A
Selected Chronological Bibliography of Biology and Medicine
Part 1B
Compiled by James Southworth
Steen, Ph.D.
Delta State University
Dedicated to my loving family
This document celebrates those secondary authors and laboratory technicians
without whom most of this great labor of discovery would have proved
impossible.
Please forward any editorial comments to: James S. Steen,
Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, DSU Box 3262, Cleveland, MS 38733.
jsteen08@bellsouth.net
1637
René Descartes (FR) within his Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and
Meteorology explained his principles of investigation: "The first of
these was to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so:
that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice in judgments and
to accept in them nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly
and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt it. The second was to
divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as many parts as
possible, and as seemed requisite in order that it might be resolved in the
best manner possible. The third was to carry on my reflections into order,
commencing with objects that were the more simple and easy to understand, in
order to rise little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex
assuming order, even it be a fictitious one, among those which do not follow a
natural sequence relatively to one another. The last was in all cases to make
enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I should be certain of
having omitted nothing."
Included within one of the Essays
is La Dioptrique, the first publication of the “Law of
Refraction”, in which he demonstrates the rectilinear transmission of light and
compares the human eye to a camera. Rene Descartes (444; 446; 448).
Thomas Morton (GB) wrote New English Canaan (1637)
with treatments of 26 species of mammals, 32 birds, 20 fishes and 8 marine
invertebrates (1074).
1638
Galileo Galilei (IT) worked out the isochronism of the pendulum in
the Cathedral of Pisa using his pulse (577; 578).
The Countess of Chinchon (ES), wife of the Viceroy of Peru, was
cured of a fever (malaria; the ague)
by powdered quinquina (cinchona) bark, a native remedy. She returned to Spain
in 1641 with a supply of quinquina bark, which became known in Europe as the Countess’s powder. Later it was
imported in large quantities by the Jesuits and became known as Jesuit’s bark. The tree was described in
1738 and given the genus name Chinchona
in honor of the Countess.
Juan del Vego (ES), physician to the countess, in 1641, was the
first European to employ the tincture of the cinchona bark, containing
quinidine, for treating malaria (the
ague). The aborigines of Peru and Ecuador had been using it for treating fevers
since before recorded time (119; 918).
Hermann van der Heyden (BE) authored Discours et Advis sur les Flus de Ventre Doloureux. It contains the
first European medical reference to cinchona bark (Peruvian bark) for treating malaria (the ague) (1593). This remedy was also known as quina bark (contains quinine) and
later as the Countesse’s powder and Jesuit’s bark.
Nicolas de Blégny (FR) and John Talbor (GB) popularized a
treatment for malaria, the ague in
England and France. Tabor became wealthy and famous yet refused to divulge his
formula for financial and religious/political reasons. At that time anything
associated with the Catholic Church was out of favor in England. Talbor’s
treatment was nothing more than the hated Jesuit’s
Powder (ground cinchona bark containing quinine) which the catholic church
had been shipping from South America and Cardinal John de Lugo had tried in
vain to persuade Europe to accept (385; 1539).
Richard Morton (GB), in 1696, presented the first detailed
description of the clinical picture of malaria
(the ague) and its treatment with cinchona (1073).
Francisci Torti (IT), in 1732, established the specific nature of
cinchona bark (contains quinine). His demonstration of its effectiveness in
treating periodic over continuous fevers finally overthrew the doctrine of the
common origin of all fevers. He is also credited with the introduction of the
term malaria (bad air) (1559).
Hipólito Ruiz (ES), in 1792, described seven species of cinchona
and praised the medicinal qualities of a quina extract that he had developed
(contains quinine) (1318).
Bernardino Antonio Gomes (PT) reported that the bark of grey
quinquina (Cinchona condaminea) from
Loxa (Loja, Ecuador) contained a crystalline principle that he named cinchonine
but did not notice its main property, alkalinity (616).
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou (FR)
isolated the alkaloid quinine (1166; 1167).
Peter Muehlens (DE) synthesized plasmochin (plasmoquine), the first drug to be synthesized with a marked
activity against human malaria
parasites (1076).
Ernest Francois Auguste Fourneau (FR), Jacques Gustave Marie
Tréfouel (FR), G. Stefanopuolo (FR), Yvonne de Lestrange (FR), K.L. Melville
(FR), Thérèse Tréfouel (FR), Daniel Bovet (FR), Melle Germaine Benoit (FR),
Onisim Yul'yevich Magidson (RU), and I.Th.
Strukow (RU) produced plasmocid
(Fourneau 710) and 8-aminoquinoline, active antimalarial drugs (560; 561; 968).
Hans Mauss (DE) and Fritz Mietzch (DE), in 1931, synthesized the
antimalarial drug mepacrine hydrochloride
(quinacrine hydrochloride, Atabrine quinacrine,
mepacrine, atebrin, chinacrin, erion, acriquine, acrichine, palacrin, metoquin, halchin) (1005).
It was marketed in 1932.
Hans Andersag (DE), in 1934, synthesized resochin (chloroquine) (37).
Frank Henry Swinton Curd (GB), D. Garnet Davey (GB), and Francis
Leslie Rose (GB) synthesized proguanil
(paludrine) in 1944. This drug has
low toxicity and high activity against falciparum
malaria. They first tested proguanil against avian malaria in 1945 (341; 1309).
M.B. Braude (RU) and V.I. Stavrovskaya (RU) synthesized quinocide
in 1945 (201).
Neil Hamilton Fairley (AU) proved that one tablet of Atabrine (100 mg.) a day would prevent
overt attacks of malaria (the ague), curing
those cases due to Plasmodium falciparum
and postponing clinical manifestations of P.
vivax infections until the drug was withheld
(511).
1640
Guillaume de Baillou; William of Ballion; Wilhelm Ballonius (FR)
wrote, Epidemiorum et Ephemeridum Libri
Duo, the first modern book on epidemiology and the first since Hippocrates.
It contains the first detailed description of whooping cough as a
distinct entity (384).
1641
Nicolaas Tulp; Nicholas Tulpius; Nicolaes Tulp; Claes
Pieters; Nicolaus Petrejus; Nicholaus Petrus (NL) wrote, Observationes Medicae, one of the best medical books of the period.
It contained many pathological findings and records of post-mortem
examinations. It described and pictured the ileocecal valve, still known as
Tulp’s valve, and discussed kidney stones, tapeworms, diphtheria, bronchial casts, pulsation of the spleen, and beri-beri
(1570). Tulp described the first of the great apes (a chimpanzee)
brought alive to Europe in 1641. Rembrandt van Rijn (NL) immortalized him in
his painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr.
Tulp.
Francois de Le Boë; Franciscus Sylvius (DE-NL) described a fissure
on the lateral surface of the brain (901). Caspar Bartholin (DK) commemorated him by naming it the Sylvian fissure (80).
Moritz Hoffmann (DE), in 1641, claimed to have described the ductus pancreaticus (duct of Wirsüng,
Hoffmann’s duct), the main excretory duct of the pancreas in the turkey. This work was not published.
Johann Georg Wirsüng (DE) discovered the pancreatic duct in man
yet incorrectly thought it was a chyliferous vessel originating in the
intestine and entering the pancreas (1786).
1643
Charles Bouvard (FR), the king's physician, had probably
prescribed 47 bloodlettings during the last 10 years of Louis XIII of France who
died of Crohn’s disease at the age of 42 years (276).
1644
René Descartes (FR) proposed the idea for the Nebular Hypothesis.
It stated that the solar system formed because "God sent adrift a number
of 'vortices' of swirling gas, and these eventually made the stars, which later
changed themselves into comets, which in turn still later formed themselves
into planets" (447).
Evangelista Torricelli (IT) sent a letter to Michelangelo Ricci in
Rome describing his invention, the barometer (1558).
Jean Claude de la Courvée (FR), in 1644, performed the first
symphysiotomy (division of the fibrocartilage of the symphysis pubis, to facilitate delivery). The operation was
performed to save the life of the child after the death of the mother.
Jean-Réne Sigault; Joseph Aignan Sigaud de Lafond (FR) and Alphonse
Louis Vincent Leroy (FR)
performed the first division of the symphysis
pubis to enlarge the pelvic outlet and thus facilitate childbirth by a
women deformed by rachitis; the mother and child survived (1435; 1436).
