Howard A. Kelly's development as an academician: some insights from his letters to Robert P. Harris.

Abstract

Howard Atwood Kelly (1858-1943), Professor and Gynecologist in Chief at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is widely known as an innovator in operative gynecology, urology, and abdominal surgery. He was also a first-rate naturalist and bibliographer. Less is known, however, about his formative years as a young surgeon in Philadelphia. During a four-month period, from May to September 1886, while on a trip to Europe, Kelly wrote his senior colleague and friend Robert Patterson Harris (1822-1899) almost three dozen letters. These letters trace the development of Kelly's ideas as he visited a number of medical luminaries in the major medical centers of Germany, England, Scotland, and France. Overall, the letters give considerable insight into the development of Kelly as a young physician (age 28), inspired by what he saw in the German Frauenkliniks to build a program of excellence in the treatment of diseases of women in America. In addition, the letters help to illustrate the role Harris played in the development of this icon of contemporary medicine, who, with others, worked to place the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine at the forefront of medical education and research in this country and the world.