Babe Ruth Caught the 1918 Flu—Twice

(Slate) ... The stories of Ruth’s home runs overshadowed a curious development on the team. During their time in Hot Springs, two of his teammates, George Whiteman and Sam Agnew, fell ill with “the grippe,” and several other players soon became sick. “The reign of the grippe and sore throats continues,” noted Boston Globe reporter Edward Martin. That same day, Henry Daily of the Boston American reported, “A perfect epidemic has run through the entire city, and almost everyone complains.” Continued

Denton Cooley

(Wikipedia) Denton Arthur Cooley (born August 22, 1920) is a pioneering American heart surgeon. He graduated in 1941 from the University of Texas, then began his medical education at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and then went on to complete his medical degree and his surgical training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Following his graduation he went to London to work with Lord Russell Brock. In 1969, he became the first heart surgeon to implant an artificial heart designed by Dr Domingo Liotta in a man. Continued

Secrets of Duffy’s Cut Yield to Shovel and Science

 

(NYTimes) They laid his bones in a bed of Bubble Wrap, with a care beyond what is normally given to fragile things. They double-boxed those bones and carried them last month to the United Parcel Service office on Spruce Street in Philadelphia. Then they printed out the address and paid the fee.
With that, the remains of a young man were soon soaring over the Atlantic Ocean that he had crossed once in a three-masted ship. His name is believed to have been John Ruddy, and he was being returned to the Ireland he had left as a strapping teenage laborer in 1832.
His voyage home is the latest turn in the tale of Duffy’s Cut, a wooded patch that is little more than a sylvan blur to those aboard commuter trains rocketing past. It is a mass grave, in fact: the uneasy resting place for dozens of Irish immigrants who died during a cholera epidemic, just weeks after coming to America, as an old song says, to work upon the railway. Continued

Photo by smallbones 

 

Daniel Hale Williams

(Wikipedia) Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was an American surgeon. He was the first African-American cardiologist, and is attributed with performing the first successful surgery on the heart. He also founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. Continued

The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete

 

(Slate) As we feast on succulent turkey, moist stuffing, and glistening cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving, the furthest thing from our minds is probably rat urine.
Yet it’s quite possible that America as we know it would not exist without rat urine and leptospirosis, the disease it spreads. The disease conveniently cleared coastal New England of Native Americans just prior to the Pilgrims’ arrival and later killed the helpful Squanto. It still lurks among us, underdiagnosed, an emerging menace. Continued

Daniel Nathans

Daniel Nathans (October 30, 1928 – November 16, 1999) was an American microbiologist. ... Nathans served as President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1995 to 1996.
Along with Werner Arber and Hamilton Smith, Nathans received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for the discovery of restriction enzymes. He was also awarded with National Medal of Science in 1993. Continued

A Case of Yellow Fever

(LoC) On August 27, 1900, U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping his colleague, Army pathologist Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes transmit this often-deadly disease. Prior to these findings, epidemics of yellow fever were common in the American South. Uncertain of how the disease was transmitted, many people would leave the South for the summer, the season in which the epidemics were most common, returning after the first frost. Continued

Remember: Polio -- Disease 'struck terror' into York County

York, PA (YDR) Most people don't believe Don Slaugh had polio.
He contracted the infectious disease in the summer of 1941, along with more than 100 other York countians. At least nine people died from an epidemic that year that closed schools, banned children from public events and spread fear throughout the community. The virus mostly infected children, but it also hit adults. Continued

Photo: Iron lung (c. 1933) used to "breathe" for polio patients until 1955 when polio vaccine became available is located in the Mobile Medical Museum, Mobile, Alabama (LoC)

Causes of death: 1900 and 2010

(boingboing) An editorial in the 200th anniversary issue of the New England Journal of Medicine looks at mortality and health through the centuries, and includes this chart of causes of death from the turn of the last century, which makes for quite a comparison. Continued

Cockeysville 'Pest House' on list of endangered historic properties

(Towson Times) An 1872 building in Cockeysville that was built to house poor people who had communicable diseases is now facing an unhealthy future itself, and is on a newly released list of "endangered" or threatened historic properties in Maryland.
The "Pest House," a boarded-up structure that stands behind the Historical Society of Baltimore County, has been vacant since the early 1900s, and its interior has been ruined by vandals.
The site is among 10 locations listed on the 2012 Endangered Maryland list of threatened historic properties, released March 15 by the nonprofit Preservation Maryland.
A panel of preservationists selected the list from nominated properties and assessed the level of threat, historic and architectural significance and community support for preserving the site. Continued

