Background

Thorek was born on March 10, 1880 in Hungary. He was the son of Issac Thorek and Sarah Mahler. His father practiced medicine as a feldsher, or physician without academic training; while his mother was one of the first midwives to receive official training at the University of Budapest.

Education

In 1897 he was sent to the gymnasium in Budapest; but later that year a wave of anti-Semitic violence in his hometown resulted in the death of his younger brother, and the family immigrated to the United States. They settled in Chicago at the invitation of an uncle who, however, provided little financial support.

Thorek began earning money as a violinist in a traveling orchestra. After beginning medical studies at the University of Chicago, he earned tuition money by playing a snare drum in the university band. He completed the last two years of the curriculum at Rush Medical College, where he received his M. D. in 1904. Among the teachers with whom he came into contact were Frank Billings, Jacques Loeb, and the surgeon John Benjamin Murphy. Most important to Thorek personally was the support of the dean of students, C. B. H. Harvey.

Thorek served his internship in obstetrics at the Marcy Home in Chicago, which specialized in sending physicians out to assist at births in homes of the indigent.

Career

Thorek began his private practice in 1904, renting an office in the impoverished West Side area that he had come to know as an immigrant. Through intimate contact with patients from the many ethnic groups in Chicago, Thorek became proficient in a number of languages.

Thorek also worked for five years at the gynecological clinic of Henry Banga, first as assistant and later as associate. But while he continued to have a strong interest in the diseases of women, he made an early decision to practice general surgery.

Thorek did not want to spend years as a surgeon's assistant in an established hospital and so proceeded to start his own. With financial help from fellow physician Solomon Greenspahn, the American Hospital (now Thorek Hospital and Medical Center) was established in 1911, with Thorek as chief surgeon; in 1917 it was moved to a new building on the North Side. Its services were open to all regardless of ability to pay.

Thorek made numerous contributions to medical literature. Some of his earliest work was in mammoplasty and surgical reconstruction of other parts of the female body. Thorek was allegedly the first to succeed in reimplanting the nipple onto a breast treated with plastic surgery. His techniques were later described in Plastic Surgery of the Breast and the Abdominal Wall (1942).

In 1921, Thorek met the Franco-Russian surgeon Serge Voronoff, whose success in gonadal transplantation had received much publicity. Inspired also by the work of the Viennese physiologist Eugen Steinach, Thorek began his own experiments to test the popular claims that such operations could induce a dramatic rejuvenescence in both apes and humans. In 1923 he concluded that success was limited to a "reactivation, " or "a partial synthetic reanimation of performance, " rather than a complete restoration of youthful performance. He summarized his findings in The Human Testis (1924).

Thorek also became known for a procedure perfected in 1933 that reduced the mortality rate in gallbladder surgery. Rather than attempt to remove the entire gallbladder (which can cause excessive loss of bile and blood), Thorek proposed that the part of the roof that is attached to the liver be left in place and then destroyed by electrocoagulation.

During a visit to Europe in 1937, Thorek delivered a paper on the technique at a congress in Vichy. Thorek also held academic positions, including assistant professor of diseases of women at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago (1905 - 1909) and professor of clinical surgery at Loyola University (1908 - 1912) and at Cook County School of Medicine (1934 - 1960).

Often a controversial figure in the medical world, Thorek is best remembered as the founder of the International College of Surgeons, organized in Geneva in 1935 with the help of Albert Jenter. This came about partly due to his strong disagreement with the policies of the American College of Surgeons, which was founded in Chicago in 1913 and never admitted Thorek as a member, and partly due to his desire for an organization of broader, international scope. Thorek became permanent secretary-general of the college and editor in chief of its Journal from its founding in 1938 until his death, in Chicago.

Achievements

• Max Thorek has been listed as a noteworthy surgeon by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Surgery of the Brain and Spinal Cord: Based On Personal Experiences, Volume 2

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Surgery of the Brain and Spinal Cord: Based on Personal Experiences, Volume 3 - Primary Source Edition

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

  • A surgeon's world,: An autobiography,

    (book)

  • Surgical Errors and Safeguards
  • Photographic Enlarging : Third Edition
  • A Psychosomatic Approach to Surgery
  • The human testis;: Its gross anatomy, histology, physiology, pathology, with particular reference to its endocrinology
  • Magic, Myth, and Medicine
  • Plastic Surgery Of The Breast And Abdominal Wall
  • A visit with Professor Davide Giordano at Venice
  • Modern Surgical Technic Volumes 1-4

Personality

He was highly energetic and aggressive.

Interests

• He was a man who excelled in everything he tried, Max Thorek had many interest besides that of his beloved profession of medicne.
  
  As a boy in the native Hungary, Dr. Thorek learned how to play the violin. He enjoyed playing this instrument. It helped him to work his way through medical education. He fiddled at weddings, at beer parties, for church parties and wity “gypsy” bands. His enthusiasm for music eventually led to his founding of Chicago Businessmen’s Orchestra.
  
  A photography enthusiast, Dr. Thorek exhibited his photographic works widely, won hundreds of prizes, and founded the Fort Dearborn Camera Club of Chicago and the Photographic Society of America.

Connections

On April 16, 1905, he married Fannie Unger; they had one son.

Father:

Issac Thorek

Mother:

Sarah Mahler

Spouse:

Fannie Unger