Charles Bingham Penrose
| Charles Bingham Penrose | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
February 1, 1862 Philadelphia |
| Died | February 28, 1925 (aged 63) Near Washington, D.C. |
| Fields | Gynecology |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Known for | Penrose drain |
Charles Bingham Penrose (February 1, 1862 – February 28, 1925) was an American gynecologist who invented the surgical drain known as the Penrose drain. Born in Philadelphia, Penrose was the son of a medical school professor and his brothers included Pennsylvania state senator Boies Penrose and geologist Spencer Penrose. The grandson of prominent politician Charles B. Penrose, he married into the wealthy Drexel family of the same city. Penrose was an early advocate for the use of drainage tubes in abdominal surgery.
After he contracted tuberculosis in 1891, Penrose left Pennsylvania for Wyoming, hoping that the change in climate would restore his health. While he was there, he became involved in the Johnson County War and was nearly lynched. He returned to Philadelphia after the incident. He established a zoological laboratory at the Philadelphia Zoo, the first such laboratory at a U.S. zoo. Penrose was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1911, and he died in 1925.
Penrose was born in Philadelphia. He was a descendant of Bartholemew Penrose, who had settled in the city in 1698, establishing a shipyard at the invitation of William Penn that stayed in the Penrose family for 150 years. Charles Penrose's father, Richard Allen Fullerton (R. A. F.) Penrose Sr., was a physician, an obstetrics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the founders of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. His mother, Sarah Hannah Boies Penrose, had come from Maryland and was the adopted granddaughter of an affluent Boston merchant.
The younger Penrose was taught by private tutors and later attended Episcopal Academy. When he was 19 years old, Penrose earned an undergraduate physics degree from Harvard College. He was then concurrently enrolled in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and in a physics Ph.D. program at Harvard; he graduated from both in 1884. He finished medical school one year behind Amos W. Barber; the two became friends at Penn and Barber later became the acting governor of Wyoming. In 1886 and 1887, Penrose was a resident physician at Pennsylvania Hospital.
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