Stanford Internist Peter Kornfeld Dies at 81.

STANFORD, Calif. -- Peter Kornfeld, MD, a clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine who made pioneering contributions to the understanding and treatment of the autoimmune neuromuscular disorder known as myasthenia gravis, died Feb. 2 at Stanford Hospital. He was 81.

"He was a highly respected internist," said Mark Perlroth, MD, professor of medicine. "He was a very gentle individual with a nice sense of humor. He fully enjoyed his life in medicine as an investigator, clinician and teacher."

Kornfeld was born in Vienna on March 16, 1925. At the age of 13, with Austria having been annexed by Nazi Germany, he engineered the escape of his family by writing 100 letters by hand to people named Kornfeld in the United States, Britain and Australia. He asked them to be the sponsor required for his family to emigrate, though they were no relation. A positive reply from New York allowed them to enter the country.

They arrived with only the clothes they were wearing -- which for Kornfeld included lederhosen and a winter coat -- in the heat of August 1939.

Four years later, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served until 1946.

Kornfeld earned a BA in 1948 at the University of Buffalo and his medical degree in 1952 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 intensely involved in the early work of understanding and treating myasthenia gravis, and from 1972 to 1987 was associate chief of the Myasthenia Gravis Clinic at Mount Sinai.

Retiring in 1992, he and his wife Carol moved to Portola Valley, a move prompted in good part by the arrival of their first grandchild.

Shortly after arriving, Kornfeld volunteered to be an attending physician at Stanford Hospital and spent the next 15 years sharing his knowledge and experience, even as he continued learning.

"He was a real role model of what we hope for physicians -- to be able to continue their love of humanity and their love of medicine throughout their life," said Kelley Skeff, MD, PhD, the George DeForest Barnett Professor in Medicine II.

Kornfeld is survived by his wife of 55 years, Carol, their son Robert, daughter Jane Bessin and four grandchildren. Donations in his memory may be made to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society at www.hias.org, or to Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions -- Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.