Duke University School of Medicine - Aesculapian Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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In I934 Walter Kempner came to the young Duke University Medical School for further research at the invitation of Dr. Frederic M. Hanes. then Professor of Medicine. With his clinical background in internal medicine and his research background under Dr. Warburg in cellular respiration and fermen- tation studies, Dr. Kempner became vitally interested in the dietary relationships to cardiovascular renal disease. After several years of studying the cellular metabolism of normal and diseased kidney cells, he published in 1944 his first report on the successful clinical use of the Rice Diet in the treatment of cardiovascular renal disease for which he is now internationally famous. His results with the Rice Diet have been dramatic and unequivocal. and the success is due in great part to his demands for rigid adherence to the dietary regimen. His dynamic personality has indeed proven the strength of his scientific convictions, In commenting on the success of the Kempner diet. Dr. Eugene Stead stated: His strikes have all been made in areas where the experts said there was no gold. A student is indeed fortunate to have the opportunity to round with Dr. Kempner at one of his Rice Houses in Durham, where adoring patients, almost hypnotized in his presence. decry the sodium molecule as their papilledema steadily recedes. A most pleasant and unique experience for the student in the MOPC is to consult on a patient with Dr. Kempner in his ofiice over coffee and cookies. one of the rare informal contacts a student has with a senior staff member. Doctor Eugene Stead is an enigma to many medical students, for, despite his position as an ae- knowledged leader of medical thought. he does not wax eloquent with glibly quoted clinical aphorisms. choosing rather such phrases as let me think along with you, or let's see how your head works on this, or let's find out why this man's kidneys are sick. This insistence on basic reasoning often proves bewildering and frustrating to the beginning student, who is accustomed to a more smug and sophisti- cated approach to problems. However. it is by way of this basic reasoning and questioning that he is the man and teacher that he is. This brief sketch is concerned more with unearthing the roots and development of Doctor Steads philosophy than with a biographical survey of his life. which we will mention briefly. Eugene Stead was born in Atlanta in 1908. where he remained until he had received his BS and MD degrees from Emory University. Following this he had a rapid ascension into the loftier areas of aca- demic medicine. His background includes: internship in medicine at Peter Bent Brigham t 1932-33l, Re- search Fellow at Harvard H933-343, internship in surgery at Peter Bent Brigham 11934-359. assistant and senior residency in medicine at Cincinnati General Hospital H935-377. assistant in medicine at Har- vard tl937-39J, resident physician at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory H939-427. associate in medi- cine at Harvard and Peter Bent Brigham H939-422, professor of medicine at Emory University H942- 46J, Dean of Emory University H945-461, and professor of medicine at Duke tl947- 7. Much of his basic philosophy has evolved from the various chiefs under which he received his trainingfi: From Doctor James Paullin, chief at Emory, he learned that the family doctor of the fu- ture was going to be an intelligent interested internistf' From his second chief, Doctor Henry Chris- tian ofthe Peter Bent Brigham, he became aware that just as many people liked to fish or play golf. I liked to work with my head, and that men must be made conscious of their ability to learn for them- selves. Of his I6 months internship under Doctor Eliot Culter, he says. I discovered how hard sur- geons work, and I learned that those long hours in the operating room use up the time which the intern- ist loves to spend talking with his patients and teaching. In commenting on why he took a surgical in- ternship he stated: I had no intention of going into surgery, but I wanted to become familiar with sur- gical problems. I wanted to see sick patients. and an intern has the best opportunity to learn about the disease and its treatment directly from the patient. Doctor Stead credits his fourth chief, Doctor Blankenhorn of Cincinnati with giving him his basic The Journal of Clinical lnvestigntiorz, Vol. XXXII, No. 6, pp. 548-549, June. 1953. PAGE I I

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taff In planning the 1960 edition of the AESCULAPIAN the editorial staff thought it would be very interesting to run a feature article on the major medical contributions that have emanated from Duke since its opening in 1930. At first this did not appear to be a very difficult task, but when the attempt was made to accrue a list of the top twenty-five Duke originals, the task was formi- dable. lt seems that no one person will sit down and judge all his colleagues and then say who is the best The path then chosen was a poll taken among the senior class members to List the five senior staff members who have impressed you the most. From the results of that poll the fol- lowing is written. We might add that Dr. Bayard Carter was among the five chosen, but to avoid a repetition of last year's AESCULAPIAN, in which he was featured, we chose another staff member. ln addition we might add that Dr. Barnes Woodhall was among The Five, but he is being fea- tured elsewhere in this issue as the new Dean. George Baylin was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1911. He attended schools there and later matriculated at The Johns Hopkins University, receiving his A.B. degree in 1931. Following a year of Zoology graduate study at the Hopkins, he entered the Duke University Medical School, where he spent one year as an anatomy instructor before graduation in 1937 after qualifying for AOA. He took a surgi- cal internship at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. but after consulting with his advisor and close friend, Doc- tor Swett ofthe Duke Anatomy Department, he decided that radiology