William Jarvis

May 13, 1855 (age 40)

Fort Monroe, Virginia, United States

In 1877 Jarvis settled in New York City as a general practitioner on the East Side. Having obtained an assistantship in Professor Frank H. Bosworth's nose and throat service in the Bellevue Hospital out-patient department he decided to confine his work to this specialty, although he always retained his interest in general medicine and in all ways sought to counteract the narrowing influence of specialism. He worked without any effort at publicity, without the prestige of a trip abroad, and with practically no backing, and in 1881 published a description of his famous "snare" or cold wire écraseur which revolutionized the treatment of intranasal tumors. It was then that he was offered and accepted a lectureship in laryngology in the medical department of the University of the City of New York (later New York University) and in 1886 he was given a professorship. From the early eighties until the failure of his health, Jarvis' career was marked by a series of innovations in the diagnosis and treatment of nasal and laryngeal diseases. None was of the importance of his snare and some would have come about at the hands of others, but he was first in the field. In 1884, soon after the introduction of cocaine, Jarvis reported his application of it as a local anesthetic and at about the same time he made use of Edison's newly invented mignon lamp to illuminate the larynx. Three years later he applied electrically driven drills to intranasal bone work. Other well-known devices which he invented were a laryngeal applicator for cauterizing the ulcers of laryngeal tuberculosis and an operating nasal speculum. Every instrument in use in his office was in some way modified by him for his own work. During the years 1880-1892 he contributed thirty-one papers to periodical literature on his special subjects, all brief with the exception of the section on intranasal surgery in Volume II of Charles Henry Burnett's System of Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat (1893). After years of intense application Jarvis' health began to fail and he was found to be suffering from an obscure abdominal ailment. He resigned his active teaching in 1893 but was given an emeritus professorship. His death took place on July 30, 1895, while he was visiting his brother at Willet's Point, New York.

Back to Profile

Photos
Works

book

A Novel Procedure for the Removal of Subglottic Laryngeal Growths: With the Report of an Illustrative Case (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from A Novel Procedure for the Removal of Subglot...)

Catarrhal Affections of the Nasal Passages as a Cause of Pulmonary Phthisis: With Special Reference to the Question of Heredity (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Catarrhal Affections of the Nasal Passages a...)

A Novel System of Operating for Correction of the Deflected Septum: By Means of an Electric Motor, Nasal Drills and an Original Spray-Producing Device (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from A Novel System of Operating for Correction o...)

Notes on a Case of Nasal Caries, Complicated With Meningitis, Successfully Treated by Means of the Surgical Drill: Read Before the American ... Medical Congress, 1888 (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Notes on a Case of Nasal Caries, Complicated...)

Excerpt from Notes on a Case of Nasal Caries, Complicated With Meningitis, Successfully Treated by Means of the Surgical Drill: Read Before the American Laryngological Association at the First National Medical Congress, 1888 Mr. M., an intelligent, Well born gentleman, aged thirty one after consulting a number of physicians for relief from a severe nasal disease, and obtaining no satisfaction, finally sought the advice of Dr. Hubbard, of New York, who promptly referred him to me for treatment. The nasal disease for which the patient consulted us had, through neglect and maltreatment, so completely undermined his health and shattered his nerves that it was found necessary to resort to the liberal use of morphine, to enable him to traverse the distance (about thirty miles) in tervening between his home and the city. The symptom most complained of was a severe headache, which had harassed him almost continuously for about five months, and, despite the assiduous use of opiates, he had been able to procure but little rest. The pain in the head was for the most part referred to the temporal region, and associated with it there was marked tenderness of the scalp, evinced when slight pressure was exercised. A minor, though at times exceedingly annoying symptom, tinnitus aurium, was also present. Much discomfort was caused by the constant accumulation in the nares, and gravitation into the throat, of masses of green crusts, the removal of which provoked an offensive stench, causing much distress to the patient and those in his immediate neighborhood. In addition to the dis charges of putrefactive matter from the anterior and posterior nares, the patient noticed that upon forcibly blowing the nostril, some fetid ﬂuid issued through a small perforation in the palate near the sockets of the central incisors. The great loss of ﬂesh occa sioned by the nasal putrefactive changes, and the destructive process permitted to go untreated for so many months, had reduced the unfortunate man to a state of extreme emaciation. Much valuable time, it was learned, had been lost by the sufferer's worse than useless effort to procure relief from the so-called compound oxygen treatment. Inquiries naturally directed to the discovery of syphilis as affording a possible clue to the peculiar morbid manifestations, elicited the fact that the patient had been treated for a venereal affection several years since he, however, claimed that the physician had pronounced the trouble of a mild type, presumably a chancroid. The state ment that catarrh had existed as far back as the memory of the patient could reach merits mention, inasmuch as it throws some light upon the etiology of the nasal lesion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Pathology and Surgical Treatment of Hypertrophic Nasal Catarrh: Description of a New Operation for the Radical Cure of Nasal Catarrh (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from The Pathology and Surgical Treatment of Hype...)

Excerpt from The Pathology and Surgical Treatment of Hypertrophic Nasal Catarrh: Description of a New Operation for the Radical Cure of Nasal Catarrh N my endeavor to find a simple method for the relief of the exceedingly annoying symptoms caused by the presence Of hypertrophied tissues in the chronic form of nasal catarrh, I have had constructed a wire-snare écraseur, and have been so much encouraged by the success attend ing its use, that I now venture to present it to the Associa tion, in connection with other instruments devised by myself to facilitate the Operation. Before proceeding with the description Of the method made use Of for the cure of hypertrophic nasal catarrh, I desire to refer to the indica tions justifying surgical interference. From Observations made at the extensive throat clinic of Bellevue Hospital, I have been led to the conclusion that chronic nasal catarrh, before it has lapsed into the atrophic form, is invariably accompanied by a pathological condition consisting in some form Of hypertrophy of the intranasal tissues. This hypertrophy, though slight in the recent stage of the catarrhal affection, steadily increases with a rapidity depending upon the degree of irritation and congestion to which the nasal mucous membrane is subjected, until, as sometimes happens, the nasal tissues will be found to have become enlarged to such an extent as to completely block up the posterior nares, and even to encroach very consider ably upon the naso-pharyngeal space. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

William Chapman Jarvis

Edit Profile

laryngologist physician rhinologist

Background

Jarvis was born on May 13, 1855, in Fort Monroe, Virginia, the son of an army physician, Nathan Sturges Jarvis, and Jane B. Mumford.

Education

Following the death of his father in 1862 Jarvis went to Baltimore where he was educated at private schools. Early in life he showed mechanical skill and inventive ingenuity and was a good draftsman; he also owned a microscope and was an amateur photographer. Having decided upon a medical career, he took the degree of M. D. at the University of Maryland in 1875 and then devoted two years to post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins, studying biology under Henry Augustus Rowland and Henry Newell Martin and chemistry under Ira Remsen.

Career

Achievements

Jarvis is best known as the physician and laryngologist, who was the first to use pioneering tools in his practice. It may be said of Jarvis that his honors came to him unsought, that he was quite indifferent to publicity and was very conservative and modest in his claims, allowing his innovations to speak for themselves.