Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery

by Michael Bliss

Overview

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. This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure, capturing the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190613716
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/24/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Michael Bliss is University Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and the History of Medicine Program at the University of Toronto.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher