physiology, he elaborated the theories on which he based his daily practice. A man of strong con- victions and supreme personal honesty, he could not be diverted from the course he believed to be true; and when he had decided that a certain pro- cedure was the best, even when he had devised a new operation, it was practiced on the next occa- sion it was called for, were the patient a million- aire or a dustman.
Although a man of courtly bearing and great charm, he did not easily establish intimate per- sonal relations with his colleagues. This often puzzled those who were attracted by his manner and the obvious frankness of his character, but failed to understand that he was a shy man. He was a connoisseur of life and appreciated the good things it holds, especially other people.
He really did enjoy other people, and once his shyness was overcome contributed to the company in full measure. Bankart was a friend above price, never veering with the wind. Toler- ant of error, intolerant of fools, a giant among men.
The sudden death of Bankart on April 8, 1951 deprived us of yet another of the giants of surgery who were the creators of modern orthopedics.
these qualities of greatness. During the 35 years of his active professional career, orthopedic surgery had the greatest period of growth and development in its history; throughout this time Joseph Barr was among the leaders in the growth of his specialty. Few significant developments took place following World War II in which he did not play a part.
Joseph Barr was born on a farm near Wellsville, Ohio, on October 16, 1901. His college education was at the College of Wooster, in Ohio, from which he received a BS in 1922 and 30 years later, in 1952, an honorary degree of Doctor of Science.
While a student at Wooster he was encouraged to study medicine by his Professor of Chemistry. He entered Harvard Medical School in 1922 and 4 years later received his MD degree, magna cum laude. After a surgical internship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital under the great Harvey Cushing, he decided to specialize in orthopedics.
He served with distinction in the Children’s Hospital–Massachusetts General Hospital ortho- pedic residency program. After completion of this training in 1929, he was asked by Dr. Frank R.
Ober, then one of the two Professors of Orthope- dic Surgery at Harvard, to become associated with him in private practice; this association continued until 1958. In 1947, after an active and distin- guished career in the United States Navy during World War II, Dr. Barr was chosen to succeed Dr.
Marius N. Smith-Petersen as the Chief of the Orthopedic Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital, having become a member of its staff in 1930. In 1948 he was made the John B. and Buckminster Brown Clinical Professor of Ortho- pedic Surgery at Harvard, which professorship he held until his resignation in October 1964 for reasons of health.
In reviewing the career of Dr. Barr, certain accomplishments stand out. Foremost, undoubt- edly, was the demonstration by him and Dr. W.
Jason Wixter of the role of rupture of the inter- vertebral disc, in sciatic pain. Their thorough and excellent study of this lesion and their classical report in 1934 changed the thinking of the medical profession concerning the etiology of low-back pain and sciatica. Before their ideas were accepted, such terms as sacra-iliac strain and lumbosacral sprain were in constant use;
these terms are seldom heard today. Dr. Barr was the author or coauthor of 12 papers on the inter- vertebral disc syndrome and lectured on this subject in England, in Sweden, and at many inter- national meetings. The thousands of low-back 22
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Joseph Seaton BARR
1901–1964
Vision and capability are the first requisites for leadership in all walks of life, but nowhere more than in medicine. Joseph Seaton Barr possessed
sufferers all over the world who have been relieved by disc surgery should be forever thank- ful to Joseph Barr for the part he played in the demonstration of this syndrome and its treatment.
The next most significant contribution in his writings, which number over 80 publications, concerned poliomyelitis. He was the author or coauthor of 16 articles on this subject, including seven papers on muscle and tendon transplanta- tion. In his work as a consultant to the Division of Handicapped Children’s Services in the Vermont Poliomyelitis Clinics for over 30 years, he gained tremendous experience in the ortho- pedic care of this disease. His studies on the prediction of growth in the paralysed limb, the equalization of leg length, and epiphyseal growth are outstanding.
In his early career he was very active at the New England Peabody Home for Crippled Chil- dren in Newton, Massachusetts, and was later its surgeon-in-chief. He wrote articles on bone tuber- culosis in the 1930s as a result of his activities at the Peabody Home.
At one time in his career, Dr. Barr was extremely interested in scoliosis. In 1936 he described a three-point brace for its treatment. He was also the director of a most worthwhile survey of the treatment of scoliosis in various clinics by a Research Committee of the American Orthope- dic Association. In his later years he published three excellent articles on the results of arthro- plasty of the hip using the Moore prosthesis. One of these papers was his Robert Jones Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1957.
One publication that undoubtedly gave him much satisfaction was his Presidential Address, in 1952, to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, titled, “The Surgical Experiment.”
Among the many thought-provoking statements in this address were the following:
We need scarcely to be reminded that every surgical operation is an experiment in which many variable factors are present, most of them not under the control of the surgeon . . . We recognize that the outcome in an individual case is not accurately predictable and that chance plays a role in determining the result . . . We must use every means at our disposal to lessen the peril of the surgical experiment.
