Helen Brooke Taussig (1898-1986)
MSA SC 3520-13565
Biography:
Though she had none of her own, children brought much joy and fullfilment to the life and career of Dr. Helen Brooke Taussig. Esteemed for her development of pediatric cardiology, Dr. Taussig devoted her work to helping young children with debilitating heart conditions, most notably, the "blue-baby" syndrome, in which infants did not receive enough oxygen in their blood.1 Her tireless efforts to develop procedures to treat congenital heart defects earned her numerous awards and honors. However, above all else, she prized the life-long connections she maintained with her patients, whom she referred to as "my babies." Her collected papers, housed at The Johns Hopkins University, include numerous boxes of scrapbooks, correspondence, and photographs of her beloved patients and their families, a testament to her undying devotion to her work and the people she served.
Helen Brooke Taussig was born on May 24, 1898, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and was the youngest of four children. Taussig
came from a family with a strong educational background. She has
described herself as from a "direct line of teachers, an indirect line
of doctors." Her father, Frank William Taussig, was a well-known
Harvard economist and was the first chairman of the United States
Tariff Commission. Her mother, Edith Guild Taussig, had studied
natural sciences and zoology and was one of the first graduates of
Radcliffe
College. In addition, her paternal grandfather worked
closely with blind children and had The William Taussig School for
Handicapped Children in Saint Louis, Missouri, named for him.2 Her parents instilled this
sense of the value of
education and achievement in all their children. Helen worked
hard in her pursuit of learning, but found it very hard to complete her
tasks, especially reading assignments. When it was discovered she
had dyslexia, her father helped her persevere and overcome her reading
difficulties. After completing her studies at the Cambridge,
Massachusetts School for Girls, Taussig followed her mother's footsteps
and entered Radcliffe College in
1917. By 1919, Helen wanted time away from home and a chance to
be on her own, so she transferred to the University of California at
Berkeley and received her BA degree in 1921.3 Upon returning to Cambridge, her father
encouraged her to enter the field of public health, which he felt was
more
suitable for a female than medicine. Taussig decided to enter the
School of Public Health at Harvard University, but encountered
discrimination based on her sex. The Dean of the school informed
Taussig that she would be able to take courses, but would not be
eligible to earn a degree. As Jeanne Hackley Stevenson explains
in
Notable Maryland Women, "She
[Taussig] later recalled asking the Dean,
'Who wants to study for four years and get no degree at all for that
work?' She got the point when the Dean replied, smiling, 'Nobody, I
hope.' "4 Not one to get
discouraged, Taussig applied to the Medical School of
Boston University and was accepted. She studied there from 1921
until 1924, at which point one of her professors, noticing her talent,
suggested she enroll in The Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore,
Maryland. Helen
took his advice and transferred to The Johns Hopkins University,
receiving her M.D. in 1927.
Upon completion of medical school, Taussig was ready to begin her
hands-on training. However, she faced discrimination yet again
when applying for an internship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Internships in medicine for females were limited to one space only, and
Taussig discovered that a fellow female graduate had already been given
the post. To her dismay, she was not able to secure an internship
at Hopkins in internal medicine and was forced to alter her career path.5 Dr. Taussig chose, instead, to
accept an internship in pediatrics in 1928, a move that would prove to
be monumental to both her own career and the medical field as a
whole. She was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics
at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1930 and continued her study of the
heart, which she had chosen to specialize in after her graduation from
medical school. In 1931, Taussig was promoted to
physician-in-charge of the Pediatric Cardiac Clinic of the Harriet Lane
Home, a division of the hospital. This position enabled her to
blend her background in pediatrics with her burgeoning study of
cardiology, and found she throughly enjoyed the work she performed
there. By the time she entered the position at the Harriet
Lane Home, Dr. Taussig had lost a significant amount of her hearing,
which forced her to work through many difficulties, such as not being
able to use a stethoscope. However, she was not going to be
deterred and worked around her handicap by learning to listen to tiny
heart vibrations through the gentle touch of her hands.6
During her time at the Harriet Lane Home, Helen Taussig was
introduced
to a debilitating disorder with no known treatment or cure that
affected numerous infants who were brought to the Clinic. Many
infants appeared to have a bluish-tinge to their skin, called cyanosis,
which was due to a lack of adequately oxygenated blood. These
so-called "Blue Babies" suffered from a congential heart defect that
caused a narrowing or closure of the pulmonary artery, which prevented
a sufficient supply of blood from the heart to travel to the lungs,
where it could receive fresh oxygen.7
Such children were seriously debilitated and often did not live past
the teenage years, if they even survived infancy. Dr.
