Nexus - 0501 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Managers of the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia. Over the Almost a year later, the Minutes of 27 March 1925 record that, next five years these records were to suggest even more than they "Dr Baldwin in a letter spoke of her need of more room for the revealed. Spectrochrome. She asked to have two cubicles made; she is get- Dr Baldwin's request to address the Board on her in-patient ting many cases..." Subsequently Dr Baldwin was permitted to SCT work was granted, and on 21 December 1923, according to install additional treatment cubicles. the Minutes, she "gave an illustrated account of the wonderful Notwithstanding all of these initial successes, buttressed by the work done in the Hospital with the spectrochrome [sic]. She consistent clinical evidence, official affirmations and institutional described a remarkable case of a child...so badly burned that there support, SCT was soon to suffer the first of a nearly unbroken seemed no hope of her recovery. With the use of the string of revers There is a subtle but interesting peculiarity to Spectrochrome [sic] [primarily using the colour turquoise, i.e., this sudden, decisive turnabout spontaneously appearing in the blue plus green], the child is almost entirely cured. It is such an Minutes without warning. True, the Minutes give no picture of unusual case that the Board feels it should be written up for publi- day-to-day hospital politics, and given their narrow purpose an cation by Dr Baldwin... The Spectrochrome is used in no other focus, especially as the sole historical source, they would of hospital and credit should be given to Dr Baldwin for developing course tend to conceal more of a general contextual circumstance its use here. There are four instruments in the Hospital and more than they could reveal. could be used if the room were larger." [Author's emphasis in So we are left to speculate on the strangeness of the impudence italics.] of a letter from the hospital interns, received by the Board an It was but a short five weeks later, in the reported in the Minutes of 24 September 26 January 1924 issue of the Journal of the 1926, expressing their objections to Dr American Medical Association (JAMA) Baldwin's presence on the surgical staff. editorial control of Fishbein that he frst | SPC GCSCHDEd a | aooreive, constitute the least vocal and salvo was fired: a lengthy, baseless denun- remarkable case of a effective participants in hospital policy for- stack onthe character of Dinsbah and. by | CId...80 badly burned | on sympathise with he interns pos. associative implication, all SC therapists— that there seemed no tion, with their cumulative daily frustration with explicit reference to Dr Baldwin, who, as endless streams of serious surgical candi- among numerous physicians, had been regu- hope of her recovery. dates and other diseased patients were regu- larly contributing case histories to Dinshah's larly being sent home without ever seeing a Spectro-Chrome monthly journal (which he With the use of the knife or pill. published from 1922 to 1947). The JAMA article concluded: "Some physicians, after reading this article, may wonder why we have devoted the amount of space to a subject that, on its face, seems so preposterous as to condemn itself. When it is realized that helpless but credulous patients are being treated for such serious con- ditions as syphilis, conjunctivitis, ovaritis, diabetes mellitus, pul- monary tuberculosis and chronic gonorrhea with colored lights, the space will not be deemed exces- sive." What is less understandable is the effectiveness of their one letter. The September meeting moved to request Dr Baldwin's resignation from the surgical staff, but also moved that she "be granted the privilege of practis- ing Spectro-chrome Therapy with her private patients in the Woman's Hospital." Both motions were carried. The Board passed on the request to Dr Baldwin, and by the meeting of 22 October 1926, without record of inter- nal debate or explanation, the Board accepted "with regret" Dr Baldwin's res- ignation from the surgical staff. Spectrochrome [primarily using the colour turquoise, i.e., blue plus green], the child is almost entirely cured." Spectrochrome [primarily using the colour turquoise, i.e., blue plus green], the child is almost County, New York state, Dr Baldwin received a letter from the Secretary of the Erie County Medical Society specifically soliciting her comments about the 1924 article and the impending criminal action. The letter read: "According to [the JAMA] article, Susie T., age 9, who was admitted to the Woman's Hospital with a sloughed appendix and peritonitis, developed a pneumonia which was treated by Dr Baldwin with lemon, turquoise and magenta colored lights. Susie went home well and happy. "Dinshah P. Ghadiali, using the title M.D., is the publisher of Spectro-Chrome. He is under arrest in Buffalo charged with grand larceny for selling a course of lectures and leasing a colored light apparatus of alleged curative value for human ailments. "We are wondering if the article in which your name is Je before Dinshah's first trial in 1931 in Buffalo, Erie ‘ J hile it took four years for Fishbein finally to bring Dinshah before his first magistrate, the first blood had been drawn much earlier. Two months after the JAMA article appeared in print, the Woman's Hospital Board of Managers' Minutes of 28 March 1924 report the receipt of a letter from the staff, requesting that Dr Baldwin discontinue the use of SCT. The only ground offered for this initiative was the JAMA article. The Board's time-tested response was the classic bureau- cratic reflex: an ad hoc committee was established to evaluate the situation for later discussion. Not all the Board's problems conveniently faded during this interval and it was forced to address the issue head on. According to the Minutes of 23 May 1924: "...the question had been consid- ered from every viewpoint and...the Committee recommended the continuance of present conditions. This report of the Committee was accepted.” [Author's emphasis.] 40 - NEXUS "She described a remarkable case of a child...so badly burned that there seemed no hope of her recovery. With the use of the entirely cured." DECEMBER 1997 - JANUARY 1998