Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.
Ahron Leichtman (February 21, 1943 – October 12, 2018) was a national and regional leader in the quest to ban public smoking in the United States. He graduated in 1964 from the University of Cincinnati, with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, and earned a creative writing certificate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1971.
During the 1980s and 1990s he founded multiple organizations to carry out anti-smoking initiatives. He established and led Citizens Against Tobacco Smoke (CATS), which was later renamed Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society (CATS). Leichtman organized a coalition of over 90 nonsmoker’s rights, anti-smoking and environmental health groups to provide tireless grassroots support for the national campaign to ban airline smoking.
He created the Smoke-free Skies Campaign that led to the ban of smoking on all U.S. airline flights. Leichtman developed promotional materials to encourage the news media to cover the health, safety, legal and economic issues involved with airline smoking. He participated in numerous television network, nationally syndicated and radio interview programs about airline smoking, serving as the primary advocate for a total smoking ban on commercial airline flights.
Our second Black History Month spotlight goes to a pioneer of medicine in the Cincinnati area, Lucy Oxley – the first African American to graduate from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
Lucy Oxley was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1912. During her childhood, her family moved to Cincinnati, as her father was named rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. As a young girl, Oxley looked up to three of her uncles who became doctors and knew early on that she wanted to be one too. She graduated early from Woodward High School and joined the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine’s six-year undergraduate and medical program.
During her time at UC, Oxley excelled, working hard to earn her spot in the group of top fifteen students who would have the chance to intern at General Hospital (UC Medical Center). However, she was refused an internship spot. When she questioned Dr. Alfred Friedlander about why she wasn’t given an internship, he said to her, “Lucy, you are a negro, and we don’t want you.” Oxley replied, “Well Dr. Friedlander, I wouldn’t change that for anything.” Rising above the prejudice, she went on to complete her internship at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, DC, and returned to Cincinnati to join her classmates for graduation on June 5, 1936.
After graduation, Oxley became a medical director for student wellness at Bennett College in North Carolina, and then Wilberforce College here in Ohio. Following that, she had a daughter, Francine, and returned to Cincinnati where she started her general practice. In 1945 she began working in cancer research alongside fellow UC grad, George Sperti. A few years later she returned to full-time practice in family medicine where she cared for thousands of patients and families.
Later in life, Oxley was diagnosed with lung cancer but continued to treat patients up until her passing in 1991. She is remembered today for her dedication to those she cared for and for paving the way for young African Americans who aim to make a difference in the medical field just as she did.
While the primary focus of the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions collection is chronicling the history of health sciences in the Cincinnati area, the physicians, researchers and scientists in the archive made an impact world-wide. One such individual was Albert Sabin, researcher and scientist best known for his discovery of the live polio vaccine. Correspondence from his collection housed in the Winkler Center was recently used in a new publication, Italo Archetti (Peschiera Maraglio (BS), 1913 – Rome, 1998) In Vol. 2, No. 2 Scientia, December 2024 ISSN: 2974-9433 by Giacomo Simoncelli. Issue – Editrice Bibliografica Journals.
The book’s author, Giacomo Simoncelli, is a PhD candidate in history, philosophy, religions at the Sapienza Universita Di Roma in Italy and is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University–Oxford, United Kingdom. In the publication, he chronicles the significant role of scientist Italo Archetti in his research on influenza, polio and his contribution to the establishment of the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità). Archetti was a friend, colleague and correspondent with Dr. Albert Sabin and his wife Heloisa Sabin.
Simoncelli utilized correspondence between the Sabins and Archetti held by the Winkler Center and publicly available on the University of Cincinnati’s Digital Resource Commons https://drc.libraries.uc.edu/items/85a7fad8-7f7d-4fee-81d6-ced447989173. The letter demonstrates their professional respect and close friendship.
Donated by his wife Heloisa in 1993, the Sabin archives occupy nearly 400 linear feet and consist of correspondence, laboratory notebooks, manuscripts and other research papers generated by Sabin during his long and active medical career. This extensive collection also contains his honors, awards, medals and other memorabilia, as well as research materials such as microscope and lantern slides. In addition, there are hundreds of photographs, and many video recordings and audiotapes. The collection spans the years 1930 to 1993, with the bulk of material being from Sabin’s tenure in Cincinnati from 1939 to 1969. Other online Sabin resources include the digital collection and finding aid addendum.
The Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library announces the opening of The Anatomy Learning Lab to enhance the study of the human body. Located on the E level of the library, the 10 specimens placed throughout the space provide the opportunity for close study of torsos, a hand, foot, kidneys and other body systems. The specimens coupled with the Sectra Virtual Anatomy Table, also located in the space, provide an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the structural and functional complexities of the human body.
To celebrate the opening of The Anatomy Learning Lab, the Health Sciences Library is holding two events:
Open House
Thursday, January 16, 3:30-5pm Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library – E Level
Brief remarks by: Dr. Gregory Postel, senior vice president of health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine; and Liz Kiscaden, dean and university librarian
Lunch & Learn
Human Anatomical Models: History & Development of Plastination
Thursday, January 23, 11:30am Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library – The Anatomy Learning Lab, E Level
Dr. Efrain Miranda, CEO of Clinical Anatomy Associates, Inc. will review the history of three-dimensional models to study anatomy, including wax models, paper mâché models and other techniques and materials, culminating with the present, utilizing 3D computer-based systems and plastination.
