As the yacht Oneida steamed slowly along the Long Island Sound in July of 1893, U.S. President Grover Cleveland underwent oral cancer surgery which removed most of “his left upper jaw.” The secret operation was coordinated by Cleveland’s personal surgeon Joseph G. Bryant (left). Dr. Bryant arranged for his assistant surgeons William Keene and John Erdmann, for dentist-anesthetist Ferdinand Hasbrouck (nitrous oxide administrator), and for physicians Robert O’Reilly (etherist) and Edward Janeway (pulse monitor) to each embark and disembark from random ports—to both fool the press corps and guard the president’s privacy. On the Wood Library-Museum’s photoportrait of Dr. Bryant, he has signed his name (right) as “Joseph D. Bryant.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.)
George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator, ASA’s Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Park Ridge, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. UJYC@aol.com.
