Elliot Carr Cutler was an American surgeon and medical educator.
Background
Elliot was born on July 30, 1888 in Bangor the second of five sons of George Chalmers Cutler, a lumber merchant, and Mary Franklin (Wilson) Cutler.
Both parents were natives of Maine, and his father's first American ancestor had come to this country from England in 1635.
Within a year of Elliott's birth, the family moved to Brookline, Massachussets.
Education
In Brookline, Massachussets, Cutler attended Pierce grammar school.
After preparing at the Volkmann School in Boston he enrolled at Harvard, during his senior year was captain of the crew, and received the B. A. degree in 1909.
He then entered Harvard Medical School and, dissatisfied with the limitations of the training then offered, he spent his fourth year studying pathology in the laboratory of Frank B. Mallory at the Boston City Hospital. Cutler later looked back on that year as probably the most important of his training experience, in that it taught him the value of precise work, making and recording careful observations, and taking time to study a medical problem in all its aspects. He received the M. D. degree in 1913 and after a summer studying pathology at Heidelberg became a surgical intern under Harvey Cushing at the newly established Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
Career
In August 1915, Cutler went to Paris for a three-month period as resident surgeon with the American Ambulance Hospital, and then began a year as resident surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. Wishing to broaden his medical background, he then spent several months at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, studying immunology with Simon Flexner. With America's entry into World War I, Cutler was commissioned a captain and returned to France as a member of the Harvard Unit, Base Hospital No. 5, with the American Expeditionary Forces. On detached duty under the trying conditions of trench warfare during various offensives, in which he assumed great responsibility for the care and shelter of the wounded, he acquired a broad experience in surgery and was promoted to the rank of major. He returned to Boston at the end of the war to become resident surgeon, under Cushing, at Brigham.
In 1921 Cutler was appointed associate in surgery at Brigham Hospital and for two years served as director of the laboratory for surgical research and chairman of the department of surgery at Harvard Medical School. In 1924 he moved to Cleveland as professor of surgery at the Western Reserve University Medical School. In the eight years following, Cutler played an active role in the development of the school. He assumed a large share of the responsibility for the planning and construction of the new Lakeside Hospital, now a division of the University Hospitals in Cleveland, and was director of the surgical service. In 1932, with the retirement of Cushing, Cutler was recalled by Harvard to become the Moseley Professor of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, posts he held until his death. This active period of his life was devoted to surgical practice, teaching, and research.
As World War II approached, Cutler foresaw the needs of the civilian population as well as those of the military. As the head of the medical aid division of the Massachusetts Committee on Public Safety, he organized a system whereby in the event of disaster doctors could be mobilized, and he saw to it that every hospital was equipped to function as an emergency unit. This plan served as a model for the nation. He also assisted in organizing the Fifth General Hospital, the Harvard Unit in World War II. As a lieutenant colonel in the Army Medical Reserve Corps, Cutler was recalled to military duty again in 1942. With the rank of colonel he served as chief surgical consultant and subsequently as chief of the professional services division of the European Theater of Operations. He played a major role in establishing good military surgical practice and fostering the excellence of care for the wounded. In his liaison role with the British and the medical services of other countries, he organized the ETO Surgical Society for the dissemination of clinical lessons learned in combat surgery. He was instrumental in the procurement of blood supplies from the United States for use by military surgeons.
All his life Cutler emphasized the need to broaden the training of medical students. His teaching clinics were masterpieces, designed to awaken the student's interest in the patient's illness and its management, and he delighted in demonstrating the art and science of diagnosis and surgical treatment. Demanding of his house officers and his students, he was no less demanding of himself. Each detail of a patient's clinical course was carefully evaluated so that, if possible, no matter was left to chance. Another aspect of his surgical program, then highly unusual, was the opportunity afforded his residents to work in the surgical research laboratory, where many a future investigator got his start. To the development of this laboratory he devoted much personal effort, directing the research and raising the funds for its support. The large number of his pupils who became professors and distinguished surgeons bear witness to the inspiration and effectiveness of his teaching.
Notable were his interests in thoracotomy, cardiac surgery, and the treatment of lung abscess. He was the first surgeon (1923) in the United States to perform a successful operation on a heart valve in a patient; he inserted an instrument into the left ventricle to divide the stenosed mitral valve, a procedure that antedated by nearly thirty years the development of similar techniques that became commonplace in the treatment of rheumatic heart disease. He also was the first on this continent to undertake the successful resection of the pericardium for constructive pericarditis. Among other innovative operations he devised was the relief of heart failure by total thyroidectomy. He published more than 260 papers, as well as the Atlas of Surgical Operations, written with Robert Zollinger, which remains a valuable source of information for young surgeons in training.
He also served on the editorial board of several journals, including the American Heart Journal, Journal of Clinicl Investigation, Surgery, American Journal of Surgery, and British Journal of Surgery. When he returned from his war services in 1945, Cutler realized that he was in poor health. Examination showed that he was suffering from cancer of the prostate. In spite of continuing metastases, he continued to work with cheerfulness. Only a few weeks before his death, in a speech accepting the Bigelow Medal from the Boston Surgical Society, he reaffirmed his philosophy of teaching and his conviction that a broad background of laboratory training was necessary for the surgeon.
He died at his home in Brookline, a few days after his fifty-ninth birthday. In his will he directed that after a complete autopsy, for the benefit of medical science, his body be cremated.
The American Surgical Association , the American College of Surgeons, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Society for Experimental Pathology, the Society for Clinical Surgery.
Personality
Cutler was above medium height, of a lean, wiry build. His sharp features were topped by well-combed blond hair. The genuine interest he felt for his students and others who came into contact with him was manifested by the twinkle in his piercing blue eyes. A generation of students and house officers remember him typically as dressed in a scrub suit covered by a long white coat.
As a surgeon, Cutler was meticulous, deliberate, and gentle in handling tissues, characteristics inherited from his studies under Cushing; his achievements were of solid importance in the art and science of surgical practice.
Interests
Sport & Clubs
Sailing, fishing
Connections
On May 24, 1919, Cutler married Caroline Pollard Parker, of Brookline, who had also served at Base Hospital No. 5. Their children were Elliott Carr, Jr. , Thomas Pollard, David, Marjorie Parker (who died in childhood), and Tarrant.