Tag: pancreas
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The history of operating on the abdomen (laparotomy)
For many centuries, “laparotomy” (derived from the Greek “lapara”, “flank or soft part”, and “tome”, “to cut”) was considered extremely dangerous and rarely attempted. There is a poorly documented report on Jacob Nufer, an Austrian or Swiss veterinarian or even pig farmer, who around the year 1550 saved the life of his wife by removing…
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A gastrointestinal quartet
These four individuals, despite their promising, euphonious names, did not write great operas. They were mere anatomists and worked on the area where the pancreas and gallbladder ducts meet to enter the duodenum. The most senior of the group was the German Johann Georg Wirsung (1589–1643). While working in Padua in 1642 and dissecting an…
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A series of messages
Fung Kam YanHong Kong It was a Sunday. I sat outside the ward in my white coat, my eye protection fogging up, trying to catch my breath through the KF94 mask. My grandmother was inside, also struggling to breathe. The nurse said that only two visitors were allowed because of COVID-19 restrictions. It did not…
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The assassination of President McKinley: Death from traumatic gunshot pancreatitis?
On September 6, 1901, the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, was shot twice with a concealed weapon by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo, New York. A popular president, he was serving a second term, having led the country to…
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Johann Conrad Brunner and his work on the pancreas
In the history of medicine, the Swiss anatomist and physician Johann Conrad Brunner is more often remembered for discovering the glands in the duodenal mucosa than for his experiments on the pancreas. Though able to surgically induce at least transient diabetes mellitus in dogs, he failed to make a connection between the pancreas and diabetes,…