patient care in the outpatient department, surgery, or the emergency room with teaching. He was a highly sought-after guest lecturer and visiting professor.
During medical school he had to spend a year in bed because of pulmonary tuberculosis, and probably it was during this time that his lifelong reading habits developed. He enjoyed relating to others what he had just read and would loan or give articles or books to anyone he felt would benefit from or enjoy them. His interests included history, science, nature, and travel. One of his favorite books was The Precepts and Counsels on Scientific Investigations by Raymon Cajal, which is now available only through the National Library of Medicine.
An excellent conversationalist, Dr. Boyd liked to talk about his trips, his reading, and his orthopedic experiences. Often he apologized for talking too much, but his phenomenal memory and his knowledge of the Bible and of medical and nonmedical matters provided a vast amount of material from which to draw. Humor, com- bined with some significant point, was typical of his conversations: “You can’t chew gum and look intelligent at the same time.” “Don’t do an unnec- essary operation on the basis that if you don’t, someone else will. Let the other person make the mistake.” “Listen to the patient. He’s trying to tell you what’s wrong with him.” “Some operations are better for the doctor than the patient.” “In some instances, when there are two or more pro- cedures available, one may not be better than the other; they may be equally bad.” “Be careful of operating on patients who do not have pain, because if they subsequently do have pain, they will blame you.” “Be careful of accepting praise from a patient who tells you how great you are and how bad all of the other doctors have been previously; you, too, will shortly join that list.”
Dr. Harold Buhalts Boyd died at the age of 76 in retirement in Oceanside, California, on May 29, 1981.
Elliott Gray BRACKETT
1860–1942
Although Elliott Gray Brackett was not a founder of the American Orthopedic Association, he was one of the earliest to be admitted to membership, and he served the Association more years in various official capacities than anyone else. As one who, from the very beginning of his mem- bership in the Association, had shown a very keen interest in its objectives and was instrumental in helping to achieve them, his activities on behalf of this body are a challenge to the present membership.
If the American Orthopedic Association means anything to its members and if it has figured at all in making the specialty respected in this country and abroad, it is due in no small measure to the group of pioneers who developed an especial interest in the understanding and treatment of chronic diseases in bones and joints, and of related conditions, that appeared to call for special training on the part of those who were to treat them. To this group Dr. Brackett attached himself in 1889, 2 years after the founding of the Association.
It was but natural that he should have chosen this line of work, for a personal experience with a crippling affection, which confined him to bed for a year while he was a student in Harvard Medical School, coupled with the fact that Dr.
Edward H. Bradford took care of him through this illness, would have made a man of Dr. Brackett’s sympathies turn to a specialty where he could be
35Who’s Who in Orthopedics
of the greatest service. In making this decision, his judgment has been amply justified.
As an illustration of how obstacles only served to spur him to greater effort, the fact may be recalled that, with the help of a classmate, who brought his class work to him during that period, he completed his medical school course on time.
Having finished that, in 1886 he received an internship at the Boston City Hospital, and, although he was on crutches, he did not miss a day of his service. These facts are noted because they have a bearing on the way he handled his patients and dealt with many difficult situations.
He never gave up.
Four years after becoming a member of the Association, he was elected treasurer. He served the Association in this capacity for 13 years. In 1905 he held the office of president. He was on the Membership Committee for 8 years, was a member of the Executive Committee for at least 35 years, and Editor of The Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery for 20 years. In all, he gave important service to the Association for 43 years.
Without doubt the most important was his tenure of the editorship, which covered the period from June 1921 through December 1942.
His sterling qualities were duly valued and respected, as has been abundantly evidenced by the confidence reposed in him by the Executive Committee, and through them by the entire mem- bership of the Association.
The years immediately following the founda- tion of the Association, in 1887, were years filled with responsibility for it by the members.
Their number was limited and their distribution throughout the country was not very wide. It was their task to raise the specialty to a respected posi- tion among the other specialties. At that time neither the profession nor the public looked with much favor upon specialization, and in certain quarters prejudice against it had to be overcome by tact, as well as by demonstrating the fact that many chronic osseous conditions, whether con- genital, paralytic or static, were better handled by the orthopedically trained specialist than by the general surgeon.
As more and more men became interested in the problems of orthopedic surgeons, their distribution over the USA and Canada became more general; and, during the earlier years, the annual meetings of the Association were held in cities to which the specialty was a novelty and in which a pioneer in orthopedic surgery had recently located. This policy was advocated by
Dr. Brackett in his Presidential Address in 1905.
Holding such scientific sessions in those local- ities had a great deal to do with dispelling antipa- thy to the specialty. At these meetings young men were brought in contact with the group who, in the early days of the organization, were most prominent in shaping its destiny. Conspicuous among them was Dr. Brackett.
His almost continuous membership, on one committee or another, resulted in a nearly perfect record of attendance at the annual sessions. For this reason he had opportunity to become widely known to the succession of new members.
In spite of all his committee cares, he was a not infrequent contributor to the scientific dis- cussions, and the field covered by his published papers represents an interest in a wide variety of orthopedic subjects. His formal papers were always well considered and conservative; his dis- cussions were pertinent, based as they were on a broad experience in hospital and private practice.
His records were among the best the writer has ever seen. His influence was manifest in his wise counsel in committees and conferences.
Dr. Brackett was elected Editor of The Journal of Orthopedic Surgery in 1921. With the issue of the following January it again became a quarterly and the name was changed to The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
When he took over the editorship, the Journal had not progressed very far beyond the transac- tions stage of its evolution. At that stage it was practically mandatory that all papers read at the scientific sessions of the Association be pub- lished. It often happened that under this rule, papers were published that were not worthy of a journal having a nationwide circulation, and the new editor recognized this. Early in his adminis- tration an advisory editorial staff was organized.
