Arthur D. Hirschfelder

Joseph played a significant role in Arthur's choice of career, greatly influencing his desire to become a physician.

[1][5] His father Joseph Hirschfelder passed away at the age of 65 on July 4, 1920, due to a sudden case of heart failure.

[10][11] During the spring of 1913, after Hirschfelder wrote a paper on "Diuretics in Cardiovascular Disease" and presented it at the American Medical Association meeting, Charles Lyman Green, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Minnesota College of Medical Sciences, offered Hirschfelder a professorship position in pharmacology at Minnesota.

[12] During World War I, Hirschfelder organized and taught school for navy pharmacists mates at the University of Minnesota.

[1] Furthering his war effort, Hirschfelder worked as a pharmacologist in the Chemical Warfare Service research unit at Johns Hopkins in 1918 and after the war served as a board member of the Board of Consultants of the Chemical Warfare Service at Edgewood Arsenal from 1922 to 1925.

[13] Hirschfelder and one of Johns Hopkins's physiologists, Joseph Erlanger, worked together to develop important methods in cardiovascular medicine and became the first doctor in the United States to use an EKG in human studies.

Hirschfelder was able to prove, through an experiment on dogs, that the dyspnea that arises due to heart failure occurs when the pulmonary capillaries and veins become inactive.

[1] Through this research, Hirschfelder and Hart synthesized and discovered local anesthesia made of saligenin to replace the use of cocaine in cystoscopy.

[15] This 4% solution drug is mildly antiseptic with the ability to kill 2% of pyogenic cocci bacteria in less than 30 minutes.

Upon ingestion, caffeine's ability to relieve drowsiness, Hirschfelder was able to find that its pros were often accompanied by insomnia, nausea, vomiting, vertigo, palpitation, and more.

If the plasma magnesium level is to exceed 17 mg per hundred cubic centimeters of blood, the patient will fall into a coma.

In their study on animals, results indicated that those with a slightly raised plasma magnesium level (5 or more mg) are more sensitive to normal doses of morphine.

"Clinical Manifestations of High and Low Plasma Magnesium- Dangers of Epsom salt Purgation in Nephritis" published in 1934.

[18] The AAA, situated in Bethesda, Maryland, is a group focused on advancing anatomical sciences in health and diseases.