HarvardMedicine
From the Dean
THOUGHTS ON INNOVATION
Letters to the Editor
Editor Paula Brewer Byron Associate Editor Ann Marie Menting
SECOND OPINIONS FROM OUR READERS
Assistant Editor Jessica Cerretani Editorial Interns Erin Long, Molly Marcot
The last time this magazine was redesigned, more than a decade ago, the editor felt justified trepidation. The late Francis Moore ’39, a giant in the surgical field and the commanding mentor of generations of Harvard surgical residents, was monitoring her plans closely. He warned her against making drastic changes. The Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin was sacrosanct, he told her, and must be treated reverently. “The Bulletin,” he explained, with sonorous emphasis, “is like Shakespeare and the Bible.” He ended up applauding the redesign but cautioned the editor: “Don’t let your designer go wild.” While the editor and designer have remained the same, this issue of the magazine bears not
Contributing Writers David Cameron, Elizabeth Dougherty, Karin Kiewra, Alyssa Kneller, Emily Lieberman, Veronica Meade-Kelly, Carol Cruzan Morton
Editorial Board JudyAnn Bigby ’78; Emery Brown ’87; Rafael Campo ’92; Michael Chernew, PhD; Nicholas Christakis ’88; Elissa Ely ’88; Paul Farmer ’90; Daniel D. Federman ’53; Timothy G. Ferris ’92; Alice Flaherty ’94; Atul Gawande ’94, Robert M. Goldwyn ’56; Jerome Groopman, MD; John Halamka, MD; Donald Ingber, MD, PhD; Sachin H. Jain ’06; Perri Klass ’86; Jeffrey Macklis ’84; Victoria McEvoy ’75; Barbara McNeil ’66; Lee Nadler ’73; James J. O’Connell ’82; Nancy E. Oriol ’79; Anthony S. Patton ’58; Mitchell T. Rabkin ’55; Eleanor Shore ’55; Rachel Wilson, PhD Dean Jeffrey S. Flier, MD
that some of our readers have been receiving this magazine for more than seven decades. That’s
Executive Dean for Administration Daniel G. Ennis, MBA, MPA
quickly learns. But at Harvard Medical School we’re trying to improve on many wonderful, solid foundations. This issue looks beyond the five senses—an improvement on the Aristotelian tradition of vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Throughout its pages you’ll find inextricable links between the senses: the feeling of sound, the drawing of objects by feeling them rather than seeing them, [third example]. And you’ll find an examination of how the five senses fail to capture our full sensory experience. The success of the new chapter of this magazine’s history will rely on your feedback. We encourage you to join our Readers’ Panel—which allows you to receive all magazine surveys, requests for ideas, and easy communication with our expanded Editorial Board. One of our Editorial Board members described our plan for redesigning the magazine “Bulletin plus”— and that’s what we hope it will prove to be.
[need signature] Jeffrey S. Flier Dean, Harvard Medical School
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Associate Dean for Communications and External Relations Gina Vild Harvard Medical Alumni Association Steven E. Weinberger ’73, president Gilbert S. Omenn ’65, president-elect 1 Phyllis I. Gardner ’76, president-elect 2 Kenneth Offit ’81, vice president Neil R. Powe ’80, secretary Deborah C. German ’76, treasurer H. Thomas Aretz ’76; JudyAnn Bigby ’78; Rosa M. Crum ’85; Laurie Glimcher ’76; Elizabeth Petri Henske ’85; Katherine Janeway ’00; Jim Yong Kim ’86; Triste N. Lieteau ’98; Eileen Reynolds ’90; Michael Rosenblatt ’73; David H. Sachs ’68 Rahul Sakhuja ’03 Chair of Alumni Relations A. W. Karchmer ’64 Harvard Medicine, formerly known as the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin, is published three times a year at 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115 Publishers: Harvard Medical School and Harvard Medical Alumni Association © President and Fellows of Harvard University Phone: 617-432-7878 • Fax: 617-432-0089 Email: harvardmedicine@hms.harvard.edu Web: http://magazine.med.harvard.edu Third class postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts. Postmaster, send form 3579 to 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115 ISSN 2152-9957 • Printed in the U.S.A.
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Strong Medicine Congratulations on the Skeletons in the Closet issue—one of your best ever!
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Art Director Laura McFadden
only a new design, but a new title as well. In making such changes, we’ve been mindful of the fact tradition—and tampering with such traditions can be tricky, as any new editor—or dean—
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charles hartness ’82 portland, oregon
Magical Mystery Cure Your article on medical mysteries in the Autumn 2009 issue brought to mind a curious case I encountered early in my career. In the early 1960s, a family brought their five-year-old daughter to my new practice in Maine. Her staggering gait and slurred speech alarmed me. Thinking it might be a brainstem tumor, I referred her to Children’s Hospital in Boston, where I had recently completed my training. There, the neurologist and residents checked her over as best they could in the days before MRIs. She gradually improved and they eventually discharged her, assuming that she had suffered some sort of transient cerebellitis. Several weeks later she was back in my office with the same symptoms. After reviewing the thorough family and social history I had taken (in proper Harvard fashion), it occurred to me that an aunt who lived with the family might be taking Dilantin for her epilepsy; an overdose of the drug could certainly cause the girl’s
symptoms. My simple suggestion to the family produced another recovery and prevented other recurrences. charles e. burden ‘59 augusta, maine
A Whiter Shade of Pale The introduction in the “Skeletons in the Closet” issue caught my eye, especially the mention of how John Collins Warren’s bones had been “carefully preserved” and “whitened” according to his own instructions. While studying for an anatomy exam at Dartmouth Medical School in 1951, before I transferred to HMS, I spent an afternoon in a darkened museum surrounded by specimen cabinets. In one cabinet I found a strikingly white, porcelain-light skull with hinged trapdoors that opened to labeled cranial nerves and foramina. Arteries and veins had been removed, and their paths along the skull’s inner surface had been diagramed in red and blue. I later revisited the skull and
found a trapdoor I had overlooked. Beneath it was inscribed “Prepared by Oliver Wendell Holmes—1840.” Holmes, HMS Class of 1836, had been an anatomy professor at Dartmouth for two years before returning to Harvard in 1840. I have been teaching anatomy at the Florida State University College of Medicine since retiring from general surgery in 1997. I have seen many skull preparations but none as exquisite as that one. Holmes’s whitening process was special; a demineralization likely explained the lightness. Unfortunately, the skull can no longer be found. There is a good chance, though, that a similar trapdoor skull that Holmes produced is in a specimen cabinet at Harvard. Such a skull would be a welcome addition to the School’s Warren Anatomical Museum. Meanwhile, I suspect that Holmes helped orchestrate the whitening of Warren’s bones. james cavanagh ’54 tallahassee, florida
A Pressured Gage The Autumn 2009 Bulletin brought back memories from 50 years ago, when I was based at the Warren Anatomical Museum, where Phineas Gage’s skull and tamping iron were on display. The trajectory of the wound suggested injury to the left frontal lobe and perhaps to the medial aspect of the right frontal lobe. After his accident, Gage was reported to have experienced changes to his personality but not to his language function. The newly discovered photograph of Gage shows him holding his tamping rod as would a left-handed baseball batter—at the left shoulder, left hand on top—and with his hair parted on the right in the style of a lefthanded man of that era. He may have adopted his hairstyle after his injury, of course, to conceal his cranial defect. If, as the photograph suggests, Gage was right-cerebral dominant, that would better help explain his personality change and his intact language function. simeon locke, md boxford, massachusetts
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