A Selected Chronological Bibliography of Biology and Medicine
Part 2A
c. 1810— 1857
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,
jsteen08@bellsouth.net
c.
1810
Mary Anning (GB) was celebrated as the outstanding fossil
collector of her time. Among the many fossils collected and prepared by her are
the first ichthyosaur skeleton and the first plesiosaur skeleton known to the
English community. The ichthyosaur fossil was probably discovered sometime
between 1809 and 1811, when Mary was only 10 to 12 years old. And while Mary
did find the majority of the remains, her brother had discovered part of the
animal twelve months earlier. Most of Mary's finds ended up in museums and
personal collections without credit being given to her as the discoverer of the
fossils (1867). Note:
Ichthyosaurs flourished c. 200M-190M B.C.E.. Pleisosaurs flourished c. 203M-66M
B.C.E.
1810
William Hyde Wollaston (GB) isolated cystic oxide (cystine) from
unusual kidney stones (1206; 2167). Note:
This was the second amino acid to be discovered.
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) named it cystine (Gk. cystine, bladder) (1959).
Karl Axel Hampus Mörner (SE) was the first to isolate cystine from
a protein hydrolysate (animal horn) (1268).
Richard August Carl Emil Erlenmeyer, Jr. (DE) was the first to
synthesize cystine (630; 631).
Louis Antoine Planche (FR) observed that extracts of plant roots
would turn alcoholic solutions of guaiac resin a blue color. The agent
responsible for this change was found to be water-soluble and thermolabile (1477; 1478). This
represents an early account of enzymatic activity.
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR) found that grape juice preserved for
over a year by the Appert method would upon opening ferment within a few days.
An unopened control bottle of Appert’s grape juice remained unchanged.
Finding that bottles of Appert’s preserves showed no oxygen
Gay-Lussac concluded that this gas must play a vital part in the fermentation
process. He introduced some small and intact grapes into a bell jar standing
over mercury. He filled the jar several times with hydrogen gas to displace any
oxygen and he then ruptured the grapes by means of an iron rod and watched the
effect. For twenty-five days no fermentation had taken place, but it soon
occurred when he admitted into the bell jar some bubbles of oxygen. The oxygen
introduced was soon proved to have disappeared while carbon dioxide was
evolved. From this Gay-Lussac concluded that oxygen was necessary to start
fermentation but not for its continuance. Grape juice, which had been preserved
and poured into a fresh bottle, could be re-preserved by subsequent heating.
These results obtained with grape juice were also found to apply to preserved
meat, fish, and mushrooms (737).
Pierre André Latreille (FR) originated the invaluable notion of type
species of a genus. This concept, quite new at the time, is particularly
known from the Table des Genres avec l'Indication de l'Espèce qui leur sert
de Type (1074). Note: Similarly, he
favored the method of naming families after one of the constituent genera,
rather than some defining feature of the group, implicitly designating a type
genus for the family.
Robert Brown (GB) was the first to demonstrate that the gymnosperms
(conifers, ginkgo, and cycads) are a group apart from the angiosperms
(flowering plants) and distinguished from these in having naked ovules. He was
the first to explain the floral morphology and pollination in the
Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed family) (299).
Phillip Parker King (GB) quotes Brown, “It would entirely remove
the doubts that may exist respecting the point of impregnation, if cases could
be produced where the ovarium was either altogether wanting, or so imperfectly
formed, that the ovulum itself became directly exposed to the action of the
pollen…such, I believe, is the real explanation of the structure of Cycadeae,
of Coniferae, of Ephedra, and even of Gnetum.” (1006)
Gaspard Laurent Bayle (FR) pointed out that tubercles might be
present in patients before symptoms appear and correlated tubercles with cavity
formation. He described acute miliary
tuberculosis, tubercular laryngitis,
lymphadenitis and enteritis, and insisted that
tuberculosis was a specific disease, not a condition brought on by another
disease (89).
