Oil painting, 48" x 31" with frame.

Henry K. Beecher (1904-1976) was born in Wichita, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1926 and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1932. While attending medical school, Dr. Beecher caught the attention of Dr. Edward Delos Churchill, who would become his professional mentor. After graduating, Dr. Beecher was a resident in surgery from 1932 to 1935, under Dr. Churchill at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Following his residency, Dr. Beecher traveled to Copenhagen to work closely with Professor Augustus Krogh, a Nobel laureate.

In 1936, Dr. Beecher left surgery to become the anesthetist-in-chief at the MGH and an instructor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. In 1939, he worked at the medical school as an associate in anesthesia, and in 1941 he was named the Henry Isaiah Dorr Professor of Research in Anesthesia, thus becoming the first occupant of an endowed chair of anesthesiology in the United States. Dr. Beecher became chairman of the Committee on Research and a member of the General Executive Committee at the MGH in 1967. Dr. Beecher retired from the MGH in 1969 after gaining departmental status for the Division of Anesthesia and became a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School in 1970. He was also instrumental in establishing one of the first committees charged with protecting the rights of patients and other volunteers involved in human studies.

During World War II, he served the United States Army in North Africa and Italy as a Lieutenant Colonel, consulting in resuscitation and anesthesia. For his service, Dr. Beecher was honored with five battle stars and the Legion of Merit in 1945. He later became a consultant to the Surgeon General of the United States Army, Public Health Service, Air Force, and Navy, all at different periods of time.

Dr. Beecher began his contribution to clinical pharmacology during World War II. It was then that his investigation of the relationship between subjective psychological states and objective drug responses began. In his book Pain in Men Wounded in Battle, Dr. Beecher pondered how badly wounded men could not feel pain despite not receiving any treatment for hours. In turn, he began to advocate for the placebo effect to be tested in all clinical trials. Dr. Beecher is now considered by many to be the father of the double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

After studying the Nazi medical experiments conducted during World War II, Dr. Beecher began to realize that investigational subjects’ rights were also commonly systematically abridged in the United States. In 1966 he published his article, “Ethics and Clinical Research,” which exposed such violations and led to the Institutional Review Board system and informed consent standards that are in place today whenever federal dollars are expended. Similarly, Dr. Beecher’s report, “A Definition of Irreversible Coma: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death,” focused on the problem of the hopelessly unconscious patient and helped answer the longstanding questions of when life ends, when it begins and who controls its events.

Dr. Beecher received many awards throughout his career, including two Warren Triennial Prizes from the MGH in 1931 and 1937. He was also awarded a citation as one of the fifteen “Outstanding Alumni” of the MGH at the 150th Anniversary of the hospital. In 1974 Queen Margrethe of Denmark bestowed upon him the Knighthood of the Royal Order of Dannebrog for his medical influence there. Dr. Beecher was a member and honorary member of more than twenty combined medical organizations, including the Society of Anesthesiologists of Sweden and Association of University Anesthetists, of which he was a founder and past president. He is credited with more than 260 medical articles.

Dr. Richard J. Kitz, in announcing the creation of the Henry K. Beecher Laboratories of the Department of Anesthesia at the MGH- “As we know, for over 30 years Dr. Henry K. Beecher was one of the nation’s most distinguished anesthesiologists… To him, much credit must be given for the rapid progress in the field of anesthesiology. During his tenure, he had a very active and productive research laboratory and trained many of you who have gone on to become recognized leaders. It is most fitting that we now establish in his honor a laboratory complex in which today’s young scientists can carry on the Beecher tradition.”

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