Edville Gerhardt Abbott

Edville Gerhardt Abbott (November 6, 1871 – August 27, 1938) was an American orthopedic surgeon and orthotist. He was born in Hancock, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, ME.

He was well known for his non-blood method of treatment of lateral curvature of the spine (scoliosis). In 1913 he successfully demonstrated results of his method at orthopedic congress in Berlin, Germany, in England and on the Continent. There he was called "Genius of orthopedics" for his new successful scoliosis treatment. And he made a first in world plastic modern scoliosis brace from celluloid at 1917. He was professor of orthopædics at Bowdoin College and was connected with the Maine General Hospital, the Children's Hospital, etc. He practiced medicine in Portland, Maine. His Children's Hospital, 68 High Street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places March 7, 2012. According to news archives, Drs. Edville Abbott and Harold A. Pingree and Frank W. Lamb founded the children's hospital for crippled children together in 1908. It closed in 1948, with most of the 56 patients at the time being transferred to Maine General Hospital, which was later renamed the Maine Medical Center.

Abbott, second child of Alonzo and Maria B. (Mercer) Abbott, was born in Hancock, Nov. 6, 1871. He received his early literary education in the public schools of Hancock and at the East Maine Conference Seminary at Bucksport, Maine, where he graduated in 1889. For the following six years he was associated with his father and brother in the granite business, having general supervision of their quarries on Mt. Desert Island.

He entered the medical department of Bowdoin College in 1895, from which he graduated in 1898. Subsequently he was appointed house physician to the Maine General Hospital, where he served one year. The following year was spent in Boston and New York, studying the specialty of orthopedic surgery. Still desirous of attaining the utmost knowledge and the greatest degree of skill in his profession, he went abroad and continued his course in orthopedics, passing one year in the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Berlin. Returning to the U. S. in 1901, he opened an office in Portland, and from that time he has devoted his whole attention to the one subject of orthopedic surgery. His success in his profession has been remarkable and his practice is very large and covers an extensive field.

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