Keen, William W. (William Williams)

Overview William Williams Keen, surgeon and neurologist, was born in 1837 in Philadelphia. He entered Jefferson Medical College in 1860, left in 1861 to become Surgeon to the 5th Massachusetts Regiment, then returned to Jefferson and received his M.D. in 1862. He then became Acting Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Army. In 1887, at St. Mary's Hospital in Philadelphia, Keen performed the first successful removal of a brain tumor in the United States. He was the first physician to perform a decompression...