Document rpLgZkyER3n168rVLRNdJ86EE

January 28; 1964 Ur. Robert Webb Editorial Department Cincinnati Enquirer 617 Vine Street Cincinnati; Obio (45201) Dear Ur. Webb: I am not quite as prompt as I expected to be in returning your writing to you with my suggestions; for I ran into some conflicting duties. How ever; 1 have attended to it as quickly as possible, and I hardly think 1 have held you up to your great inconvenience. You will note that I have done quite a bit in my editing. However, excepting for a few matters of fact, and for certain points which required a bit of emphasis or the reverse, 1 have not altered either the substance or the spirit of your writing. It is as obvious as it is to be expected, that my manner of expression - style of writing - and yours differ considerably. However, if my contributions or alterations have made hash out of your article, I confidently expect you to restore it to your style. It is not my purpose to make it the less yours, or to take the sparkle out of it, but to make it just a bit more factual especially since there are some people who know the facts. I am grateful that you were willing to submit the article to me before having it printed, and I hold myself responsible for dealing with it in equally good faith and courtesy. Cordially yours, RAK:vr Enel. - 2 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D / <juJLh **4 Suggestion of revision of text ad comments (in parentheses) in explanation of revisions. Tetraethyllead did more than take th^knock out of automobile engines when added to gasoline. It helped tight a lamp at the University of Cincinnati Medical College. And that lamp - Kettering Laboratory - is still burning brightly, illuminating paths to the protection of people^in all walks of life,at their work. (This change in verbiage is made to eliminate the term "workers," which as it is commonly interpreted excludes industrial research and management personnel. The modern concept of industrial or occupational health involves r> all people in their varied occupations and the stresses that arise in their working environment.) But the lamp may never have burned, at all, without the spark supplied by Robert A. Kehoe, M.D., a young physiologist in the Medical School who was drawn into the investigation of the hazards involved in the use of this "anti knock" agent, discovered by industrial research in the 1920's in nearby Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Kehoe began^in 1924, the medical research into the toxic effects of 2 tetraethyllead In the Department of Physiology. This research led to the creation of the Kettering Laboratory in 1930, in which the hazards of many Industrial chemicals in production in industry and in use in the community have since been under examination. So the new million and a half dollar addition to the Laboratory - the second since its founding - is something of a monument to its Director, who, at 70, is ticketed to retire next August. The Laboratory got its name from Charles F. Kettering, who headed the Research Laboratory of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio, in which J0 / one of his brilliant men in technical research, Thomas Midgley, Jr., with his immediate team-mates, discovered and developed tetraethyllead for use in motor gasoline. This discovery and its aftermath provided the problems of industrial and public health which challenged Dr. Kehoe and (at that time) a small group of co workers to cut their eye-teeth in industrial toxicology. When, shortly afterward, other problems arose, especially in the burgeoning chemical industry of the United States, and were brought to the attention of this group, the need for dditional facilities led to the founding of a separate laboratory, / which was named, fittingly, the Kettering Laboratory. This Laboratory, the 00539 - 3work of which was financed by industry then and predominantly since, under the administrative and academic policies of the University, has become a source of information for industry, as well as for physicians and other professional people in the fields of industrial hygiene and public health. Mure recently, the s&aff of the Laboratory have pioneered in the training of physicians in the field of occupational medicine, and even later extended its efforts in professional training to include industrial hygiene engineers and other specialists in occupational and environmental health. From its modest staff of less than a dozen investigators and technicians, the Laboratory, today, has a research and training staff of over 130. Graduate students in UC's Department of Preventive Medicine and Industrial Health are taught there. So are men of Industry and of Governmental services, who come for a time to study at this pioneer center of industrial medical research. Heads of a goodly number of medical departments of industrial organizations, most in the United States but some in other countries, were trained by Dr. Kehoe and his staff. Other trained physicians and industrial hygiene engineers have entered into governmental and other public services in this and foreign countries. nn u n 4 Along with the U.S. Public Health Service's Occupational Health unit at 1014 Broadway, and the Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, the Laboratory has contributed to the establishment of Cincinnati