Taussig was the primary care provider for these children when she began
her tenure at the Harriet Lane Home. As Carolyn B. Stegman states
in Women of Achievement in Maryland
History, "Physicians at the clinic were reluctant to refer most
of their heart patients to a woman pediatrician, but as Taussig
recalled, 'they gladly referred their 'blue babies' to me as nothing
could be done for them.' "8 Dr.
Taussig was convinced that a procedure could be created to aide these
children. She had recently heard of a surgery performed by a
physician in Boston that closed off the ductus arteriosus, a blood
vessel not needed by babies after birth, in infants where the closure
did not take place naturally. Taussig theorized that if an artery
to the heart could be closed, one could also be opened to help save the
lives of "blue babies." In 1943, Dr. Alfred Blalock had become
the
chair of the Hopkins Department of Surgery and was persuaded by Helen
Taussig to pursue the development of a surgical procedure to treat
"blue babies." Over the course of the next year and a half, Dr.
Taussig, aided by Blalock and his associate, Vivien Thomas,
experimented with the bypass on approximately 200 dogs to create, what
was eventually called, the Blalock-Taussig shunt. The procedure
involved diverting a branch of the aorta that normally went to the
infant's arm to the lungs. The shunt would act as a functional
blood vessel that could circumvent the defective vessels and allow
blood to reach the lungs and oxygenate.9
On November 29, 1944, the first surgery was successfully peformed on
Eileen Saxon, a fifteen month old baby who barely weighed ten
pounds. Dr. Taussig was thrilled to see the girl's skin change
from its previously blue-tinge to a healthy pink glow.10 Although Saxon died a few months later from
complications unrelated to her surgery, the success she had had with
the Blalock-Taussig shunt made Drs. Blalock and Taussig famous,
skyrocketed the attention given to pediatric cardiology, and brought a
resurgence of interest in Hopkins as distraught parents brought their
"blue babies" to the hospital for treatment. Dr. Taussig was
recognized as the first lady of cardiology in the world and the founder
of pediatric cardiology. Similarly, the surgery was seen as the
dawn of pediatric heart surgery.11
Taussig continued perfecting the operation, and by 1951, the
Blalock-Taussig shunt had been performed on 1,037 patients, and the
mortality rate lessened to under five percent. Unlike Dr. Blalock,
however, Helen Taussig had to wait for a promotion after the success of
the ground-breaking operation. In 1946, she was promoted to
associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, but it was not
until 1959 that she was promoted to full-professor, the first woman to
ever hold that position at The Johns Hopkins University.12
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Taussig continued performing
surgeries and doing her own research. Her studies focused on
disorders of the heart, especially rheumatic fever, which she had spent
her energies on researching prior to the "blue baby" operations.
She enjoyed teaching at Johns Hopkins, as well, and always had many
interns, dubbing themselves "the Loyal Knights of Taussig," who were
eager to work under her demanding tutelage.13 She has always been remembered for her kind
demeanor, but also for her high expectations of students and
colleages. Taussig continued teaching at Johns Hopkins until her
retirement in 1963. She also published many of her research
findings. One such publication, Congential
Malformations of the Heart (1947), became the standard textbook
of the field and the bible for pediatric cardiologists of the
time. She also traveled with Dr. Blalock to demonstrate
their procedure to physicians around the world. In 1964, she was
honored with the United States of America Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the
nation's highest civilian honor. Her medal, presented by
President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, had inscribed on it, "Her
fundamental concepts have made possible the modern surgery of the
heart, which enables countless children to lead productive lives."14 In addition, she was
installed as the frist woman president of the American Heart
Association in 1965.15 Over
the course of her career Dr. Taussig received numerous other awards and
honors. These include: named chevalier Legion of Honor (France);
the first female recipient of the Passano Foundation Award for an
outstanding contribution to medical science, shared with Dr. Blalock,
1948; honored by Hobart College as one of twelve female physicians who
contributed "to the glory of their profession," 1949; the Honor Medal
of the American College of Chest Physicians, 1953; the Antonio
Feltrinelli Prize, 1954; the Lasker Award from the American Public
Health Association, 1954; the Gardiner Award, 1959; the Gold Heart
award from the American Heart Association, 1963; the first Thomas River
Memorial Research Fellowship Award, 1963; the first recipient of a new
Fellowship awarded by the National Foundation of the March of Dimes for
scientists at retirement age, 1963; the Founders Award from Radcliffe
College, 1966; the Carl Ludwig Medal of Honor, 1967; the William F.
Faulkner National Rehabilitation Award, 1971; one of the first
inductees into the National Women's Hall of Fame, 1973; and the James
B.
