Edward Delos Churchill

Edward Delos Churchill was an American surgeon, born in Chenoa, Illinois, in 1895 and dead in 1972, known for his work in thoracic surgery. After Harvard Medical School and his training at Massachusetts General Hospital he helped found a full-time surgical unit at Boston City Hospital, where in 1928 he performed the first pericardiectomy in the United States for constrictive pericarditis in collaboration with Paul D. White. With Oliver Cope he described the Churchill-Cope reflex and in 1932 carried out the first mediastinal parathyroidectomy, building parathyroid surgery for hyperparathyroidism. He also developed lobectomy for bronchiectasis, tuberculosis and lung cancer. As surgical consultant in the Mediterranean theatre during the Second World War he promoted delayed primary closure and early debridement of contaminated wounds, regional blood banks and air evacuation of the wounded.