Edward Douglas Rooke

Edward Douglas Rooke was a Neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, specializing in the diagnosis and management of headache. His primary contribution to medical knowledge was as the first person to recognize that the muscle weakness disease now known as the myasthenic or Eaton-Lambert syndrome, was different than myasthenia gravis. The clinical distinction was that in myasthenic syndrome, the patient became stronger with exertion, whereas in myasthenia gravis the patient becomes weaker with exertion.

Edward Douglas Rooke was raised in Canada and graduated from Queens University in 1937. He completed Internal Medicine and Neurology training at the Mayo Clinic, with an interruption of five years for WWII during which he was military Chief Medical Officer for western Canada, and then joined the staff at the Mayo Clinic in 1949 and remained there until retirement in 1977. He married Avis Bjerke in 1946 and they raised two children.

We thank Alec Rooke for information submitted.