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

Page 13 text:

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-

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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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MICROBIOLOGY The objective of the Department is to provide students with a background in microbiology which will enable them to participate effectively in public health work, particularly communi¬ cable disease control. The staff is investigating microbiological aspects of various public health problems with emphasis on arthropod-borne epidemic dis eases. Ajrequally important objec¬ tive is the training of qualified students and researchfellows in the tech¬ nics of laboratory research. Except for the general lecture course, teaching is done behind the Iron Curtain (isolation areas). This means that students in laboratory technics, rickettsial diseases, and arthropods must be immunized against typhus and spotted fever, and also relinquish a small amount of blood for Dr. Murray ' s serological studies. PHYSIOLOGY The Physiology Department dates from the origin of the School when Dr. Cecil K. Drinker transfer red the activities of the Division of Applied Physiology from the Medical School. During the early thirties Dr. Drinker pioneered in industrial hygiene and toxicology. He developed what was probably the first course in human ecology given in a public health school. His contributions to knowledge of the lymphatic and respiratory systems are recognized throughout the world. In addition he was Assistant Dean and Dean of the School for many years. Interdepartmental research dur¬ ing World War II led to many of the present activities of the Department. The research program now includes basic and applied aspects of the physiology of respiration, circula¬ tion and neuromuscular perform¬ ance. The teaching program empha¬ sizes the limitations on nor mal func- tion imposed by environmental vari¬ ables such as heat, humidity and at¬ mospheric pressure. GERGLUND, SARNOFF, WHITTENBERGER, MEAD -14-