Surgeon, born in Kimball, South Dakota, USA. He chaired the surgical department at Tulane University (192756) and co-founded the Alton Ochsner Clinic there. A chest surgeon of international renown, he argued that cigarettes can cause cancer, and his zealous campaign against the tobacco industry included three books about cancer and smoking. An ardent genealogist, he discovered that the mother of famed early physician, Paracelsus (14931541), was an Ochsner.
Alton Ochsner (May 4, 1896 - September 6, 1981) was a surgeon and medical researcher. Spending most of his life in New Orleans, Louisiana, he worked at Tulane University and various local hospitals before starting his own clinic.
Raised in a small South Dakota town, Ochsner was an unlikely hero of Southern medicine. Although Tulane did not have its own hospital at the time, Ochsner succeeded in organizing one of America's premier surgical teaching programs at Charity Hospital, an institution that provided invaluable clinical opportunities to Ochsner and his students.
As a teacher, he became renowned, perhaps notorious to his medical students and residents, for his intense verbal cross-examinations in the Charity Hospital amphitheater, or "bull pen" as it is known.
He co-founded The Ochsner Clinic. The Ochsner Clinic is now one of the USA's largest group practices and academic medical centers.
At Touro Hospital one of his patents was jazz musician Muggsy Spanier, who credited Ochsner with saving his life and composed the tune "Relaxin' at the Touro" during his recovery.
Numerous honors and awards were bestowed upon Ochsner not only for his success as a surgeon, but rather as a New Orleanian.
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