Fred Plum (January 10, 1924 – June 11, 2010) was an American

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

who developed the terms "

persistent vegetative state A persistent vegetative state (PVS) or post-coma unresponsiveness (PCU) is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. After four weeks in a vegetative stat ...

" and "

locked-in syndrome Locked-in syndrome (LIS), also known as pseudocoma, is a condition in which a patient is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for vertical eye movements and bli ...

" as part of his continuing research on consciousness and

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

s and care of the comatose.

Biography

Plum was born in

Atlantic City, New Jersey Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497.

on January 10, 1924. His father, Frederick Plum, a champion trapshooter and owner of a chain of drug stores, died when Plum was eight years old. Plum chose to pursue a career in neurology after his sister died of

poliomyelitis Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sym ...

while he was a teenager. He earned his undergraduate degree from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 1944 and was awarded his medical degree from the Cornell University School of Medicine in 1947. His first published paper was co-written with future Nobel Prize winner Dr.

Vincent du Vigneaud Vincent du Vigneaud (May 18, 1901 – December 11, 1978) was an American biochemist. He was recipient of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypep ...

.Altman, Lawrence K
"Fred Plum, Neurologist Who Helped Coin ‘Persistent Vegetative State,’ Dies at 86"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', June 11, 2010. Accessed June 13, 2010. Plum worked in the US Naval Hospital in St. Albans, Queens, NY during the Korean War. He was named head of the department of neurology at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 1953, making him the youngest chief in the institution's history. There he created a respiratory center to help treat patients who were unconscious or comatose, including those who had suffered drug overdoses. Using the limited clinical tools available at the time, Plum developed guidelines to help determine how to best treat comatose patients, writing ''The Diagnosis of Stupor and Coma'' in 1966, together with his longtime research partner Dr. Jerome B. Posner, a work described by neurologist Marcus E. Raichle as having "put stupor and coma on the map as an important consideration in neurology". Working together with

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

neurosurgeon Dr.

Bryan Jennett William Bryan Jennett (1 March 1926 – 26 January 2008) was a British neurosurgeon, a faculty member at the University of Glasgow Medical School, and the first full-time chair of neurosurgery in Scotland. He was the co-developer of the assess ...

, Plum developed the

Glasgow Coma Scale The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is a clinical scale used to reliably measure a person's level of consciousness after a brain injury. The GCS assesses a person based on their ability to perform eye movements, speak, and move their body. These thre ...

, as an objective way of documenting and monitoring the conscious state of a patient based on eye motion, and motor and verbal responses. Together with Jennett, he coined the term "

" to describe patients with severe brain damage who were in a coma, and had the appearance of being conscious without any detectable awareness. Plum testified as an expert witness in the 1975

Karen Ann Quinlan case ''In re Quinlan'' (70 N.J. 10, 355 A.2d 647 (NJ 1976)) was a landmark 1975 court case in the United States in which the parents of a woman who was kept alive by artificial means were allowed to order her removal from artificial ventilation. Kare ...

. Plum later coined the term "

" to describe a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate due to complete paralysis of most voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. Plum advocated that people should prepare an

advance health care directive Advance commonly refers to: *Advance, an offensive push in sports, games, thoughts, military combat, or sexual or romantic pursuits *Advance payment for goods or services *Advance against royalties, a payment to be offset against future royalty pay ...

, or "living will", to help guide their treatment in the event that they are not able to make medical care decisions due to illness or incapacity. Plum treated

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

before his death in 1994, and credited Nixon's living will with allowing the former President to control his course of treatment with authority over how decisions were made at the end of his life.Staff
"WITH LIVING WILL, NIXON HAD LAST WORD ON FATE"
''

Daily News (Los Angeles) The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado-based Digital First Media. The offices of the ''Dai ...

'', April 24, 1994. Accessed June 13, 2010.

Death

A resident of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, Plum died at age 86 in a hospice there on June 11, 2010, due to

primary progressive aphasia Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a type of neurological syndrome in which language capabilities slowly and progressively become impaired. As with other types of aphasia, the symptoms that accompany PPA depend on what parts of the left hemisphe ...

, a form of dementia similar to

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. He was survived by his second wife, Susan, as well as by a daughter, Carol, and two sons, Michael and Christopher (married to Maureen B. Cavanaugh), from his first marriage to Jean Houston (died in 1999).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plum, Fred 1924 births 2010 deaths American neurologists Weill Cornell Medical College alumni Deaths from primary progressive aphasia Deaths from dementia in New York (state) Dartmouth College alumni People from Atlantic City, New Jersey People from Manhattan Coma Scientists from New York (state) Members of the National Academy of Medicine