James Vaughan (GB) wrote a paper on symphysiotomy (1652).
1645
Marco Aurelio Severino (IT) published his Zootomia Democritaea, the culmination of forty years of anatomical
research, in which he discusses his research on the similarities that unify the
living beings. It is widely considered the first work of comparative anatomy (1428).
1646
Athanasius Kircher (DE-IT), following his early work with the
microscope, speculated that disease and decay might be brought about by the
activities of tiny living creatures. He says that with the aid of two convex
lenses, held together in a tube, he observed ‘minute ”worms” in all decaying
substances’ —in milk, in the blood of persons stricken with fever, and in the
spittle ‘of an old man who had lived soberly’ (845; 846). He observed microorganisms in the
blood of patients (847).
Wilhelm Fabry; Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus (DE) was the first well-educated
barber-surgeon in Germany. He pioneered amputation above the diseased part in
gangrene, invented many surgical instruments, was the first to recognize
congenital pyloric stenosis, and the first Western European to use the magnet
for removal of iron splinters in the eye (509).
1647-1648
Yellow fever is epidemic in the West Indies.
1647
Yellow fever killed more than 5,000 people in
Barbados, and spread from there to Mexico, Cuba, and elsewhere. A second
outbreak in 1691 killed many of the British settlers in Barbados, who had
arrived since the earlier outbreak, whereas older natives were by this time
immune (858).
1648
Jan Baptiste van Helmont; Joannes Baptiste van Helmont; Joan Baptiste
van Helmont; Johannes Baptiste van Helmont (NL) determined that the gas given off by
burning charcoal is the same as that given off by fermenting grape juice. He called it spiritus silvestre (“wild spirit”). Today we recognize this as the
discovery of carbon dioxide. He speculated that the process of digestion
supplies heat to the body (1596).
Joseph Black (GB) rediscovered carbon dioxide, which he called fixed air, by showing that it is
released when magnesium carbonate or calcium carbonate are heated. He
identified the carbon dioxide thus prepared with that formed in combustion and
fermentation by showing that when the gas was passed into limewater the
carbonate of lime was generated. He was the first to breath into limewater and
observe the formation of a precipitate of calcium carbonate. This experiment
was to influence Antoine Laurent Lavoisier’s (FR) conclusion that respiration
involves combustion within the body. Black is also credited with discovery of
the specific heats of substances (145-148).
Georgius Marcgravus (DE), Willem Piso (NL), Johannes de Laet (BE-NL),
and Franciscus Hackius (NL) described among other animals 100 species of fish
indigenous to the Brazilian coastline (1195).
Another smallpox (red
plague) outbreak spread to many towns in the Massachusetts colony. By this time
there had been many children born in the colony who were susceptible. A
simultaneous epidemic of whooping cough
added to the severity of the epidemic, and to the overall death toll (858).
In response to epidemics of yellow fever in Barbados, Cuba, and
the Yucatan, a strict quarantine was established in Boston, Massachusetts, for
all ships arriving from the West Indies because of “ye plague or like
in[fectious] disease.” (1029)
1649
René Descartes (FR), in 1649, postulated that impulses originating
in the sensory receptors of the body were carried to the central nervous system
where they activated muscles by what he called reflection (445).
Jean Astruc (FR) compared the transformation of an impression or
sensation into a motor discharge to a ray of light reflected on a surface; he
called it a reflex (57).
Gerard Blasius; Gerhard Bläes; Gerardus Leonardus Blasius (NL) was the
first to provide a demonstration of the origin of the anterior and posterior
spinal nerve roots and a differentiation between the gray and white matter of
the spinal cord. He was the first to illustrate clearly the H shape of gray
matter in a cross-section of the spinal cord (154; 155).
Domenico Mistichelli (IT) identified the crossing of motor
fibers at the ventral surface of the medulla oblongata (1048).
Francois Pourfour du Petit (FR) gave a
brief account of the internal structure of the spinal cord, one of the first
descriptions having significant merit, and presented his theory of
contralateral innervation (1212).
Francois Pourfour du Petit (FR), in
1712, showed
that the origin of the sympathetic nerves is not the cranium. He later cut the
cervical sympathetic nerves in the dog and noted that this affected pupil size,
the nictitating membrane, and secretions from the eye. He
described the decussation of the pyramids more accurately and in greater detail
than his predecessors and was among the first to deduce that the right side of
the brain must control the left side of the body, whereas the left side of the
brain must control the right side of the body (1213).
Johann Jakob Huber (CH) gave the
first detailed and accurate descriptions of the spinal cord, spinal roots, and
denticulate ligaments (778).
Robert Whytt (GB) removed known regions of the central nervous
system and studied how animals reacted thereafter to various stimuli. He
established that the spinal cord is essential for reflex action, described the
pupillary response to light, Whytt’s
reflex, noting that destruction of the anterior corpora quadrigemina abolished the reaction. He reasoned that the
reception of sensory input was distributed throughout the brain and spinal cord (1766).
Felix Vicq-d'Azyr (FR) established the arrangement of the
fiber bundles of the spinal cord into a posterior and two lateral columns and a
white anterior commissure (1660).
Karl Friedrich Burdach (DE) described the fasciculus cuneatus (247).
Marshall Hall (GB) introduced the concept that the spinal cord is
a chain of segments whose functional units are separate reflex arcs. He
demonstrated tonic closure of the sphincters by reflex action, cessation of
strychnine convulsions after destruction of the spinal cord, and that most
reflexes are more readily elicited by stimulating appropriate end-organs than
through their bared nerve trunks. He coined the use of the phrase reflex action to describe these
functions (661; 1721).
Benedict Stilling (DE) and Joseph Wallach (DE) devised a microtome
which
enabled him to cut frozen or alcohol hardened, thin sections and examine them,
unstained, with the microscope.
They were the first to study the spinal cord in serial sections (1497).
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) found that the posterior
columns of the spinal cord convey some sensory impressions. The most important
sensory pathways were found to cross in the cord and, if anything, damage will
cause hypersensitivity on the ipsilateral side of the spinal cord. Paralysis,
loss of muscle sense, hyperasthesia to touch and painful stimuli, and
conservation of sensation to cold and warmth, all appeared on the same side as
spinal cord lesions. On the opposite side voluntary movement and an intact
muscle sense were conserved, however there was a loss or diminution of pain,
warmth, cold, and touch (225-227; 231-234).
Ludwig Türck (AT) described the
ventral corticospinal tract (1571), and divided the cord into six pathways or
tracts: two anterior, two lateral, and two posterior (1572).
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) is associated as a clinician
with the description of the syndrome following spinal cord hemi-section, the
so-called Brown-Séquard paralysis,
characterized by the loss of motor power and position sense on the side of the
lesion, with loss of pain and thermal sensibility on the side opposite the
lesion. His experiments showed that the principal conduction of sensation
in the cord is in the central grey matter and anterior columns, rather than in
the conventionally accepted posterior columns (228-230).
Jacob Augustus Lockhart Clarke (GB) described the dorsal nucleus
of the spinal cord. A column of large neurons located in the base of the
posterior grey column (columna dorsalis)
of the spinal cord, extending from the first thoracic through the second lumbar
segment. The neurites reach out into the side-chord to form tractus spinecerebellaris posterior (295). These are called Clarke’s
columns.
Friedrich Goll (CH) described the fasciculus gracilis (carries
proprioception from the lower limbs and lower
trunk)
within the spinal cord (column or tract of Goll)
(614).
Paul Emil Flechsig (DE) demonstrated
the dorsal spinocerebellar tract
within the spinal cord (527).
William Richard Gowers (GB) delineated
the ventral spinocerebellar tract
within the spinal cord (619).
Heinrich Lissauer (DE) demonstrated
the tractus dorsolateralis - the
poorly myelinated fibers capping the apex of the posterior horn in the spinal
cord (931).
Henry Charlton Bastian (GB) provided the basis for what became Bastian's law: a transverse lesion of
the spinal cord above the lumbar enlargement results in abolition of the tendon
reflexes of the lower extremities (92).
Constantin von Monakow (RU-CH) described the rubrospinal tract within the spinal cord (1704).
