Medical Dictionary
Main Entry:
Hal·sted radical mastectomy Pronunciation:
'hal-"sted- Function:
noun : RADICAL MASTECTOMY called also
Halsted radical Halsted, William Stewart (1852–1922), American surgeon. Halsted served for many years asprofessor of surgery and surgeon-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Medical School and Hospital. Renowned as a surgeon and clinical teacher, he is credited with pioneering work in physiology and pathology andwith innovative surgical techniques. He introduced the wearing of rubber gloves for surgical operations, the use of cocaine for local anesthesia, and a host of surgical techniques and procedures fortreating cancers, hernias, goiters, and aneurysms. He made significant physiological and clinical studies of cancer, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, and many other subjects. His 169 medicalcommunications were posthumously published in one volume. His procedure for radical mastectomy was first described in a lengthy article on the treatment of wounds that was published in the1890–91 issue of
Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports. An expanded description appeared in the 1894–95 issue.
