Medicine: Surgeons in San Francisco

The drama of an aging surgeon's pugnacious ambition overrode the scores of operations and scientific lectures of the American College of Surgeons meeting in San Francisco last week. Before he dies, Dr. Walter Bernard Coffey, 67, insists on nailing his name to the wall of medical fame as a conqueror of cancer.

Nine years ago Dr. Coffey became chief surgeon of Southern Pacific R. R. That job made him the boss doctor of all the railroad's employes. It also made him the public health supervisor of all the communities which Southern Pacific created and...

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