USA > Illinois > Cook County > Growth of Cook County; a history of the large lake-shore county that includes Chicago, Vol. I > Part 14
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Children with unnatural heart conditions, including those once known as "blue babies," for whom medical science could do little, now receive the finest remedial treatment at the newly-
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established cardiac clinic on the eighth floor of the Children's hospital. Equipped with modern facilities, the clinic cost $100,000.
The thread of the improvement program was picked up by President Ryan when he pointed out on a television program on Dec. 30, 1956, that the county then was in the process of enlarging and remodeling the hospital's receiving division at a cost of some two million dollars and that early in 1957 it was to begin a program for remodeling the main hospital wards.
"We are especially proud," President Ryan continued, "of our recently completed central diagnostic X-ray department which, with its 15 rooms of equipment, cost one million dollars. It will help the hospital to maintain a position of medical supremacy for years to come."
First blood bank in America, established by Dr. Bernard Fantus at County hospital in 1937, is being inspected in late 1950s by, left to right, Dr. George C. Blaha, medical director at County hospital since 1953, Warden Fred A. Hertwig, and a laboratory technician, Mrs. Patricia Hayes.
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First Blood Bank
The first blood bank in America was started by Dr. Bernard Fantus on March 15, 1937 at County hospital. Since then great strides have been made in blood therapy.
To maintain this leadership a modern, adequate blood bank was constructed in 1946 at a cost of $81,000. It is located on the seventh floor of the Main hospital building, replacing the former antiquated one on the third floor.
To the blood bank now has been added bone, eye, and artery banks.
With the advent of Salk polio vaccine in 1956, County hos- pital cooperated with the Chicago board of health in vaccinat- ing against the dread disease which has killed or crippled so many thruout the years.
A temporary polio inoculation clinic was set up on the first floor of the main hospital building. During the time it re- mained open (from July 23 to Sept. 13, 1956) 16,071 inocu- lations were administered. In addition, County hospital con- tributed five interns each day to the staff of the Chicago board of health which gave inoculations in various other clinics thru- out the city during the above-mentioned period.
Hektoen Institute
On the east side of the principal group of buildings that comprise County hospital are two comparatively small, unim- posing buildings, the importance of which belies their external appearance.
Located at 629 S. Wood st., they house the Hektoen Institute for Medical Research of the Cook County Hospital. In these adjoining buildings medical scientists work that all mankind may live healthier and happier lives.
The fruits of their pioneering research into all problems of medicine and surgery are extended to the patients of County hospital and, for that matter, to all the world.
The start of the project began in 1942 when the county
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board, as previously noted, purchased for $110,000 both the old McCormick Institute for Infectious Diseases, at the Wood street address, and the adjoining old Durand hospital building (637 S. Wood st.), both then unoccupied.
Because there is some doubt that the county legally can appropriate funds for medical research, regardless of the vast benefits that may accrue to County hospital patients, a group of noted physicians and public spirited citizens incorporated Hektoen Institute in 1943 as a not-for-profit research organi- zation and set about to solicit private funds for its operation. The county board agreed to let the institute occupy the two buildings, using them as a combined unit.
No medical research group ever has had all the funds it could use in fighting diseases, but the public response to Hek- toen Institute was most heartening from the start and has been a continuing life-line thruout the succeeding years.
The institute spends between $225,000 and $240,000 from private funds yearly on research projects, including salaries of working scientists, materials (including animals for experi- mentation), and for publishing some 150 scientific papers annually in explaining to the medical profession the results of specific research projects.
Dr. Karl A. Meyer is chairman of the institute's board of trustees as well as being medical superintendent of all Cook county institutions.
Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, who interned at County hospital and had been a resident physician in pediatrics at the hospital for three years, has been the institute's director since October of 1945. He also is associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Drs. Meyer and Hoffman explain that the institute hires technicians and doctors, the best to be found for specific research projects. The projects to be worked upon are decided by the institute's medical board. In 1959 a total of over 100 such
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COOK COUNTY
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Dummy street car, on roof of County hospital, was used by physiotherapy department in late 1940s to instruct patients in boarding and, alighting. Im- practical, its use soon was discontinued. Witnessing demonstration are hospital officials, nurses, occupational therapy volunteers (young ladies not in uniform), and medical interns.
medical scientists were thus employed at one time at Hektoen. In addition, a number of County hospital's staff doctors join in the research work.
