James Murray Kinsman, M.D. (1899-1979)

Seventeenth Dean, 1949-1963

M.D., McGill University, 1922

J. Murray Kinsman, a native of Nova Scotia, Canada, earned his M.D. at McGill University, and interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.  He subsequently was Instructor in Medicine at McGill and at Harvard Medical School’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.  He later served at Yale-New Haven hospital before coming to Louisville as Chief Resident in Medicine in 1925.  He rapidly moved up the academic ladder but was interrupted by a World War II military assignment in the Medical Corps from 1942-1946.

Dr. Kinsman was a cardiologist whose early research on the human heart in the 1930’s was outstanding.  He was co-discoverer of a dye-solution method to measure the circulation of the blood, a technique that was standardized and used by researchers around the world.  In 1948 he was appointed Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville, becoming Dean of the School of Medicine in 1949.

With Archibald Cochran he launched University of Louisville Medical Center, Inc., building an alliance with the Jewish hospital adjacent to the School.  He inaugurated the American Heart Association Chair of Cardiac Research.  Dr. Kinsman was elected a Master in the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Association of American Physicians.