William stewart halstead biography of christopher

Ostensibly a biography of William Stewart Halsted (1852–1922), but the main story is the transformation of medical education in America.

Imber (Clinical Surgery/Weill-Cornell School of Medicine) tries valiantly to revivify the elusive Halsted. He was aristocratic and urbane, meticulous in his dress—he sent his shirts to Paris for laundering—and could be cold and imperious. He also had a strange, possibly sexless, marriage, but just what made him tick remains a mystery. Medical education in 19th-century America was haphazard at best, and surgery was often brutal and risky. After attending Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and interning at Bellevue, like other ung men of means, Halsted completed his medical education in europe. His career as a surgeon was off to a brilliant start in New York in the 1880s, but his experiments with cocaine as a local anesthetic led to his addiction to it and later to morphine. Fortunately, his

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How a Cocaine-Addicted Surgeon Changed Medicine Forever

Early in his career, William Halsted 1877VPS removed seven gallstones from a patient. The operation, the first of its kind, was performed on a kitchen table, and the patient, a seventy-year-old woman, was Halsted’s mother.

This tableau is a fair indication of Halsted’s unorthodox approach to medicine. Today, a hundred years after his death, this Columbia alum is remembered for a long list of medical advancements, including innovations in hernia surgery, operating-room hygiene, thyroidectomies, vascular aneurysms, wound healing, and, not least, techniques for the gentle handling of tissues and organs in an age that favored surgical speed. Halsted also perfected the radical mastectomy, extending the lives of breast-cancer patients, and was a pioneer in local anesthesia. Away from the table, he developed two medical mainstays: the patient chart and the residency training program for new doctors.

Born in New York to a

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William Stewart Halsted, M.D.

Madison Park in Baltimore, Maryland — The American Northeast (Mid-Atlantic)

 

1852-1922

 

 

Photographed by Christopher Busta-Peck, March 24, 2008

1. William Stewart Halsted, M.D. Marker

Inscription.

William Stewart Halsted, M.D.. One of America's most influential surgeons. Surgical innovator and teacher. First Johns Hopkins Professor of Surgery. First head of surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital. . This historical marker was erected by Bolton Hill Historic District. It is in Madison Park in Baltimore Maryland

 One of America's most influential surgeons. Surgical innovator and teacher. First Johns Hopkins Professor of Surgery. First head of surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital.
 
Erected by Bolton Hill Historic District.
 
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Education • Science & Medicine. In addition, it is included in the Maryland, Bolton Hill Historic Di