- Email: [email protected]
Our surgical heritage
Our D. P. HALL,
M.D.,
Surgical
Heritage
Surgical Department, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky
STATES
UNITED
OF AMERICA
JAMES MARIONSIMS
J
AMES MARION SIMS was born in Lancaster, South CaroIina, in 1813. He attended CharIeston MedicaI SchooI for one session after which he became a student at Jefferson MedicaI CoIIege in PhiIadeIphia, from which he was graduated in 1835. FoIIowing a tour of duty with the Army Medical Service during the SeminoIe War, he became a resident of Montgomery, AIabama, where he estabIished a private hospita1. His briIIiance as a surgeon was soon recognized. During this period he attended a woman who was thrown from a horse and suffered a dispIacement of the uterus. On examination of the vagina with the patient on her knees he noted that the uterus repIaced itseIf because of the rush of air into the vagina. He immediateIy bent a Iarge tabIe spoon to use as a specuIum, and thus the first Sims’s specuIum was born. Sims operated upon the sIave, Anarcha, twenty-nine times with just as many failures. However in May 1845 he used his improvised specuIum and siIver wire sutures for the first time. The world now knows that it was a American Journal of Surgery.
Volume
102. Septmd~er
1p51
486
Our
SurgicaI
Heritage
complete success, and the patient suffered from the vesicovagina1 listula no more. In I 853, wishing to limit his work to gynecology, he moved to New York where he established the State HospitaI for Women, From 1861 to 1865 he visited Europe demonstrating his operation for vesicovaginal fistula before Velpeau, Nealton and Civiale in Paris. While in France he operated upon the Empress Eugenic and was physician to the beauteous Lady Hamilton. He was one of the few surgeons known who carried on a surgical practice in both Europe and America, Iiving alternately in Europe and America. During the France-Prussian War he became surgeon-in-chief of the AngloAmerican ambulance corps and served with the French army. He was decorated Commander of the Legion of Honor. This man of many sides successfully operated upon a patient with an abscess of the Iiver and successfully removed the upper and lower jaw of a patient. He also performed one of the early operations on the gallbIadder, cholecystotomy (1878), and sutured intestinal wounds (1881). His best known work was that published in 1856 entitIed, “Clinical Notes one has but to Iook on Uterine Surgery.” To list this man’s contributions around any modern hospital. James Marion Sims died in 1883 as a brilliant but stormy petrel of surgery. He had “the gifts of generosity, a fertiIe mind and a deep understanding.”
487
Our Surgical
JOHN
DAVIDSON
Heritage
GODMAN
JOHN DAVIDSONGODMAN,who was to pubIish the first journaI of medicine west of the Alleghenies and the Mississippi ValIey, was born at AnnapoIis, MaryIand, December 20, 1794. His father was Captain Samuel Godman, an officer in the American Army during the war for independence. SamueI D. Gross said that “the Iife of Godman was beset by poverty which IiteraIIy persued him from the cradle to the grave.” Before he was two years old he was motherIess, and before he had reached his fifth year he was fatherless and almost friendIess. FoIIowing the death of his mother, he Iived with an aunt at WiImington, Delaware, after the death of his aunt he drifted to Baltimore, MaryIand where his sister Iived. Here he became a pupi in an English schoo1 and was taught by Mr. McCreery. In 1812, during our second war for independence with Great Britain, Godman became a saiIor under the command of Commodore Burney and was in the service during the bombardment of Fort McHenry during which our nationa anthem was written. In 1815 he was invited by Dr. WiIIiam N. Luckey of Elizabethtown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to become his house pupi in the study of medicine. He applied himseIf so assiduousIy that Dr. Luckey observed that one wouId have thought him to have been a graduate of Edinburgh. FoIlowing his apprenticeship with Dr. Luckey, he returned to Baltimore and was tutored by Dr. John B. Davidge, one of the founders of the University of MaryIand and the professor in charge of the Department of Anatomy and Surgery. Godman attended the sessions of 1816-1817 and 1817-1818 of the University of Maryland, and was graduated in 1818 with
Our
Surgical
Heritage
