John Bingham Roberts and the first American monograph on human brain surgery

JOHN BINGHAM ROBERTS (1852-1924) of Philadelphia was an active general surgeon in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. He made pioneering contributions to a number of areas of surgery. From 1880 until the end of his career, he was one of the few American surgeons to advocate an aggressive exploratory approach to cranial fractures in an effort to avoid consequences such as infection, delayed seizures, and insanity. In his 1885 article in the Transactions of the American Surgical Association titled "The Field and Limitation of the Operative Surgery of the Human Brain," he predicted that with antiseptic precautions and the growing knowledge of cerebral localization, operations on the brain would become commonplace. This work predated that of Horsley, Keen, and many others. Roberts had a continuing interest in head injuries, cranial fractures, and the development of trephines and burrs for reconstructive cranial work, but his active enthusiasm for brain surgery diminished in the 1890s. Nevertheless, Roberts was a very prolific teacher and leader in American surgery who is perhaps best remembered for his monographs and textbooks on general, orthopedic, plastic, and reconstructive surgery.