Obituaries

Lawrence E. Shulman NIH Official

Lawrence E. Shulman, 90, who helped start the Johns Hopkins University medical school's rheumatology department and became founding director of the National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, died Oct. 10 at his home in Washington. He had complications from bladder cancer.

Dr. Shulman arrived at Hopkins in 1954 as a medical resident in rheumatology. He later headed the medical school's rheumatology department and made scientific contributions to the study and treatment of lupus, scleroderma and other connective-tissue diseases.

One of his discoveries was eosinophilic fasciitis, which causes inflammation and thickening of the skin and fascia, a lining tissue under the skin. The disease is also known as Shulman's syndrome.

Dr. Shulman joined the NIH staff in 1976. A decade later, he was founding director of the National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, known as NIAMS. In 1994, he was named to the senior position of director emeritus and served as an ombudsman for clinical research.

Lawrence Edward Shulman was a native of Brookline, Mass., and a 1941 graduate of Harvard University. He received a doctorate in public health from Yale University in 1945 and was a 1949 graduate of Yale's medical school.

Dr. Shulman was the recipient of numerous national and international awards and fellowships for his contributions to medicine, including the American College of Rheumatology's Gold Medal.

His wife, Renate Trudinger "Reni" Shulman, whom he married in 1959, died in 2000.

Survivors include his companion of eight years, Dr. Belinda Straight of Washington; two daughters from his marriage, Kathy Shulman of Baltimore and Barbara Shulman-Kirwin of Guilford, Conn.; and three grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

M. Jean 'Jeannie' Scroggins Doctor, Homemaker

M. Jean "Jeannie" Scroggins, 51, a pediatric emergency room doctor in St. Louis who settled in the Washington area in 1989 and was a Glendale homemaker, died Oct. 9 at Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham of a pulmonary embolus.