Levi Lane

May 9, 1830 (age 71)

Somerville, Ohio, United States

Upon the graduation for the following four years Lane served at Ward's Island, New York, as interne and house physician. He passed the examination for entrance to the United States Navy in 1855 and was assigned to duty at the hospital at Quarantine, Staten Island, New York. Later he had a tour of sea duty in Central American waters. Resigning from the navy in 1859, he joined his uncle, Dr. Elias Samuel Cooper, in practice in San Francisco, and was at once appointed professor of physiology in the recently established medical school of the University of the Pacific. This school closed its doors in 1864 following the death of Dr. Cooper, and Lane accepted the chair of physiology in the Toland Medical College, which was started the same year. In 1870 a group from this faculty revived the old Medical College of the Pacific, and Lane became professor of surgery. In 1882 he built and gave to the school a fine brick building, at which time the name was changed to Cooper Medical College in honor of his uncle. He later gave a second building to the school and he began the negotiations which finally resulted in its amalgamation with Stanford University in 1909. He built the Lane Hospital in 1894 as an adjunct to the school. Lane was a surgeon with original ideas and excellent judgment. For years he had the best of the surgical practice on the Pacific coast, his patients coming from as far as Alaska and Chile. He brought to his surgical practice an exact knowledge of anatomy and excellent judgment of surgical risks. Aseptic surgery was introduced late in his career and he was never able to master its technique. He sought to balance this defect by absurd measures to preserve aseptic conditions in Lane Hospital. He was essentially a student and read Greek and Latin, as well as French, German, and Spanish. He submitted a Latin thesis on external urethrotomy for his examination for the navy. He had a profound knowledge of the history and literature of surgery and made a translation from the German of Billroth's Surgical Pathology. He projected an elaborate textbook on surgery in three volumes, but lived only to finish the first, the Surgery of the Head and Neck (1896), a work containing a wealth of material with its value greatly affected by poor arrangement. Among his other notable publications are Ligations for the Cure of Aneurism (1884), reprinted from the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, and Rudolph Virchow (1893), reprinted from the Occidental Medical Times. In 1896 he founded the Lane Lectures, a series designed to introduce to the California profession the most progressive minds of Europe and the eastern United States. His whole career was handicapped by a frail physique and frequent illness. Asthmatic as a youth, he later suffered from a chronic bronchitis. His physical ills prevented him from taking great part in public affairs, though he was at one time a member of the city and state boards of health and a president of the state medical society.

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Dr. Henry Gibbons: In Memoriam

(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

Dr. Henry Gibbons: In Memoriam, First of the Lane Lectures of 1885, Delivered in Cooper Medical College, January 2nd...

(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Exercises in Memory of Levi Cooper Lane: Held at Lane Hall of Cooper Medical College on Sunday Afternoon the Ninth Day of March in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Two

(Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

Guatemala: an address delivered at the opening of the California state medical society, April 18, 1883

(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

Collection of Publications of L.C. Lane . C. 2

(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

The Surgery of the Head and Neck C. 2

(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1896 Excerpt: ... Fracture of the maxilla superior is remarkable for the short time required for healing, provided the parts be placed in proper position, and thus immobilized. After coaptation, if alveolar fracture demand it, let the teeth be encased in gutta percha, and then, by a bandage, fix the lower jaw against the upper one, so as to retain the latter in position. Meantime, during the four weeks, which time is demanded for healing, let the patient be fed in the manner already described. The appliance of retention may be a gypsum cast; or straps with buckles may be placed vertically, obliquely and horizontally, so as to maintain rest of the broken bone. Fracture from gunshot wound has often been observed by the military surgeon; and in this era of social discord, in which the worst as well as the best elements are evenly paired in the turmoil of civilization, the civil surgeon is not an infrequent observer of gunshot injuries; such injury, self-inflicted, may be the gunshot wound in the mouth, which failing to kill, as was intended, the ball has shattered the upper jaw. Such projectile wound should be treated in the same manner as gunshot wounds in other parts of the body; especial care, however, should be taken to save fragments of the palatal orocess which are still adherent to the soft parts. Resection of the Upper Jaw.--Resection of the maxilla superior may be partial or total in its extent; partial resection may concern either the processes or a portion of the boa'y; but in total resection the entire bone or both maxilhe may be extirpated. In total resection the inferior turbinated bone is necessarily removed, inasmuch as it articulates only with the upper jaw. On the other hand, though resection is said to be total, yet, in most cases in which it is done, fragmen...

Shadows in the Ethics of the International Medical Congress (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Shadows in the Ethics of the International M...)

Levi Cooper Lane

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physician Surgeon

Background

Levi Cooper Lane was born on a farm near Somerville, Butler County, Ohio, the eldest of the nine children of Ira and Hannah (Cooper) Lane.

Education

He attended Farmers College, near Cincinnati, and later Union College, Schenectady, New York. He graduated in medicine from Jefferson Medical College in 1851.

Career

Upon the graduation for the following four years Lane served at Ward's Island, New York, as interne and house physician. He passed the examination for entrance to the United States Navy in 1855 and was assigned to duty at the hospital at Quarantine, Staten Island, New York. Later he had a tour of sea duty in Central American waters.

Resigning from the navy in 1859, he joined his uncle, Dr. Elias Samuel Cooper, in practice in San Francisco, and was at once appointed professor of physiology in the recently established medical school of the University of the Pacific. This school closed its doors in 1864 following the death of Dr. Cooper, and Lane accepted the chair of physiology in the Toland Medical College, which was started the same year.

In 1870 a group from this faculty revived the old Medical College of the Pacific, and Lane became professor of surgery. In 1882 he built and gave to the school a fine brick building, at which time the name was changed to Cooper Medical College in honor of his uncle. He later gave a second building to the school and he began the negotiations which finally resulted in its amalgamation with Stanford University in 1909. He built the Lane Hospital in 1894 as an adjunct to the school.

Lane was a surgeon with original ideas and excellent judgment. For years he had the best of the surgical practice on the Pacific coast, his patients coming from as far as Alaska and Chile. He brought to his surgical practice an exact knowledge of anatomy and excellent judgment of surgical risks. Aseptic surgery was introduced late in his career and he was never able to master its technique. He sought to balance this defect by absurd measures to preserve aseptic conditions in Lane Hospital. He was essentially a student and read Greek and Latin, as well as French, German, and Spanish. He submitted a Latin thesis on external urethrotomy for his examination for the navy. He had a profound knowledge of the history and literature of surgery and made a translation from the German of Billroth's Surgical Pathology.

He projected an elaborate textbook on surgery in three volumes, but lived only to finish the first, the Surgery of the Head and Neck (1896), a work containing a wealth of material with its value greatly affected by poor arrangement. Among his other notable publications are Ligations for the Cure of Aneurism (1884), reprinted from the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, and Rudolph Virchow (1893), reprinted from the Occidental Medical Times. In 1896 he founded the Lane Lectures, a series designed to introduce to the California profession the most progressive minds of Europe and the eastern United States.

His whole career was handicapped by a frail physique and frequent illness. Asthmatic as a youth, he later suffered from a chronic bronchitis. His physical ills prevented him from taking great part in public affairs, though he was at one time a member of the city and state boards of health and a president of the state medical society.

Achievements

Lane established the Cooper Medical College, forerunner to the Stanford University School of Medicine, as well as laying the groundwork for Stanford's medical library and the Stanford School of Nursing. The University's medical library is still named Lane Medical Library in his honor. He was also credited with having performed the first vaginal hysterectomy in America, with having originated an operation for craniectomy for microcephalus, and he devised improvements in the surgical treatment of harelip.