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Birth:          10 Oct 1917 Sandy, Salt Lake Co., Utah
Death:          13 Nov 2008 Mercer Island, Wash.
Cause of Death: lengthy illness

Notes
1920 in Salt Lake City, Utah age 2y 2m
1930 in Seattle, Wash.
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/193/5/1461?rss=1
Colin B. Holman died on November 13, 2008, after a lengthy illness. He was born in 
Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 10, 1917, the son of Carol Edwards Holman and 
Frank E. Holman. The family moved to Seattle, Washington, when Colin was a boy, 
and he attended Garfield High School in Seattle. He then attended Dartmouth College 
from 1935 to 1939, graduating with a BA degree. He attended the University of 
Pennsylvania School of Medicine, graduating in 1943, and interned at King County 
Hospital in Seattle from 1943 to 1944. He married Kathryn Puryear of Seattle in 1943. 

Dr. Holman enlisted in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army in 1943, with initial 
assignments at Tilton General Hospital, Fort Dix, New Jersey, and at the Station 
Hospital in Fort Riley, Kansas. He became chief of the roentgenologic service of the 
116th U.S. Army General Hospital in England and Nuremberg, Germany. He was 
discharged as a captain in 1946. 

He enrolled in the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine as a resident in roentgenology 
in October 1946 and completed his residency training in October 1949. In 1946, Mayo 
radiology consultants did hours of fluoroscopy each day with no protective equipment: 
no lead glasses and no lead glove or apron. Until that time, radiation surveillance at 
the Mayo Clinic consisted of an annual CBC and an examination of the hands in the 
section of dermatology for radiation damage. Holman was one of several residents and 
consulting staff members who adopted the use of lead gloves and aprons while 
performing fluoroscopy during military service. They brought their aprons and gloves 
back with them to Rochester. Gradually, all Mayo radiologists began to adopt the 
practice of using lead aprons and gloves for radiation protection during fluoroscopy. 

He was certified by the American Board of Radiology that same year and was 
appointed to the staff of the Mayo Clinic department of roentgenology. He was 
appointed an instructor in radiology in 1954, assistant professor in 1957, associate 
professor in 1963, and professor in 1969. The diagnostic radiologist was considered a 
general radiologist when Dr. Holman was in training, and Mayo radiology consultants 
cross-covered all aspects of radiology. However, there was an expectation that each 
radiologist would develop personal expertise in some area of radiology. Dr. Holman 
initially focused on chest radiology, working with C. Allen Good, when he joined the 
consulting staff. Later he was asked to develop his skills and knowledge in the area 
of neuroradiology, and he began to work more closely with John D. Camp, the first 
neuroradiologist at the Mayo Clinic. He learned the subtleties of skull, sinus, and 
petrous bone imaging, and mastered the interpretation of more specialized diagnostic 
techniques including pneumoencephalography, ventriculography, and cerebral 
angiography. Dr. Holman experimented with teleradiology, developing a closed-circuit 
television system across the Mayo campus to provide remote consultation and 
interpretation of neuroradiology examinations. 

Dr. Holman published research on a variety of disorders including optic nerve and 
chiasmal gliomas, meningiomas of the tuberculum sella, neurofibromas, juvenile 
angiofibromas, and paragangliomas of the head and neck. He also published 
observations on anomalies of the nervous systems including agenesis of the corpus 
callosum and diastematomyelia. He was a senior consultant and mentor to Hillier L. 
(Bud) Baker, David F. Reese, and O. Wayne Houser, who together formed the section 
of neuroradiology at the Mayo Clinic for many years. Dr. Holman was invited to attend 
the famous meeting at Keen's Chop House in New York that gave birth to the 
American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) in 1962. He was elected president of the 
ASNR in 1968 and helped launch the first fellowship training program in 
neuroradiology at the Mayo Clinic. Those of us who had the opportunity to work with 
Colin remember him as a great mentor and teacher, dedicated scientist, and role 
model. 

He was a member of the American Roentgen Ray Society, becoming president in 
1974. He was a member of the Radiological Society of North America and the 
American Association of Neurologic Surgeons (Harvey Cushing Society), and he was a 
Fellow of the American College of Radiology. 

Dr. Holman was instrumental in the acquisition of a CT scanner at the Mayo Clinic. 
While attending one of the early meetings of the ASNR, he made the acquaintance of 
an engineer from England, Godfrey Hounsfield, through Ernest H. Wood, chairman of 
neuroradiology at the Neurologic Institute of New York. Dr. Holman's account of his 
meeting with Hounsfield is as follows: 

Godfrey Hounsfield and I had breakfast together one morning, and he explained his 
idea of developing a computerized tomography machine and he was writing it all down 
over the damask tablecloth at the Waldorf Astoria. I didn't understand the 
mathematics about it, but I did understand the general idea and it certainly sounded 
like it might work. At the end of that session, he said that if we would be interested in 
taking one of the machines he would be very grateful because he knew we had far 
more cases than most any place else and could evaluate it in a hurry. I thanked him 
for that offer and told him that if he would like to give us a call sometime when he had 
something that really worked we would come over and have a look at it if we could. 
So about 6 months later, I got a call from London while I was doing an angiogram at 
Saint Mary's and it was Godfrey Hounsfield. He said he had a machine that was 
working very well and he would be pleased to have it sent to us for a trial, and if we 
liked it, we could make some arrangements to acquire it.

At the recommendation of Dr. Holman, then chairman John Hodgson, asked Hillier L. 
Baker to go to England in the summer of 1972 and visit the first clinical installation of 
an EMI head CT scanner at the Atkinson Morley Hospital. Dr. Baker enthusiastically 
reported the revolutionary capabilities of this new technology to Dr. Hodgson and 
secured an order for one of the first EMI Mark I CT scanners then in production, which 
was delivered to the Mayo Clinic in early 1973. The first clinical EMI CT examination 
of the head acquired in North America was performed at the Mayo Clinic on June 19, 
1973. 

In 1981, Colin Holman retired to the Northwest and lived in Seattle until his death. He 
particularly loved boating and fishing. He is survived by his wife, Kathryn P. Holman; 
his children Eloise Zelk (Bruce), Kathy Holman, and Bill Holman (Diane); grandchildren 
Katie Wigal (Todd), Robert Zelk, and Brigitte Holman; and great granddaughter, Addie 
Wigal. 

Emerson Leesing Fam Tree on ancestry

Parents
HOLMAN Frank E. (7 Jan 1886 - 28 Nov 1967)
EDWARDS Carol B. (1887 - ABT 1960)

Siblings
HOLMAN Francis Edwards (13 Sep 1915 - 5 Jun 1991)
HOLMAN Colin Baker (10 Oct 1917 - 13 Nov 2008)
HOLMAN William M. (17 Jul 1919 - 8 Oct 1991)
HOLMAN James Allen (8 Jul 1932 - 20 Apr 1998)

Marriage To PURYEAR Beulah Kathryn ("Kay") (31 Mar 1918 - 29 Oct 2012)
    m. 1941 

Notes

Parents
PURYEAR Louis ()
----- Lela ()

Children by PURYEAR Beulah Kathryn ("Kay") 31 Mar 1918 - 29 Oct 2012
HOLMAN Eloise Linden ()
HOLMAN Kathy ()
HOLMAN Bill M. ()

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