Tag: Cardiology
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Remembering Sir Thomas Lewis’ contribution to understanding heart failure
Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Sir Thomas Lewis (1881–1945) has been called one of the “fathers of modern cardiology” due to his many significant contributions to that discipline. In 1930 he wrote a landmark paper clarifying the disease “congestive (heart) failure,” revealing clues that are present in the jugular veins, for making the diagnosis and…
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Heart failure
Charles Halsted Davis California, United States By the time I completed my third medical school year, I had learned the basics of physiology and biochemistry, but had never been face-to-face with a person who depended upon my skills to survive. I had never heard a racing heart nor the sounds of gurgling lungs. I was assigned…
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The importance of the “The David Sign”
Daniel M. GelfmanThad E. WilsonIndianapolis, Indiana, United States 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 15041 (Figure 1). David is shown just before his fight with the…
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Richard J. Bing: Reflecting on a century of creativity and innovation
Joseph BurnsYehuda ShapirNew Hyde Park, New York, United States 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 was born in Nuremberg, Germany on October 12, 1909.1 His father was…
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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…
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Early clinical and molecular discoveries in Long QT Syndrome
Göran WettrellSweden 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) is one of the most common cardiac ion channelopathies to cause sudden death in young people. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, reports…
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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…
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A quiet night
Henry BairPalo Alto, California, United States It was the end of the week, the middle of the night, and the beginning of my ER shift. All was quiet, and I was studying at the nurses’ station, still riding the high of having just aced a cardiology exam that was widely regarded as one of the…