Georgia Surgical Society
Knowledge, Skill, Compassion
The Heritage of the
Georgia Surgical Society
The following is an edited
version of the Presidential Address presented at
the
annual meeting of
the
Georgia
Surgical Society at
The Cloister at Sea Island,
Georgia on September 17, 1964
by
Julian K. Quattlebaum, M.D., FACS
Savannah, Georgia
A worthwhile organization, like an outstanding
individual, is proudest of its background
and legacy,
so let us glance
briefly tonight on the heritage of the
Georgia Surgical
Society.
We have reached the pinnacle of surgical
achievement. The era of excisional surgery, that
age when
surgical therapy
was
considered a confession of failure to cure by other means,is now being
supplanted
by the surgery of replacement,
the surgery
of restoration, and like Alladin of the Arabian
Nights, we
now
offer the miracle of new parts for old.
The wonders
of modern
surgery taxes the
imagination,
and
the end
is not in
sight.
Many of us in this organization have witnessed,
appreciated, and thrilled at the development
of today's
surgery:
the
introduction
of the blood bank, the use of the miracle drugs in surgery,
the
application
of
chemistry to our craft,
the role of electrolytes and
fluid balance, the
wonders of modern anesthesia,
the
newer techniques. We are indeed
proud to recognize that
Georgians have
made significant contributions
to this
progress; we salute them and shine in
their reflected glory.
The
Georgia Surgical
Society represents the best in surgery, but great as is its
prestige, we
would
be
remiss not
to pause for a
moment and reflect how this
eminence came to be. Let us
review some
of the
accomplishments of
those giants
of long ago whose
efforts in legislation,
education, and
research made
possible
much of today's progress
and to whom we are greatly
indebted. Time
alone
prevents me from
mentioning many who should be recognized,
but as the silent organ loudest plays
its masters requiem,"
perhaps those whose
names are missing
are indeed
most honored.
We should pay homage, humble though it is, to
those pioneers who searched for truth and left
untarnished
evidence
of their
deeds.
We owe them generous recognition of the motives that
prompted them. We
are
indebted to them for
their example and teaching
and the service they
rendered. They contributed definitely
to the sum of human achievement, and none
are deserving
more than
those who labored in this field a century
or more ago.
Note: Following is a brief
biographical sketch of
Milton
Anthony,
Louis
Alexander Dugas de Vallon,
Paul Fitzsimmons Eve,
John Murray Cornochan,
Henry
Fraser Campbell,
Crawford W. Long,
Robert
Battey,
Willis F. Westmoreland,
William
Perrin Nicolson,
Floyd Wilcox McRae,
William
Rawlings.
MILTON ANTHONY (1789-1839)
Milton Anthony was born August 7, 1789, the place of his birth being unknown.
With less than
three
years
of
early schooling and
only one year of attending
lectures in Philadelphia, he began
practice in
Monticello,
Georgia.
After a
short residence in New Orleans,
he came to Augusta in
1819. Through
his effort,
the State
Board of
Medical Examiners was appointed in 1825, and
three
years
later
he
obtained a charter for a
Medical Academy,
his objective being to
improve
students
of medicine by
requiring them to study longer
and more
thoroughly than
they had been
doing. The cademy went into
operation with three
professors
and a promising class. Shortly
thereafter its
name was changed to the
Medical Institute of Georgia. The
school was so successful
that in 1833
the
State Legislature
granted
a new charter for the college and changed
its name to
the Medical
College of Georgia.
Still in existence,
it represents one of
the
oldest medical institutions
in the
United States.
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LOUIS
ALEXANDER DUGAS de VALLON
(1806-1884)
Few surgeons of Georgia have had the cultural and educational background or have
contributed
so
much to the
surgical literature as
Louis Alexander Dugas de
Vallon who was born in
Washington,
Wilkes County, Georgia,
January 3, 1806.
After attending courses of lectures at the
Philadelphia Medical Institute and two years of study,
he
graduated from
the
University of
Maryland in1827 and spent the next three years in Europe
traveling
and studying in England,
France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy,
but
making Paris headquarters.
In July 1831 he returned to America and began
practicing in Augusta, Georgia, where he soon
joined
Dr.
Anthony
and others on
the
faculty of the Medical College of Georgia. He was first
Professor of
Anatomy then Physiology
before becoming Professor of The
Principles
and Practice of Surgery, a
position he maintained until his retirement
from work many years
later
with a record
of fifty
years of
service in the Medical
College of Georgia.
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PAUL
FITZSIMMONS EVE (1806-1877)
Paul Fitzsimmons Eve was born near Augusta, Georgia on June 27, 1806. After an
excellent
education
and
splendid preparation including
a stint as Army surgeon
for Poland against Russia,he became Professor
of
Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia in 1832, resigning in 1850 to
succeed Gross at the University
of Louisiana.
He published a large volume, "Remarkable
Cases in
Surgery." He performed the
first successful
abdominal
hysterectomy
for carcinoma
of
the uterus in America in April 1850.
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JOHN
MURRAY CORNOCHAN
(1818-1887)
John Murray Cornochan of Savannah was born in 1817 and died in 1887.
His distinguished
career as a
surgeon
included a number of
firsts, among them
the excision of the ulna in 1853,the radius in 1854, and
the os calis in 1857.
Dr. Cornochan published many articles
in the
American Journal of Medical
Sciences
of
Philadelphia and in the
American Medical Gazette
and the American
Medical Monthly.
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HENRY
FRASER CAMPBELL
(1824-1886)
Henry Fraser Campbell was born in Savannah on February 10, 1824. He was
graduated
from
the Medical
College
of Georgia in 1842
at the age of eighteen and
practiced all his life
in Augusta.
