Glanville Yeisley Rusk was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 15, 1875. He was a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, and in 1901 he graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School. After his internship he served one year as house officer at the Sheppard-Pratt Institute for Mental Diseases in Baltimore. He then moved to New York and was a member of the staff of the New York Pathological Institute, where for seven years he specialized in the pathology of the central nervous system. In December, 1906, he married Agnes Woodruff of Virginia; they were the parents of three daughters.

In September, 1910, he came to Berkeley, joining the faculty of the University of California in the Department of pathology and Bacteriology. In 1918 a separate Department of Pathology was established in San Francisco, headed by Dr. Rusk. In the years following he became nationally known as an authority on pathology, especially of the central nervous system and of tumors. He was a member of Sigma Xi and Nu Sigma Nu societies. From 1930 to 1942, Dr. Rusk was in charge of the pathological laboratory at the Mount Zion Hospital.

Dr. Rusk died at his home in San Francisco on the evening of November 22, 1943.