Category Archives: Medicine

December 31, 1907: Old Watchman, Beaten by Robbers, Revealed as Cocaine Addict

Posted on December 31, 2025 by lmharnisch

December 31, 1907: W.H. Reynolds laid out all night after being beaten up and thrown in the weeds by two robbers. Hospital staff found his arms and legs covered with needle marks from where he had injected himself with cocaine. Continue reading →

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Los Angeles Celebrates Christmas, 1913

Posted on December 25, 2025 by lmharnisch

December 13, 1913: Celebrating Christmas in Los Angeles by having dinnor at the Cafe Bristol or taking an invigorating bath at Melrose and Gower, location of the Radium Sulphur Springs, which advertises: Drink the most radioactive natural curative mineral water. Continue reading →

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December 23, 1907: Shopping Cures Insanity — An Early Test of Retail Therapy

Posted on December 23, 2025 by lmharnisch

December 23, 1907: Dr. Henry S. Atkins, superintendent of St. Louis’ insane asylum, has found that Christmas is a perfect time to test his theory that shopping cures insanity.
Atkins and two attendants took 60 women from the asylum “into the world of department stores and the activities which all women enjoy,” The Times said. Continue reading →

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December 20, 1907: Miracle Doctor Fer-Don Cures Man of 90-Foot Tape Worm!

Posted on December 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

December 20, 1907: Miracle doctor “The Great Fer-Don” comes to Los Angeles, with ads boasting of his amazing cures. Alas, his health tonic was merely colored water and a felony warrant was issued for him and his wife. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1941: Hollywood Model Dies of Botched Abortion

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1941: Angelka Rose Gogich was 18 when she died at Glendale Emergency Hospital after undergoing an abortion. She had be working as a model, hat check girl and dancer under the name Rose Ann Rae. Continue reading →

Posted in 1941, Abortion, Art & Artists, Black Dahlia, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Medicine, Obituaries | Tagged | 1 Comment

November 19, 1907: Crime Wave Sweeps L.A.

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1907: An influx of crooks, petty hoodlums and vagrants drawn by good weather and horse racing at Santa Anita are blamed for a siege of crime throughout the city. Continue reading →

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November 12, 1947: Pasadena Girl Recovers From Mystery Illness

Posted on November 12, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 12, 1947: Andrea Brodine, 6, for whose life many have prayed since she was stricken by a deadly paralysis two weeks ago, walked again at the Huntington Memorial Hospital yesterday—supported by a mechanical carrier device but strongly on the road to full recovery. Continue reading →

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October 24, 1907: Sanitarium Doctor Tells Patients to ‘Live on Love’ and Forget About Food

Posted on October 24, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 24, 1907: Upon the suicide of Dr. H. Russell Burner, advocate of the “radium milk” cure, his sanitarium was taken over by Dr. F.S. Kurpiers, who is now in trouble with the Health Department. Kurpiers didn’t have a medical license, so he obtained the certificate of Dr. C.H. King, a dying physician who wept as he told authorities that the only way he could support a few relatives was to rent out his license. Continue reading →

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October 21, 1907: L.A. Doctor Wants to Exterminate Cats Over Their Diet of Diseased Rats

Posted on October 21, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 21, 1907: Dr. E.O. Sawyer wants to kill all the cats in town because cats feast on diseased rodents and then come home to be babied by families laboring under the misguided notion that they somehow “own” the cats.
Continue reading →

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October 2, 1907: Patient Dies After Chiropractor Treats Spine With Mallet and Drill

Posted on October 2, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 2, 1907: Thomas H. Storey, an unlicensed chiropractor, has a patient lie with his head on one chair and his knees on another. Storey gets on the patient’s back so all his weight is resting on the spine. Next, he puts his knee in the small of the patient’s back. Then he twists the neck. Continue reading →

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September 7, 1907: Typhoid, Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever and Tuberculosis

Posted on September 7, 2025 by lmharnisch

September 7,1907: No measles or smallpox cases for August, and diphtheria, scarlet fever and tuberculosis are down. Typhoid cases, however, are increasing. Continue reading →

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August 29, 1943: Parents Sue Doctor Who Said Baby Girl Was a Boy!

Posted on August 29, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 29, 1943: Dr. John M. Andrews is being sued for $500,000 by Mr. and Mrs. Harry J. Hartwig after delivering a baby and telling the family that it was a boy, whom they named Richard Allen Hartwig — when it was actually a girl. Continue reading →

Posted in 1943, Art & Artists, Comics, Crime and Courts, Film, Hollywood, Medicine, Streetcars, Transportation, World War II | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

August 25, 1947: Police Investigate Death of Doctor’s Wife

Posted on August 25, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 25, 1947: Susanne Castillo is found dead in a bathtub and her husband, Dr. Manuel de J. Castillo, is suspected. Continue reading →

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Aug. 22, 1947: 5 L.A. Women Doctors Honored at Medical Convention

Posted on August 22, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 22, 1947: Girls aspiring to careers should follow women physicians’ example—many have both satisfactory home and professional lives, Dr. E. Mae McCarroll says. Continue reading →

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Aug. 4, 1947: Patsy, Teenage Polio Patient, Dreams of Going to a Rodeo

Posted on August 4, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 4, 1947: Patsy Pfeifer, 14, has two ambitions: One is to see a rodeo. The other is to walk, having contracted polio around Christmas 1942. Continue reading →

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Aug. 2, 1907: Dr. Lucy Hall-Brown Dies

Posted on August 2, 2025 by lmharnisch

August 2, 1907: A brief look at the life of Dr. Lucy Hall-Brown, a prominent woman physician. Continue reading →

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Los Angeles Celebrates Christmas, 1913

Posted on December 25, 2021 by lmharnisch

Note: This is an encore post from 2013. Dec. 25, 1913: The Times carries a biblical passage across the nameplate (notice the artwork of the new and old Times buildings) and a Page 1 cartoon by Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale. … Continue reading →

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: ‘Story of Dr. Jenner’ Promotes Vaccination

Posted on January 18, 2021 by lmharnisch

Matthew Boulton as the physician who develops a cure for smallpox in MGM’s 1939 “The Story of Dr. Jenner.” For centuries, smallpox infestations caused massive deaths and disfigurings to civilizations. First appearing in agricultural communities around 10,000 BC, the disease … Continue reading →

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Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Deja Vu All Over Again With COVID-19

Posted on April 27, 2020 by lmharnisch

For more than a month, most of the world has lived in a state of suspended animation as we all deal with the effects of COVID-19. Many are not following guidelines or procedures, griping about the situation, etc., seeming to … Continue reading →

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Movieland Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on December 30, 2019 by lmharnisch

This week’s mystery movie was the 1939 Warner Bros. film “A Child Is Born” (working title “Give Me a Child,”) with Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lynn, Gladys George, Gale Page, Spring Byington, Johnnie Davis, Henry O’Neill and John Litel. Screenplay by … Continue reading →

Posted in 1939, Film, Hollywood, Medicine, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , , , , , | 23 Comments