u s public health service

Downing Jett Kay joined nine fellow centenarian residents of Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson for a celebration this week . The group, which included a former dancer with the Rockettes and a nurse who treated scarlet fever patients, had collectively born witness to more than a thousand years of life.

U.S. faces a challenging fight against a dreaded disease in West Africa

Esther McCready and Larry Gibson exemplify the University of Maryland Baltimore's civil rights history.

Dr. Raymond Seltser, former associate dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health who was the author of seminal articles on smoking, stroke and radiation, died Feb. 16 of pneumonia at Sibley Hospital in Washington. He was 90.

Although hospice care has dramatically increased in popularity over the past decade, of the 1.6 million Americans who used such services last year, about 82 percent were Caucasian and fewer than 9 percent African-American. And in Maryland, predominantly white localities finish near the top in terms of hospice use.

Howard E. Chaney, a former official of the state Department of Public Health who was also an accomplished woodworker, died Sunday of cancer at his Lutherville home. He was 95.

Towson resident, Dr. Wally Sennott, 104, was named a charter member of Pine Ridge Senior Golf Club and still plays golf when the weather is good.

Dr. Martin Helrich, a pioneering anesthesiologist who had headed the department of anesthesiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, died Sunday from complications of heart disease at his Pikesville home.

Dr. Richard J. Bouchard, a retired cardiologist who played an instrumental role in the establishment of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at St. Agnes Hospital, died Saturday from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at Stella Maris Hospice. He was 84.

Book discusses the poison's sometimes strange uses as a murder weapon, as a medicine, an aphrodisiac and more

Anne G. Karlsen, a retired registered nurse who worked for the Baltimore County Health Department, died Jan. 25 of heart failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 86.

Federal agencies that own historic buildings — including many in Maryland — are struggling to maintain or find new uses for them, a problem that has been made more acute by recent budget cuts.

Dr. H. Berton McCauley, the former chief of the Dental Division of the Baltimore City Health Department who led the controversial battle that resulted in the city's water supply being fluoridated nearly 60 years ago, died Oct. 23.

Fort Meade's mandatory suicide prevention training on Wednesday was part of an Army-wide initiative undertaken as the military branch is on pace to reach its highest-ever suicide rate.

Ervin M. Milner, who founded Milner Productions in the basement of his Northwest Baltimore home, which grew to become one of the nation's largest producers of educational audiovisuals for physicians and hospitals, died Aug. 17 from complications of diabetes and kidney failure at Springhouse Assisted-Living in Pikesville. He was 94.

Arline K. Howdon, who had been chief cytologist and educational coordinator of the Johns Hopkins Medical School of Clinical Cellular Sciences, died July 20 of lung cancer at her condominium at Harper House in Cross Keys. She was 91.

Dr. Michael Victor Edelstein, whose career at Sheppard Pratt Health System spanned nearly 40 years and whose hobby was fixing cars, died Monday of a heart attack at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 66.

Richard K.C. Hsieh, a public health specialist and medical librarian who died at 79, had traced his lineage in China to about 600 A.D.

Dr. John Butler MacGibbon, an internal medicine specialist who treated port of Baltimore mariners, died Dec. 24 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson of complications of a stroke and a fall. He was 90 and lived in Original Northwood.