In this address he proposed a special committee for the study of surgical materials. In 1954 he organized and was chairman of a Joint Commit-
tee for the Study of Surgical Materials that was composed of representatives of the American College of Surgeons, American Medical Associa- tion, and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. All meetings of the Committee were attended by selected representatives of the manu- facturers of surgical materials. This was the fore- runner of the present American Surgical Materials Association, which is now beginning to take its place as an effective organization. Dr. Barr’s initial efforts met many obstacles and frustrations, some unforeseen, but many created by short- sighted persons in responsible positions. What he did to focus attention on the need for the standardization and quality control of surgical materials represents one of his major accomplishments.
While serving in the navy during the first of the war years, he played a very active part in the development of the audiovisual division of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. He was respon- sible for many excellent medical teaching films made during the war. At the end of the war, he was Chief of Orthopedics at the Bethesda Naval Hospital and a close advisor to the Surgeon General of the Navy on all orthopedic problems.
Dr. Barr was on active duty in the navy from December 1941 to March 1946, having been in the naval reserve since 1935. For many years after his discharge he was on the National Naval Medical Advisory Committee and attained the rank of rear admiral in the reserve. He had a great deal to do with the planning and setting up of the postwar orthopedic residency-training program in the navy. He wrote several articles on military medicine, including an excellent one on blast injury.
In 1960, while he was chief of the orthopedic service at the Massachusetts General Hospital, the realization of one of his greatest dreams came with the setting up of the Orthopedic Research Laboratories, which developed so effectively under the direction of Dr. Melvin J. Glimcher.
These laboratories proved to be a model set-up of their kind and did a great deal to show all of med- icine that orthopedic surgery was ready to make a substantial contribution to basic musculoskele- tal research. Dr. Barr was one of the founders and original members of the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation in 1955 and was its presi- dent from 1959 to 1961.
The members of the many boards and commit- tees on which Dr. Barr served will long remem- ber the significant role that he played in their 23
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
deliberations. He took an active part in the policy decisions and review of the services of the Shriners’ Hospital when he succeeded Dr. Robert B. Osgood on their Medical Advisory Board in 1949. In 1955, he became a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Alfred I. duPont Institute for Crippled Children and the Nemours Foundation of Wilmington, Delaware, again suc- ceeding Dr. Osgood. His counsel and advice had a great deal to do with the development of the institute’s present research and clinical programs.
His long membership on the Board of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery was of tremendous assistance to the editor and associates. Following the war he was on the Orthopedic Committee of the National Research Council. While serving on this committee he was responsible for an excellent study of the treatment of carpal scaphoid fractures in the armed forces during the war.
Dr. Barr became a founder member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in 1934 and was its president in 1951–1952; he became a member of the American Orthopedic Association in 1937. He was also a member of many other societies, including the Boston and New England Surgical Societies, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery and the International Society of Ortho- pedic Surgery and Traumatology. He was an honorary member of The British Orthopaedic Association. He was for many years the senior orthopedic consultant at both the Chelsea Naval Hospital at Chelsea, Massachusetts, and the Boston Veterans Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Joseph Barr was an investigator and teacher.
He was a careful, meticulous surgeon and an excellent trainer and stimulator of the young mind. Thoroughness typified his every action.
Clarity of expression in speaking and writing was one of his finest attributes. He possessed an unusual ability to analyze situations clearly and make wise decisions, for which ability he was greatly admired by all who knew him.
With the passing of Joseph Seaton Barr on December 6, 1964, at the age of 63, orthopedic surgery suffered a great loss. He will long be remembered by his host of friends, students, and associates; his many contributions to orthopedic surgery can never be forgotten.
John Rhea BARTON
1794–1871
John Rhea Barton, the son of Judge William Barton, was born in Lancaster, PA., in April, 1794. His grandmother was the sister of the well- known astronomer David Rittenhouse; an uncle was the early naturalist and antiquarian Benjamin Smith Barton. John Rhea Barton served his apprenticeship in medicine in the Pennsylvania Hospital, taking his medical degree in 1818. He worked under the celebrated Philadelphia physi- cians Philip Syng Physick (who treated bone nonunions by the seton), Dorsey and Hewson.
In 1823, when he was 29 years of age, he was appointed to the surgical staff of the Pennsylva- nia Hospital. He showed unusual manual skill and ingenuity, which directed his endeavors toward the treatment of fractures. In operating, he was ambidextrous and rarely changed his position at the operating table. He is credited with devising the figure-of-eight bandage for the head and thus dispensing with the clumsy devices then in vogue in dealing with fractures of the lower jaw. He introduced bran dressings in the treatment of compound fractures, which, as his biographer Kelly states, actually were an excellent breeding place for myriads of bedbugs. His careful, precise observations led him to describe a rare type of subluxation of the carpus that was associated with a fracture of the articular rim of the radius, which to this day is known as a Barton’s fracture of the wrist. In the absence of roentgenographic confir- mation, it is astonishing that he could separate this entity out of the large group of Colles fractures 24
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
