Tag: Tuberculosis
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Koch’s postulates revisited
JMS Pearce Hull, England Van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1722), a Dutch botanist, using his early microscope observed single-celled bacteria, which he reported to the Royal Society as animalcules. The science of bacteriology owes its origin to two scientists of coruscating originality, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Pasteur may be described as master-architect and Koch as master-builder…
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Jane Eyre and tuberculosis
Afsheen Zafar Rawalpindi, Pakistan I had just put down my pen after the last patient left the room. She somehow reminded me of the Brontë sisters. She had been diagnosed with tuberculous axillary lymphadenitis after a biopsy but otherwise seemed to be in perfect health. Apparently she was not much disturbed by the diagnosis…
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Dr. Doyen separates conjoined twins in 1902
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.”– Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Eugène Louis Doyen, M.D. (1859–1916), was an internationally known Parisian surgeon. He was a “skilled and innovative physician,”1 famous for his dexterity and the speed of his operations.2 He wrote a…
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America’s first bronchoscopist
J. Gordon Frierson Palo Alto, California, United States Autographed portrait of Chevalier Jackson. Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. One day, in the tough coal-mining city of Pittsburgh of the early 1900s, two Sisters of Mercy brought an emaciated, severely dehydrated, seven-year-old girl to a doctor’s office. Sometime earlier the girl had swallowed lye, thinking…
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Infectious diseases in the Civil War
Lloyd Klein San Francisco, California, United States The main cause of death during the American Civil War was not battle injury but disease. About two-thirds of the 620,000 deaths of Civil War soldiers were caused by disease, including 63% of Union fatalities. Only 19% of Union soldiers died on the battlefield and 12% later succumbed to…
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Robert Koch, M.D., and the cure for sleeping sickness: ethics versus economics
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Primum non nocere. (First, do no harm.)— Hippocrates Robert Koch, M.D., (1843–1910) started his career as a country doctor and discovered the causes of tuberculosis, anthrax, and cholera. He is considered to be, along with Louis Pasteur, the founder of the field of bacteriology. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology…
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Samuel Johnson: “The great convulsionary”
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Samuel Johnson. Portrait by Joshua Reynolds, 1772. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. This paper reproduces in an abridged form an earlier article by its author1 appraising the evidence that Samuel Johnson suffered from Tourette’s syndrome. Several authors have commented on the many eccentricities of Dr. Samuel Johnson (Fig 1).2…
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Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte: tradition, assimilation, and healing
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States Fig 1. Susan La Flesche Picotte. 1889. Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center Archives & Special Collections. Published with permission. “My office hours are any and all hours of the day and night.” — Susan LaFlesche Picotte1 It was August of 1889 and Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte…