"Close to Your Heart"

Staid Philadelphia was the scene of an unusually gay reunion last week, and the headquarters for it was an unlikely spot: the Charles P. Bailey Thoracic Clinic. But few celebrators anywhere could have had better cause to rejoice than the 306 graduates of heart surgery who traveled (at their own expense) from as far away as Canada and California, Puerto Rico and Venezuela to let the Bailey team of eight doctors check on their progress. All had been heart cripples a few years ago; now, with a few exceptions, they were well and proud to show it.

The Thoracic Clinic's first patient for a heart-valve operation was one of its brightest alumnae: Mrs. Claire Ward, 29, of Newark. In the spring of 1948, Mrs. Ward was bedridden for months with heart failure; she could not even walk unaided to the next room. Today she holds an office job and does her own housework as well. Pressed as to whether she had any complaints, Mrs. Ward admitted that she feels a bit short of breath after climbing three flights of stairs.

There was also the Oregonian who was in such bad shape in 1952 that Chief Cardiologist William Likoff doubted that he could survive surgery. He and his wife insisted on it, and he had a tricky double operation. Now he spends eight or nine hours a day on horseback. There was also a Pennsylvanian who startled the doctors by saying that he had gone back to work in the coal mines. "Hell," he said, "that's the only job I know." In schoolgirl high spirits and 40 pounds heavier was Judith Schmidt, 12, who had been chilled in a freezer before her operation (TIME, Oct. 13, 1952).

Not all the stories were as good as these. There was a woman with a heart valve scarred by rheumatic fever, which worked well after surgery but has recently begun to leak again. Four of the reunionists had symptoms which led to their being promptly hospitalized for observation and possibly further treatment. But the assemblage proved its point: delicate surgery inside the heart is getting safer, and it can bring many a case, once thought hopeless, back to healthy, happy living. The patients at their dinner dance gave their loudest applause to a doctor who introduced Surgeon Bailey with the words: "He has been close to your heart." Then the recovered patients waltzed and jitterbugged.

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