Robert Kistner

Robert William Kistner (August 23, 1917 – February 6, 1990), was a well-known gynecologist who specialized in the treatment of endometriosis and was involved in the early development of the birth control pill.

Life and career

Kistner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Alfred and Gertrude Kistner, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1938 and from its Medical School in 1942. He served in the Pacific as a flight surgeon during World War II. Following residency in Cincinnati, Baltimore, and New York he moved to Boston in 1952 and became a professor at Harvard Medical School, where he was an early advocate of the first birth control pills. He was also a senior attending physician at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston.

Kistner was the author of numerous books and articles, most notably The Pill: Fact and Fallacy, published in 1969, which has subsequently been translated into six languages, and Principles and Practices of Gynecology, which has been republished numerous times and is still a major textbook used in medical schools.

Kistner was married twice, first to Georgia Golde, in 1943, and secondly to Janet Langhart, in 1978. He had four children with his first wife, Dana, Robert, Jr., Stephen, and Peter. In 1986 he retired and moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. He died a year after his divorce from Janet Langhart at the age of 72.

References

• New York Times, Feb. 10, 1990, Robert W. Kistner, 72, Gynecologist, Is Dead
• Boston Globe, Feb. 9, 1990
• Gale, Thomson, Contemporary Authors (Biography), January 1, 2004