Faculty Bibliography

Dr. O'[Neill] said that when he examined Mr. [Reagan] in the emergency room, the President's breathing rate was ''in the high 30's,'' or about twice the usual rate. Mr. Reagan's pulse was recorded at 88, or slightly increased. ''His blood pressure was 78 by palpation,'' or lower than usual, Dr. O'Neill said. Mr. Reagan's blood pressure became normal shortly after ''he rested on a stretcher for a minute or two,'' Dr. O'Neill said, adding that the temporary drop in blood pressure might have been ''the result of the fact that he had walked in and had a significant amount of blood loss in his chest at that time.'' Lack of Oxygen and Nutrients ''There was concern,'' among the doctors, Dr. O'Neill said. ''He definitely was in a life-threatening situation. But he was very rapidly stabilized. Throughout the President was able to communicate to us his distress as well as his discomfort and shortness of breath. But he also was able to communicate that he was alert, oriented to time, place and person, and at times he was able to make a wisecrack or two. But he was someone in acute distress.'' 'Treating Events as We Saw Them'

In one of those uncharacteristic moments where emotions dominate over rational acts, [David J. Kudzma] went to the ballpark instead of the library. In his bones he knew that [TED WILLIAMS] would hit a home run, and David wanted to be there. It was Sept. 28, 1960, and David sat in the rightfield bleachers, just 20 feet from where Williams' home run ball landed. It was one of the great thrills of David's life. As the instructor accused David of being unreliable and violating every sense of a physician's duty, the outraged instructor's face reddened from a flush of blood. Immediately, he punished David. Each day for the remaining 10 weeks of the course, David would have to test the stools collected from each patient on the hospital ward. David did the stool tests by the score in an incident that became a cause celebre in medical school. In reminding him of the Ted Williams anecdote recently, I asked him how he looked on it in retrospect. ''I'd do it again,'' he said. ''You can't just learn medicine and not live in the real world. Too many of our colleagues don't smile enough or poke fun at themselves. And if they do, they do it in a very academic way. Perhaps that's one reason why they don't understand suffering as well as they should.''

ADOCTOR does not have to be very old to remember diseases that were once barely mentioned in medical school because not only were they incurable, they could not even be diagnosed. Today, doctors are curing tumors of the heart that were almost invariably fatal only 30 years ago because they could be diagnosed only after death. The heart tumors are called myxomas and they are so rare statistics on their frequency are not kept. Although noncancerous, they are potential killers if not detected in time. Usually myxomas are painless and small ones may never cause symptoms. But larger myxomas can kill, sometimes suddenly, sometimes over a period of years. The ability to diagnose myxomas in living people is one of the unheralded success stories of medicine. About 30 years ago, myxomas were discovered only by pathologists during autopsies. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, for example, never diagnosed a myxoma in a living patient before 1950. But the proportion of myxomas diagnosed before death rose to 90 percent from 1970 to 1978. As surgeons began operating on the heart, myxomas were often discovered as unexpected findings during surgery. The first successful surgical excision of a myxoma was done in 1954. At about the same time, doctors began to detect myxomas through the technique of angiography, in which a chemical opaque to X-rays is injected into an artery or vein and a series of pictures are taken as the substance circulates with the blood

Bacterial meningitis is the most serious form of the disease because the infection can become so overwhelming that death can occur in just a few hours. Haemophilus influenzae, or ''H. flu,'' is the commonest cause of bacterial meningitis in this country. Almost all cases occur in children under the age of 6, and most in those under 2. Health officials are handicapped by the lack of prevention of most types of bacterial meningitis. For meningococcal infections, a vaccine is available against two types - groups A and C. However, there is no vaccine against Group B, which has tended to be the most common in this country. Nor is there a vaccine against ''H. flu'' meningitis. ''We don't know why'' the rise is occurring this year, Dr. [Arthur L. Reingold] said

Dr. Lancefield was one of the few female members of the National Academy of Sciences. A colleague and fellow researcher, Dr. Maclyn McCarty, described her as ''the scientist most responsible for the well-organized state of our present knowledge of streptococci.'' That tribute was based on her system of classification of the more than 60 types of Group A streptococcal bacteria. Dr. Lancefield worked virtually her entire professional career at Rockefeller University in Manhattan, which she said she joined as a technical assistant in 1918 because ''it was the only place that answered my job letters.'' Rockefeller University was then known as the Rockefeller Institute, and Dr. Lancefield worked there full time while studying for a Ph.D. degree in immunology and bacteriology at Columbia University. She said, '' I carried my racks of test tubes back and forth between the two labs.''

