Harvey Cushing: "From tallow dip to television".

Harvey Cushing was not only a leading founder of neurosurgery, but his work in general surgery provoked research which advanced medical knowledge, and he made substantial contributions to medical education and general literature. He discovered (with L.E. Livinggood) that the stomach and small intestine could be rendered sterile by fasting before operations; he successfully sutured the cervical thoracic duct without subsequent leakage; he suggested, after attempted repair of chronic valvular lesions in the dog, the possibility of surgery on cardiac valves in man; he demonstrated the relation of intracranial pressure to blood pressure; he devised one of the first charts for recording pulse and respiration and introduced routine blood pressure determinations during operation; and he stimulated continuing research by internists and endocrinologists through his work on the pituitary body and its disorders-work which was crowned by his discovery of pituitary basophilism. His unique course in operative surgery for medical students at the Johns Hopkins was adopted by other medical schools and he advanced other provocative theories concerning the organization and content of the medical curriculum. He provided elective clinics at Harvard Medical School for students and established postgraduate fellowships at the Hopkins, Harvard, and Yale schools of medicine. Cushing brought distinction upon himself and the medical profession through his books and essays of high literary quality and originality, most notably his biography of Sir William Osler, which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1926.