Henry Gassett Davis

Henry Gassett Davis was an American orthopedic surgeon who founded the traction school of orthopedic surgery. Born on 4 November 1807 in Trenton, Massachusetts, he first meant to follow his father as a mechanic and cotton-bagging manufacturer, but turned to medicine after seeing a sister with a difficult case of scoliosis. He received his MD from Yale School of Medicine in March 1839, with clinical training at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. For fifteen years he practised as a surgeon in Worcester and Millbury, Massachusetts, where he became interested in fractures and deformities and advocated continuous traction with weights and pulleys to correct deformities and ease joint pain, work that preceded the similar methods Gurdon Buck introduced in 1860. He then settled in New York City, specialised in orthopedic medicine and opened a private hospital for foreign patients. He created the first splint for traction and protection of the hip joint, and is also known for his study of how soft tissue adapts, summed up as Davis law. He died at his home in Everett, Massachusetts, on 17 November 1896.