One hundred and twenty years from the former 'Pavilion for Clinical Observation' to the National Lunatic Asylum, later Institute of Psychiatry - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
The Pavilion for Clinical Observation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also known as the Pavilion for Admissions, was designed by Professor of Psychiatry João Carlos Texeira Brandão (1854–1921). It was based on the influence of French alienism as a forum for the screening and evaluation of possible mental illness and the forwarding to the National Lunatic Asylum of patients so diagnosed. It was officially created by the Federal Brazilian Decree number 1559 of October 1893 in order to assess the appropriate disposal of suspects sent by the police. The Pavilion was the first University Psychiatric Hospital in B...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Mathias, C., Vercosa, N., Anselme, C., Nardi, A. E. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Victor Vaughan (1851-1929) and the birth of bacteriology in the United States
Victor Vaughan is well known for his numerous accomplishments and services to science, medicine, and public health. This paper discusses one of Dr Vaughan’s earliest and most significant accomplishments: founding the Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Michigan in 1887, the first in the United States. The vision, initiative and planning demonstrated by this episode illustrate the characteristics that enabled Vaughan to have such an accomplished and storied career. (Source: Journal of Medical Biography)
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Saadeh, Y., Bartlett, R. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Thomas Eshelby (1769-1811), Nelsons Surgeon
We present a vignette of this young Yorkshireman and reflect on his life and times. Eshelby was a competent and conscientious surgeon and was certainly held in high regard by Nelson. Quite a few documents pertaining to his tour of duty in the Mediterranean and to his later appointment at Plymouth have been archived. These shed valuable light on his professional life, betraying his clinical acumen, his conscientious and pragmatic nature and his demeanour toward both his peers and his superiors. Eshelby was also the patriarch of an enterprising family including three generations of surgeons and others with eponymous discover...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Khan, S., Saeed, I., Brinsden, M. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Qutb al-Din Shirazi (1236-1311), Persian polymath physician in the medieval period
Qutb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, a great physician in the medieval period of the Iranian Islamic age, is also called Allāma (polymath) for his extraordinary expertise in almost all fields of contemporary sciences. The peaceful and cultural environment of his hometown and family contributed to his development despite a time of horror from Mongolian repeated invasions of the Islamic countries. Shīrāzī never ceased learning and researching and migrated widely in order to find scientists to learn from them. He worked in many centres as a teacher and researcher. He practised medicine ...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Nadim, M., Farjam, M. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Sir Harold Ridley (1906-2001): televising and filming ophthalmic surgery and eye examinations
Sir Harold Ridley is well known for his pioneering intraocular lens implantation surgery. He also had a significant commitment to the televising and filming of surgery. In his 1950 Television in Ophthalmology paper, Ridley describes the techniques he used to capture his surgery in monochrome and later in full colour for audiences at St Thomas' Hospital. (Source: Journal of Medical Biography)
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Emsley, E. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Pietro Manni (1778-1839) and the care of the apparently dead in the Age of Positivism
When can a man be declared ‘really dead’? Being able to determine whether an individual’s life has ended or not implies two important considerations, whether we can resuscitate him and avoid premature burial, the fear of which is termed ‘taphophobia’. By the end of the 18th century, several scientists were involved in the study of apparent death and resuscitation. Pietro Manni was an obstetrician who, affected by his brother’s death and his inability to help him, devoted himself to the study of apparent death, which became his aim in life. His Practical handbook for the care of the appar...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Cascella, M. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Dr John Dickinson (1832-1863): The man behind the bird
The surgeon/naturalists Dr John Kirk, Dr Charles Meller and Dr John Dickinson, associated with the Zambezi Expedition (1857–1864) under the leadership of Dr David Livingstone are, like him, credited with the discovery of new species’ of birds. A raptor, Falco dickinsoni, is named after Dr John Dickinson. Dickinson, born in the north east of England, trained in medicine in Newcastle upon Tyne. He volunteered to join the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa and arrived as part of a second group to join Bishop Frederick Mackenzie, then attempting to build a Mission in Magomero, on the Shire Mountain Plate...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Conacher, I. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin (1872-1915): Enlightenment or illness?
