Isidor Clinton Rubin

Background

Isidor Clinton Rubin was born in Friedrichshof, a small place in Prussia. He was the son of Nehemiah Rubin and Froma Keller. The family migrated to New York City when Isidor was quite young.

Education

He attended City College and later the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, from which he received the M. D. degree in 1905. He then entered on an internship and residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital. In 1909 he returned to Europe for a year of postgraduate training. He visited Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Paris but spent most of his time at the Frauenklinik in Vienna, where he studied under the famous surgeon J. Schottlender, with whom he developed a lasting friendship.

Career

Rubin got the position of house surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital and terminated in 1909 to continue his postgraduate training in Europe. Back in New York in 1910, he obtained gynecologic appointments at Beth Israel, Mt. Sinai, and Montefiore hospitals, while turning his special attention to the pathology of cancer of the cervix of the uterus.

His first published paper, dated 1910, is still referred to as establishing clearly the entity now known as carcinoma in situ. Until 1914 Rubin experimented on cadavers and laboratory animals, using radio-opaque substances, but when he first carried out salpingography on a live subject, the substance proved to be too irritating and the procedure was temporarily discontinued. Later a gaseous medium, oxygen, was substituted and still later carbon dioxide, which was found to be relatively inert and therefore safer.

In fact, it was not until November 3, 1919, that Rubin performed the first successful test to determine the patency of the Fallopian tubes, thus creating a new eponym, the Rubin test. The original paper of fifty-three pages, illustrated by the author and now preserved in the New York Academy of Medicine, describes how the oxygen entered the peritoneal cavity and how its presence could be detected by the roentgenogram. Rubin's preliminary report, entitled "Nonoperative Determination of Patency of Fallopian Tubes in Sterility" (Journal of the American Medical Association, Apr. 10, 1920), created a sensation and made Rubin internationally famous.

In 1923 Rubin described a sudden acute pain in the shoulders as a reliable sign of ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Always anxious to relieve the distress of the patient in labor, he was among the first to advocate the use of hypnosis in delivery. Patients from all over the world now poured into his office, but like another Maimonides he reserved much of his time for the deserving poor. Rubin was a teacher par excellence and took unusual interest in the young men under his supervision. Not only was he willing to share ideas for future research, but he experienced a sense of disappointment when some of his pupils failed to live up to his expectations.

From 1937 to 1947 Rubin was clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University. He also held a similar position at New York University and still later (1948) at New York Medical College. During the same decade he served as chief of gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital, retiring in 1946 to become consultant gynecologist and obstetrician, while retaining similar positions at Montefiore, Beth Israel, and Harlem hospitals.

Rubin was a founding fellow of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Academy of Obstetrics and a fellow of the International College of Surgeons. He served as president of the American Gynecological Society; the American Association of Obstetricians, Gynecologists and Abdominal Surgeons; and the New York Obstetrical Society. He was also active in the American Society for the Advancement of Science and the U. S. Committee of the World Medical Association.

Rubin was also a prolific writer and, being a gifted draftsman, frequently provided illustrations for his own articles. In addition to his three major book publications, Symptoms in Gynecology (1923); Uterotubal Insufflation (1947); and, with Josef Novak, Integrated Gynecology (1956), Rubin had contributed chapters on sterility to Curtis' System of Gynecology; Lewis' System of Surgery, and the Davis Cyclopedia of Medicine.

He also served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Fertility, Gynecologie Pratique, Excerpta Medica, Fertility and Sterility, and the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Rubin traveled widely to conferences and symposia. "I. C. ," as he was affectionately called, received a hearty welcome wherever he went, and few physicians of modern times have been so widely honored by governments and learned societies. In 1949 an entire number of a Brazilian journal was dedicated to his honor. At least ten nations bestowed on him their highest decorations. Although not a trained linguist, he taught himself to deliver addresses in French and Spanish in addition to his native German. Rubin died in London.

Achievements

• Isidor Clinton Rubin was the best-known gynecologist of his generation. He was regarded by many as the single most important contributor to the study of fertility in this century. He was the developer of the Rubin test, a tubal insufflation test. This was an office procedure to check for tubal patency in the infertility investigation. Among other contributions to gynecology were his observations regarding the early development of cervical cancer. He was one of the first to use hysterosalpingography in the diagnosis of tubal and uterine disorders. His studies on ectopic pregnancy laid down the principles to identify a cervical pregnancy that became known as Rubin’s criteria. He also published no less than 132 articles in journals all over the world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Symptoms in Gynecology Etiology and Interpretation: With Notes on Diagnosis
  • Integrated gynecology: Principles and practice
  • Collected Papers of Dr. I. C. Rubin, 1910-1954

Membership

Fellow of the American Board of Obstetrics

Fellow of the American Academy of Obstetrics

Fellow of the International College of Surgeons

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Elliot Philipp wrote, "Although Rubin had the gifts of a research worker he also had a great dexterity as an operator, and a wonderful gentleness and warmth of character that drew people to him; so inevitably he was taken from the laboratory to the clinical field and there became acutely aware of the misery of sterility. With determination and with a band of collaborators at Beth Israel and Mt. Sinai he set to work to unravel one problem after another. He did not casually stumble on his discovery that the ovum was conveyed to the uterus by the peristaltic waves of the Fallopian tubes. "
  
  V. B. Green-Armytage wrote, "He was generosity itself to postgraduates and I recall many a visit to his multicubicled office in Park Avenue where we would listen to him, surrounded by nurses, practitioners, as he passed from patient to patient. .. he was always quiet and efficient as he taught us how to work his beloved machine. "
  
  "Yet, " according to Green-Armytage, "he detested bombast, hypocrisy and lack of truth and would not hesitate to criticize a work that he judged prematurely published or inadequately proved. "

Connections

Rubin married Sylvia Unterberg on January 7, 1914.

Father:

Nehemiah Rubin

Mother:

Froma Keller

Spouse:

Sylvia Unterberg

Friend:

J. Schottlender