Harvey Cushing and pediatric neurosurgery

Harvey Cushing made fundamental and seminal contributions to pediatric neurosurgery. Early in his surgical career, he described the diagnosis and treatment of subdural hematomas in newborn infants. Important investigations on the cerebrospinal fluid and the nature of hydrocephalus were carried out under his direction, first by Walter Dandy and Kenneth Blackfan in the Hunterian Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and shortly afterward by Lewis Weed at the Laboratory of Surgical Research at Harvard. Cushing's principle interest throughout his professional career was the surgical treatment of brain tumors. By his careful clinical examination of patients. Cushing described for the first time a typical and composite picture of the more common tumors of the posterior fossa in children, particularly the cerebellar astrocytomas and medulloblastomas. Percival Bailey, working under Cushing's supervision at Harvard, studied and classified the glioma group of brain tumors. This contribution by Bailey was a major factor in the understanding of the characteristics and natural history of these tumors. In the closing years of Cushing's surgical practice, he published three major papers summarizing the characteristics, clinical picture, and treatment of the more common brain tumors in the pediatric age group. As a result of his exceptional surgical skill and innovations, he was able to achieve a surgical mortality of only 4% in operations on brain tumors in children. These landmark papers secured Cushing's place as a pioneer in pediatric neurosurgery.