Peter Kornfeld
1926-Feb. 7, 2007
Portola Valley, California

Dr. Peter Kornfeld of Portola Valley, a pioneer in the understanding and treatment of the auto-immune muscular disorder, myasthenia gravis, died Feb. 2 at Stanford Hospital. He was 81.

"He was a highly respected internist," says Dr. Mark Perlroth, clinical professor of medicine. "He was a very gentle individual with a nice sense of humor. He enjoyed his life in medicine."

Dr. Kornfeld was born in Vienna. At the age of 13, with Austria annexed by Nazi Germany, he engineered his family's escape by writing 100 letters to people named Kornfeld in the United States, Great Britain and Australia. He asked them to sponsor his family to emigrate although they were no relation. He received a reply from New York, which allowed thefamily to enter the United States. They arrived in New York in August 1939 with only the clothes they were wearing, which for Peter were lederhosen and a winter coat.

Dr. Kornfeld enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943 and served until 1946. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Buffalo, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his medical degree at Columbia University. He completed his training at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he remained active in research, teaching and clinical practice for more than 30 years. He was associate chief of the Myasthenia Gravis Clinic at Mount Sinai from 1972 to 1987.

In 1992, after retiring, Dr. Kornfeld and his wife moved to the Bay Area. For the next 15 years, he volunteered as an attending physician at Stanford Hospital.

"He was a real role model of what we hope physicians have, where their love of humanity and their love of medicine is something they're able to continue throughout their life," says Dr. Kelley Skeff, George DeForest Barnett Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Kornfeld is survived by his wife of 55 years, Carol of Portola Valley; son Robert of Washington; daughter Jane Bessin of Los Altos; and four grandchildren.

Tags: veteran, teacher/educator, public service