Both events are open to all to attend in the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, 231 Albert Sabin Way.
As the University of Cincinnati Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library welcomes the 2024-25 College of Medicine students and faculty back to the academic calendar, they are greeted by the new installation of MEDSTEPS. The sculpture is the work of renowned artist and scientist Wolfgang Ritschel (1933-2010). It is located on the G-level of the Health Sciences Library.
Dr. Ritschel described MEDSTEPS as:
Stairs may have different purposes and meanings. Essentially, they are a means to reaching different levels, both literally and figuratively speaking. This sculpture uses stairs or, rather steps on a ladder, as a metaphorical form of expression in paying tribute to the development and advancement of medicine from its beginnings at the dawn of time – including Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, and Native American medicine with their symbols as shown in the stained-glass panels – to computerized medicine, along with corresponding “step-by-step” technological progress in diagnosis and therapy. Medicine and the arts were always intertwined, as is suggested by the common expression “medical arts.” In fact, in 15th-century Europe, physicians, pharmacists and artists all belonged to the same guild, a development which presumably originated with the use of mortar and pestle as a grinding tool for both pharmaceutical substances and pigments. I like to think of this as part of my personal and artistic statement in sculptures with a medical theme.
The sculpture is composed of stainless steel, gold leaf, stained glass, lead, polymer, paint, wood and measures 91” x 51” x 22”.
Among the joys of the spring season at the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions is the annual Cecil Striker Society Lecture. On May 7, 2024 the esteemed Joseph P. Broderick, MD, medical director at the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and professor of neurology in the UC College of Medicine addressed the assembly at Kresge Auditorium for the 15th Striker Lecture.
Dr. Broderick’s Cincinnati Neurology: From Astute Human Observations to Life-changing Therapies chronicled the leadership of the Department of Neurology & Rehabilitation Medicine, the vast advances in neurological science and treatments.Through an examination of history and subtle humor, Dr. Broderick took the audience on an epoch journey of brain science discoveries that have transformed neurological science during his esteemed career. He enlightened that in the 1950s and 1960s neurological conditions and diseases most often led to patient death, while today with the advances in neurology there is much hope for patients and their families.
Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list
On display on the main floor of the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library (MSB G Level) is the traveling National Library of Medicine (NLM) exhibit “Physician Assistants: Collaboration and Care.” The exhibit describes how the profession developed as a solution to meet the social and health care needs of the mid-20th century and continues to evolve today.
According to the exhibit website: “Collaboration has been the foundation of the profession since the first three PAs graduated from Duke University in 1967. PAs practice medicine alongside doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, treating patients in diverse communities and addressing health care shortages.”
In addition to the NLM banners, Lynn Warner, exhibit organizer and assistant librarian of research and health sciences, supplemented the exhibit with items loaned by the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions board member Creighton Wright, MD, who studied under Eugene Stead, MD, the founder of the PA program. The other case highlights the profession’s roots in the military.
The exhibit will remain on display until June 15, 2024.
The UC Department of Neurology
On display in the Stanley J. Lucas, MD, Board Room in the Winkler Center, Looking Back at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Neurology, showcases images and artifacts to highlight of some of the talented physicians and the work of UC’s Department of Neurology – both present and in the past.
Charles Aring, MD, founder of UC’s Department of NeurologyRobert Lukin, MD, 1965 graduate of UC Medical School and leader in neuraradiologyFred Samaha, MD, pediatric neurologist aaffiliated with Cincinnati Children’s HospitalJohn Tew, MD, leads UC Health Integrative Medicine and the UC Center for Integrative Health and WellnessCharles Aring and John Fulton
The exhibit was produced in conjunction with the 2024 Cecil Striker Society Annual Lecture presented May 7th by Joseph Broderick, MD, professor and director of the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, and Director of the National NIH StrokeNet. Dr. Broderick is a distinguished stroke expert and neurologist and a founding member of the UC Stroke team, as well as a full staff member at all UC Health hospitals.
The exhibit was curated by Devhra BennettJones, archivist curator of the Winkler Center.
By Richard A. Puff, Chief Communications Officer, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Charles Aring, MD, had a profound impact on the Cincinnati region and, through his founding of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine’s Department of Neurology, a tremendous influence on the health of people throughout the world.
Cincinnati-born, Aring lived in a nearby home for orphans. In 1919, he began working as a 15-year-old office boy at the College of Medicine and went on to receive his medical degree from the college 10 years later. Aring quickly became an internationally known neurologist and returned to UC in 1947 as the founding chair of the Department of Neurology after having founded the neurology department at University of California at San Francisco.
Aring and much more, including how modern neurology and the Beatles are related, will be discussed Tuesday, May 7 when Joseph Broderick, MD, Class of 1982, presents the 2024 Cecil Striker Lecture “Cincinnati Neurology: From Astute Human Observations to Life-changing Therapies.” The lecture begins at 5 p.m. in the Kresge Auditorium and also will be streamed online. Register to attend the free presentation.
