E.M. Jellinek may have provided the disease concept of alcoholism with its manifesto, but Dr. H.W. Haggard conferred the medical credibility and institutional clout it needed to survive. Haggard was born in La Porte, Indiana in April 1891 and attended elite boarding school Philips Exeter Academy. He received his BA and MD from Yale University, where he earned his first publication credit for co-authored articles on comparative anatomy. After serving in the Army Chemical Warfare Service in World War I, Haggard returned to Yale to teach physiology. He soon came under the wing of Dr. Yandell Henderson, best known to alcohol historians for his “Plea for Dilution.” Haggard’s groundbreaking work on respiration and gas absorption, first with Henderson and then as principal investigator in his own right, led to advances in anesthesia and the invention of the modern gas mask. His research bona fides established, Haggard earned tenure at Yale in 1926 and became Director of the Laboratory for Applied Physiology.
Haggard’s influence spread rapidly, steadily, and concentrically over the following decade. He authored an introductory textbook in 1927, The Science of Health and Disease: A Textbook of Physiology and Hygiene. As he moved from a cutting-edge respiration researcher to a mainstay of physiology as a field, Haggard started to write for lay readers as an ambassador for medicine. 1927 also saw the publication of ‘Tisn’t What You Know, but Are You Intelligent, a series of short tests to which Haggard wrote an introduction outlining the doctrine of innate intelligence. His breakthrough for a general audience came in 1929 with Devils, Drugs, and Doctors: The Story of the Science of Healing from Medicine-Man to Doctor. Devils, Drugs, and Doctors was an instant classic of popular science; it went through at least 25 printings in its first year alone, and has been translated into Japanese, Dutch, French, Spanish (both Spain and Mexico), and Russian. Haggard parlayed its success into a series of radio talks sponsored by Eastman Kodak that aired from 1931 to 1932, simultaneously serialized in Readers’ Digest and subsequently published in 1932 as The Lame, The Halt, and the Blind: The Vital Rôle of Medicine in the History of Civilization. Haggard continued to publish physiological research in academic journals, but from this point forward he maintained a public persona: he wrote pamphlets for foundations and corporations; delivered addresses to groups ranging from dentists to educators to engineers; and followed up Devils, Drugs, and Doctors with another runaway success, 1934’s The Doctor in History. Haggard also began co-publishing with junior researchers such as Leon Greenberg, just as Yandell Henderson once had with him. He became extremely popular among undergraduates as well – his colleague Mark Keller claimed that students took physiology with Haggard for the candid sex education they couldn’t find anywhere else!
Around this time, at the end of Prohibition, Haggard became interested in the study of alcohol. He and Greenberg published a series of articles in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics entitled “Studies in the absorption, distribution, and elimination of ethyl alcohol,” begun in 1934 and continued a few years later. The topic recalled Haggard’s series in the Journal of Biological Chemistry a decade earlier,” The absorption, distribution, and elimination of ethyl ether”; and just like that early breakthrough, this research on alcohol soon became a significant part of his career. As Mark Keller recalled in an interview for Griffith Edwards’ collection Addictions, these publications “created a great deal of public interest, and resulted in the Laboratory at Yale receiving many questions about alcohol which Haggard realized that his staff, who were physiologists and biochemists, were not able to answer” (60). He founded the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, now the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, in 1940, and hired E.M. Jellinek and his staff (Martin Gross, Anne Roe, Vera Efron, Giorgio Lolli, and Keller) – the core of what would become known as the Center of Alcohol Studies.
Haggard became the Journal’s first editor and contributed articles, editorials, and a book review to its early volumes. Equally significant to the fledgling project was his status at Yale and in the profession. Keller recalls, “He was one of the two most popular professors in the University. And also a very good money raiser. So the University let Haggard be.” Selden Bacon remembered Haggard as “a powerful character in [his] field,” willing and able to stand up to the Yale administration. Within the Center, “there wasn’t any question about Howard W. Haggard being the boss, ever.” He got along well with Bacon due to a shared Ivy League sensibility, but for the most part Haggard’s staff treated him with deference and awe more than camaraderie – especially Jellinek, whose opinion of his powerful patron was equal parts grateful and wary. Haggard valued the scope and originality of Jellinek’s thought, however, and the two men shaped the early trajectory of the Center of Alcohol Studies more than anyone. They collaborated on Alcohol Explored in 1942, organized the Summer School of Alcohol Studies in 1943, and forged a close relationship between the Center and Alcoholics Anonymous (see the next article for more). Haggard’s vision shaped the Journal and the Center, stressing an interdisciplinary approach and an educational mission.
Haggard’s research output slowed by the mid-1940s, though he remained in demand as a speaker. Mark Keller recalls him retiring “first informally, then formally.” Haggard officially left in 1956 and entrusted the Center to Selden Bacon, hoping that the latter’s comfort among the Yale elite might provide political cover. Bacon tried, but after Haggard’s death in 1959 a hostile administration forced the now-vulnerable Center to relocate. Bacon did, however, see the writing on the wall and start searching for a new home. Bacon and Keller negotiated with Rutgers, Brown, and Columbia, finalized a deal with Rutgers in 1961, and set up shop in New Jersey in 1962.
The rest is history. The Center’s continuing work is a key part of Howard Haggard’s impressive legacy. In the words of Selden Bacon, “I think Howard Haggard had an historical perception of questions in the fields of health, education and communication, that was almost basic to what I was to perceive as the main thrust of the Center of Alcohol Studies… he had a broad, positive and intuitively always correct perception of the role of medicine and science and education and knowledge in relation to the whole world of ills and diseases.” Dr. Haggard’s intellectual renown, skillful leadership, and strong vision put the Center and the Journal on the map and continue to shape them to this day.
–Originally published in the October 2015 issue of the CAS Information Services Newsletter