Paul F. Eve Biographical File

Dr. Paul F. Eve was born on a rice plantation near Augusta, Georgia, and received his undergraduate education from Franklin College and his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1828. After graduation, he traveled to Europe in 1829 and studied with surgeons such as included Larrey, Dupuytren, Roux, Lesfranc, Cruveilhier, Velpeau, and Astley Cooper. In 1831 he served with the Polish Army as surgeon during the revolution in that country, and Poland awarded Dr. Eve the Golden Cross of Honor for his services. Eve served as a surgeon in four wars in his career: the three-day war in France (1830); the Polish Revolution (1831); the Mexican War (1848); and the American Civil War.

Back in the United States in 1832, Eve was elected Professor of Surgery in the Medical College of Georgia, just then organized in Augusta, and taught there for 17 years. In 1851, Eve became Professor of Surgery in the newly organized Medical Department of the University of Nashville. He served as President of the American Medical Association in 1857-58.

In 1861, before Tennnessee had seceded, Eve was appointed Surgeon General of a provisional Army of Tennessee. He worked in Nashville hospitals until Forts Henry and Donelson fell in February 1862. Dr. Eve fled Nashville on February 16th, taking the surgical instruments of the University of Nashville with him. Six days later, he was commander and surgeon of the Gate-City Hospital in Atlanta. This hospital was located in a second-rate hotel of 32 rooms and was constantly overcrowded with patients.

As a surgeon, Eve was best known for performing lithotomies. In his lifetime he performed 238 lithotomies with a recorded mortality of only 8 percent.

In 1857 he published "A Collection of Remarkable Cases in Surgery" a 823 page text recounting many of his surgical operations. Eve died in his Nashville home on November 3, 1877.