Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen (February 28, 1838 – December 22, 1927) was a physician who specialized in the field of

laryngology Laryngology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders, diseases and Trauma (medicine), injuries of the larynx, colloquially known as the voice box. Laryngologists treat disorders of the larynx, including diseases that affects the voice, swa ...

Personal life

Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to Myer David Cohen and Judith Simiah da Silva Solis who were both from prominent

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

families. He was an elder brother of Leon da Silva Solis-Cohen and Solomon Solis-Cohen and a grandson of Jacob da Silva Solis. Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen's family can be traced back to their

expulsion from Spain Expulsion from Spain may refer to: * Expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492 in Aragon and Castile, 1497–98 in Navarre) * Expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614) See also * Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain (1500–1502 in Castile, 1515–16 ...

. Of note is Solomon da Silva Solis (Jacob da Silva Solis-Cohen's great-grandfather), who fled to Amsterdam from Spain in the 17th century and married Isabel da Fonseca, daughter of the marquis of Turin, count of Villa Real and Monterrey. In 1875 he married Miriam Binswanger, with whom he had eight daughters (Judith Simira, Sophia Rebecca, Miriam Fonseca, Elinor, Rosalie Isabel, Bertha Florence, Esther and Edith) and three sons (Myer, Jacob da Silva Jr. and Isadore).

Career

In 1840, after only two years of his life spent in New York City, his family moved to

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Solis-Cohen was educated at Central High School and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and

Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. The university is ...

where he earned his medical degree in 1860. In 1861 he began his medical residency at Old Blockley in Philadelphia but resigned the same year to enlist as a private in the Union army at the outbreak of the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. He was soon commissioned as a lieutenant in the infantry and later appointed as assistant surgeon in the Twenty-sixth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers. After serving in Hooker's Brigade in the defense of Washington, D.C., he later transferred to the Navy as Acting Assistant Surgeon, serving under Rear Admiral S.F. DuPont, in the expedition to Port Royal Harbor, South Carolina, on the United States Steamer ''Florida''. He remained in the

South Atlantic Blockading Squadron The Atlantic Blockading Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy created in the early days of the American Civil War to enforce the Union blockade of the ports of the Confederate States. It was formed in 1861 and split up the same year for th ...

until January 12, 1864, when he resigned from the Navy. After the Civil War, he began his work in the field of laryngology. In 1866, he was the first in the United States to institute regular lectures on laryngology at the Philadelphia School of Anatomy. In 1870 he was appointed lecturer on laryngoscopy and diseases of the throat and chest in the

and two years later professor of laryngology. His first work on the subject, entitle
"Inhalation in the Treatment of Disease"
was published in 1867, and was followed in 1872 by his great work "Diseases of the Throat and Nasal Passages." In 1874, Solis-Cohen published a monograph o
"Croup in its Relations to Tracheotomy"
based on the study of 5,000 recorded cases; in 1875 he published a book o
"The Throat and Voice
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001583606 "]. He was one of the founders of the
Archives of Laryngology
' and for many years edited the laryngological department of the '' The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, American Journal of the Medical Sciences''. He also helped to found th
American Laryngological Association
of which he was the second president from 1880 to 1882. As the result of his experience in the Civil War he excelled in the surgery of the upper air passages. In 1892 he was the first in America to perform a successful complete laryngectomy. In 1884, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Solis-Cohen, Jacob da 1838 births 1927 deaths Physicians from New York City Physicians from Philadelphia American otolaryngologists Jewish physicians Union army surgeons Solis-Cohen Family American people of Spanish-Jewish descent Members of the American Philosophical Society 20th-century American Sephardic Jews 19th-century American Sephardic Jews