Harvey Cushing (1869-1939): father of neurosurgery.

368 If you are going for it, I certainly would go in for it hard. Halfway measures never got anybody anywhere. – Letter from Harvey Cushing to his son Bill regarding his son's intention to join the Yale varsity hockey team. O n a Saturday morning in 1926, Dr Harvey Cushing, chief and professor of surgery at Harvard's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, operated meticulously on a young woman with a brain tumour. The three-hour long operation was successful, yet Cushing's stoic expression belied the turmoil and grief that raged within. He had just received news that his eldest son, Bill, was killed in an automobile accident. Known to many as the pioneer of American neurosurgery, Harvey Cushing was more than just a great surgeon. He once stated that " neurosurgery was 20% science, 75% artistry, and 5% community benefit ". Indeed it was intensity, sensitivity and discipline – in essence characteristics of an artist – that truly personified this great man. Ohio, USA in 1869. At a young age, he was nicknamed 'Pepper Pot' because of his temper. Bright and destined to succeed as a fourth generation physician in the Cushing family, he learned wood and metal work and machinery before attending Yale University. He frequently misspelt words in his letters to his family, prompting his father to urge him to " please buy a dictionary and consult it as you write ". Cushing was a good, but not outstanding, student and found time to excel in baseball and gymnastics. Upon graduation, he entered Harvard Medical School, although his talent and interest in drawing led him to consider architecture at one point. Two events during medical school significantly changed him. The first was the death of a patient to whom he had administered ether for anaesthesia. He was so distraught that he almost quit. However, instead of quitting, he and his classmate, Amory Codman, devised anaesthesia charts that measured the patient's pulse and respiration, an innovation that contributed to modern anaesthesiology and significantly reduced patient death from ether. Second, while at Harvard, Cushing fell in love with Kate Crowell, who was visiting Boston from his hometown of Cleveland. He continued to woo her throughout medical school and his residency at Johns Hopkins. Years passed, but Cushing was not quite ready to marry her, for he wanted " the house furnished and the carpets down and a warm fire burning for …