Howard Atwood Kelly

Dr. Howard Kelly
Born	(1858-02-20)February 20, 1858 Camden, New Jersey
Died	January 12, 1943(1943-01-12) (aged 84)
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Occupation	Surgeon, Professor, Writer.

Howard Atwood Kelly, M.D. (February 20, 1858 – January 12, 1943) was an American gynecologist. He was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.^[1] (The "Big Four", often called the "Four Horsemen", were William Osler, Professor of Medicine; William Stewart Halsted, Professor of Surgery; Howard A. Kelly, Professor of Gynecology; and William H. Welch, Professor of Pathology.) Kelly is credited with establishing gynecology as a true specialty.^[2]

Career

He was born at Camden, New Jersey and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated B.A. in 1877 and M.D. in 1882. He was for some years a member of the faculty of medicine at McGill University until he returned to the University of Pennsylvania to become associate professor of obstetrics from 1888–89. While in Philadelphia he founded Kensington Hospital for Women.^[3]

In 1889 at the age of 31 he was hired to be the first professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University and gynecological surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The other "Big Four" founders were William Osler Professor of Medicine, hired from Pennsylvania in 1889 as well; William Stewart Halsted, Professor of Surgery; and William H. Welch, Professor of Pathology. During his 30-year career at Hopkins he created new surgical approaches to women's diseases and invented numerous medical devices, including a cystoscope. He was one of the first to use radium to treat cancer.^[2]

Recognition

His attainments in his special field brought him many honors. He received the honorary degree of (LL.D.) from Aberdeen and Washington and Lee universities and from the University of Pennsylvania; he served as president of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Society in 1907 and of the American Gynecological Society in 1912; and he was elected fellow or honorary member of English, Scottish, French, German, Austrian, and Italian obstetrical and gynecological societies.

The Johns Hopkins Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service is named for him.

In 1943 a U.S. Liberty ship was christened the Howard A. Kelly.

Personal life

He married Laetitia Bredow, daughter of professor Justus Bredow, in 1889; they had nine children.^[4]

Kelly was also an evangelical Christian and was known to share his faith openly.^[5] He was a friend of H. L. Mencken and was frequently referred to in Mencken's writings.^[6] Kelly was also at one time a Moody Bible Institute trustee.^[7]

Bibliography

Besides contributing some 300 articles to medical journals and editing, with C. P. Noble, Gynecology and Abdominal Surgery (volume i, 1907; volume ii, 1908), he published:

• Operative Gynecology (two volumes, 1899)
• The Vermiform Appendix and its Diseases (1905, 1909)
• Walter Reed and Yellow Fever (1906, 1907)
• Medical Gynecology (1908)
• Gynecology and abdominal surgery, with Charles P Noble (1908)
• Myomata of the Uterus, with T. S. Cullen (1909)
• Cyclopœdia of American Medical Biography (1912)
• American Medical Botanists (1913)
• Diseases of the Kidneys, Ureters, and Bladder, with C. F. Burnam, (two volumes, 1914)
• Dictionary of American medical biography; lives of eminent physicians of the United States and Canada, from the earliest times with Walter L. Burrage (1928)
• Electrosurgery, with Grant E. Ward (1932)

Eponyms

• Kelly's sign — If the ureter is teased with an artery forceps, it will contract like a snake or worm

• Kelly speculum — A rectal speculum tubular in shape and fitted with an obturator (disk)|obturator

• Kelly clamp – Large haemostatic forceps; arguably among the most common and best known surgical instruments ever

• Kelly's stitch — Surgery for the bladder neck to correct stress incontinence of urine

References

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Howard Atwood Kelly.

• See Snopes entry on "glass of milk" anecdote
• "Great Town Character". Time Magazine. 1943-01-25. Retrieved 2008-08-10.  in Time Magazine January 25, 1943.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Thurston, H. T.; Moore, F., eds. (1905). "^{article name needed}". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.