Charles Howard Peck was born on June 18, 1870 in Newtown, Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Albert W. and Louise W. (Booth) Peck, and a descendant of William Peck who emigrated to Boston in 1637 and was one of the founders of New Haven, Connecticut.
Charles Howard Peck received his preparatory education at Newtown Academy, studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and received the degree of M. D. from that institution in 1893.
Charles Howard Peck entered upon the private practice of surgery in New York City in 1895. In 1900 he was made an assistant instructor in operative surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, subsequently advancing through the intervening grades to full professorship in 1909. He also became surgeon to the Roosevelt Hospital, and consulting surgeon to the French and Memorial hospitals, the Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled, the Stamford (Connecticut) Hospital, and Vassar Brothers Hospital, Poughkeepsie, New York. When the United States entered the World War, he offered his services to the government and was commissioned a major in the medical reserve. He organized Base Hospital 15, at Chaumont, France, and expanded it to a capacity of 3, 000 beds.
In April 1918 Charles Howard Peck was appointed senior consultant in general surgery in the American Expeditionary Forces and in June he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel. He served in France until 1918, when he returned to America. Thereafter, until February 1919, he acted in rotation with Colonels W. J. and Charles H. Mayo, as chief of the department of surgery in the office of the surgeon general of the army. In August 1918 he was commissioned a colonel. After the war he was awarded the distinguished service medal, and was made Officier de l'Instruction Publique by France, and was accorded honorary membership in the 68th Battalion of Alpine Chasseurs "for services rendered to the French Army" during the battle of Chemin des Dames, October 17, 1917. In France he lost a son who was serving in his father's unit. After the war Peck continued his career of surgical teaching and practice.
A general surgeon, interested in the whole broad field, Charles Howard Peck was perhaps best known for his work in gastro-intestinal surgery. While he was not a prolific writer, nearly a hundred articles on medicine and surgery were published by him; the majority of them, however, are case reports and are brief, while none is very long. He was a member of many surgical societies and served as president of the Society of Clinical Surgery, and as treasurer of the American Surgical Association and member of its council from 1915 to the time of his death.
Charles Howard Peck died of pernicious anaemia on March 28, 1927.
Charles Howard Peck was a president of the New York Surgical Society, and vice-president of the New York Academy of Medicine.
Quotes from others about the person
Dr. Charles H. Mayo: ". .. as a surgeon, he was resourceful, meticulous, noted for kindliness to tissue and scrupulous haemostatis, skillful in operative maneuvers, and possessed of a mature judgment, the fruit of long and ripe experience. "
On September 2, 1896, Charles Howard Peck married Betsy F. Chaffee of Montreal, Canada. They had three sons.
