The Dermatology Unit of the University of California, San Francisco

Personal Reminiscences by Rees B. Rees, M.D.
 

The biography that is included, consists of positions held and articles published by me, and gives considerable background of the history of the UCSF dermatology unit, but omits detailed  reference to persons still living, or who have died since those articles were written.

I entered UCSF School of Medicine in 1935, and graduated in 1940.   Subsequently I took an internship at San Francisco City and County Hospital.  The Chief of Dermatology was Norman Epstein, and he put me to working in dermatology as soon as he learned that I would be taking training in dermatology and syphilology at UCSF the following year.  In addition to my duties as an intern, I kept a watchful eye on the pyrotherapy unit at the County Hospital, which employed the blanket method of treating nervous system syphilis.  This method was devised by Dr. Epstein.  A similar unit existed at UCSF.

All patients at the County Hospital were routinely vaccinated for smallpox, while those at UCSF were not.  Frances Keddie accumulated data on outbreaks of herpes simplex at UCSF, while I did the same at the “County.”  The object was to see if vaccination had any influence on preventing attacks of herpes simplex.  It did not.  But it resulted in my first medical publication.  This appeared in JAMA, with Dr. Keddie as senior author.

As medical students we were delighted with the dermatology and syphilis clinics, because of the incomparable Frances A. Torrey in the former - one of the world’s great teachers of dermatology- and the fact that we could give “hip shots” in the latter, under the able guidance of Edward A. Levin.

Dr. Torrey is one of the great unsung heroines of dermatology. She refused to be considered for election to the American Dermatological Association, which was the springboard  in those days to national and international recognition.  But in spite of modesty, she became world famous, largely as the result of establishing one of the world’s first visible tumor clinics many years ago, and hemangioma clinic, both still in vigorous operation. She graduated from UCSF in 1923, interned at San Francisco City and County Hospital, and was assistant resident in medicine at UCSF from 1923 to 1924.  She was assistant resident in dermatology and pathology from 1924 to 1926, then took further post graduate training at St. John’s in London in 1926, and at the School of Tropical Medicine in Calcutta in 1927.  She was Chairman of Dermatology at UCSF from 1947 to 1954 and was for many years Chief of Dermatology at San Francisco Children’s Hospital.  She never drew more than a half-time salary from the University, which I have always considered an injustice.

I believe it is accurate to say that when I was training in dermatology,  there was only one full-time paid faculty member in dermatology, in the person of Fred Weidman, of the University of Pennsylvania.  In fact, at UCSF practically all of the chairmen of the “lesser” specialties were non-paid volunteers.

Dr. Torrey was a stern taskmaster, making us do our residencies in a thoroughgoing, highly professional manner.  I recall she used to make us write and rewrite protocols for the San Francisco Dermatological Society meetings.  She took a genuine interest in all of us.

Dr. Torrey was honored recently by being given the University Medal, the modern-day equivalent of an honorary degree.  She is an honorary corresponding member of the Swedish Dermatological Society.

It was great fun working under Dr. Torrey.  On occasion one of us residents would get a call from her private practice secretary saying that a patient was waiting, and Dr. Torrey was not to be found (she was usually downtown on these occasions, looking for Romeur goblets).  So we would take care of the patients.  Dr. Torrey would take us personally to the radiology department, where she would instruct us in the use of x-ray therapy, a modality she now condemns for “benign” dermatoses.

My determination to enter dermatology was a direct outcome of taking an oral examination from Hiram E. Miller, M.D., then chairman of the department (it was “department” in those days, then subdepartment, then division, then department again).  He asked me if I had thought about dermatology as a career.  I said I hadn’t and he said, “think about it.”  So I did.

One day Dr. Miller told me, while I was associated in office practice with him, that a “nice, bald-headed man” was to start his residency.  This turned out to be J. Walter Wilson.  “Wally” had given up a busy general practice in Los Angeles to enter the service when WWII had broken out.  He was rejected because of tuberculosis, a disease that also afflicted Bob Stewart, Leo Columbus and me.  Wally was a fireball right from the start.  He could literally do anything, from building a house to playing the clarinet and saxophone, and later the piano and bass viol, which he taught himself to play.  He gave lectures at the Steinhart Aquarium and was rarely to be seen in the Clinic, because he was off learning microscopy, medical photography (movies), and later, mycology.  Dr. Torrey took a dim view of his absences, and Wally confided in me that if he had a pistol he would shoot her.  He later came to admire her very much, and to love her, as did we all.

Wally was an excellent chemist.  One day, while I was lecturing to the Residents on the subject of physics and radiology, he kept correcting me, so I sat down and let him give the lectures thereafter.

I have already broken my own rule about not writing in extenso about living persons, and I am happy that each member of our department will submit his or her own write-up for the departmental history.

Manuel Francisco Allende was a truly remarkable man in many ways, and an excellent dermatologist.  He was born in 1918 in Spain, and took his medical degree at the University of Paris in 1942.  He interned at New York City Hospital in 1943-44, and started his residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Gaveston in 1947-48, and was Resident in Dermatology at UCSF in 1948-49.  He had been a Captain in the Army of the United States from 1945-47.  He rose to the rank of Clinical Professor of Dermatology at UCSF, and served as Chief of Dermatology at Children’s Hospital.

A final word about Dr. Allende:  He was a very talented artist, specializing in beautiful landscapes in acrylic.  It was always a pleasure to be invited to his home to meet some foreign dignitary and to have dinner with Frank, the Guest, and Frank’s lovely wife Cathy.  I wish the best of everything for Cathy and her two wonderful children.  Frank served as President of the Pacific Dermatologic Association when it met in Guadalajara, a happy circumstance since he was so fluent in Spanish.

So now our department has become one of the best in the world, strong in all aspects, very productive and well respected.  We must not forget the contributions of our forebears, among them Douglass Montgomery, who became the first Professor and Chairman of Dermatology in what is now UCSF, in 1892; then Howard Morrow, Hiram Miller and the unsinkable Frances Torrey, all past Chairmen.