Category: Infectious Disease
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Shingles
JMS PearceHull, England The physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the second century AD described a painful skin eruption that typically followed a band-like or “girdle-like” pattern, which corresponds to the dermatomal pattern of shingles.1 The Greek word herpein means “to creep,” and zoster (Latin cingulum) means a girdle or belt, referring to the rash’s unilateral…
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John Snow
JMS PearceHull, England John Snow (1813–1858) (Fig 1) was a pioneer of modern epidemiology who almost eradicated cholera from London when, before bacteria were discovered, he showed that cholera was a waterborne infection. His vital part in ether and chloroform anesthesia is often forgotten. And, as an accomplished physician, he wrote many clinical articles about…
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Book review: A history of vaccines and anti-vaxxers
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Infectious diseases have been a scourge throughout human history. The first recorded epidemic was of the plague that occurred in Athens from 430–427 BC, chronicled in the writings of Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. In nineteenth-century Britain, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid, measles, smallpox, and cholera were major…
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Complicating leprosy in the late medieval West
Juliana MenegakisSt. Andrews, Scotland Starting in the 1990s, Demaitre, Rawcliffe, and Touati revived the study of medieval leprosy, countering the traditional view that lepers were excluded from mainstream society.1 Traditionalists argued that medieval Europeans were inspired by Leviticus, which instructs priests on how to examine and cleanse people with a “defiling skin disease,” traditionally interpreted…
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Sulfonamides: The first synthetic antibacterial agents
Few discoveries in medicine have a more interesting history than the introduction of the sulfonamides into clinical medicine.1 I feel somehow part of this process only because, having suffered from some febrile illness as a little boy, I distinctly remember being given a medicine that went by the name of “rubiazol” and turned the urine…
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Carlo Forlanini and his artificial pneumothorax for tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is an ancient disease that long ago earned the appellation of ‘‘Captain Among these Men of Death.” It remained untreatable until the nineteenth century, when physicians and patients turned to spas or sanitaria offering regimens of rest, diet, and carefully supervised exercise.1 The first sanatoria in North America opened in 1884 in Asheville, North…
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Girolamo Fracastoro and syphilis
JMS Pearce Hull, England In 1924, London’s National Gallery received a bequest from the Mond family, an oil painting titled Portrait of Girolamo Fracastoro, attributed to Titian about 1528. What special attributes of a Veronese physician made him a suitable subject for the renowned artist Titian? Girolamo Fracastoro or Hieronymus Fracastorius (1483–1553) became famous because…
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The discovery of the Bairnsdale (or Buruli) ulcer and the source of the White Nile
John HaymanParkville, Victoria, Australia Five of the six patients in whom Mycobacterium ulcerans infection was first identified and described lived in the Bairnsdale district of southeastern Australia.1 The mycobacterium was not initially named as such, but the progressive skin ulcer that it causes became known as the “Bairnsdale ulcer.” It was soon appreciated that this…
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Book review: The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In the 1950s, parents on both sides of the Atlantic dreaded the arrival of the annual polio epidemic. In the US, the number of polio cases peaked in the summer. In Scandinavia, the polio season was at its worst in September and October—the “autumn ghost.” Studies done nearly a century earlier indicated…
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Albert Alexander: Unsung hero of penicillin
JMS PearceHull, England Hartnup disease, Christmas disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease are instances of the rare naming of diseases after the patients so afflicted. There are other medical discoveries, disorders, or treatments in which the crucial part played by the patient is unattributed. One example relates to the early days of penicillin. The story of…