Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/375

NAME EDEBOHLS 353 EDEBOHLS EdebohU, George Michael (1853-1908). Edebohls was a native of Manhattan Island; born May 8, 1853, of German parents, Henry and Catherine Edebohls, who had immigrated to this country about ten years previously. Re- ceiving his early education at two of the best Catholic schools of New York City — De La Salle Institute and St. Francis Xavier's Col- lege — he was graduated, in 1871, from St. John's College, Fordham, which institution, in 1886, conferred upon him the degree of A. M., and in 1906 that of LL. D. Immediately after graduation from St. John's he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and on receipt of his medical degree, four years later, became a member of the house staff of St. Francis Hospital, where, in the various divi- sions, he spent nearly half a decade. In 1880 he went to Europe, intending to prepare him- self as a specialist in diseases of the eye and ear, but on his return to America re- sumed the general practice he had begun while connected with the hospital. As a genera! prac- titioner, however, he was only moderately suc- cessful. His appointment as gynecologist to St. Francis Hospital, in 1887, was the real be- ginning of his career, as it gave opportunity for the development of his talents along the lines to which he was most inclined and best adapted. His success soon became marked, and it was not long until he had established for himself a deserved national reputation, through the excellence of his operative work and the high quality of his literature. As an operator Edebohls was unsurpassed. Rarely in one surgeon do we find combined the talents of a skilful operator, an engaging author, a successful teacher, and an ingen- ious inventor. That way genius lies. Ede- bohls possessed all of these accomplishments. His works on "Renal Decapsulation for Chronic Bright's Disease" and "Renal Decap- sulation for Puerperal Eclampsia" have won for him an international repute. Frequently now the latter operation is being performed in Europe with varying results, and the studies on the subject are far from closed. The con- sensus of opinion, however, is favorable. The radical boldness of the idea of surgical in- tervention in Bright's Disease subjected him to no little criticism and some abuse. To medical and surgical literature he was a frequent contributor, possessing a clear, con- cise style well fitted to the expression of his original conceptions and sturdy convictions. A tolerably full list of his writings is in the Catalogue of the Surgeon-general's Library, Washington, D. C. As professor of diseases of women at the New York Post-graduate Medical School and Hospital, Edebohls attracted a large class. His lectures were attended by inter- ested matriculates in great numbers. He was ready, fluent, entertaining, and instructive, and many of the younger practitioners of to-day owe to him much of their most valuable surgical equipment. In the field of invention Edebohls was con- stantly active. A number of operations now generally performed had their origin in his brain and hands, and an operating-table, a vaginal speculum, leg holders, needle holders, kidney pads, and some lesser surgical para- phernalia were the inventive outcome of ex- igencies met within his experience. He was a member of the Medical Society of the State of New York and of the German Medical Society; a fellow of the American Gynecological Society and of the New York Academy of Medicine; honorary fellow of the Societe de Chirurgie de Bucharest; attending gynecologist to St. Francis and the Post-grad- uate hospitals, and consulting gynecologist to St. John's Hospital, Yonkers, and the Nyack Hospital, Nyack. The illness which caused his death is thought to have been contracted during the summer of 1907, when he and his wife, who was Barbara Leyendecker, accompanied by their two sons, paid a visit to their married daughter and son-in-law in Mexico. The entire family were stricken with typhus fever while there, and the eldest son died of it. This loss, added to anxiety, appears to have undermined Edebohls' hitherto robust consti- tution. Gradually Hodgkin's disease developed and though the enlarged cervical tumors were extirpated, his life was forfeit. George Mi- chael Edebohls died in New York City, on the eighth day of August, 1908, after four months' illness. He was buried at Blauvelts, New York, where as a youth he had lived for a time on a farm owned by his parents, the interment being in a cemetary presented to the village by his father. In person Edebohls was tall and erect, of commanding presence and graceful carriage. In manner he was grave, dignified, and scru- pulously polite. Temperamentally he was taci- turn, retiring and excessively modest. Only after long and close acquaintance did he un- bend to intimacy and comradeship and reveal as noble qualities of heart as of head. To reach this plane with him the writer's op-