Bradford Cannon, 98; helped develop life-saving burn treatments
Horribly burned in the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, the young woman had given up. In agony and in despair about her appearance, she refused to eat.
A young doctor in the then-new field of plastic and reconstructive surgery, Bradford Cannon took charge of her case. Dr. Cannon, who was applying innovative burn treatments to the victims of the nightclub inferno, reassured the woman that she could hope for a normal and happy life. Gradually, the patient -- dubbed ''Case 13" in a medical journal -- began eating and went on to recover.
Her care reflected the twin themes of Dr. Cannon's long and distinguished medical career: technical innovation and a profound interest in his patients' personal lives.
Dr. Cannon, the first chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and a man credited with saving the lives of soldiers maimed during World War II, died Dec. 20 at his daughter's home in Lincoln of bronchopneumonia. He was 98.
''Plastic surgery nowadays is seen as simply cosmetic nip-tuck kind of work. But he was a pioneer in the underrecognized and incredibly challenging field of reconstructive surgery -- in particular for burn victims," said Dr. Atul Gawande, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health who is also an author of popular medical books and a regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine.
In 1994, more than a half century after the recovery of Case 13, Dr. Cannon reestablished contact with her through a remarkable coincidence. His son Robert Laurent Cannon had become a pilot and discovered that his copilot, Jeffrey Bradford Harris, was the son of ''Case 13," Shirley Freedman-Harris She was then 72 and living in San Diego.
Freedman-Harris wrote a grateful letter to her former doctor: ''I realize that medical science contributed much, but I honestly doubt that it would have worked so well without my will to survive -- and your intelligence to bolster that will. Your compassion, your caring, I believe, did save my life."
Dr. Cannon was born Dec. 2, 1907, into an illustrious family. His father was the eminent physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon and his mother, Cornelia James Cannon, was a best-selling author. He grew up in Cambridge and graduated from Harvard College in 1929 and Harvard Medical School in 1933.
After an internship and residency at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, he returned to Boston in 1940 to work as an assistant surgeon in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
At MGH, he and pioneering surgeon Dr. Oliver Cope sought to change the accepted method of burn treatments. Instead of using tannic acid, they advocated a less invasive method that included wrapping burns with a petroleum-coated gauze containing boric acid. They were able to use the new method on a large scale in November 1942, when fire swept through the popular Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, killing nearly 500 and sending hundreds of burn victims to local hospitals.
The new process soon became the standard treatment for burns.
''I remember well the arrival within a few days of a host of 'experts' from Washington who were so impressed by the performance of our staff that they published directives on burn management based on our experience," Dr. Cannon recalled in a 1992 article in the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. ''Rumor has it that quantities of tannic acid were discarded by the armed forces."
From 1943 to 1947, Dr. Cannon served in the Army as chief of the plastic surgical section of Valley
''He was a leader of everything," recalled Dr. Joseph E. Murray, who considered Dr. Cannon his ''mentor" at Valley Forge. ''He was innovative. He cut through red tape. He would tolerate nothing that detracted from the care of the patients."
Murray later led a surgical team at Brigham and Women's Hospital that performed the first kidney transplant. He received a Nobel Prize in medicine in 1990.
One of Dr. Cannon's patients was Charlie Woods, a fighter pilot horribly burned on his head and hands in a crash. To rebuild the pilot's face, Dr. Cannon employed a then-radical technique: using cadaver skin as a temporary graft. Such usage became standard treatment.
''He clearly saved our dad's life," recalled David Woods of Montgomery, Ala.
Drs. Murray and Cannon ''provided a lot of emotional support and motivation," he said. ''My father wanted to prove to them that he could do certain things because they spent a great deal of time and energy trying to save his life."
Charlie Woods became a developer, a TV chain owner, and the father of 11. His friendship with Dr. Cannon continued until Woods's death at age 83 in 2004.
Dr. Cannon worked to make plastic surgery an established specialty in Boston. In 1969, he was appointed chief of MGH's first plastic surgery unit, and in 1970, MGH established its first plastic surgery residency. In 1973, Dr. Cannon was appointed clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. He also served as president of the Boston Surgical Society, the New England Society of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, and the American Association of Plastic Surgeons.
In the 1950s, Dr. Cannon also worked as a consultant for the Atomic Energy Commission and visited the Marshall Islands to study effects of radioactivity on the population from atomic tests.
Throughout his life, Dr. Cannon remained profoundly influenced by his treatment of Cocoanut Grove victims. ''We would go places and he would say, 'You see how this door opens; that's because of the Cocoanut Grove fire,' " his daughter recalled.
For all his honors, Dr. Cannon was ''a child of the Depression who never forgot how to save and to make do," his daughter said. ''He was a very practical person. He would fix anything himself."
A 60-year resident of Lincoln, Dr. Cannon received the Boston Post cane as the town's oldest registered voter just five days before his death. Attending Dr. Cannon's 98th birthday celebration three weeks ago, Dr. Murray marveled at how he still ''remembered things about some of the patients we took care of 60-odd years ago."
Dr. Cannon was profoundly saddened by The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island and worried that inadequate attention was paid to soldiers injured in the current Iraq war, his daughter said.
''He had such compassion for the wounded coming back that were going to face extraordinary challenges," she said.
Dr. Cannon was married to Ellen DeNormadie Cannon, whom he met on Christmas Day 1937, for 64 years. She died in 2003. A son, Philip, also died before him.
In addition to his son Robert L. of Centennial, Colo., and his daughter, Sarah, Dr. Cannon leaves two other sons, Dr. Walter B. of Palo Alto, Calif., and Dr. Woodward of Raleigh, N.C.; a sister, Marian Cannon Schlesinger of Cambridge; 14 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 18 in the First Parish Church in Lincoln.
