1915

Harry J. Haiselden, chief surgeon at Chicago’s German-American Hospital, declines surgery and allows death of newborn of Anna Bollinger with multiple major deformities (absence of a neck, one ear, deformities of shoulders and chest, prematurely hardened skull and leg bones, etc.). He subsequently revealed he had permitted many other infant “defectives” to die over the past decade and would allow at least five more to die over the next three years. Most of these cases riveted the nation, largely because Haiselden publicized them, with letters of support and request for help coming from all over the country (Pernick, 3-6). After two years of intense controversy, after 1917 Haiselden and his cause rapidly dropped from public view (11).