Ophthalmologist Harold G. Scheie; he saved the sight of thousands. By Ralph Cirpriano, Inquirer Staff Writer.
Dr. Harold G. Scheie, 80 an internationally known ophthalmologist who save the sight of thousands of patients while operating at his Scheie Eye Institute in West Philadelphia, died Monday of cancer at his home in Center City.
Dr. Scheie (pronounced Shay) was a legendary surgeon, and a rare eye disease that he identified was named after him. He also was widely known for developing surgical techniques to treat cataracts and glaucoma.
"For cataracts he's the court of last resort", a Syracuse, N.Y., ophthalmologist once said of his former teacher. "If he decides it's impossible, there's no higher court to appeal to."
During his medical career over nearly half a century, Dr. Scheie's patients included Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy, sculptor Joe Brown and Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Dr. Scheie, who retired from his medical practice in 1983, was an early riser since the days when he grew up on Midwest farms. At the institute, which he founded in 1972, he would begin operating at 5:30 a.m.
During the next five hours, he would operate on as many as 25 patients, moving in a breathtaking pace from one operation table to another followed by a cadre of assistants who regarded him with awe.
Dr. Scheie had a habit of not charging poor patients. He also didn't charge wealthy patients, who often made generous contributions to the institute, which was built with $12.5 million raised almost singlehandedly by Dr. Scheie. The eye institute houses the University of Pennsylvania's department of ophthalmology and is based at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
Dr. Scheie's critics in the medical profession, and there were a few, said he ran an ophthalmology assembly line. Some medical students complained that Dr. Scheie was the Professor Kingsfield of Cataracts -- intolerant of youthful mistakes. One former student once referred to him as the "last of the autocratic department heads" who ran their departments like fiefdoms.
"He was one of those charismatic figures that some people are quite jealous of and find little things to criticize him about, while those who liked him were usually fiercely partisan on his behalf," said Dr. Madeleine Ewing, a former student who is now an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the staff at the Scheie Institute.
"Nobody was ever neutral on the subject of Dr. Scheie," said Ewing, who worked with him at the institute from 1974 until his retirement.
The first thing people noticed about Dr. Scheie was his blue-gray eyes.
They were hidden behind dark-framed glasses, under bushy, graying eyebrows, but Dr. Scheie's were capable of jolting doctors, patients and students alike with an intense, riveting stare.
"He had these steel-gray eyes and when he looked at you with these eyes you had the feeling he was boring through you," said Dr. William C. Frayer, professor of ophthalmology and acting chairman of Penn's department of ophthalmology and director of the Scheie Institute.
Recalling his days as a student, Frayer said he was one of many students intimidated by Dr. Scheie.
"He scared the hell out of me," Frayer recalled.
Frayer, who had a 40-year association with Dr. Scheie as a student resident and colleague, remembered him as a severe taskmaster in the classroom and the operating room.
"He was the captain of the ship, there was no question about that, and when he said jump, everybody jumped," Frayer said. "If I was doing anything wrong, he was the first to tell me about it. If I did something wrong he yelled at me; that's when I got intimidated, but 20 minutes later, he'd have his arm around me and we'd be buddies again."
Frayer recalled Dr. Scheie's legendary coolness in the operating room. Once while he was leading a group of doctors and medical students through an operation, an over eager medical student, who was manning the instrument table, stabbed Dr. Scheie in the arm with a scalpel.
"He was bleeding; the cut was big enough for stitches," Frayer said. In a firm voice, Dr. Scheie told the doctors and students, "we'll finish the case," and to the trembling medical student who had just stabbed him, Dr. Scheie said in an icy voice, "And I want you to sew me up."
The students who survived had the advantages of learning under a master surgeon. The lesson his students learned, as well as the image of their teacher, remained undimmed after decades, Frayer said.
"One of the things that (his) ex-residents say more than anything else is that anytime they see a patient with a problem, they think how would Dr. Scheie solve this," Frayer said. "They still think he's looking over their shoulder."
Ewing, another former medical student, recalled how orderly and precise things were on Dr. Scheie's assembly line.
"He did a prodigious amount of cases, but he had very careful notes on every patient," she said. "I used to be thrilled to watch him. It was so much fun to watch something done so beautifully. There was a reason for every motion he made in the operating room. He taught me everything I know."
