Bacteriologist and inventor. Charles E. North was born in 1869 in Scarborough, New York and raised in Montclair, New Jersey. He attended Centenary Collegiate Institute at Hackettstown, Wesleyan University (A.B., 1893), and the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University (M.D., 1900). He invented processes and equipment for the dehydration and reconstitution of milk products, allowing for shipment without refrigeration. He was president of the North Milk Products, Inc., which used his methods and inventions.

His life-long passion for milk sanitation began as a medical student after an experiment which resulted in a larger number of the guinea pigs injected with raw milk dying, versus those injected with certified and pasteurized milk. North was commissioned by the New York Milk Committee to oversee the processes at a bottling station in Homer, New York—which supplied New York City’s first pasteurized milk, helping to lower the infant and childhood mortality rate.

He authored New York City’s first milk standards ordinance, which established “Grade A” status. He was secretary of both the National Commission of Milk Standards and the Grade A Milk Association. He consulted on milk sanitation and water purification projects throughout the United States.

According to his obituary in the Montclair Times, North created a committee on longevity in 1941, comprised of the 102 surviving member (originally 168) of his Columbia University class of 1900. The committee claimed to have reduced the death rate among doctors by recommending frequent physical examinations and early treatment.

Charles E. North married Amelia Potter Palmer and had five children: Anna, Jean, Amelia, Charlotte, and Charles. Anna Palmer North Coit, was born April 8, 1908 and attended Vassar College (Class of 1930). Anna married Harlan Judson “Pete” Coit. She was a journalist, writing for Time magazine. She died October 15, 2014 at the age of 106 in Mystic, Connecticut.

Charles North died in 1961 in Montclair, New Jersey at the age of 91.

At the time of this writing, R. Bruce Gillie, MD, is an Internal Medicine doctor practicing in Westerly, Rhode Island. He received his medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1973.