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William Wayne Babcock

Born  1872
Died  1963

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American surgeon, born June 10, 1872, E. Worcester, New York; died 1963.

Biography of William Wayne Babcock

William Wayne Babcock, a New Yorker, studied at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore. Here he was conferred doctor of medicine in 1893 at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He then continued his studies in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, receiving his second doctorate at the Medico-Chirurgical College in Philadelphia in 1900.

Babcock practiced as resident physician at the St. Mark's Hospital, Salt Lake City, at the Philadelphia Polyclinic, and the College for Graduates in Medicine. He was house surgeon at the Kensington Hospital for Women, as well as demonstrator and assistant professor of pathology and bacteriology at the Medico-Chirurgical College in Philadelphia. He took over the chair of surgery and clinical surgery at Temple College, Philadelphia, in 1903. He also became surgeon to the Temple University Hospital as well as the Garretson and the American Stomach Hospitals.

The medical profession owes him some improvements and changes. He introduced a special method for operating varicose veins, changed some other methods, mainly in the area of abdominal operations, or developed surgical instruments. His publications are mainly concerned with these themes.

Babcock was a collaborator in Prophylaxis in Solomon Solis Cohen’s (1857-) System of physiologic Therapeutics, volume 5, Philadelphia, 1903.

«We shall not scorn what was done yesterday because we have something better today any more than our interest in the past will cause us to continue the practice of the past.»
Textbook of Surgery, Preface.

Bibliography

  • An essay upon the general principles of preventive medicine. Brooklyn, 1902.
  • A new treatment of thoracic aneurysm.
    Annals of Clinical Medicine, 1926, 4: 933-942.
    Babcock's operation for thoracic aneurysm.
  • Operative decompression of aortic aneurysm by carotid-jugular anastomosis.
    Surgical Clinics of North America, Philadelphia, 1929, 9: 1031-1041.
    Babcock's operation for aortic aneurysm.
  • A Textbook of surgery.
    Philadelphia, Saunders, 1928; 2nd edition, 1935.

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