Nicholas Senn
Nicholas Senn Soundex Code S500
Wikipedia page about Dr. Nicholas Senn
Dr. Nicholas Senn was born in Switzerland on Thursday, October 31, 1844.
When he was eight years old, his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Ashford, Wisconsin. Dr. Senn graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1868, served a residency at Cook County Hospital, and later moved to Milwaukee. There he practiced medicine by day and spent most evenings in a private laboratory performing experiments. He studied gastrointestinal lesions and bone tuberculosis. He is credited with pioneering work on the pancreas and the intestinal tract and he was among the first to use the then unpredictable x-rays in the treatment of leukemia. The genesis of today's high-tech sterile operating suites could, without too much exaggeration, be credited to Dr. Senn, also. His many experiments relating to the reason for infection resulting from surgery (that the bacteria entered the wound from the hands of the surgeons rather than that infection was due to the individual propensity of the patient) led to surgical improvements practiced by all surgeons.
In the late 1870s, Dr. Senn returned to Europe and was awarded a second Doctor of Medicine from the University of Munich. In 1884 he was appointed professor of surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. Six years later he became professor of surgery and surgical pathology at Rush Medical College and in 1891 he became head of the department of surgery at Rush. In addition, he was a professor of surgery at the Chicago Polyclinic and a lecturer on military surgery at the University of Chicago. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1897.
Rush Medical College professor of surgery, Nicholas Senn, was the first surgeon to detect intestinal perforation by inflation with hydrogen gas.
Dr. Nicholas Senn was the founder of the Association of Military Surgeons of U.S.
During his lifetime, Dr. Senn published 25 books and countless papers and essays. He served as the 49th president of the American Medical Association. He was a leading force and a liberal contributor toward the advancement of medical education. He gave a clinical building to Rush Medical College. Upon the death of a prominent doctor in Germany, Dr. Senn purchased his library of old and rare medical books and presented the materials to the Newberry Library. Dr. Senn himself accumulated one of the best medical and surgical libraries anywhere in the country. His collection (10,000 volumes and 14,000 pamphlets and articles representing information from the 1500s to his own day) can now be found in the John Crerar Library at the University of Chicago which now also houses Dr. Senn's original contributions to the Newberry Library. Dr. Senn passed away on Thursday, January 2, 1908 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery. The Chicago Public Schools honored him in 1913 by naming a high school after him.