Lorenz BÖHLER
1885–1973
Lorenz Böhler was born and raised in the Vorarl- berg region of Austria, travelling to Vienna in 1905 to begin studying medicine. He was granted his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1911. In 1914 he came to the United States, where he spent several months visiting the Mayo Clinic. Böhler was very much impressed by the organizational structure of the clinic. There is no question that he later incorporated into his own hospital organization, concepts that he had seen in action in Rochester. During World War I, he served in several army hospitals and organized and directed a hospital that specialized in the treatment of fractures and joint injuries. He received many awards for his work as a military surgeon. After the war, he held several positions as the chief of surgery in provincial hospitals.
By 1925, Böhler had convinced a group of insurance companies dealing with patients receiv- ing workman’s compensation, that by organizing the care of workers with industrial injuries under his aegis, he could improve the results and reduce costs. This led to the formation of the Unfal- lkrankenhaus (Accident Hospital) in Vienna in 1925. Böhler served as director of this hospital from its founding until his retirement in 1963.
He oversaw every facet of the delivery of medical care in his hospital and organized the treatment of injured patients to the last detail. He kept meticulous and detailed records of every case and performed thorough follow-up examina- tion of patients after they left the hospital. It was
simple: if the patient did not keep his follow-up appointment, his workman’s compensation was cut off. These data furnished the material on which he based his major books on the treatment of fractures, which were translated into all the major foreign languages. As a result, Böhler became the greatest authority on the treatment of fractures in the first half of the twentieth century.
Böhler allowed no deviations from his step-by- step procedures. He was open to new ideas and innovations, but tested them carefully before he adopted them. The greatest value of his work today lies in the well-documented long-term results of treatment in hundreds of cases and many varieties of fractures.
30 Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Harold Ray BOHLMAN
1893–1979
Harold Ray Bohlman was a native of Gauge County, Nebraska and a graduate of the 1923 class of Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he eventually became a clinical professor of surgery (orthopedics). He was one of the pioneer investi- gators of the use of metal implants and antibiotic therapy for the treatment of bone infections. In 1937, after Charles Venable and Walter Stuck introduced the use of Vitallium into orthopedic surgery, Bohlman designed a Vitallium replace- ment for the femoral head and inserted it in the hip joint of seven patients with nonhealing femoral neck fractures. Venable’s and Stuck’s experiments with Vitallium had been performed
in dogs in a shed on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas. Bohlman’s preliminary experiments were performed on a farm in Maryland; he buried the prostheses in soil with control metal alloys to verify the claims of the noncorrosive properties of Vitallium.
Bohlman was also one of the early military and civilian pilots in the United States. On September 28, 1940 he flew to South Carolina and, with Austin Moore, performed the historic replace- ment of the proximal 12 inches of the upper end of the femur of a 53-year-old man that had been destroyed by a recurrent giant cell tumor. Eight years later, when the patient died of a heart attack, the implant, including the entire proximal femur and hemipelvis, was examined in detail at autopsy and microscopically to determine why the patient had walked so well without a support, using only a cane for long distances. There was no evidence of recurrence of the giant cell tumor, and the implant was described as “just as bright and shiny as the day it was inserted and at no point on it was there any evidence of corrosion.” Bohlman’s energy was inexhaustible, and his collaboration with Moore is an important landmark in the history of American orthopedic surgery.
University of Vermont (BA) cum laude in 1918.
He was active on the swimming team and played the saxophone in a dance band during college. He was a Hospital Apprentice First Class in 1918 and later joined the army reserve, from which he was retired as Captain in 1935. He continued at the University of Vermont, graduating cum laude from the medical school in 1921. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Dr. Bosworth interned at Mary Fletcher Hospi- tal in Burlington, Vermont, and returned to New York City in 1921 and 1922 for a residency at the Women’s Hospital. After this he returned to Vermont, where for 3 years he was instructor of anatomy at the medical school. While there he met Dr. Mather Cleveland, who had been instruc- tor of anatomy at Columbia. This meeting led to a firm, lasting association between the two men and was a factor in Dr. Bosworth’s later move back to New York City and orthopedic surgery.
During the summer recesses of those years, he was a neurology resident at Central Neurological Hospital, Welfare Island, New York. He became a lecturer in anatomy at Columbia University in 1925 and finally discovered his calling in 1926, when he became an orthopedic resident at the New York Orthopedic Hospital under Dr. Russell Hibbs. After finishing in 1928, Dr. Bosworth made the New York area his home and orthope- dics his life’s work, to the benefit of both.
Dr. Bosworth joined the American Medical Association in 1921 and was chairman of its orthopedic section in 1949. A Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, he served as chair- man of the orthopedic section in 1938. He was elected to head the orthopedic section of the Medical Society of the State of New York in 1943, and was a life member of the American College of Surgeons. In 1935 he became a member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and he actively participated in meetings and instruc- tional courses.
He was elected to membership of the American Orthopedic Association in 1939 and served as president of that organization in 1957.
He was also active in the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology. Other honors conferred on him included membership of the Japanese Orthopedic Association, the Howmet Hall of Fame Award, a Citation of Merit from St. Luke’s Hospital, and election to the Alpha Omega Alpha fraternity. Dr. Bosworth was the only foreign recipient of the Japanese award, the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure, which 31
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
David Marsh BOSWORTH
1897–1979
Born in New York City on January 23, 1897, the son of a minister, David Bosworth attended City College of New York and graduated from the