Joseph Jules Déjérine (CH-FR) described radicular myotomes and
dermatomes, the somatotopy and connections of the pyramidal tracts, as well as
the lateral and ventral spinothalamic
tracts. He demonstrated the lateral
and anterior spinothalamic tracts (the faisceau
en croissant de Dejerine) (438).
Bror Rexed (SE) divided the grey matter of the spinal cord of
the cat into 10 (I-X) laminae based
on groupings of neuronal size and distribution. Each contained functionally
distinct neurons and axonal projections (1283). See,
Herophilus, c. 300 B.C.E.; Galen, c. 175; Fernel, 1526; Ridley, 1695;
Descartes, 1649.
William Harvey (GB) became convinced that systole, rather than diastole,
is the active part of the cardiac cycle that begins first in the atria (681; 686).
A smallpox (red plague)
epidemic passes through London.
c. 1650
The specific expression, "Above all, do no harm" and its
even more distinctive associated Latin phrase, Primum est ut non nocere, has been traced back to an attribution to
Thomas Sydenham (GB), c. 1650 (820; 1441).
Hippocrates (GR), in 400 B.C.E. wrote,
"The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and
foretell the future- must mediate these things, and have two special objects in
view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm" (743).
1650
Jean Bauhin (FR-CH), Johann Heinrich Cherler (CH) in their Historia Plantarum Universalis, dealt
with approximately 5,000 plants. They were among the first, after Aristotle, to
distinguish the species from the genus (96). Bauhin is commemorated with the genus Bauhina.
Joannus Jonstonus; Jan Jonston (PL) replaced Mollia with the term
Mollusca (830).
Francis Glisson (GB) wrote the first authoritative monograph
published in England dealing with a single disease, rickets (Old English, wrikken, to bend or twist) (601; 603).
Henry R. Viets (GB) had earlier written a less authoritative
treatise on rickets (1761; 1762).
1651
"Almost all animals, even those which bring forth their young
alive, and man himself, are produced from eggs.” Often quoted as “omne vivum ex ovo." William Harvey (683)
Note: The
mammalian ovum was discovered nearly two centuries later. See, von Baer, 1827.
"The blood is the first engendered part, whence the living
principle in the first instance gleams forth, and from which the first animated
particle of the embryo is formed; that it is the source and origin of all other
parts, both similar and dissimilar, which thence obtain their vital heat and
become subservient to it in its duties." William Harvey (682).
Nathaniel Highmore (GB) and William Harvey (GB) were among the
first people to carefully study the embryonic development of chickens,
concluding that all life comes from eggs. Harvey described in detail the
anatomical changes occurring in the uterus of the deer during pregnancy and
gave evidence that the ancient doctrine stating that the male semen functioned
to organize matter contained within the uterus was incorrect (682; 683; 685; 735). Note: This work is viewed as
original because it brought embryology out of the Dark Ages. Highmore's
account of the development of the chick is the first embryological study based
on microscopical examination predating Marcello Malpighi by more than twenty
years. It was published within weeks of William Harvey's book. Harvey and
Highmore had collaborated on embryological research at Oxford since the 1640's.
William Harvey (GB) described the air sacs of birds in detail (683). See, Frederick II, c.
1240.
Jean Pecquet (FR) and Johannes van Horne (DK) discovered that in
dogs the cisterna chyli (receptaculum chyli) flow into the thoracic
duct (ductus thoracius) which in turn
opens into the veins at the union of the jugular and subclavian (1163; 1164; 1599). See,
Bartolomeo Eustachi, 1552.
Olof Rudbeck the elder (SE) discovered that the lacteals of Aselli
drain into the receptaculum chyli,
thence into the thoracic duct and thence into the great veins of the neck, and
that on opening the duct’s milky chyle flows out in profusion if, before the
experiment, the animal has been well fed (1119; 1316; 1481).
Thomas Bartholin; Bartholinus (DK) and his assistant Michael Lyser
(DK) reached a very similar conclusion in man: that the lymphatics formed a
hitherto unrecognized physiological system which eventually collects into the
thoracic duct which enters the circulation at the left subclavian vein. They
were the first to find the thoracic duct in man and to realize that lymph is
carried away from the liver to the thoracic duct
(81; 82; 85; 86).
William Hunter (GB) rediscovered lymphatic vessels in man when he
reported, "that they are the same as the lacteals, and that these together
constitute one great general system dispersed through the whole body for
absorption; that this system only does absorb, and not the veins; that it
serves to take up and convey whatever is to make or to be mixed with the blood,
from the skin, from the intestinal canal, and from all the internal cavities or
surfaces whatever" (796). See, Hewson, 1771.
Alexander Monro, secundus
(GB) showed that the lymphatics are absorbents and distinct from the
circulatory system (1056).
Nathaniel Highmore (GB) discovered the maxillary sinus and the
mediastinal testis (734).
Leopoldina was founded in the Holy Roman Empire in what
is now Italy. It is the oldest continuously existing learned society in the
world.
1652
Jan Baptiste van Helmont; Joannes Baptiste van Helmont; Joan
Baptiste van Helmont; Johannes Baptiste van Helmont (NL) wrote Ortis Medicinae in which he described
how he performed a famous experiment. He grew a willow tree in a weighed
quantity of soil and showed that after five years, during which time he only
added water; the tree had gained 164 pounds while the soil had lost only two
ounces. Although he incorrectly concluded that the tree converted the water
into its own tissues, this is possibly the first application of a quantitative
method to a biological problem.
He made gravimetric studies of urine and is credited with the
discovery of carbon dioxide and emphasizing the use of the balance in chemistry
and coining the word gas. He described gastric digestion in the terms of
fermentation and states that there is an acid ferment in the stomach but the
acid itself is not the ferment. The acid chyme of the stomach passes into the
duodenum where it becomes alkaline and a second ferment is supplied by the
bile. He is considered the founder of the iatro-chemical
school of medicine (1597; 1598).
John Hunter (GB) later said, "These appearances throw
considerable light on the principle of digestion, and show that it is neither a
mechanical power, nor contractions of the stomach, nor heat, but something
secreted in the coats of the stomach, and thrown into its cavity, which there
animalizes the food or assimilates it to the nature of the blood. The power of
this juice is confined or limited to certain substances, especially of the
vegetable and animal kingdoms; and although this menstruum is capable of acting
independently of the stomach, yet it is indebted to that viscus for its
continuance." (784)
Edward Stevens (GB) had a human subject swallow large silver
containers with perforations “capable of admitting a needle.” The containers
were recovered some thirty-six to forty-eight hours later, after they had
passed through the digestive tract. He tested beef, pork, cheese, pheasant,
vegetables of different sorts, and cereal grains. Usually the foods were found
to have been completely dissolved, but unbroken cereal grains appeared not to
have been altered. Ivory balls were dissolved and disappeared (1460; 1462; 1496).
Lazzaro Spallanzani (IT) swallowed linen bags containing various
foodstuffs to study the action of digestion upon the contents. He studied the
action of saliva on foodstuffs and was among the first to isolate human gastric
juice for study (1459; 1461).
Lazzaro Spallanzani (IT) obtained stomach juice from people with a
little sponge on a thread, which people swallowed, and which was removed. The
experiment showed that the stomach juice dissolves meat but does not dissolve a
flower. This work discovered that the gastric juice is acidic and contains
hydrochloric acid (1460).
Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli (IT) studied the gastric juice from
sheep, cats, fish, and birds. He determined that it is acidic in carnivores
while in herbivores it is alkaline and putrescent. He ascertained that the
gastric juice of carnivorous animals had great curative powers when applied to
foul ulcers or wounds, but that of herbivorous animals was destitute of this
property. He succeeded in determining the solvent powers of the gastric juice
from birds on metals, calcareous stones, rock crystal, and agate (236-238).
Bassiano Carminati (IT) found that gastric juice is not acidic in
carnivorous animals when fasting, but quite acidic in those that had eaten. He discovered that gastric juice of
carnivores could be used successfully to treat foul ulcers or wounds (267).
"an unknown affection occurred at
Leipzig in 1652 and returned again in 1665. It attacked puerperal women and was
so deadly that but one in ten escaped". (250; 1141; 1410) Note: very
likely what was later called puerperal fever
The Academia Naturae Curiosorum was founded. It later became
Kaiserlich Leopoldinisch Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher
[Royal Leopold and Caroline German Academy of Natural Sciences].
