Harvey Cushing papers in the Medical Historical Library, 1780-1988 (inclusive), 1888-1939 (bulk).

30 linear ft.

English

Harvey Cushing was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 8, 1869. He graduated from Yale College in 1891 and in 1895 received his M.D. and A.M. degrees from Harvard Medical School. After a year as a house officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, he became a resident under William S. Halsted at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He served on the staff of the Hospital from 1901-1912 where he devoted himself to neurological surgery. He was a pioneer in using x-rays and blood-pressure monitoring in his work. In 1912 he was appointed professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and in 1913 surgeon-in-chief of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, posts which he held until 1932. During World War I Cushing served with medical units in France, where he advanced the treatment of gunshot wounds of the head. Cushing was a pioneer in neurosurgery. He developed successful methods for the diagnosis, classification, and removal of intracranial tumors, and trained a generation of neurosurgeons. In 1933, he accepted an invitation to Yale as Sterling Professor of Neurology. Cushing was an ardent bibliophile, a historian of science and medicine, and a prolific writer, winning a Pulitzer Prize in biography for his biography of Sir William Osler in 1926. Cushing died in New Haven on October 7, 1939.

The papers consist primarily of scrapbook/diaries from Yale College (1887-1891); Harvard Medical School notebooks (1891-1895); scrapbook/diaries from travels in the United States and abroad and from his participation as a surgeon in World War I. There are bound volumes that contain correspondence with specific individuals (Arnold Klebs, Leonard Wood, Charles Sherrington) or on specific subjects. The collection includes Cushing's own bound reprints with his annotations and correspondence interleaved. There are copies of all editions of his publications, many of them Cushing's own copies, and articles and books about Cushing. Volumes in this collection may contain correspondence, diary material, postcards, clippings, and drawings in Cushing's hand. Associated with this collection is an extensive photograph collection.

Harvey Williams Cushing papers at the Medical Historical Library

June 01, 2002