Temple Fay

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Temple Sedgwick Fay, M.D. (January 9, 1895 – March 7, 1963) was an American neurologist and neurosurgeon known for using extreme cold to treat cancer and head injuries. He studied at the University of Washington and the University of Pennsylvania, where mentor William Spiller guided him. After graduating in 1923, Fay worked at Philadelphia General Hospital as a medical intern, as an assistant to Spiller and to neurosurgeon Charles Harrison Frazier, and later as an instructor. From 1923 to 1929 he developed new techniques and published important papers. In 1929 he became Professor and Head of the neurosurgery department at the Temple University School of Medicine.

In 1931 Fay helped start the Harvey Cushing Society, which later became the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). He served as its president in 1937. In 1938 he began using cooling devices, or cryotherapy, to treat cancer. He showed that body temperature could be lowered to about 92°F (33°C) for many hours without obvious harm. He then studied cooling the brain to treat brain lesions, creating small metal capsules that carried refrigerant (he called them cold bombs) and were implanted into the brain to treat infections, cancer, and bone infections. He also sometimes cooled the whole head for trauma and designed a special head wrap for this purpose.

Fay found that cooling can slow bacteria, reduce swelling, and help some skin cancers heal with softer scars. He expanded research into how hypothermia affects the body and led the world’s first systematic program of hypothermia for traumatic brain injury, aiming to lower pressure inside the skull and improve brain oxygen use.

In 1943 he left Temple University and worked on therapies for children with learning and cognitive challenges at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, focusing on movement-based psychomotor training. Fay married Marion Priestly Button in 1923, and they had four daughters. Marion is a descendant of Joseph Priestley, the scientist who discovered oxygen.