Harvard School of Public Health - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 12 text:

NUTRITION MYERS, MAY. R, HEGSTED, LAWRY, VITALE, TRULSON, MANN, OLSON, STARE, ANDRUS, BAUGHMAN, HEGGIE The Department of Nutrition, the first of its type, was organized in 1942 through a special grant from the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. In ten years of existence it has maintained its unique position and has undergone impressive expansion. The major objective of the Department, the development of a teaching center of distinction innutrition, is being realized in the training of men and women with diverse backgrounds and skills, many of them from for¬ eign countries. The other objective involves development of a research programprobing problems of both pure and applied scientific value. Diseases to which food bear s an es sential and perhaps decisive relationship are being studied from the nutritional approach. High blood pressure and hardening of the arteries, cancer and obesity are produced experimentally in animals and investigated. Physiological causes of alcoholism are being studied in laboratory and clinic. Energy requirements of the heart are being examined. A fat emulsion for intravenous feeding of patients unable to eat has been developed. Geriatrics and nutrition education programs are also included. The Department cooperates in many extracurricular professional activities and with other domestic and foreign health organi- zations, notably the Institute of Nutrition in Lima, Peru which it is cur¬ rently assisting to establish. -12-

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MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH STANDING PYLE. DOOLEY, FITZGERALD, QUENEAU. BUKER, KIRKWOOD. BUTLER. GRANT SEATED: BURKE, RICE. BERNSTEIN. SCHMIDT, VARLEY, STUART Shortly after the organization of the School, the beginning of our present Department was formulated as a result of a series of lectures on the subject of child hygiene which were given in the Department of Public Health Practice. These lectures were given by Dr. Richard M. Smith, who was in charge of the course, and by guest lecturers. About 1928 it became evident that the field of child hygiene and special health problems of the infant and child were of such importance to public health as to jus¬ tify more extensive training in this field and to justify establishing re¬ search relating to child health. At that time Dr. Harold C. Stuart joined the faculty to organize a division of child health within the Department of Public Health Practice. During the next few years, it became obvious that problems of maternal health were inseparable from those of child health, that the concept of hygiene was too restricted and that there was need for a Department to study intens ively the health problems of mo the rs, infants and children and the services required by these special groups within the framework of public health. Hence, a Department of Maternal and Child Health was organized under the direction of Dr. Stuart. In 1947 a training program for specialists in the field of maternal and child health was started in the School under support from the U.S. Children ' s Bureau. On the basis of this development the Department now has a relatively large staff of highly competent workers from dif¬ ferent disciplines whose services are required in the maternal and child health field. More recently the staff has been occupied in developing adequate field units for training purposes as well as for more intensive research particularly concerned with the maternaUewborrv-infant period. -11-

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PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE COBB, SNEGIREFF, GOLDMANN, FRENCHETTE, FEEMSTER, BREED, CLARKE, MAYES. ROBERTS, PAUL, LOMBARD, RICE, DUNNING, VARLEY, LOMBARD, LEAVELL, ROBERTS, WHITE, ARCHIBALD The community as the laboratory of the Department is made available to students in a number of ways: Staff members have part-time teaching responsibilities serving chiefly in local, state and national agencies. Full-time staff members assume duties in community agencies both to enhance teaching and to fulfill school responsibility to the community. Surveys are made, both with and without student participation. Field observation and training is available in Boston, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge and Nashoba local health departments, the Massachusetts State Department of Health and many other agencies. The Department is currently carrying on research projects in several fields: Studies in Wellesley under Dr. Eric Lindemann with a team of social scientists designed to develop a program for the promotion of community mental health. Causes of delay in seeking treatment for can¬ cer. Administration of home accident prevention programs. Develop¬ ment of improved methods for teaching social sciences to public health students and for applying to public health knowledge gained in the social sciences. -13-