SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Dr. Loyal Davis, father of first lady Nancy Reagan and a strong influence in moving President Reagan toward political conservatism, died Thursday at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital. He was 86.
Mrs. Reagan was at his bedside at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital when the pioneering brain surgeon died. His ailing wife, Edith Davis, is incapacitated and confined to her home in Phoenix.
Davis was a brain surgeon who was a major contributor to allied medical efforts in World War II. He was the first neurosurgeon in Chicago, and retired in 1963 as chief of surgery at Northwestern University's medical school.
An arch-conservative, he was considered one of Ronald Reagan's mentors and influenced the former Screen Actors Guild activist to turn to political conservatism in his later years.
Mrs. Reagan, in a 1980 autobiography, described her stepfather as the son of a railroad engineer 'succeeding the hard way.'
In a 1980 interview with the 'Bulletin' of the American College of Surgeons, Davis said, 'I would like to be remembered for any contributions I may have made to educating students in surgery.
'In my day, a man who was chairman of a department of surgery was responsible for looking after the education of his students. Now a committee does it. I tried to influence my students in every aspect of their lives: their personality, their approach to work, their ability to ask questions -- even their dress.
'I was a strict disciplinarian. I told my students about my life, my work, and my training. I got to know them -- that's the secret of being an effective teacher.'
Mrs. Reagan's natural father, Kenneth Robbins, left her mother, actress Edith Luckett, almost immediately after she was born Ann Frances Robbins in July 1923 in New York City.
Her mother married Davis in May 1929 in Chicago and her name was changed to Nancy Davis when she was legally adopted at the age of 14.
Davis was born Jan. 17, 1896, in Galesburg in western Illinois.
He was the senior Army consultant in neurological surgery from 1942-44 in the European Theatre during World War II and was part of a medical expedition to Moscow to inspect field units.
During the war, he developed a helmet to protect pilots from shrapnel wounds that became the prototype of the present aviation helmet. He also perfected the treatment of high-altitude frostbite injuries. Davis was one of the forerunners in raising the issue of fee-splitting by doctors, strongly opposing the practice. He also fought unnecessary surgery.
'When I have something wrong with me, I want the best possible care,' he said in the 1980 interview.
'The field of surgery has grown so much that specialists are necessary, but a surgeon should have the best possible fundamental training in general surgery before going into a speciality.
'Surgeons are professional enough not to do a coronary bypass when someone in the area can do it better. That is where the profession is outstanding -- surgeons put the best interests of their patients above selfish interests.'
In 1955, Davis was named an honorary member of the Royal College of Surgeons in England and in 1959 became an honorary fellow in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1933 and Temple University awarded a similar degree in 1961.
Davis graduated from Knox College in 1914 and was graduated from medical school at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in 1918. After an internship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, he served special residencies in Chicago and Boston and gained masters and doctorates from Northwestern.
He became an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern Memorial in 1924 and from 1932-65 was a professor of surgery and chairman of the department of surgery. During the same period, he was surgeon at two Veteran's Administration hospitals in the Chicago area and at hospitals affiliated with the medical school.
In 1963, a surgical suite at Passavant Hospital (now part of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago) was dedicated to Davis for his 'leadership and accomplishments' in the hospital. A chair of surgery was endowed in Davis' name at Northwestern Memorial earlier this year.
