The Use of Sulfathiazole in the Treatment of Subacute and Chronic Osteomyelitis*

Abstract

Frank Drake Dickson was born in 1882, in Pittsburgh, PA. His paternal grandfather had opened the first soft coal mine in the western part of Pennsylvania and was one of the builders of the Pennsylvania Railroad [4]. He obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1902, and his MD degree in 1905. He then studied abroad for a year and a half, and subsequently took an internship in Philadelphia. He became a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in 1912. In 1916, Dr. Dickson was offered a position at the new Christian Church Hospital in Kansas City. He stated, “My intention was to spend about two years in Kansas City, then return to Philadelphia” [4]. He was, however, a captain in the military reserve and when the United States entered WW I, he resigned his position at the hospital and his professorship at the University of Kansas Medical School, and went to England with the unit that Dr. Joel Goldthwait (Boston) had organized. He was transferred to France in late 1917. After the war he decided to return to Kansas City to resume his work at the University of Kansas and the Christian Church Hospital where he met Dr. Rex Diveley (who became the 15th President of the AAOS). The two later (1927) established the Dickson-Diveley Clinic and the following year moved their practice to the new St. Luke’s Hospital. He continued limited practice and served as a consultant at the Clinic up until the time of his death.