David Cowen

   David L. Cowen, 96, Professor Emeritus of Rutgers University, died Friday, April 14, at the Francis E. Parker Memorial Home in Piscataway.
   Dr. Cowen had a long and distinguished career at Rutgers as an educator researcher, lecturer, and author, and he was world-renowned in the field of the history of pharmacy.
   Born in New York City on Sept. 1, 1909, he grew up in Newark, where he attended the public schools. He received both his bachelor’s degree in 1930 and his master’s degree in 1931 from Rutgers, and was awarded an honorary doctorate, also from Rutgers, in 1984.
   He had been married to the former Mae Wisokolsky from 1933 until her death in 1961 and to the former Florence Weissberg from 1972 until her death in 1988. His home from 1972 until the present was in Rossmoor.
   While he was teaching in the Newark Public Schools from 1933 to 1944 he began his faculty career at Rutgers as an instructor of history at the Rutgers College of Pharmacy. He joined the full-time faculty at University College of Rutgers in 1945 and eventually become full professor in 1960. He remained at the position until he retired in 1974. He served as chairman of the Department of History and Political Science from 1945 to 1964 and of the Department of History from 1965 to 1974.
   He served on a great many college committees, including many chairmanships. He was also a member of and president or vice-president of many prestigious organizations, including the American Association for the History of Medicine, the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, and the Medical History Society of New Jersey. The Rho Chi Society, the New Jersey Pharmaceutical Association, and Alpha Zeta Omega all awarded him with honorary memberships.
   Dr. Cowen had received a multitude of awards for his work over the years from pharmacy and history associations in Europe and the United States. Elected to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Rutgers University in 1992, he received the Continuing Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Association of the History of Medicine in 1994, and he received the David L. Cowen Achievement Award of the Medical History Society of New Jersey in 2001.
   The Rutgers University College of Pharmacy (now the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy) established the "Annual David L. Cowen Lecture on the History of Pharmacy" in his honor in 1989.
   He had published extensively over the years, including The Rho Chi Society (with Roy Bowers), The Rutgers Class of 1930 (with Ernest McMahon), Medicine and Health in New Jersey: A History, and Pharmacy: An Illustrated History (with William H. Helfand).
   He is survived by his son, Bruce R. Cowen, MD; his daughter-in-law, Flora Buchbinder Cowen; his stepdaughters, Joan Jay, Liz Kupperman, and Susan Rinsky; 9 grandchildren; and 8 great-grandchildren.
   No funeral was held because he donated his body to the Rutgers Medical School.