MedChi & The National Anthem

Most people don't know that September 14 is a special day in American History: It was the day in 1814 that the British bombed Baltimore for 25 hours, but the city stood, and so did the nation. It was also the day that our country’s National Anthem was written.

Most people also don't know that one of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty’s founding members had an essential role in it. William Beanes, M.D. is a name that should be more well-known than it is, but we are working to correct that and give him the recognition that he deserves.

Here is the story. 

The Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was founded in 1799, just years after our country was born. Many of MedChi’s early members had fought in the American Revolution, and were prepared to fight again in the War of 1812, and in the Battles of North Point and Baltimore, which took place in September of 1814.

Fort McHenry, which was defended during the Battle of Baltimore, was named after another of MedChi’s earliest members, James McHenry. However, it is one of our founding members, William Beanes, M.D. of Prince George’s County, Maryland, who played a pivotal, yet largely unknown, role in the history of our National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

If not for Dr. Beanes, Francis Scott Key would not have been on a ship in Baltimore’s Harbor, and he would never have written the poem which became our National Anthem.

William Beanes was born at Brooke Ridge, a thousand-acre farm near Croome in Prince George's County, on January 24, 1749.

There were no medical schools when Dr. Beanes studied medicine, so he most likely apprenticed with a local physician. Professionally, his reputation spread beyond the county, and in 1799, when the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was established, he was one of its founders and a member of its first examining board.

As the War of 1812 raged, in August of 1814, the British Army sailed up the Potomac River, planning to burn the young nation’s capital, Washington, to the ground. Some of the army marched up the banks of the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers, and through Upper Marlborough, where Dr. Beanes lived.

British General Ross selected Dr. Beanes’ home as his headquarters, and Dr. Beanes agreed not to object to his presence or cause the troops harm. Because Beanes chose not to fight against the occupation of his home, he was believed to be sympathetic to the British cause. Unbeknownst to the British, however, because it was feared that the British would burn the capital city of Annapolis, Dr. Beanes had secretly hidden Maryland state records on his property for safekeeping.

However, when the British Army returned to Upper Marlborough after burning Washington, they were jubilant, drunk and marauding. Dr. Beanes and some of his neighbors were forced to arrest some of the most badly behaved of the group. One prisoner escaped and reported to General Ross that Dr. Beanes had taken some prisoners.

General Ross returned to Upper Marlborough and arrested Dr. Beanes in the middle of the night. There was great outrage at Dr. Beanes’ arrest, and for the “great rudeness and indignity heaped upon a respectable and aged old man.” Dr. Beanes travelled with the British Army down the Potomac River and up the Chesapeake Bay, as the British prepared to burn Baltimore, “a nest of pirates”, as they had done to Washington.

At the same time, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key, a nephew of MedChi’s first President, Upton Scott, was engaged to free Dr. Beanes from the British Army. Key travelled to Baltimore with letters of support from President James Madison, as well as letters from British prisoners whose injuries Dr. Beanes had treated only weeks earlier in Upper Marlborough.

Dr. Beanes was being held on the Minden, a truce ship in the waters just south of Baltimore, and Key sailed out to the Minden to negotiate for his release. While Key was negotiating with the British, the Battle of Baltimore was beginning. For more than 25 hours the battle raged, and bombs rained down on Fort McHenry from the British ships moored in the Patapsco River.

Dr. Beanes and Francis Scott Key watched and waited all through the night. As long as bombs were being shot back from the Fort, the men knew that all was not lost and the Fort still stood. Towards the morning, the cannon fire slowed and then stopped, followed by an ominous silence from across the water. Both men were gripped by hope and fear. Was the Fort lost to the British and would Baltimore suffer as Washington had, just weeks earlier?

As the dawn broke, Francis Scott Key and Dr. Beanes were able to see that the flag was still there, flying above Fort McHenry. They knew that the British had not been able to capture Baltimore.

As the men sailed back to Baltimore, Francis Scott Key penned the now famous poem on the back of an envelope. It was printed in a local paper and then set to the tune of an old drinking song, To Anacreon In Heaven.

Dr. Beanes returned to his home, Academy Hill in Upper Marlborough, and continued to practice medicine. He died at age 80 in October of 1828. Dr. Beanes is buried in a small graveyard in Upper Marlborough, and is remembered throughout Prince George’s county where several roads, schools and parks bear his name, and continue to tell his story.

In 1914, MedChi placed a bronze plaque at the gates to the graveyard. In October 2013, MedChi President, Russell Wright, MD, participated in a ceremony at the gravesite where the Daughters of the War of 1812 placed a new plaque detailing Dr. Beanes’ role in the Star-Spangled Banner.

Jonas Rappeport, MD

We were saddened to hear of the death of our long-time member, Jonas Rappeport, M.D. He lead a long and fascinating life, and was a member here at MedChi for an amazing 62 years!

His obituary appeared in the Baltimore Sun, and we're pleased to reprint it in full.

Dr. Jonas R. Rappeport, the retired chief medical officer of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City who also was a consultant in the George Wallace, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan attempted assassination cases, died Tuesday at the Broadmead Retirement Community in Cockeysville. He was 95 and lived in Park Heights and Bolton Hill.

A nationally known and esteemed forensic psychiatrist, he founded the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and was its first president. He trained numerous future forensic psychiatrists as a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

At the time of his 1992 retirement, he had evaluated scores of criminal defendants and testified in many cases in Maryland and across the nation. He was credited with lifting forensic psychiatry from the stature of a judicial sideshow to that of accepted medical specialty.

Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Abraham Rappeport, a real estate developer, and his wife, Edna. He was a 1942 graduate of Forest Park High School and entered the University of Maryland, College Park that fall. He was drafted in June 1943 and served in the Army in Europe. He was a 1952 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He interned at Chicago’s Michael Reese Hospital, where he met his future wife, Joan Gruenwald, the chief psychiatric nurse.

According to a biographical profile In the Journal of American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Dr. Rappeport grew up with medical mentors. As a 15-year-old, he babysat for Manfred Guttmacher, a noted forensic psychiatrist and chief medical officer at the Court Clinic for Baltimore City’s Supreme Bench. “He recalled leafing through Dr. Guttmacher’s medical library while babysitting, including a copy of Krafft‐Ebings' ‘Psychopathia Sexualis,’” said Dr. Jeffrey K. Janofsky, co-author of the biography.

Dr. Rappeport became interested in forensic psychiatry when he conducted research on inpatient psychiatric patient violence, after a patient assaulted a staff member.

He did a residency in psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical School and the Sheppard Pratt Hospital, and was asked to testify at civil commitment hearings and worked with psychoanalyst Dr. Samuel Novey, evaluating juveniles for the Baltimore County Circuit Court.

“My father was a force to be reckoned with. He had a strong mind and he was serious about everything he embraced,” Ms. Rappeport, of Baltimore. “He was curious about people and was interested in why people did what they did. He was also a man who treated people with great dignity.”

Dr. Rappeport joined the staff at Maryland’s Spring Grove State Hospital, which houses the state’s forensic psychiatry unit. “He recalled that the forensic unit was a primitive place by today’s standards, with literally a hole in the floor in which violent patients were housed,” Dr. Janofsky said.

In 1959, Dr. Rappeport also opened a general private practice in clinical psychiatry in the Latrobe building in Mount Vernon. He also became the psychiatrist for the Baltimore County Circuit Court, then a part-time position. Dr. Rappeport then established the office of court psychiatrist for Baltimore County.

In 1967 Judge Dulaney Foster named Dr. Rappeport the chief medical officer for the Supreme Bench in Baltimore City. In this role, he interviewed people who came before what is now the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. He retired in 1992.

In 1969 he became the first president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. His advice was sought when Arthur Bremer shot Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace in a Laurel shopping center parking lot in 1972. He was also called upon to study the case of Sara Jane Moore, who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco three years later.

Dr. Rappeport was one of a team of forensic psychiatrists who worked the aftermath of an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

He interviewed John W. Hinckley Jr., who dangerously wounded Reagan at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue. Dr. Rappeport spent much of the year preparing to go to trial as an expert witness in the case against the assassin, though he was not ultimately called by a federal prosecutor to testify.

“Jonas and I interviewed Hinckley at the Butner Federal Detention Center in North Carolina,” said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist who was trained by Dr. Rappeport at Johns Hopkins. “We also traveled to Colorado to interview Hinckley’s parents and to see the family home. We went to a gun store where he bought arms. We also went to the crime scene at the Hilton Hotel.”

A 1992 Sun article said, “Not testifying in that trial was perhaps the biggest disappointment in a celebrated 40-year career in forensic psychiatry that begins to wind down.” The article described Dr. Rappeport as “a small man with square, large-framed glasses that dominate his oval face [with] an unexpectedly booming voice.”

Dr. Dietz, who came to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins, said: “Jonas was perhaps the most generous and kind person I’ve ever encountered. As a medical student, he invited me to his home, to meet his family and to go fishing. ... He also had the ability to tell you when you were wrong and he disagreed with you without giving offense.”

A daughter, Sally Rappeport of Philmont, New York, said: “My father was an enthusiast for life. Whatever he did, he would delve in deeply. He loved good food and restaurants and wine. As a teenager I once complained we were eating too many frozen vegetables. The next summer, my father, a great gardener, quadrupled the vegetable output from his garden.”

Another daughter, Susan Bleiberg of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, said: “My father was a true Renaissance man. He was an intellectual and was down to earth. He found a way to connect with everyone. He was a great father and loved his family.”

In addition to his three daughters, he is survived by four grandchildren and a companion, Alma Smith. His wife of 54 years, Joan Rappeport, died in 2007.

Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Another Find!

It never fails! I think that I've found all the artworks that are housed here in our buildings, then something else appears.

A few weeks ago, after about three inches of rain in a few hours, one of our roofs leaked. All of the ceiling tiles were sodden and then fell into the offices below. The carpets were soaked and everyone had to move out while drying and repairs were completed. 

Everything from the offices was brought out into Osler Hall and the Founders Hallway. As I was wandering around yesterday, I spotted an unfamiliar face peeking out from behind a pile of files. 

I have no idea who it is, and of course, it's not marked. It seems to be made of fired clay and then glazed, black basalt style. On the bottom, there's a piece of cardboard. 

Initially, I thought it was Ronald Fishbein, MD. But when I looked at photographs of him, I realized that it wasn't. Of course, when I read things a little more closely, I saw it was repaired by Dr. Fishbein in 1998. My guy looks to be late 1800's or early 1900's, given the facial hair and the style of clothing. 

If you have any clues, please let me know!