Harvey (Williams) Cushing 1869-1939

The habitual excellence of Harvey Cushing in a wide variety of achievements and the ease with which he appeared to attain his ends recall Goethe’s remark that for success in any venture ‘you need only to blow on your hands’. His eminence in various ranges of human enterprise, however, was attained only by eager and persistent striving, through hard labour, to realize an ideal of perfection which he carried to every activity in which he engaged. In all civilized countries he was renowned as a surgeon, and to that reputation was added recognition of his large acquaintance with general medicine and with the special field of neurology. He was an important contributor to medical sciences, both as an experimenter in the laboratory and as a studious observer in the hospital. He was a stimulating and a rigorously exacting teacher and trainer of young surgeons, who spread extensively his methods and his spirit. He was a lover and collector of the medical classics and an ardent student of medical history. He was a graceful and effective writer, not only on technical themes in the realm of his professional interests, but also on subjects of concern to the layman. Because of these excellences Dr Cushing was, during his busy life, honoured by universities and learned societies throughout the world. With regard to him, the words from Ecclesiasticus have been quoted: ‘The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration’.