Franz Joseph Gall (DE-FR) and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (DE) were
the first to point out that the nerve tissue we call gray matter is important
in higher thought processes while the white matter represents connecting
nerves. They demonstrated that the cranial nerves issue from the medulla
oblongata and not the cerebral hemisphere. They also promoted the belief that
character traits and mental aberrations are organic, inborn, god given;
espousing the idea that a careful study of the external appearance of the skull
could be used to predict the talents and mental characteristics of the
possessor (phrenology) (726; 727).
Thomas Copeland (GB) wrote the first English book on general
colo-rectal surgery (430).
1811
“ On laying bare the roots of the spinal nerves, I found that I
could cut across the posterior fasciculus of nerves which took its origin from
the posterior portion of the spinal marrow without convulsing the muscles of
the back, but that, on touching the anterior fasciculus with the point of the
knife, the muscles of the back were immediately convulsed.” Charles Bell (96)
Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (FR) and
Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, Jr. (FR) concluded from their studies of
sedimentary rock strata in the Paris Basin that the relative position of a
layer is an indication of its relative age (295; 464; 465).
Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro (IT) proposed that two equal
volumes of gases of any type, if kept at the same pressure and temperature,
contain equal numbers of molecules. This became known as Avogadro’s law (59).
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR) and Louis Jacques Thénard (FR)
determined the elementary composition of sugar for the first time (736).
Henri Braconnot (FR) isolated d-mannite, the sweet principle of
manna, from Agaricus mushrooms. He
claimed that it was non-fermentable (231; 232). The manna
that is used as an agreeable food in the East, and as a purgative for children
in the West is caused to flow from the Tamarix
mannifera shrub, by the punctures of a small insect, Coccus maniparus.
Henri Braconnot (FR), working with mushrooms, discovered fungine
(chitin), the earliest known polysaccharide (230).
Antoine Odier (FR) in his survey of the
insect cuticle renamed fungine as chitine (meaning tunic in Greek) (1369).
It is spelled chitin in German and English.
Charles Marie Benjamin Rouget (FR) isolated chitosan (1629).
Louis Odier (CH) discovered greatly enlarged and very painful
nerves, which he named neuromes (neuroma) (1370).
William Wood (GB) observed and described neuromas in 24 amputation stumps (2168).
Caspar Wistar (US) wrote the first systematic treatise on anatomy
to be published in North America (2155). His friend
Thomas Nuttall (GB) named the wisteria vine for him.
John Hughes Bennett (GB) and Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) were
the first to describe chronic myeloid
leukemia; Virchow’s description was post-mortem (104; 1925).
Gaspard Vieusseux (CH), in 1810, was the
first to describe lateral medullary
infarction, noting, "Vertigo, unilateral facial numbness, loss of pain
and temperature appreciation in the opposite limbs, dysphasia [sic] and
hoarseness, minor tongue involvement, hiccups (cured by taking
up the habit of a morning cigarette) and a drooped
eyelid." (1205)
Adolf
Wallenberg (DE) provided a very detailed description of the clinical signs of lateral medullary infarction with
accurate localization of the lesion in the lateral medulla supplied by the
posterior inferior cerebellar
artery (PICA). He later proved this at postmortem (2075-2077).
This condition is often called Wallenberg’s
syndrome.
John Syng
Dorsey (US) successfully ligated the external iliac artery (545).
1812
Karl Friedrich Gauss (DE) wrote Theoria Combinationis Observationum Erroribus Minimis Obnoxia [Theory of Least Squares] (735). This is
basic to the statistical evaluation of data.
Joseph von Fraunhofer (DE), in 1812, invented an achromatic
objective consisting of two different lenses in contact with one another. He
and Pierre Louis Guinand (CH) developed ways to free optical glass of
imperfections. They continued to improve lenses and prisms with additional
inventions (926).
Joseph von Fraunhofer (DE) invented the spectroscope and
discovered the 574 dark lines in the solar spectrum. These lines were later
named for him. He also measured the wavelength of sodium light by means of
diffraction grating (1973).
Konstantin Sigizmundovich Kirchhoff; Gottlieb Sigismund Constantin
Kirchhoff (DE-RU) obtained the hydrolysis of starch to sugars in dilute acids
(sulfuric, nitric, oxalic, etc.) (1011).
