Tag: 19th century
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Roget and his Thesaurus
JMS PearceEast Yorks, UK There was much more to Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869)(Fig 1) than his indispensable Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (Fig 2).1 But little is remembered of his illustrious career in medicine and scientific discovery, which is surprising since in these endeavors he was highly regarded in his time.2 This may stem…
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Origins of the knee jerk
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Reflex hammers are the icon or hallmark of every neurologist. How important are the reflexes they elicit? What is their mechanism? The advent of modern technology has made it easy to forget how important the skills and means in eliciting physical signs were to clinicians of the nineteenth and early twentieth…
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John S. Bristowe: Victorian physician and polymath
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK John Syer Bristowe was a Victorian physician and polymath who served his alma mater, St. Thomas’ Hospital, with great distinction. He was born into a medical family on 19 June 1827 in Camberwell in Southeast London.1 One of his brothers, Thomas Bristowe, became a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1885-1892. In…
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John Francis Hall-Edwards—a radiology pioneer
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK John Francis Hall-Edwards was born on 19 December 1858 in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham followed by Queen’s College, Birmingham where he studied medicine and was an apprentice to Professor Richard Norris.1,2 He qualified in medicine in 1885. Norris…
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The death of Zachary Taylor: The first presidential assassination or a bad bowl of cherries?
Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Zachary Taylor was a true Southerner born into a prominent family of plantation owners in Orange County, Virginia, on November 24, 1784, During his childhood his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. In 1808 he obtained a commission as a first lieutenant in the army. In 1810 he married Margaret…
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Benjamin Rush—Heritage and hope
C. Frederick KittleChicago, Illinois, United States Excerpted from the The Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, Vol. 34, 1981. Based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Alumni Association of Rush Medical College, September 13, 1976. Reprinted from Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s “Magazine,” Winter 1976–77. In his biographies it is stated simply:…
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Mary Niles and the Canton rats
Edward McSweeganKinston, Rhode Island, United States Bubonic plague arrived in Honolulu in December 1899. A month later it had spread to San Francisco, where the infection caused a series of deadly outbreaks until 1907.1 But for decades before plague reached the American west coast, it had burned through rural China. By 1893, the plague reached…
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The surgery of pyloric stenosis in Chicago
John RaffenspergerFort Meyers, Florida, United States Harald Hirschprung, a Danish pediatrician, in 1888 described the clinical course and pathology of two infants who died with congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.1 Gastroenterostomy was adopted for the treatment of infants with pyloric stenosis, but surgical treatments were hampered by delayed diagnosis, malnutrition, and a lack of knowledge about…