Historical Notes from OHSU

Life of Gory

2009-07-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

This week, Dr. Jim O'Dea, M.D., retired Portland pediatrician and OHSU alumnus, brought us more materials for the archives of the North Pacific Pediatric Society (originally donated by Dr. Oliver Massengale in January).

The collection includes financial ledger books from the 1970s to the late 1980s (when the society went digital for its accounting), member directories, meeting programs, updated by-laws from 2005, and a wealth of correspondence including... printouts of email! (It just warms my heart to see folks acting on archivists' advice to keep the really important documents in paper.)

Unexpectedly, the collection also contains a copy of an unpublished autobiography of Dr. S. Gorham Babson, M.D., known as "Gory" to friends and colleagues. Titled The Full and Wonderful Life of Gorham Babson, the memoir is short but sweet. The table of contents includes:

"Prologue--My fascination with travel"
wherein we learn that Babson's father's fourth brother was named after Sir William Morton Stanley;

"European junket with the family--1924"
wherein we hear that Babson's father was so annoyed by the pigeons in Italy that he wanted to write to Mussolini to propose "a great pigeon shoot";

"Back to Oregon through the Panama Canal--1927"
wherein we find young Gory on a stopver in still-rustic Acapulco, watching cock fights;

"Again to Panama Canal, across South America and up to New York--1938"
wherein we get a glimpse of the locum tenens in North Portland that Babson took right out of medical school: it paid $200 a month, and came with a small office library but no R.N. to turn to for advice ("fortunately patients were not of litigious mind");

"How I married Ruth Lambert--1939"
wherein we hear that their first date was watching Sonja Henie skate at MSG, and that Guy Lombardo's orchestra provided the dancing music for their wedding day;

"How I started my practice--1940"
wherein Babson gets his start, even though "opportunities to practice the art for a living were not frequent" in Portland;

"Shirley Thompson: Supervisor of Doernbecher Hospital--1950"
wherein we hear of the efforts of "this innovative nurse" to establish the first nursery for premature babies at Doernbecher;

"How I became a professor of perinatology at OHSU--1961"
wherein we hear that the reason Babson gave up one of the leading private practices in Oregon was that his clinic was about to be demolished to make way for an expansion of the I-5;

"In search of Petra, our first trip around the world--1963"
wherein we hear of the ancient practice of the "open" airline ticket that allowed travelers to make up their itinerary as they went;

"Director of the OHSU Neonatal Center--1965"
wherein we hear about nurse Katie Simpson's technique for teaching staff to intubate neonates by practicing on cats;

"Epilogue"
wherein Babson thanks his daughter Jane for awakening in him an interest in creative writing, "restricted by years of inscribing medical manuscripts";

"World trips of the intrepid traveler"
which presents a chronological list of the highlights of a footloose life, one of the more intriguing of these being "An Eunoto, a jungle campsite where Maasi boys are admitted to manhood" (1979).

These materials, and the rest of the NPPS Records, are now available for research. But you'll have to wait until after July 4 to have at them; Historical Collections & Archives is closed Friday July 3 in observance of the federal holiday. Happy Independence Day!

New (old) books by alumni

2009-07-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Four new books with alumni connections, plus an exhibition catalog from the High Desert Museum, top this week's new print acquisitions list:

The life and career of Alberta Lucille / Dr. Alan L. Hart with collected early writings / [compilation and design, Jeremy Skinner ; exhibit and editorial, Jeremy Skinner, Doug Erickson, Paul Merchant].
Portland, Or. : Friends of the Aubrey Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College, 2003.
We've shared some information before about Lucille/Alan Hart, a 1917 graduate of the University of Oregon Medical School. From the pamphlet:
"This introduction to the life and career of Alberta Lucille Hart/Dr. Alan L. Hart builds on two earlier sources: a 1999 presentation by Brian Booth and Thomas Lauderdale sponsored by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, and a 2002 exhibit at the Aubrey Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon, presenting a number of items from Brian Booth's collection and the College archives."

Miller, Vern W.
Reminiscences and peregrinations / by Vern W. Miller.
[Salem, OR : The author, [1983?]
Dr. Miller was a 1930 graduate of UOMS, and a native of Scio and Aumsville, Oregon. This memoir contains the usual collection of anecdotes both humorous and instructive: "I finally was admitted to medical school in the fall of 1926. I knew no one, I was quite young, and unfortunately broke.... They gave me a box of bones, several big books and voluminous assignments. I went to my first class and we had an examination. My grade was a minus ten!"

Stern, Thomas L., 1920-
House calls : recollections of a family physician / Thomas L. Stern.
Wilsonville, Or. : BookPartners, c2000.
Dr. Stern, a 1950 graduate of UOMS, reminds us on the back of his book that he was Robert Young's role model for the character of Marcus Welby. Does this sound like Welby to you?:
"Medical school started with a bang. There were seventy-five of us, eight of whom were women--a remarkably high ratio for the times. It was the avowed purpose of the faculty to flunk out anyone who couldn't stand the pressure. My worst bang was in the Department of Human Anatomy; we didn't get along. The chairman of the department was a sadist who delighted in torturing the students he felt were inferior..."

Folin, Otto, 1867-1934.
Laboratory manual of biological chemistry, with supplement, by Otto Folin.
New York, London, D. Appleton and Co., 1922.[3d ed.]
No, it's true that Otto Folin was not a graduate of UOMS. However, this particular copy is extensively marked up with the notes of Dwight Hair Findley (as in the image shown here), graduate of the Class of 1931 .

Boyd, Robert G.
Strong medicine / text by Robert Boyd, Curator of Western Heritage, and Vivian Adams, Curator of Native Heritage.
Bend, Or. : High Desert Museum , 1998.
This well-illustrated exhibition brochure, from a display mounted at the Brooks Gallery from May 1998-May 1999, provides a good overview of desert medicine from Native American remedies to the air ambulance.

Small museums and original art

2009-06-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, we obtained a copy of Carye Bye's new guidebook Hidden Portland: museums & collections during a visit to Reading Frenzy. The display of Bye's original artwork for the book adorns almost all the available wall space in the store, and includes her whimsical take on the Portland Aerial Tram. A rotating rack held more originals, card-sized sketches of points of interest from each of the museums and collections highlighted in the guide. Happily for us, one of OHSU remained for us to snap up: the foot treadle drill from the sixth floor of the School of Dentistry.

The guidebook really is a wonderful introduction to both well known (think Portland Art Museum) and lesser known cultural destinations in town. Our copy will be going into the collections here; if you'd like your own copy, you better act fast: as of last week, the limited run of 125 was already more than half gone.

