WOOD LIBRARY-MUSEUM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Ex Officio, ASA Vice President of Scientific Affairs
Job Titles:
- Anesthesiologist at the Alfred Hospital
Dr Christine Ball AM is an anesthesiologist at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. She is also an adjunct associate professor at Monash University, where she is one of the coordinators of a Master of Medicine (Perioperative) and a co-editor of the department publication, Perioperative Medicine for Junior Doctors.
She has a career-long interest in the history of anesthesia and has been an honorary curator at the Geoffrey Kaye Museum of Anaesthetic History for over 30 years. In that time, working with the professional curators, she has been involved with the museum accreditation program and overseen many in-house and on-line displays.
Dr Ball has an extensive list of publications on anesthetic history. Together with Rod Westhorpe and Peter Featherstone, she has authored over 30 years of cover notes for the Australian journal, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, a bimonthly publication. She has published many other history articles in professional journals, including Anesthesiology and Anesthesia and Analgesia, a number of chapters and three books on the subject. After 12 years of research, she has recently completed work on a biography of Joseph Clover, a surgeon who pursued a career in anaesthesia in the second half of the nineteenth century in London. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Anesthesia History.
In 2019, Dr Ball was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to anesthesia and medical education, and was also awarded the Ben Barry Medal for exceptional services to the journal, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care. In October 2019, it was announced that she would be the 2020 Wood Library-Museum Laureate of the History of Anesthesia.
Dr. Wilkinson was born on February 18, 1948, in Pontypridd, South Wales, and received his L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S. in 1971 and his M.B., B.S. in 1972. He became a Fellow of the Faculty of Anaesthetists, Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1976. He is married to Norma Wilkinson and they have three children, Fiona, Stuart and Andrew, and one grandson, Jared.
He trained as a Senior House Officer, Anaesthesia, at Whipps Cross Hospital, London, where he remained on staff for over a year before assuming the duties of Registrar and Senior Registrar at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he spent the majority of his career as a Consultant in Anaesthesia. However, he had an early love for Western Australia that continues to the present, spending 1979 in Princess Margaret and Royal Perth Hospitals in Perth, Australia. He completed a WLM Fellowship in 1989.
His prodigious productivity during his decades-long academic career includes well over 200 presentations with over a third specifically related to the history of anesthesia. The majority of his numerous book chapters and 43 peer-reviewed articles are historical in content. His most famous work is the remarkable chapter on the "History of Trauma Anesthesia" in the Textbook of Trauma, Anesthesia and Critical Care. Significant eponymous lectureships include:
The DRC Wilson Memorial Lecture. Australian Society of Anaesthesia (WA Section), Perth, Australia. "The History of Obstetric Anaesthesia," 1979.
The Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture. American Society of Anesthesiologists, Orlando, Florida. "Barts, the Blues, Books and Beyond," 2002.
The Blessed Chloroform Lecture. Sixth ISHA, Cambridge, U.K. "Oh Wad Some Power the Giftie Gie Us to See Ourse's as Others See Us!" 2005.
The Victor Goldman Lecture. Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, London, U.K. "Dr. Goldman: A Life of Service," 2006.
The GE Healthcare Lecture. Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, London, U.K. "From Servant to Master?" 2007.
The Weinbren Memorial Lecture. Annual Meeting of the South African Society of Anaesthesia, Sun City, South Africa. "Why We Are Where We Are Today: The History of Mistakes," 2007.
Since 1994, Dr. Wilkinson has the honorary appointment of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London Lecturer in the History of Medicine to St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Donald Caton was born in 1937 in Weehawken, New Jersey, and received his B.A. degree from Yale University in 1958 and his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, New York, in 1962. He completed a residency in Anesthesiology in 1967 at the University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia, and an Anesthesiology fellowship and an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University, 1967-1969. Prior to that time, he served as a General Medical Officer of the United States Navy, 1963-1965, in Taiwan, Republic of China.
After his fellowships, he established a long and illustrious academic career at the University of Florida, Gainesville, with special clinical and historical emphasis on obstetrical anesthesia. Although his creative output of refereed articles and book chapters has been prolific, Dr. Caton's singular accomplishment in the study of the history of obstetrical anesthesia was his seminal book What a Blessing She Had Chloroform, which was nominated for the W. H. Welch prize in 1999.
