Tag: nephrology
-
The $84.77 Hospital – St. Vincent
Terri SinnottChicago, Illinois, United States What in the United States could be purchased with $87.44 in 1881? In that year Bishop Francis Silas Marean Chatard and four Daughters of Charity1 took that sum and funded the first Catholic hospital in Indianapolis. Chatard had been born in 1834 in Baltimore and his initial calling was medicine. …
-
Nephrology in 10 Steps
Andrew Bomback New York, United States Photography by COMSALUD 1 I was seeing patients in clinic the morning my daughter was born. My wife called me to say that her contractions, relatively weak and infrequent when I had left home a few hours earlier, had suddenly picked up. She asked how quickly I…
-
History of nephrology: beginnings
George Dunea Chicago, Illinois, United States Introduction In the second half of the 20th century nephrology became a fully-fledged specialty owing largely to the development of renal biopsy, dialysis, and kidney transplantation.1 Yet the seeds of these great advances were sown centuries earlier, based on the work and observations of scientists and clinicians dating…
-
History of nephrology: modern era
George Dunea Chicago, Illinois, United States Twentieth century Three major developments—renal biopsy, dialysis, and transplantation—revolutionized nephrology in the second half of the 20th century. Renal biopsy transformed the diagnostic approach to renal disease from a clinical methodology to one based on morphological analysis. Presently over one million patients with renal failure are maintained by…
-
Domenico Cotugno (1736-1822)
Domenico Cotugno During a period of over 40 years Domenico Cotugno served as professor of anatomy at the University of Naples, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the world, founded by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederic II in 1224. His academic career was marked by several important advances for which he is…
-
Richard Bright, the father of nephrology
Two centuries will soon have passed since Richard Bright, of Guy’s Hospital, London, described the disease that came to bear his name. Within a few years of his original publication, the term Bright’s Disease became virtually synonymous with kidney disease—in England, Germany, France, and the United States. In its full-blown formulation it consisted of four…
-
Oliver Murray Wrong: A giant in nephrology
Todd Ing Professor Oliver Wrong (Figure 1), a giant in renal medicine, passed away on February 24, 2012. At the age of 87, his death should not, perhaps, have seemed untimely and shocking. But Oliver remained intellectually productive until the very end, working to expand science’s understanding of how the body regulates fluid, salt…