Summer reading, and a hiatus in which to do it

2009-06-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to the RBMS Preconference this year (due to insufficient funds, not insufficient interest), but I am taking a June break all the same. There will be no posts all next week. Luckily, the library has recently received a passel of books that will help you get your historical "fix", from 18th-century correspondence to military medicine to biography and memoir:

Hunter, William, 1718-1783.
The correspondence of Dr. William Hunter, 1740-1783 / edited by C. Helen Brock.
London Brookfield, Vt. : Pickering & Chatto, 2008.

Garrod, A. H. (Alfred Henry), 1846-1879.
The collected scientific papers of the late Alfred Henry Garrod, M.A., F.R.S. / edited, with a biographical memoir of the author, by W.A. Forbes.
[S.l.]: Kessinger Publications, [2009]

Henderson, Donald Ainslie, 1928-,
Smallpox : the death of a disease : the inside story of eradicating a worldwide killer / D.A. Henderson
Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2009.

War surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq : a series of cases, 2003-2007 / edited by Shawn Christian Nessen, Dave Edmond Lounsbury, Stephen P. Hetz.
Falls Church, Va. : Office of the Surgeon General, United States Army; Washington, DC : Borden Institute : Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 2008.

Ings, Simon.
A natural history of seeing : the art and science of vision / Simon Ings.
New York : W.W. Norton, 2008.

Varmus, Harold.
The art and politics of science / Harold Varmus.
New York : W.W. Norton, c2009.

Warner, John Harley, 1953-
Dissection : photographs of a rite of passage in American medicine, 1880-1930 / John Harley Warner, James M. Edmonson.
New York : Blast Books, 2009.

Wexler, Alice, 1942-
The woman who walked into the sea : Huntington's and the making of a genetic disease / Alice Wexler.
New Haven : Yale University Press, c2008.

Philippon, Jacques.
Joseph Babinski : a biography / Jacques Philippon, Jacques Poirier.
Oxford New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Werbel, Amy Beth.
Thomas Eakins : art, medicine, and sexuality in nineteenth-century Philadelphia / Amy Werbel.
New Haven : Yale University Press, c2007.

Cook, G. C. (Gordon Charles)
Tropical medicine : an illustrated history of the pioneers / G.C. Cook.
Paris Boston : Elsevier/Academic Press, 2007.

Myrsiades, Linda S.
Medical culture in revolutionary America : feuds, duels, and a court-martial / Linda Myrsiades.
Madison : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c2009.

Nuland, Sherwin B.
The soul of medicine : tales from the bedside / Sherwin B. Nuland.
New York : Kaplan Pub., c2009.

Sigerist, Henry Ernst, 1891-1957.
Socialized medicine in the Soviet Union / by Henry E. Sigerist.
New York, W.W. Norton & Co. c1937.

Luckhurst, Roger.
The trauma question / Roger Luckhurst.
London New York : Routledge, 2008.

Ribatti, Domenico.
History of research on tumor angiogenesis / Domenico Ribatti.
[Dordrecht] : Springer, c2009.

Bennett, M. R.
History of cognitive neuroscience / M.R. Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker.
Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Pintar, Judith.
Hypnosis : a brief history / Judith Pintar and Steven Jay Lynn.
Chichester, UK Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.

Surawicz, Borys, 1917-
Doctors in fiction : lessons from literature / Borys Surawicz, Beverly Jacobson.
Abingdon : Radcliffe, 2009.

Enjoy! And see you back here on June 29.

"A series of unplanned good outcomes": Beyl on life

2009-06-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Now that the transcript from the oral history interview with Cecille O. (Sunderland) Beyl, MD has been fully edited, we can share some of the wonderful tidbits from Dr. Beyl's look back over her life and career, which she characterizes as "a series of unplanned good outcomes":

On choosing medicine

BEYL: Yeah. Actually my mother, my mother wanted me to be a doctor. She kept talking to me about that. So my pursuing and considering other things was more a rebellion against that. And then I realized, I think that’s probably what I want to do. It’s hard to know exactly why we make these decisions.

DESAI: Sure. Sure.

BEYL: And that’s why I feel very fortunate that I did make that decision. Because, and even though this sounds rather emotional, I’m really sincere when I say I feel so fortunate that I have had the opportunity to be a doctor, with a life of constant learning, constant challenges, constant thinking. And also make a difference in the world and help people. And you know, when I started in this, I wasn’t thinking in terms of being in an academic position all my life. But in reality, I feel very fortunate that that is the way that my professional life was directed, because in an academic position, one, I’m constantly interacting with my colleagues. And there is a certain amount of peer review that goes on with that. And I’m not saying that in a negative way. We were constantly challenging each other to stimulate thinking, and encourage new ideas in ourselves and in our colleagues. And it’s this constant interaction, so that I’ve been constantly teaching, constantly doing research, presenting papers at meetings. I feel very fortunate that that is how my life direction went.

On medical education at OHSU

BEYL: Yeah. I don’t know if that’s true everywhere, which then leads me to here at OHSU. And this is also what I tell medical students whom I interview who are applying to medical school here. One of the things that all of us medical students felt in Syracuse at that time, was that teaching was not a high priority. And in many ways, we felt that we were in the way. And it wasn’t just I as a woman medical student; it was all of us. And that the professors really were focused on their teaching efforts and so forth on the subspecialty fellows, and so forth.

And when I started here in 1967, and of course I was in pediatric cardiology, what impressed me was the concern for teaching, the focus on teaching, that everybody was important. And this included medical students, nursing students. I mean, even the public. So that the medical students and the faculty were in a collegial relationship. And what that did, that collegial relationship meant medical students didn’t have to compete with each other. You know when I was going to medical school, there was this old tradition of you have to see who’s going to fail so that the others will remain. That wasn’t the philosophy here. It was a collegial relationship, which makes for a more positive learning environment. And this is part of also what I tell medical students, you know, the applicants to medical school, that we have a collegial relationship.

And actually I and others of my colleagues became good friends with medical students when I was pediatric attending. At the end of the rotation, I would take my team on a hike. [laughs] Somebody was talking about that the other day, whom I met someplace, I don’t remember where. But it’s a collegial relationship. And I think that’s very special to OHSU. And I think, it wasn’t called OHSU in those days. But I think that dedication to teaching continues.

On OHSU as a pioneering medical center

PIASECKI: So when you came to OHSU, did you have a sense in the ‘60s that it was a place that was an exciting place to be?

BEYL: Yes.

PIASECKI: It sounds like you did.

