Tag Archives: John Raffensperger

Beloved physicians: three unsung heroes

September 30, 2021

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Illustration by J. Raffensperger Few doctors, especially those who practice in small communities across the land, are remembered for their selfless, unstinting devotion to their patients. They are not considered heroes in the usual sense and sadly, for the most part, are now replaced by dehumanizing corporate […]

The navel of the world: belly buttons, innies and outies

September 17, 2021

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Rounded stones near Ahu Te Pito Kura on the north-eastern coast of Easter Island. Thought to symbolize the “center of the world” to the culture of the Polynesian people who first arrived at the island. 2013. Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 In […]

Ephraim McDowell, father of ovariotomy

August 17, 2021

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Portrait of Ephraim McDowell. Unknown date, published before 1900. National Library of Medicine. In 1809, Jane Crawford’s physicians thought she had an overdue pregnancy and called Ephraim McDowell, who lived sixty miles away in Danville, Kentucky.1 McDowell diagnosed an ovarian tumor and advised surgery. McDowell had been born […]

Conjoined twins: art, ethics, and the media

August 28, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Conjoined twins have fascinated humans since earliest times. Artists illustrated twins in clay, stone statues, wood carvings, and portraits. They were exhibited on stage, in freak shows, and the circus. The worldwide news media, especially the intrusive television camera, has now replaced the circus as a means […]

Harvey Cushing: Surgeon, Author, Soldier, Historian 1869-1939

August 17, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Harvey Williams Cushing. Photograph by W.(?)W.B. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Harvey Cushing was a third-generation physician, born to a family of New England Puritans who had migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid 1830s. His father and grandfather were successful physicians; family members on both […]

Potts and Pott

July 8, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyer, Florida, United States   Portrait of Percivall Pott by George Romney, unsigned, 1788. From the Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London. Willis Potts and Percival Pott were both highly skilled surgeons, prolific authors, and contributed to the surgical care of children.   Percival Pott (1714–1788) Percival Pott, at age fifteen, […]

Reflections on time long gone by

June 26, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   The author of this delightful book, Dr. John Raffensperger, is a retired surgeon who entered medical school in 1949. His book presents a stark contrast between how medicine was practiced then and how it is now. It highlights the many changes, mostly good but some bad, that […]

The surgery of pyloric stenosis in Chicago

June 9, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Arthur Dean Bevan, MD, FACS, 1861-1943. Circa 1915. From the Archives of the American College of Surgeons.  Harald Hirschprung, a Danish pediatrician, in 1888 described the clinical course and pathology of two infants who died with congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.1 Gastroenterostomy was adopted for the treatment of infants […]