Born in Brookings County, S.D., on March 24 1909, Harold Glendon Scheie was the son of a Norwegian farmer-businessman and livestock auctioneer who lost all his money and land during the Depression.
In 1935, Dr. Scheie arrived in Philadelphia for a residency at the University of Pennsylvania' hospital.
In 1943, Dr. Scheie was called to active duty in the Army and headed the ophthalmology unit at what became the largest hospital in the China-Burma-India war zone.
While in the service, Dr. Scheie was called on to treat Lord Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia.
"Lord Louie," as Dr Scheie would later refer to him, had been driving a jeep along a jungle trail in Burma in 1944 when a piece from a low-hanging bamboo tree pierced his left eyeball.
"It took a certain amount of moral courage to feel and see if my left eyeball was still in its socket," Mountbatten said in a journal entry.
Under Dr. Scheie's care, Mountbatten lay flat on his back with his eyes bandaged for five days. After Mountbatten asked to return to the front, Dr. Scheie agreed to let him go, as long as the commander wore an eye patch.
"Years later, in 1956, I met Dr. Scheie socially in New York and expressed my gratitude for him for having make it easy for me to leave the hospital and resume active command," Mountbatten later said.
Mountbatten and Dr. Scheie became lifelong friends. It was Mountbatten who, in August 1972, dedicated the Scheie Eye Institute. Mountbatten also attended Dr. Scheie's retirement in 1964 as brigardier general in the Army Reserve.
In Philadelphia yesterday, there were many tributes to Dr. Scheie from former colleagues, politicians and co-workers.
"Harold Scheie was a giant in both world ophthalmology and within the faculty of medicine of the University of Pennsylvania," said Dr. Thomas Langfitt, president of Pew Charitable Trusts and former vice president for health affairs at Penn.
"His innovative contributions to ophthalmic surgery, in particular, and his skills as a surgeorn were legendary," Lanfgitt said in a statement.
"He trained a whole generation of ophthalmologists who have continued to revolutionize the field. He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues."
"In my humble opinion, Dr. Scheie was the next thing to God," former Mayor Frank Rizzo said. In and interview, Rizzo recalled that as a police officer and mayor, he referred to Dr. Scheie more than 50 children whose parents could not afford to pay.
"Dr. Scheie never once said no," Rizzo said. "I would call him up afterwards and he would tell me, "Frank, there's no charge. That's what we have to do,'" Rizzo said. "He was really a class guy."
"He touched so many lives," recalled his secretary of 33 years, Charlotte Beurer.
"One of the nurses used to say if I had to leave his employment I'd have my mother call and say I died. It was like being adopted," working for Dr. Scheie, she recalled. "You felt like a part of his family."
Dr. Scheie is survived by his wife of 38 years, the former Mary Ann Tallman, sons, Harold G. Jr. Eric, and a daughter, Nancy.
A service will be held at 3 p.m. next Tuesday at the Arlington National Cemetery Chapel, Arlington, Va. Burial with full military honors will be at Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. March 19 at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Harrison Auditorium of the University Museum, 33rd and Spruce Streets.
Contribution in his memory can be made to the Harold G. Scheie Teaching and Research Memorial Fund at the Scheie Eye Institute.
(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday March 6, 1990)
Dr. Harold G. Scheie, 80 an internationally known ophthalmologist who save the sight of thousands of patients while operating at his Scheie Eye Institute in West Philadelphia, died Monday of cancer at his home in Center City.
Dr. Scheie (pronounced Shay) was a legendary surgeon, and a rare eye disease that he identified was named after him. He also was widely known for developing surgical techniques to treat cataracts and glaucoma.
"For cataracts he's the court of last resort", a Syracuse, N.Y., ophthalmologist once said of his former teacher. "If he decides it's impossible, there's no higher court to appeal to."
During his medical career over nearly half a century, Dr. Scheie's patients included Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy, sculptor Joe Brown and Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Dr. Scheie, who retired from his medical practice in 1983, was an early riser since the days when he grew up on Midwest farms. At the institute, which he founded in 1972, he would begin operating at 5:30 a.m.
During the next five hours, he would operate on as many as 25 patients, moving in a breathtaking pace from one operation table to another followed by a cadre of assistants who regarded him with awe.
