Edward D. Churchill
1895 - 1972
Dr. Edward D. Churchill (1895-1972) was a specialist in thoracic surgery.
At Harvard Medical School, he was the John Homans professor of surgery from 1931until his retirement, and the chief of the General Surgical Service at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1948.
Churchill was a pioneer in employing surgery in cases of tuberculosis and cancer of the lung. He performed the first successful operation in the United States to relieve constrictive pericarditis, a heart ailment, and he did valuable work on diseases of the parathyroid glands. During World War II he served as a surgical consultant in the United States Army in the Mediterranean theater, evolving new concepts for management of the wounded in the field.
Edward Delos Churchill was born in Illinois and received his B.S. degree in 1916 from Northwestern University. A masters followed in 1917. He earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1920.
A biographical memoir written in 1963 before Dr. Churchill's death in 1972 is reprinted on the PBS website <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/innovators/bio_churchill.html" target="_blank"><i>Red Gold, the Epic Story of Blood</i></a>.