1653
Pierre Borel; Petri Borelli () and Isaac Cattier;
Isaaci Cattieri () were the first to observe and describe a free-living
nematode, which was dubbed the "vinegar eel" (178).
William Harvey (GB) was the first to describe the communication of
the avian pulmonary air-passages with air sacs in the abdominal cavity (684).
John Hunter (GB), in 1758, demonstrated that the air sacs of some
birds extend into their bones. He
proved that birds' bones are hollow and contain air sacs by blocking the
windpipes of chickens and hawks then cutting through their wings. The birds
could yet fill their lungs with air, though with great difficulty, by taking in
air through their severed wing bones (785; 789).
1654
Francis Glisson (GB) described the passage of blood from the
portal vein to the vena cava, and proved that lymph flows not to the liver, as
was then believed, but from it, passing to the recently discovered capsula communis. He is remembered for
his description of the fibrous sheath enveloping the portal vein, hepatic
artery and duct, still known as Glisson’s
capsule. He believed that bile is excrement derived from
the portal blood with blood purified by the liver returning to circulation by
way of the vena cava (602).
Francis Glisson (GB) carried out the most detailed investigation
of the liver anatomy up to this point in history
(602).
Francis Glisson (GB) described the
sphincteric fibers around the terminus of the common bile duct (602).
Ruggero Oddi (IT) later described
these same fibers (1124). They became known as Oddi’s sphincter.
1655
Thomas Willis (GB) wrote a book on the epidemic of “Camp Fever”
(typhus) in the winter of 1655 (1779).
John Huxham (GB) distinguished between slow nervous (typhoid) and putrid malignant (typhus) fevers (813).
James Lind (GB) studied typhus
then recommended delousing, viz., bathing, clean apparel, and baking of
lice-ridden clothing in ovens (922).
Francesco Enrico Acerbi (IT) postulated that typhus is caused by parasites capable of entering the body and
multiplying there to produce disease (10).
William Wood Gerhard (US) presented a differential diagnosis of
typhus and typhoid fevers (593).
Charles Murchison (GB) stated that to
prevent endemic typhus one must protect the
individual from lice (1093).
Osip Moczutkowski (RU) proved that the
etiological agent of endemic typhus
is present in the blood during the febrile period by inoculating himself with such blood (1049).
Charles Jules Henri Nicolle (FR), Charles Compte (FR) and Ernest
Conseil (FR) reported that the body louse, Pediculus
vestimenti, transmits typhus fever from person to person (1115; 1117).
Howard Taylor Ricketts (US) and Russell M. Wilder (US) described a
bacterium, later named Rickettsia
prowazekii, found in the gut of lice feeding on typhus patients (1284; 1285).
Harry Plotz (US), Peter K. Olitsky (US), and Geoege Baehr (US)
isolated and identified the etiological agent of typhus fever as Rickettsia prowazekii (1199; 1200).
Harry Plotz (US), Peter K. Olitsky (US), and George Baehr (US)
developed a vaccine that proved effective against typhus fever (1201).
Henrique da Rocha-Lima (BR) showed that the bacterium which
Ricketts and Wilder found in the gut of lice feeding on typhus patients, is an intracellular parasite and very likely the
cause of typhus. He named the organism Rickettsia
prowazekii in honor of Howard Taylor Ricketts (US), who had died in 1910 of
typhus fever during an investigation
of that disease, and Stanislas Josef Matthias von Prowázek (CZ) who also died
of typhus while studying it (353).
Edmund Weil (AT) and Arthur Felix (PL-GB) reported that the sera
of patients suffering from typhus agglutinate certain strains of the bacterium Proteus, originally isolated from the
urine of a typhus fever victim. The OX-2 and OX-19 strains of Proteus are commonly used. Serum from
normal persons did not produce a similar result (1738-1740). Later studies showed that Proteus spp. are not the cause of typhus fever and that antibodies against
Proteus spp. normally occur quite
commonly in humans. Today this procedure is called the Weil-Felix Test.
Mather H. Neill (US) discovered that
scrotal reactions of guinea pigs with Mexican
typhus (later known as murine typhus)
could be used as a differential test with European,
or epidemic, typhus. It was first known as the Neill phenomenon; later
called the Neill-Mooser phenomenon after Neill and Herman Mooser, a Swiss
pathologist working in Mexico (1061; 1105).
William Fletcher (MY) and J.E. Lesslar (MY) found that the Proteus OX-K strain appears specifically
to agglutinate with antibodies to Rickettsia
tsutsugamushi (528).
M. Ruiz Castañeda (MX) and Samuel J. Zia (MX) found that there
is a common antigenic factor in Rickettsia
and Proteus X-19 which explains the Well-Felix reaction (271).
Hans Zinsser (US) demonstrated that Brill's disease is identical to Old World typhus caused by Rickettsia
prowazeki da Rocha Lima (1202; 1814-1816). The disease was renamed Brill-Zinsser’s disease.
Isaac de La Peyrère (FR) wrote one of the first books to challenge
the biblical account of creation. Based on human artifacts he asserted that
Adam and Eve were the founding couple only of the Jews. The Gentiles were
older—pre-Adam. His book became very popular—translated into several
languages—and thus earned him the ire of both the Catholics and the Calvinists.
His book was burned in Paris, he was forced to recant his ideas, then forced to
live out his life in a convent (874).
Conrad Victor Schneider (DE) argued that the nasal mucosa, and not
the ventricles or the brain, is the source of nasal secretions (1391). He did not know that the
racemose glands produce the nasal secretion.
1656
Thomas Wharton (GB) discovered the duct of the submaxillary
salivary gland (Wharton’s duct) and a gelatinous intercellular substance that
is the primitive mucoid connective tissue of the umbilical cord (Wharton’s jelly).
He
also deserves credit for being the first to associate the adrenal glands with a
function of the nervous system. His description of the adrenals taking a
substance from nerves and transferring it to veins preceded the neuroendocrine
concept of the adrenal medulla that we have only appreciated in the 20th
century (1760).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) confirmed Wharton’s work on the
adrenal glands (1699).
Dominici de Marchettis; Domenico De Marchetti; Dominicus de
Marchettis (IT) shows anastomosis of arterioles and veins by injection (419).
Étienne Blankaard; Steven Blankaart; Stephano Blancardo; Stephen Blancard;
Blancardus (NL) demonstrated by injection, in 1675, the continuity of arterial
and venous capillaries (153). See, Marello Malpighi
(IT), 1661. Leonardo da Vinci (IT), in his dissections (1489–1515),
injected the blood vessels with wax for preservation and thereby discovered and
named the capillaries.
1657-1669
A pandemic of malarial fever (the ague) takes place.
1657-1659
England experiences epidemic catarrhal fever (probably influenza).
1657
Boston, MA experienced a measles (rubeola) epidemic (1029).
Christopher Wren (GB) is credited with the creation of the first
syringe for intravenous injections by fastening a dog’s bladder to a sharpened
goose quill (597). Wren was preceded in 1652 in the use of this device by Francis
Potter, a British rector, whose choice of pullets as an experimental animal
doomed his experiments to failure (747; 841).
Johann Daniel Major (DE) and Johann S. Elsholtz (DE) wrote the
first books on intravenous infusions in humans (495; 972).
Dominique Anel (FR), a surgeon to the
seventeenth-century French army, is usually credited with the invention, in
1714, of the kind of syringe used today. He devised this instrument for the surgical
treatment of fistula lacrymalis (1223).
Francis Rynd (IE) invented the hollow metal needle. He first used
it in 1844 to administer morphine by gravity through the needle into a patient
suffering from neuralgia (1336).
Charles-Gabriel Pravaz (FR) and
Alexander Wood (GB) are independently credited with the invention of the
hypodermic syringe in 1853. Pravaz,
a veterinarian, made intra-arterial injections into animals to treat
aneurysm (1216).
Wood, a physician, first made subcutaneous injections of opiates to relieve pain (1793). The first recorded fatality from a hypodermic syringe induced
overdose was Dr. Wood's wife. The tragedy arose because she was injecting
morphine to excess.
