Medicine: Prevention Is Her Aim

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Cornell University's Medical College got a new full professor last week. To Dr. Elise Strang L'Esperance, clinical professor of preventive medicine, the recognition came at an age when most professors are tacking emeritus on to their titles. The new rank would mean little change in the duties she has filled with bustling enthusiasm as assistant professor for six years. But it did mark the last hurdle cleared on the long obstacle course which an ardently feminist doctor had been following for more than half a century. Says she: "I've been living medicine all my life."

Dr. L'Esperance stubbornly refused to take no from a man's world. As a result, hundreds of thousands of men, women & children now have a better chance of being treated in time to save them from cancer's worst ravages. The world's first clinic for the prevention and detection of cancer, which Dr. L'Esperance set up in 1937, was the model for 251 now operating in the U.S., and for as many more in other countries.

Father's Hope. Second daughter of a New York doctor who wanted a son to follow his profession, Elise Strang heard her father say of her: "This one will be my doctor." Dr. Strang died long before his daughter was ready for college, but she kept his fondest hope in mind. In 1896, at 16, she entered the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women & Children.

After graduation Dr. L'Esperance married a lawyer, but went on with her medical career. She practiced pediatrics for several years, and in 1910 met the late great Dr. James Ewing. Ewing was a pathologist, just getting set on the course which was to make him the nation's top authority on cancer. He needed an assistant but when she applied, he said, "No, I don't want a woman." Strong-willed Dr. L'Esperance got the job. The pediatrician became a working pathologist overnight, improved her skill and knowledge by doing autopsies at the New York City Morgue in its less sanitary days. Dr. L'Esperance's job with Ewing lasted more than 30 years.

It was known that some cancers, if detected early enough, could be arrested. Dr. L'Esperance helped Ewing to go a step further: if precancerous and near-cancerous conditions could be spotted early enough, many full-blown cancers could be prevented. In 1930, Dr. L'Esperance's own mother (a sister of Chauncey Depew) died of cancer.

Costly Clinic. "I couldn't do anything for her," she says. "It was too late." But with her unmarried sister May, Dr. L'Esperance set up a memorial to her mother which was to do much to save others. "A stained-glass window didn't seem like the right thing for our mother. So I asked May how she would like to establish a clinic. She asked how much it would cost. I said about $15,000. She says now I should have put another zero on that. It was nearer $150,000 before we'd finished."