Jerome Cornfield's contributions to the conduct of clinical trials

Jerome Cornfield's important contributions to the conduct of clinical trials are summarized here. They include consultative advice in the planning of many national trials, active collaboration in the conduct of many others, discussions of the role of classical and Bayesian methods of statistical inference in clinical trials, recommendations on data monitoring, contributions to the analysis of results of the University Group Diabetes Project, and efforts to assist the planning of coronary intervention trials with quantitative assessments of possible reductions in disease rates due to intervention on smoking and diet. An attempt is made to evaluate the impact of Cornfield's contributions to clinical trials.