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Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery
Here is the first biography to appear in fifty years of Harvey Cushing, a giant of American medicine and without doubt the greatest figure in the history of brain surgery.
Drawing on new collections of intimate personal and family papers, diaries and patient records, Michael Bliss captures Cushing's professional and his personal life in remarkable detail. Bliss paints an engaging portrait of a man of ambition, boundless, driving energy, a fanatical work ethic, a penchant for self-promotion and ruthlessness, more than a touch of egotism and meanness, and an enormous appetite for life. Equally important, Bliss traces the rise of American surgery as seen through the eyes of one of its pioneers. The book describes how Cushing, working in the early years of the 20th century, developed remarkable new techniques that let surgeons open the skull, expose the brain, and attack tumors--all with a much higher rate of success than previously known. Indeed, Cushing made the miraculous in surgery an everyday event, as he and his team compiled an astonishing record of treating more than two thousand tumors.
This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure, capturing the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.
Drawing on new collections of intimate personal and family papers, diaries and patient records, Michael Bliss captures Cushing's professional and his personal life in remarkable detail. Bliss paints an engaging portrait of a man of ambition, boundless, driving energy, a fanatical work ethic, a penchant for self-promotion and ruthlessness, more than a touch of egotism and meanness, and an enormous appetite for life. Equally important, Bliss traces the rise of American surgery as seen through the eyes of one of its pioneers. The book describes how Cushing, working in the early years of the 20th century, developed remarkable new techniques that let surgeons open the skull, expose the brain, and attack tumors--all with a much higher rate of success than previously known. Indeed, Cushing made the miraculous in surgery an everyday event, as he and his team compiled an astonishing record of treating more than two thousand tumors.
This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure, capturing the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Michael Bliss
41 books22 followersMichael Bliss was a Canadian historian. He was an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 24, 2019
When one reads a biography, the most frequent impression is often one of awe. When one reads a biography about someone who's life's work was the same as the readers, it moves one in all so many ways. When one reads a biography of a giant of a man, an inventor, a creator, in one's field, it is overwhelming.
This book, " Harvey Cushing, A Life in Surgery" by Michael Bliss, is such a book. Dr. Cushing, the father of neurosurgery, at the incunabula, multiple operations on awake patients and the insensate brain, under local ( cocaine) anesthetic+/or ether anesthesia.
What is and who are in this book? Dr, Cushing, born in 1869, a Yale man , Harvard Medical School. His career included Johns Hopkins and Peter Bent Brigham Hospitals, ( both c appellations after their philanthropic merchants from Baltimore and Boston respectively- the latter peddling oysters from a cart and amassed millions in real estate).
William Halsted, George Crile, ( the Cleveland Clinic), William Osler, Dr. Walter Dandy, the Mayos, father and two sons, Cushing knew them all. The young Frenchman, Alexis Carrel doing experimental vascular repairs in the lab, amazing both Cushing and Crile. The advent of the X-Ray, by the German, Wilhelm Rontgen, and the outpatient department at the hospital where Cushing was, one of the 1st to have it in the country. Blood transfusions in pricipio by Dr, Crile and his team. The homemade inflatable blood pressure cuff which Cushing found during a trip to Europe, specifically, in Parvia, Italy- the Scipione Riva-Rocci. W.T Bovie, with the invention of the cautery, Cushing and all surgeons welcoming the increased facility with the improved visual field.
In 1898, soldiers returning from the War c Spain over Cuba, many ill c typhoid fever, so ill that Cushing and others literally carried 40 soldiers off the train in Baltimore, taken to Johns Hopkins for treatment under the aegis of Dr. William Osler and his medical team.
Cushing, already famous for his triad of vast experience c ganglionectomy for trigeminal neuralgia, surgery for brain tumors, and , of particular interest, surgery of the pituitary gland.
In August, 1914, WWI broke out. Germany and Austria-Hungary against Russia, France, and the British Empire. At the behest of the current and past US Ambassadors to France, a serious medical hospital, 450 beds, " Ambulance Amercaine" was started in Neuilly-Sur-Seine. George Crile was asked to serve, and Cushing thereafter. There the doctors saw and treated the ravages of the battle of the Marne. April25, 1915, Ypres, with the use of chlorine gas, the 1st use of poison gas in modern warfare. Alexis Carrel, and Henry Dakin ( Dakin's solution), irrigating wounds with bactericidal fluids, one of the most significant and controversial innovations in wartime medicine.