The Academia del Cimento
was founded at Florence, Italy. Its purpose was scientific investigation.
1658-1665
Thomas Willis (GB) tells of typhus and influenza being present in
England. An outbreak of influenza in April 1658 led him to treat almost 1000
patients a week for a short period (1781).
1658
James Ussher (GB) calculated the date of creation, based on the
ages of biblical prophets. Using his calculations, future theologians identified
the date of creation as October 26, 4004 B.C.E. (1582).
Jan Swammerdam (NL) discovered the erythrocyte in the frog (1658)
then in man (1662), described lymphatic valves and the alteration in the shape
of muscles during contraction. In his study of the insects he produced
outstanding drawings, classified them, and described their transformations,
i.e., he started modern entomology. Swammerdam’s work was unpublished until
Herman Boerhaave (NL) published it at his own expense (1517; 1518). He is commemorated by Atylus
swammerdami Milne-Edwards, 1830. Note: The 1737-1738 book is
considered the finest one-man collection of microscopic observations.
Francois de la Boë Sylvius; Franciscus Sylvius (DE-NL) promoted
the Iatro-chemical school of
medicine, whose followers used medicines and did not accept the humoral pathology. While professor of
medicine at Leyden he convinced the authorities to build a Laboratorium, probably the first chemical laboratory in a
university. Sylvius introduced bedside teaching and stressed the importance of
pathological studies. He pointed out that the formation of tubercles in the
lungs represents the essential pathological finding in phthsis (tuberculosis) (1529; 1530).
Johann Jakob Wepfer (CH) described the autopsy of a case with
subarachnoid hemorrhage and theorized that a broken blood vessel in the brain
may cause apoplexy (stroke) (1753).
1659
“In December 1659 the (until then unknown) Malady of
Bladders in the Windpipe, invaded and removed many Children; by Opening of one
of them the Malady and Remedy (too late for very many) were discovered.” (1003) Cotton Mather (US), minister in Boston, MA. Note:
most likely a reference to diphtheria
Thomas Willis (GB) proposed the idea that fermentation is an
internal motion of particles. He pointed to the similarity between fermentation
and putrefaction. Early chemists were interested in putrefaction or rotting of
various infusions because it was known that industrially useful substances such
as lactic acid, butyric acid, or ethanol could be obtained from these infusions
as they putrefied (1773).
1660
The Royal Society of London took as its motto the phrase Nullius in verba [No man’s word shall be
final].
Robert Boyle (GB) was convinced of the particulate nature of air.
He explored not only the physical properties of air, but also its fundamental
role in combustion and respiration, through the use of physiological
experiments (187; 192).
Nicolas Le Febvre (FR), Thomas Jolly (FR), and Abbaye Saint-Denis
(FR) wrote Traicte de la Chymie in
which they held that the function of air in respiration was to purify the blood (902).
Konrad Victor Schneider (DE) demonstrated that nasal mucus is a
product of mucous glands lining the nasal cavity
(1392).
1661
Robert Boyle (GB) is credited with being the first to produce pure
methyl alcohol (methanol, wood alcohol) despite the fact of its production in
antiquity (188).
Robert Boyle (GB), in his book The
Sceptical Chemist, is given credit for defining an element as it is
currently used in chemistry. He also emphasized the importance of the Baconian
method of experimental science as opposed to blind acceptance of previous
authority (188).
Marcello Malpighi (IT), anatomist, general histologist, and
professor of medicine, discovered fine hair-like blood vessels in the lungs of
frogs connecting arterial and venous blood; they were later called capillaries. He offered proof that the
windpipe terminates in many small, dilated air vessels; they were later called alveoli. Malpighi thus presented the
correct anatomy for respiratory exchange. He described lymph nodes and
discussed the glands (glomeruli) of the kidney. He wrote the first treatise to
deal with an invertebrate—the silkworm. He was among the first to describe the
embryonic development of the chick, using the microscope. (See, Highmore 1651b) He described the respiratory vessels in
insects, spiral looking cells in plant stems, and openings on the underside of
leaves; later to be called stomata,
and gave the first account of the development of the seed (18; 974; 979; 980; 983; 986). He was commemorated with the plant
genus Malpighia and the family,
Malpighiaceae.
John Ray (GB) discovered hermaphroditism among pulmonate snails.
In his book, Catalogus Plantarum Circa
Cantabrigiam Nascentium he says, "Not even this lethal plant [the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna)]
escapes the teeth of snails and slugs for its leaves are freely eaten in spring
by these creatures. In passing one may mention that they are hermaphrodite.
That they alternately function as male and female by impregnating and receiving
at the same time will be clear to anyone who separates them as they are having
intercourse in Spring, although neither Aristotle nor any other writer on
Natural History has recorded this fact" (507; 1249).
Jan Swammerdam (NL), in his 1669 book, Historia Insectorum Generalis mentioned "Snails discharge
their excrements by the neck, and are each of them, both Male and Female" (1514).
Johann Jacob Harder (CH)
discovered hermaphroditism among the pulmonate mollusks (672).
Thomas Willis (GB) suggested the nervous origins of convulsive
disorders such as epilepsy, asthma, apoplexy, narcolepsy, and convulsive
coughs. He gave an account of whooping cough, described the role of bronchial
innervation, and the late-stage effects of syphilis on the brain. He describes
a typhoid epidemic of 1661, in England (1775).
Thomas Willis (GB) in a section titled ‘Of the Phrensy’, offered
‘meningitis’ as the modern diagnosis of phrensy/phrenitis. Moreover, Willis
clearly described the pathology of compression of the brain as a consequence of
meningeal inflammation and also mentions an epidemic of meningitis, reigning
An. 1661, which chiefly infested the brain and the genus nervosum (1780).
Scarlet fever appears in England.
1662
The Royal Society of London
was formally incorporated in 1662. It had begun in 1645 when a group of doctors
and scientists in London formed a society they called The Invisible College. It briefly moved to Oxford then returned to
London. Charles II approved their organization in 1660 (1466).
Robert Boyle (GB) formulated what became known as Boyle’s law—at a
stated temperature, a given mass of gas varies in volume inversely as the
pressure (189).
Niels Stensen; Nicholas Stenonis; Nicholas Steno; Nicolaus Steno;
Niels Steensen; Nicolaus Steensen (DK) described the excretory duct of the
parotid gland (parotis or (Stensen’s duct) while dissecting the
head of a sheep. He also described the lacrymeal gland and ducts used to bath
the eye (1482; 1487; 1492).
Smallpox (red plague) killed more than a
thousand Iroquois in Central New York State (858).
1663-1665
The plague occurs in
England.
1663
Jan Swammerdam (NL) performed laboratory experiments on the
contraction of frog muscle (1517; 1518).
Marcello Malpighi (IT) posthumously described tubular sense organs
he found in some fish in 1663. These became known as "ampullae of
Lorenzini" (982). See, Stefano
Lorenzini, 1678.
Lorenzo Bellini (IT) described renal tubules for the first time, Bellini’s ducts, and proposed how urine might
be formed (116).
Hendrick van Roonhuyse (NL) gave the first deliberate and detailed
account of the repair of a vesicovaginal fistula. His book is regarded as the
first work on operative gynecology in the modern sense. He successfully
performed caesarean section several times, and he used retractors for the
repair of vesico-vaginal fistulae (1645).
Girolamo Cardano; Jerome Cardan (IT) used raised letters to
communicate with the blind and described a formal method for teaching deaf
mutes to communicate with signs (263).
North American colonists established their first hospital. It was
on Long Island in what would become New York State (973).
1664
"They have considered the heart as the seat of vital heat,
the throne of the spirit or the soul itself. They have revered the organ as sun
or king, but if one looks at the heart with more care, only its muscular nature
can be found" Niels Stensen; Nicholas Stenonis; Nicholas Steno; Nicolaus
Steno; Niels Steensen; Nicolaus Steensen (1483)
Robert Boyle (GB), in 1664, was the first to distinguish between
acids, bases, and neutral substances, and in his 1664 Experiments he codified the analysis of solutions by use of colored
vegetable extracts serving as "indicators" of the presence of acids
or bases or neutral substances (191). He is credited with the introduction of litmus paper.