Dr. [Minoru Araki] was confident from results of the autopsy that the death of 8-year old Jonathan Koperberg on Feb. 7 was caused by a ruptured esophagus resulting from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart. The myocarditis presumably was due to an infection from a virus that could not be identified. Dr. Araki considered Jonathan's an isolated case until he did the autopsy on seven-year-old Eli Glass, who died on Feb. 17. When Dr. Araki learned that vomiting was the predominant symptom in both cases, he said, ''a lot of wheels began to turn in my mind.'' Dr. Araki recalled that his own tension ''rose tremendously.'' But he kept it all inside, as he usually does. ''That's the way I am. I don't bring my problems home with me. They stay at the office. Part of it is due to my training.'' Much of the drama took place in laboratories, hidden from public view. The medical examiner and other health officials were in a battle against the clock to allay public fear by rapidly providing the facts about the two deaths. The public health officers' position was complicated by the fact that they misjudged the extent of the public panic. That was partly because, Dr. Araki said, they never expected that a New York Post headline would come along and have the effect it did. ''Terror Grips School: 2 Die. Mystery Disease Hits L.I. Youngsters,'' the headline cried. Dr. Araki said it became self-fulfilling

There was ''no evidence of myocarditis or infection in any organ'' in Eli's case, Dr. [Minoru Araki] said. In an earlier interview, Dr. Araki said he suspected he might find myocarditis when he looked through a microscope at specimens of Eli's heart. Those microscopic tests relied on the preparation of specimens taken at autopsy. Because the specimens had to be bathed in chemicals such as formalin for several days, the microscopic tests could not be done until yesterday. When Dr. Araki did the autopsy last week, he found that both of Eli's adrenal glands were small. Then when he looked at them through the microscope yesterday, Dr. Araki said, he saw ''a considerable loss'' of the outside, or cortical, portion of each adrenal gland. Only ''small bits of cortical tissue remained,'' Dr. Araki said, but the medulla, or inside portion, was ''intact.'' After he did the microscopic tests, Dr. Araki said, he spoke with Eli's mother, who told him that that the boy had always been skinny lim and poorly nourished and that his body growth had slowed noticeably during the last year or so

''For my money, everybody in that community has been exposed, and if they haven't been exposed,'' Dr. [Minoru Araki] said, the danger is ended. Viruses are among the many causes of myocarditis, and the viruses belonging to the Coxsackie family are the most common viral causes of myocarditis. However, many other viruses such as ECHO, influenza, mumps, measles and rubella can cause myocarditis. Dr. Araki said that, based on his 20 years as a pathologist in Nassau County, ''We have about five to eight cases each year of interstitial myocarditis.'' A specific virus was identified in only a small percentage of those few cases, he added. ''When the second case occurred,'' he said, he ordered more extensive laboratory tests because, ''of course, the implications were that we were above and beyond what we ordinarily would expect.''

If further studies show a direct relationship between the dose of radiation and the risk of fatal heart disease, and if there is no difference between radiologists and other doctors concerning their personal habits, Dr. [Genevieve M. Matanoski] said, ''then we have a stronger case'' for the link between low-dose radiation exposure and fatal heart disease. If further studies still show a link between small doses of radiation and deaths from heart disease, Dr. Matanoski said that she would ''begin to worry about'' the hazard from exposure to diagnostic X-rays and possibly to occupational groups. ''Exposure levels that were thought to be safe at 5 rads each year, may indeed not be safe,'' she said. ''Cancer overall is known to be associated with radiation,'' Dr. Matanoski said, and added: ''Cancer overall is of relatively low risk in the total population and heart disease is a relatively high risk. A small percentage increase in cardiovascular disease means a lot more deaths and illness, and that is why it is important that we rule out a bias in how radiologists choose their specialty and to determine how solid is the link between low-level radiation and heart disease.''

MAINZ, West Germany THE leeches in the drug store window seemed to belong to a scene from ancient medicine, when doctors applied the worms to patients to ''cure'' just about every condition. But here the leeches were in a jar near electronic devices and bottles of modern miracle drugs. The Bordeaux microsurgeons have told some patients to apply one leech in the morning and another at night, or up to 10 in a single day, and to repeat this treatment for up to nine days. Patients who were squeamish changed their minds when told: ''It's your finger - maybe the leeches will save it.'' Leeches have helped save several fingers treated at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, according to Dr. Jane A. Petro, who said that because of past difficulty in finding a supply, her team recently had imported 100 leeches from France. ''When the need to use leeches arises,'' Dr. Petro said, ''it's virtually a part-saving procedure.''