On May 5th, 1915, Cushing was taken to get a glimpse of the Ypres battle field, to see the remains of the city. Big gun were firing nearby. He learned later that Jack McCrae, a combatant c the Canadian artillery was somewhere out there, in the "Second Ypres". He had scribbled some lines in memory of a comrade fallen in the Flanders field, later to become the most famous poem of the war.
Cushing was scheduled to return to America on May 8th, 1915. On May 7th, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk. The following day, their boat went through the debris field in the Atlantic for over one hour.
In February, 1917, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. March 21, 1917, the Germans attacked Flanders. Giant German cannons shelled the capital from 75 miles away, firing the first projectiles ever to enter the stratosphere. April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany. At age 49, Dr, Cushing was going back to war," somewhere in Flanders field".Volunteers lined up at Harvard Medical School. On May 6th, a service was held at St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston, " the 'banner' of course, was star spangled, a special American flag...It was the first Boston flag to be sent to a battlefield in Europe. Women wept during the singing of 'The Star Spangled Banner' and ' The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.
July 4th, 1917 , General 'Black Jack" Pershing( Pershing Square) and the 1st Battalion of American soldiers arrives in Paris. ' Vive L'Amerique!
On July 22nd, Major Cushing was at No.46 Casualty Clearance Station, where serious head injuries would be sent to his attention. On July 31st, at 3:50 am, the battle of Passchendale, in a deluge of rain, begins. Four consecutive days of rain, Dr, Cushing, father of neurosurgery, c injuries so severe that he was losing half the men he was trying to help.
August 26th, 191`7, Cushing receives notice that Revere Osler, son of Grace and Dr( and Sir) William Osler, of Oxford, England, was seriously injured,. Grace, an American, the great-granddaughter of Paul Revere. Four of America's best surgeons, Cushing, George Crile, and William Darrach and George Brewer of New York tried to save him. They were unsuccessful.
"We saw him buried today. A soggy Flanders field...A strange scene- the great-great-great-grandson of Paul Revere, under a British flag... "
Dr, Cushing was indefatigable, his surgery of the brain career prodigious, as were his writings on the subject of neurosurgery, multiple books and( 16 Volumes of Harvey's published articles), along with a two volume set of the life of William Osler.
In September 1939, Dr. Cushing published an obituary essay for his two surgical friends, Will and Charlie Mayo, who had both died that summer.
One month later, Dr. Cushing, age 70 died, his life span two weeks longer than his friend , William Osler.
In 1965, the Harvey Cushing Society changed its name to The American Association of Neurological Surgeons. The neurosurgeons" one way or another, most of them acknowledge that they are Harvey Cushing's spiritual descendants... As Cushing said in homage to his predecessors, ' What has been accomplished does not die'.
This book, " Harvey Cushing, A Life in Surgery" by Michael Bliss, is such a book. Dr. Cushing, the father of neurosurgery, at the incunabula, multiple operations on awake patients and the insensate brain, under local ( cocaine) anesthetic+/or ether anesthesia.
What is and who are in this book? Dr, Cushing, born in 1869, a Yale man , Harvard Medical School. His career included Johns Hopkins and Peter Bent Brigham Hospitals, ( both c appellations after their philanthropic merchants from Baltimore and Boston respectively- the latter peddling oysters from a cart and amassed millions in real estate).
William Halsted, George Crile, ( the Cleveland Clinic), William Osler, Dr. Walter Dandy, the Mayos, father and two sons, Cushing knew them all. The young Frenchman, Alexis Carrel doing experimental vascular repairs in the lab, amazing both Cushing and Crile. The advent of the X-Ray, by the German, Wilhelm Rontgen, and the outpatient department at the hospital where Cushing was, one of the 1st to have it in the country. Blood transfusions in pricipio by Dr, Crile and his team. The homemade inflatable blood pressure cuff which Cushing found during a trip to Europe, specifically, in Parvia, Italy- the Scipione Riva-Rocci. W.T Bovie, with the invention of the cautery, Cushing and all surgeons welcoming the increased facility with the improved visual field.
