Category: Physicians of Note
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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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Ruggero Oddi: Brilliant physician and victim of gaslighting by the Congo Free State
Eli Ehrenpreis Skokie, Illinois, United States Ruggero Oddi in 1900 during his post as acting director of the Physiological Institute of Genoa. Referenced in Alexander Rollett Letter Edition, L.2629. When Ruggero Oddi (1864–1913) was a medical student at the University of Bologna, he performed studies detailing the physiology of the biliary sphincter. This work…
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Abraham de Balmes ben Meir, Jewish Italian physician and polymath
Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel Abraham de Balmes ben Meir (c. 1460–1523) was a Jewish physician and polymath from the baroque Italian city of Lecce in the south of Italy, where his grandfather had served as personal physician to King Ferdinand I of Naples. He studied medicine in Naples but left in 1510 when…
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Henri Parinaud—French physician, composer, and humanitarian
Jason Jo New York, New York Henri Parinaud. Annales d’ oculistique (Paris: Dois, 1905), 320. BIU Santé Médecine, Bibliothèques d’Université Paris Cité. Via Wikimedia. Licence Ouverte / Open Licence. Henri Parinaud (c. 1844–1905), a pioneer in the fields of neurology and ophthalmology, is best remembered for his two eponymous syndromes: the Parinaud oculoglandular syndrome and…
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Corn, pellagra, and modern medicine—How an ancient disease was recognized in South Carolina’s state lunatic asylum
Brody Fogleman Harsh Jha Noel Brownlee JuliSu DiMucci-Ward Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States James Woods Babcock (1856–1922). Photo courtesy of the Waring Historical Library, MUSC, Charleston, SC. Pellagra is a disease of vitamin B3 (niacin) deficiency. Niacin is the precursor for many physiologic processes involving nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), an enzyme that carries out…
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Steller’s Sea eagle: Who was Georg Wilhelm Steller?
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States A solitary Steller’s Sea eagle near the bank of the Zhupanova River on the eastern shore of the Kamchatka peninsula. Unless otherwise specified, all photos by author. The Steller’s Sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) handily outsizes the national bird of the United States, the Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).…
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Whitlock Nicholl: Physician and theological writer
Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel Whitlock Nicholl. c. 1821. In Faraday Consults the Scholars: The Origins of the Terms of Electrochemistry by S. Ross. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. In November 1839, Dr. John Clendinning delivered at the St. Marylebone Infirmary a lecture on the examination of the sick, the principal sources of fallacy attending…
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The three knights of thyrotoxicosis
Of the three physicians who described thyrotoxicosis, Karl Adolph von Basedow is the least known, especially in the English-speaking world. Born at Dessau in 1799, Basedow studied medicine at Halle University, worked as a physician in various cities of Germany, and in 1835 was appointed Director of the Clinic for Internal Medicine at the University…
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Jean Astruc, the “compleat physician”
Jean Astruc was born in 1684 in Sauve, France and studied medicine at Montpellier, graduating in 1703. He then became professor of medicine in Toulouse (1710) and Montpellier (1716), superintendent of the local mineral waters (1721), physician to the king of Poland (1729), and professor of medicine at the royal College of Medicine in Paris…
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The satirical side of William Osler, M.D.
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Cartoon of William Osler as a cherub in charge of a cyclone banishing all disease from Johns Hopkins Hospital. Drawing by Max Brodel, a medical illustrator at the hospital, 1896. National Library of Medicine. Public domain. “But whatever you do, take neither yourself nor your fellow creatures too seriously.”1 –…