Newspapers / InterCom. / June 25, 1976, edition 1 / Page 1
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i ntcKcom 6ukc univcusity mc6icM ccnteR VOLUME 23, NUMBER 25 JUNE 25,1976 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA Dr. H. Keith Brodie Urges New Psycho-Pharmacology Most of the drugs in use today in the treatment of mental illness have been discovered by chance, aided by a considerable degree of luck. Writing in a recently published volume of the American Handbook of Psychiatry, co-editor Dr. H. Keith Brodie extends the hope that a new science of psycho-pharmacology can be developed geared to a more rational approach than has existed in the past. Brodie, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, explains his use of the word rational to mean that drugs should be administered in an attempt to alter specific metabolic processes based on stated hypotheses, rather than relying on discoveries ichieved through empirical or serendipitous methods. As an example of how luck played a major role in the discovery of a drug that has won wide popularity in the treatment of mental illness, Brodie cites the anti-anxiety agent chlordiazepoxide (Librium). After unsuccessful tests of 40 derivatives of a compound he had been working on, a discouraged chemist put the 41st on the shelf and forgot about it. A year and a half later, while cleaning up the lab, the chemist found the sample and decided to run a routine test. It not only proved to be active, but later was found to be highly effective in the treatment of patients suffering from anxiety. In a chapter called “Promising Directions in Psychopharmacology,” co-authors Brodie and Dr. Robert L. CANCER FIGHTER—Andy Griffith, long-time sheriff of TV's Mayberry, N.C., is helping the Cancer Information Service here fight the nation's Number Two Killer. The actor recorded three radio spot announcements promoting the service's toll-free number, 1-800-672-0943. Designed to reach those who don't read newspapers, one spot points out that someone without a telephone can call the cancer information number free from any phone bjMh in the state. The tapes went out last week to every part of the state. Sack, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, trace the relatively recent development of chemical compounds shown to be effective in the treatment of such disorders as mania, schizophrenia, anxiety and depression. They also outline some of the jX)tential new uses for old drugs, and review experimental developments in efforts to find more effective ways of getting drugs to the target organs of the body. From the most primitive days of pharmacology, the educators say, the modes of delivery of therapeutic compounds have not changed much. Oral, intramuscular and intravenous methods continue to be the only routes used. Among the new delivery techniques being explored which hold promise, they contend, is one in which a patient with glaucoma receives drug treatment through the use of a small plastic membrane inserted in the conjunctival sac covering the forward surface of the eyeball. The method permits tiny amounts of the drug to seep into the damaged area of the eye over an extended period of time, thus reducing the number of clinical visits necessary. Another example is the development of a small capsule that is fitted in the uterus and releases regulated amounts of progesterone for the purpose of contraception. The great potential advantage of this technique, they say, is that the drug bypasses the body’s circulation system and thereby eliminates the unpleasant side effects of oral birth control pills. Brodie is co-editor of the book, along with Dr. David A. Hamburg, president of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. It is published by Basic Books Inc., and features 44 articles by psychiatrists and psychologists from across the country. • Another Duke faculty member. Dr. Ewald W. Busse, is represented in the volume as author of a chapter entitled, “Social Changes, Economic Status, and the Problems of Aging.” Busse is J.P. Gibbons professor of psychiatry and director of medical and allied health education. Medical School Gets AMA Grant The School of Medicine has received a grant of $8,351 from the American Medical Association’s Education and Research Foundation (AMA-ERF). The funds are unrestricted and can be used at the discretion of the school. Since 1957 Duke has received grants totaling $146,609 from the AMA-ERF. RETIRING BUT NOT LEAVING—Dr. John W. Everett, professor of anatomy, officially retires this summer after 44 years at the medical center, but he vvill still carry on his research in his third floor Bell Building laboratory. Although he "didn't want a retirement dinner where people were obligated to say nice things about him," according to his wife Marian, he got one by surprise anyway at the Five Points Restaurant in Durham, May 11. Colleagues, former students, family and friends numbering over 80 demonstrated that saying nice things about the professor wasn't an obligation at all, Everett's major research interests have been the physiology of reproduction and the hypothalamopituitary-ovarian system in particular. This portrait of him will hang in the Anatomy Department's Sands Building seminar room. U.S.A.: Melting Pot of Men On September 25. 1608, six Polish laborers strode ashore at Jamestown to operate the first factory in America. Twenty-three Jew s, refugees from Portuguese persecution in Brazil, arrived in 1654. French Protestants, driven from France by religious persecution, (iermans. Swedes, Irish, and Scots followed. In the eight long years of the Revolutionary War, these "foreigners" played a vital role. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, eight wete non-English stock and eight others were first generation immigrants. There were many “foreign" patriots: Commodorejohn Barry, the father of the .American Navy," was born in Ireland . . . Nicholas Herkimer, a (ierman, commanded fellow Cierman-Americans in the crucial guerilla encoinuer at Oriskany . . . The Jewish banker, Haym Salomon, consumed his personal fortune advancing cash to the bankrupt American govennnent. . . Francis Salvador, another Jewish patriot, rallied the South Carolina back country militia to defeat a British-led Indian invasion and died in the fighting . . . The Italian frontiersman, Giuseppe Mario Francisco Vigo, played a dynamic role in the capture of Fort Vincennes . .. From Poland came volunteers Pulaski and Kosciuszko; from France, l^ifayette and R(K'hanibeau. By the time the Revolutionary W'ar ended, keen observers such as Hector St. John ('.revoceur, a Frenchman, were already noting that “here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men." In DecemlM-'r. 17S;i, ('leorge Washington wrote to a group of recent Irish immigrants: I'lit' Imisoih of America is often to receive not only the opulent and resfH'clable stranger, but the opftressi-d and persecuted of all nations and religions.
June 25, 1976, edition 1
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