BATH — William Dewey Blake, 94, of Bath, died at home Feb. 3 of cancer.

Born June 27, 1918, Blake graduated Dartmouth College in 1940 and spent summers doing scientific research at The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salisbury Cove. He continued this work while attending Harvard Medical School.

During World War II, he worked at Goldwater Hospital in New York City, conducting malaria research. He completed his internship, residency and a fellowship at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Following his training, he was invited to join Yale Medical School’s department of physiology and later moved to become associate professor at the University of Oregon Medical School.

Blake had a love of art and a talent for painting. He first showed his paintings at the Portland (Ore.) Museum of Art, and later displayed them in local galleries in London and Rome while in residence there writing scientific papers.

Blake spent the last 20 years of his professional life at the University of Maryland, as professor and chairman of the department of physiology. During his tenure there he lectured in many places including London and Prague, did research at Uppsala University in Sweden, and worked for a year establishing a physiology research program in Curitiba, Brazil.

His major area of interest was the physiology of the kidney, and he led some of the earliest research in the organ’s neural control. He always supported his staff in their work, and encouraged students to develop problem-solving skills to help in their own research and clinical studies.

Blake leaves behind his wife, Mary Anderson Blake, after 72 years of marriage. He is survived by two children, Will Blake and his wife, Halcyon, of Bath, and Pamela Blake and her husband, Dan Jellis, of Freeport and Borrego Springs, Calif.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

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