Herrick Award from the American Heart Association, 1974.16
In 1961, Dr. Helen Taussig was tipped-off by a former student of the
recent developments of abnormal births Europeans were
encountering. Children were born with severe deformaties, such as
malformed or missing limbs. Dr. Taussig decided to go to
Germany in order to look into what had caused the increasing number of
strange births. What she found out when she examined the cases
and interviewed mothers and doctors was that the patients had all used
a tranquilizer, named Contergan, to alleviate morning sickness during
their pregnancies. Taussig immediately linked the usage of
Contergan with the debilitating deformities found in these infants.17 Returning to the United
States six weeks after she began her investigation in Germany, she
immediately started lobbying for greater measures to be taken to
prevent the approval of the drug, named Thalidomide in the U.S.,
by the Food and Drug Administration. A Baltimore Sun article from 1962
stated that, "Dr. Taussig reported she is [also] waging a campaign to
strengthen the Food and Drug Act against drugs which can cause 'new and
unprecedented complications.' One great hazard of women using
drugs during their childbearing years is that they can take a harmful
dose without realizing they are pregnant, she said."18 Her reports and vocalizations about the
serious problems associated with the drug were instrumental in the
FDA's rejection of the application from the William S. Merrell Company
to market the drug in the United States, saving countless numbers of
infants from the tragedy faced in Europe.
After retirement Dr. Taussig remained involved in her work as a
scientist, clinician, and activist in causes that affected the health
of children. She spoke out against those who tried to put
restraints upon medical research, especially fetal research, and
advocated the use of animals in experimental studies.19 Although she moved to a retirement community
in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, in her later years, Taussig continued
to make trips to Baltimore to visit colleages and former
patients. In addition, she frequented the University of Delaware
in Wilmington to conduct studies of the development of heart defects in
birds, which she found were similar in structure to human hearts.
She died in a car crash on May 20, 1986, near her home in
Pennsylvania. She is remembered both because of her career
accomplishments and for her endearing personality. Jeanne Hackley
Stevenson explains, "It has been observed that Helen Brooke Taussig was
involved in 'women's liberation' long before the term was coined.
She got into and through medical school, won 'male-dominated
appointments,' and battled 'medical and male chauvenism' throughout her
lifetime. And significantly, Helen B. Taussig is 'revered by
students and colleagues not only as a fine teacher and doctor, full of
compassion for her small patients, but as a woman as well.' "20 Her perserverance against
the odds, be it dyslexia, deafness, or sex discrimination, her career
accomplishments, and her admirable character, as seen in the close ties
with her patients, will continue to influence and encourage generations
to come.
Endnotes:
1. "Helen Brooke Taussig," Biography Resource
Center, 2005. http://galenet.galegroup.com.
return to text
2. Stevenson, Jeanne Hackley. "Helen Brooke
Taussig, 1898- :The 'Blue Baby' Doctor," Notable Maryland Women, ed.
Winifred G. Helmes (Cambridge, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1977) 368.
return to text
3. Biography Resource Center. return to text
4. Stevenson, 368. return
to text
5. Stegman, Carolyn B. Women of Achievement in Maryland History
(Maryland: Anaconda Press, 2002) 213. return
to text
6. "Changing the Face of Medicine, Biography:
Dr. Helen Brooke
Taussig," National Library of Medicine, 2004. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_316.html.
return to text
7. Fishbein, Gershon. "The Surgery that Gave
Hope for 'Blue Babies'; At Johns Hopkins 50 Years Ago, A New Approach
to Congenital Heart Defects was Born," The Washington Post, 6 December
1994. return to text
8. Stegman, 213. return
to text
9. Ettlin, David Michael. "Hopkins' Helen
Taussig, Noted Cardiologist, Dies," The
Baltimore Sun, 21 May 1986. return to
text
10. "The Blue Baby Operation: Online
Exhibit," The Johns Hopkins
Medical
Institutions, n.d. http://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/page1.htm.
return to text
11. "Dr. Helen Taussig Pioneer Cardiologist;
'Blue Babies': Hopkins Physician's Breakthough Work Created Pediatric
Heart Surgery," The Baltimore Sun,
17 July 1999. return to text
12. Biography Resource Center. return to text
13. "Dr. Helen Taussig Pioneer Cardiologist;
'Blue Babies': Hopkins Physician's Breakthrough Work Created Pediatric
Heart Surgery," The Baltimore Sun,
17 July 1999. return to text
14. Ibid. return
to text
15. "Dr. Taussig Made U.S. Heart Unit Head," The Baltimore Sun, 20 October
1965. return to text
16. Biography Resource Center. return to text
17. "Abnormal Births Draw Warning on
Tranquilizers," The Baltimore Sun,
19 June 1962. return to text
18. Ibid. return
to text
19. Stevenson, 370. return to text
20. Stevenson, 371. return to text
Biography written by 2005 summer
intern Lauren Morton
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