This included representative men in different parts of the country who rendered a real service by stimulating interest in their respective com- munities, resulting not only in new subscribers and advertisers, but also in future contributors.
The next step was the appointment of a group of foreign editors who kept Dr. Brackett informed about the development of the specialty in their countries, from time to time sending in reports of meetings and papers by their colleagues.
This added to the international character of the Journal, a matter that was always very much in Dr. Brackett’s mind, for he believed that such a publication could be a real factor in the develop-
36Who’s Who in Orthopedics
ment of better understanding and closer coopera- tion between nations. It was, therefore, a special satisfaction to him when contributions began to come from representative surgeons in different countries, many of them men he had met person- ally during his summers in Europe. From the correspondence with these foreign contributors developed acquaintances that led to real and lasting friendships, strengthened by the opportu- nity of seeing these men at work in their own hos- pitals. He planned his vacations so that he could be present at orthopedic congresses in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Czecho-Slovakia, and Switzerland. Perhaps one of the greatest pleasures that came from these contacts was his visit to Leningrad in the summer of 1936, when he had the opportunity of meeting Prof. Henry Turner, with whom a warm friendship had developed through years of correspondence, and of seeing the remarkable work for crippled children that had resulted from the labors of this pioneer, a man of British parentage who had devoted his life to the development of orthopedic surgery in Russia.
On this trip Dr. Brackett visited hospitals in Leningrad and Moscow, and spent some time with the officials of the USSR Society for Cul- tural Relations with Foreign Countries, through whose interest many of the contacts of the Journal with Soviet publications had been made possible.
The number of papers offered for publication gradually increased, so that more and more work came to the editorial office; and two steps were taken to assist the editor, the election of a Program Committee, which exercised some supervision over the standard of the papers presented at the annual meetings, and the creation of a Board of Associate Editors. Since the appointment of the latter, all papers have been submitted to this body, and gradually the editor impressed upon them his ideals and standards for a journal.
The Journal was of vital concern to Dr.
Brackett. No one not intimately associated with him has any idea how much time and thought he gave to it. To him it was not merely a rostrum from which an author might exploit his ideas. He must present something that was new, or at least, if not wholly new, it must be presented in a better form than ever before. He tried to impress upon the writers that brevity should be an accompani- ment of clarity in expression, and that it was a mistake to rush into print before sufficient time had elapsed for a definite opinion to be formed as to the soundness of any position taken.
His intimate acquaintance with the member- ship of the Association for so many consecutive years made it possible for him to be of the great- est assistance to younger men sending in papers for publication. He spared no pains in his efforts to have the papers he thought worthy of publica- tion brought up to the standard he had set.
Without doubt it is in large part due to his insis- tence upon the observance of these rules that the Journal occupies the position it does today.
When Dr. Brackett became Editor, the total list of subscribers numbered 797. At the time of his death, the number of paid subscriptions was over 3,500. During the 20 years of his editorship, the budget of the Journal was increased eightfold.
The realization of some of his aspirations for the Journal has come through the broadening of the field of its usefulness, as shown by the fact that there has been a steady increase in the number of foreign, as well as domestic, sub- scribers. At the end of 1939 (the beginning of the war), the Journal was being mailed regularly to subscribers in 60 different countries outside the United States and Canada.
For the first 5 years that Dr. Brackett had charge of the Journal, he provided office space in his own house. He never received salary for his work, and at the time the Association made the first attempt to show their appreciation of his services on their behalf in the form of an hono- rarium, he persuaded the Executive Committee to put the sum into a fund to be used at the discre- tion of the Editor to defray the expense of illus- trations in cases where it seemed right that it should be so employed. This sum was set up by the Association as the Elliott G. Brackett Endow- ment Fund. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, a second attempt was made by the Association to show their esteem, and a large number of letters were written to him, and a gift was made with the request that it be used by him personally.
In spite of all that he was giving to his practice and to the Association, he found time to serve his community in its hospitals and in promoting many movements to aid the physically handi- capped. He was identified with various Boston hospitals, in his early years at the House of the Good Samaritan, later as orthopedic surgeon at the Children’s Hospital. In 1911 he became chief of the orthopedic service at the Massachusetts General Hospital and continued in that position until 1918, when he resigned to go into war service. At the time of his death he was orthope- dic surgeon at the Faulkner Hospital.
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Who’s Who in Orthopedics
At the end of the Spanish–American War in July, 1898, he was sent to Cuba as representative of the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Association.
His assignment was to receive supplies sent on hospital ships and to determine the needs of the men. His first concern was for the sick among our troops ready to be evacuated to the United States and he made provision for their care on transports.
Then, at the request of General Wood, he took charge of a hospital in Santiago and also organ- ized work for the care of the sick in the city, where serious epidemics had developed.
Answering the call of his country in World War I, he was largely responsible for the training of the orthopedic personnel and for the determina- tion of where they should be located after their preparation had been completed. He himself, eventually, was sent overseas, returning with the rank of Colonel.
At the invitation of the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, who learned that he contemplated a trip to China in 1922, he gave a series of lectures at the Peking Union Medical College and in one or two other medical centers.
maturity and originality. His study of club feet published 60 years ago might well be used today in an orthopedic instructional course. Besides his great technical contributions, particularly to the treatment of tuberculous coxitis and of congeni- tal hip disease, he introduced the “social point of view” into orthopedic surgery by helping found the Industrial School for Crippled and Deformed Children in Boston (1894), and established the principle of preventive medicine in orthopedic surgery by his campaign for correct shoes and adequate seating of school children. His amazing industry is attested by the publication between 1887 and 1902 of 105 original papers, a textbook, and numerous articles on orthopedic progress in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
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