Tag: Science
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John Tyndall, FRS: The beauty of science
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Over many centuries non-medical people have carried out research into disease and its causes, often making important advances. The 1841 Census estimates suggest a third of all medical practitioners in England were unqualified.a The great scientist John Tyndall (1820–1893) (Fig 1) was not a medical practitioner, but an Irish physicist,…
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Giovanni Borelli, polymath of Naples and Pisa
Giovanni Borelli lived during one of the darkest periods of Italy, when much of its territory was ruled by foreign powers and the Inquisition controlled the minds and bodies of its people. Born in Naples in 1608, he was mentored in his youth by the distinguished philosopher Tommaso Campanella, a prisoner in a castle in…
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Claude Bernard, one of the greatest scientists
Claude Bernard (1813–1878), “one of the greatest of all men of science,” originated the term milieu intérieur, and furthered the concept of homeostasis. After an early high school and college education, he become an assistant in a druggist’s shop and contemplated becoming a writer, but was persuaded to study medicine and became an intern at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in…
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Van Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of “animalcules”
George DuneaChicago Illinois, United States “I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving. The biggest sort. . . had a very strong and swift motion, and shot through the water (or spittle) like a pike does through the water. The…
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Jean Marie Poiseuille: Physics and mathematics
Son of a carpenter, Jean Marie Poiseuille was born in Paris in 1799 and began his studies in physics and mathematics in 1815. When the school was disbanded for political reasons he switched to medicine and after graduating opened a practice in Paris. He became a member of the Academy of Medicine in Paris, later…
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Jules Amar (1879–1935). A method to help soldiers who were amputated or mutilated during the First World War reintegrate society
Philippe CampilloZiad Joseph RahalFrance Jules Amar (1879–1935) may not be well known in medical texts, but his work helped initiate two important scientific disciplines: the physiology of work and ergonomics. In The performance of the human machine: research on work (1909)1 Amar wrote of the need for a biological analysis of social life, especially that…
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Cancer class
Emily DieckmanTuscon, Arizona, United States When my parents told me about the cancer, everything felt different. It seemed the entire world had suddenly gone from plain font to italics – everything was still legible, but newly emphasized by this cold, sharp, intrusive fact. I was not prepared to make room for something like this. I…
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Thomas Bayes and Bayes’ Theorem in medicine
Geoffrey BairdSeattle, Washington, United States Medical nomenclature is often ridiculous. One professor in my medical school used to say of misnomers in medicine that they were like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor much of an empire. So goes the medical and mathematical principle of Bayes’ theorem. Thomas Bayes was…
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How a bishop unwittingly kick-started the DNA revolution
William KingstonDublin, Ireland In 1943 a series of lectures was delivered in Trinity College, Dublin, which had profound scientific and medical consequences. Their title was What is Life? and it is no exaggeration to claim that they led to a revolution in our knowledge and use of genes. The lecturer was Erwin Schrödinger, who had…