Obituary/Necrologie Joseph V.Brumlík
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OBITUARY/NECROLOGIE JOSEPH V.BRUMLÍK (1897-1979) Joseph V. Brumlik, physician, teaching cardiologist, and connoisseur of art and cul- ture, died in New York on 22 April 1979. He was 82 and active in his profession till the end. Joseph Brumlik wasbom on 18 January 1897 in Rokycany, east of Plzeli in Bohemia, when that region was part of Austria-Hungary.His father, a physician, held the appoint- ment of císafský rada in the Imperial and Royal Public Health Service,with responsibility for the local district. After graduating from the Rokycany gymnasium, young Brumlik began medical studies at Charles University in Prague, where his teachers included the noted specialist in internal medicine Josef Thomayer. During his studies Brumlik learned English on his own so as to read the scientific literature in that language. After an inter- ruption for military service, he completed his medical degree in 1921. He was named as- sistant professor of medicine in 1932, and full professor in 1937. In 1937 he became director of the Department of Cardiology and was instrumental in establishinga new Poli- clinic to serve the entire city of Prague. After the death of his chief, Prof. Dr. Viclav Li- bensk?, he was trustee of a fund created in Libensky's memory to advance the study of cardiology. From 1930 to 1939 he was general secretary of the Czech CardiologicalAs- sociation. During his two decades of teaching and practicing medicine in the First Czechoslovak Republic, Brumlik was physician and confidant to many people active in politics and cut- ture. Among them was former prime minister Karel Kramd, whom he attended till Kra- m ""s death in 1937. After the German annexation of Bohemia and Moravia in March, 1939, Brumlik left Czechoslovakiafor Western Europe and then Mexico. He learned Spanish, became a Mexicancitizen without renouncing his Czechoslovakcitizenship, and in Mexico City, at the Mexicangovernment's behest, helped to set up the National Insti- tute of Cardiology, whose resident chief physician he became in 1944. When Czechoslovak president-in-exileEdvard Benes was visiting the United States in the spring of 1943, he asked Brumlik to come north to examine him for possible stresses induced by Beneš's wartime activities. Brumlik performed several diplomatic tasks for the exile government and after the war acted in Czechoslovakia'sbehalf as a chief of the medical section of UNRRA, where he oversaw operations budgeted at $27 million. He was invited by the government at war's end to resume his positions at Charles University. He returned to Prague in the summer of 1945 but saw a situation not to his liking. He left the country for the United States and sought American citizenship. His wife, nee Ludmila Ulrichovi, daughter of the longtime mayor of Hradec Kralove Franti`sekUlrich, a physician and dentist in her own right, and their young son followed him to America. Mrs. Brumlik and his son survivehim. The son, Dr. George Brumlik, married the daughter of the painter Josef 8irna, who was an intimate friend of the elder Brumlik. The couple have four children. After gaining medical certification in New York State, Brumlik was named instructor of clinical medicine at the New York University Medical School in 1945, rising to assis- tant professor in 1948 and associate professor in 1959. He held joint appointments as visiting physician at BellevueHospital, associate visiting physician at New York University (later MedicalCenter), and at his death was also associate physician at St. Clare's Hospital, all in Manhattan. In these capacities he served a clientele that included wealthy socialites, poor 6migr6s, and Prague Czechs who would come to New York for Brumlik's special care. The number of his daily appointments was strictly limited so that he could devote 128 unhurried attention to each patient and thereby gain a rounded understanding of the life circumstances in which the particular ailment had arisen. In 1975, at the invitation of the President of Mexico, he attended the dedication of a new Cardiological Clinic in Mexico City. He was a member of the Harvey Society and a corresponding member of the Mexican Academy of Medicine, the Society of Military Medicine of France, and the French Cardiological Society. This outline of Joseph BrumA's medical career cannot convey the variety and texture of his many interests, the sterling qualities in his character, and the breadth of his knowl- edge of science, culture, and politics not only in his native Czechoslovakiabut also in the wider world. His scientific training endowed him with great powers of observation and memory. His dealings with people from every station in life gave him keen insights into human nature. He could recall specific details from encounters of years past precisely and consistently. His conversation was enlivened with enlightening and entertaining anec- dotes culled from long experience. In the tradition of many European medical men, his inquiring mind ranged beyond the normal concerns of the physician. Literature and the arts especially attracted him. He attributed this to the fact that, while at the university, he and other students would return to Rokycany in the summers to help the community in the local theater, the circus, art shows, and other civic activities. Out of this grew his lifelong enthusiasm for literature and art. Upon the resignation of journalist Ferdinand Peroutka as secretary-general of the Um4lecki beseda (artists' association) in Prague, Brumlik assumed the post and held it for many years. He thereby became acquainted with leading figures in Prague's cultural life, among them poet Vladislav Vancura, essayist and poet Viktor Dyk, painters Jan Sla- v[?ek and Jan Zrzaq, graphic artists Vojt6ch Sedlá?ek and Max Svabinský, and illustrator Josef Lada. From the stories Brumlik used to tell about these and other men, two may suffice here. In the early 1920s, he was in a pub drinking beer with caricaturist V. H. Brunner. At another table sat Jaroslav Hasek, eccentric genius who wrote The Good Sol- dier §veik. Brunner wanted a smoke and asked Hašek for a cigarette. Hašek turned to a third party at another table and said, "I am Hasek. Give me a cigarette." The person handed Hasek his brown leather cigarette case, whereupon Hašek gradiosely proferred the case to Brunner, saying, "Keep it. It's yours as my gift." Brunner kept the case. Again, the second wife of artist Max Svabinsky was a difficult patient. She usually was late for appointments or missed them altogether. One day Brumlik told her, "Get another doctor. I am fmished with you." Shortly afterward the artist came to Brumffk's office and in typical fashion said, "I am Svabinsky,Max. Please take my wife back. I know she is bad. She is ill-tempered, discourteous, and tardy. But you have to put up with her only every two weeks, I have her every day." Brumlik took her back, but there was no improve- ment. Expressions of Brumlik's cultural versatility in print are few because he wrote for pub- lication mainly in his scientificspecialty. Of this latter, an example is his two contribu- tions to the volume Advances in Electrocardiography, ed. Charles E. Kossmann (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1958), one titled "Principles of Electrocardiographic Interpre- tation in Congenital Heart Disease," the other "The Sinoatrial Node, the Atrioventricular Node, and Atrial Dysrhythmias." Still, one may note his essay on "The Prague Medical Library" in Bulletin of the Masaryk Institute, 3, No. 1 (Feb. 1945), explaining the need for books to fill the gaps since 1938 in Czech holdings of English-languageworks on medical science. Also there are references to his assistance in Sonja Bullaty, Sudek (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1978), a collection of prints by the late artist-photographer Josef Sudek, whose friend he was. In politics Brumlik was skeptical toward all ideologies and overall systems. He pre- ferred to judge men as individuals, by their specific words and deeds. He sought the .