Frederic Edward Mohs (March 1, 1910 – July 2, 2002) was an American physician and

general surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

who developed the

Mohs micrographic surgery Mohs surgery, developed in 1938 by general surgeon Frederic E. Mohs, is microscopically controlled surgery used to treat both common and rare types of skin cancer. During the surgery, after each removal of tissue and while the patient waits, the ...

(MMS) technique in 1938 to remove

skin cancer Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the Human skin, skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells (biology), cells that have the ability to invade or metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. It occurs when skin cells grow ...

lesions while still a medical student at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. The Mohs procedure is considered the best method for treating certain types of

, because it has very high cure rates for even high-risk lesions, combined with maximal preservation of healthy tissues.

Early life

Mohs was born in

Burlington, Wisconsin Burlington is a city in Racine and Walworth counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, with the majority of the city located in Racine County. The population of the city was 11,047 as of the 2020 census. History Prior to the arrival of Europea ...

. His father died when he was 3 months old. The family then moved to Madison, where his mother ran a boarding house. After initially considering a career as a radio engineer, he switched to medical studies in college.

Medical career

Mohs began developing his treatment in the 1930s, experimenting on rats and other animals. The breakthrough came when he discovered that applying a combination

zinc chloride Zinc chloride is an Inorganic chemistry, inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula ZnCl2·''n''H2O, with ''n'' ranging from 0 to 4.5, forming water of hydration, hydrates. Zinc chloride, anhydrous and its hydrates, are colo ...

and

bloodroot ''Sanguinaria canadensis'', bloodroot, is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant native to eastern North America. It is the only species in the genus ''Sanguinaria'', included in the poppy family Papaveraceae, and is most closely related to ' ...

paste to malignant rat skin tissue allowed it to be removed surgically and examined under a microscope. He treated his first human patient on June 23, 1936. Mohs spent his working life at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. Mohs first tried to publish his findings and encouraged surgeons to learn the procedure. This was largely unsuccessful, as many surgeons were not comfortable learning skin pathology and laboratory techniques.

Dermatologist Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medi ...

s, who are well trained in

dermatopathology Dermatopathology (from Greek , ''derma'' 'skin' + , ''pathos'' 'fate, harm' + , ''-logia'' 'study of') is a joint subspecialty of dermatology and pathology or surgical pathology that focuses on the study of cutaneous diseases at a microscopic an ...

, and who treat skin cancers on a daily basis, quickly embraced the procedure. Today, most Mohs procedures are performed by dermatologists, although a small number of plastic surgeons,

otolaryngologist Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the surgical an ...

s, and

pathologist Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...

s are also practicing and using the procedure as well. Mohs' technique was later modified by Perry Robins in the 1970s, using fresh-tissue frozen

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology that studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissue (biology), tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at large ...

. Rather than using the anesthetic Mohs paste, local anesthetic is used. The fresh skin specimen is then mounted on a

cryostat A cryostat (from ''cryo'' meaning cold and ''stat'' meaning stable) is a device used to maintain low cryogenic temperatures of samples or devices mounted within the cryostat. Low temperatures may be maintained within a cryostat by using various ...

, and frozen sections are examined instead of the Mohs paste-fixed sections. This method is now commonly referred to as

Mohs surgery Mohs surgery, developed in 1938 by general surgeon Frederic E. Mohs, is microscopically controlled surgery used to treat both common and rare types of skin cancer. During the surgery, after each removal of tissue and while the patient waits, the ...

, and occasionally ''chemosurgery'', in reference to the Mohs paste initially used.

Personal life

In 1943, Mohs married Mary Ellen Reynolds, who died in 1995. Mohs died at his home in Madison, Wisconsin on July 2, 2002, aged 92.Obituary, The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI), July 2, 2002 He was survived by two sons, Frederic and Thomas, and a daughter, Jane Schimming.

References

American cancer researchers 1910 births 2002 deaths University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health alumni 20th-century American surgeons {{US-physician-stub