Tribute to Harry Loren Arnold, Jr., on the 25th anniversary of the H.M.J.--1941-1966

Originally published in the Hawaii Medical Journal 1966 Sep-Oct;26(1):25.
Reproduced with the permission of the Hawaii Medical Association.

Our Medical Journal is celebrating its silver anniversary.

Its 25 years of continuous excellence was made possible by one man. He is Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Jr., whose devotion to medicine and to this organization over a quarter-century has been noted internationally.

His scientific contributions are numerous and outstanding. His visionary efforts for a quarter-century have contributed to the world prestige of the JOURNAL and to the prestige of organized medicine in Hawaii.

I take pride in offering the deepest gratitude of the Hawaii Medical Association to Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Jr., who has served so long and so well without remuneration. The HAWAII MEDICAL JOURNAL belongs to him alone.

THEODORE T. TOMITA, M.D.
President, Hawaii Medical Association

"THE BULLETIN is dead, long live the Journal," said the lead editorial in the first issue of the HAWAII MEDICAL JOURNAL which appeared in September, 1941. The first issue was a neatly printed, slick paper production of 74 pages that replaced the mimeographed "Bulletin" that had been circulated among medical practitioners of Hawaii since 1938. When the cost of mimeographing soared, someone asked: "Why not print a full-fledged Journal?" "Why not, indeed," was the answer. And the Annual Meeting of 1941 gave the JOURNAL its blessing.

With the current issue, the HAWAII MEDICAL JOURNAL observes its 25th anniversary. The quarter-century of service is commemorated by the silver sheen of the cover, which temporarily replaces the canary yellow that usually identifies the publication. During this entire period, the JOURNAL has been guided by one editor and one alone. He is Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Jr., whose only salary has been the rewards that come to those who serve their fellow men without thought of material gain.

The late Dr. Alfred L. Craig was President of the then Hawaii Territorial Medical Association when the JOURNAL sprang into existence almost coincidentally with the opening of the new Mabel Smyth Memorial Building on the grounds of The Queen's Hospital. Dr. R. O. Brown was Secretary and Dr. Douglas Bell was Treasurer. The Association was comprised of 273 members, of whom 197 were practicing on Oahu. Hawaii had 35; Maui, 21; and Kauai, 20.

Penicillin wasn't yet on the market. The sulfonamides were the miracle drugs, and the first issue of the JOURNAL reported a statement that "the treatment of gonorrhea by the use of sulfanilamide and its derivatives . . . is so gratifying that it almost is a pleasure to treat these cases."

Hawaii had a population of some 422,000 then, but was vibrant with a steadily intensifying drive that was called "the defense effort." Most interisland travel was carried by small steamers that rolled giddily in the rough channels. Steamer Day was still an event on the waterfront -- most travel to the mainland was by sea. But the relatively new metal birds with gasoline motors were said to have an important future in store. Editors were predicting that the tourist industry might some day catch up with sugar and pineapple as an income producer and that great numbers of visitors would come to Hawaii by air.

The first issue of the JOURNAL was heavy with news of plantation health and leprosy. It contained an article by Dr. F. J. Pinkerton describing the operation of the self-imposed tonnage tax on shipping, proceeds of which were used to finance a wide range of public health activities, including plague prevention. There was a section on advances in surgery which noted that wars have repeatedly stimulated an interest in the treatment of fresh, traumatic wounds. An article on internal medicine suggested that thiamin might be of value in the treatment of toxemia of pregnancy. A suggested plantation cooperative plan was described, and the Editor had reservations concerning some of the details.

The Fifty-first Annual Meeting of the Association was reported, together with the Presidential Address of Dr. Paul Withington. The big news, however, was that medical preparedness activity in Hawaii was coming of age after beginning slowly in 1940 with the appointment of a Preparedness Committee by Dr. Gardner Black, President of the Honolulu County Medical Society. As a result there were some 80 flasks of blood plasma in storage at the City-County Emergency Hospital, "to be held to serve in case of disaster." The Blood Bank of Hawaii, founded in June, 1941, after the Public Health Committee of the Chamber of Commerce contributed $2,000, was building up its own supply and had a total of 256 units by December 7. The flasks looked impressive enough in storage, but they were not enough, as it turned out. On December 7, when Japanese planes struck Hawaii with calculated fury, Dr. F. J. Pinkerton, the Blood Bank boss, appealed for donors, who turned out at the rate of 500 a day, depositing 3,500 units of blood in the Bank's coffers in just seven days. It went out fast.

