ANNUAL SAMUEL JASON MIXTER LECTURE
IN HONOR OF SAMUEL JASON MIXTER, MD

Sponsored by the NESS Scholars Foundation

Samuel Jason Mixter was chosen President of the newly formed New England Surgical Society in 1917, just one year before he was elected President of the American Surgical Association. Born in Western Massachusetts in Hardwick (1855), he was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1875) and Harvard Medical School (1879). After serving as West Surgical House Officer at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he studied anatomy and the new science of microscopic anatomy in Vienna which he brought back to the Harvard Medical School Department of Anatomy. He soon changed careers and became surgeon at the Carney Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital and finished his surgical career as Chief of the West Surgical Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital. His anatomical skills and mechanical ingenuity made him a surgical genius and his innate honesty and sound judgment made him a great physician. He was the first in America to successfully resect a Zenker’s diverticulum of the esophagus, pioneered in Gasserian ganglion surgery and performed one of the first successful hypophysectomies. He helped to develop the new frontiers of abdominal surgery and was skilled in surgery of bones and joints, head and neck, breast tumors and pediatrics.

Dr. Mixter’s kind, gentle and hospitable nature was felt when he guided visiting surgeons, as well recorded by William Mayo, to operative clinics and staff meetings at the hospital and when his many guests shared the happiness of his home. His non-surgical interests had to do with life in the open air with sports, gardening, and breeding Guernsey cattle.

A rich and rewarding family life followed his marriage in 1879 to Wilhelmina Galloupe (1879) of Swampscott. The marriage was blessed with four sons, two of whom - William Jason Mixter and Charles Galloupe Mixter - were members of the New England Surgical Society as was his grandson, Charles G. Mixter, Jr., and is his great-grandson, Charles G. Mixter, III.

His loyalty to his country was demonstrated in World War I when, incensed by the German brutality, he left a life of complete retirement to join the Medical Reserve Corps. As a consultant he made numerous tours of the Eastern military camps. He remained in the Medical Reserve Corps, attaining the rank of Colonel one year before his death.

Dr. Mixter died in 1926, a scant year after the death of his wife. His life exemplified in all respects the qualities that our Society demands of its new members: “surgeons with the attributes of a gentleman, i.e., basic honesty, kindness, tolerance, equanimity, good manners and social consciousness.”

2019	Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, Boston, MA
2018	Keith D. Lillemoe, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2017	John G. Meara, MD, DMD, MBA, Boston, Massachusetts
2016	Atul A. Gawande, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2015	Dorry L. Segev, MD, Baltimore, Maryland
2014	Thomas H. Cogbill, MD, La Crosse, Wisconsin
2013	Peter J. Deckers, MD, Farmington, Connecticut
2012	Barry Mills, Brunswick, Maine
2011	David B. Hoyt, MD, Chicago, Illinois
2010	David H. Sachs, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2009	Atul A. Gawande, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2008	Lucian L. Leape, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2007	Andrew L. Warshaw, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2006	Murray F. Brennan, MD, New York, New York
2005	Patricia K. Donahoe, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
2004	Irving L. Kron, MD, Charlottesville, Virginia
2003	David L. Nahrwold, MD, Chicago, Illinois
2002	Thomas J. Krizek, MD, Wesley Chapel, Florida
2001	Glenn D. Steele, Jr., MD, Chicago, Illinois
2000	John L. Cameron, MD, Baltimore, Maryland
1999	Bernard Fisher, MD, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1998	Paul S. Russell, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
1997	Samuel A. Wells, Jr., MD, St. Louis, Missouri
1996	M. Judah Folkman, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
1995	Jonathan E. Rhoads, MD, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1994	John E. Niederhuber, MD, Stanford, California
1993	Thomas E. Starzl, MD, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1992	Paul A. Ebert, MD, Chicago, Illinois
1991	Lazar J. Greenfield, MD, Ann Arbor, Michigan
1990	Professor Peter Morris, Oxford, England
1989	Alexander Walt, MD, Huntington Woods, Michigan
1988	F. Griffith Pearson, MD, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1987	Joseph P. Vacanti, MD, Boston, Massachusetts
1986	Martin Adson, MD, Rochester, Minnesota
1985	Lord Rodney Smith, Marlow, England