Tag: Rush Medical College
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Nicholas Senn, the great master of abdominal surgery
Nicholas Senn was a man with an extraordinary capacity for work, an innovator, always trying new methods, even new experiments that he first conducted on himself. Born in 1844 in St. Gaul, Switzerland, he came to America when he was eight years old. His family settled in Ashford, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, then at…
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Potts and Pott
John RaffenspergerFort Meyer, Florida, United States Willis Potts and Percival Pott were both highly skilled surgeons, prolific authors, and contributed to the surgical care of children. Percival Pott (1714–1788) Percival Pott, at age fifteen, apprenticed to Edward Nourse, a surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He paid 210 pounds for his seven-year apprenticeship. Pott attended lectures…
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Alice Hamilton: Physician and scientist of the dangerous trades
Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Alice Hamilton in 1919 It is a gritty, frozen day in winter-weary Chicago, one that does little to inspire action; perhaps least of all a frigid walk around the salty, potholed neighborhood. In a month or two a lunchtime walk would be a welcome idea; university students…
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The founding of Rush Medical College
Joseph deBettencourtChicago, Illinois, United States Act I: Dr. Daniel Brainard Beneath the impressive shadow of Notre Dame, a young American cut a path through the winding cobblestone maze of the Île de la Cité to the doors of the Hôtel Dieu, Paris’ oldest hospital. The young man carried with him a diploma from a small…
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Christian Fenger (1840–1902)
Danish born Christian Fenger practiced pathology and surgery in Chicago over a century ago and made such an impact on education that a public school in his adopted city is still named after him. As a young man he studied medicine in Copenhagen, completed his internship there, served in the 1865 war against Germany, and…
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Elizabeth Blackwell, MD
JMS Pearce East Yorkshire, England Figure 1 Although Elizabeth Blackwell was portrayed on an 18 cent US stamp in 1974, curiously this was over a century after she graduated in medicine (Figure 1). Many remain unaware of her remarkable story as the first female Anglo-American physician, campaigner, and medical suffragette (Figure 2). [i] She…
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James Bryan Herrick
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Each year the American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology honors a physician “whose scientific achievements have contributed profoundly to the advancement and practice of clinical cardiology.” This award is named after the physician James B. Herrick (1861-1954) who, within a two-year period, presented descriptions that crystallized the focus…