William Stewart Halsted

William Stewart Halsted ( September 23 1852-1922) was one of the most influential surgeons of the 20th Century. He developed the surgical training program at John Hopkins University that became a model for post-graduate residency training for both medical and surgical specialists in the United States. His contributions to surgical techniques lay in advocation of preservation of anatomy and gentle handling of tissues. He invented the operation called radical mastectomy, which provided the only cures for breast cancer in his era.

Early life

Born in New York City to William Mills Halsted, Jr., and Mary Louise Hanes, an affluent family, Halsted was privately educated as a boy, and then attended Yale University. He is said to have been undistinguished as a scholar but notable on the playing fields, being one of the first captains of the Yale football team ("William Stewart Halsted."Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007).

William was born the eldest of four children, followed by two younger sisters, Bertha and Mary Louisa, and finally by a brother, Richard. The Halstead family had physicians in previous generations, but the comfortable living of William's parents was due to his paternal grandfather's land investments in Chicago, and his father's frugality in handling his inheritance from that fortune. The youngest child in the family, Richard, never went to college but became a stockbroker.

After college, he returned to Manhattan, and where he studied Medicine, graduating from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1877.

Contributions to Surgery

Regional Anesthesia

-References- Rankin JS. William Stewart Halsted: a lecture by Dr. Peter D. Olch. [Biography. Historical Article. Lectures] Annals of Surgery. 243(3):418-25, 2006 Mar. UI: 16495709