Faculty Bibliography

At Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium in 1947, the baseball hero of the generation stood before an admiring crowd, deep in pain and emaciated from advancing cancer, not yet aware of what ailed him. In the dugout moments before, clad in a topcoat and golf hat, he suffered a coughing spell, then, pulling himself together, walked to home plate, mentally recalling the day Lou Gehrig had made the same trip. In fact, he was among the first patients anywhere to receive experimental chemotherapy, and some researchers say he was the first ever to receive a combination treatment of chemotherapy and radiation for his type of cancer. For Ruth, the chemotherapy worked dramatically -- but only temporarily. Nevertheless, knowledge gained from his case helped shape the combination therapy that is now standard for his disease. But the images of a hoarse Ruth, perpetuated in audio and videotapes on the Internet, in movies and in sports broadcasts, in addition to his well-known smoking and drinking proclivities, have contributed to the myth that Ruth had throat cancer, which is generally taken to mean cancer of the larynx, or voice box

Dr. Paul M. Zoll, a Harvard cardiologist and pioneer in developing the heart monitors, pacemakers and defibrillators used by millions of people around the world, died on Tuesday at the Heathwood Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Chestnut Hill, Mass. He was 87 and had lived at the nursing center for three years. The advances that Dr. Zoll and other researchers began making in the 1950's were applied widely and quickly and made possible the development of coronary-care units. All that was vastly different when Dr. Zoll returned from military service in World War II to work at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. At that time the standard treatment for cardiac arrest was crude: a doctor would cut into the chest and squeeze the heart with his hand to pump blood through the body

In an action that reopens the question of how much responsibility nurses have to question doctors' orders, a Massachusetts licensing board said yesterday that it had started disciplinary proceedings against 18 nurses in the chemotherapy overdoses of two women in 1994 at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The Board of Registration in Nursing said the patients, who died after the overdoses, were given a four-day dosage of intravenous chemotherapy on each of four days. One nurse hung the infusion bag and connected it to the patient. Nurses in following shifts monitored the flow. Dana-Farber's president, Dr. David G. Nathan, vigorously defended the nurses, saying they had been exonerated by three groups that investigated the incidents: the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Dana-Farber

In an action that reopens the question of how much responsibility nurses have in carrying out doctors' orders, a Massachusetts licensing board said yesterday it had charged 16 nurses in the chemotherapy overdoses of two women in 1994 at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The board said it had issued orders that, after hearings, could lead to disciplinary action against the nurses. The orders contend that the nurses failed to meet the standards of nursing practice, because in either administering or monitoring chemotherapy, they failed to recognize that the doses administered were in excess of those called for. Dana-Farber's president, Dr. David Nathan, vigorously defended the nurses, saying that they had been exonerated by three groups that investigated the incident - the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and Dana-Farber

This year, the 50th anniversary of Ruth's death, his sports legacy has been extolled again as baseball heroes of newer generations breezed past the home-run record the Babe [Ruth] held for 34 years, until 1961. But unknown to many, Ruth also left a legacy in the annals of medical history. In fact, he was among the first patients anywhere to receive experimental chemotherapy, and some researchers say he was the first ever to receive a combination treatment of chemotherapy and radiation for his type of cancer. For Ruth, the chemotherapy worked dramatically -- but only temporarily. Nevertheless, knowledge gained from his case helped shape the therapy that is now standard for his disease. But the images of a hoarse Ruth, perpetuated in audio and videotapes on the Internet and in sports broadcasts, in addition to his well-known smoking and drinking proclivities, have contributed to the myth that Ruth had throat cancer, which is generally taken to mean cancer of the larynx, or voice box

Is AIDS a disaster inadvertently brought on by humans that arose from early testing of a polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s? In 'The River,' Edward Hooper suggests that an experimental oral polio vaccine might have been made with chimpanzee tissue contaminated with an ancestor of the virus that was to cause AIDS. He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two laboratories in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo

He finds close coincidence in both time and place between the earliest cases of AIDS and the testing of an oral vaccine developed at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and, later, in two labs in Belgium. From 1957 to 1960, the vaccine was given to a million people in what are now Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. The Wistar Institute, the first independent medical research centre in the United States, appointed the 1992 panel to examine the theory that its vaccine might have touched off the AIDS epidemic. Now it says it is trying to find independent experts to do what they were unwilling to do seven years ago, when the panel recommended testing the remaining stocks of the experimental polio vaccine. Colour Photo: AP/ An Ethiopian child receives modern polio vaccine. Most scientists believe the AIDS virus derives from a simian virus in chimps. Now, British journalist [Edward Hooper] suggests chimp tissue was used to make an experimental oral polio vaccine tested between 1957 and 1960 in central Africa -- epicentre of the AIDS epidemic. ;