In addition to this work, his contributions in editing, mentoring colleagues and a wide array of visiting professorships and invited lectureships attest to his excellence as an educator. His erudition was recognized in his appointment as the Lewis H. Wright Lecturer in October 1997.
Finally, Dr. Caton has devoted a substantial portion of his career to leadership in anesthesia history organizations, including serving on the Board of the Wood Library-Museum (1989-2001) and as President of that body 1997-2001; the Council of the Anesthesia History Association (1993-2002); and on the organizing committees for the Chautauqua Institute's 1993 and 1994 Pain and Healing Conferences, the Fifth International Symposium on the History of Anesthesia, the University of Wisconsin and the Anesthesia History Association's Special Symposium Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Ralph Waters, and the 2004 World Congress of Anaesthesiologists' Anesthesia Subsection.
In summary, Dr. Donald Caton is a noted renaissance scholar who has devoted a substantial portion of his academic career to the History of Anesthesiology as evidenced in his personal enthusiasm and by his significant achievements.
The WLM is pleased and honored to induct the 2012 Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Douglas Richard Bacon, M.D., M.A. at 12:40 p.m. on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 in West Salon I in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center immediately prior to the Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture in Washington, DC.
Dr. Bacon was born on January 28, 1959 in Buffalo, New York, in the United States and went to college at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with departmental honors as well as the Bachelor of Science degree in Medicinal Chemistry, both cum laude. He was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and continued his education by receiving an M.D. at SUNY at Stony Brook in 1985.
Joining the faculty at SUNY at Buffalo, he won teaching awards and rose to the position of Vice Chair for Education in 1998-2000. He was also Chief of the VA Anesthesiology Service and Manager of that service from 1995-2000.
Thereafter, he left Buffalo for Rochester, Minnesota, to become a Senior Associate Consultant at the Mayo Clinic. He was promoted to full Consultant in 2003 and served as Vice Chair for Faculty Development from 2008-12.
He recently accepted the position of Chair, Department of Anesthesiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, following in the footsteps of his friend and colleague Dr. H. Michael Marsh. During his illustrious academic career, he received an M.A. in History from SUNY at Buffalo and mentored more than 17 medical students and residents, inspiring them to dozens of publications and presentations.
He was key in organizing many of the Annual Spring Meetings of the Anesthesia History Association, where he also served as President from 2006-2010, and served on organizing committees for the International Symposium on the History of Anaesthesia three times, as well as History sections for the World Congress of Anaesthesiologists. As a very active Trustee of the WLM from 1996-2008, he served as Secretary-Treasurer and on multiple committees, notably the Archives, for which he was Chair from 1996-2008. He also collaborated with the American Association for the History of Medicine, chairing the Clinician Historian Committee (1996-1999) and the Osler Medal Committee (2009).
The WLM is pleased and honored to induct the 2016 Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 23, 2016, in Room W375b at McCormick Place, prior to his Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture, in Chicago, Illinois.
George Stephen Bause is the oldest child of Suzanne Bause and USAF Colonel Henry Bause (Ret.), onetime chaplain to Cape Canaveral's astronauts. An Eagle Scout and military dependent - living in 12 homes in 20 years, including four years in Europe - George learned to pack items, cross borders and appease authorities who would later challenge him as the "Indiana Jones of anesthesia antiquities."
As Edinburgh's St. Andrews Scholar (1975-76), George forsook the Scottish Universities Research Reactor for Pennsylvania's Ursinus College. There, while computer-sweeping Homer's Iliad for musical backdrop, he met future wife Ramona and earned his B.S., cum laude (1977, Biophysics). Following his M.P.H. (Epidemiology), M.D. (1981), and anesthesiology training at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Bause drafted a protocol for America's first Fellowship in Geriatric Anesthesiology (NIH-Hopkins).
He launched departmental anesthesia museums at Johns Hopkins and then at Yale, while an associate professor. Since 1987, Dr. Bause has curated ASA's Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM). While a clinical associate professor at Case Western Reserve University, he shipped rare books or hand-carried anesthesia antiques back to the WLM from all seven continents. Curator Bause has amassed the world's finest collection of pre-1850 anesthesia inhalers, including ones designed by Robinson and Squire.
