Item 004 - Letter to Harvey Cushing, April 3, 1920

Dr. Edward Robinson Baldwin was born on September 8, 1864, in Bethel, Fairfield County, Connecticut.

He was an American physician and a noted tuberculosis authority. He graduated from Yale Medical School in 1890 and interned at Hartford Hospital before beginning practice at Cromwell, Connecticut, in 1891. When he developed tuberculosis, he applied for entry to the Trudeau Sanatorium. Dr. Edward L. Trudeau was astonished when Dr. Baldwin indicated that he knew he had tuberculosis, discovering the bacillus using his microscope. Dr. Trudeau invited him to work in his laboratory, and they exchanged the latest French and German medical literature on the disease. Dr. Baldwin moved into a house across the street from Trudeau's house and lab, known since as the Baldwin House. In 1892, he was appointed Assistant, and later Director, of the new Saranac Laboratory and later became president of the Reception Hospital for Tuberculosis. After Dr. Trudeau's death, he was elected chair of the executive committee of the Trudeau Sanatorium. In 1916, he started the Trudeau School of Tuberculosis and founded the Edward Livingston Trudeau Foundation with Dr. Walter B. James, an endowment for tuberculosis research. He was also instrumental in the building of the Saranac Lake General Hospital. Dr. Baldwin was elected president of the American Clinical and Climatological Association. He was a founder and president of the National Tuberculosis Association and served as editor-in-chief of the American Review of Tuberculosis. He wrote more than 100 research papers on tuberculosis and several chapters in medical texts. He was awarded the Trudeau Medal in 1927. Dartmouth College honoured him with the Doctor of Science degree in 1937.

In 1895, he married Mary Caroline Ives (1863-1957). He died on May 6, 1947, in Saranac Lake, Franklin County, New York.