Dr. Scheie had a habit of not charging poor patients. He also didn't charge wealthy patients, who often made generous contributions to the institute, which was built with $12.5 million raised almost singlehandedly by Dr. Scheie. The eye institute houses the University of Pennsylvania's department of ophthalmology and is based at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
Dr. Scheie's critics in the medical profession, and there were a few, said he ran an ophthalmology assembly line. Some medical students complained that Dr. Scheie was the Professor Kingsfield of Cataracts -- intolerant of youthful mistakes. One former student once referred to him as the "last of the autocratic department heads" who ran their departments like fiefdoms.
"He was one of those charismatic figures that some people are quite jealous of and find little things to criticize him about, while those who liked him were usually fiercely partisan on his behalf," said Dr. Madeleine Ewing, a former student who is now an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the staff at the Scheie Institute.
"Nobody was ever neutral on the subject of Dr. Scheie," said Ewing, who worked with him at the institute from 1974 until his retirement.
The first thing people noticed about Dr. Scheie was his blue-gray eyes.
They were hidden behind dark-framed glasses, under bushy, graying eyebrows, but Dr. Scheie's were capable of jolting doctors, patients and students alike with an intense, riveting stare.
"He had these steel-gray eyes and when he looked at you with these eyes you had the feeling he was boring through you," said Dr. William C. Frayer, professor of ophthalmology and acting chairman of Penn's department of ophthalmology and director of the Scheie Institute.
Recalling his days as a student, Frayer said he was one of many students intimidated by Dr. Scheie.
"He scared the hell out of me," Frayer recalled.
Frayer, who had a 40-year association with Dr. Scheie as a student resident and colleague, remembered him as a severe taskmaster in the classroom and the operating room.
"He was the captain of the ship, there was no question about that, and when he said jump, everybody jumped," Frayer said. "If I was doing anything wrong, he was the first to tell me about it. If I did something wrong he yelled at me; that's when I got intimidated, but 20 minutes later, he'd have his arm around me and we'd be buddies again."
Frayer recalled Dr. Scheie's legendary coolness in the operating room. Once while he was leading a group of doctors and medical students through an operation, an over eager medical student, who was manning the instrument table, stabbed Dr. Scheie in the arm with a scalpel.
"He was bleeding; the cut was big enough for stitches," Frayer said. In a firm voice, Dr. Scheie told the doctors and students, "we'll finish the case," and to the trembling medical student who had just stabbed him, Dr. Scheie said in an icy voice, "And I want you to sew me up."
The students who survived had the advantages of learning under a master surgeon. The lesson his students learned, as well as the image of their teacher, remained undimmed after decades, Frayer said.
"One of the things that (his) ex-residents say more than anything else is that anytime they see a patient with a problem, they think how would Dr. Scheie solve this," Frayer said. "They still think he's looking over their shoulder."
Ewing, another former medical student, recalled how orderly and precise things were on Dr. Scheie's assembly line.
"He did a prodigious amount of cases, but he had very careful notes on every patient," she said. "I used to be thrilled to watch him. It was so much fun to watch something done so beautifully. There was a reason for every motion he made in the operating room. He taught me everything I know."
Born in Brookings County, S.D., on March 24 1909, Harold Glendon Scheie was the son of a Norwegian farmer-businessman and livestock auctioneer who lost all his money and land during the Depression.
In 1935, Dr. Scheie arrived in Philadelphia for a residency at the University of Pennsylvania' hospital.
In 1943, Dr. Scheie was called to active duty in the Army and headed the ophthalmology unit at what became the largest hospital in the China-Burma-India war zone.
While in the service, Dr. Scheie was called on to treat Lord Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia.
"Lord Louie," as Dr Scheie would later refer to him, had been driving a jeep along a jungle trail in Burma in 1944 when a piece from a low-hanging bamboo tree pierced his left eyeball.
"It took a certain amount of moral courage to feel and see if my left eyeball was still in its socket," Mountbatten said in a journal entry.
Under Dr. Scheie's care, Mountbatten lay flat on his back with his eyes bandaged for five days. After Mountbatten asked to return to the front, Dr. Scheie agreed to let him go, as long as the commander wore an eye patch.
"Years later, in 1956, I met Dr. Scheie socially in New York and expressed my gratitude for him for having make it easy for me to leave the hospital and resume active command," Mountbatten later said.