a M.D. degree. He received a prize medal from the University of Maryland for the best Latin thesis. After receiving his degree he began his practice in New Holland, Maryland, a smaI1 village on the banks of the Susquehanna River but remained here onIy a few months after which he moved to a village on the banks of the Patapsco River. In 1821 Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, Ohio was looking for men of abilit! to complete the organization of the newly estabhshed Medical College of Ohio and he offered the professorship of surgery to John D. Godman. He accepted this professorship on October 6, 1821, married the daughter of the famous Philadelphia artist Rembrandt Peale, and left the same da) for Cincinnati to assume his professoria1 duties. As in all other schools, there is and probably aIways will be differences of opinion in medical schools. It was due to an early squabbIe in the Medical College of Ohio that Dr. Godman resigned, but he remained in Cincinnati to found and pubhsh @larch, 1822) the first medical journal west of the Alleghenies and in the Mississippi VaIIey, The Western Quarterly Reporter. At the termination of six publications the work was discontinued and Dr. Godman left Cincinnati for PhiIadelphia. Dr. Godman said of his journey to Philadelphia, “the whole trip has been productive of nothing worse than some hoarseness to my wife, and a galloping consumption of my bank notes.” In 1823 Godman became the possessor of the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, an institution which was patterned after the Great Windmill Street SchooI of Anatomy presided over by the Hunters, Hewon and Cruikshank. The schooI became an instant success under his Ieadership. He gave three courses a year in surgical anatomy and the popularity of it is shown by the average attendance of seventy students, which sho\ved that there was much need at the time for the teaching of surgical anatomy. His methods of teaching anatomy were entirely analytical, and he performed all his dissections in the presence of the class to demonstrate the integral parts. In 1826 Rutgers Medical College was organized and John D. Godman was chosen as professor of surgical anatomy, but he resigned his professorship after one year because of III heahh. He edited (1824) Sir Astlev Cooper’s book, Dislocations and Fractures. In 1824 he translated Scarpa on the Bones from the Latin. The same year he published his book, Anawhich compromised descriptions of the various tomical Investigations, fasciae of the human body. In 1825 he published a treatise of eighty-six pages titIed “Contributions to PhysioIogical and Pathological Anatomy.” Dr. Godman’s contributions, both as an educator and surgical anatomist, deserve a niche in the history of American surgery. He died of tuberculosis at his home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1830 in his thirtysixth year. “Courage of the spirit is more then courage of the body.”
Our SurgicaI
Heritage
EUROPE
JOHANN
FRIEDRICH
VON ESMARCH
JOHANNFRIEDRICH VONESMARCHwas born in Tonning, SchIeswig-Holstein, Germany. He became a student of Stromeyer and Langenbeck and studied medicine at the Universities of KieI and GFttingen, after which he qualified as a surgeon in 1848. He had extensive experience as a military surgeon serving in severa campaigns notabIy those of 1848 to 1850, 1864 to 1866, and from 1870 to 1871. In 1854 he was eIected Professor of Surgery at the University of KieI, and it was in this period that he became a strong advocate of the new antiseptic surgery as promuIgated by Lister. He thoroughIy taught his students the treatment of battIefieId wounds. His book entitIed, “BuIIet Wounds,” shouId be a must on the reading Iist of al1 who are at present on active duty with the Armed Forces. In 1875 he pubIished “First Aid to the Injured,” which has become a very we11 known book and has been transIated into severa Ianguages. In 1872 he married Princess Henriette von SchIeswig-HoIstein and thus was an uncIe of Emperor WiIIiam II of Germany. He wiI1 be remembered most for the Esmarch rubber bandage and aIso for his first aid bandage to be used on the battIefieId. He is known to many as the founder of the “Samariterwesen” Organization for military nursing in Germany. He died in Igo at the age of eighty-five years and has been denominated the “Ambroise Pare of Germany.” “Large was his bounty, and his sou1 sincere.” 490
M.D.,
Surgical
Heritage
Surgical Department, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky
STATES
UNITED
OF AMERICA
JAMES MARIONSIMS
J
AMES MARION SIMS was born in Lancaster, South CaroIina, in 1813. He attended CharIeston MedicaI SchooI for one session after which he became a student at Jefferson MedicaI CoIIege in PhiIadeIphia, from which he was graduated in 1835. FoIIowing a tour of duty with the Army Medical Service during the SeminoIe War, he became a resident of Montgomery, AIabama, where he estabIished a private hospita1. His briIIiance as a surgeon was soon recognized. During this period he attended a woman who was thrown from a horse and suffered a dispIacement of the uterus. On examination of the vagina with the patient on her knees he noted that the uterus repIaced itseIf because of the rush of air into the vagina. He immediateIy bent a Iarge tabIe spoon to use as a specuIum, and thus the first Sims’s specuIum was born. Sims operated upon the sIave, Anarcha, twenty-nine times with just as many failures. However in May 1845 he used his improvised specuIum and siIver wire sutures for the first time. The world now knows that it was a American Journal of Surgery.
