Background
Graham, Evarts Ambrose was born on March 19, 1883 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Wilson and Ida Anspach (Barned) Graham.
Graham, Evarts Ambrose was born on March 19, 1883 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Wilson and Ida Anspach (Barned) Graham.
Bachelor of Arts, Princeton. 1904; Doctor of Medicine Rush Medical College, 1907. Doctor of Science, Cincinnati, 1927.
Doctor of Laws, Central College, 1927.
Honorary Master of Science, Yale, 1928. Doctor of Science, Princeton University, 1929.
Doctor of Science, Western Reserve University, 1931. Doctor of Science, University of Pennsylvania, 1940.
Doctor of Science, University of Chicago, 1941.
Doctor of Science, McGill, University, 1944, Emory University, 1954. New York University, 1955. Doctor of Laws University of Glasgow, 1951, Johns Hopkins University, 1952.
Washington University, 1952.
U. Leeds (England), 1954. Special student chemistry, University Chicago, 1913, 14.
Degree from Rush Medical College in 1907. Evarts served as a Major (O4) in the United States. Army Medical Corps from 1917 to 1919, and was initially posted to Camp Lee (now Fort Lee, Virginia). Afterwards, Doctor Graham served in France as commander of United States. Army Evacuation Hospital 34.
Following his discharge from military service, he was recruited to Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri as the Bixby Professor of Surgery.
An expert thoracic surgeon, he was best known for collaborating with Doctorates Jacob J. Singer, Kenneth Bell, and William Adams on the first successful removal of a lung for the treatment of bronchogenic carcinoma in 1933.
The patient was another physician (an obstetrician-gynecologist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Doctor James Lee Gilmore. Moreover, together with Doctor Warren Henry Cole, Graham developed the technique of cholecystography, the first procedure for imaging the gallbladder and detecting the presence of cholelithiasis.
Doctor Graham was instrumental in founding the American Board of Surgery in 1937 and he was active as a medical editor and author
Graham was Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of Surgery & the Journal of Thoracic Surgery, and Company-Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Surgery. Graham served as the chairman of the department of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) from 1919 to 1951, and the chief of surgery at Barnes Hospital, the teaching medical center of WUSM now known as Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Graham and Doctor Ernst Wynder conducted the first systematic research on the carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoking that was done on a large scale, and they published their results in a 1950 paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Journal of the American Medical Association).
Graham himself had been a long-term cigarette smoker until his own research supported a link between smoking and disease, and he ironically died from lung cancer in 1957.
Interestingly, his seminal lung cancer surgery patient in 1933, Doctor Gilmore, also outlived him by 6 years, dying in 1963 at the age of 78. Honors & Doctor
Member of staff Otho. South. A. Sprague Memorial Institute, Rush, Chicago, 1912-1915. Member Presidents Commision on Health Needs of Nation, 1952.
Member National.
Member of committee appointed by secretary of war to study activities of Medical Department of the United States Army, 1942. President board of trustees John Burroughs School, Saint Louis, 1930-1937. Member National Board Medical Examiners, 1924-1933.
Chairman American Board of Surgery (1937-1941).
Member American Surgical Association (president 1937), Society Clinical Surgery, American Association Thoracic Surgery (president 1928), Saint Louis Association Surgeons (president 1925), Society for Clinical Research. Societe Internationale de Chirugie.
Member Nu Sigma Nu, Alpha Omega Alpha fraternities.
Married Helen Tredway, January 29, 1916. Children: David Tredway, Evarts Ambrose.