William H. Park (1863-1939) was an American bacteriologist who from 1893-1936 served as director of the laboratory at the Board of Health Division of Pathology, Bacteriology and Disinfection in New York City. After graduating in 1883 from City College New York, he went on to medical study at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons to 1886, then studies at Vienna. His specialty was diphtheria, and he closely followed the European work of Roux and Behring. With Anna Wessels Williams (1863-1954), an 1891 graduate of the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, Park developed an especially efficacious diphtheria anti-toxin/sub-variant, the Park-Williams strain. Park's standard text, Bacteriology in Medicine and Surgery: A Practical Manual was published in 1899 by Boston's Lea Brothers & Co.; this edition was followed by a British edition published in London by Henry Kimpton in 1900.


Created 8 February 2023