Gentleman, scholar, and lifelong Cornellian, Alan Van Poznak, M.D. (hugging Dr. Kathryn McGoldrick, upper left), famously developed methoxyflurane in the 1960s with longtime colleague Joseph Artusio, M.D. Proving his inventive mind was not limited to the lab bench, he combined pieces from two precisely cut syringes and created a musical masterpiece—the syringe slide whistle (right)! Once again, fortune favored the prepared mind. Apprenticed to a pipe-organ builder in his teens, Dr. Van Poznak was able to recognize the instrumental potential in the cylindrical syringe. While serenading pediatric patients at the New York Hospital, he taught anesthesia residents both Bernoulli and Venturi principles just before closing lectures with Cornell’s school song (bottom). To learn how this little whistle sang its way into the hearts of the Big Apple Circus and Late Night TV hosts, watch the full interview of Dr. Van Poznak by former student Kathryn McGoldrick, M.D. (hugging Dr. Van Poznak, upper left), in the Wood Library-Museum’s John W. Pender Collection of the Living History of Anesthesia (https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/library/living-history). (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Gentleman, scholar, and lifelong Cornellian, Alan Van Poznak, M.D. (hugging Dr. Kathryn McGoldrick, upper left), famously developed methoxyflurane in the 1960s with longtime colleague Joseph Artusio, M.D. Proving his inventive mind was not limited to the lab bench, he combined pieces from two precisely cut syringes and created a musical masterpiece—the syringe slide whistle (right)! Once again, fortune favored the prepared mind. Apprenticed to a pipe-organ builder in his teens, Dr. Van Poznak was able to recognize the instrumental potential in the cylindrical syringe. While serenading pediatric patients at the New York Hospital, he taught anesthesia residents both Bernoulli and Venturi principles just before closing lectures with Cornell’s school song (bottom). To learn how this little whistle sang its way into the hearts of the Big Apple Circus and Late Night TV hosts, watch the full interview of Dr. Van Poznak by former student Kathryn McGoldrick, M.D. (hugging Dr. Van Poznak, upper left), in the Wood Library-Museum’s John W. Pender Collection of the Living History of Anesthesia (https://www.woodlibrarymuseum.org/library/living-history). (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Melissa L. Coleman, M.D., Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Jane S. Moon, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles, California.