BEYL: Yeah. No, I mean even before I came here, I knew that it was an exciting place to be for a couple of things. One was the primary intracardiac repair in early infancy of tetralogy. The Starr-Edwards valve was well known. I remember as a medical student in Syracuse, a woman came in that they brought in when I was a medical student, and she had a Hufnagel valve. I don’t know if you’ve even, did you ever hear of the Hufnagel valve?

DESAI: I have.

BEYL: I mean, it was a valve placed in the sort of the aortic arch, a little bit proximal to the aortic arch, for a severe aortic insufficiency. You could hear this valve across the room. But the woman was alive, anyway. Albert and Edwards sort of figured out this valve, and it revolutionized the treatment of aortic valve disease in adults. So of course I’d heard of that. And of course I worked with Albert and the other surgeons who came and worked with Albert. I don’t remember if I was taller than he, or he taller than I. [laughter]

As always, the full transcript will be available through the OHSU Main Library after processing (indexing, abstracting, cataloging) is complete.

In memoriam: Melvin W. Breese, M.D. (1914-2009)

2009-06-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

A visitor to the History of Medicine Room today shared with us news of the passing of Dr. Melvin Wilson Breese, M.D., in Arizona in April. We had missed the brief notice in the Oregonian, which ran on April 8.

Breese graduated from Oregon State College (now Oregon State University) in 1936 and received his medical degree from the University of Oregon Medical School in December of 1943 on the accelerated wartime schedule. During his dual residencies in gynecology & obstetrics and pathology at UOMS, Breese, together with UOMS pathologist Howard L. Richardson, M.D., developed an Atlas of gynecological & obstetrical microscopic pathology for the use of fellow students.( The work was never published, but we have a copy of it in the PNW Archives Collection.)

After finishing his residencies in 1948, Breese immediately joined the clinical faculty in the Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the medical school. He remained on the volunteer clinical staff through 1994.

In 1961, Breese served as president of the Multnomah County Medical Society, and was elected to the presidency of the Oregon State Medical Society the following year. In 1968, Breese made a splash in the national news when, as chair of the OMA's council on medical education, he bucked medical tradition and shepherded a bill mandating continuing medical education for all society members through the House of Delegates. The OMA was the first state medical association to adopt such a rule, following the lead of the American Academy of General Practice, which was the first medical organization in the United States to require CME.

The September 2, 1968 issue of Newsweek wrote:

The new program, insists Dr. Melvin Breese, chairman of the OMA's council on medical education, is not intended to be a disciplinary 'big stick', but a way of helping members to be more effective physicians. Yet he admits that one reason the requirement was adopted so readily was to head off action to monitor the competence of physicians by the government or agencies outside organized medicine. [emphasis added]

Breese is survived by his wife, three children, seven grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.

New uses for old techniques

2009-06-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

This week's issue of New Scientist (13 June 2009; 2712) includes a fascinating article about the return of the old, old surgical technique of trepanation as a treatment for dementia, titled "Like a hole in the head: the return of trepanation" -- the idea being that if you lower the pressure on the brain, blood flow will increase. We have several examples of early trephines in the Medical Museum Collection (including the one shown here), should you wish to try this at home on those days when you're feeling a bit foggy...

The "Why" of Hospital Costs, Present and Future

2009-06-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

In a presentation delivered before the North Pacific Society of Internal Medicine in the fall of 1959, University of Oregon Medical School Dean Charles Holman, M.D., discussed in eerily modern terms some of the causes for the meteoric rise of health care costs in America and addressed the question of what could be done to control them. A typescript of "The 'Why' of Hospital Costs, Present and Future" in Holman's Biographical File preserves the text of his speech. It reads, in part:

Before going further I want to make the categorical statement that the upward spiral of hospital costs is going to continue throughout the immediately foreseeable future and cannot be stopped by any measure which any of us, operating in a free society, would wish to see adopted. [page 1; emphasis added]

Hospital personnel no longer accept the idea that because they are concerned with the care of the sick they should donate some of their services to the community by means of accepting lower pay scales. They now rightly feel and are demanding that they be paid the same rate as other workers.... Many hospitals practiced a considerable amount of paternalism in relation to their employees in that employees were required to accept meals and housing as part of their stipend. This was accomplished at considerably lower cost to the hospital than would have resulted from payment of a full salary for the work performed. [page 2; emphasis added]

The increase in national income has had an important effect. ... Rising standards of living are also reflected in increased demands for the niceties associated with hospitalization. These include such things as air conditioning, piped radio and television, drapes on the windows, phones at the bedside, a selective menu, all things not essential to the welfare of the patient, but all adding to the cost of hospitalization. [pp. 3-4; emphasis added]

[and yet]... the biggest single factor in the increase of hospital costs is the advance in medical science which has made better care available for our patients. [p. 7]

You may be interested to know our financial experience in performing open heart surgery. The cost per case, including diagnostic cardiac catheterization, an average of 21 days hospitalization, additional personnel beyond that needed for the usual extensive major surgical procedure, special laboratory work, special nurses, disposable supplies and of cleaning and retesting the pump oxygenator and other equipment between cases, averages approximately $1,800 per case. This does not include a penny for the services of any doctor involved. It does not include $18,000 worth of special equipment purchased for this procedure, nor does it include approximately $30,000 spent in salaries and supplies perfecting the technique and developing and training a team on over 100 dog procedures before the first patient was operated upon. This is an average cost of approximately $88.oo per day during a period when the average cost per patient per day in our hospital for all patients including open heart was about $31.00. [p. 8-9; emphasis added]

We now turn to the commonly heard question, "What are we going to do about the increased costs?" The answer is that we are going to do very little that will affect the upward spiral. [p. 9; emphasis added]

There is of course one way that hospital and medical bills can be held down. That is for an agency backed by or with governmental authority to impose by rules and regulations limits upon services which can be rendered to patients. This would hold hospital bills down, but it would also severely limit medical progress and its application to sick people. [p. 10; emphasis added]

Dean Holman sees what modern commentators are calling "rationing" as the only means of lowering healthcare costs, which is his "measure which any of us, operating in a free society, would [not] wish to see adopted." I guess we in the free society need to think about what we would wish to see adopted, should we be unwilling to part with drapes and television....

Flag Day

2009-06-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Flag Day is this Sunday, June 14. This photo, which was pulled today for different reason entirely, was taken by Lt. Comdr. Roger H. Keane, MD, on the Marshall Islands during his Naval service there in World War II. Enjoy!

Cost conundrum, or, setting norms?

