Henry Gerard Schwartz ’28

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Henry Schwartz, one of the most distinguished members of the class, died of emphysema Dec. 24, 1998, in St. Louis. He was 89.

Dr. Schwartz was born in New York City and entered Princeton at 15. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and became a fellow in neurological surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he received a faculty position in 1937. A pioneer in his surgical specialty, he was the first American neurosurgeon to make direct electrical recordings from the human brain. During World War II he served in the North African and Italian theaters.

Outstanding clinical research, academic accomplishments, and surgical ability resulted in his appointment as professor and chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis from 1946-74. Dr. Schwartz was an editor of the Journal of Neurosurgery and a member the numerous neurosurgical societies, but his greatest satisfaction came from the progress of younger neurosurgeons whose future careers he guided. In turn, they established the Edith R. and Henry G. Schwartz Chair of Neurosurgery in 1996.

His wife, Edith Courtenay "Reedie" Robinson, was a pediatrician who died in 1994. He is survived by three sons, Dr. Henry G. Schwartz Jr., Michael R. Schwartz, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz, and a sister.

The Class of 1928

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