‘First’ For Woman Doctor

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30938, 20 December 1965, Page 2

‘First’ For Woman Doctor

In the latest of a series of firsts she has accumulated, Dr. Helen Taussig was installed this week as president of the American Heart Asociation, says the New York correspondent of “The Sun-Her-ald,” Sydney.

Dr. Taussig is the first woman presMent in the aseodalton's 41-year history. She Is also the woman who first sounded a wanting on the use of thaMootde flor expectant mothers. , DrTaussig, a taH, wtatehaired woman, can remember the days when the education of women was thought to be a waste of time. “My answer need to be that it to chop er to educate a few women than to build a . bsMeoMp, and a lot more * profitable to the country,” she eatd. Thousands today can testify •t first hand to the soundness

of that statement, for without Dr. Taussig they would almost certainly be dead. In World War II she and toe tote Dr. Alfred Blalock of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore developed the Intricate operation now named for them—tn release the deadly grip of pulmonary stenosis.

As a result, moat of the sufferers of the congenital heart malformation—so called “blue babies”—were able to take up normal life and growth. Many now have children of their own, not a few named Helen. Dr. Tauattg was born to 1808. One of her grandtethers was a children's eye apectaffot, her father was a noted eeooomtot and her mother was one of the first women students nt Radcliffe College. Sha also studied there, and received her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University Medics! School. From the beginning she took an interest in heart disqaae in children, especially

the so-called blue babies who had no chance of living more than a few years. After years of study, Dr. Taussig developed the theory that the reason for the

i disease was congenital con- : striation of the artery connecting the heart and lungs which resulted in oxygen starvation of the blood. Dr. Blalock developed a surgical technique for bypassing the constriction, proving Dr. Taussig's theory. The first operation to 1944 was a failure, but the next was a success and so were 80 per cent that followed. In 1962 Dr. Taussig published a report pointing out the danger of thalidomide to pregnant women. Hers was the flrat alarm in the controversy and it did much to prevent widespread damage to unborn children in the U.S. She Is the first woman member of the Association of American Physicians, a select 250 member body. Dr. Taussig is retired from her teaching and dinicoi posts at Johns Hopkins, but still works daily at he research into rheumatic fever and a major project, the fluoroscope study of the changes in the size and shape of the heart.