Month: October 2018
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Five Untitled Poems
Simon Perchik East Hampton, New York, United States Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953, 115 cm × 92 cm (45 in × 36 in). Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles * Slowly the glass, half filled, half melting down for a slipper not yet hardened into light is flickering the…
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William Alexander Hammond
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Figure 1. William Alexander Hammond In much of the nineteenth century, ”internal medicine” dominated medical practice in the United States. Specialism was widely disdained and faced hostility and scepticism,i, not least from the influential Sir William Osler: There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know…
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History of nephrology vignettes
Hippocrates: “Those whose urine is merely blood-stained have suffered in the veins. When urine is thick, and there are passed with it small pieces of flesh like hair, you must know that these symptoms result from the kidneys and arthritic complaints.” Bubbles appearing on the surface of the urine indicate disease of the kidneys…
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Otto Kahler, Bence Jones, and multiple myeloma
Dr. Otto Kahler (1849-1893) was inducted into the pantheon of eponymy for reporting in 1889 the details of a patient suffering from multiple myeloma. Born and educated in Prague, Kahler became a professor of medicine in his home town, but in 1889 moved to a similar professorial position in Vienna. Influenced during a sabbatical in…
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The art of surgery: ‘surgical theatrics’ on the surgeon’s stage
Cynthia Avila Chicago, Illinois, United States Thomas Eakins. The Agnew Clinic. 1889. Oil on canvas, 84 3/8 in x 118 1/8 in, John Morgan Building at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sorry indeed should I be, to sport with the life of a fellow-creature who might repose a confidence either in my surgical…
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The ligament of Vaclav Treitz
Vaclav Treitz (1819-1872) was born in Bohemia, studied humanities at the Charles University in Prague, and obtained his medical degree there in 1846. He then furthered his education at the New or Second Vienna School under the great luminaries of the time, Karl Rokitansky, Joseph Skoda, and Ferdinand von Hebra. He specifically worked in anatomy…
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Erasistratus
Erasistratus (304–250 BC) founded a school of anatomy in Alexandria, where he described the valves of the heart; concluded that the heart functioned as a pump; and distinguished between arteries and veins. He believed that the arteries were full of air and that they carried the “animal spirit”; appears to have almost discovered the circulation of the blood; and carried…
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High blood pressure and the kidney: the forgotten contribution of William Senhouse Kirkes
Excerpt from: “High blood pressure and the kidney: The forgotten contribution of William Senhouse Kirkes” by J. Stewart Cameron and Jackie Hicks The realization of the key role for raised intra-arterial pressure as a pathogenetic agent in hypertension is usually credited to Ludwig Traube. But Traube in his writings gives credit for the idea to a…
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Jean-Baptiste de Sénac
Jean-Baptiste de Sénac (1693–1770) is believed to have studied medicine at the University of Leyden and in London. He began to practice medicine in Paris in 1723 and served as the personal physician to King Louis XV. He studied the heart in an era when cardiology was rudimentary. In 1749 he published a book on cardiology in which he described…