Walter C. Alvarez

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

For his grandson, the American geology professor, see Walter Alvarez.

Walter Clement Alvarez (1884–1978) was an American doctor of Spanish descent. He authored several dozen books on medicine, and wrote Introductions and Forewords for many others. Alvarez was known for his dry wit.

He was born in San Francisco and spent his childhood in Hawaii, where his father was a government physician. In 1910, having received his medical education in Stanford University, he began his practice.

From 1913 to the end of 1925, Alvarez practiced internal medicine in San Francisco and conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1934 he became Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota (Mayo Foundation) and later served as Consultant in Medicine Emeritus.

His father was Luis F. Alvarez, who worked as a doctor in California and Hawaii and developed a method for the better diagnosis of macular leprosy. His sister was the famed California artist and oil painter Mabel Alvarez.

Alvarez was married to the former Harriet Skidmore Smythe and the couple had four children: Gladys, Luis, Robert and Bernice. Luis Alvarez, would later become a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

His grandson is Walter Alvarez, a noted Professor of Geology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Beginning in the 1950, Alvarez began writing a medical column which soon became syndicated throughout North America in hundreds of daily and weekly newspapers. He became one of the most well-known physicians in the USA, with numerous appearances on radio and television. His status led to him being referred to as "America’s Family Doctor".

The Walter C. Alvarez Memorial Award is named in his honor and is presented to a member or nonmember of American Medical Writers Association to honor excellence in communicating health care developments and concepts to the public.

Alvarez' syndrome, a syndrome of hysterical or neurotic abdominal bloating without any excess of gas in the digestive tract, and Alvarez-waves, painless uterine contractions occurring during the length of pregnancy, are named after him.

His personal papers are held by Lane's Archives and Special Collections.

[edit] Bibliography

Alvarez on Alvarez, 1977
Walter C. Alvarez: American Man of Medicine, 1976
Inglenook Doctor Book, 1975
Dr. Walter C. Alvarez on Health & Life, 1975
Gay Liberation and Homosexuality and Other Forms of Sexual Deviance (co-written with Sue March), 1974
The New Home Medical Encyclopedia (co-authored with Samuel L. Andelman), 1974
Nerves in Collision, 1972
Danger Signals: How to Recognize the Warnings of Serious Diseases, 1966
Little Strokes, 1966
Incurable Physician, An Autobiography, 1963
Minds that Came Back, 1961
Geriatrics: Devoted to Research and Clinical Study of the Diseases, 1958
Practical Leads to Puzzling Diagnoses: Neuroses that Run Through Families, 1958
Live at Peace with Your Nerves, 1958
How to Live with Your Arthritis, 1953
The Neuroses: Diagnosis and Management of Functional Disorders and Minor Psychoses, 1951
How to Live with Your Ulcer, 1951
Brief Psychotheraphy: A Handbook for Physicians on the Clinical Aspects of Neuroses (co-written with Bertrand S. Frohman and Evelyn P. Frohman), 1948
Nervousness, Indigestion and Pain, 1943 (Previously issued as Nervous Indigestion)
Help Your Doctor to Help You When You Have Food Allergy, 1941
Help Your Doctor to Help You When You Have Gallstones and Disease of the Gallbladder, 1941
The March of Medicine (co-written with Karl A. Menninger), 1940
An Introduction to Gastroenterology, 1940
How to Live with your Ulcer, 1933
Nervous Indigestion, 1931
The Mechanics of the Digestive Tract: An Introduction to Gastroenterology, 1928
The Mechanics of the Digestive Tract, 1922