The similarity between psychotic symptoms and aspects of mystical experiences is well known. It has long been recognized that there are similarities between mystical and spiritual and psychotic experiences. The content of an experience alone usually does not determine whether an individual is psychotic. The Russian composer Scriabin (1872–1915) was among the most famous artists of his time. Scriabin infused his music with mysticism, evolving a modernistic idiom through which he created a musical counterpart to the Symbolist literature of that period. In this paper, we discuss the question that arises from perusing Sc...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Witztum, E., Lerner, V. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Johannitius (809-873 AD), a medieval physician, translator and author
The medieval physician, translator and author Abū Zayd Hunayn ibn Ishāq al-'Ibādī, best known in the West as Johannitius, is considered the best translator of Greek texts, particularly medical writings, into Arabic. He made great inroads in the art of translation in the Islamic world. In addition to his own translations, Johannitius put significant effort into training pupils and passing knowledge about translation to succeeding generations. He was also a great writer, compiling over 100 books on different subjects, especially medical. Among his own works, the illustrious Kitab al-Ashr Maqalat f...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Dalfardi, B., Daneshfard, B., Nezhad, G. S. M. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
The development of artificial organs and prostheses worldwide and in the Ottoman Empire
An artificial organ or prosthesis is a man-made device that is implanted or integrated into a human to replace a natural organ. There were many historical steps in the development of artificial organs and prostheses. New surgical techniques, the development of prosthetic materials and the creative ideas of engineers led to progress in this field. (Source: Journal of Medical Biography)
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Birdane, L., Cingi, C., Elcioglu, O., Muluk, N. B. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Stefan Jellinek (1871-1968): The only professor of electro-pathology
The exploding use of electricity in homes and industry in the second half of the 19th century was accompanied by many injuries and fatalities from electric currents. Their study by my father was the serendipitous outcome of his early work on possible blood pressure changes from electric currents in a career that started in internal medicine. It became his limited field of electro-pathology which embraced first aid, the care of the injured, histopathology and accident prevention. He was an enthusiastic teacher and collector of specimens, from tree trunks struck by lightning down to the microscopy of accidental and experimen...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Jellinek, E. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Joseph Lovell, MD (1788-1836): First US army surgeon general
Joseph Lovell, trained in medicine at Harvard and in military medicine/surgery by the War of 1812, became the first Surgeon General to sit on the reorganised army staff at the tender age of 29 in 1818. With a keen intellect, medical acumen, and wartime experiences for his tools and a close supporting relationship with Commanding General Jacob Jennings Brown and Secretary of War John C Calhoun (1728–1850), Lovell constructed an efficient and effective organisational and administrative framework for the new Medical Department of the US Army. Moreover, he not only redefined the role of the American military physician bu...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Craig, S. C. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
James Moores Ball: Ophthalmologist, medical historian, bibliophile
James Moores Ball (1862–1929) was an ophthalmologist in St. Louis, Missouri, who excelled as a medical historian and collector of rare and historic books about the history of anatomy. During his lifetime, he was best known as the author of a comprehensive, authoritative, and popular textbook titled Modern Ophthalmology. First published in 1904, there were five further editions. Ball was very interested in the history of anatomy and wrote two books on this subject, the first being a biography of Andreas Vesalius, one of the earliest in English, and the second a history of the resurrection men or grave robbers who sold...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Feibel, R. M. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
The Pre-Anschluss Vienna School of Medicine - The medical scientists: Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) and Otto Loewi (1873-1961)
Two famous medical scientists are described whose major advances were made largely from laboratory-based research. Karl Landsteiner, who received the Nobel Prize in 1930, was the discoverer or co-discoverer of the blood groups and the Rhesus factor. He contributed to the understanding of poliomyelitis, syphilis and typhus. He made major contributions to immunology, inter alia by isolating haptens. After World War I, he left Austria and continued his work initially in the Netherlands and then at the Rockefeller Institute in the USA. Otto Loewi, a pharmacologist, received his Nobel Prize (jointly with his life-long friend, S...
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - August 3, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Shaw, L. B., Shaw, R. A. Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research
Manoj Ramachandran and Jeffrey K Aronson (ed.), Doctoring history: Treasures from the Journals Archive of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1809-1907
(Source: Journal of Medical Biography)
Source: Journal of Medical Biography - June 2, 2016 Category: History of Medicine Authors: Emery, A. E. Tags: Book review Source Type: research
