Dr. John Hirschfeld
Lung specialist
Dr. John H. Hirschfeld, whose interest in lung disease led him to work with alcoholics in Baltimore, died yesterday of cancer at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 81.
Dr. Hirschfeld lived in Pompano Beach, Fla., in the winter and Pikesville in the summer. He retired in 1981 after being in private practice in Northeast Baltimore since 1945. For four years before that, he was on the staff of the Victor Cullen State Hospital in Sabillasville.
When he started his private practice, he was also an instructor in laryngology at the University of Maryland. He continued his interest in tuberculosis and other lung diseases and found they were often associated with alcoholism.
In 1960, Dr. Hirschfeld became a member of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Committee of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland and two years later became chairman of its Subcommittee on Alcoholism. In 1963, he became a member of the executive committee of the Baltimore Area Council on Alcoholism and was its president from 1966 until 1969.
A strong advocate of detoxification and treatment of alcoholics instead of jailing them, he was given the Bronze Key award of the American Council on Alcoholism.
Born in Vienna, Austria, he earned his medical degree at the University of Vienna before coming to this country in 1938. He had been a member of the staffs at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and Church, Maryland General, Good Samaritan and Sinai hospitals.
Dr. Hirschfeld was a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and a member of the Baltimore City Medical Society and the American Thoracic Society.
Services were set for 1 p.m. today in North Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
He is survived by his wife, the former Erna Liebermann; two sons, Robert Hirschfeld of Phoenix and Leonard Hirschfeld of Cherry Hill, N.J.; a daughter, Judy Funk of Coral Springs, Fla.; a brother, Paul Hirschfeld of Scottsdale, Ariz.; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.