Genius on the Edge: The Bizarre Double Life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted (23 page)

Welch’s time had become increasingly consumed by hospital and university politics, and after a brief spurt of experimental work he produced little more of note. He continued to oversee the work at the Pathological, lecture to graduate students, and perform autopsies, though these last two tasks gradually fell to his assistants.

Kelly was busy from the moment of his arrival in Baltimore. Word of his extraordinary dexterity quickly filtered through the surgical world. Kelly was that unique surgeon able to operate with one eye on the clock and still do the job faster and better than anyone else. He stood in stark contrast to the slow, meticulous, and maddeningly thoughtful Halsted. But Kelly was open-minded about his work and absorbed the “safe surgery” of the Halsted school into his technique. He just did it faster and better, and everyone, Halsted included, respected him for it. Kelly became so busy with operative gynecology and abdominal surgery that he would no longer have time for obstetrics, which would become a separate department under J. Whitridge “Bull” Williams.

Kelly had a host of intellectual and scientific interests, but he was not an experimental surgeon in the manner of Halsted. He was a great technical innovator, a most prolific medical writer and biographer, devoted to his large family, and obsessed with religion.

FOLLOWING THE HEADY
and fairly disorganized early months, Osler and Welch were able to free themselves from the constraints of overly busy schedules. Kelly was, by nature, frantically productive, and Halsted was now as busy at surgery as he had been in New York. His personality would be shockingly unrecognizable to those familiar with the Halsted of old, but his energy level and focus were admirable. His dependence on morphine had not yet sapped his strength.

Gradually, all but the drug use would change.

EARLY-MORNING SURGERY
soon became 10:00. Halsted would schedule fewer surgeries and hand over increasing portions of these to assistants. Sometimes he did not appear in the operating room for weeks. His attendance at the dispensary would dwindle, and all formal lecturing would grind to a standstill. The experimental laboratory continued to command his attention, but he would rarely spend a full day at the hospital.

William Halsted, circa 1860.

William Halsted, circa 1868.

William Halsted, circa 1880.

Bellevue interns, 1877. Halsted is fourth from right in second row, under arch.

Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1889.

“The Pathological.” Pathology building at Johns Hopkins, circa 1890.

Caroline Hampton, future wife of William S. Halsted, circa 1889.

“The three fates.” Halsted, Osler, and Kelly, 1897.

Plates from Halsted’s paper “Radical Cure of Inguinal Hernia.”

“All-Star Operation,” 1904, celebrating the opening of the new operating room. Halsted can be seen at left center bent over patient with mallet in his hand.