William Croone; William Croune (GB) suggested that within muscle
cells the globules (sarcomeres), delineated by cross-striations, may serve as
units of contraction. He also assumed that contraction occurs without a change
in muscle volume and proposed that nerves play a role in conducting the
stimulus from the brain to the muscle fibers (332; 333). See,
Stensen, 1664 and 1667.
Reijnier de Graaf (NL) performed the first cannulization. He
introduced a temporary cannula, made of the quill of a wild duck, into the
pancreatic duct of a living dog, and studied the properties of the liquid
obtained. He noted its color, what he thought was an acid reaction, and its
bitter taste (401; 405).
Gerard Blasius; Gerhard Bläes; Gerardus Leonardus Blasius (NL)
discovered and named the arachnoid
membrane, one of the three meninges covering the brain; presenting his
finding to the Anatomical Society of Amsterdam in 1664 (154; 520).
Humphrey Ridley (GB) described the arachnoid membrane and observed
that it invests various cerebral vessels and intracranial nerves. He disproved
the idea that some cerebral arteries terminated directly into the major venous
sinuses of the brain (1286).
Frederik Ruysch (NL) described the arachnoid membrane as a
complete layer surrounding the brain (505).
Thomas Willis (GB) gave one of the earliest descriptions of the
arterial supply of the brain, the Circle
of Willis, and a precise account of the cranial nerves, Nerves of Willis. He was certain about
the location of the thought process. He wrote, "in truth within the womb
of the brain all the conceptions, ideas, forces and powers whatsoever both of
the rational and sensitive soul are formed, and having there gotten a species
are transformed into acts." Regarding the function of the cerebral cortex
he said, "Then if the same fluctuation of the spirits is struck against
the cortex of the brain, as its utmost banks, it impresses on it the image or
character of the sensible object, which when it is afterwards reflected or bent
back, raises up the memory of the same thing…And sometimes a certain sensible
impression…striking against the cortex of the brain itself…and so induces
memory with phantasie." For him the cerebellum and the pons were
responsible for the involuntary motions of various organs, such as the
heartbeat, breathing and gastrointestinal peristalsis. He was the first to
describe the ganglions of the sympathetic nerves and recognized the vagus
nerve, erroneously assuming it had its origin in the cerebellum. Domenico de
Marchetti (IT) coined the name vagus for this cranial nerve.
Willis attempted to correlate the organization of the brain’s
convolutions with intelligence and stressed that the brain's workings are
mediated by the brain parenchyma and not, as previously held, by the
ventricles.
He stressed that the nerves do not contain cavities like arteries
and veins but are firm and compacted. Willis described the eleventh cranial
nerve. In the 1664 work he coined the word neurology
(neurologie) and named the pyramidal
system in the brain (believing it to be a reservoir for the animal
spirits). He anticipated what would later be called dementia praecox when in 1664 he wrote, "young persons who,
lively and spirited, and at times even brilliant in their childhood, passed
into obtuseness and hebetude during adolescence" (1774; 1778).
Emanuel Swedenborg (SE) deduced that the cerebrum of the brain is
the source of understanding, thinking, judging, and willing. He inferred the
intellectual functions of the frontal lobes. He described what is the first
known anticipation of the neuron (a nerve cell with its processes) (14; 1522).
Niels Stensen; Nicholas Stenonis; Nicholas Steno; Nicolaus Steno;
Niels Steensen; Nicolaus Steensen (DK) made a careful investigation of the ox heart
musculature. After a thorough examination he stated: "As to the substance
of the heart, I think I am able to prove that there exists nothing in the heart
that is not found also in a muscle, and that there is nothing missing in the
heart which one finds in a muscle." He also described the anatomy and
function of the respiratory muscles including the diaphragm (1483; 1486; 1491).
1665-1666
Cromwell’s troops in Jamaica suffer from an epidemic of dysentery.
1665
Robert Hooke (GB) published a theory of combustion. He stated that
ordinary air contains a small amount of matter identical with a substance found
in nitre (potassium nitrate). This substance has the property of rapidly
dissolving combustibles, with combustion being the result of their rapid motion (764). In this same publication Hooke described and illustrated a
parasitic rose rust (Phragmidium mucronatum) and a
saprophytic Mucor.
Robert Hooke (GB) used a compound microscope to describe small
pores in sections of cork that he called cells.
" . . . I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and
porous. . . these pores, or cells, . . . were indeed the first microscopical
pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for I had not met with any
Writer or Person, that had made any mention of them before this." In his
book, Micrographia, he also described
and made beautiful drawings of insects, feathers, Foraminifera, and fish
scales, as well as, hair and wool both in their natural condition and after
dying. He may be the first to have stained objects for viewing. He specifically
mentions using logwood (hematoxylin) to stain fluids (764).
Robert Boyle (GB) presented his method of fixing and preserving
soft-bodied animal specimens in wine spirits (190).
Adolph Hannover (DK) introduced the technique of fixing tissue in
chromic acid to improve its contrast during microscopic observation (670).
Heinrich Müller (DE) introduced potassium dichromate as a tissue
fixative (1079).
Frederik Ruysch (NL) provided the first description of the valves
of the lymphatics (1333).
Marcello Malpighi (IT), and Carlo Fracassati (IT) distinguished
the outer layer of the tongue and the reticular mucous layer and isolated the
taste buds. They demonstrated that the white matter of the nervous system was
made of bundles of fibers, which connected the brain with the spinal cord (987).
Johann Sigismund Elsholtz (DE) made the first attempt at
intravenous anesthesia (495).
The Great Plague (Yersinia
pestis) of London killed at least 20 percent of the city's population,
perhaps as many as 100,000 people (858). It is likely that the rhyme Ring
a Ring o’ Roses originated at this time although it did not appear in print
until 1881. Ring a ring o’ roses
refers to the circular rosy rash that is an early symptom of the plague. A pocketful of posies refers to herbs people carried in their
pockets, believing they offered protection. A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!/ We all fall down, tells of the plague’s fatal sneeze, which
preceded physical collapse; literally the victim fell down dead (626).
Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, the oldest
scientific journal printed in the English-speaking world, was first published in England on 6
March 1665. Henry Oldenburg (DE) was founder and editor.
Le Journal des Savants was first published in France. This
is the oldest scientific journal, first issue, 5 January 1665.
1666-1675
Smallpox (red plague) was reported in Europe.
1666
Robert Hooke (GB), on 9 November, wrote the Fellows of the Royal
Society in London that, "I did heretofore give this Illustrious Society
[the Royal Society] an account of an Experiment I formerly tryed of keeping a
Dog alive…by the Reciprocal blowing up of his Lungs with Bellowes, and they
suffered to subside, for the space of an hour or more, after his Thorax had
been so display'd [cut open], and his Aspera
arteria [bronchus had been] cut off just below the Epiglottis, and bound upon the nose of the Bellows." (143; 765).
Richard Lower (GB) discovered that venous blood is converted from
dark red to a bright red by contact with something in the air that he called
the nitrous spirit. He injected
venous blood into inflated lungs and noted that it became bright red. He
suggested that the blood absorbed from the air a definite chemical substance
necessary for life, and that this was, in fact, the chief function of the
pulmonary circulation. When he ligated the heart’s nerve connections, it
palpitated, quivered, and after a few days stopped beating. He guessed that the
nerves carried a spirit from the storeroom
of the cerebellum to the heart. He observed that ligation of the inferior vena
cava gives rise to ascites. Lower followed the flow of digested nutriment from
intestine to lacteals to lymphatics to blood and so to various parts of the
body and demonstrated that phlegm originates in the nasal membranes and not in
the brain as was thought. He noted that excess pressure from the pericardial
fluid could cause the heart to stop beating (647; 945-947). Note: Richard Lower may have
been the first to describe congestive heart failure. See, Konrad Victor Schneider, 1660.
