Dr. Paul A. O'Leary

This issue of The Journal of Investigative Dermatology is dedicated to Dr. Paul A. O'Leary, distinguished American clinician, teacher and editor, with the affectionate esteem of his colleagues, pupils and friends. The occasion for this honor is not a birthday anniversary, nor is it a mark of retirement, for retirement is still some years off. The occasion merely renders tribute to one whose professional acumen and educational talent have combined to dignify and enhance the stature of our specialty in his generation. In view of his international reputation, it may seem superfluous to attempt to introduce Dr. O'Leary to his professional contemporaries. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and received his medical degree from the Long Island College of Medicine in 1915. Two years later he became associated with the staff of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, joining Dr. John H. Stokes in the early days of the organization of the Section of Dermatology and Syphilology of the Clinic. When Dr. Stokes assumed the chair at the University of Pennsylvania in 1924, Dr. O'Leary succeeded him as head of the section; soon after, he was appointed Professor of Dermatology and Syphilology in the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, which is a part of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. Dr. O'Leary's career refutes the assumption that dermatology is a superficial specialty. Long association with expert medical colleagues in group practice has made him a clinician, first and foremost. His concern has always been with the patient as a whole. This is reflected in his practice, his writings and his teaching. To him, the ideal dermatologist perfects and utilizes his powers of observation, not to enable him to quibble over morphologic details, but the better to understand the complexities of cutaneous abnormalities, particularly as they may relate to systemic disease. One of his earliest publications, with Brown and Adson, dealt with the sympathetic relationships of scleroderma; subsequent papers on dermatomyositis, lupus erythematosus, vasculitis, nonendemic pellagra, localized myxedema, pyo-derma gangrenosum, pigmentary and lipid disorders, and lymphoblastoma, were the product of collaborative effort with his associates and medical colleagues. Dr. O'Leary has become an acknowledged authority on clinical syphilology, particularly in the fields of latent and visceral syphilis and neurosyphilis. His career spans the lifetime of the modern treatment of syphilis from the use of the arsphenamines through that of malaria and penicillin. For generations, syphilis had been managed as the stepchild of medicine. Dr. O'Leary has been a leader in modifying the social stigma of the disease and in focusing attention on the significance of syphilis as a problem in public health. He realized early the lack of unanimity of opinion as to the principles of, or the results obtainable by, the treatment of various types of syphilitic infection. Largely through his efforts, a system of pooling the records and data of several large clinics was conceived and initiated. An earlier study conducted under the 159 160 THE JOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE DERMATOLOGY auspices of the League of Nations had been inadequate. The clinics selected to participate in this investigation and their respective directors were the University of Michigan (Udo J. Wile), Western Reserve University (H. N. Cole), the University of Pennsylvania (John H. Stokes), the Johns Hopkins University (J. E. Moore), and the Mayo Clinic (Paul A. O'Leary). The co-operation of the United States Public Health Service with its statistical facilities was enlisted through Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., and subsequently through Dr. Taliaferro Clark, with the technical assistance of Lida J. Usilton. The considerable expense involved in this undertaking was borne by a generous grant obtained by Dr. O'Leary from an anonymous donor. Subsequently, when this grant was exhausted, additional funds were obtained through the support of the Milbank Memorial Fund and the United States Public Health Service. Approximately 75,000 records of patients treated for syphilis were reviewed in this effort. Throughout the 30's, a series of reports known as the “Co-operative Clinical Studies in the Treatment of Syphilis” were published, most of them in the Bulletin of Venereal Disease Information. As an indirect consequence of these studies and the influence of Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., surgeon general of the United States Public Health Service, legislation was effected for setting up of machinery for the initiation and maintenance of the centers for intensive treatment. Much of the spark behind these projects was due to Dr. O'Leary's personal efforts, in particular in legislative fields through his friendship with the late distinguished senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. LaFollette, Jr. As a teacher, Dr. O'Leary has always been a strong advocate of the philosophy of graduate education, which holds that the training of specialists in the clinical fields must be centered about the patient. In such a system, suitable instruction in the fundamentals of pathology, physiology, bacteriology, biochemistry and other fields is not overlooked. These so-called basic sciences are not taught, however, as they are on the undergraduate level, as subjects apart, by means of didactic classroom lectures. Rather, such instruction is conceived to be a continuous process, integrated throughout the period of training, the lessons of the laboratory being applied to the problems of the patient, as they are in practice. The inquiring mind is trained in the technic of research under proper supervision ; the gifted few make original contributions. Over the years, Dr. O'Leary has attracted inquisitive students to himself for graduate study, more than 100 of whom owe their training in the specialty to his supervision. He was one of the founders of the American Academy of Dermatology and Syphilology, and was its second president. From 1938 to 1948, he served on the American Board of Dermatology and Syphilology. Dr. O'Leary has been editor in chief of the A.M.A. Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology since 1947. He is associate editor of the American Journal of Syphilis, GP, Hautartz, Dermatologica and Excerpta Medica. He is dermatologie editor of Current Therapy and of The Book of Health. Many academic honors have come to Dr. O'Leary in his active career. He has been elected to Alpha Omega Alpha and the Society of the Sigma Xi. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the American Association FOREWORD 161 for the Advancement of Science and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is a past president of the Minnesota Dermatological Society, the Chicago Dermatological Society, the American Dermatological Association and a past chairman of the Section on Dermatology and Syphilology of the American Medical Association. In 1951, he was president of his local county medical society and president of the staff of the Mayo Clinic. He has been elected corresponding or honorary member of most foreign dermatological associations, and last year was elected as honorary foreign member of the British Association of Dermatology. Dr. O'Leary's hobbies are hunting, fishing and farming. As a Brooklyn boy, he applied his efforts to Minnesota farming for a number of years with considerable success, but the care of pigs and cows and the cultivation of land became too arduous, so he has retired to his milder interest of woodworking. His many friends join in honoring one who has reversed the usual formula of “Small Town Boy Makes Good in Big City.”