© 2002 Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs
Addiction,
97,
1356–1357
OBITUARY
Blackwell Science, Ltd
Oxford, UK
ADDAddiction
0965-2140© 2002 Society for the Study of Addiction to Alcohol and Other Drugs
97
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Obituary
ObituaryObituary
Oriana Josseau Kalant, 1920–2001: a remarkable scientist, a remarkable woman
Oriana Josseau Kalant died on 21 November 2001, inToronto, Canada, after a long struggle with cancer. Along-time Senior Scientist at the Addiction ResearchFoundation, Toronto, she was 81 years old. Although herwritings were well-known and respected, Oriana Kalantwas not well known personally to many in the addictionresearch community because recurring medical prob-lems over the past several decades had prevented her fromattending most of the scientific meetings. However, thosewho did have the privilege to meet her remember her as avivid and forceful presence.
Oriana was born into an affluent sheep-ranching fam-ily in Punta Arenas, Chile, on the Straits of Magellan in1920. The family moved to Santiago when she was 7years old. Within a short time the family wealth was lostand they were supported thereafter by her mother’s skillas a dressmaker. In keeping with attitudes then prevalentin Latin America Oriana was expected to help run thehousehold, but her mother strongly supported her aspi-rations to an independent career. Oriana excelled in heracademic pursuits and read voraciously in Spanish,French and English. Although at one time she had hopedto become a nun (and a Mother Superior), in her earlyteens she rebelled against what she perceived as thenarrow-mindedness of the nuns, who seemed to care lit-tle about the world beyond their own experiences. Thisearly manifestation of independence of thought andrefusal to bow to authority, as well as an intense need toexplore and take cognizance of the experience of other
cultures, would later re-emerge in much of Oriana’sscholarly writings.
At university she broke more conventions by plungingenthusiastically into mountaineering, skiing, studentpolitics and the arts. She once pawned her wrist-watch inorder to be able to buy a series ticket to hear ClaudioArrau perform the complete set of Beethoven pianosonatas.
Oriana Kalant’s scientific career began in Chile in theearly 1940s. Precluded from studying medicine by thefamily’s financial circumstances, she studied chemistryinstead at the School of Chemistry and Pharmacy at theUniversity of Chile. Upon completing her degree, sheaccepted a staff position in the Institue of Physiology atthe University. Based on her excellent academic record,she was initially awarded a Rockefeller Foundation fel-lowship for graduate work in biochemistry in the UnitedStates, but her receipt of the fellowship was blocked by theregional representative of the Rockefeller Foundation,who believed that most women got married, had babiesand dropped out of research and were therefore ‘poorinvestments’. This experience reinforced her already-growing determination to advocate for women’s rights,especially in science.
However, her professor at the Institute of Physiology,Francisco Hoffman, helped her to obtain support to workin the laboratory of Professor Charles Best in Toronto. Shemet Harold Kalant, her future husband, while workingon her MSc at the Banting Institute. They were married in1948 and returned to Chile, which Oriana was obliged todo for 2 years as repayment for the support she hadreceived to study in Toronto. During that time she becamethe first woman to lecture to the medical students in theUniversity of Chile. In 1950 the Kalants returned toToronto, where they both completed graduate studies.Immediately after earning their doctorates, in 1955, theyembarked on postdoctoral fellowships at Cambridge. Itwas there that Oriana first experienced the severedepression that would restrict her scientific activities andfrom which she would recover only after many years oftreatment.
In the early 1960s, back in Toronto, although stillhandicapped by the residual symptoms of depression,Oriana was asked to undertake a literature review onamphetamine abuse for the provincial government ofOntario. The report she produced was of such scope and
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Addiction,
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scholarship that it was published as a monograph by theAddiction Research Foundation in 1966. The impact ofthis review, on the conceptualization of amphetamine-like agents as potentially addictive drugs, was significant.For example, a leading textbook of pharmacology pub-lished in 1965 was hesitant to declare that amphet-amine-like drugs were likely to lead to abuse andaddiction, but the 1970 edition of that same textbookstated clearly that amphetamines could lead to addiction,and also noted that the more benign views of those drugshad arisen because insufficient attention had been paid tothe post-World War II amphetamine epidemic in Japan.The shift in thinking had been given considerable impetusby Oriana Kalant’s review.
The review of amphetamines led to other ARF assign-ments that established Oriana Kalant’s reputation as acritical and unbiased reviewer. In the process of her workshe built what was, at the time, the most complete archiveon cannabis and cocaine in North America. This archivewas used as a major resource for the reports of the influ-ential LeDain Commission in Canada, the ARF-WHOWorking Group on Cannabis (1981) and a US Institute ofMedicine Report in 1982. She published a number ofreviews of older classic works on psychoactive drugs,such as Moreau’s
Du Hachisch et de l’Alienation Mentale
and the
Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of1893–1894
, bringing these works to the attention of themodern day scientific community.
In the early 1970s, at the height of international con-cern about the rapid spread of marijuana use among theyoung, Oriana wrote a series of lucid analyses of the prob-lem of differentiating between factual knowledge, valuejudgements and political feasibility in the formulation ofdrug policy. These analyses were intended originally forgovernments and educators but, with Harold Kalant asco-author, she reworked them into a small but influentialpaperback,
Drugs, Society, and Personal Choice
, which hasbeen reprinted in several languages.
Oriana recognized early on that most of the researchon drug problems focused primarily on the behaviour andproblems of men, and that these problems are not neces-
sarily the same in women. This awareness, and her inter-est in women’s issues, led her to undertake the editorshipof a multi-authored volume,
Alcohol and Drug Problems inWomen
. Her broad and deep scholarship in relation toamphetamines allowed her to see important similaritiesin the emerging cocaine epidemic, which those unfamil-iar with previous epidemics of cocaine addiction tendedto see as relatively benign. Anticipating a need to lookback at previous experience with cocaine, Orianaundertook to translate into English and edit an all but for-gotten 1925 classic, Maier’s
Der Kokainismus
. This publi-cation received the
British Journal of Addiction
prize for thebest book reviewed in the journal during 1988.
Much of her work, which recognized the role ofhistory, culture and social values in shaping how asociety defines and reacts to drug problems, was under-taken while Oriana was confined to her home by amounting list of medical problems. These problems weremet, as she had met other challenges in her life as awoman in science, with indomitable spirit, great disci-pline and a wry sense of humour. Despite these continu-ing problems, she finally triumphed over her depressionand her later years, enriched by strong friendships,enthusiasm for her newly discovered ability at non-scientific writing and a deep love of gardens and of thenatural beauty of Ontario’s landscapes, were among thehappiest of her life.
Oriana is survived by her husband, Dr Harold Kalant,Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology in the University ofToronto, and by her younger brother Fernando Josseau, anoted Chilean playwright and author.
JEROME H. JAF FE
University of Maryland School of MedicineDepartment of Psychiatry
Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse701 West Pratt Street
Baltimore, MD 21201USA
E-mail: [email protected]
