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Updated: May 1, 2026
Author Spotlight: A Reproducible and Efficient Method for Accessing Porcine Brain via Craniectomy
Published on: July 5, 2024
The Reverend Russell H. Conwell, W. Wayne Babcock, and the "soup bone" cranioplasties of 1915
Adam L Sandler1, Arundhati Biswas, James Tait Goodrich
1Department of Neurological Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University/Montefiore Medical Center; and.
Abstract:
In 1915, faced with 2 patients with large skull defects, W. Wayne Babcock, an obstetrician-gynecologist-turned-general surgeon, operating in a modest North Philadelphia hospital, did something extraordinary: he went to the hospital kitchen to look for a cranial graft. Based heavily on archival and other primary sources, the authors tell the remarkable tale of the "soup bone" cranioplasties of the Samaritan Hospital and place these operations within the context of the early modern American hospital.
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