More spectacular of the diseases now being fought within the institute's research laboratories are cancer, leukemia and other blood diseases, coronary thrombosis and other heart afflic- tions, brain and nerve ailments, cerebral palsy, diseases affecting liver, kidneys, and other body organs, and, of course, com- municable diseases.
Surgical techniques constantly are being improved. The uses for new drugs are being expanded. (Commercial drug pro- ducers annually give the institution between $150,000 and $200,000 worth of new drugs with which to work.)
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Since this is not a medical treatise, we shall not attempt to explain the details of the many advances being made in medi- cine and surgery at Hektoen, tho they are occurring almost daily.
These men of medicine who work at Hektoen Institute are spurred on, not only by hope, but by concrete evidence that they and others like them elsewhere-the latter including Dr. Jonas E. Salk, discoverer of polio vaccine-already have ac- complished wonders in alleviating human suffering.
REN'S
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COOK COUNTY D
CHILDRENS MOBILE - CLINIC
Cook county's first mobile dental unit in which 3,000 school children are treated annually. Inspecting the traveling dental office when it was placed in service in 1952 are, left to right, Commissioners Elizabeth A. Conkey, James F. Ashenden, William N. Erickson (board president at the time), John J. Touhy, Warden Fred A. Hertwig of County hospital, Commissioner John Mackler, Jr., Dr. Michael C. Arra, director of the county's dental clinic, and Commissioner Edward M. Sneed. The unit is used by county dentists at schools within unin- corporated areas and at schools within villages that have no health departments.
The published scientific papers on the institute's findings are republished in the leading scientific journals of the United States and foreign countries. Requests for these articles have come from practicing physicians and research scientists all over the world.
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"In addition to the published articles," said Dr. Meyer, "sci- entific presentations are made by staff members before leading local, regional and national associations of the special branches of the medical sciences.
"Lectures and clinical-pathologic conferences are given before the staffs of hospitals in and outside of Chicago, including Veterans Administration hospitals," he continued.
"Research visitors," he said, "come from all over the world to observe the work at the institute and to learn special technics developed by our staff members."
Financial Contributors
Funds for carrying on research at Hektoen Institute are being contributed by the following imposing list of donors:
United States Public Health Service
United States Army
American Cancer Society
Damon Runyon Fund
Leukemia Research Foundation
American Heart Association
Chicago Heart Association
Women's Auxiliary of Hektoen Institute
Yonnie Cohen Heart Foundation
Maurice E. Culberg Memorial Fund for Cancer Research
Oliva Sue Dvore Foundation
The Galter Foundation
Samuel Greenspan Memorial Fund for Cancer Research
Alfred O. Hergott Foundation
Bernice Berger Hirsch Memorial Foundation
The Lasdon Foundation
Dr. Julian D. Levinson Memorial Foundation
Mildred Rothschild Memorial Foundation
Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute
Dr. Leonard H. and Louis D. Weissman Medical Research Foundation
Benjamin Fishbain Hematology Research Fund
The Cummings Foundation
George M. Eisenberg Foundation
Robert L. Goldblatt Foundation
Dorothy Slutsky Memorial Club
The Smart Family Foundation
Rich and poor alike contribute what funds they can to the finding of cures for diseases that brought about the deaths of loved ones, or which perplex humanity in general. Many checks also are received by Hektoen Institute which otherwise would have gone for funeral flowers.
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In soliciting research funds, Hektoen Institute says in its brochure:
"Grants made to the Hektoen Institute may be outright or continuing. They may specify a particular type of research to which they are to be applied, provided that the board of trustees and the scientific committee sanctions the project. Grants made without such specification will be distributed to further those research problems for which funds have been lacking."
An Honored Name
The institute was named in fitting honor to the celebrated Dr. Ludvig Hektoen, known in medical circles as the "father of pathology in Chicago," and further described by Dr. Meyer in the following language:
"Explorer in fundamental bacteriology, an originator in chemical research, initiator of aspects of hematology, coordi- nator of medical knowledge with history and social organiza- tion, foremost student and teacher of forensic medicine, notable contributor to medical literature, and correlator of the research laboratory with clinical practice."
Of Norwegian ancestry, Ludvig Hektoen was born on July 2, 1863 at Westby, Vernon county, Wisconsin. His father was a Lutheran parochial school teacher.
