Dr Benjamin Harrison Kean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Kean American Physician. Dr. Benjamin H. Kean, an expert on tropical diseases who helped discover the cause of travelers' diarrhea and played a disputed role in the Iran hostage crisis as physician to the exiled Shah. Dr. Kean had an international reputation as a medical educator, scientific researcher, author and physician. He played a central role in the admission of the deposed Shah to the United States in 1979, which precipitated the storming of the United States Embassy in Teheran, Iran, and the seizure of 50 hostages by militant Muslims, nationalists and students. President Jimmy Carter, whose re-election bid was gravely damaged by the prolonged hostage crisis, allowed the Shah's entrance on humanitarian grounds after being told that the Shah was near death and could be treated only in New York City. Initial reports attributed that assessment to Dr. Kean, who had flown to Mexico to examine the Shah and continued to be one of his physicians. Other experts disputed the assessment, including the journal Science. But Dr. Kean, who had not spoken directly to President Carter, later denied saying the Shah was near death and had to be treated in New York. He sued Science for libel, and in a settlement, the journal said he had acted professionally and ethically. Dr. Kean helped identify the symptoms of turista, or travelers' diarrhea, while studying American students visiting Mexico. His study, with Dr. Sherwood Gorbach, identified E. coli bacteria as the culprit. "For the first time we think we really understand the mechanism of turista," Dr. Kean said in 1975. He once advised tourists to eat lettuce only if it is "sterilized with a blowtorch." He was also an expert on amebiasis, malaria and toxoplasmosis. He warned that raw or undercooked meat and cat feces were prime sources of toxoplasmosis, a tropical disease affecting the nervous system and the internal organs. In 1967, he and Dr. Edward Goldsmith developed a treatment for schistosomiasis, a widespread debilitating disease also known as bilharziasis, by filtering parasitic worms from the blood. Later, a drug treatment was developed by a former student of Dr. Kean's. Adventures in Medicine Among his colorful medical exploits, Dr. Kean convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt that sharks were attacking World War II pilots downed in the Pacific Ocean by displaying sharks' teeth taken from a victim's body. The military then began providing shark repellant. In an autopsy of the writer Sherwood Anderson, Dr. Kean determined that the cause of death was peritonitis from a colon puncture, caused by a toothpick-armed olive swallowed in a round of martinis. His celebrity patients in his Park Avenue practice included Oscar Hammerstein, Edna Ferber, Gertrude Lawrence, Martina Navratilova and Salvador Dali, who stomped out of his first appointment in a display of disgust over the artwork in the doctor's office. A Flamboyant Teacher As a professor at Cornell University Medical School, Dr. Kean was legendary for his lectures in the officially named B. H. Kean Course in Tropical Medicine. He often took his Highland terrier, Carnoustie, and also delighted in startling wide-eyed medical students by unrolling a 30-foot tapeworm. He rewarded star pupils with Cuban cigars and Dom Perignon champagne. He founded the tropical medicine program at Cornell Medical School and served at the Cornell-affiliated New York Hospital, where he was head of the parasitology laboratory. He also specialized in coprology, the study of feces for diagnosing diseases. Dr. Kean wrote 175 scientific articles and six books, including the authoritative two-volume text "Tropical Medicine and Parasitology" (Cornell, 1968) and a medical memoir, "M.D.: One Doctor's Adventures Among the Famous and Infamous From the Jungles of Panama to a Park Avenue Practice" (Ballantine, 1990). Dr. Kean was born in Valparaiso, Ind., and grew up in West Orange, N.J., and Manhattan. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, he earned a medical degree at Columbia, where he was inspired by a tropical disease specialist, Dr. Francis O'Connor. After Dr. Kean's internship and residency at Gorgas Hospital in Panama, he became the hospital's senior pathologist and a parasitologist. In World War II he joined the United States Army and trained doctors in tropical medicine. After the war, he was the chief health officer for the German state of Hesse during the American occupation. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. Dr. Kean was divorced from Rebekah Harkness, the dance patron. His survivors include his third wife, of 16 years, the former Collette Touey, and a brother, Milton, of Scarsdale, N.Y.

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