LSU medical unit is expanding here

              A huge new structure is gradually taking shape beside Charity Hospital.
It is a $3,500,000 addition to the Louisiana State University medical school building.
When it is finished, its 100,000 square feet of space will almost double the size of the medical school.
The growth of LSU's medical branch since it was established in 1931 has added greatly to New Orleans' medical reputation.
It was located here so that its students could have the advantages of working and learning in a recognized medical center.
Although the state university itself is In Baton Rouge, New Orleans offered the advantage of Charity's huge research and teaching facilities and the city's own tradition as a noted center of medical study and practice. SEPTEMBER, 1954
So,when the university's med-
ical branch was established, its classrooms were housed in an eight-story building next door to Charity.
The new addition is scheduled  to be ready for the opening of the fall term in September, 1954. It will provide extra classroom,  laboratory and library space, and  there will be a large, new auditorium, wired for television so that future students may watch operations in progress at Charity.        
Research facilities will also be greatly expanded.
Some LSU research—on arteriosclerosis and diagnosing tuberculosis—has been described in other articles in this series.
Among_the other putstanding research programs under way there are:
CANCER: About a million tumors in fruit flies and mice are the subject of a study in the relation of heredity to the development of tumors directed by Dr. Walter J. Burdette, associate professor of surgery. After studying the chromosomes in many generations of fruit flies, Dr. Burdette is now able to predict tumor growth and to increase and decrease tumors through breeding.
ANATOMY: Dr. Charles Mayo Joss, head of the anatomy de-partment, is editing the 26th edi-ion of "Gray's Anatomy," the amed medical textbook. The new edition will appear in 1954. Dr. Goss also revised the 1948 edi-tion, bringing it up to date with modern research results.
TOXEMIA: A study of toxemia, he most important single cause of death associated with preg-nancy, is being conducted by Dr. ¦Toward J. Tatum, member of the obstetrics and gynecology faculty.
EYE EMBRYOLOGY: Dr. Aleta Barber, associate professor of pa-thology, is working on a two-year research program on the development of the human eye. She has written a textbook, the first to be published on this subject in almost 25 years, on the basis of notes collected for 12 years and photographs made of her studies. INTESTINAL OBSTRUCTIONS: Although the deaths from this cause have been reduced from 60 per cent to from 10 to 20 per cent since the turn of the century, it is still a major threat to surgery patients. Dr. Isidore Cohn, Jr., is working on this problem in extensive experiments with dogs, creating intestinal obstructions and studying the effects of the various antiobiotics in combatting the condition.
HEART DISEASE: Heart specialists on the LSU staff are testing drugs to find better ways to treat heart attack sufferers. They are working at present with newly synthesized drugs which may help control abnormal heart rhythms.
Heart attacks are caused by an artery obstruction which restricts the blood flow to a portion of the heart muscle, often causing fatal injury. Abnormal heart rhythms result. The LSU medical researchers are looking for the substances in the injured portions which cause the abnormal rhythms.