Raymond Brown

Raymond Keith Brown, MD Raymond Keith Brown, MD, of Charlottesville, died on Saturday, April 27, 2013, after a brief illness. He was born on August 31, 1922, in Warrenton, Virginia, the third child of Raymond Keith Brown Sr. and Mary Hamilton James. He graduated in 1943, from Randolph-Macon College, intending to pursue a career in journalism or academia. He taught freshman English at RMC from 1946 until 1947. The intervention of World War II changed his direction. After midshipman school in Chicago he was assigned to the attack transport USS Warren, eventually gaining a spot promotion to full Lieutenant. While on the Warren, he assisted in the sick bay and discovered his passion for medicine. Dr. Brown graduated from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1951. He married Patricia Caffee, a psychiatric social worker, and they settled on Virginia's Eastern Shore. His office of general medicine in Eastville was the first on the Shore with a racially integrated waiting room, serving many low-income residents and migrant farmworkers. He and Pat raised their three children at the Old Rectory, a historic home just outside of Eastville that they bought in 1959 and restored. It was a lively household, with numerous pets and animals, frequent social events, creative projects, and guests who sometimes stayed on for months or years. Dr. Brown enjoyed collecting antiques, bottles and Native American artifacts, and discovered the foundation of an 18th century bog iron furnace on Indian Town Creek. His medical interests expanded to the treatment of allergies, including bacterial sensitivities, which led him to the immunological work of Dr. William Coley from the early 1900's. Dr. Brown began using bacterial vaccines to treat patients with advanced cancer and severe rheumatoid arthritis, and his documented successes led to a second medical career. In 1972, he obtained a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Hospital, and in 1973, he moved to New York, and spent several years working with Lewis Thomas and Lloyd Old in the Director's Office at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital. After Sloan-Kettering, Dr. Brown served as a consultant to a number of foundations researching alternative cancer therapies, and began a small practice treating AIDS and cancer patients. His book AIDS, Cancer and the Medical Establishment was published in 1986, and in the later stages of his career he explored the use of amino acids as mitochondrial stimulants, obtaining a patent on a nutritional supplement he named SCAN. He lived in New York for 35 years, and enjoyed a wide range of interesting acquaintances and patients, including Gloria Swanson and the Russian dancer, Lucia Davidova, many of whom became lifelong friends. In 2008, he moved to Charlottesville. Dr. Brown was preceded in death by his wife, Pat; his brother, Everett; and his sister, Frances. He is survived by his three children and their spouses, David and his wife, Jean Hiatt, of Charlottesville, Keith and his wife, Tyco Zeletineanu, of Telluride, Colorado, and Shannon and her husband, Mark Weingartner, of Woodland Hills, California; and his grandsons, Gregory and his wife, Emma Cook, of Lafayette, Colorado, and Evans, who begins medical school in Minneapolis this fall. A graveside memorial service will be held in Warrenton at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Randolph Macon College, P.O. Box 5005, Ashland, VA 23005. Friends may sign the guest register at teaguefuneralhome.com.

This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.