Mountbatten and Dr. Scheie became lifelong friends. It was Mountbatten who, in August 1972, dedicated the Scheie Eye Institute. Mountbatten also attended Dr. Scheie's retirement in 1964 as brigardier general in the Army Reserve.
In Philadelphia yesterday, there were many tributes to Dr. Scheie from former colleagues, politicians and co-workers.
"Harold Scheie was a giant in both world ophthalmology and within the faculty of medicine of the University of Pennsylvania," said Dr. Thomas Langfitt, president of Pew Charitable Trusts and former vice president for health affairs at Penn.
"His innovative contributions to ophthalmic surgery, in particular, and his skills as a surgeorn were legendary," Lanfgitt said in a statement.
"He trained a whole generation of ophthalmologists who have continued to revolutionize the field. He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues."
"In my humble opinion, Dr. Scheie was the next thing to God," former Mayor Frank Rizzo said. In and interview, Rizzo recalled that as a police officer and mayor, he referred to Dr. Scheie more than 50 children whose parents could not afford to pay.
"Dr. Scheie never once said no," Rizzo said. "I would call him up afterwards and he would tell me, "Frank, there's no charge. That's what we have to do,'" Rizzo said. "He was really a class guy."
"He touched so many lives," recalled his secretary of 33 years, Charlotte Beurer.
"One of the nurses used to say if I had to leave his employment I'd have my mother call and say I died. It was like being adopted," working for Dr. Scheie, she recalled. "You felt like a part of his family."
Dr. Scheie is survived by his wife of 38 years, the former Mary Ann Tallman, sons, Harold G. Jr. Eric, and a daughter, Nancy.
A service will be held at 3 p.m. next Tuesday at the Arlington National Cemetery Chapel, Arlington, Va. Burial with full military honors will be at Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. March 19 at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Harrison Auditorium of the University Museum, 33rd and Spruce Streets.
Contribution in his memory can be made to the Harold G. Scheie Teaching and Research Memorial Fund at the Scheie Eye Institute.
(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday March 6, 1990)
Ophthalmologist Harold G. Scheie; he saved the sight of thousands. By Ralph Cirpriano, Inquirer Staff Writer.
Dr. Harold G. Scheie, 80 an internationally known ophthalmologist who save the sight of thousands of patients while operating at his Scheie Eye Institute in West Philadelphia, died Monday of cancer at his home in Center City.
Dr. Scheie (pronounced Shay) was a legendary surgeon, and a rare eye disease that he identified was named after him. He also was widely known for developing surgical techniques to treat cataracts and glaucoma.
"For cataracts he's the court of last resort", a Syracuse, N.Y., ophthalmologist once said of his former teacher. "If he decides it's impossible, there's no higher court to appeal to."
During his medical career over nearly half a century, Dr. Scheie's patients included Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy, sculptor Joe Brown and Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Dr. Scheie, who retired from his medical practice in 1983, was an early riser since the days when he grew up on Midwest farms. At the institute, which he founded in 1972, he would begin operating at 5:30 a.m.
During the next five hours, he would operate on as many as 25 patients, moving in a breathtaking pace from one operation table to another followed by a cadre of assistants who regarded him with awe.
Dr. Scheie had a habit of not charging poor patients. He also didn't charge wealthy patients, who often made generous contributions to the institute, which was built with $12.5 million raised almost singlehandedly by Dr. Scheie. The eye institute houses the University of Pennsylvania's department of ophthalmology and is based at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
Dr. Scheie's critics in the medical profession, and there were a few, said he ran an ophthalmology assembly line. Some medical students complained that Dr. Scheie was the Professor Kingsfield of Cataracts -- intolerant of youthful mistakes. One former student once referred to him as the "last of the autocratic department heads" who ran their departments like fiefdoms.
"He was one of those charismatic figures that some people are quite jealous of and find little things to criticize him about, while those who liked him were usually fiercely partisan on his behalf," said Dr. Madeleine Ewing, a former student who is now an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the staff at the Scheie Institute.
"Nobody was ever neutral on the subject of Dr. Scheie," said Ewing, who worked with him at the institute from 1974 until his retirement.
The first thing people noticed about Dr. Scheie was his blue-gray eyes.
