Dr. Harold Brown, 78, Collector, Specialist In Aviation Medicine

Dr. J. Harold Brown's interest in aviation medicine and the drug DMSO led him around the world.

An avid collector, a horse-racing enthusiast and racehorse owner, a writer, lecturer and sometimes television commentator, Dr. Brown, 78, kept a full schedule until he became ill about a month ago. In fact, he didn't close his Seattle office, where he had been a practicing physician for more than 40 years, until Nov. 1.

"Right now we are supposed to be in Bangkok," said his wife, Lorna Brown.

Dr. Brown died Sunday in a Seattle hospital.

The couple met shortly after World War II. Already a physician, he had enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served as a squadron flight surgeon, earning four battle stars in the European Theater. When he was discharged in 1946, with the rank of major, Dr. Brown returned to Cle Elum, the Kittitas County town where he had established a small practice before the war.

But on a trip to Seattle, he met his future bride, who persuaded him to move. "I said I wouldn't live in Cle Elum, and you know he never stopped thanking me for it," Mrs. Brown recalled. "We were married in 1948."

Building on his experience during the war, Dr. Brown became an expert in aviation medicine, the specialty of preventing and treating illness and injuries to crews and passengers during flight.

He was a member and for a time president of the Aerospace Medical Association and of the Civil Aviation Medical Association as

well as other medical associations.

His expertise led to consulting work for Scandinavian Airlines, Finnair and other airlines, which in turn took him and Mrs. Brown around the world.

Meanwhile, his research with Dr. Stan Jacobs of Portland on the drug DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide, led to other lecture appearances around the world. The drug, whose only approved use in humans is for certain bladder ailments, could also be used effectively for muscular and skeletal injuries, Dr. Brown argued.

Lorna Brown recalled the couple's travels were a boon to her husband's interest in collecting. He had wide interests and collected everything from stamps to pre-Columbian art, she said.

Dr. Brown also was a racing enthusiast and owned several Longacres-based racehorses, including Jason Harbro, a personal favorite that shared its name with a column Dr. Brown wrote for the Aerospace Medical Journal - "From the Casebook of Jason Harbro, M.D." The fictitious name was an amalgam of Dr. Brown's full name, Mrs. Brown said.

Besides his wife, Dr. Brown is survived by two sons, Jay Hornbeak of Bellevue and Anthony Brown of San Francisco; two grandsons, Jay and Anthony Hornbeak, both of Bellevue, and a brother, Horton Brown of San Diego. A service was held here yesterday.