Dr. Bause's popular "Anesthesiology Reflections" and 605 total publications (348 in peer-reviewed journals), exhibits, and acquisitions were hailed as "simply stunning" and "nearly unfathomable" by the editors-in-chief in 2015 of Anesthesiology and the Journal of Anesthesia History (JAH), respectively. The past editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia named Dr. Bause "the driving force" behind his journal's only historical issue. JAH's editor-in-chief accused "founding deputy editor" Bause of delivering "ripping lectures" on six continents as anesthesia history's "best ambassador." A member of the "highest-per-mill-IQ" Triple Nine Society and American Osler Society, Dr. Bause is the only physician-fellow of the American Academy of the History of Dentistry and is the current president of the Academy of Anesthesiology.
Dr. Bause was awarded the Laureate by an international panel of judges of notable medical historians and active leaders in the history of anesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine.
Born in 1926 in Seattle, Washington, Dr. Bergman received his B.A. degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1949 and his M.D. from the University of Oregon in 1951. After residency in anesthesiology at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City (1951-54), he started working his way up the academic ladder at Columbia University (1954-58), at the University of Utah (1958-70) and finally became Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology (1970-89). His research interest throughout these two decades included many appointments as visiting research associate in Great Britain in research centers such as Northwick Park, the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Hammer-Smith Hospital and Post-graduate Medical School, as well as at the Karolinska Sjukhuset in Stockholm.
His research experiences in the physiology of respiration at these institutions, when added to similar research in pulmonary physiology at his own department in Portland, soon made him internationally recognized and respected as an expert in this area of physiology. His experiences in England also formed the foundation for work that came to make his name famous - the publication of his magnum opus: Genesis of Surgical Anesthesia, a masterful and definitive review of foundations upon which anesthesia was based before the introduction of ether anesthesia in 1846.
Lamentably, Dr. Bergman died after his election as Laureate in 1999 and before October 2000 when his investiture as Laureate was to take place. His investiture however, was still held in October 2000, at the ASA Annual Meeting. The presentation of his Laureate medal, Laureate scroll and honorarium was made to his family
The establishment of the Wood Library-Museum was based on the personal collection of its founder, Dr. Paul M. Wood. Following family tradition, Dr. Wood developed a collecting instinct which grew out of a love for books. Early in his career, Dr. Wood recognized the scarcity of old anesthesia literature. At great expense and through his association with pioneer anesthesiologists, he collected and built a valuable library-museum of anesthesiology.
In the early 1930s, Dr. Wood formally presented his personal library-museum to the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). The naming of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology coincided with Dr. Wood's appointment by the Society as permanent librarian-curator.
Dr. Wood was instrumental in soliciting space from Squibb & Sons in New York where the library-museum was housed from 1937-1947. Incorporation of the Wood Library-Museum as a nonprofit educational institution officially occurred in 1950 in the state of New York. Until 1963, when it was officially dedicated in Park Ridge, Illinois, the library-museum was housed in several makeshift locations. Upon merging with ASA in 1971, the New York incorporation was dissolved, making it a section of the society. In 1987, the incorporation of the Wood Library-Museum as a nonprofit organization in Illinois under the auspices of ASA renewed its commitment to the historical, educational and archival preservation of the heritage of anesthesiology.
Dr. Boulton was born in 1925 in County Durham, England. He graduated from Cambridge University and from St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College before embarking on a career that has made him one of the most eminent anaesthetists in the United Kingdom. He is past president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and a former editor of Anaesthesia. He also led other anesthesia-related organizations and is a prolific author and a much sought-after lecturer.
Dr. Boulton's historical contributions are legion. He has been the editor of the "Classical Files," a prominent feature of the Survey of Anesthesiology, since 1983. He advocated and helped found the History of Anaesthesia Society in the United Kingdom and subsequently became its president in 1988. For many years, he was the Hon. Archivist of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. Known for his historical scholarship, Dr. Boulton chaired the Second International Symposium for the History of Anaesthesia in London in 1987 and was co-editor of its proceedings, The History of Anaesthesia, published in 1988 by the Royal Society of Medicine. He delivered the Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology in 1990. Dr. Boulton considers his 1999 book, The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, 1932-1992, and the Development of the Specialty of Anaesthesia, the most important singular contribution to the history of anesthesia he has ever made.