9
Frank G. Slaughter-
A Doctor with
Books in His Head
THE TALES OF TWO AUTHORS—Authox Frank G. Slaughter, a doctor, and Dr.
William G. Anlyan, an author, cpnnpare book jackets during a visit by Slaughter to the
vice president's office. Slaughter, who earned his undergraduate degree at Duke, has
many long-time friends here. (Photo by Judy Carrier)
“Excuse me just a moment," Dr. Frank
G. Slaughter said, pointing toward the
Hospital Store in the Davison Building. "I
need to stop in here and buy a couple of
my books to give to some people up on
the ward."
In the store he picked out two
paperback copies of "Convention M.D."
selling for $1.25 each.
When Marilyn Woody made change for
him, Dr. Slaughter calculated his
royalties, smiled and said, "I'll get six
cents on each of these."
Elsewhere around the world that day
last week, thousands of other people in
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VOLUME 20. NUMBER 43
OCTOBER 26,1973
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Operation Developed at Duke
Surgeon Slows the Racing Heart
One day when he was 15 years old,
Larry Beaird noticed after basketball
practice that his heart was beating
extremely fast.
He went home and stretched out, but
his heart wouldn't stop racing. The lanky,
sandy-haired teenager from Big Lake,
Tex., was taken to a hospital where his
heart was clocked at 240 beats per
minute, more than three times the normal
speed. It took seven hours to slow his
heart down to its normal rhythm.
That was the first time Beaird, who is
now 18, learned that he had a rare
congenital heart defect called
Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW).
WPW is caused by an extra piece of
muscle in the heart which conducts
heartbeats along the wrong pathway.
Joseph Barham of Oak Ridge, La., is
55 years old and only found out last
spring that he suffered from the same
heart defect. On Aug. 1, 1972 his heart
had begun racing wildly, beating up to
280 times a minute. Doctors thought he
had suffered a myocardial infarction, a
type of heart attack.
Barham was given medication meant
to control infarctions, but the attacks
continued.
Beaird's attacks also continued, even
though his condition had been correctly
diagnosed and he was taking drugs that
ordinarily will control WPW symptoms.
Two weeks ago Barham and Beaird
checked out of Duke Hospital with all
traces of WPW gone. They had become
the 14th and 15th patients to undergo
surgery at Duke to correct such heart
defects.
The surgical technique was developed
at Duke, and the first WPW operation
ever performed was done here in 1967.
Only four other successful operations for
WPW have been reported throughout the
world.
Persons with WPW have an extra piece
of heart muscle connecting the atrium or
upper chamber of the heart to the
ventricle, the lower chamber which does
the pumping. The extra connection,
permits the heart's electrical impulses to
move too quickly. This disrupts the
regular rhythm of the heart and causes a
characteristic pattern of heartbeats that,
can be identified by an electrocardiogram
(EKG).
Dr. Andrew G. Wallace, chief of
cardiology at Duke, estimates that about
one of every 2,000 persons has this EKG
pattern characteristic of WPW. The great
majority of these persons with WPW
never have any symptoms, although the
tendency increases with age. Even if these
persons begin to experience minor
episodes of heart palpitations as they
grow older, most can control the episodes
with drugs.
But in a small minority of cases, WPW
victims like Beaird and Barham
experience severe episodes. In some
patients the disease leaves them
completely incapacitated—like a woman
operated on this summer at Duke who
had begun to experience up to 50
episodes a day of extremely rapid
heartbeat which left her weak and faint.
When the heart is beating too fast, it
can't pump blood adequately. A severe
WPW episode can lead to ventricular
fibrillation, a rapid, chaotic squirming of
the heart muscle which disrupts the
rhythm so much that little blood is
pumped to the body. A person with this
condition can die in a matter of minutes.
The operation for WPW involves
finding the extra connection between the
heart chambers and dividing it so that the
electrical signals can travel the right
pathway.
The key to the procedure is a system
of mapping the path of electrical impulses
in the heart to determine exactly where
the maverick area is that's shortcircuiting
the normal heart pattern. This mapping is
done during open-heart surgery after
preliminary studies tell physicians the
general area of the muscle that's causing
the problem.
Wallace and his team mapped the
electrical impulses in Barham and Beaird's
hearts, and Dr. Will C. Sealy, professor of
thoracic surgery, performed the
operation.
In Beaird's case, the extra muscle was
in an easily accessible site on the right
side of the heart, and he was only on the
(Continued on page 2)
bookstores, airports, drug stores and
wherever else books are sold also were
purchasing hardback and paperback
copies of Frank Slaughter's books.
By conservative estimate, the 54 books
he has written since the first was
published in 1941 have sold 60 million
worldwide, making him one of the most
productive and best-selling novelists of all
time.
Just before his stop in the Hospital
Store, Slaughter had been meeting with
Dr. William G. Anlyan, vice president for
health affairs, whom Slaughter had
quoted in an article he wrote for the
Sept. 30 issue of the newspapmr
supplement "Family Weekly."
He also obliged Marilou Morgan and
Jean Porter, secretaries in Aniyan's office,
by autographing their copies of two of his
books.
However, Anlyan switched roles with-
the writer, autographing for him a book
Anlyan recently edited, "The Future of
Medical Education," which Slaughter said
he appreciated receiving because of his
continuing interest in medicine and the
need to constantly background himself
for his own writing.
Dr. Slaughter was here because his
wife was a patient in the hospital, but
neither Slaughter nor his wife is a stranger
to this part of the country or to Duke.
Mrs. Slaughter-the former Jane
Mundy of Roanoke, Va.—was one of
Duke Hospital's first nurses. She worked
here for about six months before
returning to her home in Roanoke.
It was there that she met her future
husband, who was a surgical resident at
Jefferson Hospital in Roanoke. They
were married in 1933.
Slaughter was raised at Berea, between
Oxford and Roxboro, and received his
A.B. at Duke in 1926. The Duke medical
school would not enroll its first students
for four years, so Slaughter went to Johns
Hopkins, where he earned his M.D. in
1930 and was a classmate of Dr. Barnes
(Continued on page 2)
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ENTERTAINING THE DOCTOR-Larry Beaird of Big Lake, Tex., plays his guitar for
fellow heart surgery patient Joseph Barham of Oak Ridge, La., and Dr. Andrew G.
Wallace, chief of cardiology. Both Barham and Beaird recently underwent successful
surgery here for a rare heart defect called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. The
technique was developed at Duke. (Photo by Jimmy Wallace)