This Month in History: A Nation of Neurotics

In America, methods of care for our mentally ill have become intertwined with the politics of universal healthcare, hospital administration, and prevention of violent crime, all of which suffer under an increasingly budget-cut government. This issue is not a new one, however. The Newspaper Clippings Digital Collection of the Isché Library shows an emerging pattern: a pattern of need. Hospitals and treatment centers need enough beds for psychiatric patients; hospitals need staff to treat those patients; police officers, clergy, and even the general public need training to assess and assist the mentally ill.

Linkages of mental illness and criminal tendencies also surface. In recent news, LSU psychiatrist Dr. Jose Calderon-Abbo joined the vice president’s task force on gun violence; he has also partnered up with Tulane public health criminology expert Dr. Peter Scarf to present a paper of similar topic to the House Subcommittee on Crime, terrorism, and Homeland Security at a hearing on The Youth Promise act.

Not only do mental illness and crime sometimes occur simultaneously, but those charged with apprehending the mentally ill are often the same people who apprehend criminals.  One of our newspaper clippings from 1961, entitled “How Police Can Help Mentally Ill,” addresses the need for officers of the law to be properly trained on how to interact with, assess urgency of treatment for, and detain suspects who appear to be suffering from illness, loss of competency, or loss of sanity.

The clergy are often called upon to assist the mentally ill; one article, “Help of Clergy Asked by Many: Role of Churchmen for Mentally Ill Cited,” explains how the clergy ought to be well versed in tactics to understand and aid their congregations. Examples of tactics used to interact with those in need in the include: a manual from 1954 “How to Recognize and Handle Abnormal People” by Robert A. Matthews and Loyd W. Rowland, former director of the Louisiana Association for mental health and former Head of the department of psychiatry and neurology,  in addition to a 1960 New Orleans officer training film, “Booked for Safekeeping,” produced by George C. Stoney.

In 1961, the name of the game was “expedite”: complex legislature required the approval of a hospital director, an order of commitment signed by the coroner, a psychiatrist, and a responsible party, and approval from a civil judge. Convoluted commitment laws and lack of funding for psychiatric facilities and staff were concerns at this time, but these concerns continue today as the Greater New Orleans area loses beds at Charity Hospital and Mandeville’s Southeast Louisiana Hospital.

In the words of Dr. Robert A. Matthews, former head of the department of neuropsychiatry at LSUHSC from 1950-1957, “While we are passing the hat around for money to fight polio, heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis and other maladies, we ought also to be financing some exploration in to the cause and cure of emotional storms and mental defectiveness. We are fast becoming a nation of neurotic people.”

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

Free Dental Work

The LSU School of Dentistry is currently screening for patients willing to participate in clinical board exams for graduating seniors.  The dental screenings are free and IF CHOSEN to be a patient for the board exams there will be $50 in compensation. They are looking for people with good overall oral hygiene who may need a small cavity filled or just a general cleaning. In short, if you have a common type of dental needs, nothing fancy or overly involved, feel free to attend one of the screening sessions

For more information, please consult the flyer.

The Poetry of Dr. George William Cooper

Dr. Cooper, a one-time anatomy Professor at the LSU Medical School, was also well-renowned for his poetry.  Recognized for his “consistently good work in poetry” by a forum of the National Writers Club in 1951 and awarded the position of Louisiana Poet Laureate from 1973-1976, Dr. Cooper is a common subject of our Newspaper Clippings Digital Collection. Though the Isché Library does not own any of his poetry collections, they are available through InterLibrary Loan.

Excerpted below  is a poem from one of his collections dedicated to a previous “Glimpse of the Past” honoree, Dr. Frank N. Low. I would like to share this poem with our new and returning students, who will surely feel the “grind” immediately upon returning to classes:

This Month in History: The Remedies of Mr. William D. Postell

Do you ever drink water from the opposite side of the glass to cure hiccups or apply duct tape to a wart or spray Windex on a zit? These are just a few examples of therapeutic home remedies, but where do they originate? A collector of “weird-looking” medicinal gadgets and medical historian, Mr. William Dosite Postell, is the star of our highlighted article this month.

