James Tayloe Gwathmey, M.D. (September 10, 1862—February 11, 1944) was an American physician and the first president of the American Association of Anesthetics (now the International Anesthesia Research Society). A pioneer of early anesthetic devices for medical use, he co-authored the first comprehensive textbook on the subject of medical anesthetics, titled Anesthesia, which was published in 1914. For this and other contributions to anesthesiology, which included innovations in administering anesthetics to war wounded and in obstetrics, Gwathmey was hailed at the time of his death as the "Father of Modern Anesthesia."
Biography
Early life
Gwathmey was born on September 10, 1862, at Buena Vista in Roanoke, Virginia, the childhood home of his mother, Mary Lavinia Tayloe, daughter of George Plater Tayloe and Mary Elizabeth Langhorne. He was a student at the Norfolk Male Academy and later attended the Virginia Military Institute. The third year of his college education was marked by multiple citations for bad behavior, including exhibiting "culpable neglect of his duties and studies" and "an air of careless indifference", going to a billiards saloon without authorization, and of throwing a brick into a subprofessor's window. This last infraction led to his expulsion from V.M.I. on December 8, 1887. While at the Institute, he had become very interested in acrobatics, so after his dismissal he left to join an acrobatic troupe that he traveled with for two years. Following this, he taught gymnastics at the YMCA first in Des Moines, Iowa, and then in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1890, Gwathmey moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he founded and led the Summer School for Higher Culture at Vanderbilt University. During his time at the school, Gwathmey became president of the Bicycle Club, was Director of the Gymnasium and Instructor in Physical Exercise, and was the faculty advisor to the Chi Chapter of the Kappa Alpha fraternity. He thought about pursuing a career in the ministry before enrolling at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. in 1899. Gwathmey was a lifelong devotee to athletics and acrobatics and in 1915 published the book Tumbling for Amateurs.
Career
In 1902, several years after he finished medical school, Gwathmey moved to New York City and started practicing medicine. During this first year in New York, Gwathmey completed training in surgery and anesthesia at the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital. At the time, medical specialists whose sole job was to administer anesthesia did not exist, and as a resident Gwathmey practiced giving anesthesia alongside the rest of his training. While at the hospital, he made improvements on the Bennett Inhaler, an early self-administered chloroform device. Gwathmey, not wanting to accrue personal gain from the design or sale of his medical instruments, refused to receive money from or patent this and his later devices.
