Charles McBurney was born on 17 February 1845 in Roxbury, Massachussets. He was the son of Charles and Rosine (Horton) McBurney. His father, an immigrant from the North of Ireland, was of Scotch extraction; his mother came from Bangor, Maine, and was of old native stock. Their son was named Charles Heber, but after graduation from college apparently never used his middle name.
Education
Charles received his preliminary education at the Roxbury Latin School and at private institutions, graduated (A. B. ) from Harvard in 1866, and was granted the doctor's degree in medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1870. For the next eighteen months he was an interne at Bellevue Hospital, then followed postgraduate studies in Vienna, Paris, and London, giving special attention to surgery.
Career
On his return, McBurney settled in New York and began his surgical career as assistant demonstrator (1873 - 74) and demonstrator (1875 - 80) of anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, under the 'gis of the well-known surgeon Henry B. Sands. In 1874, he became junior associate in private practice of Dr. George A. Peters. This relationship continued until the retirement of Peters ten years later. McBurney's first important hospital appointment was that of visiting surgeon at St. Luke's in 1875. This he retained until 1888 when he resigned to become visiting surgeon at Roosevelt Hospital. In the meantime (1882 - 88) he had served in the same capacity at Bellevue Hospital. He was made instructor in operative surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880, promoted to professor of surgery in 1889, and in 1892 became professor of clinical surgery. In 1907 he resigned and was made professor emeritus.
Late in the eighties of the nineteenth century antiseptic surgery had developed to such an extent that it became practicable to operate with safety in the abdominal cavity. McBurney had the merit of being one of a small group who led in both the diagnosis and the treatment of appendicitis. In the New York Medical Journal for December 21, 1889, he published a paper entitled "Experience with Operative Interference in Cases of Disease of the Vermiform Appendix, " in which he first described his diagnostic tender pressure point known thereafter throughout the world as "McBurney's point. " His other gift to surgery, "McBurney's incision, " a later development (1894), was characterized by his mode of exposing the appendix without cross section of the fibers of the abdominal muscles. In 1892, with money donated to Roosevelt Hospital by William J. Syms, McBurney planned and carried out the construction of an elaborate private operating pavilion which became one of the novel medical institutions of the city. For about ten years after 1897 he was occupied with his extensive private practice and his work at Roosevelt, but in 1907 his health failed and he retired to his country seat at Stockbridge, Massachussets, where for several years he was an invalid. In June 1913 his wife died, and five months later his death occurred at the home of a sister in Brookline, Massachussets.
Achievements
Personality
According to his friends, McBurney was not of a scientific bent of mind; he was not classed as a brilliant operator, and he wrote little; yet he was regarded as one of the world's great surgeons. His interests outside his profession were limited to sports shooting, fishing, and golf, of which he was an early devotee.
Interests
Charles was a keen hunter and fisherman.
Connections
McBurney was married on October 8, 1874, to Margaret Willoughby Weston. Two sons and a daughter survived him.