Irvin Abell

Irvin Abell was an American surgeon from Louisville, Kentucky, born in Lebanon, Kentucky on 13 September 1876 and dead on 28 August 1949. He graduated from Louisville Medical College in 1897, then studied in Germany at the universities of Marburg and Berlin. He joined the Louisville Medical College faculty in 1900 and became professor of surgery when the school merged with the University of Louisville in 1908, remaining in that role until he retired in 1947. In the First World War he served in the United States Army Medical Corps as a colonel and commanded a base hospital in France. He was president of the American Medical Association from 1938 to 1939 and also headed the American College of Surgeons, the Southeastern Surgical Association and the Kentucky State Medical Association. During the Second World War he chaired the national committee that advised the Department of Defense on public health, and he wrote Retrospect of Surgery in Kentucky. He received the Laetare Medal in 1938.