By Amby Burfoot

 

PUBLISHED 11/30/2004

Melvin Hershkowitz has one of those names you never forget, and he wrote one of the all-time great running essays about a fearsome runner malady. The name Hershkowitz came back to me when I began looking into the alleged perils of cold-weather running. His essay appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the January 20, 1977, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, which has a long history of publishing creative letters from M.D.s who are frustrated writers. Dr. Hershkowitz began in the classic recitative of medical case studies: "A 53-year-old physician, nonsmoker, light drinker (one highball before dinner), 1.78 meters tall, weighing 70 kg, with no illnesses, performing strenuous physical exercise for many years, began a customary 30-minute jog in a local park at 7 p.m. on December 3, 1976."