Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the 1st Exchange Transfusion for Icterus Gravis Neonatorum

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society has invited Dr. Jon F. Watchko, MD, Professor Emeritus in the Division of Newborn Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to present a lecture commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first exchange transfusion for severe neonatal jaundice. He will cover the groundbreaking work of Alfred P. Hart and L. Bruce Robertson at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, November 19, 2024, from 7-8pm, via Zoom. Zoom link:  https://ccac.zoom.us/j/95357525424?pwd=cI726bvrv5QgdxSisD9Yfsho9vl9pf.1

Exchange transfusion (ET) is a procedure that couples alternating blood removal (exsanguination) with blood infusion (transfusion) to accomplish its beneficial effect. ET has been a mainstay of treating hazardous neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (severe jaundice) for a 100 years dating back to Alfred P. Hart’s seminal use of the procedure in a newborn with familial icterus gravis neonatorum at the Hospital for Sick Children Toronto in 1924. Its novel application by Hart at that time and at the Hospital for Sick Children was no accident. The history of the development of ET as a viable treatment intervention and its original application to neonatal hyperbilirubinemia by Hart in 1924 is commemorated in this C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society presentation.

Dr. Watchko has a keen interest in the pathobiology of bilirubin-induced brain injury and clinical strategies to prevent kernicterus. His early work focused on unconjugated bilirubin brain uptake and clearance, determination of in vivo neurotoxic central nervous system bilirubin thresholds in the Gunn rat model of acute bilirubin encephalopathy (ABE) and in human neonates with kernicterus, pharmacologic neuroprotection against ABE, and bilirubin-induced cerebellar hypoplasia. More recently he has conducted clinical studies on improving the identification of infants at risk for significant hyperbilirubinemia and bilirubin neurotoxicity. Dr. Watchko is recognized as a world authority on neonatal jaundice, authored more than 200 academic papers, chapters and reviews, and co-edited two books, Neonatal Jaundice (2000) and Care of the Jaundiced Neonate (2012). He serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics National Hyperbilirubinemia Clinical Practice Subcommittee and is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, and the Perinatal Research Society.

Image credit: Exchange Transfusion ~ early 1950s. Peter Dunn. Arch Dis Child 1993;69:95-96.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Donora: A Look Back at the Worst Air Pollution Disaster in US History

Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ Sylvan Stool Lecture ~

Andy McPhee, RN (Independent Scholar)

Mortician Rudolph Schwerha had already picked up two bodies in the dense fog. When he finally returned to the funeral home he found his wife, Helen, waiting at the door. “Before she spoke,” recalled Schwerha, “I knew what she would say. I thought, Oh, my God—another! I knew it by her face. And after that came another. Then another. There seemed to be no end. By ten o’clock in the morning, I had nine bodies waiting here.”

What was happening? “We didn’t know. I thought probably the fog was the reason; it had the smell of poison. But we didn’t know.”

Schwerha’s gut sense proved sadly accurate. A heavy fog had descended over Donora, a small steel and zinc mill town along the Monongahela River about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. It was Halloween weekend in 1948, and before the weekend had ended 21 people would perish from the toxins concentrated in the fog, toxins that came mostly from the zinc mill at the north end of town. It was the worst air pollution disaster in US history, and it would prompt the legislation we know today as the Clean Air Act.

Join author Andy McPhee for a presentation about the town, its mills, and the smog that literally changed the quality of our air. Andy McPhee is a retired registered nurse and educational healthcare publisher, as well as the author of six books, most recently Donora Death Fog: Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2023. The book provides the most complete and comprehensive accounting of the smog ever written. He is working on a book tentatively titled Bloodletting, Body Snatching, and the Doctors' Riot of 1788. McPhee lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his wife and two dogs.

This lecture will be online only. Attendance is FREE. Check back closer to the date for the Zoom link.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Medicine’s Culture Brokers: The History of Miami and the Challenge of Diversity in Health Care

Tuesday, September 24, 2024, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ Milton Meyer Michaels Lecture & Hispanic Heritage Month ~

Catherine Mas, PhD (Assistant Professor of History, Florida International University)

After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees came to Miami. With this influx, the city's health care system was overwhelmed not just by the number of patients but also by the differences in culture. Mainstream medicine was often inaccessible or inadequate to Miami's growing community of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants. Instead, many sought care from alternative, often unlicensed health practitioners. This talk discusses the history of how an exceptionally diverse medical scene would catch the attention of medical social scientists who made Miami's multiethnic population into a laboratory for cross-cultural care and "global health."

Catherine Mas is a historian of science, medicine, and society, whose research and teaching focus on modern American history in transnational context. Her recent book, Culture in the Clinic: Miami and the Making of Modern Medicine, examines the history of health and healing in Miami alongside the rise of medical anthropology. Delving into a period of rapid social and demographic change, she shows how Latinx immigrants transformed American healthcare, as the healthcare system learned to manage a racially and ethnically diverse population.

This lecture will be online only. Attendance is FREE. Zoom link: https://ccac.zoom.us/j/91318349535?pwd=zx3PJ8go1ukPKwyG3bifa65vdYPqpX.1

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Announcing the 41st Lecture Series

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society announces its 41st lecture season for the academic year 2024-2025. All lectures are free and open to the public via Zoom. They take place on Tuesday evenings from 6-7:15pm Eastern. Watch this space for the links, or join our email list.