Johann Jacob Paul Moldenhawer (DE) had the idea that vascular
bundles are complex structures composed of xylem and phloem (1260).
Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (FR) discovered phospholipids while
studying material extracted from brain tissue. He also noted that the medulla
oblongata and the spinal cord contain more fatty material and less protein than
grey matter (1911).
William Charles Wells (US-GB), in an often-ignored study, applied
the principle of natural selection to the evolution of man. The
application was limited to the question of how different skin colors arose (2115).
Patrick Matthew (GB) predates Charles Robert Darwin (GB) in the
proposal of a theory of natural selection. In his book, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, he
wrote, "As nature, in all her modifications of life, has a power of
increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by Time's
decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength, swiftness,
hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without reproducing -- either a prey to
their natural devourers, or sinking under disease, generally induced by want of
nourishment, their place being occupied by the more perfect of their own kind,
who are pressing on the means of subsistence. There is more beauty and unity of
design in this continual balancing of life to circumstance, and greater
conformity to those dispositions of nature which are manifest to us, than in
total destruction and new creation. It is improbable that much of this
diversification is owing to commixture of species nearly allied, all change by
this appears very limited, and confined within the bounds of what is called
species; the progeny of the same parents, under great differences of
circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species,
incapable of co-reproduction." (1219)
Napoleon's army was attacked again by typhus and dysentery (the
"bloody flux") during his invasion of Russia, both on the march
eastward and again on the return, where disease was exacerbated by severe cold
and starvation. It is estimated that only about 30,000 survived of the nearly
600,000 troops that began the campaign (1030).
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) was one of the first to place
the rotifers in their own separate natural group, the class Rotifera (594). They are in the phylum Aschelminthes
(or Nemathelminthes).
Kaspar Friedrich Wolff; Caspar Frederick Wolff) (DE-RU) described
the embryonic development of the intestines in the chick (2163-2165).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) was the first to successfully excise the
lower jaw, in 1812 (586).
Antonio Scarpa (IT) pinned an authoritative work on hernia, from which are derived the
eponyms Scarpa's fascia and Scarpa's triangle of the thigh (1673).
John Collins
Warren (US) gave probably
the first description of the relationship between cardiac death and
‘ossification’ of the coronary arteries. He further drew attention to poor
realization in the medical community of the correlation between the extent of
such ossification and the pre-mortem symptoms of angina, to the extent that it
is clear that some of his patients had what was later recognised to be silent
ischaemia (2092).
Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (FR) was the
first to extend the system of classification to fossils. He suggested that
fossils found in the area around Paris are thousands
of centuries old. This casual observation pushed the age of the earth well
beyond its commonly accepted limits. Cuvier also published a paper explaining
that the fossil animals he studied bore no resemblance to anything still
living. In short, Cuvier proposed the theory
of extinction. He coined the word pterodactyl
(wing-finger). For his discoveries related to fossils he is considered the
founder of paleontology (457-459; 461; 463; 1639). Through
the rigorous application of his correlation
theory Cuvier was able to correctly identify entire animals from a few
bones and demonstrate that these animals were indeed extinct, e.g. he
identified pterosaurs as flying reptiles. His conclusions represented the
foundation of modern paleontology, yet they would be largely ignored for many
years (460).
The New England Journal of
Medicine was founded (1144).
Proceedings
of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam was founded.
1813
"But
these are deeds which should not pass away,
And names
that must not wither." George Gordon (Lord Byron) (775)
David Brewster (GB) suggested that viewing would be improved if
the front element of a microscope’s objective lens could be immersed in the
liquid in which the object of study was mounted. It is he who recommended that
oil immersion would improve achromatic viewing (248).
Jöns Jakob Berzelius (SE) established that the elements in inorganic substances are bound together
in definite proportions by weight (the law
of constant proportions) (141; 142).
Bernard Courtois (FR) was the first to prepare iodine when he
observed purple vapors rising from kelp ashes that he had acidified with
sulfuric acid and heated. The purple vapors condensed on a cold surface,
forming nearly black crystals (445). Note: He performed this experiment in
1811.