During the War
Between
the States,
he was
Medical Director of the Georgia
Military Hospitals at Richmond, Virginia. He
served as
President of the
Medical Association
of Georgia and The
American
Medical
Association.
Few men in medicine have had as many honors conferred upon them
as Dr. Campbell. One
of
his greatest
contributions
was the discovery
of
the excitosecretory system of nerves,
announced
in 1850.
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CRAWFORD
W. LONG
(1815-1878)
Of course, no occasion of this kind could fail to include the first operation
using ether as an anesthetic.
On
March
30,
1842, Dr. Crawford
Williamson Long,
born in Danielsville, Georgia, removed a
tumor
from the
neck of James
M.
Venable in Jefferson, Georgia. This has been
universally accepted as the
first surgical
operation performed under
ether anesthesia, although much controversy has raged
about
the subject.
Dr. Long performed many other
operations
under ether anesthesia, including
amputation
of the leg in 1856
and amputation of the breast
in
1857. The
world has
not yet seen a
greater benefactor
of mankind than
Crawford Williamson Long.
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ROBERT
BATTEY
(1828-1895)
Dr. Robert Battey was born in Augusta. Dr. Battey practiced in Rome, Georgia
from 1857 until his
retirement,
with
the exception of the
years 1872-1875 when
he served as Professor of Obstetrics in
the Atlanta Medical
College and
was also
Editor of the Atlanta Medical
and Surgical Journal. Dr. Battey was the
first to suggest
and perform the
operation of oophorectomy for such painful
non-ovarian
conditions as disabling dysmenorrhea
and various neuroses.
He was pioneer in endocrinology.
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WILLIS
F. WESTMORELAND
(1828-1890)
Willis F. Westmoreland was born in Pike County, Georgia in 1828, and after
studying under his
brother,
Dr. John
Gray Westmoreland, and at the University of
Georgia, he graduated from Jefferson
Medical
College in Philadelphia
in 1850. He
practiced for a short time in
Pike County in 1854
before moving to
Atlanta where
he devoted himself
entirely to surgery. Dr. Westmoreland was an
ardent supporter
of the
Atlanta Medical College and held the Chair
of Professor of Surgery for
thirty years. In 1885 he established
the Atlanta Medical
and Surgical Journal
with which
he was
closely associated for over twenty years.
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WILLIAM
PERRIN NICOLSON
(1857-1928)
William Perrin Nicolson was born in Virginia in 1857, and after attending the
University of Virginia
was
graduated
from the Medical
College of Virginia in
1877. Moving to Atlanta and specializing
in Surgery,
he was Professor of Anatomy and Lecturer on Clinical Surgery at the Southern
Medical College and
later became Dean of that institution.
He performed an appendectomy in 1892 and
was
first to advise
and
practice preliminary ligation of the carotid artery
in
certain operations about
the head and neck. In
1899
he used a
celluloid
plate to replace the bone removed in trephining a
skull, and he was the first to
report
bilateral tumors of the carotid body.
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FLOYD
WILCOX McRAE
(1861-1921)
Floyd Wilcox McRae was born in Telfair County, Georgia in 1861. He was educated
in Georgia,
graduated
from
the Atlanta Medical
College, and took postgraduate
work in the New York Polyclinic
and New York
Post Graduate
Medical School and
Hospital. Locating
in Atlanta, he was made
Professor
of Physiology at
the
Southern Dental
College
and the Southern Medical College. He was
a master
technician and originated
a number of surgical procedures. Dr.
McRae made
many
contributions to the
early treatment of appendicitis
and
was far ahead of
his time in his articles
on
"Hernias of the Diaphragm."
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WILLIAM
RAWLINGS
(1852-1926)
William Rawlings was born on a plantation near Sandersville, Georgia in 1852.
Educated in the public
schools,
he graduated with highest
honors from Emory in
1872, where he was recognized for his proficiency in Latin,
Greek,
and Physics.
Later he graduated in Medicine
from the University of Maryland
Medical School.
After
two years of
practice in Sandersville, Dr. Rawlings visited every medical
center
in
England and middle Europe
studying surgery
under the greatest figures
of the time. In 1893 Dr. Rawlings
opened the first private hospital
in middle
Georgia, and
soon made the Rawlings Sanitarium known all
over
the United States.
This humble
institution was in reality the Mayo
Clinic of the South in that it
attracted
patients from over thirty states.
He was far ahead of his time.
He purchased the first x-ray machine in the South. Some of his operations
were phenomenal, and he could
operate equally well with either hand.
As we look back upon the noble figures who have
adorned the art of surgery in this State, we find in our
heritage a
chain of
inspired workers.
Some were heavenly endowed with talent, and all imbued with
great
purpose. They shared
a burning love of humanity, a quality Osler placed
first among the requirements for
a
successful medical career. Each
wore the
master word Work engraved upon his forehead. Character,
integrity,
and a desire
to make our profession
a little better for having been a part of it is
conspicuous in the
life of each
of our surgical ancestors. This rich
background
is your precious professional heritage. Hold it
to
your heart
and cherish it.
From that great number of Georgia surgeons ho did not
teach, did not write,
nor
leave behind
records of heroic accomplishments, we have also inherited much of great value. They lived
to
lessen sorrow
and assuage the anguish of suffering
mankind, for a surgeon is a ray of hope
and a gleam
of
light when the
loved one
is wrapped in black despair.
You and I, and all the other surgeons of this
great
State, have a
magnificent inheritance. Let us be proud of it -- let us live up
to it -- let us be worthy
of it.
Last Updated:
4/18/2011
