Truman Abbe was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 surgeon, son of Cleveland Abbe

Cleveland Abbe

Cleveland Abbe was an American meteorologist and advocate of time zones. While director of the Cincinnati Observatory in Cincinnati, Ohio, he developed a system of telegraphic weather reports, daily weather maps, and weather forecasts. Congress in 1870 established the U.S. Weather Bureau and...

 and brother of Cleveland Abbe, Jr.  He was born in Washington, D. C. and graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1895. He received his degree in medicine at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1899, then pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Berlin.

Abbe began work in 1902 at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

. Afterwards, he was appointed instructor at George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

 (1905). In 1907, he was awarded a silver medal at the Jamestown Exposition

Jamestown Exposition

The Jamestown Exposition was one of the many world's fairs and expositions that were popular in the United States in the early part of the 20th century...

 for his researches into the uses of radium

Radium

Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...

in medicine.