Eleanor Josephine Macdonald

[1][2] Robert B. Greenough, M.D., chairman of the Cancer Committee in Massachusetts, and friend of the family asked Macdonald for assistance in writing a research paper on cystic mastitis.

Macdonald studied the fundamentals of epidemiology and statistics at Harvard University School of Public Health.

At Harvard she worked with Edwin Bidwell Wilson who tutored her in statistical approaches and the Ronald Fisher methods.

Macdonald was then appointed as the Epidemiologist in Boston's State Cancer Program at the Division of Adult Hygiene for director Dr. Herbert L.

[10] Her work in New England caught the attention of Dr. R. Lee Clark who recruited her to be the head of the newly created Department of Epidemiology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute.

During her tenure she developed a 200-code (referred to as the anticipatory code) method for transcribing patient charts that provided statistical information to M. D. Anderson's physicians and researchers.