2009-06-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

The June 1, 2009 issue of the New Yorker contains a really fascinating and well-written article by Atul Gawande, MD, author of Better and Complications, called "The Cost Conundrum." Gawande studies the practice of medicine in McAllen, Texas, "the most expensive town in the most expensive country for health care in the world".

Comparing McAllen's runaway costs with national models such as the Mayo Clinic, and even just moderately less expensive places like El Paso, Gawande looks for explanations: better quality health care? Sicker patients? More technologically advanced facilities? No, the smoking gun seems to be peer pressure, or a lack thereof:

About fifteen years ago, it seems, something began to change in McAllen. A few leaders of local institutions took profit growth to be a legitimate ethic in the practice of medicine. Not all the doctors accepted this. But they failed to discourage those who did. [emphasis added]

Greed has been a human vice since Moses came down from the mountain (and probably before that, too). Socialization into group ethics and norms should allow communities to maintain the desired standards of conduct.

Take, for example, this week's pet group, the Third Judicial District Medical Society of Oregon. In the summer of 1871, shortly after organizing, the society appointed a five-member committee to develop a fee bill. The fees would need to represent the "different points of practice in the several counties represented," and would (theoretically) be enforced by the group as a whole. Physicians charging more than the standard rate would be censured. Doctors were expected to police themselves, and they considered it a right and an obligation of professional practice.

Have patients, in their insistence on "shopping around" for doctors, contributed to this problem? Have physicians abdicated their professional responsibilities to police themselves? Or has the almighty Market overwhelmed both physician and patient in its cancerous growth? Whatever the cause, we can seek solutions in history.

[Shown here: Umatilla County Medical Society fee bill, 1891]

Respectfully challenging

2009-06-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

In March of 1871, the newly formed Medical Society of the Third Judicial District of Oregon published its constitution in the Oregon Medical and Surgical Reporter. Article VI treats "Of the Differences Between Physicians":

"1. Diversity of opinion and opposition of interest, may, in the medical as in other professions, sometimes occasion controversy and even contention. Whenever such cases unfortunately occur, and cannot be immediately terminated, they should be referred to the arbitration of a sufficient number of physicians, or a court-medical, or, where both parties are members of the Medical Society of their county, to the Censors."

At their September meeting, the minutes of which were subsequently published in the Oregon Medical and Surgical Reporter in October, the group put its ethic into effect in what must have been a very spirited discussion:

"Dr. [Horace] Carpenter ... presented a case of gunshot wound, to which he had been called in consultation with Dr. [P.A.] Davis, in which the operation was delayed until the patient could be brought to a suitable place for treatment; stated that the delay was absolutely necessary, that no injury was received, and that the subsequent death was due to the extensive nature of the wound, not only freely lacerating the arm, but entering the chest. Reaction never took place from the first injury, and although a post mortem examination was not made, there was every appearance of serious internal complications. These remarks had been called up by some unprofessional remarks that were stated to have been made by some members of the Society, in reference to the physicians who had been first called to the scene of suffering. He could fully exonerate them of any want of judgment or attention, and he deemed it proper for the members of the Society to examine thoroughly any case of supposed improper action on the part of any of its number, and that, by so doing, we would find ourselves incited to more careful performance of our duties and more thoughtful regard for each other, while it would be an element of decided strength to the profession."

The formal minutes present an undoubtedly toned-down version of the discussion--which is only to be expected, given Section 2 of Article VI of the constitution:

"2. As peculiar reserve must be maintained by physicians towards the public, in regard to professional matters, and as there exist numerous points in medical ethics and etiquette through which the feelings of medical men may be painfully assailed in their intercourse with each other, and which cannot be understood or appreciated by general society, neither the subject matter of such differences nor the adjudication of the arbitrators should be made public, as publicity in a case of this nature may be personally injurious to the individual concerned, and can hardly fail to bring discredit on the Faculty."

What happens at a medical meeting stays at a medical meeting...

New Oregoniana

2009-06-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

A bevy of books relating to medicine in Oregon have recently landed in the History of Medicine Room. Some old, some new, some transferred, one blue (well, really more of a teal), they're sure to satisfy most tastes and interests:

OHSU School of Medicine : [yearbook].
Portland, Or. : School of Medicine, Oregon Health Sciences University,1994.
A 1994 edition, which we were lacking. Thanks to Cindy Sligar in MMI for the donation!

Sheldon, Henry Davidson, 1874-1948.
History of University of Oregon / by Henry D. Sheldon.
Portland, Or., Binfords & Mort [c1940]
Putting our northern campus into the context of the growth and development in Eugene.

American Academy of Pediatrics. Committee for the Study of Child Health Services.
Child health services in Oregon : report of the American Academy of Pediatrics Study of Child Health Services in Oregon.
[S.l.] : Oregon State Board of Health, 1948.
"This study constitutes the first attempt on the part of practicing physicians to conduct a survey of this scope and magnitude. The physicians and dentists of Oregon cooperated wholeheartedly, and the pediatricians assumed leadership in obtaining their portion of the data required"--p. v.

Meeting the needs for nursing services in Oregon : a study of nursing resources, needs and educational facilities, 1948-1950.
[Portland, Ore. : Board of Directors, Oregon State Nurses' Association?], 1950.
Transferred from storage, this typescript report will receive better housing in PNW Archives.

Roth, Richard R.
The Hot Lake story : supplement / by Richard R. Roth.
Orting, WA : Heritage Quest Press, c2009.
An historian's researches are never done. Another update to the story of Hot Lake Sanitarium from the undisputed expert.

Atwood, Kay.
An honorable history : 133 years of medical practice in Jackson County, Oregon / Kay Atwood.
Medford, Ore. : Jackson County Medical Society, 1985.
If only there were such a history written for every county in Oregon, with lists of practicing physicians, lovely illustrations, and ample references.

Pollock, Robert W.
The education of a country doctor / by Robert W. Pollock.
New York : Vantage Press, [c1978]
Written by a physician who practiced in eastern Oregon (and elsewhere), this book offers a bit of history, numerous colorful anecdotes, and advice on "How to Collect a Bad Debt" as well as other useful tips.

Dary, David.
Frontier medicine : from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941 / David Dary.
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
From Native American cures to medicine on the Oregon Trail to quacks and patent medicine, a nice overview--even if it does neglect to mention our fine institution.

Larsell, Olof, 1886-1964.
Morphological studies on the cerebellum. I. In Amblystoma. II. In chelonians and alligator / by O. Larsell.
[Portland, Or.] 1932.
Because one can never have enough Olof. This offprint from J Comp Neurol 56(2) was previously kicking around in the anatomy department at the University of Cambridge. Somehow, I think Olof probably had someone else wrassle the gators, although I'm sure he could have taken one himself.