The present generation may find it difficult to realize the citizenry's preoccupation with defense matters in those days. The original Preparedness Committee appointed by Dr. Black was composed of Drs. Clarence Fronk, Joseph Palma, Fred Lam, and James Kuninobu. Those physicians laid the groundwork for an ambitious program to train units for the care of civilian casualties in the event of disaster such as war, earthquake, or fire. The committee was reorganized and expanded, and with Dr. Robert Faus as Executive Officer, an intensive Territorywide schedule of training was begun. The Chamber of Commerce and the Red Cross gave funds; the Armed Forces helped and advised. The City was divided into zones with first-aid stations established in each. About 3,000 lay workers were enrolled.

"On the whole," the fledgling JOURNAL reported, "the committee feels that the city is reasonably well organized for the first-aid care of casualties which might result from aerial or other hostile attacks."

Hawaii County started its own program in May, 1941, and reported success except in the matter of finding enough strong young men to act as litter bearers and to train for first-aid work. "If this indifference continues," said a report from Hilo, "some system of selective drafting may be necessary to complete the personnel; however this would not be within our province."

Maui organized a portable, central first-aid unit in the Wailuku district to be the nucleus of an islandwide program. Kauai set up a schedule of medical preparedness with Charles Fern as coordinator. Officials of county organizations were kept coming and going to confer with Dr. Faus in Honolulu and Dr. Faus made numerous interisland trips.

Such was the atmosphere when the JOURNAL made its first appearance with the promise that it would be issued on alternate months as a medium "by which the minds of our confreres may be brought into focus on problems which concern us all -- problems having to do with better standards, better practice, better health regulations, better laws." "Too much thinking of the profession in the past has been done by too few," commented the young editor of the JOURNAL.

"More enlightenment, more interest, more opinions should improve the quality of our thought, and augment the effectiveness of our influence. The JOURNAL should also be a means through which the effective participation of the profession in community tasks, such as the defense programs, public health education, and communicable disease control, may be improved. In such matters, through lack of information, the efforts of doctors fully willing to put their shoulders to the wheel have not been fully utilized. . . . If to the betterment of the profession and the betterment of Hawaii, the efforts of the present and future editorial staffs are dedicated, the success of the JOURNAL is assured."

The staff didn't know it, but there would be only one more peacetime issue for several years. It appeared in November, 1941. It dealt with such matters as extrapleural thoracoplasty, the treatment of tuberculosis at Leahi, syphilis, and with mild abdominal pain due to ovulation. Editorially, the JOURNAL appraised the mental health situation in Hawaii and commented that "in the past the Territory . . . has been distinctly backward in the application of modern methods of treatment to mental disease." The Editor called for "an institution apart from the Territorial Hospital for the study and classification and observation of mental disorders not yet known to be psychoses."

War came to Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and the JOURNAL had to get special permission from the Military Government of Hawaii to tell about it. All publications in the Territory, including daily newspapers, were ordered suspended and the publishers had to have licenses before they could resume printing. This was a mere formality in most instances and regularly instituted publications didn't miss an issue.

The January issue of the JOURNAL was delayed, however, because formal authorization for publication didn't arrive until January 15. It is interesting that the author was the person who granted this permission. The first wartime issue devoted most of its space to such matters as war wounds, protection against poisonous gases, Health Department services in war emergency, blood bank procedures, and excerpts from the lectures on traumatic surgery by Dr. John J. Moorhead. It was Dr. Moorhead who was lecturing to assembled physicians in the Mabel Smyth Auditorium that Sunday morning when the call came for medical aid for victims of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Doctors, including Dr. Moorhead, departed en masse for duty at Tripler General Hospital and other assigned stations to work around the clock on war casualties.

Commenting on Dr. Moorhead's presence at that particular time, the JOURNAL editorialized: "Providence could not have been kinder."

The January issue, incidentally, was enlarged to 92 pages and the price raised from 35 cents for single copies to 50 cents because of its "unusual nature and size."

As the war progressed, the JOURNAL continued to expand and become broader in scope, reflecting the changing times in an isolated Territory which was becoming filled with troops and war workers living under blackout conditions which, increasingly, seemed unnecessary. Articles on blackout and health appeared, together with dissertations on night vision. The Editor was pleased to learn that when the Military Government ordered all civilians vaccinated, no less than 56 per cent of the citizenry went to their own personal physicians for shots rather than take advantage of the free immunization offered by military physicians.

The blackout was only one of the problems. Food was limited in variety and high in price. Gas and tires were rationed. So was liquor. And when people lived like moles at night they found they had to change work, entertainment, social, and eating habits. Thousands of local men, whose families had been evacuated to the mainland -- out of a potential war zone -- found themselves almost with the status of displaced persons.

