John Staige Davis (1872–1946)

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Department of Plastic Surgery, University Hospital Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

Understandably, doubt and dispute often surround claims to priority, a situation which is not unknown in the field of plastic surgery. There is good evidence to support my claim that Staige Davis was the first to declare that he was a full-time practising plastic surgeon and to suit his actions to his words. Although articles on his life and work do not make it entirely clear when he limited his surgical endeavours to plastic surgery, his son, Dr. William Bowdoin Davis, told me that it was in 1909 that Staige Davis decided to practise only plastic surgery. Later, when going through family papers, I discovered that Staige Davis, himself, had written a very short summary of his life in which he says:

In 1909, I limited my practice to plastic surgery

and am Plastic Surgeon to several hospitals here…..!

It is true that Zeis coined the title Plastische Chirurgie in 1838 and that the names of a number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century continental general and ENT surgeons such as Dieffenbach, von Graefe and Morestin are associated with a variety of reconstructive and cosmetic techniques but not one dared to name themselves plastic surgeons or saw the need for or dared to practise full-time plastic surgery. This visionary and bold first step belonged to Staige Davis.

Some may argue that the epithet of the ‘First Real Plastic Surgeon’ is simply a matter of words but it was much more. Davis took this step in the face of opposition which included that of the powerful Stewart Halsted and in due course proved that a practice in the specialty was viable. In addition, he showed that it was now necessary to establish proper training and research in the field. This was soon confirmed by the support and respect of his colleagues who joined with him to found the Association and the Board of Plastic Surgery.

To many students of the history of plastic surgery, the name of Harold Delf Gillies will spring to mind as the founder of the speciality. It is true that he, more than any other, except perhaps Johannes Esser, a Dutchman, developed and laid down the techniques and principles which even today form the basis of much of the plastic surgeon’s work. Gillies, however, was initially an ear, nose and throat surgeon who was drawn to reconstructive surgery during the Great War, and only when he returned to civilian practice in 1919, 10 years after Davis had set up his practice, did he confine his practice solely to plastic surgery.

John Staige Davis was born a seventh-generation American in Norfolk, Virginia, on 15 January 1872. The family, whose lineage is quite well documented, was descended from Andrew Davis, who emigrated from Wales early in the eighteenth century and settled in Middlesex County, Virginia. Staige Davis’s great grandfather, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, was shot and killed by a rioting student on the campus. He left a son, John Staige Davis, who became Professor of Anatomy and Materia Medica. His son, William Blackford Davis, also studied medicine at the University of Virginia and became a naval and subsequently an army surgeon. His son, the subject of this account, was an only child and named after his grandfather.

Childhood and Student Life

As a young child, Staige Davis led a somewhat nomadic life, as his father’s naval posting took the family in turn from Virginia to Maryland, Washington D.C. and New Hampshire. In 1877, his father was commissioned in the United States army, and it is from this period that young Staige Davis began to recall his adventurous childhood. With his father once more on the move, the family entrained at St. Louis bound for Bismarck and Jamestown in Dakota Territory. Upon arrival, they travelled in an ambulance, escorted by troops of the 7th Cavalry, through Indian country for 100 miles to Fort Totten. Although, by this time, the Indian wars had ended, the nearby Sioux were occasionally unfriendly, and Staige Davis could remember witnessing a skirmish between a squad of cavalry and two Indians who had murdered some settlers. Here, his father bought him a beautiful black mare from a friendly full-blooded Sioux.

The growing boy spent a fascinating time riding, visiting Sioux camps, tending the soldiers’ horses, learning to drive mule wagons and hunting with his father during the next 8 years. One of his unpleasant memories was sampling some cigars with a friend, an experience which accounted for his lifelong aversion to tobacco!

Up until the age of 13, his parents had been responsible for his education, as there were few children and no school at the Fort. In 1885, he returned to the East Coast and spent 2 years at the Heathcote School in Buffalo and then in 1897 enrolled at the Episcopal High School of Virginia, where his uncle was the headmaster. This fortuitous family relationship and his father’s adherence to the Episcopalian Church were no doubt factors influencing the choice of school. It was a Spartan existence with no heating nor running water, which prepared him for his next scholastic adventure at St. Paul’s School in Garden City, Long Island, when his father was once again transferred, this time to New York. The pupils were here subjected to strict military discipline as well as a rigorous exposure to religion, with twice-daily chapel services and two cathedral parades in full dress uniform every Sunday.

He was released from this bondage upon graduation and passed on to Yale University at New Haven in 1892 where he did extremely well, making Phi Beta Kappa in his final year. Besides being invited to join the Book and Snake Society, he was captain of the Sheffield Military Company and elected to the Board of Editors of the Yale Scientific Monthly, which was founded by his class of 1895.

Entrance to a medical school in those days was not so fiercely contested as it is today, and Staige Davis debated between Harvard and Johns Hopkins Medical School. Oddly enough, the author had the same choice as a postgraduate fellow but, unlike Staige Davis, decided on Harvard in 1963. Seven of his companions from the Yale biology course accompanied him to Johns Hopkins where he and Paul Owsley decided to room together in Baltimore. For the first 2 years, they lived in a downtown boarding house and for the last two in an apartment on North Charles Street.

The medical faculty during the 4-year course boasted some of the most famous names in medicine. There were Welsh the pathologist, Kelly in gynaecology and, most notable of all, Osler, who favoured bedside teaching and provided a wonderful course, being in close contact with the third and fourth year medical students. Halsted, on the other hand, although one of the greatest of American general surgeons, was not interested in students whom, it was said, he barely tolerated. Furthermore, the great man contrived to restrict the teaching and development of subspecialties, such as orthopaedics, urology and ophthalmology, none of which interested him – a situation which is not altogether unknown to the author!

On the day of his graduation in 1899, Davis learned that he was amongst the top 12 in his class. It was the custom for this fortunate group to be offered a 12-month rotation at Hopkins as house officers, spread between such giants as Osler, Kelly and Williams in gynaecology and obstetrics and, of course, Halsted. Even though the first 4 months were spent on a ward full of 35 cases of typhoid fever, the young intern later wrote that this year had been a truly memorable experience.