Irving S. Wright

Irving Sherwood Wright (born October 27, 1901 in Manhattan ; † December 8, 1997 ibid) was an American medical doctor ( cardiologist ), known for the first use of an anti-coagulant to dissolve blood clots that lead to strokes, pulmonary embolisms and heart attacks can. Later he dealt with geriatrics .

Life

Wright studied at Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in 1923 and medicine from Cornell University Medical College with an MD in 1926. He then completed his specialist training in internal medicine at the Post-Graduate School of Columbia University (College of Physicians and Surgeons) until 1929 . He then entered the private practice of the head of the Medical Board of the Post Graduate Hospital Arthur Chase (particularly cardiology) while conducting clinical research on the vascular system. Back then it was common for medical professionals to finance their research through their private practices, and Wright also had his own private practice alongside his research for decades. In 1931 he returned to Cornell University (the Cornell part of Bellevue Hospital). 1937 to 1942 he headed the department of Cornell University at the Welfare Hospital of Chronic Disease (now Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island). From 1934 he also volunteered at the Doctor's Hospital. In 1938 he became a professor at Columbia University's Post-Graduate School. During World War II he held high positions as a military doctor in the US Army, for example in 1942/43 he ran a Navy and Army hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Among other things, he was active in 1946/47 in the reconstruction of university hospitals in Germany and Austria as an advisor to the US side. From 1946 he was Associate Professor and from 1948 Professor of Clinical Medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He waived a salary in exchange for being allowed to continue running his private practice. In 1968 he retired. He ran his practice until 1979.

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In 1938 he fell ill with thrombophlebitis after an appendix operation and then looked for ways to dissolve the dangerous blood clots that developed. He used heparin , which had just been isolated by Charles Best at the University of Toronto at the time, and used it to successfully treat a 30-year-old patient who was dying of thrombosis (Arthur Schulte) soon after his own illness . To do this, he persuaded Best to personally bring the heparin to New York. In 1940 he tested (again on Arthur Schulte) a new anticoagulant dicumarol that Karl Paul Link had developed. During the war he also used it to treat patients with heart attacks and was therefore commissioned by the American Heart Association to conduct a large clinical study on this after the war . It comprised 1000 patients and the results were published in 1948 and 1954. It provided a clear advantage in the treatment of heart attacks.

After giving up his professorship, he turned to geriatrics . In the last years of his life he was still involved in founding the Sherwood Wright Center on Aging in Manhattan in collaboration with the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

Honors and miscellaneous

In 1960 he received the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award . He was President of the American Heart Association (1952, as the first "non-classical" cardiologist, as his research stood for a view of the heart as part of the entire vascular system, while cardiologists until then often concentrated on the heart alone), the American College of Physicians (1965) and the American Geriatric Society (1971/72), whose Henderson Award he received in 1970 and whose Thewlis Award in 1974. In 1979 he founded the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR). In 1976 he received the American Heart Foundation's Distinguished Service Award. 1953 to 1963 he was the International Committee of Blood Clotting Factors.

From 1935 to 1962 he was a doctor at the Metropolitan Opera . In old age he went blind and then completed his extensive reading program using tape recordings. He remained active in old age and regularly attended medical discussions at New York Hospital.

He was married twice and had two daughters from a first divorced marriage. In his second marriage he was married to Lois Elliman Wright for 40 years (died 1993).

He was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Medicine and was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. In the 1930s he was an Associate Editor of the American Heart Journal (alongside Lewis Conner ).

literature

• Richard L. Mueller: Irving S. Wright- Innovator in Cardiovascular Medicine, Clin. Cardiol., 18, 1995, pp. 181-183, pdf

Fonts

• You and Your Heart, Random House 1950

Web links

• Ford Burkhart, New York Times obituary, December 21, 1997