Sold – Albert Einstein Accepts Honorary Membership in the International College of Surgeons

Established in 1935, the International College of Surgeons (ICS) is a global organization dedicated to bringing together surgeons and surgical specialists of all nations to promote surgical excellence for the benefit of mankind and to foster fellowship worldwide. Dr. Max Thorek, founder and Secretary General of the ICS, was a leader in the field of surgery during the first half of the twentieth century. His contributions to plastic surgery were particularly significant, and included both technical advances and the recognition of the psychological import of aesthetic surgery. The ICS from its early days selected distinguished individuals who had demonstrated a high interest in science and medicine, and had records as humanitarians trying to improve the lives of humankind, to receive honorary membership. That practice contonues today. As the ICS has confirmed to us, one of its most prominent honorary members was Albert Einstein.

Typed Letter Signed on his blind-embossed letterhead, Princeton, January 16, 1951, in German, to Dr. Thorek, expressing gratitude for receiving his ICS membership. "I gratefully thank you and the International College of Surgeons for the exceptionally handsome certificate. I will take the admonitions contained therein to heart and I can assure you with a good conscience that, in case I should ever kill anyone, it certainly will not happen as a result of the methods that you have created. " The certificate Einstein received apparently contained language about saving lives through surgery, leading him to quip that if he ever took a life, it would not be by using the surgical techniques whose high standards, as a member, he was now sworn to uphold. A unique letter connecting Einstein to the field of surgery