was more adapted to his desire for teaching in an academic institution and for close contact with the various medical specialities. To more fully prepare himself for his chosen specialty, he worked for eight months in the Pathology De- partment at Guy's hospital in London. He returned to Duke for radiology residency, completing his training in 1941 and being appointed instructor in Radiology in the same year. In 1947 he became an Associate in Anatomy and by 1950 had attained the position of Professor of Radiology. Doctor Baylin's contributions to medical research have been of a varied nature and reliect his om- niverous interest in all facets of medicine. Working with Doctor Philip Handler. he demonstrated the roentgenographic changes in animals on deficient diets. He was one of the pioneers in the use of iso- topes for studying the function of the pancreas, the liver, and the kidney. He has been a leader in establishing X-ray criteria for mastoid and middle ear disease. He worked closely with Doctor Ruffin in an investigation of the pain mechanisms of peptic ulcer and with Doctor Grimson has helped make original contributions on the effect of vagotomy on gastrointestinal physiology. With the advent of the Duke Medical Center as a leader in the relatively young field of cardiovas- cular surgery. he has clearly and vividly demonstrated the value of the routine P-A chest film as both an index of cardiac status and as a diagnostic aid. ln the sixty-live papers in which he has served as author or co-author, Doctor Baylin has shown an unusual versatility and a multidimensional approach to problems. Indeed, perhaps his greatest value as a teacher is his insistence on considering all aspects of clinical and research problems before render- ing an opinion on the roentgenogram. Walter Kempner was born in Berlin in 1903, was raised there, and attended Schiller College where he received his A.B. degree in 1921. The years 1921 to 1926 were spent in medical school at the Uni- versities of Berlin and Heidelberg, receiving his M.D. degree from the latter, following which he in- terned in medicine at the University Hospital in Heidelberg. During the years 1927 to 1928 and 1933 to 1934 he studied under Dr. Otto Warburg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fur Zellphysiologie in Berlin. The interim years of 1928 to 1933 were spent as Assistant Physician at the Berlin University Hospital. PAGE 10

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interest in clinical observation and of teaching him how to get other people to work. It was from his last chief, Doctor Soma Weiss, that he benefited the most because in Doctor Stead's words The clay was worked better and more ready for the molding. He found that repeated efforts to explain to the undergraduate student the basic mechanisms of health and disease . . . kept before us the extent of our own ignorance .... 1 have never ceased to drink from this well of undergraduate naivete and skepti- cism : that the goal of the medical student was the opportunity for the correlation and consolidation of his knowledge which can only be achieved in the fourth year. and lastly that men with sound clini- cal training who have spent time in learning the ways of sick patients could hold their own in the re- search field. The story of Dr. Ernst Peschel's emergence as a member of the senior staff at Duke Hospital is more adaptable to a movie scenario than to a biographical sketch in a medical school yearbook. His gregarious and affable approach to the student, his modesty and his almost palpable desire to teach camouflage his past and his unique path to his present position. Dr. Peschel was born in 1901 in a small town in the middle section of Germany. ln his early life. he displayed a talent in music, and by his adolescent years he was an accomplished cellist. Through his artistry of the cello he soon became a member of several well known chamber music groups, and it ap- peared that he was destined to be a professional musician. But his interests also extended to medicine, and in 1926 he entered the medical school at the University Hospital in Berlin. During his years as a student and house oliicer in Berlin, he became acquainted with Dr. Walter Kempner, a relationship that was to prove instrumental in his coming to Duke. Upon completing his training in 1933. Dr. Peschel entered private practice as an internist in Ber- lin. But he soon found himself enmeshed in the web of intrigue which developed with the rise of Adolph Hitler and his secret police. Being one of a group of individuals who harbored the Jews and other political refugees from the Gestapo, he soon found himself being interrogated by the police, and on one occasion was questioned with a pistol held to his head. By 1943 his record was so questionable by SS standards that he was banished from Berlin and sent to Bavaria where he could be kept under closer scrutiny. However, with the permission of a disillusioned and sympathetic Nazi otlicial. he was allowed to resume his medical activities, and following the termination of the war, he continued medical practice in Nuremburg, Germany. Although Dr. Peschel enjoyed practice. he still yearned for an academic atmosphere. and when the Duke Medical School in 1947 extended an invitation to join its staff, he accepted. Since his ar- rival his interests have centered in the fields of electrolytes. renal physiology and vascular disease, Dr. Peschel's enthusiasm and elfervescence in these areas and in medical education have been a constant source of inspiration and motivation to all students who have been fortunate enough to come under his tutelage. No biography of Mr, Dr. Peschel would be complete without mention of his gracious and charm- ing wife, Mrs Dr. Peschel, whom he met and married while they were both at the University of Ber- lin. Ruth Lohman Peschel was an instructor and Associate Professor of Medicine there, and was well known for her research in the physiology of inllamation and also in cancer metabolism. Since her arriv- al at Duke with her husband, she has been associated with Dr. Kempner, and together with her hus- band has contributed much on the metabolic alterations associated with the Rice Diet. more I2