Emanuel M Papper
Authors: J. Hopkins Tanne
Journal: BMJ (2003)

A founding father of anaesthesiology

Before Emanuel Papper and a few colleagues made anaesthesiology a lifesaving specialty, surgeons were limited to operations of about an hour . . . otherwise the patient might not have woken up. Papper was one of a few anaesthetists who, after 1945, made the USA by far the greatest force in academic anaesthesia. By 1962 he had persuaded the National Institutes of Health to fund anaesthetic research. From these endeavours emerged the subspecialties of pain treatment and intensive care.

Papper was born in 1915 in a tenement in Harlem, New York, to poor immigrant Jewish parents. His father was a stone- mason; his mother, a social activist, insisted on hard work, honesty, and academic achievement. With a scholarship, Papper graduated from Columbia College in 1934 and received his MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1937.

During the second world war he served with the US military and flew with a bomber crew to study stress. The bomber was shot down and Papper escaped through enemy territory. His old friend Professor Michael Rosen, past president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, said, “With typical modesty, he made light of the danger and difficulties, only complaining about the blisters.”


After his return to the United States, Papper did a fellowship with Homer Smith, a founder of modern nephrology, and then, because of his interest in anaesthesiology, worked with Emery A Rovenstine at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He became director of the anaesthesiology service in the department of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1949, and in 1952 he became the founding chairman of Columbia's department of anaesthesiology, one of the first in the United States. During his tenure, the department trained 43 doctors who are now full professors of anaesthesiology. 




Papper's special interests were the subtle depths of anaesthesia, the use of muscle-relaxant drugs, and the interaction of renal and respiratory systems to lead to safe anaesthesia. He was called on to anaesthetise many eminent patients, who became donors to the medical school. He wrote more than 300 peer reviewed papers.

In 1969 Papper left Columbia to become dean of the University of Miami School of Medicine. With emphasis on basic sciences, he made the young school a leader in undergraduate medical training, house staff education, and health care research. The university's laboratory of clinical immunology and molecular biology is named after him.

Papper was an Anglophile, well versed in British history. After retiring, he returned to the University of Miami as a student and at 75 he earned a PhD in English literature, with a thesis on “The Conquest of Pain.” This traced the influence of 19th century British Romantic poets in preparing the public for the introduction of anaesthesia.

He frequently lectured in the United Kingdom and was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, an honorary member of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

His first wife, Julia, was an aide to Eleanor Roosevelt. After she died, he married Patricia Meyer. They were supporters of the American orchestral academy the New World Symphony, the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Florida Grand Opera.

His colleague Paul Barach, assistant professor of anaesthesiology at the University of Chicago, said, “He was an amazing listener, active, attentive . . . he never missed a word. He was involved with students. He was very sharp, agile, still involved with projects to bolster the rigour of anaesthesiology and to get funds to support basic science research.”

He leaves a wife, Patricia Meyer Papper; three children; and four grandchildren.

Emanuel M Papper, former dean University of Miami School of Medicine (b New York 1915; q New York University 1937), died from a brain haemorrhage on 2 December 2002.