Dr. Edgar F. Mauer; Headed L.A., State Heart Assns.

Dr. Edgar F. Mauer, former president of the Los Angeles and California Heart Assns. who was immortalized by Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith as “Dr. Reap,” has died. He was 84.

Mauer died Monday night at his home on Mt. Washington, his wife said Tuesday. She said Mauer had suffered from Parkinson’s disease.

Smith frequently wrote about Mauer, his neighbor and personal physician for more than 30 years, but never used his real name until the internist retired in the mid-1980s. Smith referred to him fondly as “Dr. Reap,” he explained Wednesday, to twit the doctor about his inevitable association with the Grim Reaper. Smith said Mauer was always amused by the nickname.

Widely respected as a diagnostician, Mauer was on the teaching staff of USC Medical School for nearly half a century. He served as president of the Los Angeles Heart Assn. in the early 1950s and later headed the state heart organization.

In one of his more humorous “diagnoses,” Mauer once wrote to Science magazine with his explanation for flying saucers, a frequent source of public debate in the 1950s. Flying saucers, he said, were probably only “muscae volitantes or scintillating scotoma--or spots before the eyes, caused by nearsightedness, upset stomach or migraine headaches.”

After Mauer’s retirement, Smith duly reported, the doctor happily sat “up in his aerie on top of the hill reading Mencken, Siegfried Sassoon, Norman Douglas and Max Beerbohm.”

Mauer is survived by his wife, Alison; two sons, Michael and Patrick, two sisters and two grandsons.

Services will be private. The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to the library of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn.