E. L. (Edward Lawrence) Keyes (1843-1924) was born at the Fort Moultrie Army Base in Charleston, South Carolina, and died in New York, New York. After graduating from Yale University in 1863, he joined the staff of his father, General Erasmus D. Keyes, and served throughout the American Civil War as a captain. After graduating from Medical College of the City University of New York, he entered into practice with one of his teachers, William Holme Van Buren. In 1870, he began lecturing on dermatology and genitourinary surgery at Bellevue Hospital Medical College and gained international recognition in these fields. He is known for revolutionizing the therapeutics of mercury for syphilis by proving before the 1876 International Medical Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that mercury was a tonic if used in small doses. He invented the Keyes Cutaneous Punch, a diagnostic surgical instrument. During its founding in 1888, Keyes became the first president of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons. Pope Pius X made him a Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory.

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