Evarts Ambrose Graham

Evarts Ambrose Graham ( born March 19, 1883 in Chicago, † March 4, 1957 in St. Louis) was an American surgeon ( Thoracic Surgery ).

Life and work

Graham was the son of surgeon David W. Graham ( a leading surgeon in Chicago, temporarily Medical Director of Presbyterian Hospital) and he studied from 1900 to 1904 at Princeton University, then medicine at Rush Medical College in Chicago, where he in 1907 his MD degree made. He then completed his internship at Presbyterian Hospital, where he also began to study at the same chemistry. This excited at the surgeon amazement, but was done on the advice of a friendly internist who had studied in Munich under Friedrich von Müller and the practice of scientific methods in medicine met. In 1915 Graham practiced privately as a surgeon first in Mason City, Iowa. He also met the then common practice established surgeons know their fees to be shared with the doctors, of which the patients were transferred. Later he continued as president of the American College of Surgeons (1940 /41) all we can to prevent this.

In 1918 he became a surgeon in the U.S. Army, where he served as Major about treatment options for the former flu epidemic accompanying pneumonia researched ( Empyema Commission). These were often the actual cause of death causes flu cases in the former pandemic ( Spanish flu ) with its numerous deaths and of secondary bacterial infections ( strep ). He developed methods of operation, which allowed for drainage of the lung environment and thus relieved the lungs without them collapsed. In 1919 he headed a hospital in the U.S. Army in France and in the same year professor of surgery at Washington University Medical School and chief of surgery at Barnes Hospital, where he stayed until 1951. He was also head of surgery at St. Louis Children 's Hospital.

Graham had an outstanding position among U.S. surgeons and was regarded as a leading thoracic surgeon. Twenty of the surgeons trained by him were head of surgery at their respective hospitals later. His opposition anesthesiologist ( he used almost only nurses in this function at Barnes Hospital) delayed many years the cooperation of the anesthesia with the surgery in the United States.

X-ray images of the gallbladder

His training in chemistry came to him in 1924 in the development ( with Warren Henry Cole ) a method benefited with the help of a contrast agent to make the gall bladder visible in X-rays ( cholecystography or Cholezystocholangiographie ). Although initially successful in dogs, the methods initially showed no imaging of the gallbladder in patients with gallbladder disease. However, Graham soon found out that this was associated with impaired gallbladder function so only in patients in whom the bile concentration and thus also that of the contrast agent was suppressed in the gallbladder. The method finally lent itself well to recognize, for example gallstones. In 1925 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America and in 1925 the Leonard Research Prize of the American Roentgen Society.

First pneumonectomy

He was the first one on April 5, 1933 a lung successfully removed surgically ( pneumonectomy ). Originally only a lobectomy ( removal of one lobe ) was provided during surgery but it turned out that this would not be enough. The operation was carried out at the 49 -year-old doctor James Gilmore in Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, who not only survived the surgery, but still a great age ( he survived even Graham). He was a friend after surgery with Graham and they visited each other.

Studies on smoking and lung cancer

In 1950 he published with his students Ernst L. Wynder an early epidemiological study on the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. Graham himself was a heavy smoker. According to the study, he gave up smoking in 1952 and was a staunch opponent of public smoking, but died five years later of lung cancer ( as both wings were infested was an operation not possible). In the words of Dragstedt, the investigations of Graham, Wynder, Alton Ochsner and other, the consequence is that at the time of Graham's death was smoking hardly a surgeon, while in the period prior to their studies, the conference rooms of the U.S. surgeons often so smoky were that one could hardly recognize the speaker.

Honors, Private

In 1937 he was involved in the founding of the American Board of Surgery and was president of the American Surgical Association. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1941 ), the American Philosophical Society, the Leopoldina (1932) and the Royal Academy in Uppsala. In 1943 he was honor Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and he was an honorary member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland since 1938. In 1928 he was president of the American Association of Thoracic Surgery.

In 1925 he was Temporary Surgent in Chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and in 1939 a visiting professor at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London.

In 1942 he was awarded the Lister Medal. The Lister lecture he held until 1947 ( Some aspects of bronchiogenic carcinoma ). In 1934 he was Lecturer Harvey.

In 1942 he received the St. Louis Award, 1937, the John Scott Medal of the City of Philadelphia, in 1933, the Gold Medal of the Southern Medical Association. He was more honorary doctorates (including Princeton University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Chicago, Case Western Reserve University ).

In 1916 he married Helen Tredway, with whom he had two children. She was later pharmacology professor at Washington University. She was also active in municipal matters and engaged against atmospheric pollution (on her insistence stations were built in St. Louis). She died in 1971.

He was from 1931 editor of the Journal of Thoracic Surgery and Associate Editor of the Annals of Surgery, Archives of Surgery and the editor of the Yearbook of Surgery ( 1925).