Samuel D. Allison, a well-known Hawaii dermatologist and expert on venereal diseases, died Oct. 30 at his home outside Philadelphia. He was 100.

Allison moved to Honolulu in early 1942, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to work for the Ready Reserve in the U.S. Public Health Service in Hawaii. He also directed the territorial Health Department’s Bureau of Venereal Diseases between 1942 and 1945 and published several public health pamphlets to help prevent a venereal disease epidemic in Hawaii during the war years.

Following his public health work, Allison opened a dermatology practice in the Alexander Young Hotel in the late 1940s and later moved it to Waikiki, his daughter, Lynn Foster, said.

"He was quite a wonderful man and just a compassionate physician," Foster said, adding that when she attended her 50-year class reunion recently at Punahou School, her friends were saying, "I remember your dad. He used to be my doctor."

Allison was also licensed to practice medicine in China and worked with the World Health Organization to study different dermatological diseases in Asia.

"I think because he was physically located in the mid-Pacific and he was a very prominent dermatologist, he was often tapped to do these sort of interesting little studies," Foster said. "He really absorbed and integrated the different cultural beliefs and heritages into his practice of medicine."

Allison retired in the late ’80s and moved with his wife, Cecil, to Philadelphia in 1996 to be closer to Foster during what they thought would be their last few years of their life.

"They didn’t expect they’d be living forever, but they lived forever," Foster said.

Allison graduated from Northwestern University in 1932, earned his M.D. from the University of Oregon in 1936 and received his Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 1941. He married Cecil McCready in 1937.

During his time on Oahu, Allison was president of the Hawaii Medical Association, the AMA Hawaii Dermatology Association, the Hawaii Division of the American Cancer Society, the Hawaii Mental Hygiene Society, the Hawaii Public Health Association and the Honolulu Rotary and Toastmasters clubs.

He also enjoyed tending to his extensive cactus garden and building lava walls and old brick terraces around his properties on Black Point Road and Kaikoo Place near Diamond Head.

He was born in Eureka, Utah.

Allison is survived by his wife, daughter and two grandsons, John and Richard Claflin.

A small service will be held when Cecil Allison dies and the couple’s family returns to Hawaii to spread their ashes in their favorite places, Foster said.