Dr. John Cathro Seed, 89, Local Doctor

John Cathro Seed, M.D. of Princeton was born at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. on Feb. 26, 1922, the first child of Frances Cathro and Lindon Seed, M.D.

He was raised in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill. and educated in the public school system. He attended Princeton University from 1939 to 1942, leaving at the end of his junior year to attend Harvard Medical School. After graduating from medical school in 1945, he served as an intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital, subsequently fulfilling his military requirements at the Army Chemical Warfare Center in Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland.

There he metand married Pauline Sullivan, a former professor of Northeastern University who headed the Mycology Section of the Center. Following a brief stint with Sterling Winthrop he joined Burroughs Wellcome(1954 – 1962), where his work focused on medication for the treatment of pain and the development of computer models of metabolic homeostasis. In addition, he held a research position in the department of anesthesiology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 1956 – 1967 and began his association with Calvary House in 1955. The latter was a Catholic facility in the Bronx that provided care for the indigent terminally ill. In a pioneering approach to end-of-life care, he worked to transform the treatment of terminal stage cancer patients, emphasizing not only the effective control of pain, but also the integrated treatment of the social and emotional needs of the patients and their families.

During this time he reorganized Calvary House into Calvary Hospital and secured its accreditation. The Hospital became a center for the treatment of the most difficult to manage terminal cancers in the New York City area, especially those of the head and neck. In recognition of this effort he was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et PontificeMedal by Pope John Paul the 23rd in 1962. In 1965 he left Calvary Hospital and spent the next 15 years providing medical care to the poor in association with the Martin Luther King Jr. Health Center on 169th Street in New York’s South Bronx. From 1963 to 1985 he also held the position of Visiting Lecturer and Research Associate in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, where he taught evening classes and conducted research on computer applications in medicine. He also lectured on Public Health, Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Cornell University Medical College (1956–1970) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1967 – 1983). In 1980, he entered private practice in the Princeton area.

Following the death of Pauline in 1995 after 46 years of marriage, Dr. Seed married Ruth Velikovsky Sharon in 2000. Dr. Seed died on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 at the Princeton Care Center following a long illness. He is survived by his wife Ruth, his brothers Randolph and Richard, his sister Linda, 4 children and 7 grandchildren.

Services were held on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011 at the Kimble Funeral Home, 1 Hamilton Ave, Princeton NJ at 9 a.m. followed by a 9:30 a.m. funeral mass at St Paul’s Church, 214 Nassau Street, Princeton. Burial will be in the family plot in Princeton Cemetery, Princeton.