Former Librarian of the LSU Medical School, Mr. Postell was a Will of all trades: as he believed, “There is a little bit of the clinician, the research worker, the medical historian, the medical philosopher, the bibliophile, as well as the custodian and the library technician, in each successful librarian.” Though his career at LSUMS was principally one of librarianship, Postell was able to branch out from that role, becoming a scholar of wacky medical wares like cholera baths and mad dag stones.

One outdated cure is the “vapor bath,” invention of a Louisianan, Dr. Louis H. Lefebrve. Depicted in the drawing here, Postell found an early bath in the possession of the Prudhomme family of Natchitoches, Louisiana on one of his excursions to area antebellum plantations. The bath utilized sulphuric acid to assuage the effects of cholera. The story of the madstones or “bezoars” comes from the frontier. These stony hairball-like concretions were taken from the stomachs of deer, cows, or goats and placed on a bleeding wound to draw out poisons like those from the rabies virus or snake venom. In modern medicinal practice, the bezoar is considered a serious health risk in gastrointestinal tracts of humans and has lost its curative mythos (unless, of course, you live in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where the bezoar cure is alive and well).

Postell was quite the adventurous and successful librarian no stranger to going above and beyond his position in pursuit of knowledge. Having served as President of the Medical Library Association (MLA) in 1952 and 1959, he was awarded the prestigious Marcia C. Noyes award for his outstanding contributions to medical librarianship. In a memorable article of the Bulletin of the MLA, Postell wrote, “The best publicity a library can secure is by way of service given. The circulation and reference desk is the best place at which good will can best be cultivated. It is here that the public is met and served. It is the here that new patrons obtain their first impression of the library. If they are met graciously and served competently, they will return.”

Stop by the Isché Library sometime and let us graciously and competently show you the wonderful resources at your fingertips! If you are interested in reading Postell’s work, the Library’s holdings include: Applied Medical Bibliography for Students, The Development of Medical Literature, and The Health of Slaves on Southern Plantations.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

NOPL Hosts U.S. Poet Laureate

This Thursday, December 6^th, U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will grace us with a reading and book signing at the Main Branch of the New Orleans Public Library.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and native of Mississippi, Trethewey is known for her portrayal of the Gulf South through powerful, natural imagery and historical narrative. The Librarian of Congress James Billington  lauds, “Her poems dig beneath the surface of history—personal or communal, from childhood or from a century ago—to explore the human struggles that we all face.”  You can read examples of Trethewey’s work at poets.org.

The reading  will begin at 7pm and is free and open to the public. We hope to see you there!

Physician Assistant Degree Program Arrives at LSUHSC

This January, the LSU Health Sciences Center jumps on the health education bandwagon as it inaugurates a brand-new ARC-PA accredited physician assistant training program. LSUHSC’s 29-month program of study in evidence-based medicine will instruct its students in patient examination, diagnosis, and treatment.

Dr. Charles L. Hudson first proposed the creation of a physician’s assistant position at a 1961 meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) as a way to mitigate the decline in primary care providers. Ranked second in CNN Money Magazine’s “Best Jobs in America 2010,” this career’s “average annual pay was $86,410 in 2010 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal labor officials projected a 30 percent growth rate in the occupation between 2010 and 2020.”

The John P. Isché Library would like to take this opportunity to welcome LSUHSC’s 30 new students to the School of Allied Health Professionals! We look forward to introducing you to all our Library has to offer.

This Month in History: Dr. Rowena Spencer and Her Little Chickens

Despite the resemblance, Dr. Rowena Spencer explains, children are not tiny adults; indeed, “Children are like little chickens. They like to know their way around.” As one of the first women in the country to specialize in pediatric surgery as well as the first woman appointed to the surgical staff at the LSU Medical Center and the first female surgeon in the state of Louisiana, Dr. Spencer proved a wonderful asset to any hospital. Her bedside manner set her apart as a surgeon of unparalleled worth.

Dr. Spencer preferred to take a lighter approach to her smaller patients—being a friend instead of a threat; as a 1960 Times-Picayune article describes, “She is not above bribing a youthful patient with a nickel or a piece of candy.” And when asked in a recent interview about the most satisfying part of her work, she answered, “Holding the babies. I love babies more that a mule can kick.”

