Record, The (Hackensack, NJ) - Monday, December 9, 1991Deceased Name: DR. STEWART F. ALEXANDER, BERGEN PINES EX-DIRECTOR Dr. Stewart F. Alexander, who helped save the lives of hundreds of soldiers stricken by poison gas in World War II and who later served as medical director at Bergen Pines County Hospital for 18 years, died Friday. The Park Ridge resident was 77.

A former president of the Bergen County Medical Society, Dr. Alexander was a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Until 1975, he served as director of medicine at Bergen Pines, where he helped build the medical and educational divisions, leading to the Paramus hospital's affiliation with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. His father, Dr. Samuel Alexander, oversaw the hospital during his 24 years as a Bergen County freeholder.

Stewart Alexander served in the Army from 1940 to 1945, evaluating instances of suspected chemical weapons use. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and was assigned to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff.

In 1943, he was sent to Bari, Italy, after a German bombing. Among the wounded were 600 Allied soldiers who were mysteriously dying. Dr. Alexander determined that the men were exposed to mustard gas that seeped from a ship.

The mustard gas was never used, but had been kept in storage in the event German forces resorted to chemical weapons first. But even storage of the chemical in a war zone was a breach of rules between the two sides.

Allied leaders feared that the Germans might use chemical weapons against England if the Allied forces acknowledged possessing mustard gas. Dr. Alexander at first was ordered against making his diagnosis, but did so anyway.

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Stewart Alexander (1914)