Fwd: gratitude / MUMPS memorabilia ... not at the Texas Medical Center Library
K.S. Bhaskar
From: Wolfgang Giere <…snip…>
Date: Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 10:49 AM
Subject: AW: gratitude / MUMPS memorabilia ... not at the Texas Medical Center Library
To: Giere, Wolfgang <…snip…>
Cc: <…snip…>
Ful of joy and filled with deep gratitude I am spontaneously thanking all the friends that helped to save my Mumps Memorabilia. The collection will not go to Texas, but, due to the generosity of Christoph Schmelter, join the rest of my library at the DMI in Münster as nukleus of a collecton concerning the history of medical informatics in Germany. Special thanks to Judy Faukner and her astonishing companie EPIC. (Btw. I wished DMI and EPIC could join forces!)
Next sunday afternoon a funeral will remember of Octo Barnett, the father of Mumps. I am unable to participate, helas! But I contirbuted the story of Octo teaching me Mumps on a napkin at the airport of Dubrovnik behind the iron curtain during the cold war in the early sixties (see it quoted below).
>>
How I learned Mumps
by Wolfgang Giere
The story happend in the late autumn of 1972, more than 50 years ago in Dubrovik, in those days Yugoslavia, Titos country, behind the iron curtain. Experts in the use of computers from all over the world were invited by an US NGO (as far as I remember it was IEEE) to think about possibilities for countries in the third world to profit from the use of EDP in medicine. Around 30 people were invited for one week. We met in the museum of art in 6 groups.. Over night secretaries typed our results as a basis for the next days diskussions. Octo Barnett was in my group, so was Gremy from Paris and a finnish specialist whose name have forgotten. We worked out a large table which at the end was published in a series of publications together with the results of the other working groups. I remember a blue booklet as printed outcome.
Sunday morning we were expected to leave Jugoslavia in the direction of our homes. My plane to Zagreb was scheduled earlier than Octos to Rome. When he arrived all passengers were being shuttled back to the Hotel as there was no flights possible: Bora, high winds from north, it was cold inspite of the sun shining. Octo, already an experienced traveller, told me: "Stay with me, Wolfgang, never let the Airline get rid of its reponsability! There will be a flight to Belgrade this afternoon!" I obeyed and stayed with him. We were well treated.
On a napkin Octo explained me the principles of his Mumps. I was fascinated. So far I had only used the IBM-360-Assembler language. (My electronic medical record system in Duisburg had been in routine use since Jan. first 1968. At that time, 1972, I was developing my own programming language for report generation DUTAP for all medical record activities of the Deusche Klinik für Diagnostik in Wiesbaden.)
In the meantime a third person had joined us. He was the owner of the casino of Dubrovnik. We were tranferred to the best Hotel in Belgrade, very plush K&K, we three enjoied excellent service. It was difficult to get a little extra for the musicians. No money, no wine, ... finally we were allowed to invite them for an Icecream. Grateful, they played all the musis which we asked for.. We ended up downstairs in the Bar, invited by the Casino owner and had a good night.
At the airport I realized how much I owed to Octo: One party had rented a car and was trapped by snow in Serajowo, another one took the train and had to stand all the night since it was too crowded... thanks to Octo we were relaxed and well shaven!
My family was not informed. We just did not arrive. They were glad, when I finally got home, more than a day late!
I was grateful to Octo. In the years to come from my institute at the Goethe-Univerity in Frankfurt I could help to promote Mumps, make it ISO-standardized, include string subscript and storage of sparse arrays, become a transaction processing champion -- not only for medical applications.
>> (end of quote)
And here I quote the message of Epic concerning the Texas Medical Center Library:
-----Original-Nachricht-----
Betreff: MUMPS memorabilia at the Texas Medical Center Library
Datum: 2024-10-29T23:09:49+0100
Von: "Hannah Ostrow" <…snip…>
An: "Wolfgang Giere" <…snip…>, "Fenton, Susan H" <…snip…>
Hi Wolfgang,
I have an update for you on our attempts to find a new home for your MUMPS-related materials.
Our conversations with the VA, the NIH, and the NLM have stalled a bit, but there is potential interest from the Texas Medical Center Library. They have a notable collection of archival materials related to medicine and public health. I shared with them some of the materials you have sent me related to your collection, and we think it could be a good fit.
Would you mind reviewing their gift acceptance policy to see if it’s acceptable to you? I’m including on this message Dr. Susan Fenton, who is a professor of health IT and informatics at UT Health and has worked with the library in the past, in case you have any questions about the library or the policy.
I know you had reached out to Beatrix Behrendt at the GMDS as well, so if that looks like it will work out instead, please let me know.
Thanks,
Hannah
>> (end of quote)
You will probably (hopefully!) understand how glad and grateful I am. I regret only that I cannot parrticipate next sunday at the funeral for my dear friend Octo and Sarah, his wife. May they rest in peace!
Wolfgang Giere
Nov, 15 2024