Autographs

During my many years of medical practice I collected many “autographs”, of people that have become good friends. I collected a few of them for you.

Professor Doctor Ermiro Estevam de Lima

I had the chance of spending eight months with him, both at the Hospital dos Servidores do Estado and at his private office. These were important months in my training as an otolaryngologist.

Professor Doctor Rudof Lang

This was a special friend. In 1969 he and I created the Brazilian Otological Society, of which he was the first president (I was the second). We were together in many events, both in Brazil and in many different countries. He had an untimely death due to a lung carcinoma.

Professor Doctor Iêda Chaves Pacheco Russo

She was a professor of Audiology at the Catholic University in São Paulo, and also a good friend. She was brilliant in her work, with many published papers and books. She created the screening audiological test that Prof. Ricardo Ferreira Bento and I used to check the hearing of children in school. 

Professor Doctor José Ribeiro do Valle

This was my Professor of Pharmacology at the medical school and I also participated with him in many meetings of the Congregation of Escola Paulista de Medicina, after I became Professor of Otolaryngology. He was a good friend of my father, and also mine.

Prof. Dr. Vicente Guillermo Diamante

An important otologist in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and we met at a course on Cochlear Implants that I organized. Shorty after he invited my late friend Antonio De la Cruz and I to give a course in Buenos Aires. He is now well known for performing many cochlear implants.

Doctor Hallowell Davis

He was Head of Research at Central Institute for the Deaf (CID), and my Professor of Neurophysiology. He stimulated my work at the Washington University in Saint Louis, in which CID played a large part. He was famous for his work in cochlear physiology and created electric response audiometry. I was happy to contribute to a book called “Hearing and Davis”, wrote by many of his disciples as a birthday present for his 80 years.

Doctor Richard Silverman

He was a pioneer audiologist and head of the School for the Deaf. This school is older than the Research Division of CID. He was an excellent teacher. He wrote with Dr. Davis an excellent book called “Hearing and Deafness”, that had many editions. 

    

Professor Doctor Leonard Barend Willem Jongkees

When I met him he was the Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Amsterdam. He was a pioneer neurotologist, and participated at many Meetings of the Collegium Oto-rhino-laringologicum Amicitiae Sacrum (CORLAS) that I attended. The letter that you see here was my welcome to CORLAS, in The Hague, Netherlands.

Professor Doctor Peter Carl Rudolf Pfaltz

He was the Secretary General of the CORLAS and had an important participation in inviting me to join the Collegium. He was the Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Basel, in Switzerland. In the old times the Collegium had three official languages (English, German and French) and Peter Pfaltz gave his salutation in the three languages, that he spoke perfectly. Now everything is in English.

Professor Doctor Jean-Mark Sterkers

I met him at the Pan American Congress of Otolaryngology, in Sao Paulo, in 1974. After that I visited him in Paris, and watched him perform  vestibular nerve sections by middle fossa. Professor MirkoToss, Professor of Otolaryngology in Kopenhagen, once told me that he was the best European surgeon of acoustic tumors. He is a great friend.

Prof. Claus-Frenz Claussen

A famous neurotologist, he was the founder of the Neurotological and Equilibriometric Society (NES), a scientific association that organized several meetings in Bad Kissingen, Germany, and in many different countries, including Brazil. Besides his fame as a physician, he is also an important sculptor, creating large metal sculptures that made great success. 

Professor Doctor John E. Bordley

I met him when he was no longer the Professor of Otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. But he was a Professor Emeritus and, according to the University statutes, the Professor Emeritus has a room and a secretary. He reached me to organize a diagnostic center for deaf children and invited me to visit the Boys Town Center for Childhood Deafness, Language and Learning, in Omaha, Nebraska, an extraordinary institution that not only diagnosed the deaf children but also established programs for their education in schools throughout the United States. Dr. Bordley was the man who organized the Center and asked one of his associates, Dr. Patrick E. Brookhouser, to become the Center’s President.

Professor Doctor Herbert H. Dedo

He was one of Theodore Walsh’s residents, and Dr Walsh considered him an excellent otolaryngologist. He did pioneer work on Displastic Dysphonia and when he came to Brazil for one of our Otolaryngology Congresses, he gave me his book on this topic.

Dr. Ira J. Hirsh 

He was very young when he published his book, named “The Measuring of Hearing.” It is a book that I often consult even today. He was my Professor of Audiology at the Central Institute for the Deaf (actually a great teacher). When I asked him to autograph his book, he said, “You will have to wait. When I will be sure that you read it, then I will autograph it for you.”

                                                                 

            Dr. Catherine Smith 

        An outstanding scientist, who discovered the composition of endolymph. She also became an important researcher in the area of electron microscopy of the inner ear.

Dr. Kenneth H. Brookler

We have been friends for many years and I always visit him when I am in New York. Dr. Wallace Rubin and him published an excellent book on Neurotology.

Prof. Dr. Jun-Ichi Suzuki

He was the Chairman of Otolaryngology at the Tokyo University. We met in Miami during a World Congress, and he came three times to Brazil. He is an outstanding otologist and was a pioneer of the implanted hearing aids, a research that he shared with Prof. Naoaki Anagihara, of the University of Ehime.

        Dr. Jack L. Pulec

        A very good friend, an excellent otologist, an extraordinary surgeon. We have been together for many congresses, in many parts of the world.

        Dr. Joseph R. Kraft

        A famous American pathologist, who first discovered the relations between hyperglycemia and diabetes. For some reason endocrinologist chose to believe that his conclusions were not valid, but nowadays all scientists realize that he was totally right on his proposals. I met him in Bad Kissinger, Germany, and we have corresponded for many years.

        Prof. Dr. Fernando Barajas Prat

        He invited me for a National Spanish Congress in Tenerife, Canary Islands. We have been together for several days and, of course, became friends.

      Bobby Short

A non-physician that I decided to include in these autographs. He was the best cabaret singer that ever existed in the USA and also became a good friend. I attended to several of his shows at the Carlyle Hotel, and also in Sao Paulo. My wife invited him to come to Brazil for a beneficent show for an organization that gave professions to persons with light cerebral palsies.

And last but not least,

Dr. William F. House  

He was an excellent surgeon and a far-out thinker. His contribution to Otology was extremely important. He created the middle fossa and translabyrintine approaches to the internal acoustic meatus, that totally changed the operations for acoustic tumors, and also perfected the operation of decompression of the endolymphatic sac. And he pioneered cochlear implants. Here you will see a portion of the manuscript that he read at the beginning of our Symposium on Sensorineural Deafness and Cochlear Implants.