Thomas Sydenham (GB) studied predisposing causes of diseases using
a rational approach to treatment of
disease. He contended that healing would better be promoted when the root cause
of a disease could be found along with the laws governing the course of the
disease and that the patient was best served when the physician tried to assist
nature. He encouraged students to learn about disease at the bedside. Sydenham
supported the Hippocratic idea of humoral pathology. He treated anemic patients
with what he called steel tonic, made
by steeping steel filings in cold Rhenish wine (this process resulted in the
formation of ferrous potassium tartrate). He is to be given credit for
demonstrating that iron is essential in the diet. He popularized the use of laudanum (alcoholic tincture of opium)
in English medicine and advocated the use of Peruvian bark or Jesuit’s
powder (quinine) as an antimalarial. Sydenham wrote outstanding
descriptions of many diseases such as scarlet fever, measles, influenza, and
gout; being one of the first to describe in detail the so-called Bell’s palsy, however he will be
remembered for reporting the definite clinical entity known as St. Vitus Dance or chorea minor in 1686. " This is a kind of convulsion, which
attacks boys and girls from the tenth year to the time of puberty. It first
shows itself by limping or unsteadiness in one of the legs, which the patient
drags. The hand cannot be steady for a moment. It passes from one position to
another by a convulsive movement, however, much the patient may strive to the
contrary." His description of measles is excellent, "The measles
generally attacks children. On the first day they have chills and fever…On the
second…cough…The nose and eyes run continually; and this is the surest sign of
measles…[on] the fourth day…there appear on the face and forehead small red
spots, very like the bites of fleas" (1524; 1526; 1527). Note: St. Vitus Dance or chorea minor is an infectious disease of the central nervous
system, appearing after a streptococcal infection, with subsequent rheumatic
fever, characterized by involuntary purposeless contractions of the muscles of
the trunk and extremities.
Albert Delcourt (FR) and René Sand (FR) discovered that the
pathophysiology of Sydenham’s chorea
involves inflammation of both the cortex and the basal ganglia of the brain (439).
Frederick John Poynton (GB) and Alexander Paine (GB) determined
that the causal agent of Sydenham’s chorea is a bacterium they named Diplococcus rheumaticus (1215).
Heinrich Meibom (DE) described and rediscovered the tarsal glands
of the eyelid first noted by Julius Cesare Casserius (IT) in 1609 (270; 1027).
Marcello Malpighi (IT) described the glomeruli of the kidney, Malpighian bodies, as attached to the
tips of arteries within the kidney. "The glands [i.e., the glomeruli] that
have been discovered in the kidney…contribute a special service in the
excretion of the urine…. They appear…spherical, precisely like fish eggs: and
when a dark fluid is perfused through the arteries they grow dark." In
this paper he also gives the first recorded description of Hodgkin’s lymphoma (975).
Marcello Malpighi (IT) noted in animals and humans the lobular
structure of the liver, distinguishing the venous and biliary system. He
suggested that bile was produced by the liver and not by gallbladder as
thought previously (975).
Thomas Bartholin (DK) gave the first scholarly account of peasant
immunization practices in Europe. He described how parents fearful for their
children’s health, would seek out someone with a case of smallpox (red plague), preferably a mild one. The smallpox victim and the child would then
make contact in such a way as to infect the child. After an incubation period
of about a week the child, if it was lucky, would develop a mild case of smallpox and would emerge virtually
unscarred and immune to the disease thereafter; the mild induced case gave the
same protection that was provided by a severe one. Educated people came to call
this practice of folk medicine inoculation
(L. inoculare, to graft) or variolation (L. varus, pimple), Variola
being the scholarly name for smallpox (83; 84).
A smallpox (red plague)
outbreak struck Boston, but was relatively mild, and only about 40 people died (858).
The Académie des Sciences
was founded in Paris.
1667-1669
Thomas Sydenham (GB) reports that smallpox (red plague) is present in England.
1667-1679
London experiences a smallpox
(red plague) epidemic.
1667-1681
A pandemic of malarial fever
(the ague) effects Europe.
1667
Adrien Auzout (FR) and Jean Picard (FR) invented the type of
micrometer that survived and is in use today (63).
Christopher Merrett (GB) publishes the first fauna of Great
Britain, followed two years later by that of Walter Charleton (GB) (1033).
Niels Stensen; Nicholas Stenonis; Nicholas Steno; Nicolaus Steno;
Niels Steensen; Nicolaus Steensen (DK) developed a mathematical description of
muscular contraction, and attempted to show that muscles do not increase in
volume during contraction. He dissected the head of a giant white shark and for
the first time correctly identified the serpent tongues or tongue stones (glossopetrae) from the island of Malta
as fossilized shark teeth. This was a significant event in early paleontology (1484; 1490; 1493).
Walter Needham (GB) gave the first thorough description of the
placenta and the fetal membranes. He claimed, but did not prove, that the fetus
in utero is nourished by blood from
the placenta (1103).
Jan Swammerdam (NL) described docimasia
of fetal lungs. This is a determination of whether air had entered the lungs of
a dead infant, as an indication whether it was born dead or alive. He found
that fetal lungs would float in water following respiration (1513).
An epidemic of plague at
Nottingham marks a cessation of the disease in England.
1668-1672
Epidemic dysentery (the
"bloody flux") is present in England (described by Sydenham and Morton).
1668-1669
A fatal aphthous fever
(resembling thrush) is present in Leyden and other Dutch towns.
1668
“We have no right to deny the entrance of air into the blood
because, on account of the bluntness of our senses we cannot actually see the
vessels by which it makes its entrance. . . . For in order that the aerea particles
should mix with the mass of blood in a state of fine division and in a most
intimate manner, it is necessary that they should enter the blood through
channels or rather orifices, almost infinite in number, distributed here and
there over the whole mass of the lungs.” John Mayow (GB) (1011).
Francesco Redi (IT) made many experiments to test the concept of
spontaneous generation. He placed various kinds of flesh in open boxes and left
them to decay. Maggots appeared, and he watched them become converted into
adult insects. He also found ova which he considered had been dropped on the
flesh by flies. He put a snake, some fish, some eels, and a slice of milk-fed
veal into four wide-mouthed vessels, and sealed them with paper. He then
prepared similar vessels in the same way except that they were left open. In
the latter the flesh rapidly teemed with maggots but he could find none in the
closed series, although here and there on the paper cover he saw maggots
eagerly seeking any crevice through which they could penetrate to obtain food.
He performed other experiments in which the paper was replaced by the finest
gauze to allow airflow. He placed the gauze-covered vessels in a frame also
covered by gauze. Maggots and flies were seen on the gauze but none appeared on
the meat. He observed flies deposit their ova on the gauze. This was the first
clear-cut case of using controls in a scientific experiment. By these
experiments Redi destroyed the myth that maggots appear spontaneously on meat (246; 1257; 1260). It was Redi who introduced into the scientific method the serial
procedure and comparison between research experiments and control experiments.
Reijnier de Graaf (NL) described the fine structure of the human
testis and later the fine structure of the human ovary (whose name he
suggested). He described the ovarian follicles (folliculus
oophorus vesiculosus),
which he mistakenly took to be the egg or ovum (402-404). In his honor, Albrecht von Haller
(CH) was later to name the follicles on the surface Graafian follicles.
Karl Ernst von Baer (EE-DE-RU) discovered (in the dog) that the
egg is a smaller body within the follicle and traced it to the uterus by way of
the oviduct (1672-1675).
Niels Stensen; Nicholas Stenonis; Nicholas Steno; Nicolaus Steno;
Niels Steensen; Nicolaus Steensen (DK), in 1668, discovered the fibrous nature
of the nervous system’s white matter. This white matter he showed to consist of
tracts of fibers in continuity with the nerves. He proposed that thought and
movement depended on the arrangement and co-ordination of nerve fibers within
the brain. This shattered the Greek theory that the ventricles were the
principal functional elements of the brain and Descartes’ theory that the
pineal gland was central to the thought process (1495).
L’Abbe Edmé Mariotte (FR) related his discovery of the blind spot
of the eye in a letter to Christiaan Huygens (NL) then sent them to the Royal
Society in London (997; 998).
Probably the earliest recorded epidemic of yellow fever to occur in non-tropical America, struck New York in late
summer and early fall of 1668. It was described as an autumnal bilious fever in infectious form. The contemporary
descriptions leave some possibility open that it could have been some other
disease, but yellow fever seems the
most likely (858).
1669-1672
England experiences dysentery
(the "bloody flux") and infantile
summer diarrhea (Thomas Sydenham and Thomas Willis).
