Sidney Yankauer (1872–1932) was an American

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 subspeciality within medicine that deals with the surgical a ...

. A graduate of the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he was among the first surgeons to specialize in problems of the ear, nose and throat. He served as the first director of laryngology at Mount Sinai Hospital in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Yankauer shared an office with his wife, otolaryngologist Grace Prior, until her death from a fall in 1914. He remarried and had one child. A common medical suction device, the

Yankauer suction tip The Yankauer suction tip (pronounced yang´kow-er) is an oral suction Suction is the colloquial term to describe the air pressure differential between areas. Removing air from a space results in a pressure differential. Suction pressure is ...

, is named for him.

Early life

Yankauer was born in New York. His parents were German Jewish immigrants to the United States. He completed undergraduate studies at the

. He graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1893.

Career

Following an internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in

, he took a position there. He worked with outpatient surgery patients for several years. Though otolaryngology was in its infancy, he increasingly focused on problems of the ear, nose and throat. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Yankauer served as a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

major in France, where he worked at a hospital largely staffed by Mount Sinai personnel. A story from the hospital in France spoke to Yankauer's ingenuity, and it was told at Mount Sinai for many years. Yankauer and Dr. Howard Lilienthal were working when the quartermaster accidentally locked a safe with the key inside it; the safe contained all the men's money. Yankauer devised a new key so that the safe could be opened and the money retrieved. Yankauer was president of the Mount Sinai Alumni Association in 1916. In 1917, laryngology was established as its own department at Mount Sinai with six surgical ward beds, and Yankauer was named its director. He was known for his skill at

bronchoscopy Bronchoscopy is an endoscopic technique of visualizing the inside of the airways for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. An instrument (bronchoscope) is inserted into the airways, usually through the nose or mouth, or occasionally through a tr ...

; in 1905, he had been the first physician in New York City to use the procedure to remove a foreign body from a patient's airway.

Innovations

Known for his medical innovations, Yankauer devised a suction device for the mouth known as the

. The device remains in use in modern medical settings. In about 1904, Yankauer designed a wire-mesh anesthesia device known as the Yankauer mask. Ten years later, anesthesiologist

James Tayloe Gwathmey James Tayloe Gwathmey, M.D. (September 10, 1862—February 11, 1944) was an American physician and the first president of the American Association of Anesthetics (now the International Anesthesia Research Society). A pioneer of early anesthetic dev ...

modified the Yankauer mask so that oxygen could be administered along with the anesthetic. This device became known as the Yankauer-Gwathmey mask, and a subsequent modification became known as the modified Yankauer-Gwathmey mask. Yankauer was president of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association in 1927.

Personal

Yankauer's wife, Grace Prior, was also an otolaryngologist and the couple shared an office. They did not have any children. She died in 1914 after falling out of a window at the couple's tenth floor apartment on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Aven ...

. The death was ruled accidental; servants saw her lose her balance while trying to secure a loose screw on a window screen. Yankauer married Margaret Kearns, a Mount Sinai nursing administrator, in 1919. They had one child. Yankauer died of heart disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1932.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yakauer, Sidney 1872 births 1932 deaths American otolaryngologists Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni City College of New York alumni United States Army personnel of World War I