William Wayne Babcock

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William Wayne Babcock ( June 10, 1872 - February 23, 1963 ) was an American physician and scientist. He developed a method of vein stripping to treat varicose veins .

Life

Babcock was born on June 10, 1872 in East Worcester, New York State , and completed his medical degree in Baltimore . He received his PhD in 1893 at the age of 21. He then began training in surgery at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City , but soon moved to Philadelphia , where he worked in various institutes. In 1903 he became director of the Women's Clinic and the Surgical Clinic at Temple University . He held this position until his retirement in 1943. During his medical career, Babcock published more than 350 scientific papers

Babcock was married and had three daughters. He died at the age of 90 on February 23, 1963.

Babcock operation

Babcock developed a surgical procedure for the surgical removal of the saphenous veins of the legs in varicosis . This operation was performed using a probe that was inserted into the vein at the ankle, passed through to the groin and then withdrawn from the leg again, with the acorn-shaped probe dragging the vein with it. Babcock's method represented an alternative to the surgical procedures customary at the time, in which the leg was opened over its entire length. Almost at the same time as Babcock, a method was developed at the Johanniter Hospital in Stendal that was described by Gotthold Friedel in 1908, in which a circular incision over one and a half meters long was supposed to destroy the varices. This became an established practice of the time. Babcock in Philadelphia also carried out this spiral cut according to Rindfleisch and Friedel , or Powell's operation , himself. Babcock reported on his new method in 1907 in the New York Medical Journal . In the German-speaking area, the chief physician of the Hamburg harbor hospital , Karl Lauenstein, presented Babcock's method for the first time at the surgeon congress in Berlin in 1911. The Babcock operation was slow to gain acceptance and was only featured in surgical textbooks around 1930.

honors and awards

Babcock received the American Medical Association's Gold Medal of Honor . In addition, the surgical clinic of Temple University was named after him after he left. As early as 1905, a group of students inspired by Babcock at Temple University had formed the Babcock Surgical Society . This society still exists today.

Publications

  • Principles and Practice of Surgery , Philadelphia 1944

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Erika Mendoza: Guide to varicose veins, leg swelling and thrombosis , Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-49737-1 , page 191
  2. ↑ https://temple.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/Babcock_Surgical_Society (link not available)

literature

personal data
SURNAME Babcock, William Wayne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic and scientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH East Worcester
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1963