They were hidden behind dark-framed glasses, under bushy, graying eyebrows, but Dr. Scheie's were capable of jolting doctors, patients and students alike with an intense, riveting stare.
"He had these steel-gray eyes and when he looked at you with these eyes you had the feeling he was boring through you," said Dr. William C. Frayer, professor of ophthalmology and acting chairman of Penn's department of ophthalmology and director of the Scheie Institute.
Recalling his days as a student, Frayer said he was one of many students intimidated by Dr. Scheie.
"He scared the hell out of me," Frayer recalled.
Frayer, who had a 40-year association with Dr. Scheie as a student resident and colleague, remembered him as a severe taskmaster in the classroom and the operating room.
"He was the captain of the ship, there was no question about that, and when he said jump, everybody jumped," Frayer said. "If I was doing anything wrong, he was the first to tell me about it. If I did something wrong he yelled at me; that's when I got intimidated, but 20 minutes later, he'd have his arm around me and we'd be buddies again."
Frayer recalled Dr. Scheie's legendary coolness in the operating room. Once while he was leading a group of doctors and medical students through an operation, an over eager medical student, who was manning the instrument table, stabbed Dr. Scheie in the arm with a scalpel.
"He was bleeding; the cut was big enough for stitches," Frayer said. In a firm voice, Dr. Scheie told the doctors and students, "we'll finish the case," and to the trembling medical student who had just stabbed him, Dr. Scheie said in an icy voice, "And I want you to sew me up."
The students who survived had the advantages of learning under a master surgeon. The lesson his students learned, as well as the image of their teacher, remained undimmed after decades, Frayer said.
"One of the things that (his) ex-residents say more than anything else is that anytime they see a patient with a problem, they think how would Dr. Scheie solve this," Frayer said. "They still think he's looking over their shoulder."
Ewing, another former medical student, recalled how orderly and precise things were on Dr. Scheie's assembly line.
"He did a prodigious amount of cases, but he had very careful notes on every patient," she said. "I used to be thrilled to watch him. It was so much fun to watch something done so beautifully. There was a reason for every motion he made in the operating room. He taught me everything I know."
Born in Brookings County, S.D., on March 24 1909, Harold Glendon Scheie was the son of a Norwegian farmer-businessman and livestock auctioneer who lost all his money and land during the Depression.
In 1935, Dr. Scheie arrived in Philadelphia for a residency at the University of Pennsylvania' hospital.
In 1943, Dr. Scheie was called to active duty in the Army and headed the ophthalmology unit at what became the largest hospital in the China-Burma-India war zone.
While in the service, Dr. Scheie was called on to treat Lord Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia.
"Lord Louie," as Dr Scheie would later refer to him, had been driving a jeep along a jungle trail in Burma in 1944 when a piece from a low-hanging bamboo tree pierced his left eyeball.
"It took a certain amount of moral courage to feel and see if my left eyeball was still in its socket," Mountbatten said in a journal entry.
Under Dr. Scheie's care, Mountbatten lay flat on his back with his eyes bandaged for five days. After Mountbatten asked to return to the front, Dr. Scheie agreed to let him go, as long as the commander wore an eye patch.
"Years later, in 1956, I met Dr. Scheie socially in New York and expressed my gratitude for him for having make it easy for me to leave the hospital and resume active command," Mountbatten later said.
Mountbatten and Dr. Scheie became lifelong friends. It was Mountbatten who, in August 1972, dedicated the Scheie Eye Institute. Mountbatten also attended Dr. Scheie's retirement in 1964 as brigardier general in the Army Reserve.
In Philadelphia yesterday, there were many tributes to Dr. Scheie from former colleagues, politicians and co-workers.
"Harold Scheie was a giant in both world ophthalmology and within the faculty of medicine of the University of Pennsylvania," said Dr. Thomas Langfitt, president of Pew Charitable Trusts and former vice president for health affairs at Penn.
"His innovative contributions to ophthalmic surgery, in particular, and his skills as a surgeorn were legendary," Lanfgitt said in a statement.
"He trained a whole generation of ophthalmologists who have continued to revolutionize the field. He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues."
"In my humble opinion, Dr. Scheie was the next thing to God," former Mayor Frank Rizzo said. In and interview, Rizzo recalled that as a police officer and mayor, he referred to Dr. Scheie more than 50 children whose parents could not afford to pay.
