An Ole Doc ’ s Lament
by MORRIS WEISS , MD
Kathryn Vance of the Greater Louisville Medical Society asked if I would pen a few words about the advance of medicine during the past 75 to 100 years . Since I am 90 , and recently retired after 60 years and 6 months listening to hearts , I said I would give it a try . Now that I am not getting up at 6:00 a . m . to head off to the office to examine patients , this project should help my spells of ennui .
This piece will be limited to cardiology , which is my only area worthy of comment – but cardiology beautifully reflects the evolution of scientific medicine in the last century . Technical advances in surgery and treatment have changed the tools , but we must never lose our focus on holistic patient care , the value of which I learned from observing my father in his careful treatment of the sick .
My father , Morris ( I am a junior ), was graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in 1925 , almost a hundred years ago .
At the end of World War I , American cardiology was not in advanced a state as that of England and Scotland . After graduating from medical school , my father studied heart disease for three years in New York City and returned to Louisville in 1928 as an associate of Dr . Emmett Horine , Kentucky ’ s outstanding physician and first cardiologist . Dr . Horine , after World War I , spent two years in England and Scotland studying under Sir Thomas Lewis and Sir James McKenzie , the world ’ s most famous cardiologists . Having undergone this exemplary training , Dr . Horine returned to Louisville and invited my father to come back from New York and become a partner in his cardiology practice . Beginning in 1928 , they developed cardiology in this part of America and under my father ’ s leadership and expertise , began to build Jewish Hospital into the great institution it became . On Sundays , beginning at the age of ten , I would ride with my father as he drove on his hospital rounds . So 80 years later , I have seen and heard it all , from the simple taking of a pulse and listening to the heart to open heart surgery .
During this century , much has changed and advanced , but there are aspects of medicine that remain immutable .
Let ’ s begin in 1929 when Werner Forssmann , a German surgical resident introduced a urethral catheter into the arm vein of a cadaver and guided it into the right atrium . Pleased with this result , he persevered , but his colleagues refused to try in a live human . Forssmann took matters into his own hands and
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