Osgood, Edwin E. (Edwin Eugene), 1899-1969
Osgood-Haskins hemoglobin method / Edwin S. [sic] Osgood, H.D. Haskins.
[Portland, Or. : University of Oregon Medical School, between 1918 and 1931?].
A single-fold sheet with the instructions for conducting analysis.

Hoff, Clara S.
Gate on the hillside. [Poems].
[Portland Or., Sawtell, 1950]
Clara inscribed this copy to Adalbert Bettman, MD, who had provided her book with a preface. One of the poems is also dedicated to him, and another dedicated is to Ira Manville, MD. We decided to bring this one out of storage and into safer keeping.

In memoriam: Ralph Criswell Benson, M.D. (1911-2009)

2009-06-08T11:57:00.001-07:00

This weekend, the Oregonian ran a small obituary for Ralph C. Benson, M.D., who died in New Orleans on May 28, shortly after his 98th birthday.

Benson was born in 1911 in St. Louis, MO, and received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1936. He interned at Hopkins and then moved on to the New York Lying-In Hospital for a residency in obstetrics and gynecology. After a year of private practice, Benson was called to serve with the US Navy from 1942-1947; upon discharge, he assumed a position as associate professor of OB/GYN at the University of California San Francisco Medical School. He joined the faculty at the University of Oregon Medical School in 1956, becoming the first full-time chairman of the Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology, succeeding Howard Stearns, M.D.

In 1961, Benson and his colleague Howard J. Tatum, M.D., were awarded a $517,000 training grant from the Public Health Service, which they used to create the broadest OB/GYN training program then in existence in the United States. Benson's national reputation served to draw trainees to Oregon, remembered Alfred Ono, M.D., in his oral history interview.

Benson's research interests included thyroid function, causes and prevention of abortion, female genital cancers, and gynecologic pathology. He was an honorary member of the International College of Surgeons, a director of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and senior advisor to the National Board of Medical Examiners. Author of numerous publications, he was the co-author with Martin Pernoll of a Handbook of obstetrics & gynecology, which went through ten editions. In an oral history, colleague S. Gorham Babson, M.D., recalled his experience with Benson in writing the 1966 text Primer on prematurity and high-risk pregnancy:

ROSENWINKEL: Now, what I found most interesting was the various editions of the book you wrote on prematurity. When you published this in ’66, which was shortly after you became full time, it was called the Primer on Prematurity and High-risk Pregnancy, and then several editions—I think it was about five or six editions later, in 1986...

BABSON: No, the next one. The final one, the fifth, was published in 1986 with Dr. Pernoll, the lead writer.

ROSENWINKEL: The next one, yes. Well, you changed the title on the second edition; and then, in the eighties, it changed in its title to A Team Approach. So what I saw in that was an evolution from you and Dr. Ralph Benson, being two authors, to then a number of people collaborating on this book. So, how did the evolution of your book on prematurity parallel developments in the field of neonatology?

BABSON: That’s very interesting. Our first edition in 1966, Primer on Prematurity and High Risk Pregnancy, was a little simplistic. In 1970, we changed the name to indicate its perinatal coverage. Suddenly, we were aware of the entry into the perinatal age, with Diagnosis and Management of the Fetus and Neonate at Risk: A Guide for Team Care for our title in 1970. It was the first book on perinatal medicine, believe it or not.

ROSENWINKEL: Nationwide? Well, that’s a tribute to both of you.

BABSON: Yes. And interestingly enough, it went through five editions and was translated into four languages, which pleased me. My partner, Ralph Benson, was an able writer with better use of the English language than I.

Benson retired as chair emeritus from OHSU in 1976, and was succeeded by Leon Speroff, M.D.

Transplantation turns fifty

2009-06-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

In the category of "History is what happens every day," we're happy to showcase a recent donation of materials from the fiftieth anniversary of organ transplantation at OHSU. The year-long celebration kicked off May 9, 2009, with the Heart Transplantation Celebration at the Oregon Convention Center. The event program, flyers, and menus were deposited in the archives, along with a wealth of digital photos from the party. Materials from additional celebrations will be deposited as the events unfold--an archivist's dream! Our thanks to Michelle Bechtholdt in Liver Transplantation for being so historically minded.

[In photo, l-r: Albert Starr, MD; Adnan Cobanoglu, MD, Dr. and Mrs. John Hunter, MD]

Hidden Portland: local museums event TONIGHT

2009-06-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you not attending the OHSU Commencement tonight--or, if you find Bas Vanderzalm's address a wee bit long and want an excuse to sneak out: Reading Frenzy is hosting a book launch party for "Local Museum Lady" Carye Bye, author of the new guidebook HIDDEN PORTLAND: Museums and Collections. There will also be a showing and sale of original illustrations from the book; the show will run through the end of the month.

Carye became interested in OHSU Historical Collections & Archives after stumbling across the School of Dentistry's display of dental anomalies on a visit to her dentist. She was kind enough to include us in her first compilation of small museums in Portland, a one-page trifold brochure which is now available on the Hidden Portland web site. After a recent tour of Marquam Hill art (a very long tour, because even I had underestimated how many great things there are to see here), Carye was sketching a preliminary design for the illustration that will accompany OHSU's write up in the guidebook. Be sure to check out the show--if not tonight, then sometime before the end of June--to see what image she found most iconic of OHSU's collections.

The full announcement for the book launch and show is below.

Hidden Portland: the Museums
Art Show & Limited Edition Artist Book/Guide Release by artist/local museum expert Carye Bye
First Thursday, June 4, 6 - 9 pm

Carye Bye has three distinct creative identities in Portland: the artist and printer behind Red Bat Press, Bicycle Fun Advocate -- starting rides such as the Bunny on a Bike and Pretty Dress Bike Rides -- and Local Museum Lady (LML). As Carye Bye, LML she self-published a free brochure two years ago called "A Compendium of Small Museums & Obscure Collections" and led monthly Small Museums by Bike tours. Now she's starting a guidebook series called Hidden Portland. The first one is on the subject she knows best -- museums and collections.

