Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery (Hardcover)

by Michael Bliss (Author)
Key Phrases: ganglion operation, brain tumor registry, other neurosurgeons, Johns Hopkins, Harvey Cushing, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As cleanly efficient as a successful operation.... As this solid, accessible biography reveals, Cushing may have been the very devil to live with, but with a scalpel in his hand, he did God's work."--Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
"An absorbing chronicle of the career of one of the greatest medical innovators ever produced by the US--or any other country.... One of the most extraordinary lives any biographer might wish to study.... It is Bliss's great accomplishment that he has made accessible not only the science, medicine, and professional atmosphere of Cushing's career, but also the character and personality of the man.... What Bliss has given to his subject is what Cushing himself, or any of us, would ask of a biographer: understanding."--Sherwin Nuland, New York Review of Books
"Monumental. Bliss begins before the cradle and ends beyond the grave, touching both on the material facts of Cushing's remarkable successes and on his convoluted inner life.... It is difficult to imagine how any future writer might improve on this masterpiece of compassion and erudition." --Richard Barnett, Lancet
"Brings back to life an amazingly accomplished man who was the father of American neurosurgery, a leading authority on the pituitary gland, a pioneer of endocrinology and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer."--Denver Post
"A fast paced, engaging portrait of one of America's great pioneers and heroes. Bliss gives important insight into Cushing's motivations, inspirations, demons, and flaws, thus revealing how he was motivated to change a field and bravely create a new outlook on the functioning of the brain as well as a fundamentally new approach to medicine and research." --Henry Brem, Harvey Cushing Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins
"Bliss...had a voluminous treasure trove of primary documents with which to work. His readable and thoroughly documented book presents Cushing as both an icon and a human being whose family and colleagues suffered from his single-minded devotion to work and blunt perfectionism. Written almost 60 years after the last major Cushing biography, this illustrated work calls on new resources and provides a more contemporary perspective."--Library Journal
"The essence of biography is the elucidation of personality, and this is accomplished in a superb fashion in Michael Bliss's splendid modern biography of Harvey Cushing, with each chapter providing a facet of insight into a complex and fascinating icon of 20th century medicine and surgery." --Edward R. Laws, MD, FACS, Professor of Neurosurgery and Medicine, University of Virginia
"Bliss has provided us with a definitive biography of the founder of American neurosurgery. It is a book about glitter and intensity, about vision and persistence, and about the emergence of America as a world leader in medicine. Sophisticated, balanced, and thoughtful it is a story of interest to physicians, surgeons, and lovers of history." --Peter M. Black, MD, PhD, Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief, Brigham and Women's Hospital
"Another tour-de-force by Michael Bliss. Like Bliss' William Osler: A Life in Medicine, it will be a classic of medical history." --Jock Murray, Medical Humanities Program, Dalhousie University
"It is beautifully written and illustrated, a pleasure to read, and paints Cushing 'warts and all.' A must for anyone with an interest in the development of our profession and with the life of this extraordinary man."--British Journal of Hospital Medicine
"This vibrant and beautifully crafted biography of Harvey Cushing will surely be read and enjoyed by virtually every neurosurgeon and many others within and outside of the neuroscience community."--Journal of Neurosurgery
"Bliss does a superlative job in conveying the strains that Cushing's surgical ambition and his celebrity status placed on his marriage."--Susan E. Lederer, American Historical Review


Product Description
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. Moreover, Cushing was also a leading authority on the pituitary gland and a pioneer of endocrinology. And in his spare time, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his massive two-volume biography of William Osler, who was Cushing's colleague. This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure. Written by a prize-winning medical historian and acclaimed author, it captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary life, illuminating the contributions of a surgeon who has earned an enduring place in the pantheon of medical history.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 610 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195169891
• ISBN-13: 978-0195169898
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #504,512 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 9, 2005