After attending the lower grades, Ludvig, at the age of 13, went for a year to Monona Academy (now extinct) in Madi- son, Wis., then to Luther college in Decorah, Iowa, where after six years, he was graduated with a bachelor of arts degree.
In 1883-84 young Hektoen took premedical courses at the University of Wisconsin, then obtained a position as attendant at the Northern Hospital for the Insane in Oshkosh, Wis. Soon thereafter he was placed in charge of the drugstore at the hos- pital, remaining there until the fall of 1885 when he came to Chicago.
In the booming metropolis, Hektoen attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1887. He interned
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A modern operating table, with powerful over- head light, County hospital, 1953.
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at County hospital for two years. In 1889 he was made curator of the museum of Rush Medical College. Shortly thereafter he became registrar at County hospital, and in 1890 became a Cook county coroner's physician. (Available records are not entirely clear as to how long he held each position.)
In June of 1891 he became professor of general pathology at his alma mater, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. Months later he went to Europe where he continued his medical studies. Returning to Chicago in 1894 he became professor of "morbid anatomy" and director of the laboratory of normal and pathologic histology, bacteriology and hygiene in Rush Medical College, which position he held for the major portion of his life.
In addition, in 1895 he became pathologist of the Cook County hospital, and in 1896, a member of the attending staff.
In 1901 Hektoen became head of the department of pathol-
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ogy and bacteriology at the University of Chicago, and in 1902, director of the John McCormick Institute for Infectious Diseases.
It was in the latter capacity that Hektoen's foresight resulted in the association of the research laboratory of the McCormick Institute with clinical material at the then active Durand hos- pital that stood alongside.
(The McCormick Institute had been founded by Harold F. McCormick and Edith Rockefeller McCormick in memory of their son, John Rockefeller McCormick, who had died of scarlet fever.)
In a recently-published Hektoen Institute brochure, writ- ten by Ethel H. Davis, appears the illuminative statement:
"It was his (Dr. Hektoen's) inspiration that eventually led to the discovery of the cause of scarlet fever by George F. and Gladys Henry Dick." (Man and wife team of physicians.)
The depression that began in 1929 and the subsequent death of Edith Rockefeller McCormick ended the support of both McCormick Institute and the Durand hospital, and they were closed.
That was the situation in 1942 when the county board, of which Clayton F. Smith then was president, bought the two buildings, thereby giving Hektoen Institute its chance to be formed.
Dr. Hektoen, tho a staunch supporter of the new research institute that was to bear his name, was not officially connected with it. He died in 1951 at the ripe age of 89.
In addition to Dr. Meyer, chairman, other members of the institute's board of trustees are:
Dr. Morris Fishbein, vice chairman of the board at Hektoen and former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Hoffman, director, mentioned previously.
Dr. Hans Popper, director of the department of pathology, Mt. Sinai hospital, and consultant, Army Medical Center, Washington, D. C.
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Dr. Frederick Steigman, associate director for clinical investi- gation at the institute; associate professor of medicine, Uni- versity of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. Sinclair Howard Armstrong, Jr., consultant for clinical investigation at the institute; director of medical education, County hospital.
Dr. Aaron Arkin, professor of medicine, University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. Frederick H. Falls, professor and chairman, department of obstetrics and gynecology, University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. Edmund F. Foley, clinical professor of medicine, Univer- sity of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. Andrew C. Ivy, professor of physiology, University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. John B. O'Donoghue, professor of clinical surgery, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University.
Dr. James P. Simonds, professor emeritus, department of pathology, Northwestern University Medical School.
Dr. Arthur Colwell, chairman, department of medicine, North- western University Medical School.
Dr. Harry Dowling, chairman, department of medicine, Uni- versity of Illinois College of Medicine.
Dr. Chester C. Guy, chief of surgery, Illinois Central hospital.
COOK COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Dan Ryan, president of the county board,1 and Commissioners Wm. N. Erickson, Frank Bobrytzke and Charles F. Chaplin.
PUBLIC SPIRITED CITIZENS
Britton I. Budd, president, Public Service Company of North- ern Illinois; Chester R. Davis, vice president, Chicago Title and Trust company; Jack Galter, president, Galter Products com- pany; Irv Kupcinet, columnist, Chicago Sun-Times; William Mc- Fetridge, president, Building Service Employes, AFL-CIO; Guy E. Reed, vice president, Harris Trust and Savings Bank; Brig. Gen. Frank Schwengel, president, Seagram Distillers Corp .; and Ross D. Siragusa, board chairman, Admiral Corp.
