Helen Brooke Taussig

Helen Brooke Taussig (born May 24, 1898 , Cambridge (Massachusetts) , † May 20, 1986 in Kennett Square , Chester County (Pennsylvania) ) was an American pediatrician and cardiologist . She is considered the founder of pediatric cardiology in the USA.

life and work

Taussig was the daughter of the economist and Harvard professor Frank William Taussig . After overcoming severe dyslexia in her youth , she first studied at Radcliffe College and the University of California, Berkeley (Bachelor's degree in 1921). She then studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and Boston University and then specialized in cardiology at Johns Hopkins University . After graduating in 1927, she was director of cardiology at the Harriet Lane Home for Children at Johns Hopkins University. In 1930 she became director there. In 1959 she received a full professorship at Johns Hopkins (as the first woman).

In later life she was severely hearing impaired, which is why she learned to read lips when dealing with her patients and listen to the heart rhythm with her fingers instead of the stethoscope . In 1963 she officially retired, but continued to be scientifically active and give lectures. She died in a car accident while driving friends to an election.

Together with Alfred Blalock (head of surgery at Johns Hopkins) and Vivien Thomas , she developed the Blalock-Taussig operation at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for the treatment of children suffering from congenital heart defects (such as a Fallot tetralogy ) suffer from cyanosis ( insufficient oxygen supply), at that time also called 'blue baby syndrome' due to the blue color of the affected children. The suggestion for the method came from Taussig. The first operation using this method took place in 1944.

She was also in the United States a major role in an early ban on thalidomide (Contergan ^® ), which in embryo a Phokomelie caused (such as fin or Stummelgliedrigkeit). She traveled to Germany in 1962 to study thalidomide cases. For her role in the prohibition of thalidomide in the USA (among other things, she testified on this issue before the US Congress) she received the Medal of Freedom from the US President in 1964 .

She was also a pioneer in X-ray diagnostics of heart (and lung) defects, which she featured in her 1947 book Congenital Malformations of the Heart .

In 1948, Taussig was awarded the Passano Award and in 1954 the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize . In 1955 she received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research . In 1957 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1973 to the National Academy of Sciences . In 1965, she became the first woman president of the American Heart Association . In 1971 she received the John Howland Award . The American Philosophical Society , of which she had been a member since 1973, awarded her the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 1986 . In 1987 she received the George M. Kober Medal .

One of the colleges of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is named after her (2005), as well as the Helen B. Taussig Children's Pediatric Cardiac Center of the Johns Hopkins and the Helen B. Taussig Heart Clinic of the University Children's Clinic Göttingen.

Works (selection)

• Congenital malformations of the heart , two volumes. New York, Commonwealth Fund, 1947. Adjusted edition, 1960–1961.
• Congenital aneurysmal dilatation of the aorta associated with arachnodactyly . In: Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore , vol. 72 (1943), pp. 309-331 (together with RW Baer and EH Oppenheimer).
• Pediatric profiles . In: The Journal of Pediatrics , Vol. 77 (1979), Issue 10, pp. 722-731.
• The First Full-time Academic Department of Pediatrics. The Story of the Harriet Lane Home . In: Johns Hopkins Medical Journal , 137, July, 27-47 (1975) (with A. McGehee Harvey).

literature

• Joyce Baldwin: To Heal the Heart of a Child. Helen Taussig, MD Walker and Company, New York 1992.
• MA Engle: Helen Brooke Taussig . In: Johns Hopkins Medical Journal , 1977, 140, April, 137-141.
• MA Engle: Dr. Helen B. Taussig, the Tetralogy of Fallot, and the Growth of Pediatric Cardiac Services in the United States . In: Johns Hopkins Medical Journal , 1977, 140, April, pp. 147-150.
• MA Engle: Biographies of Great American Pediatricians. Helen Brooke Taussig, The Mother of Pediatric Cardiology . In: Pediatric Annals , Vol. 11 (1982), July, pp. 629-631.
• WP Harvey: A conversation with Helen Taussig . In: Medical Times, New York , 1978, 106, November, 28-44.
• WP Harvey: Dr. Helen B. Taussig, the Tetralogy of Fallot, and the Growth of Pediatric Cardiac Services in the United States . In: Johns Hopkins Medical Journal , 1977, 140, April, pp. 147-150.

Web links

• Helen Brooke Taussig. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Lüscher, Matthias Greutmann, Rene Pretre, Pedro Trindade: Adults with cogenital Vitien- a new challenge for cardiology , Cardiovascular Medicine, Volume 9, 2006, p. 296, PDF file ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2007 in Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Blalock, Taussig: The surgical treatment of malformations of the heart in which there is a pulmonary stenosis or pulmonary atreria , Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 128, 1945, p. 189.
3. ^ Member History: Helen Brooke Taussig. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 6, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Johannes Oehme: Pioneers of paediatrics . Topics of paediatrics, volume 7. Hansisches Verlagkontor Lübeck, 1993, ISBN 3-87 302-076-9 , p. 86