Tag: Goran Wettrell
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Sir William Osler and Oxford
Göran WettrellLund, Sweden William Osler was one of the most famous physicians and medical teachers of his time. He combined a wide knowledge of clinical medicine and science with humanity and approached patients and people in a humoristic and enthusiastic way.1 Osler has been called “the Father of Modern Medicine.” He revolutionized the teaching of…
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Two giants in thoracic surgery: Clarence Crafoord and Åke Senning
Göran WettrellLund University, Sweden Clarence Crafoord Clarence Crafoord (1899–1984) was one of the most outstanding surgeons in Sweden during the twentieth century (Figure 1). He started his surgical training in the early 1920s. Postoperative complications such as obstructing pulmonary thrombosis were a frequent cause of death. In 1927, Crafoord performed two successful acute pulmonary embolectomies.1…
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Jean-Baptiste de Sénac and his early textbook on cardiology
Göran WettrellLund, Sweden William Harvey was an important figure in the early days of cardiovascular physiology. Based on meticulous observations, he published De Motu Cordis and Sanguinus in 1628 and has been proposed as the founder of physiology and cardiology.1 During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, physicians such as Raymond Vieussens (1641-1715), Giovanni-Maria…
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Early clinical and molecular discoveries in Long QT Syndrome
Göran WettrellSweden Sudden and unexpected death in people who are less than thirty-five years of age is associated with negative autopsy results in forty percent of cases.1 Long QT Syndrome (LQTS) is one of the most common cardiac ion channelopathies to cause sudden death in young people. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, reports…
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“The Sick Child” in Scandinavian art
Göran WettrellSweden Within Western figurative pictorial art there has long been an interest in showing sick children, their psychological attitudes, the effects on the family, and indeed the very reality of disease. One of the best known works on this subject is by Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) of the Dutch Golden Age of painting. Titled The…
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William Withering and the use of foxglove in pediatric patients
Göran Wettrell Sweden Fig. 1. Title page of William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses, 1785. P. I. Nixon Medical History Library. UT Health Science Center, San Antonio. William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses was published in 1785.1 The book received great…
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Echocardiogram: The first ultrasound picture of the moving heart
Göran WettrellSweden The developments in ultrasound and microwave technology during World War II stimulated further research in the early 1950s. Ultrasound had been predicted to be useful in visualizing the organs of the human body, and with the beginnings of cardiac surgery there arose a need for better preoperative diagnosis, especially for correcting mitral stenosis…
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Maude Abbott and the early rise of pediatric cardiology
Göran WettrellLund University, Sweden In December 1898 Dr. Maude Elizabeth Abbott, assistant curator at the medical museum of McGill University in Canada, was sent to study museums and other institutions in Washington, D.C. In Baltimore she met Dr. William Osler, professor of medicine and one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. During…