The members of the Hektoen Institute working staff, in addi- tion to the aforementioned Drs. Hoffman, Steigman and Arm- strong, are:
Dr. Steven O. Schwartz, director of hematology; Alvin Dub- lin, director of biochemistry;' Dr. Benjamin M. Gasul, director of cardiophysiology; Dr. Meyer A. Perlstein, director of neu-
1. Among the most enthusiastic Hektoen Institute supporters thruout the years have been both President Ryan and his wife, Ruby, the latter working with the women's auxiliary.
In helping conduct periodic fund-raising drives for the institute, Ryan has said:
"This institute carries on the type of research that excites men's imagina- tions. It already has discovered and will continue discovering things that add to the longevity and happiness of all human beings."
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rology; Dr. Daniel Kushner, director of mycology; and Dr. David Bronsky, director of metabolic diseases.
Research associates on the institute's staff are Drs. Morris T. Friedell, J. de la Huerga, Morton Grossman, Donald D. Kozoll, Abraham Levinson, Louis P. River, Fenton Schaffner, Joseph Silverstein, Paul B. Szanto, William H. Schlaes, Robert F. Dillon, Maurice Lev, Egbert H. Fell, Milton Weinberg, Jr., Raymond Dern, Harold M. Schoolman, Irving A. Friedman, John R. Tobin, Richard B. Terry, and Eugene F. Traut.
Medical Martyr
One of the doctors who interned at County hospital led a brief but dramatic life. He was Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871-1910) who sacrificed his life in the cause of medicine.
Born in Findlay, Ohio, and reared in Nebraska, young Rick- etts came to Chicago for his medical education, graduating from Northwestern University Medical School and interning at County hospital. Soon thereafter he became a teacher at Rush Medical College, and then the University of Chicago.
From 1906 to 1909 Dr. Ricketts studied Rocky Mountain spotted fever, discovering it to be a small bacillus transmitted to humans by ticks. Following this he went to Mexico City to investigate a typhus, known as tabardillo, which was claim- ing hundreds of ·lives.
Dr. Ricketts found the disease to be similar in some respects to spotted fever and discovered it was communicated by the body louse. He also found it could be conveyed to monkeys, in which an immunity was produced.
Near the finish of his work, Dr. Ricketts, himself, came down with the disease he was conquering, dying on May 3, 1910. In tribute to his great work, the Mexican government published his findings in book form and named after him the laboratory in which he had worked.
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Dr. Frederick Tice
Medical figures who contributed immensely to the welfare of man during the first half of the current century would in- clude the late Dr. Frederick Tice, heart and chest specialist, who was closely associated with County hospital during most of that period.
Born July 30, 1871 in Oshkosh, Wis., Dr. Tice came to Chicago for his medical training, graduating from Rush Medi- cal college in 1894. He interned at County hospital during 1895 and 1896, and in 1902 joined the hospital staff, serving until 1937, the last eleven years of which he was staff presi- dent. During this 35-year period, he served, as do many other doctors, without compensation, depending upon his outside practice and his teaching activities for his livelihood.
He joined the teaching staff of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1901, becoming a full professor in 1913. This he held until 1927 when made professor emeritus.
While at County hospital he founded within the institution what was to become known as the Tice tuberculosis laboratory. In 1934 he brought to Chicago the tuberculosis vaccine that had been discovered by two French scientists and added to its further development. He also helped in the development of lung collapse therapy, and was a pioneer in the use of mobile units for tuberculosis examinations.
On May 18, 1931, Dr. Tice was appointed by the late Anton J. Cermak, Chicago mayor, as head of the Municipal Tuberculosis sanitarium, which position he held until his resig- nation in 1945.
When he died Dec. 14, 1953 at the age of 82, his lifelong associate and Oak Park neighbor, Dr. Ole C. Nelson, medical director at County hospital, referred to Dr. Tice as a "doctor's doctor" whom other doctors called upon when they, them- selves, were ill.
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Dr. Ole C. Nelson
Lore is bound to grow around the central figures who con- tribute to the making of such a world-renowned institution as County hospital.