By	R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Another excellent book from the Canadian historian Michael Bliss. This biography is a companion volume to Bliss's outstanding biography of the great William Osler. Together, these biographies tell the story not only of their subjects but also of the rise of North American medicine from provincial status to equality, and in some respects superiority, with the great clinical centers of Europe. Harvey Cushing was the first great pioneering surgeon produced by the USA or Canada. As much as a single person can be said to generate a field, Cushing was the progenitor of neurosurgery. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Cushing was the product of a line of respected physicians of New England extraction. From his parents, he inherited a Puritan sense of mission, rectitude, and a remarkable dedication to work. Educated at Harvard Medical School, he sought post-graduate training at the epicenter of the revolution in American medical education that was Johns Hopkins University Hospital. At Hopkins he became a protege of Osler and started his surgical career under the direction of the outstanding and rather erratic William Halstead. Ambitious and remarkably diligent, Cushing set out to make his mark by pioneering an area of surgery avoided by other pioneering surgeons - brain surgery. A remarkably facile technical surgeon, Cushing was obsessed with improving all aspects of surgical care, including use of careful clinical diagnostic methods, improvement of anesthetic management, and post-operative care. Despite formidable obstacles, Cushing succeeded in creating a new discipline. His methods were adopted widely and his trainees became the founding neurosurgeons in many regions. Bliss gives a vivid impression of surgical practice in this period and of Cushing's innovations. To read these sections is to appreciate the remarkable progress made in the last century. At the end of his career, Cushing was pleased to attain 10% operative mortality for operations on intracranial tumors, a figure that seems horrifying today. Bliss is careful to note Cushing's considerable defects. He was a stringent, sometimes abusive preceptor. His ambition was manifested not only by his drive to do the utmost to improve clinical care but also by considerable arrogance. He inspired great loyalty but seems to have been respected rather than loved by many. He was a difficult husband and an absentee father. But while his relations with colleagues and trainees could be stormy, in his treatment of patients he appears to have behaved with compassion and tact. Bliss does a good job of putting Cushing's achievements in the context of broader developments. While Cushing became the most famous American surgeon with a substantial international reputation, other American surgeons, like Halstead, George Crile and the Mayo brothers, were producing substantial improvements in surgical practice.
Its impossible to avoid comparing this book with the Osler book. In terms of scholarship and quality of writing, this book is on par with the Osler biography. Still, this is not quite as enjoyable a read, largely for 2 reasons. The Osler biography is also the story of the institutional maturation of American/Canadian medicine, a remarkable story. Cushing's development of a new surgical discipline is not qute as impressive as the institutional transformation accomplished by Osler's generation. As the subject of a biography, Cushing is also not as attractive a personality as Osler. Bliss depicts Cushing as a remarkable man and Bliss clearly respects and admires Cushing. Osler, on the other hand, inspires not only respect and admiration, but also affection. Regardless, this Cushing biography is first-rate and combined with the Osler book, gives a peerless impression of American/Canadian medicine in its first flush of maturity.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Biography of America's Pioneer in Neurosugery, November 20, 2005

By	C. Middleton (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It is a strange mystery why a man of such accomplishments and medical innovation in the history of neurosurgery, the American pioneer in fact, is not more well known in popular culture. Dr. Harvey Cushing has to be one of the most fascinating, complex and astounding medical personalities in the last century. He became the first of American medical men to be an international leader in this special field. Harvey was part of a long line of medical men, his great grandfather, grandfather and father were all competent physicians. A Yale graduate, later attending Harvard Medical and working at John Hopkins, he paved the way, as he called "The Northwest Passage", in the area of brain tumour surgery, his OR innovations, insistence on sterile working conditions, the use of clips to prevent excessive bleeding and the diagnosis of brain tumours, were all devised and applied by him, having operated on over 2000 patients with brain tumour related illnesses during his long career. This man takes the term "workaholic" and takes it to an entirely new level. A tireless researcher, recorder, bibliophile, surgeon and prolific writer, his drive and obsession for work and life, set the precedent for future surgeons. A truly remarkable individual.

Michael Bliss, however, is a competent biographer, revealing Cushing's genius as well as his many faults. Cushing was an irascible perfectionist with zero tolerance for any incompetence in the OR. His arrogance and caustic tongue became the stuff of legend; interestingly, as Bliss implies, his personality has become almost a stereotype for the brilliant surgeon, egotistic, sarcastic with no patience for mistakes while in surgery. He was a difficult man to work with and for, however, his care for his patients took priority over all other actions. Ambitious and single-minded with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, Cushing pioneered brain surgery, writing volumes of medical articles and essays, countless lectures, and even a Pulitzer Prize winning two-volume biography on his mentor and world renowned physician, William Osler.

There are numerous anecdotes in this fine biography, but the one that really stands out is Cushing's first experience with a patient who dies in front of his eyes. A young student at Harvard, he managed to get invited to assist with `etherizing' patients for surgery. Weeks pass and everything is moving along fine until one evening he administers the ether to a young woman under-going an operation for a strangulated hernia, whose chances for survival are next to nil. The patient dies before the operation commences minutes after Cushing etherizes her. This of course devastated the young medical student, who walked the streets of Boston deciding to quit the profession. When he returned and told his teacher of his intent, he berated the boy, calling him "a damned fool" and to buck-up, for they had work to do. He continued on, of course, but remembered this incident over thirty years later.

As any good critical biography should be, it is written with erudition, (explaining medical terms and procedures for the laymen) as well as presenting as a riveting narrative- this is an entertaining and inspiring work of an astonishing individual in American medical history.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific portrait of Cushing, November 10, 2005

By	jcoop "coop" (Ashland, MA United States) - See all my reviews

I must second the other positive review of the book. I had previously read his biography of Osler, when it came out a number of years ago, and found it to the most well-rounded portrait of Osler that I have read. His biography of Cushing is equally is good. Bliss writes well and easily. I think his estimate of Cushing is a fair one. He gives all sides: the driven surgical pioneer and mentor who really established neurosurgery as a legitimate field, but also the workaholic who neglected his family and could be cruel and abusive to co-workers.(Great to be his patient but not one of his children) I found the contrasts between Cushing and Osler that Bliss draws out particularly interesting, and I would recommend that the Osler biography be read in conjunction with this one. Also, I also appreciated that Bliss presents the evidence and allows the reader to make his or her own judgements about Cushing, particularly in regards to his racial prejudice. Bliss limits the amount of medical terms, so I think the book could be read by and appeal to someone with little knowledge of medicine. Overall, highly recommended.