Paul Basch was born 10 November 1933 in the back of the general store operated by his parents in the village of Kirchstetten, Austria. At the time of his death 14 June 2001 from complications following open-heart surgery, he was Professor Emeritus of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Basch's death occurred some 25 years after a serious heart attack near Wuxi, China. At that time he was serving as deputy chairman of the U.S. Schistosomiasis Delegation from the National Academy of Sciences to the People's Republic of China, one of the earliest official delegations to the PRC. In characteristic fashion, Paul subsequently published a tongue-in-cheek, but accurate, description of his near-fatal experience, titled A Barefoot Patient in China (Stanford M.D., 1976), as well as a proper medical account (with J. S. Lehman, Jr.) in the Archives of Internal Medicine (136: 804–806, 1976). During the...