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Asset Name:
E005526 - Graham, Evarts Ambrose (1883 - 1957)
Title:
Graham, Evarts Ambrose (1883 - 1957)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E005526
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2014-06-24
Description:
Obituary for Graham, Evarts Ambrose (1883 - 1957), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Graham, Evarts Ambrose
Date of Birth:
19 March 1883
Place of Birth:
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death:
4 March 1957
Place of Death:
St Louis, Missouri, USA
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
Hon FRCS 8 April 1943

BA Princeton 1904

MD Rush 1907

FACS 1915

MS Yale

Hon FRCS Ed

Hon ScD Princeton and Western Reserve

Hon LLD Glasgow and Leeds
Details:
Born in Chicago on 19 March 1883 son of Dr David W Graham (1843-1925), surgeon to the Presbyterian Hospital, and Ida Barnet Graham his wife, he was educated at Princeton and took his clinical training at Chicago, qualifying from Rush College in 1907. After holding resident posts at the Presbyterian Hospital he was assistant (1909-11) and lecturer in surgery (1911-16) at Rush College but at the same time was pursuing his own graduate education. He spent two years in the study of advanced chemistry, and from 1911 to 1914 was associated with Rollin T Woodyatt at the Sprague Institute of Clinical Research. His interests at this period were mainly pathological and he took an active share in the meetings of the Chicago Pathological Society, publishing articles also in the *Journal of experimental Medicine* and the *Journal of infectious Diseases*. When America entered the war in 1917 he was employed on an "empyema commission", working at Baltimore, and his report was influential. He was then sent to France as a surgical specialist. He had already married Helen Tredway Graham, but when the war ended was somewhat at a loss, intending to practise surgery but having spent all the previous years in research. He was invited in 1919 to fill the new Bixby Professorship of Surgery in the Washington University School of Medicine at St Louis. Here he made his life's work. He was able from small beginnings to build up a great teaching school of surgery, and was given a free hand to develop the Barnes Hospital and his teaching duties in the way he thought best. He was also surgeon at the St Louis Children's Hospital. He held the chair until 1951 when he retired with the title Professor Emeritus. In these thirty-two years Graham established his reputation as probably the greatest teaching surgeon in the world, and had the pleasure of seeing his pupils established in leading professorships in America and abroad. He served as President of the leading national surgical societies such as the American College of Surgeons, American Surgical Association, American Association of Thoracic Surgeons, American Board of Surgery (1937-51) and the International College of Surgeons (1953). His earliest work was on blastomycosis; after the war he continued his studies in empyema and was working also on biliary surgery. Later he made his mark as a thoracic surgeon in connection with treatment of cancer of the lung. He was the first surgeon to perform a successful total pneumonectomy, when in 1933 he removed an entire lung for a squamous carcinoma involving the bronchus of the upper left lobe. The patient was able to return to a busy practise as a gynaecologist and outlived Graham. In 1939 an annual lecture was founded and named in his honour at St Louis. Graham was awarded the Lister medal in 1942, but delivered the oration only in 1947. He was elected an honorary Fellow of the College, at the centenary of the institution of the Fellowship in 1943. He edited the *Yearbook of Surgery* 1926-39 and was on the editorial boards of *Archives of Surgery* 1920-43 and the *Journal of thoracic Surgery* from its inception in 1931. He served as temporary Professor of Surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1939 and was elected a perpetual student. After his retirement, the issue for July 1952 of *Annals of Surgery* (vol 136, no 1) was dedicated to him. It contains a valuable survey of his early career by E D Churchill and a contribution from Graham himself. He died in St Louis on 4 March 1957 just before his seventy-fourth birthday, survived by his wife and children. Graham was a large, heavily built man of determination and pertinacity. He was a most inspiring teacher, gaining a retaining admiration and affection, and setting an example of unwearied patience and resource. He was a pattern of the virtues of his Scottish Presbyterian ancestry.
Sources:
Washington University School of Medicine *Addresses at Memorial Service for E A Graham, 31 March 1957

*Bull Amer Coll Surg* 1957, 42, 138 by W H Cole and pp 222-225 funeral oration by Alfred Blacock

Appreciations by Lord Brock and others in *The Times* 6 March 1957, *Brit med J* 1957, 1, 648, and *Thorax* 1957, 12, 91

Curriculum vitae and list of his publications*, St Louis 1957, 50 pages with good portrait
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England

Image Copyright (c) Image courtesy of the Archives of the American College of Surgeons
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
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File Size:
34.66 KB