Among the most colorful personalities at this great hospital was the roly-poly, pink-cheeked, friendly little man, the late Dr. Ole C. Nelson, who devoted most of his adult life to the institution, most of the time in a directing capacity.
Altogether Ole Nelson served at County hospital for 42 con- secutive years, the last ten as medical director. Under his super- vision some 7,000 medical men were trained, and an estimated 5,000,000 patients treated.
This great man seldom was addressed as "Dr. Nelson." Sometimes he was called "Dr. Ole," but thousands of his friends, including a hundred or more newspapermen, affec- tionately called him just plain "Ole."
Ole Nelson was born in Brevik, Norway, on Jan. 1, 1883. He and his brothers and sisters were brought to Chicago by their parents when Ole was still a small boy.
Being of small stature, Ole, in his teens, became a racing jockey, riding at tracks thruout the country. Then he became a business agent for other jockeys.
He first entered County hospital service on July 1, 1911 when appointed "clerk and storekeeper," according to Cook county civil service commission records.
In 1913 he was made a junior clerk, in 1916 a senior clerk, and in 1919 principal clerk.
Surrounded by great medical men who were on the hospital staff, Ole aspired to become one of them. With his clerical job providing a living, meager as it was, he attended night medical school and at odd hours picked up additional medical knowl- edge as he saw it practiced in the hospital.
In June of 1921, at the age of 38, Ole was graduated from
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the Chicago Medical College, earning his degree in neurology. During 1921 and 1922 he interned at County hospital, then remained on the staff as a doctor.
In June of 1927 he was appointed assistant medical "war- den" (director) in charge at night. On May 16, 1943, he was appointed medical director, which position he held until his retirement on June 30, 1953. He died Jan. 16, 1954 at the age of 71.
As assistant, and then director, Ole Nelson's work was varied. He was an administrator and he was a doctor. Always traveling at a fast little walk, he tramped miles every day down the long corridors and thru the over-crowded wards.
Never losing site of the purpose for which County hos- pital had been created-administering to the sick-poor-Ole often would stop at bedsides of the seriously ill and the de- pressed. He knew that a reassuring smile and a friendly word to a scared, distressed patient often was as therapeutic as a pill.
That his love for County hospital exceeded all else was demonstrated many times. One such occasion was during the depth of the depression of the 1930s when the financially- harassed county board was far behind in its payments of bills, including those for vital drugs used at County hospital.
With the drug companies threatening to cut off further supplies, Ole Nelson, out of his personal funds, paid the most pressing of these drug bills, thus averting possible disaster at the hospital. (In due time, of course, the county reimbursed and thanked Ole.)
During this long climb from the bottom to the top, Ole lived a full and complete life. Having married a registered nurse, Myrtle Kinsman, who was practicing at County hospital, he enjoyed a happy home life, the last several years of which were spent in their residence at 147 LeMoyne parkway, Oak Park.
The Nelson's two children (son, William G., and daughter,
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Jean) and the Nelson grandchildren were a continuing source of pleasure to Ole. He especially liked to take all of them with him on his vacations when he would go on northwoods fishing trips.
To balance the effects that so much pain and death must have upon one when he works in a hospital, Ole always maintained a lighter side, enjoyed a joke, and was a good hand at creating one himself.
One of Ole's bits of humor once appeared in newspapers thruout the country. It originated with him on a Wisconsin fishing trip when he reported his successful catches were due to the use of benzedrine in his live-bait box.
He said the drug not only made fishing-worms more lively and attractive to fish, but that when he sprinkled some of it on a soft-shelled crab, the crab became so "hopped-up" that after being lowered into the water on a hook, it reached out, grabbed a big bass by the nose, and held on until the fish was netted. The crab repeated the act until Ole had his limit catch.
Further along this lighter line, there appeared in the Chicago Daily News of Dec. 14, 1943 the following account:
"Dr. Ole C. Nelson, medical director of County hospital, has never ceased marveling at the speedy coverage of Chicago newspapers ever since the day, a few years ago, he was tele- phoned by an excited nurse, screaming: 'A patient just jumped out a window.' Dr. Nelson hung up and moved toward the door. A second later the phone rang again. It was the City News Bureau. 'What was the name of the patient who jumped?' a reporter asked. 'How should I know?' shouted Nelson. "The body just passed the fourth floor!'"
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