Tensions mounted in these circumstances, and the JOURNAL was increasingly concerned with psychiatric disorders. Emotional and personality problems were discussed. The dangers of prostitution were considered at length. Commenting on a suggestion to repress prostitution, the JOURNAL editorialized: "If scattered, clandestine, wholly uncontrolled prostitution will cause less spread of venereal disease than organized and more or less controlled prostitution, then let us repress organized prostitution with a will." It was apparent, though, that the Editor had his doubts about the efficacy of enforcing virtue by padlocking the doors of Honolulu's brothels. "At all events," he concluded, "let us not merely monkey with the buzz saw. Let us either carry on with the present system or change it radically and make the change stick -- and then see what happens." The system wasn't changed for several years.

Another wartime hazard considered by the JOURNAL was the increase in patronage at the numerous tattoo parlors, where from 300 to 500 men a day were decorated in color at prices ranging from $2.50 to $12.50 a design. Cases of skin infection were being reported, and a JOURNAL article led to better sanitary conditions in the tattoo salons.

The JOURNAL wasn't a completely military manual, however. In the summer of 1943 an article suggested cigarette smoking was a factor in sterility. At about the same time, an editorial warning was given that continuous caudal anesthesia was not yet safe. But the same issue noted that "penicillin, a substance extracted from culture of the fungus, Penicillium notarium, is apparently effective against a wide variety of microorganisms."

As the years passed the JOURNAL became larger and broader in scope. Psychiatry for the general practitioner was proposed as early as 1946. The flavor and color of Hawaii was apparent when writers considered such topics as fish poisoning, the incidence of eclampsia in kona weather, the longevity of enteric pathogens in poi, the sudden death of apparently healthy young Filipino men during sleep, and the racial incidence of mental disease and stomach cancer. Hawaiian vegetables, it was stated, contained as much iron and other minerals as did those imported from California, Illinois, or Texas. "Hawaii is one of the best human laboratories in the world," said the JOURNAL in 1953.

Special issues were printed. Three such productions appeared during the very first year, dedicated to the neighbor islands of Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai with the contents produced largely by practitioners of those respective islands.

Within two years after the end of the war the story of the impact of the "Blitz" upon Hawaii's men of medicine was told in a series of personal reminiscences by physicians called to emergency duty on December 7, 1941. The series now is source material for historians.

The JOURNAL has displayed a consistently independent editorial attitude, as evidenced by its position on prostitution. It spoke early in favor of fluoridation of water and for continuance of atomic tests by the United States, which it considered necessary "as judged by today's standards and values." It was irked no end at the slow unwinding of red tape by the Office of Price Administration after the war ended. It took a dim view of the British health service -- a view similar to that taken by most doctors in Britain today.

Almost 20 years ago it campaigned for relicensing of automobile drivers and for revision of laws relating to autopsies. In 1949 it reprinted an article by the late Dorothy Thompson objecting to a proposed vast extension of bureaucratic powers by passage of a compulsory health insurance law. Referring to an antitrust investigation of medical societies by the then Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, the JOURNAL said it was a case of the cookstove calling the tablecloth black.

Throughout the years the JOURNAL has evinced a keen interest in the problem of equitable distribution of the cost of medical care. And there should be no "closed shop" for doctors, the publication affirmed, in objecting to any hospital's requirement for an AMA membership as a prerequisite to staff privileges. But the Editor, who also happened to be President of the HMA in that year of 1951, pointed out that individual physicians are the AMA, and urged them not to let their memberships lapse.

The word "Territorial" was droppcd from the name of the Association in 1951 and the JOURNAL, at the time, had editorially urged the Congress to hurry up and make Hawaii a state. During research into Association history it was found that even though the original charter, which was granted in 1856 by Alexander Liholiho, required annual meetings, some annual meetings were not recorded. After what was called the Sixty-third Annual meeting at Wailuku, Maui, in 1953, therefore, the next meeting at Honolulu became the Ninety-eighth, to conform to historical dates.

The Association celebrated its Centennial in 1956, and the big and fat March-April issue was a specially bound effort of 128 pages that contained no less than 13 historical articles, a roster of the membership, and a cumulative index as well as the program of the 100th Annual Meeting. It also contained a deserved tribute to the Woman's Auxiliary, members of which had compiled the index as one of their numerous projects. In the "This Is What's New" section it was reported that Penicillin V, unlike Penicillin G, resisted gastric digestion and could be used orally.