In 1898, soldiers returning from the War c Spain over Cuba, many ill c typhoid fever, so ill that Cushing and others literally carried 40 soldiers off the train in Baltimore, taken to Johns Hopkins for treatment under the aegis of Dr. William Osler and his medical team.
Cushing, already famous for his triad of vast experience c ganglionectomy for trigeminal neuralgia, surgery for brain tumors, and , of particular interest, surgery of the pituitary gland.
In August, 1914, WWI broke out. Germany and Austria-Hungary against Russia, France, and the British Empire. At the behest of the current and past US Ambassadors to France, a serious medical hospital, 450 beds, " Ambulance Amercaine" was started in Neuilly-Sur-Seine. George Crile was asked to serve, and Cushing thereafter. There the doctors saw and treated the ravages of the battle of the Marne. April25, 1915, Ypres, with the use of chlorine gas, the 1st use of poison gas in modern warfare. Alexis Carrel, and Henry Dakin ( Dakin's solution), irrigating wounds with bactericidal fluids, one of the most significant and controversial innovations in wartime medicine.
On May 5th, 1915, Cushing was taken to get a glimpse of the Ypres battle field, to see the remains of the city. Big gun were firing nearby. He learned later that Jack McCrae, a combatant c the Canadian artillery was somewhere out there, in the "Second Ypres". He had scribbled some lines in memory of a comrade fallen in the Flanders field, later to become the most famous poem of the war.
Cushing was scheduled to return to America on May 8th, 1915. On May 7th, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk. The following day, their boat went through the debris field in the Atlantic for over one hour.
In February, 1917, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. March 21, 1917, the Germans attacked Flanders. Giant German cannons shelled the capital from 75 miles away, firing the first projectiles ever to enter the stratosphere. April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson declares war on Germany. At age 49, Dr, Cushing was going back to war," somewhere in Flanders field".Volunteers lined up at Harvard Medical School. On May 6th, a service was held at St Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston, " the 'banner' of course, was star spangled, a special American flag...It was the first Boston flag to be sent to a battlefield in Europe. Women wept during the singing of 'The Star Spangled Banner' and ' The Battle Hymn of the Republic'.
July 4th, 1917 , General 'Black Jack" Pershing( Pershing Square) and the 1st Battalion of American soldiers arrives in Paris. ' Vive L'Amerique!
On July 22nd, Major Cushing was at No.46 Casualty Clearance Station, where serious head injuries would be sent to his attention. On July 31st, at 3:50 am, the battle of Passchendale, in a deluge of rain, begins. Four consecutive days of rain, Dr, Cushing, father of neurosurgery, c injuries so severe that he was losing half the men he was trying to help.
August 26th, 191`7, Cushing receives notice that Revere Osler, son of Grace and Dr( and Sir) William Osler, of Oxford, England, was seriously injured,. Grace, an American, the great-granddaughter of Paul Revere. Four of America's best surgeons, Cushing, George Crile, and William Darrach and George Brewer of New York tried to save him. They were unsuccessful.
"We saw him buried today. A soggy Flanders field...A strange scene- the great-great-great-grandson of Paul Revere, under a British flag... "
Dr, Cushing was indefatigable, his surgery of the brain career prodigious, as were his writings on the subject of neurosurgery, multiple books and( 16 Volumes of Harvey's published articles), along with a two volume set of the life of William Osler.
In September 1939, Dr. Cushing published an obituary essay for his two surgical friends, Will and Charlie Mayo, who had both died that summer.
One month later, Dr. Cushing, age 70 died, his life span two weeks longer than his friend , William Osler.
In 1965, the Harvey Cushing Society changed its name to The American Association of Neurological Surgeons. The neurosurgeons" one way or another, most of them acknowledge that they are Harvey Cushing's spiritual descendants... As Cushing said in homage to his predecessors, ' What has been accomplished does not die'.
December 19, 2024
A very good book. The life of one of the best neurosurgeons in the world is told in this authoritative and thoroughly researched book.
May 24, 2019
Beautifully written and detailed biography of one of the giants of medicine of last century.
