Notable Health Care Givers: Physicians & Nurses: “E...-”
educational posters for health classrooms, homeschoolers and professional offices.

Notable physicians and nurses ~

Charles Eastman
née Hakadah, renamed Ohíye S’a
b. 2-19-1858; near Redwood Falls, MN
d. 1-8-1939; Detroit, MI

Writer, physician, and reformer Charles Eastman was of Santee Sioux and Anglo-American ancestry. Eastman, who had degrees from Dartmouth and Boston College, also helped found the Boy Scouts of America organization. He was married to Elaine Goodale, a poet and educator.

The actor Adam Beach portrayed Dr. Eastman in the movie adaptation of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

• The Essential Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), Revised and Updated Edition: Light on the Indian World

Constantin von Economo
b. 8-21-1876; Romania
d. 10-21-1931; heart attack

Constantin von Economo, a psychiatrist and neurologist, is best remembered for recognizing encephalist lethargica, also known as “sleepy sickness”.

Between 1915 and 1926, an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica spread around the world. Characterized catatonia and lethargy and in acute cases, a coma-like state, it can begin by high fever, sore throat, headache, double vision, delayed physical and mental response, and sleep inversion.

While isolated cases continue to occur since the early 20th century epidemic, a look at history finds reports of similar cases of unexplained sleep in Copenhagen (1657), and England (1658, 1661, 1775) which may have been the inspiration for some famous literature. “Sleeping Beauty” was first published in 1697, Washington Irving wrote “Rip Van Winkle” in 1819, Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Premature Burial,” and Oliver Sacks wrote “Awakenings” in 1973.

• Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries

Paul Ehrlich
b. 3-14-1854; Kingdom of Prussia
d. 8-20-1915; stroke

Paul Ehrlich, and Ilya Illyich Mechnikova, were awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1908 “in recognition of their work on immunity.” Ehrlich is also noted for curing syphilis, coining the term chemotherapy, and popularized the concept of a “magic bullet.”

Joycelyn Elders
née Minnie Lee Jones
b. 8-13-1955; Schaal, Arkansas

Pediatrician, former Navy vice-admiral, and public health administrator, Joycelyn Elders, was the first African American, and second woman, appointed as Surgeon General of the United States. As the Director of the Arkansas Department of Health she increased tenfold the number of early childhood screenings annually and almsot double the immunization rate for two-year olds in the state.

Elders was dismissed from the Surgeon General post in 1994 due to the conservative outcry against her when she expressing her views on drug legalization and distributing contraception in schools. She returned to teaching at the University of Arkansas.

Gertrude Elion
b. 1-23-1918; NYC
d. 2-21-1999; Chapel Hill, NC

Gertrude Elion, biochemist, was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment”.

Gertrude Elion quote ~
• “Don't be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don't let others discourage you or tell you that you can't do it. In my day I was told women didn't go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn't.”
• “I think it's a very valuable thing for a doctor to learn how to do research, to learn how to approach research, something there isn't time to teach them in medical school. They don't really learn how to approach a problem, and yet diagnosis is a problem; and I think that year spent in research is extremely valuable to them.”
• “It is important to go into work you would like to do. Then it doesn't seem like work. You sometimes feel it's almost too good to be true that someone will pay you for enjoying yourself. I've been very fortunate that my work led to useful drugs for a variety of serious illnesses. The thrill of seeing people get well who might otherwise have died of diseases like leukemia, kidney failure, and herpes virus encephalitis cannot be described in words.”
• “Maybe I was young and 'cute' (after all, I was only twenty then), but I've learned over the years that when you put white lab coats on chemists, they all look alike!”
• “People ask me often [whether] the Nobel Prize [was] the thing you were aiming for all your life, and I say that would be crazy. Nobody would aim for a Nobel Prize because, if you didn't get it, your whole life would be wasted. What we were aiming at was getting people well, and the satisfaction of that is much greater than any prize you can get.”
• “I had fallen in love with a young man..., and we were planning to get married. And then he died of subacute bacterial endocarditis... Two years later with the advent of penicillin, he would have been saved. It reinforced in my mind the importance of scientific discovery...”
• “What greater joy can you have than to know what an impact your work has had on people’s lives? The thrill of seeing people get well who otherwise might have died cannot be described in words.”
• “It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit.” (also attributed to Harry S Truman)

Henry Havelock Ellis
b. 2-2-1859; England
d. 7-8-1939

Henry Havelock Ellis, physician and social reformer, is most noted for his study of human sexual activity.

Havelock Ellis quotes ~
• “Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy.”
• “Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.”
• “Pain and death are part of life. To reject them is to reject life itself.”

• The Dance of Life, Havelock Ellis