Tag: diptheria
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Diptheria: Horses and dogs to the rescue
Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Pierre-Fidèle Bretonneau described diphtheria as a distinct entity in 1821.1 He named it after the Greek word for leather2 because of the thick gray membrane that forms in the throat. Physicians before him, starting with Hippocrates, considered asphyxiating diseases as a group that also included tonsillitis, croup, and malignant angina.…
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The tracheotomy
Michelle Paff Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The transformation of a medical student into a physician is depicted in the short story, The Steel Windpipe (1925), by the Russian physician and author, Mikhail Bulgakov. A young practitioner is stationed alone at a rural hospital, and one snowy evening he is approached by a woman with her dying…