August 9, 1904–May 20, 1994

BY THOMAS J. KENNEDY, JR.

JAMES AUGUSTINE SHANNON died suddenly on May 20, 1994, just short of his ninetieth birthday at his residence in the Church Home in Baltimore, Md., of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. Survivors included his daughter, Alice Shannon Stolzberg, M.D.; his son, J. Anthony Shannon; ten grandchildren; ten great-grandchildren; and a sister, Miriam Futterlin. His spouse, Alice M. Waterhouse, M.D., died in 1976.

Born in New York City, Shannon received his primary education in the New York City public school system; his secondary education was at St. Augustine's Academy and Brooklyn Prep and College, both in Brooklyn, N.Y. He received a baccalaureate from the College of the Holy Cross in 1925 and an M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1929. Following residency training with the New York University (NYU) Medical Services at Bellevue Hospital, he matriculated as a graduate student in the NYU Department of Physiology in 1931 and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1935. He subsequently served on the faculty of the NYU School of Medicine in the departments of physiology (1931-40) and medicine (1940-46).

Shannon's first scientific interests were in the physiology of the kidney. Until no more than a decade before he en-