Fred H. Albee

Frederick Houdlette Albee (April 13, 1876 – February 15, 1945) was a surgeon who invented bone grafting and other advances in orthopedic surgery as a surgical treatment. He was also one of the fathers of rehabilitative medicine, a pioneer in physical, psychological and occupational rehabilitation. As a result of his discoveries, untold numbers of injured, crippled and disfigured persons were able to overcome trauma that had previously been untreatable.

Albee was born on a farm in the township of Alna, Maine, on a Friday the 13th, and learned how to do tree grafting from his uncle, Charles Houdlette. He later applied the principles of grafting, and guarding a tree from outside disruptions, to his bone grafting operations. Though he was a hard worker on the farm, he was fascinated by medicine. When he was 16, Albee was sent to the Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, Maine, and furthered his education. He worked his way through Bowdoin College, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, and got a job as a laboratory assistant to Bowdoin's professor of bacteriology. He also worked hard to get one of the two scholarships offered by the Harvard University School of Medicine.

At Harvard, Albee assisted Dr. Richard Cabot in the study of the measurement of blood pressure, and in his fourth year, Albee was one of the few medical students chosen to be a prosector, which gave him the privilege of assisting Dr. Maurice Richardson, the professor of surgery, during operations. Upon obtaining his M.D., Dr. Albee interned at Massachusetts General Hospital. After a brief general practice, he became an assistant orthopedic surgeon at the New York Postgraduate Medical School Clinic. When Dr. Charles Ogilvy retired, Dr. Albee became the chief surgeon.

In 1906, Dr. Albee performed his first successful bone-grafting operation, reducing hip pain for a rheumatism sufferer. The results attracted such wide attention that other surgeons soon consulted with Dr. Albee to duplicate the results. In 1911, Dr. Albee discovered a method for using bone instead of metal to perform a spinal fusion for infected vertebrae. He perfected his techniques including the classification of bone types, and in 1912, invented the "Albee Bone Mill", a power driven machine that reduced the time needed for a bone graft to as little as ten minutes. As a result, he was able to restore mobility to children in England who had been crippled by tuberculosis and other bone illnesses.

...
Wikipedia