A forerunner for females in the surgical arena, Dr. Spencer faced some adversity, though she did not appear to dwell on this issue. She persevered to become a respected member of the medical community at a point in history rife with tension over not only the presence of women in the medical field but also African-Americans. At Johns Hopkins University, where she earned her M.D. in 1947, Spencer was in good company. She studied under Dr. Alfred Blalock and his laboratory technician, Vivien Thomas. Thomas, an African-American with little formal education, played an integral role in helping save those suffering from “blue baby syndrome.” Another partner in this discovery was Helen Taussig, founder of the field of pediatric cardiology and first female president of the American Heart Association. The work of Blalock, Thomas, and Taussig on the heart is immortalized in a PBS production, “American Experience: Partners of the Heart”(2002), and in a Hollywood production, Something the Lord Made (2004). Dr. Spencer would continue their work on infant patients, making a name for herself as an authority on conjoined twins.

Examples of her work include many articles such as: “Parasitic Conjoined Twins: External, Internal, and Detached” and “Congential Heart Defects in Conjoined Twins.” An autographed copy of her text, Conjoined Twins: Developmental Malformations and Clinical Implications, is available for checkout at the Library. Dr. Spencer has also had the honor of being featured in a publication entitled, Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times. Her chapter, “A Study of Changing Gender Roles in Twentieth-Century Louisiana Medicine” by Bambi L. Ray Cochran, appears alongside essays on Marie Therese Coincoin, Oretha Castle Haley, and many others in a fitting tribute to their contributions. Dr. Spencer recently celebrated her 90th birthday.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

Greater New Orleans Census Data Results

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC) recently released an examination of U.S. census data: “Who Lives in New Orleans and the Metro Area Now?”. In this report, the GNOCDC compares New Orleans census data from 2000 to data from 2011 in juxtaposition with national averages. Results are graphed according to changes in race/ethnicity, changes in educational attainment and income, changes in poverty and access to vehicles, changes in foreign-born population, and changes in homeownership and household types. The brief focuses on Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, St. Tammany Parish, and the Metro area, each of which are the most populous areas with the most readily available data.

According the census data, several shifts took place in New Orleans demographics with more pronounced changes occurring in the growth of the Hispanic community, the growth of single-person households, and corresponding decreases in adults with less than a high school degree and increase in adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher. In comparison with national averages, however, the Hispanic population here is still low, the median household income in Orleans is only $35,041 versus the national $50,502 (though St. Tammany’s is $56,536). New Orleans poverty rate is up to 13% higher in Orleans Parish than the U.S., amount of children in poverty almost 20% higher in Orleans than the U.S, households without access to a vehicle 10% higher, and homeownership rates 20% lower in Orleans, but 12% higher than the U.S in St. Tammany.

You can check out the results for yourself here.

Sample Ballot for Nov. 6th Election

In case you’re not aware, there is an election on November 6th and our nation will be selecting a new president.  However there are a number of other elections happening the same day, including a slew of Louisiana Constitutional Amendments (pdf).  To see what’s on the ballot in your precinct, use the Louisiana Secretary of State‘s GeauxVote.com website to see what else you may be voting on.  Just click on Sample Ballot.

This Month in History: Pay No Attention to the Doctor Behind the Iron Curtain

A young, bespectacled version of the Wizard of Oz, Dr. Frank N. Low, lived up to the great and powerful legacy as a member of LSUMC’s anatomy faculty, venturing behind the Iron Curtain in 1958. His travels came at a time of international tension, but in the name of science, Dr. Low’s survey of electron microscope usage in laboratories across Europe proved invaluable in transcending the iron divide and promoting cross-cultural cooperation.

Cover Art for “Klop” the Bedbug; http://tinyurl.com/8h3hycr

Remarking on the “exotic” subway of Moscow, the “finely developed” Russian sense of humor, and the popularity of the play, “Klop” the Bedbug, in his interview with the Times-Picayune, Dr. Low appears to have enjoyed his surroundings overseas. He even brought home an object known as the “Tartar Menace” that would turn out not only to be lucky for Low, but also for his research assistant, a previous “Glimpse of the Past” honoree, Dr. Marilyn Zimny, who upon receipt of the figurine received news that she had been awarded a research grant for $28,000. The “Tartar Menace” appears to refer either to a group of indigenous Mongol peoples called the Tatars or Tartars, or the Greek myth of Tartarus, a section of the underworld. Despite its violent etymology, the figurine kept Dr. Low safe from even a stubbed toe on his journey.

