Henry Jacob Bigelow (March 11, 1818October 30, 1890) was an American surgeon and Professor of Surgery at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. A dominating figure in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

medicine for many decades, he is remembered for the Bigelow maneuver for hip dislocation, a technique for treatment of

kidney stones Kidney stone disease, also known as nephrolithiasis or urolithiasis, is a crystallopathy where a solid piece of material (kidney stone) develops in the urinary tract. Kidney stones typically form in the kidney and leave the body in the urine s ...

, and other innovations. He was instrumental in bringing the

anesthetic An anesthetic (American English) or anaesthetic (British English; see spelling differences) is a drug used to induce anesthesia ⁠— ⁠in other words, to result in a temporary loss of sensation or awareness. They may be divided into two ...

possibilities of

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be c ...

to the attention of medical men, and rescuing the case of

Phineas Gage Phineas P. Gage (18231860) was an American railroad construction foreman known for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and ...

from relative obscurity. He was a vocal opponent of

vivisection Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experiment ...

, and played a minor role in the apprehension of the culprit in the

Parkman–Webster murder case After Boston businessman George Parkman disappeared in November 1849, his dismembered and partially burned body was found in the laboratory of John Webster, a lecturer at Harvard Medical College; Webster was convicted of Parkman's murder and hange ...

Biography

Bigelow was born March 11, 1818 in Boston to his mother, Mary Scollay, and his father,

Jacob Bigelow Jacob Bigelow (February 27, 1787January 10, 1879) was an American physician, botanist and botanical illustrator. He was architect of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts (in which he is interred), husband to Mary Scollay, and the f ...

who taught medicine at Harvard. Bigelow entered Harvard College at fifteen years old and, after a not entirely smooth undergraduate career (including an incident in which he discharged a musket in his

Hollis Hall This is a list of dormitories at Harvard College. Only freshmen live in these dormitories, which are located in and around Harvard Yard. Sophomores, juniors and seniors live in the House system. Apley Court South of Harvard Yard on Holyoke Stre ...

room) graduated in 1837. He studied medicine both at Harvard and at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

(at the latter, under

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (; August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among the fireside poets, he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most fa ...

), receiving his M.D. at Harvard in 1841. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1846. His "Insensibility during Surgical Operations Produced by Inhalation" (1846), detailing the discovery of ether anesthesia, was selected by readers of the

New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals as well as the oldest continuously published one. Hist ...

as the "most important article in NEJM history" in commemoration of the journal's 200th anniversary. "Dr. Harlow's case of Recovery from the passage of an Iron Bar through the Head" (1850) brought the case of

out of complete obscurity into merely relative obscurity, and largely neutralized remaining scepticism about the case. Bigelow described the structure and function of the Y-ligament of the

hip joint In vertebrate anatomy, hip (or "coxa"Latin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) in medical terminology) refers to either an anatomical region or a joint. The hip region is ...

in great detail, and it still carries his name. In 1878 he published "Lithotrity by a Single Operation", in which he described his a technique for "the crushing and removal of a stone from the bladder at one sitting." Prior to this, surgeons would crush a bladder stone and then spend only a few minutes removing the pieces. The remaining fragments would remain for a later session for removal. This resulted in much discomfort and complications as the remaining fragments found an exit on their own. Removing the entire bladder stone in one procedure was a great advancement. Bigelow died October 30, 1890 after an accident, at his country home in

Newton, Massachusetts Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...

. He is buried at

Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural cemetery, rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middl ...

. He was survived by one son,

William Sturgis Bigelow William Sturgis Bigelow (1850–1926) was a prominent American collector of Japanese art. The art collection trips he funded in the 1880s helped to form the standards by which Japanese art and culture were appreciated in the West. In 1909, Bigelo ...

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* Henry Jacob Bigelow,
Henry Jacob Bigelow papers, 1840s-1856 (inclusive), 1848-1855 (bulk). H MS c439. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bigelow, Henry Jacob 1818 births 1890 deaths American surgeons Anti-vivisectionists Harvard Medical School faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Harvard Medical School alumni Physicians from Massachusetts Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery People from Boston

Biography

See also

References

Bibliography

External links