Medical examiner investigated New York City’s hazardous places to work. Fund at The Trust supports children with disabilities.
Rene Keith Hyman (1896-1958)
Samuel M. Hyman (1886-1976)
Samuel Hyman was a licensed physician and surgeon and, for a time, worked for the New York State Industrial Commission. As a medical examiner, he frequently was summoned to testify at hearings in worker’s compensation cases and wrongful death lawsuits.
One case he investigated offers a peek inside the dangerous New York City workplaces of the early 1900s. In October 1917, a 52-year-old Irish immigrant named John Keenan, a “color mixer” of inks at the H.D. Roosen Co. factory in Brooklyn, may have been poisoned by a toxic mixture. Samuel was called in to investigate.
According to company managers, the workers were paid about $14 a week—working 52 hours a week—to mix printing inks and colors. On the day of the incident, John Keenan was making a tank of Bronze Blue ink when acidic fumes spewed from the tank for about half an hour. Although the chemist said he told the mixing crew to keep back, John said the fumes didn’t affect him. About two hours later, he left feeling ill. He died of double lobar pneumonia two days later.
In his testimony, Samuel explained that the mixture likely produced a poisonous gas that, combined with a pre-existing cold, proved fatal.
Not long after that case was settled, Samuel went into private practice, specializing in industrial medicine and surgery. He often represented the employer and insurance carrier in appeals involving everything from broken limbs to traumatic injuries.
Samuel M. Hyman was born September 9, 1886, in New York City to Jacob and Bertha Hyman, immigrants from Hungary. He graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1905. Rene Keith was born in March 1896 to Rebecca Schwartz and Charles Keith.
Samuel and Rene were married May 30, 1918, in Manhattan and had no children. She died in 1958, and he died in 1976. His will established the Rene and Samuel Hyman Memorial Fund for the care of children with disabilities and/or to further research into the prevention of disabilities in children.