1869: Neurosurgery pioneer Harvey Cushing is born. His
achievements in medicine and the telling of its history will
become legendary. After undergraduate work at Yale, Cushing
entered Harvard Medical School, following his great-grandfather,
grandfather, father and elder brother into the profession. His
stern father warned him on this occasion not to indulge in
“smoking, drinking, boating, baseball and other forms of
intemperance.” Cushing excelled at Harvard. While still a
student in 1894, he watched a patient die in surgery from the
effects of ether. Cushing and his colleague Ernest Codman
devised the first anesthetic chart to help surgeon and
anesthesiologist alike monitor pulse, respiration and
temperature. The innovation was soon widely adopted, resulting
in a major drop in the death rate from anesthesia. Cushing got
his M.D. degree in 1895, the same year Roentgen stumbled upon
X-rays. Within a year, Cushing and Codman were leading the way
with the new technology to make diagnostic clinical X-rays.
Young