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Medical Professor Dies At 81

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1
Month
July
Year
1995
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Medical professor dies at 81

By RUSSELL GRANTHAM

 

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Chris J.D. Zarafonetis, a former University of Michigan professor of internal medicine who received some of the Defense Department’s highest civilian honors for his contributions to military medicine, died Tuesday in Ann Arbor from complications from a broken hip.

He was 81.

Zarafonetis, who was bom in Hillsboro, Texas, in 1914, was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Army Reserve Components Achievements Medal, and in 1984, the Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for his efforts in evaluating Army hospitals, recruiting physicians, and other efforts in the Army Medical Corps, Army Military Reserve and Office of the Surgeon General.

Zarafonetis received his undergraduate and medical degrees from U-M between 1936-1941. During World War II, he served in the Army Medical Corps in Egypt, Greece, Yugoslavia and Germany, where he helped to control the spread of typhus using insecticides.

He returned to the U-M Medical Center as a researcher and professor following the war and retired from there in 1980 after working several years at Temple University Medical School in the 1950s.

He is survived by his wife, Sophia, and a son, John Christopher, of Washington, D.C.; a brother, William of Grand Rapids, and two granddaughters. Burial will be Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.