Arthur Vidrine

Who is Arthur Vidrine?

Arthur Vidrine was a physician from Ville Platte, the seat of Evangeline Parish in south Louisiana, who was best known for having operated on Democratic U.S. Senator Huey Pierce Long, Jr., after Long was shot on September 8, 1935, in the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, presumably by another young physician, Carl A. Weiss.

A veteran of World War I, Vidrine was educated at Tulane University in New Orleans, the University of Oxford, and at hospitals in London and Paris.

Then Governor Long first appointed Vidrine superintendent of Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Then in May 1931, Long named Vidrine dean of the newly established Louisiana State University Medical School in New Orleans. Long passed up several more experienced doctors to select Vidrine, a Long political loyalist who had been a practicing physician for just four years. At the time, Vidrine was described as a "huge 200-pound man with a puffy face and grayish hair."

After Senator Long was shot, Vidrine performed an operation to repair two small wounds in the colon. He then sutured the abdomen closed. Two surgical experts who had been called from New Orleans to operate on Long were delayed by an automobile accident.