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Dr. Henry H. Janeway was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on March 19,
1873. He attended Rutgers, Yale, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons
ðwhich conferred his M. D. Degree in 1898. Following 2 years of internship at
Roosevelt Hospital, he practiced medicine and general surgery in New Brunswick.
Due to his intense interest in surgical problems, he gave up his practice in
1906 to work in the experimental laboratories of his medical school in New
York, where he specialized in surgery and dermatology.
His interest at this time was centered mainly in thethorax. Together with Nathan Green, he built a
pressure chamber which favorably served for experimental and clinical work.
Possessing thereby the means with which to insure respiratory sufficiency and
anesthesia, he approached the problem of esophageal surgery. Just as did those
who preceded him, he met only disaster when the esophagus was opened in the
thorax. He once stated that infection killed all animals and patients. His research,
in collaboration with "Nate" Green, generated the Green button which was used
so successfully. Janeway continued to strive for further improvement and, in
the preparation of patients for more extensive surgery, he devised the feeding
of gastrostomy which bears his name. Soon afterwards he reported, together with
Dr. Green, esophago-gastric anastomosis with suture technique after resection
for cardial gastric carcinoma.
Dr. James Ewing brought Dr. Janeway to Memorial Hospital upon learning
he had done considerable work with radium in the treatment of cancer. Although
rejected at first by his fellow surgeons at Memorial, Janeway persevered in his
thinking, proved the validity of his concepts, and eventually won their
respect.
Dr. Janeway had developed, soon after graduation from medical school, a
lump in the area of his jaw. It proved to be cancerous and necessitated over
the years, a series of painful, disfiguring operations, each time removing more
of his face. The continuous pain and profound dissatisfaction with surgical
methods of treatment, generated his interest in radium. He postulated that, if
radium could destroy cells, it might perhaps be controlled so as to destroy
only cancerous cells, leaving the healthy cells untouched. He pursued his research
in the application of radium therapy throughout most of his life, fortunately
having been given, by Dr. Ewing, the necessary radium and facilities in which
to work. His success in this field is still honored by the yearly conferral of
the Janeway Medal to an outstanding individual working with cancer.
On February 1, 1921, at the age of 47, Dr. Janeway finally lost his
personal battle with the dread disease. But he left behind, for the benefit of
those who could still be helped, many years of intense research into means of
defeating the cancer which had taken his own life.
Dr. Henry H. Janeway