"Dr. Scheie never once said no," Rizzo said. "I would call him up afterwards and he would tell me, "Frank, there's no charge. That's what we have to do,'" Rizzo said. "He was really a class guy."
"He touched so many lives," recalled his secretary of 33 years, Charlotte Beurer.
"One of the nurses used to say if I had to leave his employment I'd have my mother call and say I died. It was like being adopted," working for Dr. Scheie, she recalled. "You felt like a part of his family."
Dr. Scheie is survived by his wife of 38 years, the former Mary Ann Tallman, sons, Harold G. Jr. Eric, and a daughter, Nancy.
A service will be held at 3 p.m. next Tuesday at the Arlington National Cemetery Chapel, Arlington, Va. Burial with full military honors will be at Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. March 19 at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Harrison Auditorium of the University Museum, 33rd and Spruce Streets.
Contribution in his memory can be made to the Harold G. Scheie Teaching and Research Memorial Fund at the Scheie Eye Institute.
(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday March 6, 1990)
Dr. Harold G. Scheie, 80 an internationally known ophthalmologist who save the sight of thousands of patients while operating at his Scheie Eye Institute in West Philadelphia, died Monday of cancer at his home in Center City.
Dr. Scheie (pronounced Shay) was a legendary surgeon, and a rare eye disease that he identified was named after him. He also was widely known for developing surgical techniques to treat cataracts and glaucoma.
"For cataracts he's the court of last resort", a Syracuse, N.Y., ophthalmologist once said of his former teacher. "If he decides it's impossible, there's no higher court to appeal to."
During his medical career over nearly half a century, Dr. Scheie's patients included Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy, sculptor Joe Brown and Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Dr. Scheie, who retired from his medical practice in 1983, was an early riser since the days when he grew up on Midwest farms. At the institute, which he founded in 1972, he would begin operating at 5:30 a.m.
During the next five hours, he would operate on as many as 25 patients, moving in a breathtaking pace from one operation table to another followed by a cadre of assistants who regarded him with awe.
Dr. Scheie had a habit of not charging poor patients. He also didn't charge wealthy patients, who often made generous contributions to the institute, which was built with $12.5 million raised almost singlehandedly by Dr. Scheie. The eye institute houses the University of Pennsylvania's department of ophthalmology and is based at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.
Dr. Scheie's critics in the medical profession, and there were a few, said he ran an ophthalmology assembly line. Some medical students complained that Dr. Scheie was the Professor Kingsfield of Cataracts -- intolerant of youthful mistakes. One former student once referred to him as the "last of the autocratic department heads" who ran their departments like fiefdoms.
"He was one of those charismatic figures that some people are quite jealous of and find little things to criticize him about, while those who liked him were usually fiercely partisan on his behalf," said Dr. Madeleine Ewing, a former student who is now an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the staff at the Scheie Institute.
"Nobody was ever neutral on the subject of Dr. Scheie," said Ewing, who worked with him at the institute from 1974 until his retirement.
The first thing people noticed about Dr. Scheie was his blue-gray eyes.
They were hidden behind dark-framed glasses, under bushy, graying eyebrows, but Dr. Scheie's were capable of jolting doctors, patients and students alike with an intense, riveting stare.
"He had these steel-gray eyes and when he looked at you with these eyes you had the feeling he was boring through you," said Dr. William C. Frayer, professor of ophthalmology and acting chairman of Penn's department of ophthalmology and director of the Scheie Institute.
Recalling his days as a student, Frayer said he was one of many students intimidated by Dr. Scheie.
"He scared the hell out of me," Frayer recalled.
Frayer, who had a 40-year association with Dr. Scheie as a student resident and colleague, remembered him as a severe taskmaster in the classroom and the operating room.
"He was the captain of the ship, there was no question about that, and when he said jump, everybody jumped," Frayer said. "If I was doing anything wrong, he was the first to tell me about it. If I did something wrong he yelled at me; that's when I got intimidated, but 20 minutes later, he'd have his arm around me and we'd be buddies again."
Frayer recalled Dr. Scheie's legendary coolness in the operating room. Once while he was leading a group of doctors and medical students through an operation, an over eager medical student, who was manning the instrument table, stabbed Dr. Scheie in the arm with a scalpel.