Volume
102. Septmd~er
1p51
486
Our
SurgicaI
Heritage
complete success, and the patient suffered from the vesicovagina1 listula no more. In I 853, wishing to limit his work to gynecology, he moved to New York where he established the State HospitaI for Women, From 1861 to 1865 he visited Europe demonstrating his operation for vesicovaginal fistula before Velpeau, Nealton and Civiale in Paris. While in France he operated upon the Empress Eugenic and was physician to the beauteous Lady Hamilton. He was one of the few surgeons known who carried on a surgical practice in both Europe and America, Iiving alternately in Europe and America. During the France-Prussian War he became surgeon-in-chief of the AngloAmerican ambulance corps and served with the French army. He was decorated Commander of the Legion of Honor. This man of many sides successfully operated upon a patient with an abscess of the Iiver and successfully removed the upper and lower jaw of a patient. He also performed one of the early operations on the gallbIadder, cholecystotomy (1878), and sutured intestinal wounds (1881). His best known work was that published in 1856 entitIed, “Clinical Notes one has but to Iook on Uterine Surgery.” To list this man’s contributions around any modern hospital. James Marion Sims died in 1883 as a brilliant but stormy petrel of surgery. He had “the gifts of generosity, a fertiIe mind and a deep understanding.”
487
Our Surgical
JOHN
DAVIDSON
Heritage
GODMAN
JOHN DAVIDSONGODMAN,who was to pubIish the first journaI of medicine west of the Alleghenies and the Mississippi ValIey, was born at AnnapoIis, MaryIand, December 20, 1794. His father was Captain Samuel Godman, an officer in the American Army during the war for independence. SamueI D. Gross said that “the Iife of Godman was beset by poverty which IiteraIIy persued him from the cradle to the grave.” Before he was two years old he was motherIess, and before he had reached his fifth year he was fatherless and almost friendIess. FoIIowing the death of his mother, he Iived with an aunt at WiImington, Delaware, after the death of his aunt he drifted to Baltimore, MaryIand where his sister Iived. Here he became a pupi in an English schoo1 and was taught by Mr. McCreery. In 1812, during our second war for independence with Great Britain, Godman became a saiIor under the command of Commodore Burney and was in the service during the bombardment of Fort McHenry during which our nationa anthem was written. In 1815 he was invited by Dr. WiIIiam N. Luckey of Elizabethtown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to become his house pupi in the study of medicine. He applied himseIf so assiduousIy that Dr. Luckey observed that one wouId have thought him to have been a graduate of Edinburgh. FoIlowing his apprenticeship with Dr. Luckey, he returned to Baltimore and was tutored by Dr. John B. Davidge, one of the founders of the University of MaryIand and the professor in charge of the Department of Anatomy and Surgery. Godman attended the sessions of 1816-1817 and 1817-1818 of the University of Maryland, and was graduated in 1818 with
Our
Surgical
Heritage
a M.D. degree. He received a prize medal from the University of Maryland for the best Latin thesis. After receiving his degree he began his practice in New Holland, Maryland, a smaI1 village on the banks of the Susquehanna River but remained here onIy a few months after which he moved to a village on the banks of the Patapsco River. In 1821 Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, Ohio was looking for men of abilit! to complete the organization of the newly estabhshed Medical College of Ohio and he offered the professorship of surgery to John D. Godman. He accepted this professorship on October 6, 1821, married