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Joseph Needham died peacefully at his home on Mar 24, 1995, after suffering from Parkinson's disease and a mild stroke. Needham was undoubtedly the greatest Western sinologist of this century.

With the death of Joseph Needham on 24 March 1995 the world of learning lost one of the greatest scholars in this or any country, of this or any century. For more than thirty years Needham had been the greatest sinologist in the West, having previously achieved an international status as a research biochemist and as a historian. Intellectually a bridge-builder between science, religion and Marxist socialism, and supremely so between East and West, he has been called the Erasmus of the twentieth century. A sober assessment suggests that with the passage of time he will be recognized as a greater figure than the scholar from Rotterdam.

Surviving are her children, Tony Needham of Frostproof, FL, Sandra (Thomas) Curtis of GA, and Teri (Michael) Vinson of Elkhart. Also surviving are 5 grandchildren, Jeffrey (Jennifer) Sager, Jodi (Dennis) Mejia, Jeffrey Curtis, Julie Curtis and Michael Needham; along with 7 great-grandchildren, Paige, Adrienne, Kaitlin, Marcus, Christian, Avery and Elizabeth. [Beverly J. Needham] is also survived by her brother, Don Wilson of Elkhart.

Needham was a certified public accountant and held a seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission before the NYSE hired him in 1972 to guard against reforms proposed in Washington that would make the securities industry less clubby and far more competitive to smaller investors. He made news in 2003 for criticizing what he considered the NYSE's excesses, including the $139.5-million payout package at the time for NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso. Needham said Grasso and the NYSE board should resign, adding, \"The NYSE is now beginning to look like Enron and all those other crummy companies.\"

Before joining the exchange, Mr. Needham was a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1969 to 1972 in the Nixon administration. He was the first commissioner who had been a practicing certified public accountant, according to a spokesman for the S.E.C., John Heine. The secretary of commerce, Maurice Stans, sought out Mr. Needham to provide auditing experience alongside the lawyers who dominated the commission. He is survived by his wife, Patricia Campo Needham of Southampton, whom he married in 1995; three sons, [James J. Needham], of Carmel, Calif.; Robert, of Lake Oswego, Ore.; and Michael, of San Francisco; two daughters, Ravenna Taylor of Sergeantsville, N.J., and Catherine Needham of Bronxville, N.Y.; his brother, John, of Rockville Centre, N.Y.; his sister, Sandra Reda of Huntington Station, N.Y.; and two grandchildren.