"He was bleeding; the cut was big enough for stitches," Frayer said. In a firm voice, Dr. Scheie told the doctors and students, "we'll finish the case," and to the trembling medical student who had just stabbed him, Dr. Scheie said in an icy voice, "And I want you to sew me up."
The students who survived had the advantages of learning under a master surgeon. The lesson his students learned, as well as the image of their teacher, remained undimmed after decades, Frayer said.
"One of the things that (his) ex-residents say more than anything else is that anytime they see a patient with a problem, they think how would Dr. Scheie solve this," Frayer said. "They still think he's looking over their shoulder."
Ewing, another former medical student, recalled how orderly and precise things were on Dr. Scheie's assembly line.
"He did a prodigious amount of cases, but he had very careful notes on every patient," she said. "I used to be thrilled to watch him. It was so much fun to watch something done so beautifully. There was a reason for every motion he made in the operating room. He taught me everything I know."
Born in Brookings County, S.D., on March 24 1909, Harold Glendon Scheie was the son of a Norwegian farmer-businessman and livestock auctioneer who lost all his money and land during the Depression.
In 1935, Dr. Scheie arrived in Philadelphia for a residency at the University of Pennsylvania' hospital.
In 1943, Dr. Scheie was called to active duty in the Army and headed the ophthalmology unit at what became the largest hospital in the China-Burma-India war zone.
While in the service, Dr. Scheie was called on to treat Lord Louis Mountbatten, supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia.
"Lord Louie," as Dr Scheie would later refer to him, had been driving a jeep along a jungle trail in Burma in 1944 when a piece from a low-hanging bamboo tree pierced his left eyeball.
"It took a certain amount of moral courage to feel and see if my left eyeball was still in its socket," Mountbatten said in a journal entry.
Under Dr. Scheie's care, Mountbatten lay flat on his back with his eyes bandaged for five days. After Mountbatten asked to return to the front, Dr. Scheie agreed to let him go, as long as the commander wore an eye patch.
"Years later, in 1956, I met Dr. Scheie socially in New York and expressed my gratitude for him for having make it easy for me to leave the hospital and resume active command," Mountbatten later said.
Mountbatten and Dr. Scheie became lifelong friends. It was Mountbatten who, in August 1972, dedicated the Scheie Eye Institute. Mountbatten also attended Dr. Scheie's retirement in 1964 as brigardier general in the Army Reserve.
In Philadelphia yesterday, there were many tributes to Dr. Scheie from former colleagues, politicians and co-workers.
"Harold Scheie was a giant in both world ophthalmology and within the faculty of medicine of the University of Pennsylvania," said Dr. Thomas Langfitt, president of Pew Charitable Trusts and former vice president for health affairs at Penn.
"His innovative contributions to ophthalmic surgery, in particular, and his skills as a surgeorn were legendary," Lanfgitt said in a statement.
"He trained a whole generation of ophthalmologists who have continued to revolutionize the field. He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues."
"In my humble opinion, Dr. Scheie was the next thing to God," former Mayor Frank Rizzo said. In and interview, Rizzo recalled that as a police officer and mayor, he referred to Dr. Scheie more than 50 children whose parents could not afford to pay.
"Dr. Scheie never once said no," Rizzo said. "I would call him up afterwards and he would tell me, "Frank, there's no charge. That's what we have to do,'" Rizzo said. "He was really a class guy."
"He touched so many lives," recalled his secretary of 33 years, Charlotte Beurer.
"One of the nurses used to say if I had to leave his employment I'd have my mother call and say I died. It was like being adopted," working for Dr. Scheie, she recalled. "You felt like a part of his family."
Dr. Scheie is survived by his wife of 38 years, the former Mary Ann Tallman, sons, Harold G. Jr. Eric, and a daughter, Nancy.
A service will be held at 3 p.m. next Tuesday at the Arlington National Cemetery Chapel, Arlington, Va. Burial with full military honors will be at Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. March 19 at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Harrison Auditorium of the University Museum, 33rd and Spruce Streets.
Contribution in his memory can be made to the Harold G. Scheie Teaching and Research Memorial Fund at the Scheie Eye Institute.
(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday March 6, 1990)
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