the daughter of the famous Philadelphia artist Rembrandt Peale, and left the same da) for Cincinnati to assume his professoria1 duties. As in all other schools, there is and probably aIways will be differences of opinion in medical schools. It was due to an early squabbIe in the Medical College of Ohio that Dr. Godman resigned, but he remained in Cincinnati to found and pubhsh @larch, 1822) the first medical journal west of the Alleghenies and in the Mississippi VaIIey, The Western Quarterly Reporter. At the termination of six publications the work was discontinued and Dr. Godman left Cincinnati for PhiIadelphia. Dr. Godman said of his journey to Philadelphia, “the whole trip has been productive of nothing worse than some hoarseness to my wife, and a galloping consumption of my bank notes.” In 1823 Godman became the possessor of the Philadelphia School of Anatomy, an institution which was patterned after the Great Windmill Street SchooI of Anatomy presided over by the Hunters, Hewon and Cruikshank. The schooI became an instant success under his Ieadership. He gave three courses a year in surgical anatomy and the popularity of it is shown by the average attendance of seventy students, which sho\ved that there was much need at the time for the teaching of surgical anatomy. His methods of teaching anatomy were entirely analytical, and he performed all his dissections in the presence of the class to demonstrate the integral parts. In 1826 Rutgers Medical College was organized and John D. Godman was chosen as professor of surgical anatomy, but he resigned his professorship after one year because of III heahh. He edited (1824) Sir Astlev Cooper’s book, Dislocations and Fractures. In 1824 he translated Scarpa on the Bones from the Latin. The same year he published his book, Anawhich compromised descriptions of the various tomical Investigations, fasciae of the human body. In 1825 he published a treatise of eighty-six pages titIed “Contributions to PhysioIogical and Pathological Anatomy.” Dr. Godman’s contributions, both as an educator and surgical anatomist, deserve a niche in the history of American surgery. He died of tuberculosis at his home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1830 in his thirtysixth year. “Courage of the spirit is more then courage of the body.”
Our SurgicaI
Heritage
EUROPE
JOHANN
FRIEDRICH
VON ESMARCH
JOHANNFRIEDRICH VONESMARCHwas born in Tonning, SchIeswig-Holstein, Germany. He became a student of Stromeyer and Langenbeck and studied medicine at the Universities of KieI and GFttingen, after which he qualified as a surgeon in 1848. He had extensive experience as a military surgeon serving in severa campaigns notabIy those of 1848 to 1850, 1864 to 1866, and from 1870 to 1871. In 1854 he was eIected Professor of Surgery at the University of KieI, and it was in this period that he became a strong advocate of the new antiseptic surgery as promuIgated by Lister. He thoroughIy taught his students the treatment of battIefieId wounds. His book entitIed, “BuIIet Wounds,” shouId be a must on the reading Iist of al1 who are at present on active duty with the Armed Forces. In 1875 he pubIished “First Aid to the Injured,” which has become a very we11 known book and has been transIated into severa Ianguages. In 1872 he married Princess Henriette von SchIeswig-HoIstein and thus was an uncIe of Emperor WiIIiam II of Germany. He wiI1 be remembered most for the Esmarch rubber bandage and aIso for his first aid bandage to be used on the battIefieId. He is known to many as the founder of the “Samariterwesen” Organization for military nursing in Germany. He died in Igo at the age of eighty-five years and has been denominated the “Ambroise Pare of Germany.” “Large was his bounty, and his sou1 sincere.” 490