Bernard Lown papers

Bernard Lown (1921-2021) cardiologist, peace activist, humanitarian, inventor and author, was co-founder and former Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1981), co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility (1961), founder of SATELLIFE, the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care (1987), ProCOR (1997) and the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation (1973), inventor of the Lown Cardioverter, and developer of direct current defibrillation. Lown was also Professor of Cardiology, Emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health and Senior Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Lown discovered cardioversion in 1962 and in 1965 introduced the preventative use of lidocaine. Later studies on Sudden Cardiac Death helped inform public health initiatives on preventive care through stress reduction, diet and exercise. Through application of his research findings Lown instituted many improvements in hospital coronary care which became standards implemented world-wide. In his book The Lost Art of Healing (1996), he investigated the humanitarian role of the physician in the physician-patient relationship.

Bernard Lown, born Bernard Latz in Utena, Lithuania on June 7, 1921. Lown and his family immigrated to the United States when he was thirteen, eventually settling in Lewiston, Maine. Lown graduated summa cum laude in 1942 from the University of Maine, Orono, and from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1945. He was an Assistant in Pathology at Yale Medical School before completing his Internship at Jewish Hospital (1947-1948) and residency at Montefiore Hospital (1948-1950), both in New York City. While at Montefiore, Lown researched potassium loss during diuresis. His findings caught the attention of Samuel A. Levine, Physician (Cardiology) at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (PBBH), who offered Lown the Cardiology Fellowship. Lown moved to Harvard Medical School and PBBH in 1950, later serving also as Director of the Samuel A. Levine Cardiovascular Research Center, PBBH from 1956-1958. Lown’s career was briefly interrupted by military service and his employment was affected by blacklisting prior to his moving to the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Department of Nutrition to begin working with Frederick J. Stare in experimental cardiology. From 1965-1974 he was Director of the Samuel A. Levine Coronary Care Unit at the now Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and from 1961-1991, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Lab, Dept. of Nutrition. At HSPH Lown moved up the ranks in several appointments to Professor of Cardiology in 1974, becoming Emeritus upon his retirement in 1991. In addition to his administrative, teaching and research responsibilities, Lown was a practicing physician at PBBH then Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and in private practice at the Lown Cardiovascular Center. Lown also served as Consultant in Cardiology for several Boston area hospitals.

During his almost fifty years practicing medicine and conducting research on diseases of the heart, Lown pioneered many important advances in coronary care, treatments and improving patient outcomes. Lown evaluated the therapeutic use of immobility, then standard patient care. The results of this study became one of many critical care management changes he introduced. Current Concepts in Digitalis Therapy (1954) is still considered the most definitive resource on the topic. In animal studies, Lown demonstrated that the effects of widely used alternating current shock therapy were injurious to the heart. Searching for a substitute treatment method, he discovered direct current shock could normalize heart rhythm. Collaborating with American Optical Company engineers, Lown invented the technology for cardioversion. After presenting a paper based on clinical trials at the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1962, cardioversion became the world-wide standard for treating acute patients with irregular heart rhythms. In 1965 Lown introduced the use of the drug lidocaine to prevent fatal cardiac electrical failure in heart attack victims. He helped launch the new discipline of community cardiology by collaborating with the Boston YMCA to develop rehabilitative exercise programs and the Town of Brookline to develop preventive nutrition education programs. Other research interests include Chagas disease, prevalent in Bahia, Brazil and integrated functions of the higher nervous system and the heart.

Lown’s interest in international cooperation and humanitarian and peace activism surfaced early with leadership roles in student groups. For the Association of Internes and Medical Students (AIMS), Lown helped to organize shipments of equipment and supplies to medical students in countries at war. Under Lown’s leadership, founding members of PSR evaluated the information upon which the US government based its policy for community response to nuclear attack and determined their data was erroneous, publishing their findings to the medical community through the New England Journal of Medicine in 1961. PSR then launched a media campaign to educate the general public about the medical dangers of nuclear weapons as well as gain their influence to effect changes in government nuclear weapons policy. Lown founded and presided over the USA-China Physicians Friendship Association, and established cooperative research programs in cardiology with Cuba, Japan and the USSR. Through research with USSR cardiologists, Lown befriended Evgeni Chazov. Together they founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War with the belief that working cooperatively would improve the likelihood of influencing governments to cease nuclear testing and weapons build up. SATELLIFE, the first non-profit organization in the world to use satellite technology for sharing public health, medical and environmental information with developing countries, was founded by Lown to help professionals in remote and war-torn regions of South Asia, Africa and South America. The Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, founded by Lown in 1973, established the website ProCOR in 1997, the first international internet forum for supporting educational programs of preventive cardiology for both health professionals and the public. This led to the establishment of national groups called “AmiCOR’s” in India, Brazil and other countries. To promote patient rights against the policies of for-profit HMO’s, Lown formed the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care in 1997.

Lown was the author of hundreds of articles and several monographs, most recently Prescription for Survival: A Doctor’s Journey to End Nuclear Madness (2008). He was the recipient of honorary degrees from universities around the world, and numerous awards including the first Cardinal Medeiros Peace Award. Dr. Lown and his wife Louise Lown were married in 1946. Louise died in 2019. They had three children and five grandchildren. Lown died of complications from congestive heart failure and pneumonia on 16 February 2021 in Chestnut Hill, Mass.