeth Burger.

He was raised in Wellington, Colorado, then a hamlet of 550 residents.

His first job, in grade school, was picking sugar beets for $1.50 a day.

In high school, during the Great Depression, he and his brother worked the fields after school and on weekends.

Though neither of White's parents attended school beyond sixth grade, they instilled the values of education and hard work in their sons.

White was a star student and athlete at Wellington High School and valedictorian of his 1930 graduating class.

White accepted an academic scholarship to the University of Colorado where he majored in psychology with minors in physics and mathematics.

He was president of the student body, played basketball, earned all-conference honors as a football end, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1934.

After graduation, White began pre-med graduate courses while working in a medical lab to earn money for medical school.

In 1935, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and left for England on his first trip outside his home state of Colorado.

White captained the Oxford lacrosse team and, in 1938, earned a doctoral degree in physiology before returning to the University of Colorado to start medical school.

As a student, he began publishing scientific papers.

One, the effects of botulism on the nervous system, sparked a lifelong interest in neurology.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, White enlisted in the Navy.

He completed medical school in Colorado as a naval reserve officer and, in 1942, was assigned to Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda, California.

Shortly after, he was sent to the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida, where he enrolled in courses in aviation medicine and flight training at the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine.

He was designated a flight surgeon in 1944.

At Pensacola, and, later, Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland, White specialized in aviation medicine and respiratory physiology.

His groundbreaking work on oxygen masks and liquid oxygen converters attracted the attention of William Randolph "Randy" Lovelace II, a Harvard and Mayo Clinic-trained surgeon and highly decorated Air Force pilot who, in World War II, performed daring parachute jumps at high altitudes to test the military's oxygen masks.

Lovelace was eager to learn why some masks would freeze up, sometimes causing fatalities, and sought White's help.

White discovered that ice formed in the oxygen inlet ports of the masks and specified modifications to alter them.

After the war, Lovelace established a medical research foundation at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and recruited White to head it.

In 1947, upon completion of his military service, White moved to Albuquerque as Director of Research at the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, which became "world-renowned in terms of research and teaching."

Much of White's early work at Lovelace depended on the research apparatus he built himself.

To make the equipment for conducting isotope scans of the thyroid, he took a night course in machine tooling at the University of New Mexico.

He bought lead from local junk dealers to construct the apparatus he needed.

To create thermostats for his lab, he learned how to blow glass.

In 1951, White assembled an international symposium on aviation medicine which became the basis of his book, "Physics and Medicine of the Upper Atmosphere," and demonstrated the need for collaborative work among disciplines.

He stressed work across scientific disciplines throughout his career, stating he was "more and more concerned that we in this country and the world have moved way too far in the direction of specialties and not far enough in developing generalists and integrative endeavors."

Soon after the symposium, White, a "leader in aviation medicine before the term 'aerospace' was invented" began to consult with aircraft manufacturers and the developing airline industry.

Subsequently, Lovelace Medical Center started to provide health care to airline pilots and flight crews.

His research in aviation medicine contributed significantly to the exhaustive physiological and psychological tests conducted in 1959 on the thirty-two candidates competing to become the Mercury Seven astronauts, as depicted in the book and film The Right Stuff.

White's younger brother, Byron Raymond White, served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993 and as Deputy Attorney General under John F. Kennedy.

Until 2006, Sam White and Byron White, a Rhodes pick in 1938, were the only siblings to be selected as Rhodes Scholars.