among the nation's leading centers of industrial health research. And, as Dr. Kehoe sees it, the type of research done by bis Laboratory and the Federal units bids well to become increasingly more important as the nation urbanizes, and its industries develop further. "Before World War I we were largely an agricultural country," Dr. Kehoe observes. "World War I called on us for a lot of changes. We had to `^ Industrialize. The Germans had set the pace in the' chemical industries, /' > especially, and in the patterns of industrial toxicology." Came the 20's and an Industrial spurt which only eased off in the Depression. World War II accelerated the rural-to-urban push and, consequently, brought new thousands of industrial employees into hazardous or potentially hazardous environments. "Now we have an urban-industrial environment which challenges laboratories like ours, in universities, as well as the Occupational Health Unit and the (Robert A.) Taft Engineering Center of the Public Health Service to come up with answers," Dr. Kehoe says. 5 Thus is he excited about the prospect of a city offer of land near UC to help the Taft Center expand, and of a program within the University in developing the broad aspects of environmental health, in professional concert with the Federal agencies. The effects of humidity, temperature, economic and emotional stress, and a host of other influences, as well as chemicals, on workmen in Industry and on the general population, are the subjects of investigation in the Kettering Laboratory. Obviously the Laboratory's work was bound to coincide with the interests of the Federal Government. And Kettering Laboratory has performed research for agencies of the Federal Government, which demonstrated its interest and faith, through the Public Health Service in a grant of approximately $500,000 to help finance the new four-stdry addition. Another $200,000 came from the Hamilton County Board of Commissioners to bring the Coroner's Office into the Laboratory. All of the technical work of the Coroner's Office is performed there. And often Kettering Laboratory supplies a missing link In criminal investigations in Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati. Technical and professional aid has been provided for the City Department of Health, and to 6 local and regional agencies concerned with problems of air pollution. So the County and the City have a big stake in the laboratory, as does industry which provided the large share of the funds required for the new addition. "We've yet to seek or obtain any portion of the public funds of the University of Cincinnati," said Dr. Kehoe, reminding that the many expanding responsibilities of the University have borne heavily upon the resources available for its other activities. Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, Dr. Kehoe may impress one as no dynamic leader or super salesman who would build a Laboratory of international fame. Such an impression would be wrong. "He is dynamic, very effective, and very much of a go-getter," says Dr. Beverly Tucker, Director of Procter and Gamble's Miami Valley Laboratories. "But I don't think the Kettering Laboratory has needed a salesman. It's been built on its merit. Dr. Kehoe has simpljr built a better mouse-trap." A staff member adds, "He's not a nine-to-five man. He's more of an eight-to-six or eight-to-seven and all-day Saturday man." / Too, says the staffer, "He's never too busy to see any of us. He keeps his door open for any of his staff members, whether the problem is professional 7- "Dr. Kehoe," stresses Dr. Dorst, "is first of all a scientist." And as a scientist, he believes In following a problem to its scientific solution. Solutions, though, sometimes get him into trouble - like those of the Laboratory which have'been concerned with the exposure of workmen to compounds of fluorine in a number of industries. Water fluoridation proponents in Cincinnati, New YPrk and elsewhere have drawn on the Kettering Laboratory, and the work of its library staff in combing the literature for information, and have drawn him and his associates into unsought controversies with fluoridation opponents. /In the 1930's the Laboratory investigated the newly discovered "Freon" refrigerants. These have come to be among the more useful and widespread \ : chemicals in the households of the country, and in other fields of industrial production. .. Along the way, Dr. Kehoe has received a host of honors, including the Mellon Award of the Air Pollution Control Association in 1960. Those he prizes most highly have come to him from local sources, The Technical and Scientific Societies Council of Cincinnati, and The Public Health Federation of Cincinnati, Ohio 8 His interests, however, are not all scientific. Off hours, he putters around the flower garden he and Mrs. Kehoe have at their hone, 345 Resor Avenue, in Clifton, and one of the summer months finds him in a trout stream in one of the Western Mountain States. And his home library, while lined with the works of both classical and contemporary authors, contains more than one whodunnit of the Ellery Queen, Eile'Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie varieties. But, quite frankly, the mysteries which most interest Dr. Kehoe are those in the Laboratory lit Eden and Bethesda Avenues. /, ### 1 00545