In 1928, Dr. Paul Dudley White ( Figure 1 ) received a travel fellowship of $2,500 to write a textbook on heart disease. He and his wife sailed for England, spending 10 days there, and then went to Paris for about a month. From there, they took the Orient Express to Vienna, where they planned to spend the winter.
Dr. White had filled a trunk with “12,000 reference cards, 30 or 40 books in English, French and German, reprints, and ‘skates and a baseball bat and ball.’ ” Included were notes on 4,000 cardiac patients he had treated.
Vienna was unusually cold. Dr. White had heard of a villa on the island of Capri from a former Harvard-trained physician. He checked it out and learned that Casa Surya ( Figure 2 ) was available.
The villa had 5 rooms and a bath ( Figure 3 ). The rent was $80 per month. Two maids cost $16 per month extra. It belonged to 2 Dutch artists, 1 a former pupil of Rodin’s “now living as a peasant and teaching English to the children of Anacapri.”
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