Background
Leo Max Davidoff was born on January 16, 1898 in Talsen, Latvia. He was one of nine children of Israel Davidoff, a cobbler and butcher, and Liebe Lemkus, a homemaker. The family came to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1905.
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Leo Max Davidoff was born on January 16, 1898 in Talsen, Latvia. He was one of nine children of Israel Davidoff, a cobbler and butcher, and Liebe Lemkus, a homemaker. The family came to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1905.
Davidoff attended several Massachusetts public schools, finishing high school in Salem. He graduated from Harvard College in 1920 and from Harvard's medical school with an M. D. in 1922.
He served an internship in paediatrics at the Boston City Hospital, followed by an internship in general surgery and residency in neurological surgery, both at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
During June-October 1925 he took a break from his training to serve as Surgeon to the Byrd-MacMillan Arctic Expedition. This expedition to western Greenland under Commander Donald Baxter MacMillan (1874-1970) was the beginning of Richard Evelyn Byrd's (1888-1957) spectacular career as a polar aviator.
In 1926-1927 a Peter bent Brigham Travelling Fellowship enabled him to spend six months in a clinical clerkship under Gordon Morgan Holmes (1876-1965) at the National Hospital, Queen’s Square, London, and another six months in neuropathology at the Staatskrankenanstalt, Friedrichsberg, Hamburg, as volunteer assistant to Alfons Maria Jakob (1884-1931).
In 1927 Davidoff joined the staff of the New York State Psychiatric Institute as a research assistant in neuropathology. During the years 1929 to 1937 he was with the neurosurgical staff of the New York Neurological Institute. In 1937, he was appointed Chief of Surgery, and Attending Neurosurgeon, at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn. He remained there until 1945, when he went to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, first as Attending Neurological Surgeon and later as Chief of the Division of Neurological Surgery.
In 1949, Davidoff became the Director of Neurological Surgery at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, serving also as neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1956, he resigned to return to Montefiore Hospital as Attending Neurosurgeon and, in 1958, became Consultant in Neurosurgery there, until his retirement in 1966.
His academic appointments included: Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (1945-1949); Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, New York University College of Medicine (1949-1954); Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York (1954-1958); Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurological Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1959-66, when he became Professor Emeritus); and Associate Dean, Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1961-1966).
His final years were made difficult by serious Parkinsonism, but he continued to participate in seminars and teaching conferences.
He headed the department of neurological surgery at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn (1937–45), the Montefiore Hospital (1945–49), and the Beth Israel Hospital (1949–54). From 1951 to 1956 he was neurosurgeon at the Mount Sinai Hospital and from 1954 to 1966 was director of neurological surgery at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. His contributions to medical literature include approximately 200 articles and 12 books, including the multivolume Neuroradiology Workshop (with Harold Jacobson and Harry Zimmerman; 1961), The Normal Pneumoencephalogram (with Cornelius G. Dyke; 1937), and The Abnormal Pneumoencephalogram (with Bernard S. Epstein; 1950). Davidoff was awarded Order of the White Lion, Fourth Class, from Charles University. In 1966, he was named the first honorary alumnus of the Einstein College of Medicine.
Quotations: His credo may be summarized by the prayer of Maimonides (the twelfth-century physician and philosopher), which he read at each of the Einstein commencements he attended: "Grant that I may be filled with love for my art and for my fellow men. "
Davidoff was a member of the Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission.
He also was chairman of a number of medical training missions for the World Health Organization. He was a member of the medical advisory board of the *Hadassah organization and of the board of directors of the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was president of the Society of Neurological Surgeons (1951).
Among Davidoff's many distinctions were founding member of the American Board of Neurological Surgery, charter member and president (1956 - 1957) of the Harvey Cushing Society, and honorary member of the American Society of Neuroradiology (1963), a unique distinction given for his major contributions to this discipline.
Davidoff abhorred all forms of totalitarianism; human dignity was sacrosanct to him. He was a strict disciplinarian and demanding taskmaster when it came to the care of patients.
Away from the hospital, this austere facade vanished, and he was charming, humorous, and graciously convivial with skills as a raconteur.
Davidoff married Ida Alice Fisher on October 3, 1926; she became an active family therapist, and they had four children.
