born June 26, 1930 near Ottawa, ON, grew up in Victoria, BC
Professor at Washington University of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
Walter Lewis grew up in Victoria, BC. From a young age he was interested in Botany. As a teenager he grew and sold roses for profit from his own greenhouse. Lewis's parents wanted him to be a dentist, but though he studied towards dentistry, the young Lewis always took botany courses on the side and eventualy obtained degrees in biology and botany. He never became a dentist. He worked at Kew Gardens in London and at the Royal Swedish Academy before settling in St. Louis Missouri where he is professor of Biology and Senior Botanist of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Memory grew up in Vancouver and met Walter at UBC. In the mid-60s Memory and her co-workers recorded a case of a young boy dying of strange natural causes. Nobody could understand the boy's case history or understand why he died, so blood specimens were put away and frozen. Twenty years later when the disease of AIDS was characterized, Memory recognized the symptoms and had the boy's frozen blood analysed. The case is now recognized as the first recorded case of AIDS in America.
In 1977, Memory and Walter wrote the book "Medical Botany" which is still the pre-eminent text on medicinal uses of plants from around the world. The Lewises continue to visit the jungles of Peru and are working on a comprehensive catalog of all the medicinal plants of the region, many of which have never been investigated by Western science.
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