The 2012 Endangered Maryland Sites

Bostwick House—Prince George's County

Charles Sumner Post #25, Grand Army of the Republic—Kent County

Cider Barrel—Montgomery County

Covington Store—Kent County

Dameron House—St. Mary's County

Dielman Inn—Carroll County

Maryland Watermen—Multiple counties

The Pest House—Baltimore County

Potomac House—Washington County

Silver Spring Baptist Church—Montgomery County

WestSide Superblock—Baltimore City

Johns Hopkins: His death and his philanthropy

(Wikipedia) ... Johns Hopkins died without heirs on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1873. He left $7 million, mostly in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad stock, to establish his namesake institutions. This sum was the single largest philanthropic donation ever made to educational institutions up until that time.
The bequest was used to found posthumously the Johns Hopkins Colored Children Orphan Asylum first as he requested, in 1875, the Johns Hopkins University in 1876, the Johns Hopkins Press, the longest continuously operating academic press in America, in 1878, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893. Continued

Richmond’s Medical Miracle

(NYTimes) During the opening months of the Civil War, the streets of Richmond, Va., filled with bloodied bodies. The thousands of Confederate wounded were treated in a range of makeshift hospitals hastily established in hotels, factories and private homes. But by autumn, as hopes the conflict would be brief faded, it became clear a war of this magnitude required a modernized medical response.
That fall Samuel P. Moore, the Confederate surgeon general, secured both the facilities and the personnel to provide such a response at Chimborazo, a 40-acre plateau just east of the Confederate capital’s stately Church Hill neighborhood (the site got its name from Mount Chimborazo, an inactive volcano in Ecuador, famous at the time after being “discovered” by the German explorer-scientist Alexander von Humboldt). Occupying 150 buildings, it was one of the largest hospitals in the world, typically serving around 4,000 sick and wounded soldiers at a time. Continued

Photo: Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, a nurse/administrator at Chimborazo, who later wrote "A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond," which is still in print.

Researchers unable to unearth mass grave at Duffy's Cut

MALVERN, Pa. (AP) The Irish immigrants building a stretch of railroad near Philadelphia in 1832 had been in the U.S. only a few weeks when they died — ostensibly of cholera — and were unceremoniously dumped in a mass grave. Their families never knew what happened to them.
Nearly 180 years later, local researchers say they have a clearer picture of the men's fate. Continued

The Doctors Who Killed a President

(NYTBR) ... Garfield’s medical “care” is one of the most fascinating, if appalling, parts of Millard’s narrative. Joseph Lister had been demonstrating for years how his theories on the prevention of infection could save lives and limbs, but American doctors largely ignored his advice, not wanting to “go to all the trouble” of washing hands and instruments, Millard writes, enamored of the macho trappings of their profession, the pus and blood and what they referred to fondly as the “good old surgical stink” of the operating room.
Further undermining the president’s recovery was his sickroom in the White House — then a rotting, vermin-ridden structure with broken sewage pipes. Outside, Washington was a pestilential stink hole; besides the first lady, four White House servants and Guiteau himself had contracted malaria. Continued

Photo: President James A. Garfield & daughter (Library of Congress).

1969: Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart

(Wikipedia) Denton Arthur Cooley (born August 22, 1920) is a pioneering American heart surgeon. He graduated in 1941 from the University of Texas, then began his medical education at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and then went on to complete his medical degree and his surgical training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Following his graduation he went to London to work with Lord Russell Brock. In 1969, he became the first heart surgeon to implant an artificial heart designed by Dr Domingo Liotta in a man. Continued

A peek into 19th century health care

(YDR) Dr. Benjamin F. Porter was a Chanceford Township physician from 1855 until his death in 1886. A few years ago his great-granddaughter donated two of his ledgers, covering 1870 to 1886, to the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. They give a fascinating glimpse into the interaction between a 19th century country doctor and his patients. Continued

Photo: Sign in front of doctor's office, symbol of the horse and buggy doctor (Library of Congress).

Daniel Hale Williams

(Wikipedia) Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was an American surgeon. He was the first African-American cardiologist, and is attributed with performing the first successful surgery on the heart. He also founded Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. Continued

Trees of Perry Point

"This is a video I made of the trees of Perry Point. The engravings are from mentally ill patients from the Veterans Hospital. They date back to 1911." For more information see http://hdghistory.wordpress.com/

Francis Peyton Rous

(Wikipedia) (Francis) Peyton Rous (October 5, 1879 – February 16, 1970) born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1879 and received his B.A. and M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He was involved in the discovery of the role of viruses in the transmission of certain types of cancer. In 1966 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work. Continued

Ether He Was the First or He Wasn’t

(Wired) 1846: Dentist William Morton uses ether to anesthetize a patient in Boston. It was not the first such use, but it began a train of events leading to the widespread adoption of ether for surgical anesthesia.
Dr. Crawford Long of Jefferson, Georgia, removed a tumor from the neck of James Venable under ether anesthesia March 30, 1842. (Long may have started using ether a year earlier while he was attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.) But Long, perhaps giddy with excitement or perhaps from experimenting with ether as a recreational drug (the “ether frolics”), did not rush to publish or patent his discovery. Continued

Image: Ether Monument, Boston, MA.