Earl Baldwin McKinley, MD (1894-1938) was a prominent American physician, particularly known for his work in medical and related scientific organisations. He was an eminent bacteriologist and became professor of bacteriology at Baylor University and at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was Dean of George Washington Medical School in Washington, DC from 1931 to 1938 and served on the Medical Advisory Board of LWM from 1932 to 1938. He organised the Academy of Medicine of Washington. In the years following 1931 he and Dr Soule carried out a series of studies on the cultivation of the leprosy bacillus on media under modified oxygen and carbon dioxide tension and claimed a limited transmission of the disease to monkeys on inoculation of the apparently cultivated bacilli. This work was not confirmed by other investigators but remains of interest and to some extent an unsolved enigma.

International Journal of Leprosy, Centennial Festskrift edition, Vol 41, No 2. 1973.