1869. HARVEY WILLIAMS CUSHING
Sex: M
Birth: 8 April 1869 in Cleveland, Ohio
Death: 8 Oct 1939 in New Haven,Connecticut



Education: M.D. Harvard University in 1895
Occupation: Associate in Surgery o f John Hopkins Hospital

Cushing graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1895 and underwent his initial training with William Halstead. In 1900 he traveled to Europe and worked with Theodor Kocher and Victory Horsley, the founder of British neurosurgery. On returning to the United States he joined the staff at John Hopkins Hospital where he began his neurosurgical studies. In 1912 he was appointed professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and surgeon-in-chief at the newly opened Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
He was a pioneering neurosurgeon and developed many of the basic techniques and procedures used in neurosurgery today. Amongst his many paper the most important relate to the method of destruction of the trigeminal ganglion (1900), infiltrative analgesia (1902), the function of the pituitary gland (1910), experimental hypophysectomy (1910), the introduction of electrocoagulation (1928) and basophil adenomas of the pituitary gland (1932)
In addition to his clinical writings he was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 1926 for his book entitled the Life of Sir William Ostler. The endocrine disorder named after him is obviously Cushing's Syndrome or Disease. Cushing's Syndrome is the state of prolonged exposure to corticosteroids resulting from either excessive cortisol production or steroid medication. Cushing's Disease is pituitary dependent adrenocortical hyperplasia due to a basophilic pituitary microadenoma. The causes of Cushing's Syndrome are:

Cushing's Disease (65%)
Ectopic ACTH production (15%)
Adrenal adenoma (15%)
Adrenal carcinoma (5%)

"I would like to see the day when somebody would be appointed surgeon somewhere who had no hands, for the operative part is the least part of the work"
Letter to Dr Henry Christian Nov 20, 1911.
Cushing H W. The basophil adenomas of the pituitary and their clinical manifestations. Bull Johns Hopkins Hosp 1932: 50: 137-195.

Harvey received the degree of A.B. from Yale University in 1891, and those of A.M. and M.D. from Harvard University and its Medica l Department in 1895. Graduate of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 1896. Resident in Baltimore. Harvey Cushing began his career at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1895-96. He moved to Baltimore to work at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where he stayed for 15 years, mostly at the Faculty of Surgery. In 1912, he returned to Harvard as Professor of Surgery and also worked at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (1913-1932). In 1933, he became Professor of Neurology at Yale, a position he held until 1937. Considered a pioneer of Neurosurgery, he made several fundamental discoveries about the pituitary gland. Bibliophile and an earnest collector of books, he published many essays and other literary works, among them the 1926 Pulitzer prize-winning biography of William Osler.

Associate Professor of Surgery, John Hopkins University 1902 - 1912. Professor of Surgery at Harvard University and surgeon-in-chief, Peter Bent Brigham Hos pital 1912 - 1932. Sterling Professor of Neurology at Yale University 1933 - 19 39. Director of U.S.A. Base Hospital No. 5 in France attached to the B.E.F., Ma y 1917 to March 1919. Recipient of many honors at home and abroad, MC, DSM (U.S.) etc. Author of several medical treatises and "The Life of Sir William Osler" , which won the Pulitzer Prize (1925). His notable library of medical history is at Yale University.

Harvey William Cushing
A Brief Biography

Harvey W illiam Cushing, American physician and neurosurgeon, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 8, 1869. Cushing studied medicine at Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1895. He then studied surgery under the guidance of another famous surgeon, William Stewart Halstead, at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, MD. During ten years he was a surgeon at this hospital, followed by a period as surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and professor of surgery at the Harvard Medical School. In 1933, until his death, he worked at Yale University. Beginning in 1905, Dr. Cushing started to develop many of the basic surgical techniques for operating the brain, thus establishing neurosurgery as a new and autonomous surgical discipline. He improved considerably the survival of patients after difficult brain operations for intracranial tumors, an area where he became one of the foremost leaders and experts of all times. He was also the first to use x-rays to diagnose brain tumors and to stimulate electrically the sensory cortex of a human being. He established an international reputation as a teacher of neurosurgeons, with many followers and students, many of whom became also world famous. In his honor, one of the first medical associa tions in neurosurgery was formed (the Harvey Cushing Society, later absorbed in to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons). His name was also immortalized in the history of medicine, by his discovery, in 1912, of Cushing's disease, an endocrinological syndrome caused by a malfunction of the pituitary gland. This discovery was described in detail in "The Pituitary Body and its Disorders". Cushing wrote extensively, and was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, for his respected biography of Sir William Osler, one of the "fathers" of modern medicine.
For all this, he is considered the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century. He died in 1939, in New Haven, Connecticut.
http://www.epub .org.br/cm/n02/historia/cushing.htm

Father: Henry Kirke Cushing, Dr b: 29 July 1827 in Lanesboro, Massachusetts
Mother: Betsey Maria Williams b: 3 March 1828 in Buffalo, New York

Marriage 1: Katharine Stone Crowell b: 27 November 1869 in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland d: 8 May 1949
Married: 10 June 1902 in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
Note: Catherine was from Cleveland, Ohio

Children:
1. William Harvey Cushing b: 4 August 1903 d: Before 1998
2. Mary Benedict (Minnie) Cushing b: 27 January 1906 d: 1978 married William Vincent Astor b: November 1891 in New York City, New York d: 3 February 1959 in New York City, New York
3. Betsey Maria Cushing b: 18 May 1908 in Baltimore, Baltimore County, Maryland
4. Henry Kirke Cushing b: After 1902 d: Before 1998
5. Barbara (Babe) Cushing b: 1916 d: 1978 married William S. Paley

Sources:
1. The Genealogy of the Cushing Family (An account of the Ancestors and Descendants of Matthew Cushing, who came to America in 1638) by James Cushing, The Perrault Printing Co - Montreal, 1905. First Edition, 1877, by Lemuel Cushing, D1881 (Finished by his family).
2. Surgical-Tutor.org.uk, http://www.surgical-tutor.org.uk/default-home.htm?surgeons/cushing.htm~right