Portrait of Dr. Edwards

This weekend is Ellen’s Run, a fund-raiser benefiting the Ellen Hermanson Foundation, which is credited with bringing new medical imaging technology to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. 

Imaging technology, beginning with the X-ray, completely revolutionized health care over the last century. Can you imagine trying to figure out if a bone was broken before X-rays? East Hampton’s Dr. David Edwards began his career doing just that: witnessing the dawn of medical imaging technology from his private practice in East Hampton and later at Southampton Hospital, where he specialized in “bones and babies,” beginning a decade before X-rays became mainstream.

Dr. Edwards was born in Amagansett in 1877 to Capt. Joshua B. Edwards, who was a legendary whaler, and Adelia Conkling Edwards. He attended New York University and Medical College in the city, working first at Bellevue Hospital in 1899, then at New York Foundling Hospital, and finally Seaside Hospital on Staten Island before returning to East Hampton.

As a country doctor, Dr. Edwards made house calls on horseback, motorcycle, and car in all sorts of weather. He also took sick children into his home when there were no hospitals available and was responsible for building an early small hospital at the Neighborhood House on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton.

Between opening his private practice on Dec. 16, 1901, and his death on May 7, 1964, Dr. Edwards served East Hampton for over 50 years. He delivered over 3,000 local babies without ultrasound imaging. His medical accomplishments included treating a smallpox outbreak among 11 Promised Land menhaden boat crew members, and diagnosing the first known local case of tick fever on Gardiner’s Island in 1913. The same year Southampton Hospital opened, Dr. Edwards joined its staff in 1916, becoming president of the medical board and chief of surgery from 1941 to 1947. He continued to work at Southampton Hospital until his death.

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Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.