John Ruhräh

Background

John Ruhräh was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, the son of Daniel Conrad and Mary (Fincknaur) Ruhräh. The father was a native of Bremen, Germany, and his mother was a member of a Baltimore family.

Education

John received his early education in the public schools of Chillicothe. Soon after his graduation from high school in 1891 he moved to Baltimore, where he began the study of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (University of Maryland) in 1894 and later did postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins University. In 1897 he went abroad to study at the Pasteur Institute, Paris.

Career

At the completion of these studies Ruhräh was successively assistant resident physician (1894 - 95) and resident physician (1895 - 97) at Mercy Hospital, serving at the same time as demonstrator of bacteriology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Later he took charge of the Pasteur department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and from 1898 to 1900 served as quarantine physician of the port of Baltimore. He was also in 1898-99 assistant professor of the diseases of children at the University of Maryland. After another year of graduate work in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, and London, he returned to Baltimore in 1901 to enter the general practice of diseases of children and to resume his work on the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. There he became a full professor of pediatrics in 1906.

In 1915 the University of Maryland offered him the chair of pediatrics, which he held for the remainder of his life. He also served as visiting physician at the Mercy Hospital, consulting physician at the Church Home and Infirmary, and visiting physician at the Hospital for Women and Children. He was elected president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1919, president of the American Pediatric Society in 1925, of the Medical Library Association in 1927, the Research Society in 1932, the Osler Historical Society in 1933, and the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1934. In 1932 he was a member of the board of education of Baltimore. That same year he was selected by the Baltimore City Medical Society to prepare a history of the medical profession in Maryland for the last quarter century.

While traveling with musical friends in 1930 he was stricken with poliomyelitis on the island of Capri. When he had improved sufficiently to be moved he was taken in a helpless condition to Baltimore and placed in the Mercy Hospital, where he had had his early training and had later been a distinguished member of the staff. After a long struggle with his illness, he recovered sufficiently to resume his practice, in part at least, and to travel and engage in many other lifelong pursuits. Though residual disability to his lower extremities persisted, restricting his physical movements, he displayed undaunted courage and an indomitable will in carrying on many professional and social activities.

Ruhräh was a man of broad cultural interests. He contributed two series of papers to the American Journal of the Diseases of Children, one a group of biographies and the other a discussion of pediatrics in art, all appearing between the years 1928 and 1935. His biographical sketches dealt with pediatric writers of the past; the papers on art, with striking illustrations of various phases of child health and hygiene. He wrote much for the Baltimore Sun, accounts of his trips and book reviews on all subjects. His artistic tastes were not confined to art and literature, however; he was also a devotee of fine music. He rarely missed a concert in Baltimore and made annual pilgrimages to Bethlehem, Pa. , for the Bach festival.

As a writer, his style was terse, with occasional shafts of humor; his wide reading in many languages manifested itself in numerous pertinent references from diverse fields of literature. Among his books may be mentioned Diet in Health and Disease (1905, 6th ed. , 1925) and Dietetics for Nurses (1905, 5th ed. , 1924), both in collaboration with Julius Friedenwald. Coming under the influence of Sir William Osler and Prof. W. H. Welch he acquired an interest in medical history. This led him, first, to a study of Robert Whytt, and eventually to the preparation of an anthology of pediatric texts, published under the title of Pediatrics of the Past (1925), a source book of permanent value. Even after the appearance of this manual, he continued his biographical studies and issued in 1932 Pediatric Biographies. He was also the author of William Cadogan, His Essay on Gout (1925), and, with E. R. Meyer, Poliomyelitis in All Its Aspects (1917). The immediate cause of his death, in his sixty-third year, was a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Achievements

• Ruhräh was well-known of an early 1900s pediatrician. He made the first collective investigation of actinomycosis in the United States (1899 - 1900), and introduced the use of the soy bean in infant dietetics (1909). He contributed articles on pediatric subjects to most of the modern American encyclopedias and systems of medicine, among them William Osler's Modern Medicine (7 vols. , 1907 - 10), Nelson Loose-Leaf Medicine (copyright 1920), Frederick Tice's Practice of Medicine (10 vols. , 1932), and I. A. Abt's Pediatrics by Various Authors (8 vols. , 1923 - 26).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dietetics for nurses

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Poliomyelitis in All Its Aspects

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • A Manual of the Diseases of Infants and Children

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Diet in health and disease

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Connections

Father:

Daniel Conrad Ruhräh

Mother:

Mary (Fincknaur) Ruhräh