The importance of the “The David Sign”
Daniel M. Gelfman Thad E. Wilson Indianapolis, Indiana, United States Photo Credit: Daniel M. Gelfman, MD, September 28, 2018. A recent article in JAMA Cardiology titled “The David Sign” discussed the presence of “persistent” external jugular venous distention “hiding in plain sight” on one of the world’s most famous statues: Michelangelo’s David, completed in […]
Richard J. Bing: reflecting on a century of creativity and innovation
Joseph Burns Yehuda Shapir New Hyde Park, New York, United States [Richard J. Bing, M.D.] 1975. National Library of Medicine. As the tenth anniversary of the passing of Dr. Richard J. Bing approaches, the occasion offers an opportune moment to reflect on the life and momentous achievements of an eminent cardiologist. Richard J. Bing […]
William Harvey before King Charles I
In 1628 William Harvey published his classic work De Motu Cordis (Of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) demonstrating that the blood passed from the left ventricle to the capillaries at the periphery and back through the veins to the right side of the heart. He received many honors for his work, and […]
Early clinical and molecular discoveries in Long QT Syndrome
Göran Wettrell Sweden Fig. 1 Anton Jervell, Norwegian physician, hospital manager and later professor at the University of Oslo with research on heart diseases. Source 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) […]
Human heart in Descartes’s De Homine
The famous philosopher René Descartes had an interest in physiology. But although he is known to have carried out dissections and even vivisections, he was a theoretician and not an experimentalist. In 1643 he wrote that having read William Harvey’s 1628 De Moto Cordis he agreed with the theory that the blood circulated through the […]
Character, genius, and a missing person in medicine
Carrie Barron Austin, Texas, USA The Calling “He is the most un-talked about, unacknowledged, unknown and most important figure in the African American community… A genius.”1 In 1944, a surgeon with his trusted guide by his side performed the very first open-heart surgery on a fifteen-month-old, nine-pound girl. 1930 Nashville. A twenty-year old African […]
William Heberden on angina pectoris, 1772
“There is a disorder of the breast marked with strong and peculiar symptoms, considerable for the kind of danger belonging to it, and not extremely rare . . . The seat of it and the sense of strangling and anxiety with which it is attended, may make it not improperly be called angina pectoris. […]
Cecil Rhodes: The man with a hole in his heart
There must be few people in the world who can locate with confidence Northern or Southern Rhodesia on a map of Africa. Yet these countries still exist, only the names have changed. Nor would the man who founded them win a contemporary popularity contest. In fact, his statue at the University of Cape Town was […]
Dominic Corrigan (1802-1880)
In the days when students were expected to have at least a smattering of medical history, they would have known that Corrigan’s sign and pulse were indicative of aortic regurgitation and would have guessed that Corrigan was Irish. Very few, if any, would have known about Corrigan’s cirrhosis, Corrigan’s button, or the maladie de Corrigan.1 […]
Grokking: Cardiac rehabilitation by another name
Janice Kehler Chris Kehler Middleton, Wisconsin, United States Grokking: to understand with empathy “It is a life-saving intervention,” said Dr. Randall Thomas, the director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, adding that participation rates were abysmal. Only 20% of eligible patients over the age of sixty-five enroll in cardiac […]