Louise Eisenhardt

Years active at Yale: 1934-1967

Department: Neuropathology

Louise Eisenhardt, MD, pioneer neuropathologist, archivist, editor, and world expert on brain tumors, is being recognized for her many-faceted contributions to Yale School of Medicine. Born in 1891, she began work in 1915 as an editorial assistant to Harvey Cushing. After editing his book on acoustic tumors, she decided to enter Tufts Medical School where she began her log of intracranial tumor types. She graduated with the highest scholastic record ever attained there, and after residency she became a junior associate in surgery of Dr. Cushing from 1928 to 1934, when she moved to Yale with him to establish the brain tumor registry. She became curator of the registry after his death in 1938. The meticulously kept special Cushing collection of her slides and Cushing's operative records was donated to Department of Neurosurgery in 1997 for more public viewing. She started an additional new neuropathology archive as Curator of theBrain Tumor Registry and this collection is part of the Neuropathology Section in Surgery. When the Journal of Neurosurgery was first published in 1944, Dr. Eisenhardt became its managing editor, a position she held for 22 years. Under her editorship, the journal became known as one of the world's most outstanding scientific publications. She also was the first woman president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (originally the Harvey Cushing Society), and the March 1965 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery was dedicated to her, two years before her death. She was a kind and generous teacher, admired and beloved by many in and beyond Yale. Her portrait, painted by Deane Keller was the only portrait of a woman MD that hung at the School of Medicine in 1967.