Dr. Ralph R. Parker Dies; Co-Discoverer of Vaccine

HAMILTON, Mont. (AP)--Dr. Ralph R. Parker, co-discoverer of a vaccine for Rocky mountain spotted fever, died Sunday of a heart attack. He was 61.

Parker, director, of the National Institute of Health's Rocky Mountain laboratory, had been ill only a few hours.

Parker and Dr. R. R. Spencer in 1922 started the now famous laboratory in an abandoned school house in this little western Montana community.

Eventually they produced a vaccine, with which they first successfully inoculated themselves. By 1940 more than 455,000 injections had been given.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin, Walla Walla, WA 5 Sept 1949