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR) reported that the substance he calls iode is likely an element (738). Later he
is confident it is a new element (739).
Humphrey Davy (GB) tested the substance Courtois had discovered
and pronounced it a new element, which he named iodine (488).
Michel-Eugène Chevreul (FR) was the first to report the
participation of water during the saponification process (367).
Michel-Eugène Chevreul (FR) was the first to isolate the following
acids: margaric (a mixture of palmitic and stearic acids), butyric, caproic,
capric, and isovaleric (acide phocénique), along with stearic (stearine),
palmitic, and oleic, the three most common and important constituents of fats
and oils. He determined that spermaceti, the wax-like substance from the head
of the sperm whale, when boiled with alkali, produced soap, later identified as
potassium palmitate, but did not yield glycerol as a residue. The residue was
insoluble in water but soluble in alcohol and ether. He called it cetin, which was later identified as
cetyl alcohol. He was the first lipid specialist to discover the concept of
fatty acids and clearly demonstrate that fats have the structure of ethereal
salts and are a combination of glycerol and fatty acids, easily separated by
saponification (366; 370).
Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux (FR) provided an important advance in
the study of the algae when he became the first to propose a system of
classification into major taxa based in part on color. He proposed a general
classification for the marine algae, which he divided into Fucaceae, Florideae,
Dictyoteae, Ulvaceae, Alcyonideae, and Spongodieae. Except for the last two, these
groups have been maintained in present classifications. He discovered two
distinct types of reproduction among the Florideae 1) tubercles called seeds
(cystocarps) and 2) capsules called tetrasporocysts. Lamouroux described many
new genera of algae (1064; 1065).
Frederick Pursh; Frederick Traugott Pursh (DE) described plants
from some forty European collections along with some brought back from
"The
Lewis and Clark Expedition",
or "Corps of Discovery Expedition" (1804–1806) in his Flora Americae Septentrionalis (1527). He is
honored by the genus Purshia (Rosaceae).
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (CH), in his book Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique,
introduced the word taxonomy to mean
the classification of plants based on their gross anatomy (498). He was the
first to perceive the major trends of floral evolution in the angiosperms. In
1824, he initiated the monumental Prodromus
Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, which proposed to classify and
describe every species of known seed plant including its ecology,
phytogeography, and evolution. De Candolle produced the first seven volumes;
the remaining 10 were completed under editorship of his son. His system of
plant classification is largely in use today (499; 500).
John Hay (GB) gave an excellent account of a family exhibiting
hereditary hemophilia (853). See, Al-Zahrawi, c.1000
Thomas Bateman (GB) described papular
urticaria, calling it lichen urticus.
He said that its first appearance was in the form of irregular inflamed wheals,
so closely resembling the spots excited by the bites of insects as almost to
deceive the observer. The inflammation subsides in a day or two leaving small,
elevated, itching papules. The old wheals subside while new ones appear in
succession until the whole body and limbs are spotted with papules which here
and there become confluent in small patches. Both the wheals and the papules
are accompanied by intense itching (84). Note: This condition, as of the year 2016, is considered to be a
hypersensitive reaction to insect bites.
Francois Magendie (FR) and Gilbert Breschet (FR) observed that rabies could be induced in healthy dogs
using the saliva from rabid humans and that it could be transmitted from
carnivores to herbivores. Although they did this work together around 1813-1820
Magendie published in 1821 and Breschet waited until 1840 (63; 245; 1179).
Francois Magendie (FR) proved that the stomach is passive rather
than active in vomiting. This was essentially correct; however, he did fail to
observe the active role of the pyloric end of the stomach (1187).
Francois Magendie (FR) showed that the epiglottis is not necessary
for swallowing, which disproved the accepted doctrine that the epiglottis was
necessary to cover the glottis to prevent food from entering the trachea (1176).
Antonio Scarpa (IT) presented the first illustrations
of arteriosclerosis (1671).
Felix Vicq d'Azyr (FR) discovered the claustrum, a thin layer of
grey matter outside the external capsule of the brain, dividing it from the
white matter of the insula (1918).
