Dr. Myrtelle Canavan, M.D.
Dr. Myrtelle Canavan, M.D. (center), Curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum and pathologist to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Diseases, 1917, at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (then the Psychopathic Department of the Boston State Hospital).
From left to right: Harry Solomon, Myrtelle Canavan, Abraham Myerson, Douglas Thom, Ernest Southard, Herbert Thompson, Lawson Lowrey, and William Rappleye.
Myrtelle May Moore Canavan was born on June 24, 1879 in St. John's, Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan and the Women's College of Pennsylvania, where she obtained an M.D. in 1905. Her association with the Harvard Medical School began in 1907 when she became a laboratory assistant at Danvers State Hospital. At Danvers she met Elmer Ernest Southard, Bullard Professor of Neuropathology, who fostered her interest in neuropathology, a field still in its infancy.
Canavan became resident pathologist at the Boston State Hospital in 1910 and four years later was appointed pathologist to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Diseases. During this time she studied the neuropathological basis of mental disease. With Southard and others she authored a monograph series, "Waverly researches in the pathology of the feeble-minded", 1918-1940, published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. After Southard's death in 1920, she became acting director of the laboratories of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital.
Following the death of Curator William F. Whitney in 1921, the Warren Anatomical Museum was administered by a museum committee headed by Dr. S. Burt Wolbach. In 1923, Wolbach lit upon Canavan as a suitable candidate for the post of Curator. While the Dean of the Medical School did not object to a woman holding the post of Curator, some members of the museum committee did, and suggested that she be appointed with the title "Assistant Curator". This post would function with all the responsibilities of Curator, but Wolbach would be officially recognized as the head of the museum.
Wolbach continued to lobby for Canavan's appointment throughout 1923 and in November mentioned to Dean Edsall that she had been asked to teach a course in neuropathology at the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1924, Canavan was concurrently appointed associate professor of neuropathology at Boston University and Curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum at the Harvard Medical School. Over the next 21 years, Canavan strengthened the collections of the Warren Museum, acquiring some 1500 specimens for research and teaching.
She continued her teaching, research, and publishing activities. In addition to her Boston University appointment, Canavan served as an instructor in neuropathology at the University of Vermont Medical School. In 1931, Canavan identified the rare, inherited disease that now bears her name. In a paper published in the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, Canavan described a spongy degeneration of the nervous system that appears in infants and young children. Canavan also excelled as a mentor. She trained neuropathologist Louise Eisenhardt, who in 1959 was credited with training 70% of the neurosurgeons certified at that time.
Canavan retired as Curator in 1945 without ever achieving a faculty appointment at the Harvard Medical School. She died in 1953.
For more information about Mooers, see "The Invisible Faculty" by Eleanor Shore, M.D. Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin, Spring 1983, and The Founders of Child Neurology, ed. Stephen Ashwal, M.D., 1990.
*This information was originally posted on the website of the Harvard Medical School's Archives and Record Management Program.