Emanuel B. KAPLAN1894–1980

fortunately was freed for lack of proof of his clan- destine activities) earned him numerous decora- tions, including the Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur.

Robert Judet died in December 1980.

Eventually his work was recognized, and he became attending orthopedic surgeon and ulti- mately chief of the Department of Hand Surgery at the hospital. He had been certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery in 1936, and subsequently served as examiner of the board for a number of years. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and was further honored by election to the American Orthopedic Association and the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Dr. Kaplan’s scholarly pursuits, which resulted cumulatively in more than 100 major medical papers and four seminal books, were based on detailed human anatomical investigations, com- parative anatomical dissections and studies, and his passion for language. His creative human anatomical pursuits were conducted at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, where he was clinical associate pro- fessor of anatomy until his mandatory retirement in 1963. His comparative anatomical studies were conducted at the New York Zoological Gardens (the Bronx Zoo) and at the American Museum of Natural History. As a result of these studies, he published many classic scientific papers, which even today remain a font for the contemporary investigator. His lifelong love of language was reflected in his writing, teaching, and conversa- tion. In 1949 he translated Duchenne’s Physiol- ogy of Motion from the French, making this pioneering study of muscle physiology available to an international readership for the first time and consequently stimulating the study of precise muscle function. In 1969 he returned to transla- tion, publishing Weitbrecht’s Syndesmology from the Latin. His dedication to anatomical studies permitted him to write his own Functional and Surgical Anatomy of the Hand in 1953 (which he updated in 1966 and which he was revising at the time of his death). This will be completed by his colleagues and students. His textbook Surgical Approaches to the Neck, Cervical Spine, and Upper Extremity was published in 1966.

Throughout his career Dr. Kaplan was dedi- cated to teaching. He organized one of the earli- est hand-surgery teaching services and clinics in New York City at the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

He taught anatomy at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons for more than 20 years, and subsequently served as clinical pro- fessor of orthopedic surgery at the New Jersey School of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark. In his teaching, he placed major emphasis on the

Who’s Who in Orthopedics

Emanuel B. KAPLAN

1894–1980

Born on April 25, 1894, in Krementshoug in the Ukraine, Emanuel Kaplan completed his under- graduate studies at the University of Montepellier, France, and received his medical education in Paris and at Kharkov Imperial University be- tween 1912 and 1916. After receiving his medi- cal degree, he served as a physician with the Imperial Russian Army during the period of the Russian Revolution and the First World War.

His experiences laid the foundation for his lifelong commitment to the alleviation of human suffering.

After the war, during the period when the great famine swept the Ukraine, Dr. Kaplan served as physician and interpreter for the American Relief Administration. His unusual linguistic skills—he spoke five languages fluently—and his medical talent brought his work to the attention of Herbert Hoover, who encouraged him to come to the United States. He immigrated in 1924 and estab- lished a private practice in New York in 1927.

He was among the first residents who were

trained specifically in orthopedic surgery at the

Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City.

Who’s Who in Orthopedics anatomy and physiology of the extremities. Many

contemporary hand surgeons were his students, and many of his students are now chiefs of service at medical centers throughout the United States and in a number of other countries.

In addition, Dr. Kaplan was an active practi- tioner for more than 60 years. Literally hundreds of patients who were afflicted with conditions affecting the upper extremities were helped by his skill, his knowledge, and his patience. Perhaps because of his early experience in general medi- cine, he was an excellent diagnostician. Certainly because of his personality, he never said “no” to anyone, least of all to his patients.

His professional work was recognized interna- tionally. He was elected to more than 25 presti- gious surgical societies in the United States, Britain, France, and Italy. He was awarded medals of honor by a number of such societies in Europe.

He was a member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, the Groupe d’Étude de la Main (GEM), and the Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie (SICOT). On the evening of April 11, 1977, stu- dents, colleagues, and friends gathered at the New York Academy of Medicine to honor him, and the scientific program that night was made up of papers by his former students, many of whom are leaders in orthopedics and hand surgery in the United States.

Despite these substantial achievements, his most marked personal characteristics were humil- ity and modesty. In his long and productive life- time, he contributed much to his chosen field and he proved much; he claimed very little. He was kind and gentle, devoting himself selflessly, without thought to his own needs or strength, to his work and to the alleviation of suffering wher- ever he found it. His sense of integrity and his empathy for the human condition made him end- lessly responsive to every call on him, whether from colleague or patient. His massive contribu- tions to the medical literature were written in his adopted language, English, and it flowed with style, force, elegance, and precision.

He died at home on September 20, 1980, at the age of 86.

169

Colonel William KELLER

1874–1959

Keller introduced his operation for bunions at the very beginning of his surgical career, while he was working in Manila during the Philippine insurrection. Though it is now one of the most commonly performed operations, he was not very interested in it, but went on to achieve fame in the field of general surgery, and in particular in the field of pulmonary surgery in its early days.

He was born in Connecticut in 1874, and grad- uated from Virginia in 1899. The following year he became a contract surgeon with the US Army, and was commissioned in 1902. He moved around hospitals in the USA and the Pacific until the First World War, when he was assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces as Director of Professional Services.

In 1919 he joined the Walter Reed Hospital to head the Department of Surgery. During this time he developed an unroofing technique for empyema, a type of inguinal hernia repair, a repair for recurrent shoulder dislocations (cruci- ate implication of the inferior capsule through an axillary approach), and the tunnel skin graft. This last was rather intriguing; when an ulcer or scar was to be grafted, he made a tunnel underneath it and laid the graft in it. The roof kept the graft in position and the roof either disappeared by itself or could be removed.

He was offered the post of Surgeon General,

but refused because he wanted to continue clini-

cal surgery. He remained at the Walter Reed until