Henry M. Onderdonk (US), in 1813, successfully ligated the femoral
artery (1376).
1814
“ Tout m ́dicament d’ailleurs n’est pas ́galement bien indiqu
́ ` toute heure” (“All medicines are not equally indicated effective given
at different hours of the day”) Julien-Joseph Virey (1940).
Jean-Jacques Colin (FR),
Henri-Francois Gaulthier de Claubry (FR), and Friedrich Strohmeyer (DE)
independently discovered that iodine reacts with starch to form a blue color (405; 1816).
Francois-Vincent Raspail (FR) introduced the starch-iodine
reaction into botanical microtechnique. He described the distribution of starch
in flower, fruit, and embryo of the Gramineae.
He also introduced the frozen section technique (71; 1547).
William Forsyth (GB), in 1802, first described the use of
lime-sulfur against powdery mildew on fruit trees (701).
David Weighton (GB), in 1814, suggested a mixture of sulfur with
lime water to treat mildew on fruit trees (2107; 2108).
Benjamin Collins Brodie (GB) reported, "Respecting the
functions of the stomach, I divided these nerves [the vagi] in the neck of a
dog, for the purpose of ascertaining the influence which they possess on the
secretion of the gastric juice…. We may conclude that the suppression of the
secretions…sufficiently demonstrate, that the secretions of the stomach and
intestines are very much under the control of the nervous system." (289)
Karl Frederich Burdach (DE) observed that, "…in the frog, the
little ovum freed from the ovary is carried to the far distant orifice of the
oviduct; in birds, however, and in mammals, as in man, the tube is connected to
the ovary and, having encircled that, takes that fluid into itself; this
movement next is accomplished through the swelling of the tube and the filling
of its vessels." He further noted, "The fetus just produced freely
swims in the amniotic liquid" and "…the amnion, in fact, rolled
around the umbilicus and investing the fetus, is seen to form the skin." (328; 1244) Amnion
comes from the Greek amnos, meaning
lamb; named no doubt, in some ancient sheepfold when the ewes were giving
birth.
Julien-Joseph Virey (FR) envisioned biological rhythms to be innate in origin and
controlled by living clocks entrained by periodic environmental changes, such
as the day-night alternation in light and darkness. He also reported that the
effects of drugs vary according to their administration time. But, above all,
he collected and published quantified time series that demonstrated human circadian
and annual mortality rhythms. Statistical analysis of Virey's data using modern
time series methods confirms his deduction that human mortality exhibits
rhythmicity (1587; 1940).
Robert C. Graham (GB) first described a
clinical condition later to be called Leriche syndrome (781).
René Leriche (FR) described a constellation of
symptoms in male patients, which became known as Leriche syndrome or aortoiliac
occlusive disease. The syndrome consists of the following triad: (a) absent
or diminished femoral pulses; (b) intermittent claudication with pallor,
coldness and diffuse muscle atrophy of both the lower extremities; and (c)
impotence. Leriche believed that segmental atherosclerosis caused this syndrome
and proposed that restoration of the blood supply could be curative.
He
suggested in the 1920s that resection of the obliterated segment and
repair with a vascular graft would be the ideal treatment for this syndrome (1102; 1103).
Jean Kunlin (FR) realized Leriche’s prediction
when in 1947 he successfully performed the first end-to-side anastomosis using
an autogenous venous graft (1052; 1053). Note: because of fibrotic conditions end-to-end anastomoses could
not be done on the patient in the 1951 paper. Kunlin had no other choice but
end-to-side implantations of the venous graft into the femoral artery above and
below the resected area. Thus, the bypass graft procedure was born by
serendipity.
Abraham Colles (IE) wrote a paper on treatment of fracture of the
carpal extremity of the radius, which was so masterful that this fracture came
to be known as a Colles fracture. He
treated the fracture with tin splints to stabilize the wrist after closed
reduction of the fracture (406).
c. 1815
Friedrich Benjamin Osiander (DE) invented uterine traction forceps
of superior design (544).
