George Foster Herben

George Foster Herben (17 March 1893 – 17 March 1966) was an American physician.[1][2] He spent much of his career at the House of Rest at Sprain Ridge, a Yonkers, New York tuberculosis hospital and preventorium, where he served as physician in chief and as medical director. During that time he developed several new treatments for tuberculosis.

Herben was the son of Rev. Stephen J. Herben and Grace Foster Herben, a minister and a missionary, respectively. He was the older brother of Stephen J. Herben Jr., a professor of philology at Bryn Mawr College.

Early life and education

George Foster Herben was born on March 17 1893.[1][2] His father was Rev. Stephen J. Herben, a minister and editor, and his mother Grace Foster Herben, an educator and missionary.[2] George Herben was the older of two children; Stephen J. Herben Jr., later to become a philologist at Bryn Mawr College, was born four years later.[2] They were the great-great-great-grandsons of Henry Batton, a sergeant in the American Revolutionary War, a fact that occasioned George Herben's later membership in the Sons of the American Revolution.[3]

In 1906, when Herben was thirteen, his mother was accidentally shot—by Herben according to some reports[4][5]—in circumstances that newspapers initially termed mysterious,[6][7] and police suspicious.[8] The two had left to go target shooting along with Stephen J. Herben Jr. on the lake shore just north of Evanston, Illinois,[9] when George, whose rifle had become jammed, handed it to his mother for inspection; in the process the gun fired, lodging a bullet about Grace Herben's left knee.[10] Front page headlines initially suggested that at the hospital the staff refused to admit the police for several hours until threatened with arrest,[6] that Herben herself refused to discuss the shooting with them,[8] and that her husband had "assumed a hostile attitude" with the chief.[11] "I don't intend to make any of the facts known", Herben Sr. said.[6][11] A day after slamming his front door in the faces of reporters,[11] he explained the affair to the Chicago newspapers, and stated that his wife was "getting along nicely, and will be out [of the hospital] in a few days, I hope."[9]

Like his brother,[12] George Herben attended Rutgers University, graduating in 1916 with a Bachelor of Science.[13] During World War I he joined the United States Army Medical Corps, serving in the states.[14][15] On 9 July 1921, he graduated from the Cornell University Medical College in New York City with a Doctor of Medicine.[16]

Career

Herben worked for many years at the House of Rest at Sprain Ridge, a church-affiliated tuberculosis hospital and preventorium in Yonkers, New York.[17] At various times he worked there as the physician in chief,[17] and as the medical director.[1] Previously he worked at the Loomis Sanitorium, during which time he served as the president of the Medical Society of the County of Sullivan.[18][19]

Herben helped develop several new treatments for tuberculosis. One, displayed at the annual meeting of the National Tuberculosis Association in 1948,[20] and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1949,[21][22] was designed to replace conventional iron lungs by placing patients in a pressurized chamber which forced air into, and out of, a patient, without the use of their lungs.[23]

Personal life

Herben and his wife, Beatrice Herben, had two children, Muriel Lewis and Foster Herben.[1] He died on his 73rd birthday in 1966.[1]

Publications

  • Herben, George Foster (1 July 1922). "Digalen". Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association. 79 (1): 61.
  • Cullen, James H.; Barach, Alvan L. & Herben, George Foster (May–June 1948). "Closure of Cavities in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Produced by Immobilization of Both Lungs". Diseases of the Chest. XIV (3): 345–359. doi:10.1378/chest.14.3.345.
  • Barach, Alvan L.; Eastlake Jr., Chesmore; Cullen, James H. & Herben, George Foster (26 March 1949). "Closure of Tuberculous Pulmonary Cavities: As Accomplished by Residence in the Immobilizing Lung Chamber". Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association. 139 (13): 833–836. doi:10.1001/jama.1949.02900300019006.
  • Sarot, Irving Arthur; Herben, George Foster & Cullen, James H. (November 1949). "Closed Pneumonolysis (Enucleation Technique)". Diseases of the Chest. XVI (5): 509–542. doi:10.1378/chest.16.5.509.
  • Herben, George Foster (September 1951). "Maxwell Donnell Ryan: 1901 – 1950". Diseases of the Chest. XX (3): 345–346. doi:10.1016/S0096-0217(16)60024-9.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "House of Rest Physician Dies" (PDF). Herald Statesman. Yonkers, New York. 6 April 1966. p. 2.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Leonard & 1914–15, p. 382.
  3. ↑ Clark 1914, p. 291.
  4. ↑ "Minister's Wife is Accidentally Shot". The Pittsburgh Post. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 26 December 1906. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Evanston Woman Shot By Son". The Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. 27 December 1906. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 3 "Lips are Sealed: Rev. Herben's Wife Shot Down". The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. 26 December 1906. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "Mrs. Stephen Herben Shot: Wife of Editor of Epworth Herald Seriously Wounded". The Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. 26 December 1906. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. 1 2 "Won't Explain Shooting: Police are Suspicious". The Richmond Palladium. Richmond, Indiana. 27 December 1906. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. 1 2 "Editor Explains: Accidental Shooting of Wife of S. J. Herben Prevents His Coming Here". The Rock Island Argus. Rock Island, Illinois. 27 December 1906. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Mrs. Grace Foster Herben". Palatine Enterprise. Palatine, Illinois. 18 January 1907. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. 1 2 3 "Hustled Wife To the Hospital". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. 26 December 1906. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "H. G. Parker Gets Rutgers Degree at 154th Annual Commencement Here Today". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 15 June 1920. pp. 1, 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Rutgers Graduates 77 Men at 150th Annual Commencement Exercises". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 13 June 1916. pp. 1, 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Rev. Dr. S. J. Herben Called to France". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 15 October 1918. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Downs 1938, p. 130.
  16. ↑ "The Fifty-Third Annual Commencement". The Register: 1920–1921. Cornell University. XII (17): 221–235. 1 September 1921.
  17. 1 2 The Living Church Annual: The Year Book of the Episcopal Church. New York: Morehouse Publishing Co. 1937. p. 139.
  18. ↑ "Dinner Marks Medico Group's 125th Birthday". Middletown Times Herald. Middletown, New York. 23 November 1934. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "New Machine X-Rays Pupils by Wholesale". Middletown Times Herald. Middletown, New York. 20 December 1934. p. 15 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ Blakeslee, Howard W. (17 June 1948). "Lungs Do Not Move Even in Breathing in New Treatment". Daily Press. Newport News, Virginia. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Over the Nation -- 'Round the World: Chicago". The Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. 25 March 1949. p. 23 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ Barach et al. 1949.
  23. ↑ "Machine 'Breathes' for Patients in New Tuberculosis Treatment". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis, Missouri. 3 April 1949. p. 4H – via Newspapers.com.

Bibliography

  • Clark, A. Howard, ed. (1914). "Register of New Members". National Year Book. National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
  • Downs, Winfield Scott, ed. (1938). "Herben, Rev. Stephen Joseph". Encyclopedia of American Biography. New Series. New York: American Historical Society. pp. 129–131.
  • Leonard, John William, ed. (1914–15). "Herben, Grace Foster (Mrs. Stephen J. Herben)". Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. New York: American Commonwealth Co. pp. 382–383.
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