September 24 ~ “Medicine’s Culture Brokers: The History of Miami and the Challenge of Diversity in Health Care” ~ Catherine Mas ~ Milton Meyer Michaels Lecture & Hispanic Heritage Month

A life-long Pittsburgher, Dr. Michaels (1927-2022) practiced Hematology and Internal Medicine and served as President of the Society.

November 12 ~ “Donora: A Look Back at the Worst Air Pollution Disaster in US History" ~ Andy McPhee ~ Sylvan Stool Lecture

Dr. Stool (1925-2004) was a beloved pediatric otolaryngologist at the University of Pittsburgh and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

January 21~ University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health Lecture ~ TBA

February 25 ~ "Race-Concordant Care: Historical Insights and Ethical Challenges" ~ Wangui Muigai ~ University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine Lecture 

And in the evening: "Black Infant Mortality and the American Roots of a Health Inequality"

April 1 ~ “The Legacy of Infant Surgery without Anesthesia: Implications for Today” ~ Wendy Patrice Williams ~ Jonathon Erlen Lecture

Dr. Erlen (1946-2022) was the history of medicine librarian at the University of Pittsburgh for 35 years, until his retirement in 2019. He was a devoted teacher in the undergraduate, graduate, and health professions schools, winning the School of Medicine Curriculum Committee’s Excellence in Education Award in 2004 for his month-long elective in medical history. He was an active member of the American Association of the History of Medicine, the American Osler Society, and the Southern Association of the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS). And for decades John was the linchpin of the Reynolds Society as its secretary, treasurer, and (pre-COVID) host extraordinaire. The fact that he is irreplaceable is evidenced by the fact that the two of us (Kristen and Adam) barely fill his shoes. In particular, we remember John as a mentor to students and to up-and-coming scholars such as ourselves, introducing us to the authors of our favorite books and reviewing our papers before we presented them. If you never received an email with a list of recent dissertations that he thought you would find interesting, then you missed out on a unique gesture of friendship. 

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Virulent: The Vaccine War

Tuesday, April 9, 2024, from 7-9pm
Public Health Building, Room A115

Join us for our last event of the year AND our first in-person activity on campus since the pandemic: a viewing of Virulent: The Vaccine War. It's the newest documentary from Laura Davis (Producer) & Tjardus Greidanus (Director/ Editor/ Cinematographer), the makers of Burden of Genius about organ transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl. The cost is free! The film is 1.5 hours long. If you can, stay afterwards for a Q&A session with the filmmakers and Peter Salk, son of Jonas Salk and himself an expert on vaccines.

Inaugural Michaels Lecture: Gender, Race, and Science in Med School Design

 “Forming the Modern Physician: Gender, Race, and Science

in Early Twentieth-Century Medical School Design”

April 2, 2024 ~ Inaugural Michaels Lecture ~

Katherine L. Carroll, PhD (Independent Scholar)

Architectural historian Dr. Carroll has presented widely on medical school design and the intertwined ways in which the built environment influences scientific culture, as well as the ways in which cultural and social priorities affect building choices. As the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine celebrates the one-year anniversary of the opening of the new West Wing of Scaife Hall, and Duquesne University renovates its campus to welcome a brand-new DO medical school, this was thoughtful commentary about how past schools have made other choices. Click here for the recording (starts at 4:40).

This was the first annual Milton Meyer Michaels lecture. A life-long Pittsburgher, Dr. Michaels (1927-2022) practiced Hematology and Internal Medicine for over five decades. He supported the C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society for many years, having also served as its President. We thank the generosity of his wife, Lois Glazer Michaels, and their children, Eric, Marian, and Jacob, for endowing this speakership.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Image: University of Pittsburgh School of Dentistry shortly after construction (1912). University of Pittsburgh Archives photograph collection, 1971-2006, item 31735070042936.

Image description: A sepia-toned photograph depicts a long, rectangular building with two stories of tall plain windows and one story of short windows. There is decorative stone work around the entrance portal and a small facade on the roof.

“Accompanying History: The Journey to Undocumented Physicians”

February 20, 2024, 6-7:15pm Eastern Time
~ Inaugural John Erlen Lecture ~
Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, HEC-C

(Loyola University Chicago)

Medical history and bioethics are siblings under the rubric of “health humanities.” For this lecture, Dr. Kuczewski will explore the history of undocumented healers in the United States. He has been engaged in bedside clinical ethics issues for more than 25 years. For the last decade, he has also been an articulate spokesperson for the just and equitable treatment of immigrant patients, medical students, and clinicians.  At noon, Dr. Kuczewski will present a Grand Rounds entitled “Caring for Immigrant Patients: Clinical and Institutional Challenges” to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine. 

All Reynolds Society lectures are free and open to the public. This is the link to watch the recording of the evening lecture. You can check back here to see if the Grand Rounds recording has been posted.

Image description: We see the back of a young woman with brown skin and a long dark brown braid pulled forward over her shoulder. Colorful flowers and the words "I am one of those people Mexico sent" in white are painted on her bright red graduation mortar board with tassel. Credit: Bonnie Arbittier / San Antonio Report (2017)