Portland is home to many amazing but relatively unknown collections of art and artifacts and Bye wants both townies and tourists to have a chance to discover these obscure treasures. Collections such as the Museum of Dental Anomalies at the OHSU Dental School, the Portland Police Museum at the Justice Center (featuring a rapping McGruff Crime Dog from the late 70s!) or the Kidd's Toy Museum, tucked away in an unassuming gray office building off of SE Grand Avenue, which boasts a whopping collection of nearly 15,000 toys, are typically overlooked by conventional guidebooks. But even the bigger museums have their secrets too, such as an exhibit of preserved human fetuses in OMSI's Life Science Hall, or the 19th century plaster cast replicas of classic Greek sculptures, including the Venus de Milo, in the Mark Building Lobby at the Portland Art Museum.

As a printmaker, photographer and zine publisher, Carye has never had occasion or inclination to part with her original artwork. This show marks a departure for the artist as she will be exhibiting and selling the original watercolor & ink illustrations painted at each museum, as well as dozens of other small original works which will be replenished throughout the month. A limited edition, special debut release of Hidden Portland: The Museums will be available exclusively at Reading Frenzy.

This is the first show Bye has done with Reading Frenzy, but her relationship with the store dates back to 2002, when she started to sell her very first art postcards from Red Bat Press. A portion of the artist's proceeds will be donated to Reading Frenzy as a thank you for being a kick ass independent book and art shop, and one of the places that makes Portland such an awesome place to live and work as an artist.
The Show will run through June.

Red Bat Press
http://www.redbatpress.com

Hidden Portland
http://www.hiddenportland.com

Flickr Photo Blog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/redbat/

Closing the books on the Portland Academy of Medicine

2009-06-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a generous donation from Stephen R. Jones, MD, the archives now holds the final records of the Portland Academy of Medicine.

The collection of Portland Academy of Medicine Records previously available in the OHSU Historical Collections & Archives (2004-019) was donated by longtime member A.G. Bettman, MD, sometime in the 1960s; that collection contains records covering the period from the Academy's inception in 1906 until 1961.

The materials donated by Dr. Jones cover the period 1986-1999, the final years of the group's existence. The collection includes the constitution and by-laws, meeting minutes, membership roster, nomination forms, and correspondence.

Most notable among the documents is a letter from Executive Secretary Barbara Gatrell, dated September 16, 1999, in which she details the process by which the Academy would be dissolved. It reads, in part:

Mitigating for graceful dissolution of the Academy at this point, founded November 6, 1906, are the following facts:

Due to death and attrition, the membership has dwindled to less than 50% of what it was in the early 1980's.

No new members have joined or been successfully recruited in more than 10 years. ...

The current generation of active members of the local medical community has decidedly expressed little or no interest in membership in, or offerings of, the Academy.

The Academy Council itself has exhausted itself of "new blood" in that every member is now a Past-President and the status of "officership" has been static since 1996.

While this was undoubtedly a sad outcome for those who remembered the Academy's heyday, it is nevertheless an extraordinarily telling event in the history of organized medicine in Portland, and we thank Dr. Jones sincerely for depositing these records with us.

If any one out there happens to have the PAM records for the period 1961-1986 sitting in their closet, we'd love to chat with you about the possibility of getting those into the archives as well...

Finding Horace Carpenter

2009-06-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

More reading on--or really "around" rather than "on"--l'affaire Sawtelle, the expulsion of a female student from Willamette University Medical Department in 1871, has inspired us to take a closer look at Horace Carpenter, M.D., a member of the faculty at WUMD during the crisis.

The bulk of the extant material pertaining to Carpenter in OHSU's historical collections was donated by his descendant, University of Oregon Medical School alumnus and medical historian G. Horace Coshow, M.D. Coshow deposited several original photographs from a family scrapbook, including the one shown here, with Carpenter, his wife Sarah, and their three daughters, Mae, Georgia, and Lilly. Original correspondence from Alfred Kinney, MD, and George H. Brodie, recounting their recollections of Carpenter, was collected by Coshow during his research into Carpenter's life and career (later published as a short biography in Northwest Medicine 1931; 30(8):378).

While we still find no smoking gun implicating Carpenter in Sawtelle's dismissal from WUMD, we find additional evidence--as if more were needed!--that the early faculty were often at one another's throats. Describing the early development of the school, Coshow writes:

Rivalries and jealousies developed the first year over the signatures which should appear on the diplomas of the graduating class. It appears that Dr. Carpenter objected to Dr. [Joseph Henry] Wythe's signature appearing on the diplomas, but whether as a professor in the school or as president of the University is not clear. Relations became strained and Dr. Wythe submitted his resignation as president, but the matter was adjusted and he remained for another year. Regardless of the fact that disagreements developed from time to time within the faculty and between the faculty and the Board of Trustees regarding Dr. Carpenter's ability, he must have been competent, for he was always retained or reinstated after the fires of battle died out...

In fact, an obituary for Carpenter (source unknown, the clipping coming from Coshow's scrapbook) discussed his surgical expertise, noting that he "successfully ligated a femoral artery an inch and a half below Powpart's ligament", and performed three successful trepanations--this all before 1893.

An article on Mary Sawtelle's experience at WUMD, written by Lavola Bakken for the Oregon Journal in 1971, concluded that since Carpenter had written Sawtelle a "warm letter of congratulation" years later, "'Flunking' Mary from Willamette could not have been his idea." However, Bakken also notes that when Carpenter did finally leave WUMD in 1875, "he took the department records with him." Alas, my archives for a records retention program!

In memoriam: Edward E. Rosenbaum, 1915-2009

2009-06-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

This morning's Oregonian has a short obituary of Dr. Edward E. Rosenbaum, MD, OHSU professor and chair emeritus of the Dept. of Rheumatology and nationally known author of A Taste of My Own Medicine, who passed away yesterday at the age of 94.

Part of one of Portland's most prominent medical families, Edward practiced medicine with his brother William, an internist; three of Edward's sons and two daughters-in-law became physicians, as did two of William's sons. Despite his close association with the profession, Edward was ultimately unstinting in his criticism of the modern practice of medicine. His book, which served as the basis of the screenplay for the film The Doctor, recounts Edward's experience as a patient with throat cancer--an experience that radically changed his perspective on what it takes to be a good physician.

Edward's impressive resume included fellowships at Michael Reese and the Mayo Clinic, military service in World War II with both a mobile surgical hospital and the Women's Army Corps, a long and distinguished academic career at OHSU as the state's first specialist in rheumatology, and a private practice that served all patients regardless of financial status (it has been widely reported that the Rosenbaum brothers often wrote off as much as $40,000 in bad debts annually).

Education and clinical experience alone could not teach Edward what his grandmother had known instinctively: "Doctors are great--as long as you don't need them." His turn in the role of patient provided Edward with insight into the perspectives of the ill, and it radically altered his own perception of the role of the physician. "I've switched sides," he declared. And we all--physicians and patients alike--are better off for it.