A new feature, "In Memoriam -- Doctors of Hawaii" also appeared in the Centennial issue, recounting the lives of nine of the ten charter members of the Hawaii Medical Association. This has been a regular feature since. It was but one of many such innovations that have aroused interest in the JOURNAL. One of these, the "Notes and News" section, recounts personal items, honors, deaths, travels by physicians, and other matters, such as the fact that noted author Aldous Huxley was taking 0.4 grams of pure mescalin and was "moved" by its remarkable effect.

"Perhaps is Your Nerves" was another regular department that contained news concerning mental illness. This was discontinued when Dr. Robert Kimmich moved to the mainland. "This Is What's New" turns up late material for the physician who must read and run. Any subject from the life span of a platelet to the effect of aspirin upon the gastric muscosa may be considered here. For some time the JOURNAL contributed a regular promotional page to the HMSA.

And from the sometimes wryly edited "Reports and Snorts": "A mistress has been defined, not unreasonably, as something half-way between a mister and a mattress." Also from the same department: "The long German word for a little glass tube is Rotblutkorperchensenkungsgeschwindigkeithestimmungsapparat -- literally red-blood-corpuscle-sinking-speed-determination-apparatus."

The JOURNAL encourages contributions from members. It lists advertisers alphabetically under the title: "Our 'Angels'." Pharmaceutical advertising fell off in 1960 and the angelic qualities of the advertisers became increasingly apparent, although the ads were scrutinized no less rigorously than before. The year 1960 also saw the beginning of the Publications Committee, and it marked the beginning of the valuable series of Infant and Maternal Death Case Studies. That was the year, as well, that the Editor criticized a section of the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act which he believed nonsensical. The Act, among other things, forbade certain ingredients in lipsticks because they have been found to induce cancer in rats. "Just warn the public against eating four or five lipsticks every day," the Editor, in effect, advised.

In 1963 a doctor of Hawaii fluttered the dovecotes with a JOURNAL paper suggesting that high school football was 13,666 times more dangerous than coal mining, "the most hazardous American industry." He said there was a near hysterical disregard of the dangers of the game in Hawaii. Several other doctors, only a few weeks ago, looked with some favor on high school football as a body and character building endeavor when they appeared on the Hawaii Medical Association's five-year-old TV program "Call the Doctor," aired weekly over Channel 13.

The Editor expressed the view that the purpose of the sometimes free-wheeling President's Page -- with a regular message from the current head of the Association -- was to permit the President to present "whatever message he may have, whether it represents policy already adopted, or the reverse, or neither, and regardless -- good taste, punctuation, and syntax excepted -- of whether the Editor approves of it or not."

When a feature has run its course, the editor has no hesitancy in dropping it. Summaries of medical papers printed in Interlingua beginning in 1957 were dropped in 1960, perhaps because of a scarcity of Interlinguists.

Throughout the years the JOURNAL has displayed an astonishing variety of interests and attitudes and a meticulous regard for the English language. A bristling editorial on "flossy medical terminology" appeared in 1948 -- one reason, perhaps, for the readability of the JOURNAL as compared to certain other technical publications. That standard, set early, has been maintained by the Editor who now has rounded out a quarter-century at a time consuming and relatively thankless task.

That Editor is Harry L. Arnold, Jr., the son of Dr. Harry Loren and Meda (Sheldon) Arnold. The senior Arnold was one of the physicians who acted in the Pearl Harbor emergency. Arnold, the son, was born in Owosso, Michigan, August 7, 1912. His family came to Hawaii in 1919 and young Harry graduated from Punahou School at the age of 15 and went back to Michigan for further schooling. He won an A.B., cum laude, at the University of Michigan in 1932, an M.D., also cum laude, at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1935, and an M.S. in dermatology three years later.

An internship at the University Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan, was followed by a residency in dermatology completed in 1939. Then he returned to Hawaii to join the Straub Clinic. He has five children and seven grandchildren.

An absorbing interest in leprosy has led to world travels to many congresses and conferences on the subject. He prefers the word leprosy to Hansen's Disease. His bibliography of more than 125 medical publications has given him an international reputation. He is a corresponding editor for the Pacific Area of the International Journal of Leprosy of the International Leprosy Association. He has been twice director of the American Academy of Dermatology and Syphilology and a member of the organization's Publication Committee.

