The image of the “brain surgeon” in American culture: the influence of Harvey Cushing

Abstract

✓ In contemporary American culture, the term “brain surgeon” conjures up the image of an intensely singleminded professional, who deals with terribly complex matters of life and death. These descriptors find their personification in Harvey Cushing, because they are derived directly from him. This hypothesis was tested by a complete search of the New York Times Index and the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature for the years 1919 to 1942. All entries for Harvey Cushing were reviewed in the original sources. In the New York Times, Cushing's first significant exposure was in response to his winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1925. Major editorial coverage began in 1934, and was especially prominent with the publication of From a Surgeon's Journal in 1936. The process of lionizing Cushing by creating an overdrawn caricature reached its apotheosis in Time magazine in 1939. The Time article was actually a report of Cushing's 70th birthday party. It expounded all of the descriptors that are now associated with “brain surgeon.” Thus, it was Cushing's literary skills that initially brought him recognition from editors who were arbiters of public opinion. This attention seems to have been the conduit to his mythologization by the larger public. Although unnamed, it is really Cushing's image that still persists as the prototypical “brain surgeon” in the collective American consciousness.