Magnolia mysteries: one down

2009-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

The weather here in Portland has been picture perfect the past week, just in time for the annual celebration of Rose Festival. As if on cue, most of the rose bushes on Marquam Hill have burst into bloom, and the campus is aglow with rhododendrons, azaleas, lupine, and all manner of other flora.

For this beauteous bounty, we are indebted to John G. Bacher, the Swiss florist and horticulturist who designed the landscaping around the campus core, starting in 1950. A 1954 issue of the university publication What's Going On? opined that "there are probably few men in Portland with the love and knowledge of plant life and the imagination to have created the color, beauty, and variety that Mr. Bacher has achieved on campus."

The grounds certainly contribute in part to the strange allure of OHSU (often inexplicable to those who have never visited campus), and serve as proof of the corporate philosophy of Bacher's Swiss Floral Company, that "the world of flowers is life's greatest consolation, for it serves all who care, appeals to the soul in grief and joy, and sweetens our hardest days of toil."

Bacher was also responsible for the epic move of the magnolia tree onto campus from--as we learn in a caption to photos in the Charles Norris Scrapbook (2000-007)--Lincoln High School. Below, we see the expert at work documenting the event.

Oregon v. Women

2009-05-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

On first looking into The Oregon Medical and Surgical Reporter index (vol. 1, 1869-70) I was initially struck by the listing for "Effect of the sewing machine on health" but then more forcibly by "Oregon versus Women"--surely, I thought, this must be the reasoned explanation for why the medical men of Willamette University were contemplating the exclusion of women from classes, a move which was effected in June of 1871 (see our earlier post on Mary Sawtelle for a bit more on that.)

Well, the brief editorial isn't about that at all. But it is too good not to share, so here it is, in part:

How often we hear the expression in regard to our climate that 'it is very hard on women.' This we believe to be an unjust aspersion, arising from ignorance of the true cause of female weakness in a climate which is noted for its salubrity. The fault lies not so much in the climate as in the failure to appreciate, and rightly appropriate the wealth of vitality and healing which has been poured out on these Western shores in such bounteous measure. The fact seems to be lost sight of, if ever known, that ours is one of those peculiar climates which require for its full enjoyment, so far as bodily vigor is concerned, a personal appreciation of its stores of life, where only they can be found in the open air....

Unfortunately for suffering womanhood in our days, fashion, custom, or propriety--as you please--that hideous monster, which, like the car of the Juggernaut, goes crushing on over quivering nerves and aching hearts, has extracised [sic] that one, who in defiance of its fiat persists in seeking full bounding life 'in the long fields of light,' and points the finger of scorn at the cheek embrowned by the sun's frequent caresses in its pursuit. Confinement to the house, too much indoor labor can but work mischief to the one practising it too assiduously in a climate as mild as ours....

It is a remarkable fact, and one well authenticated too, that ladies in Oregon 'bear their age' better than in any other State of the Union--California perhaps excepted--notwithstanding their neglect of these gifts so priceless and so free....

As if we needed more inducement to play out of doors. Go to it, ladies! (and gentlemen!)

New donation: The Story of Sidney R. Garfield

2009-05-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Today's mail brought us a copy of the latest book on the history of Kaiser Permanente and the development of prepaid health care, Tom Debley's The Story of Sidney R. Garfield: the visionary who turned sick care into health care (Permanente Press, 2009).

Debley, Director of Heritage Resources for KP, visited OHSU back in January of 2006 to give a talk on the history of Kaiser for the History of Medicine Society Lecture Series (streaming video available on our lectures page). This new book "represents the first time that Garfield's story has been told in a form that puts him in the foreground and Henry Kaiser in the background," and while Debley demurs that the work is "not, however, a definitive biography," it is nonetheless a very informative and very readable narrative of Garfield's life and accomplishments.

A 1928 graduate of the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Garfield was at first a reluctant physician: he reportedly cried in disappointment when his parents insisted he attend medical school. Internships at Michael Reese and the Los Angeles County General Hospital, plus a three-year surgical residency, dropped him out into the medical workforce in 1933, the height of the Great Depression. Nevertheless, the plucky young man decided to open a 12-bed hospital in the Mojave Desert east of L.A., betting that the workers brought to the area by construction projects would need medical care. His bet finally paid off when the largest insurer of the workmen, the Industrial Indemnity Exchange, offered to prepay for health care. The rest, as they say, was history.

No history of KP would be complete without mention of Portland and the Kaiser shipyards--and the Portland medical community's NIMBY attitude to the ideas of prepayment and group medical insurance. Debley quotes one unnamed "leader of the [Portland] community physicians" who told Garfield and Kaiser "to go across the Columbia River to the small town of Vancouver, Washington: 'Do what you want over there. Nobody cares what you do.'" Ah, the good old days.

The book is amply illustrated with photographs from the KP archives, and really is a page-turner. After cataloging, the OHSU copy will be headed for the PNW Archives Collection. You can check for a copy in a library near you, or buy a copy online.

Welcoming Willis

2009-05-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

A very welcome new addition to the History of Medicine Collection here at OHSU is a copy of Thomas Willis' Pharmaceutice rationalis, or, An exercitation of the operations of medicines in humane bodies, shewing the signs, causes, and cures of most distempers incident thereunto. In two parts. As also A treatise of the scurvy, and the several sorts thereof, with their symptoms, causes, and cure (I love a proper title!), printed in London in 1679.

A landmark of 17th-century English medicine, this was one of the first scientific works on pharmacology, in which Willis attempted to establish pharmacology as a science based on anatomy and chemical experimentation. Here, Willis describes the sweetish flavour of urine in diabetes mellitus, (possibly) differentiating between it and diabetes insipidus--the first Westerner to do so. The text also contains numerous anatomical illustrations of the organs of the abdominal and thoracic cavities, including some very early images of the fine structure of the lungs (such as the one shown here, Tab. V., which "sets forth the pulmonary nerve more accurately described by the aid of a Microscope").

The OHSU copy bears the bookplate of the avid book collector Dr. Oren Otto Fisher. A contemporary signature on the title page is very intriguing: it appears to read "Kath. Wright, 1684." By chance, I happened across a mention of a Katharin Wright, wife of William Lee, burgess and five-time mayor of Abingdon, who happened to be Governor of Christ's Hospital in Abingdon during the second half of the 17th century (cf. Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1878, p. 301-2). We can't yet say for certain that these two Kath Wrights are one and the same, but it's certainly an intriguing possibility!