Other professional society affiliations include the Society for Investigative Dermatology, the American Dermatological Association, the American College of Physicians, the Sociedad Cubana de Dermatologia y Sifilografia, the Associacion Argentina de Dermatologia y Sifilologia, the Sociedad Mexicana de Dermatologia (Honorary), the International Society of Tropical Dermatology (Vice-president, 1961-64) and the (brace yourself) Sociedad Venezolana de Dermatologia Venereologia y Leprologia. Add the American Academy of Dermatology (Vice-president, 1965), the Pacific Dermatological Association (Board of Directors, 1964-65), and the American Medical Writers Association. And he was Chairman of the AMA Section on Dermatology, 1964-65, as well as Secretary of the Section on Dermatology of the AMA, 1956-61.

Honorary and other fraternal organizations include Zeta Psi, Mimes Club, Friars Club, Nu Sigma Nu, Victor Vaughan Historical Society, Galens Club, and honor societies Alpha Omega Alpha and Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi.

Other medical organizations include the Blood Bank, the Oahu Health Council, the Mental Hygiene Association, the American Cancer Society, and the Hillebrand Society for Medical History. He has been a director or president of most of these organizations and was chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce. He served on the Board of Medical Examiners, where he was Secretary from 1960 to 1963, and has been a member of the Hansen's Disease Advisory Committee of the Health Department from 1950 to date.

Do such chores leave time for hospital activities? Well, Dr. Arnold was on The Queen's Hospital active staff, outpatient service, about half of each year from 1940 through 1955. He has had the same service at St. Francis Hospital, plus teaching dermatology to nurses from 1950 to 1955. He is on the Kuakini Hospital courtesy staff, a consultant in dermatology at U.S. Tripler General Hospital (since 1949), was Chief of Dermatology Staff at Queen's, and is Consultant in Dermatology to Kula Sanatorium, Lanai Hospital, State Hospital, Shriners' Hospital, Leahi Hospital, and Kauikeolani Children's Hospital.

He served as President of the Honolulu County Medical Society for the 1949-50 term and of the Hawaii Territorial Medical Association for 1951-52. Since 1942 his record of professional committee work shows continuous and arduous activity. He served on the planning and program committees initially. There was further service on the Committees on Medical Economics, Publications, Forms of Medical Practice, Library, Malpractice, Constitution and Bylaws, and the Parliamentary Committee. In addition he manages to attend about eight out of ten of the monthly meetings of the Honolulu County Medical Society every year.

Despite all this, time remained for lay activities, including presidency of the Hawaiian Academy of Science in 1952, sessions with Club 15, and frequent gatherings of the Honolulu Wine and Food Society, at which members may be expected to taste the broth and remark: "This is, good soup, very good soup, but not a GREAT soup." The Honolulu Press Club, the New York Academy of Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science offer certain other time-consuming activities. Dr. Arnold was elected a Fellow of the A.A.A.S. in 1957.

In the July-August, 1952, issue of the JOURNAL appeared an article under Dr. Arnold's byline on the indispensability of stress. The Editor noted that all living things are benefited by moderate stress but harmed by too much or too little of it.

Two and one-half decades of unremitting labor in many fields of medicine and community activities on the part of Dr. Arnold, while he also occupied the editorial chair of the JOURNAL, would seem to indicate more than moderate stress on his part. Yet, in addition to such activities, he has become expert in such hobbies as nature lore, equestrianism, bridge, oenology, high-pressure chess (he collects chessmen), the art of cooking brioche and other breads, and somehow finds time to pursue the byways as well as the highways of literature. He is an etymologist; will argue whether gravity is a push or a pull; and is prone to denunciation of those who assert that the caduceus, emblem of Hermes, is a symbol of the medical profession.

His literary preferences? He admits to being a compulsive reader. He is apt to be found with copies of Herodotus, science fiction, Thoreau, whodunits, Guizot, Gilbert and Sullivan, Bernard Berenson, Stephen Potter, Kant, The Annotated Alice, and Dorland's Medical Dictionary stacked on his tables at the same time. For his notes on Dorland's Dictionary, see the book review section in this issue of the JOURNAL. He is an aficionado of the works of George Borrow, especially Lavengro and The Bible in Spain.

An interest, in people, a prime quality in an editor, is present to an unlimited degree in the editor of the JOURNAL, together with a lively social conscience. In world travels to scientific meetings he has been known to go miles out of his way to see former colleagues, old friends, and even relatives and friends of such associates.

A quotation from the raffish but scholarly humanist Francois Rabelais might point a moral:

Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul.

The editor of the JOURNAL has wisdom without malice; he is a scientist with a conscience.

With a deep sense of humility and gratitude, born out of appreciation of 25 years of devoted service as Editor of the HAWAII MEDICAL JOURNAL, the members of the Hawaii Medical Association take great pleasure in dedicating this Silver Anniversary issue to the Editor, Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Jr.

HMA Public Relations Counsel.

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