John Ruhräh

John Ruhräh was born at Chillicothe, Ohio on September 26, 1872. He received his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore in 1894. He then became an Assistant Resident Physician, City Hospital, 1894-95; and Resident Physician, City Hospital, 1895-97 Physician in Charge of the Pasteur Department, City Hospital, 1897-98; Clinical Professor of Diseases of Children.

Dr. Ruhräh published the first papers on the use of soy bean in infant feeding. Famed as he was as a pediatrician, it was as a baby doctor he was best loved. He was peculiarly fitted for the role. With hospital and laboratory training ahead of his time, Ruhräh became resident at one of the Children's Hospitals where he literally followed his little patients from the cradle to the dead house.

After further study abroad and a round of the clinics, he returned to take up the teaching and practice of pediatrics, one of the first in Baltimore to devote himself exclusively to that specialty. Success quickly followed. “He scorned all the tricks of the trade, refused to slabber over the little darlings and uncompromisingly did as he pleased.”

Ruhräh had always discouraged office visits but long distances made his growing practice very onerous, so he decided to follow the example of his friend Kerley, in New York, and have the babies brought to him. This innovation met with some opposition at first from the mothers as it entailed their dressing and leaving their household duties, but it soon became popular.

Ruhräh never enjoyed robust health, but it was in his illnesses that he became successful in medicine. A room at MedChi was dedicated to him in 1936, as he was closely associated with the organization and its library. Additionally, there is a public school in Southeast Baltimore named for him.

Dr. Ruhräh wrote a personal biography of Dr. William Osler in 1934, which was finally published in 2015.