The hard work, the passion, the intensity, the constant traveling, the aloofness in his own family life. Witnessed the creation of a new field (neurosurgery) and the gradual ascension of American medicine to eventually overtake European medicine as the best in the world while turning these pages. Very inspiring.
The hard work, the passion, the intensity, the constant traveling, the aloofness in his own family life. Witnessed the creation of a new field (neurosurgery) and the gradual ascension of American medicine to eventually overtake European medicine as the best in the world while turning these pages. Very inspiring.
December 12, 2020
a very thorough and interesting examination of Cushing's life. The accusations of racism are disturbing and dealt with in an offhand manner, but the useof original source material gave a portrait of someone who may have been a questionable father and husband and even person, but who was a superb doctor and surgeon
July 18, 2020
Quite a life
April 6, 2024
I really liked this book
February 17, 2019
There’s a lot to admire about Cushing, even if he’s not exactly likeable. Such an engrossing biography – at times, unexpectedly comical (esp. when we’re introduced to Walter Dandy)
August 25, 2012
As a scalpel junkie this book was amazing. At the time of surgeries bloom with appendictomies being considered "new and exciting", all the names we came across in medical school like osler, dandy, kocher, sherrington, zollinger and carrel working together advancing medicine.
now harvey blew me away, it was nice seeing him having the same trouble we had in med school. he had amazing energy, dedication. i never came across someone who cared for his patients as much as he did. he might not have had the brilliant mind i imagined but his love for his work and attention to detail made him transform his job into an art.
his only negative aspects where his sexist views and racism but then again he was born in the 1800
now harvey blew me away, it was nice seeing him having the same trouble we had in med school. he had amazing energy, dedication. i never came across someone who cared for his patients as much as he did. he might not have had the brilliant mind i imagined but his love for his work and attention to detail made him transform his job into an art.
his only negative aspects where his sexist views and racism but then again he was born in the 1800
August 20, 2013
Where do I begin?!
This is a biography unlike any other, you not only read about Cushing but Osler, Penfield, Codman, Dandy, Horsley, Cutler, the Mayo Brothers and so many leading figures in the history of medicine.
This is the story of neurosurgery being born in the middle of modern medicine's renaissance, a time when places like Johns Hopkins, Mayo clinic, Cleveland clinic and Harvard started to appear and flourish.
The book is focused mainly on Cushing as a person and how he dealt with his family and friends and how he lived his life, it could've been a bit better to read more about his surgical work but that may put off many people from reading it.
This is a biography unlike any other, you not only read about Cushing but Osler, Penfield, Codman, Dandy, Horsley, Cutler, the Mayo Brothers and so many leading figures in the history of medicine.
This is the story of neurosurgery being born in the middle of modern medicine's renaissance, a time when places like Johns Hopkins, Mayo clinic, Cleveland clinic and Harvard started to appear and flourish.
The book is focused mainly on Cushing as a person and how he dealt with his family and friends and how he lived his life, it could've been a bit better to read more about his surgical work but that may put off many people from reading it.
May 21, 2012
Well written, extensive overview of Cushing's life and additionally of the rise of modern surgery. Due to Cushing's wide contacts with other prominent doctors, among others William Halsted, William Osler, William Welch, and Arnold Klebs, the biography offers a great tour through international medicine in early 20th century. The introductions of anesthesia, blood pressure measuring, sepsis-free operating, silk suturing and the modern residency system, pass the revue. Dr. Cushing is a great humble example for the humanistic profession of medicine.
March 17, 2012
Quite excellently written and absolutely fascinating. I'd read a little about Cushing before in Bliss' other excellent biography, William Osler: A Life in Medicine, but this book stands alone as an incredibly detailed, engaging survey of his life and work.
December 16, 2015
Longwinded and sometimes tedious, nevertheless, this was still a fascinating biography of a fascinating man. Harvey Cushing is the father of modern neurosurgery. He and his acolytes invented some of the techniques and equipment that are still in use today to explore and repair the brain.
December 30, 2007
*removed
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to Read
March 31, 2009JBM recommendation
Read
July 27, 2010my hero, my inspiration in an account that does not shy away from his flaws.
May 31, 2013
Beautifully written. An incredible account to the father of neurosurgery.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews