Harvey Cushing: A Biography
By John F. Fulton
Read by Edison McDaniels, MD
Coming soon to Audible!
The 1946 biography of Harvey Cushing by John Fulton on audiobook for the first time ever!
“The Power of One, the Impact of Many.” For neurosurgery, there is no individual who encapsulates the power of one better than Harvey Cushing. Cushing (1869-1939) is the founding father of modern neurosurgery and was remarkably productive even by today’s standards. It is estimated that in addition to everything else he accomplished, he wrote the equivalent of 1,000 words a day for the entirety of his 70 years on this earth. He also operated on over 2,000 brain tumors (less than 5 attempts had been made to operate on any brain tumor before him, only one successfully). This was at a time without antibiotics, specialized imaging, blood transfusions, intensive care units, or anything more than primitive early anesthetic techniques. He quite literally invented modern brain surgery.
HARVEY CUSHING, A BIOGRAPHY, by John Fulton.
• This is the definitive biography of Harvey Cushing, published in 1946.
• First time ever on audio!
• This is not an AI production. The voice is mine, and all technical aspects of the production are my own work. I am a team of 1. This is a highly polished presentation.
• The audiobook is 45 hours in length..
• Listeners can go directly to individual chapters or any of the excerpts or bonus materials.
The Story of a Great Medical Pioneer
Written in 1946 by the eminent scholar and physiologist John F. Fulton, a man who knew and worked alongside Cushing, this is the definitive biography of one of the most significant figures in the history of medicine and surgery. Cushing’s legacy is present in every operating room in the world everyday, for he was much more than the father of modern neurosurgery: among other innovations, he was the first to follow blood pressure during surgery and the first to develop a practical means of doing so. He was a pioneer in electrocautery, otherwise known as the electric knife, which is used in most operations today to control bleeding. He worked out the relationship between gigantism and pituitary tumors. These are just a few of the numerous innovations and discoveries he is credited with.
He counted among his friends and patients many of the foremost physicians, statesmen, scientists, and scholars of his time. One of his daughter’s married FDR’s son. Included among the correspondence here are notes and letters with Sir William Osler (the father of modern internal medicine), Walter Reed (the man who conquered Yellow Fever), William H. Taft, The Mayo Brothers (founders of The Mayo Clinic), William Halsted (the father of modern surgery), and many, many more.
This work will be of great interest to neurosurgeons, medical students, nurses, neurosurgical physician associates, medical product reps, and anyone with any interest in the history of medicine. Cushing knew everybody who was anybody in medicine during the first third of the 20th century and it’s all described here in remarkable prose. There is much material here on the founding of the Johns Hopkins Medical School as well as the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Includes the founding of the the Cushing Brain Tumor Archive at Yale and The Harvey Cushing Society, now known as the AANS. It will be easily accessible and can be listened to in piecemeal fashion, such as to and from work for 10 minutes at a time, or on a long car ride or when traveling by plane for hours. A surprising amount of Cushing’s advice remains relevant to today’s physicians in general and neurosurgeons in particular.
I am a board certified neurosurgeon. I am also an accomplished audiobook narrator. I developed this over the years as a hobby that I could work at at any hour of the day or night amidst the busy schedule of a practicing neurosurgeon. I have a professional recording studio in my home and have recorded over 50,000 minutes of spoken word audio.
