Berton Roueché Explained

Berton Roueché
Birth Name:Clarence Berton Roueché
Birth Date:April 16, 1910[1] [2]
Birth Place:Chicago, Illinois, United States
Death Date:[3]
Death Place:Amagansett, New York, United States
Nationality:American
Citizenship:United States
Education:Bachelor of Journalism degree from the Missouri School of Journalism
Alma Mater:University of Missouri
Period:1944–1991
Genre:non-fiction, detective, mystery, suspense
Subject:Medical writing, epidemiology, public health, infectious diseases
Notableworks:Eleven Blue Men (1954)
The Incurable Wound (1958)
Feral (1974)
The Medical Detectives (1980)
Portaldisp:no

Clarence Berton Roueché, Jr. (;[3] April 16, 1910[1] [2] – April 28, 1994[3]) was an American medical writer who wrote for The New Yorker magazine for almost fifty years.[3] [4] He wrote twenty books, including Eleven Blue Men (1954), The Incurable Wound (1958), Feral (1974), and The Medical Detectives (1980).[3] An article he wrote for The New Yorker was made into the 1956 film Bigger Than Life,[3] and many of the medical mysteries on the television show House were inspired by Roueché's writings.

Biography

Berton Roueché was born in Chicago on April 16, 1910, to Clarence Berton Roueché Sr., a tailor, and Nana Maria Mossman.[5] [6] [7] His paternal great-grandparents emigrated from France.[8] He graduated from Southwest High School in Kansas City in 1928 and is a member of the Southwest High School Hall of Fame.[9] He received an undergraduate journalism degree at the University of Missouri in 1933.[3] He was a reporter for The Kansas City Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.[3] On October 28, 1936, he married Katherine Eisenhower, the niece of future U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower.[1] [2] [10] She remained his wife until his death in 1994. They had one child, Arthur Bradford Roueché, who was born November 16, 1942.[1] [2]

In 1944, he was hired as a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.[3] In 1946, "The Annals of Medicine" department of the magazine was created for him.[3] "The Annals of Medicine" is a series about medical detection and the fight against different diseases. An article he wrote for The New Yorker, entitled "Ten Feet Tall", was made into a 1956 film called Bigger Than Life, which stars James Mason.[3] [11] The article and film are about the negative side effects of the drug cortisone.[3] [10] Roueché remained a staff writer for The New Yorker until his death, a span of about fifty years.[3] [4]

In addition to writing for The New Yorker, he wrote twenty books,[3] mostly pieces of medical writing focused on epidemiology, with elements of mystery and detective work. He wrote several suspense novels, including Black Weather (1945), The Last Enemy (1956), Feral (1974), and Fago (1977).[3] Roueché's writings, especially his book The Medical Detectives (1980), inspired in part the television show House, which premiered in 2004 on the Fox network.[12] [13] Many of the medical cases in the show are directly inspired by real-life cases in The Medical Detectives.[12] [13] His 1954 book Eleven Blue Men, which was a collection of pieces he had written for The New Yorker, was awarded a Raven by the Mystery Writers of America.[3] In 1982, he received an Academy Award of The American Academy of Arts and Letters for literature.[14] [15] He received awards from the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Kansas City Academy of Medicine, the American Medical Writers Association, and the Lasker Foundation.[3]

On April 28, 1994, Roueché died at his home in Amagansett, Long Island. He was 84 years old. He committed suicide by a shotgun wound to his head. He had been diagnosed with emphysema five years earlier, and his wife said he had been depressed.[3]

Bibliography

Books

Essays and reporting

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Berger-Knorr, Lawrence. The Pennsylvania Relations of Dwight D. Eisenhower. 2005. Sunbury Press. 0-9760925-4-9. 101. April 5, 2008.
  2. Web site: Eisenhower Family Tree . Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site . April 5, 2008 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080320230909/http://www.eisenhowerbirthplace.org/family.htm . March 20, 2008 .
  3. News: Collins. Glenn. Berton Roueche, Medical Writer For The New Yorker, Dies at 83. The New York Times. April 29, 1994. April 5, 2008. (Note that Roueché's date of death is derived from the date of publication for this article, which is April 29, 1994, and the fact that the article says he "died yesterday", which makes his date of death April 28, 1994. Also note that the article incorrectly says his age at death was 83; if he was born April 16, 1910, his age at death would have been 84.)
  4. Balliett. Whitney. Berton Roueche. The New Yorker. CondéNet. May 16, 1994. 11. April 5, 2008.
  5. U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940–1947
  6. 1910 United States Federal Census
  7. 1920 United States Federal Census
  8. 1880 United States Federal Census
  9. Web site: Southwest High School Hall of Fame. Southwest High School Alumni Association. April 5, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20071014044240/http://swhighschool.org/halloffame/. October 14, 2007. dead.
  10. Lerner. Barron H.. Remembering Berton Roueché — Master of Medical Mysteries. December 8, 2005. The New England Journal of Medicine. 353. 23. Massachusetts Medical Society. 16339093. 10.1056/NEJMp058147. 2428–2431.
  11. Web site: Full cast and crew for Bigger Than Life (1956). The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). April 5, 2008.
  12. Gibson. Stacey. The House That Dave Built. University of Toronto Magazine. University of Toronto. Winter 2008. April 5, 2008. (last sentence of 8th paragraph)
  13. Web site: Cowles. Matthew Dixon. Book: The Medical Detectives by Berton Roueché. Mondo's Info. May 11, 2007. April 5, 2008.
  14. Web site: Berton Roueche on LibraryThing. LibraryThing. April 5, 2008.
  15. Web site: The Literature, Arts & Medicine Database – Roueche, Berton. New York University. April 5, 2008.
  16. Book: Editorial Reviews for The Man Who Grew Two Breasts: And Other True Tales of Medical Detection. 0452274109. Roueche. Berton. 1996.

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