(1911-2006)
Inducted into Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, 1985
A Hartford native, Romansky played baseball, football, and basketball at Weaver High School and at Maine University, graduating in 1933. In college, he was All-New England in the three sports and an all-American honorable mention in football, helping the Maine team win two state championships.
While attending medical school at the University of Rochester, he supported himself by pitching semi-pro baseball. At Rochester, he completed his residency, conducted kidney research and, after graduating in 1937, stayed on as a fellow in infectious diseases.
While serving in the Army Medical Corps at Walter Reed in the 1940s, he discovered a formula that prolonged the duration of penicillin in the body, transforming the treatment of wartime infectious diseases such as syphilis and pneumonia. President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Legion of Merit for his contribution, which was credited with saving thousands of lives. He became a professor of medicine at George Washington University Medical School in 1947, and later was chief of infectious diseases at D.C. General Hospital and at George Washington University’s medical school. His subsequent research led to the development of many antibiotics, including streptomycin and cephalosporins.