And lucky we are that it did, for Dr. Frank N. Low’s contributions to the scientific world were momentous. As of a 1953 article, “Dr. Low’s study provide[d] proof of the existence of a complete covering of the tiny blood vessels in the lung. The presence of this covering, medically known as a pulmonary epithelium has long been in doubt. The significance of [his] discovery is that it is an explanation of how air is excluded from the lung tissue, a destructive process. This is why lung surgery is so cautiously practiced.”

His triumphs also include authoring a renowned text, Electron Microscope: Atlas of Normal and Leukemic Human Blood, acquiring an electron microscope for LSUMC, and pioneering scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and freeze-etch/freeze-fracture technology. His impressive career culminated in his later life with the establishment of the Annual Dr. Frank N. Low Research Day at the University of North Dakota. He returned to LSU at the end of his career to work under Dr. Zimny in the anatomy department until his death in 1998. This memorial article shows how truly respected and loved he was. Now, if only we could find his “Tartar Menace!”

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

This Month in History: Trading the Mrs. for an M.D.

In honor of those nursing students plowing through history papers this week, here is a little piece of LSU Health Sciences Center history on the role of women in medicine.

Though the word “invasion” might connote a hostile takeover or an alien attack, for those who witnessed a new trend in medical student populations post-World War II, “invasion” spoke to the influx of females in the medical field—not a case for either the armed forces or Special Agents Mulder and Scully, but certainly an opportunity for marked advances in modern science. This article from the New Orleans States (a newspaper subsumed by the Picayune in 1980) from September 1946 marks an important milestone in our institution’s history as twenty female students enrolled in their first-year of medical school at LSU, surpassing the thirteen of the previous year.

The reasoning behind this onslaught of female M.D. candidates seems to follow on the wake of the recent war: “There is no telling what would have happened to their dreams of a profession if the right man had been attending classes at college with them instead of fighting a war, most of them agreed.” While the availability of Mr. Right may have been postponed, the drive of these women to pursue a medical career (perhaps a less intuitive path according to the social norms of the late 1940s) cannot be denied. Citing the greater freedom and social mobility of the times in addition to the general indifference of their professors and male peers on the growing female presence in the classroom, these women transcend the “vague motives” of the “feminine vogue for wearing a doctor’s insignia” to participate within our history.

Perhaps bolstered by the popular figure of Rosie the Riveter, a new class of professional care-givers is subjected to the rigors of a medical education and the horrors of the cadaver lab. One such empowered and notable woman pictured in this piece is Ms. Jean Persons, who would go on to become one of Alaska’s best known pioneer doctors and who published a memoir in 2007: From Dog Sleds to Float Planes: Alaskan Adventures in Medicine. You can read the glowing Amazon reviews here. In a time of tuberculosis and remote citizenship, Dr. Persons “was a petite single woman tackling a job most men would run from,” and so she stands as a measure for all those who follow, a prime example of not only female physicians, but of all LSU Medical School graduates.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

This Month in History: Dr. Hamlett & Zoological Treasure Hunting

Ever wondered how to catch a lizard? You might think to consult wikiHow or you might look up an instructional video on YouTube. Consulting our Digital Collection of newspaper clippings, however, would reveal quite an interesting portrait of a rugged, LSU Indiana Jones in pursuit of a rare treasure: the live-birthing lizard.

In 1953, the Times-Picayune ran an article on one Dr. George W. D. Hamlett, faculty of the LSU Medical School Department of Anatomy, whose research practices involved catching his subjects in the American Southwest rather than in a lab. Nets are all well and good for the casual lizard hunter, but Dr. Hamlett’s methods included an elaborate system of hammer, chisel, stick noose, and rifle. In order to capture the illusive live-birthing female lizard, he donned the traditional gear: khakis, hiking boots, and traded a fedora for a sun hat; armoring himself thus, he chiseled lizards out of rock formations and sought the mammal-like desert lizard among the trees. His interest in these lizards lay in their ability to produce young not through external development in an egg, but within the female of the species, an oddity for the reptile. Though Dr. Hamlett lacked the Indiana Jones bullwhip and the characteristic fear of snakes, his adventures were nevertheless harrowing.

