Bradford Cannon, 98, Plastic Surgeon
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Dr. Bradford Cannon, a plastic surgeon who helped develop an innovative method for treating burns and used it on victims of the deadly 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, died December 20 of bronchopneumonia in Lincoln, Mass. He was 98.
Cannon was the first chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and was credited with saving the lives of soldiers maimed during World War II. As a young doctor, he used a new method he developed with another surgeon to treat survivors of the fire that killed nearly 500 patrons of the popular Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston.
The technique treated burns by wrapping them with a petroleumcoated gauze containing boric acid. It eventually replaced a more invasive method that used tannic acid and became a standard treatment for burns.
