George Edward Pfahler (January 29, 1874 – January 29, 1957) was an American physician and one of the early influences on the specialty of

radiology Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiat ...

Biography

George E. Pfahler was born in

Numidia, Pennsylvania Numidia is a census-designated place (CDP) in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 244 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Bloomsburg– Berwick Metropolitan Statistical Area. Histor ...

on January 29, 1874. In 1898, he graduated from the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia. By the next year, he was an assistant chief resident at

Philadelphia General Hospital The Blockley Almshouse, later known as Philadelphia General Hospital, was a charity hospital and poorhouse located in West Philadelphia. It originally opened in 1732/33 in a different part of the city as the Philadelphia Almshouse (not to be conf ...

. The hospital's board of managers procured an x-ray machine, then known as a "roentgen ray machine", and they appointed Pfahler to operate it. The young doctor had set out to become an internal medicine physician, and at first he doubted whether x-rays would have much value in the clinical care of patients. The rest of Pfahler's career was defined by his focus on direct patient care applications of X-rays. After residency, Pfahler spent the early years of his medical career as a clinical professor at the Medico-Chirurgical College and as the director of the radiology departments at Philadelphia General Hospital and the Medico-Chirurgical Hospital. The Medico-Chirurgical College merged with the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1916, and Pfahler became a professor and vice dean of radiology at that institution. He worked at the medical school through 1946, and afterwards he was an emeritus professor. He made advances both in diagnostic radiology and in radiotherapy, taking special interest in radiation treatment for oral and breast cancers. Pfahler was the 1910-11 president of the American Roentgen Ray Society, and he was the president of the

American Radium Society The American Radium Society is a medical association devoted to the study and treatment of cancer. It was founded in 1916. The Society's original mission was to further "the scientific study of radium in relation to its physical properties and the ...

in 1922. The next year, he became the first president of the

American College of Radiology The American College of Radiology (ACR), founded in 1923, is a professional medical society representing nearly 40,000 diagnostic radiologists, radiation oncologists, interventional radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians and medical physicists. ...

(ACR). He won the ACR Gold Medal, the organization's highest award, in 1952. Pfahler married Frances Simpson on November 21, 1908. She died on March 15, 1910, and he remarred to Muriel Wilkes Bennett on July 10, 1918. He died at

Graduate Hospital Southwest Center City (SWCC), also known as Graduate Hospital, is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bordering Center City Philadelphia. The neighborhood is bordered on the north by South Street, on the south by Washington Avenue, on the west ...

in Philadelphia on January 29, 1957. The Pfahler Hall of Science at Ursinus College is named in his honor.

Biography

References

Further reading