Happy Don't FryDay

2009-05-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

The National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention celebrates the Friday before Memorial Day as national Don't FryDay, to remind people to protect their skin when out of doors. The theme for 2009 is "Slap on a Hat!" There are numerous examples of proper headgear in the Historical Image Collection (and yes, we're going to do this whole bit on hats without referring once to Esther Pohl Lovejoy's fabulous collection thereof... Ok, maybe we'll refer to her once.)

Classic, a la Dean Baird (devil-may-care Wren Gaines going hatless):

Tropical, modeled by E.S. West:

Western wear, epitomized by Hopalong Cassidy (shown here with nurse Shirley Thompson):

Eclectic, de riguer during the School of Dentistry's Tongue Depressor Contests:

We don't, however, recommend going overboard on coverage. 'Cause you might scare young children. Here, the circus comes to Doernbecher Memorial Hospital for Children:

Greed in medicine: a perspective from the borderlands of civilization

2009-05-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

Volume 1, number 1 of the short-lived Oregon Medical Journal, a publication of the Marion County Medical Society, contains the Original Communication "The code of ethics -- shall it be enforced?" A response to a piece on the merits of the AMA code by one Y.S. Franklin in the Cincinnati Lancet and Observer, the unsigned comment is interesting reading for these modern times.

The writer, presumably one of the journal's editors (who were C.H. Hall, A. Sharples, and L.L. Rowland, all faculty at the Willamette University Medical Department) takes aim at the greed of some of his fellow physicians:

If a physician's office is like a pawn-broker's shop, a place solely to extort money from the unfortunate and necessitous, then it would be consistent and in keeping with the proper function of the profession for each doctor to do as he pleased, and make money the best he could, without regard to any rule of action, no matter from what source it may emanate. But if physicians are in reality a body of men who, actuated by high motives and noble impulses, making the relief of the suffering of their fellow-men the prime object being foremost in their estimation, then, indeed, is it proper for any member of the profession to speak out and expose any one who, claiming fellowship with it, would, Judas-like, sell his Master for thirty pieces of silver.

Further on, he proposes a course of action:

As a remedy for this evil, which seems to be a growing one, let each Society, State or County, rid itself of all irregular excresences, and then report them to their Alma Mater, to deal with them as abandoned, profligate and unworthy sons, who, like Pilot [sic] and Herod, have combined together to injure, and if possible destroy, the usefulness of the profession, in order that they may reap pecuniary benefit by imposing upon their community.

One wonders whether the mechanism by which the alma mater would "deal with" these greedy graduates would be the reduction of their personal fortune through a sizeable gift to the school. Just a thought...

The matter of medical ethics was a sensitive one in the Oregon of the 1870s, since, as the writer notes, "We have here in Oregon a new State; our State Society is just formed; we are upon the very borders of civilization, and it is a matter of paramount importance that, isolated as to a great extent we are, we should make a new beginning."

Ah, good stuff. But here's some even better stuff: one of our predecessors here at the library took the time to compile a list of the (eclectic) contents of the entire run of the Oregon Medical Journal (four issues, June 1876-March 1877). All hail librarians!

Vol. 1, no. 1:
Editorial: Salutatory ; Practical medicine as a science ; Physiological action of lobelia ; State Medical Society ; Medical witnesses in the courts ; Commencement, Department of Medicine, Willamette University
Original communications: The code of ethics--shall it be enforced? ; History of the Medical Department of Willamette University ; Extirpation of a stricture of the urethra
Book notices
Miscellaneous: Original prescriptions ; Carbolic acid as a local anesthetic ; Simple test for blood ; Method of arresting epistaxix ; Comedones ; Conium in dysmenorrhea

Vol. 1, no. 2:
Original communications: Quacks and doctors ; Report of Committee on Obstetrics to State Medical Society ; Suppression of urine relieved by Faradization
Editorial: Medical legislation ; Patheys and isms
Book notices
Miscellaneous: Castor oil ; Morphia in sea-sickness ; Poisoned meat ; Hydrophobia ; Death from chloroform ; Acute rheumatism treated by salicylic acid ; Salicylic acid as an antiseptic

Vol. 1, no. 3:
Original communications: Peri-nephritic abscess ; Entomology ; Apparatus for holding infants during surgical operations about the face
Editorial: Diphtheria ; Electricity as a therapeutic agent ; How are maternal impressions made on the foetus in utero?
Miscellaneous: Report of a case of poisoning by gelsemium ; A new mode of obtaining local anesthesia ; Wadding vs. sponges ; Treatment of diphtheria by clysters ; Gelseminum ; Prevention of miscarriage ; Preservation of ice ; Abortive treatment of erysipelas ; Surgery, on ainhum ; Antidote for carbolic acid ; Treatment of rheumatic fever ; Ozone observations in Paris ; Violent pain ; Intermittent diarrhea ; Respiratory movements

Vol. 1, no. 4:
Original communications: [On diphtheria] by Phillip Harvey ; [Case report, malnutrition] by W.A. Cuseck
Editorial: Diphtheria and its treatment ; Correct habits a preventive of disease
Miscellaneous: The bandage in thoracic diseases ; Treatment of acute dysentery by injections of hot water ; New test for albumen ; Homoeopathic soup ; Quackery ; Close of volume ; Medical Society of the State of Oregon ; Obituary [John Vite, M.D.]

Pacific Coast surgery, with a local note

2009-05-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

A recent addition to the Pacific Northwest Archives Collection is The Early history and era of development of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association : the first twenty-five meetings (1982) and its companion volume, published six years later, The History of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association (1955-1979), both edited by Lyman Brewer III.

Established in April of 1925 by thirty-six of the "leading surgeons" of the West Coast, the PCSA spent the first 52 years of its existence in blissful neglect of its own history. The 1982 volume recognized that "early historical treasures of the association have been scattered far and wide and, in fact, the whereabouts of some of them will never be known," and hoped that "future generations of our society will recognize the important need to maintain an official repository for the archives" of the PCSA. (A search of the association web site provides no information about the current whereabouts of said archives, although the group does have an official historian. So, let us be the first to offer them an official home, should they be looking....)

The first volume contains a wealth of information on wartime surgery, covering both World War I and World War II, along with chapters on the development of surgical specialties. The 1988 volume continues the story, with perspectives on Viet Nam, government regulation of surgery, surgical ethics and liability, and the proliferation of even more surgical specialties.

An added local interest comes in the form of a presentation inscription: the first volume of the OHSU set is inscribed to Portland's second neurosurgeon, John Raaf, from Brewer, as seen in the image here.