Willard Myron Allen

Who was Willard Myron Allen?

Willard Myron Allen was an American gynecologist. He was born in 1904 in Farmington, New York, near Rochester, New York. As an undergraduate student at Hobart College in Geneva, New York, Allen had studied organic chemistry. This would come in handy for his medical school research that would reserve a special place for him in the annals of medical history. He graduated from Hobart in 1926, and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree in 1940 for his medical discoveries at the University of Rochester.

Allen studied medicine at the University of Rochester and supported himself by working as an assistant in his anatomy professor, George W. Corner’s embryology laboratory. Corner and Allen are credited with the discovery of progestin, the original name for progesterone and not to be confused with progestin, a synthetic progestogen, in 1930 and the first isolation of progesterone in 1933. He graduated with honors in 1932. After several years of teaching at Rochester, Allen was appointed professor and chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis. He contributed original papers on the histology and physiology of the female reproductive organs, bringing him many national and international awards. He was the first graduate of the Medical School in Rochester to be elected to that university's board of trustees.¹²