1669
“I first observed, that it is clearer than the light of noon, that
man, like insects, is produced from a visible egg, which after being
impregnated, is brought forth; that is, it is by local motion conveyed out of
the ovary through a tube into the uterus which is the place wherein man, that
rational animal, finds the first nourishment and represents as it were a
Vermicle or Worm, or to use Harvey’s words, a Magot lying in the egg.” Jan
Swammerdam (NL) (1515; 1517)
Although this statement does not conflict with the concept of
preformation it is interesting because Swammerdam believed in preformation. See, William Harvey, 1651.
Hennig Brandt; Hennig Brand (DE) prepared white phosphorus by
using the anaerobic destructive distillation of the solids of urine. Elemental
phosphorus passed over and collected under the liquid in the retort. He wrote
about his discovery to the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz (DE), who later in his Historia
Inventionis Phosphori (Berlin 1710), wrote that Brand was an impoverished
merchant who sought to restore his wealth by converting base metals into gold;
and during his alchemical experiments with urine discovered phosphorus. As was
typical in alchemy at the time, the details of the method were kept secret.
Brand sold his secret to the German physician Johannes Daniel Krafft (1594).
John Wray; John Ray (GB) reports experiments by Francis Jessop
(GB), Samuel (GB), and John Fisher (GB) on the isolation of formic acid by the
distillation of large numbers of ants (1796).
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (DE) obtained formic acid by distilling
ants with steam (994).
Théophile-Jules Pelouze (FR), an
assistant of Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR), in 1832, synthesized formic acid
from hydrocyanic acid (1168).
Jan Swammerdam (NL) described water-fleas (Daphnia) (1514).
Jan Swammerdam (NL) described the metamorphosis of insects,
supporting the preformation doctrine (1517; 1518).
John Mayow (GB)—who also gives a
remarkably correct anatomical description of the mechanism of respiration –
preceded Priestley and Lavoisier by a century in recognizing the existence of
oxygen, under the guise of his spiritus
nitro-aereus, as a separate entity distinct from the general mass of the
air. Mayow perceived the part spiritus
nitro-aereus plays in combustion and in increasing the weight of the calces
(oxides) of metals as compared with metals themselves. Rejecting the common
notions of his time that the use of breathing is to cool the heart or assist
the passage of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart, or
merely to agitate it, Mayow saw in inspiration a mechanism for introducing
oxygen into the body, where it is consumed for the production of heat and
muscular activity. He
remarked, "The blood returning to the heart is for the greater part
deprived of spiritus nitroaereus
which it has left in the brain for the production of animal spirit." Mayow
clearly points out that respiration within the fetus is possible because the
placenta brings nourishment and spiritus
nitro-aereus (oxygen)
to it and reasons that the umbilical blood vessels near the shell of an egg
bring spiritus nitro-aereus (oxygen) to the developing embryo. He even
vaguely conceived of expiration as an excretory process (1011-1013). The 1669 tracts were presented in 1668. See,
Hooke, 1665,
Marcello Malpighi (IT) produced the first monograph on an
invertebrate, the silkworm. He dissected the silkworm under the microscope
noting the air ducts (tracheae) and the blood duct with several pulsating
centers (corcula). He also observed
the heart, the gut, the glandular system now known as "Malpighian
tubules", and the nerve chain (977).
Marcello Malpighi (IT) separated fibers from clotted blood free of
red cells and serum and identified these using the single-lens microscope (976; 985).
William Hewson (GB) discovered that coagulable lymph (fibrinogen)
is essential for blood clotting and that following sedimentation the coagulum
property resides in the upper liquid part of the blood, above the red cells (730; 733).
Antoine Francois de Fourcroy (FR) and Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (FR)
introduced the term fibrin. They demonstrated that plasma contained
soluble substances, albumin and globulin, and that the precursor of fibrin was
a soluble substance present in plasma but not in serum. The term globulin was
used to describe the part of plasma precipitated when diluted in water,
albumins remaining in solution (394).
Benjamin Guy Babington (GB) concluded that blood contains a
soluble precursor to fibrin (fibrinogen) (64).
Andrew Buchanan (GB) concluded that coagulation of pleural,
peritoneal, pericardial, serous testicular, and hydrocele fluids was not
the result of the spontaneous coagulation of fibrin but rather that,
…"like albumin and casein, fibrin often coagulates under the influence of
suitable reagents: and that the blood and most other liquids of the body which
appear to coagulate spontaneously, only do so in consequence of their
containing at once fibrin and substances capable of reacting upon it and so
occasioning coagulation." (241-244)
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) formulated his postulates regarding
clots in venous thrombosis (1665; 1667).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) was the first to use the term thrombin (1569).
Prosper Sylvain Denis (FR) published two monographs in 1856 and
1859 which validated and extended Panum’s technique of fractionating complex
materials like egg albumin and blood plasma into distinct proteins by salting out. Upon the salting out of
blood plasma it yielded a precipitate, which was not soluble in water but was
soluble in a dilute salt solution. The salt soluble fraction possessed
properties of a precursor to fibrin.
Denis gave the name plasmine to this
precursor of fibrin (441).
Benjamin Guy Babington (GB) had already named this fibrin precursor fibrinogen. See,
Babington, 1830 above.
Hermann Adolf Alexander Schmidt (DE) separated plasmine into its two constituents, both
proteids of the globulin class to which he gave the names fibrinogen and fibrino-plastic
substance (1385). The later constituent was called para-globulin by Wilhelm Friedrich Kuhne (DE) and serum globulin by Theodor Weyl (DE) (870; 1759).
Hermann Adolf Alexander Schmidt (EE-DE) repeated the experiments
described by Buchanan and called the activity fibrin ferment (thrombin).
He found that fibrin ferment could be
precipitated by addition of alcohol to fresh serum. Schmidt later concluded
that since the presence of thrombin
in the circulation did not allow blood to remain fluid it must have a
precursor, prothrombin; at first,
therefore, prothrombin was hypothetical. Prothrombin activation was thought to
occur because of the presence of "zymoplastic substances" in the
tissues (1386-1388). Note:
Olof Hammarsten (SE) noted that calcium chloride promoted
coagulation and enhanced the amount of fibrin formed (665).
Olof Hammarsten (SE) and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) showed
that fibrinogen is the sole precursor
of fibrin and that fibrin is the consequence of a reaction
between thrombin and fibrinogen (666-668).
William Dobinson Halliburton (GB) concluded that coagulation of
the blood is due to the formation of fibrin from fibrinogen which was
previously dissolved in the blood-plasma; that this change is brought about by
the fibrin ferment; and that the fibrin ferment is one of the products of the
disintegration of the white blood-corpuscles that occurs when the blood is shed
(662).
Joseph Lister (GB) maintained that the blood has no spontaneous
tendency to clot but that it only clots when brought into contact with a
foreign body (932).
Nicolas Maurice Arthus (FR), Calixte Pagès (FR), and M.L.
Sabbatini (FR) observed that calcium precipitants inhibited coagulation, and
that this effect was reversed when sufficient calcium was re‐added.
Calcium was not required for the reaction of thrombin with fibrinogen, but was
required for the conversion of the hypothetical prothrombin to thrombin (55; 1337).
Paul Morawitz (DE) synthesized various observations into one of
the first formulations of the biochemistry of blood coagulation: prothrombin,
he hypothesized, was converted into the enzyme thrombin by “thrombokinase”
(tissue factor) in the presence of calcium; thrombin, in turn, converted
fibrinogen to fibrin. Morawitz described four coagulation
factors: fibrinogen (I), prothrombin (II), thrombokinase
(III) and calcium (IV) and renamed Schmidt's zymoplastic substance thrombokinase
(thromboplastin) (1063; 1064).
Pierre Nolf (FR) called this activity thromboplastic and used the
term ‘tissue factor’ Nolf, 1908 #26183}.
William Henry Howell (US) later denominated them "tissue
thromboplastins" (factor III) (773).
William Henry Howell (US) and L. Emmett Holt, Jr. (US) coined the
term heparin to denote the presence
of a fat-soluble anticoagulant in the liver. They also isolated a second
fat-soluble anticoagulant they named pro-antithrombin (Gk. hepar) (774).
Lee M. Roderick (US) showed that "sw