The character of Dr. Jones is perhaps based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, Professor Challenger (a figure in turn based on his own Professor Sir William Rutherford) who is famous for having combined several areas of study such as archaeology, anthropology, and zoology in the pursuit of a totalizing knowledge—“Science seeks knowledge. Let knowledge lead us where it will, we still must seek it. To know once for all what we are, why we are, where we are, is that not in itself the greatest of all human aspirations?“(When the World Screamed). In the same way, Dr. Hamlett’s study of embryology continued on many divergent paths as he explored the complexities of the long-tongued bat, the badger, the armadillo, the cat, the coyote, and the American monkey, finally culminating in his study of humans.  Some of his published works, “Embryology of the Molossoid Bat,” “Some Notes on Embryological Technique,” and “Human Twinning in the United States” can be accessed through PubMed.

Though the similarities between Dr. Hamlett and Dr. Jones may not be many, there is an air of adventure to every quest for knowledge. Why can the scientist not leap across cliff faces and come to the rescue every now and then? But please be aware that there are no catacombs beneath this library’s floor—you’ll have to go to Venice for that.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library effort. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

This Month in History: Dr. Marilyn Zimny and the Great Squirrel-Stronaut

This month in 1960, the Times-Picayune ran an article entitled, “Ground Squirrel Called Ideal Space Traveler.” In the article, Dr. Marilyn Zimny, scientist at the LSU Medical School and avid squirrel-enthusiast, tells of the amazing potential for ground squirrels to travel in outer space and to serve as instruments of research on forced-hibernation scenarios and metabolism studies.

Being so adaptable to extreme conditions, the squirrels appear to be ideal candidates for researching regulated slowing of metabolism as they are able to hibernate for long periods of time without damaging their vital organs: heart, brain, and kidneys remain intact. Advancement in this area of reduced energy consummation would possibly provide some insight into the development of a drug that could force a lower metabolism and thus a decreased need for food, water, and oxygen, a state perhaps preferable for astronauts during prolonged space travel and servicemen in cold climates.  This drug could also reduce blood flow during recovery periods after a heart attack or stroke.

Although I can find no evidence that ground squirrels have indeed been launched into space, a slew of animals pre-dated human travel. The list of adventuring animals includes rhesus and squirrel-monkeys as well as mice, rats, rabbits, fruit flies, a guinea pig, a cat, chimpanzees, dogs, etc. These brave animals helped determine the conditions necessary for humans to survive spaceflight.

Dr. Zimny’s fascination with squirrels penetrated her personal life as well as her professional development—professing to own over 160 at the time of this article and in search of more (an abundance can apparently be found in some Chicago golf courses). She authored “Metabolism of some carbohydrate and phosphate compounds during hibernation in the ground squirrel,” published in the Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology, “Carbohydrate metabolism in ground squirrels during the summer season,” published in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, among many others. Zimny continued her study of the rodents in order to develop a field of research that would include them as test subjects.

Her career at LSU began in 1954, leading her to a full professorship approximately ten years later. According to one Faculty Vignette, her students “were affectionately known as her ‘ground squirrels.’” She went on to become the first female department head at the LSU School of Medicine in 1975, and although she passed away in January 2006, her legacy lives on in her renown. A recent article on POPSCI tells about the successful induction of hibernation in arctic ground squirrels. Dr. Zimny’s warm regard for the critters appears well-places as they continues to be relevant to the study of metabolism regulation.

You can further explore squirrel-related news and other intricacies of our Digital Collections by following this link.

Glimpse of the Past is an ongoing project to promote the Louisiana Digital Library. This Month in History will present for your reading pleasure a closer look into a newspaper clipping of note from our Digital Collections and articles relating to the LSU Medical School.

Oil Spill 2 years later

The 2 year anniversary of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill (pdf) was earlier this week.  There are a number of studies being performed to determine the long term issues relating to the spill and it’s clean up. 

LSUHSC is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Research Consortium, a network of community and university partnerships that will conduct research on the gulf coast over the next 5 years. Specifically, the LSUHSC School of Public Health is conducting the Women and their Children’s Health (WATCH) study, which will investigate the short and long term physical, mental and community health effects resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Additionally, LSU Baton Rouge is involved in measuring the economic and ecological impact of the spill.

Louisiana Named – 330 years ago

A color reproduction of a 17th Century map by Jean Baptiste Louis, Franquelin entitled Carte de la Louisiane ou des voyages du Sr. De La Salle.

Happy Name Day to the entire former Louisiana Territory.