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Section 3: Father of Metabolic Surgery:

Henry Buchwald, MD, PhD, FACS, FRCS(Hon)
Jane N. Buchwald

In 1978, in a book titled, Metabolic Surgery, Henry Buchwald, MD, PhD defined metabolic surgery as
“the operative manipulation of a normal organ system to achieve a biological result for a potential
health gain” [1]. This definition was first exemplified in the late nineteenth century by bilateral
oophorectomy to mitigate metastatic breast cancer [2,3]; practiced in the early twentieth century in
multiple procedures, primarily, gastric surgery for duodenal ulcer disease; and extended in 1953 by
the advent of metabolic bariatric surgery (MBS) [4,5]. In 1962-1963, Buchwald disrupted medical
therapeutics by introducing the partial ileal bypass (PIB) operation for hyperlipidemia (the Buchwald
Procedure) [6], which gave rise to numerous current surgeries within, and outside of the peritoneal
cavity for resolution of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, refractory depression, and other
metabolic maladies. Buchwald’s insight demonstrated that the body not only inflicts metabolic
diseases on itself, but has the neurohormonal means to mitigate them by mechanisms that can be
elicited by surgery. This observation added a fourth domain, metabolic surgery, to the recognized
disciplines of incisional, extirpative, and reconstructive surgery. Buchwald has been recognized as
the “Father of Metabolic Surgery.”
Henry’s ancestors originated in a small town in old Austria/Hungary, Hercegszöllős, before moving
to Vienna, Austria. In the 1880s, a segment of the family emigrated to the United States (US), a
cross-Atlantic union that was crucial to saving the lives of Henry and his parents later, during World
War II. After surviving World War I, Henry’s father, Andor, married Renée Franzos, whose family was
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from Galicia (now in Ukraine) and Poland. Henry was an only child, born June 21, 1932. In 1938,
Andor’s photography store, a business owned by a Jewish family, was demolished by the Nazis.
Andor wrote to their American relatives to request visas to come to the US; yet, only Henry and his
mother, Renée, were Austrian and allowed entry. Andor was placed on a waitlist for ten months.
During this time, Andor returned to Hercegszöllős where he was hidden in attics and barns by the
good Catholic neighbors of his youth at their own, and their families’ peril of death. Except for family,
friends, and good fortune, Henry may not have escaped the Holocaust, or, indeed, lived beyond his
sixth birthday.
In the US, Henry and his mother lived with his aunt and grandmother under the elevated train tracks
at 125th Street, Harlem, Manhattan. They then joined another aunt in Sheepshead Bay, Long Island
where Henry’s mother pasted glitter onto greeting cards for the uncle’s firm, earning one penny per
card. The school system had no knowledge of Henry’s existence, and he spent his seventh year
unloading fish on the ocean docks for a salary of two fresh fish to bring home each day. When Andor
finally received his visa and arrived in the US, he sold neckties from a suitcase in Manhattan for years
before being able to work as a jeweler.

When the Buchwalds moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn, at that time the toughest borough of New York
City, Henry started school one year late. At age eight, when the family lived in Upper Manhattan, in
the Inwood area, he joined a group of boys that called themselves the ‘Wolf Pack’. He learned to play
softball, and his lifelong love of athletics was ignited. When not in school, he worked as a summer
lifeguard and senior boys’ counselor at an athletic camp. Henry participated in varsity soccer at the
Bronx High School of Science, varsity swimming at Columbia College, boxing, and rowing; later, as
an adult he played tennis, ran marathons, and lifted weights. In middle and older age, Henry loved
to horseback ride and vacationed in an Arizona ranch where he participated in cattle roundups.

In 1953, Henry graduated first in his class from Columbia College, returning as valedictorian after his
first year on ‘professional option’ at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. On June 6,
1954, Henry married Emilie Daisy Bix, the daughter of another immigrant family that escaped Austria
after surviving Kristallnacht. Emilie was in her first year of college, and he, in his first year of medical

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