1815
"Why has not anyone seen that fossils alone gave birth to a
theory about the formation of the earth, that without them, no one would have
ever dreamed that there were successive epochs in the formation of the
globe?" Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (462). See: Anaximander, c. 580 B.C.E. and Xenophanes c. 570-480 B.C.E.
William Prout (GB) speculated that the atomic weights of all the
elements are exact multiples of that of hydrogen or half that of hydrogen (1511).
Jean Baptiste Biot (FR) showed that when organic compounds are liquid
or in solution they might, in effect, rotate polarized light either clockwise
or counterclockwise. He suggested that this was due to an asymmetry that might
exist in the molecules themselves (163). This represents the origin of stereochemistry.
Jean Baptiste Biot (FR) and Jean-Francois Persoz (FR) gave the
name dextrin to the sugar solution
produced when starch is hydrolyzed with mineral acids because the resulting
solution rotates polarized light to the right (164).
Heinrich August Vogel (DE) discovered that glucose reduces heavy
metals dissolved in alkaline solution causing deposition of the metal and oxidation
of the glucose. This phenomenon would later be used as the basis for several
tests for sugars (1941).
Carl A. Trommer (DE) introduced alkaline copper sulfate solution
as a sensitive test for glucose (1881).
Hermann Christian Fehling (DE) greatly improved on the sensitivity
of Trommer’s test for glucose with his aqueous solution of copper sulfate,
sodium tartrate, and sodium hydroxide (646).
Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz (DE) interpreted this
reaction to indicate that glucose is an aldehyde. Ref
Rudolf Fittig (DE) stated that the simple sugars contain aldehyde
groups (681).
Heinrich Kiliani (DE) proved this to be correct (1003).
Konstantin Sigizmundovich Kirchhoff; Gottlieb Sigismund Constantin
Kirchhoff (DE-RU) preformed an experiment, which converted four parts of water,
two parts of starch, and malt into a starch paste. This paste began to liquefy
into sweet syrup. His results showed that gluten had the capacity to convert a
larger quantity of starch into sugar. Thus, Kirchhoff laid the foundation for
the discovery of amylase (1010).
William Kirby (GB), William Spence (GB) and Agostino Bassi (IT)
were among the first to suspect that fungi could infect insects (80; 81; 1009). Note:
William Kirby (GB) and William Spence (GB) wrote An Introduction to
Entomology (first edition in 1815). This was the first modern entomology
text (1009).
Michel-Eugène Chevreul (FR) demonstrated that the sugar from the
urine of a diabetic is identical with grape sugar (glucose). This was an
important step in recognizing that diabetes
is a disease of sugar metabolism (368).
Abraham Colles (IE) was the first to tie the subclavian artery (407).
Charles Aston Key (GB) successfully ligated the subclavian artery
for aneurysm at the axilla (1001).
Johann Friedrich Meckel (called the Younger) (DE) produced a
teratology, which was the first comprehensive, analytical description of human
congenital birth defects. He was one of the first to recognize that certain
defects represent merely the persistence of anatomical conditions that are normal
at an earlier stage of the embryo, e.g. cleft
palate and ectopia cordis
(abnormally superficial position of the heart). Other defects he attributed to
local disturbances of growth during embryonic development (1229; 1231).
Francisco Romero (ES), in the opinion of some, became the first
heart surgeon when, in 1801, he performed an open pericardiostomy to treat a
pericardial effusion. The patient was a 35-year-old
farmer named Antonio de Mira from whom five pounds of bloody fluid was drained
after which he made a good recovery; going back to work in 4 months. Three
years after the operation his only complaint was pain in the incision. Romero
presented his work at the Society of the School of Medicine in Paris in 1815 (45; 1784).
Henry C. Dalton (US) sutured a
pericardial wound. The operation took place on September 6, 1891 (469).
Daniel Hale Williams (US), on 9 July, 1893, treated a stab wound
victim by sewing up a tear in the pericardium but leaving the heart muscle
itself alone, allowing a small nick there — about one tenth of an inch in
length — to heal on its own (2136). This does not qualify as open-heart surgery.
Benjamin Winslow Dudley (US), a remarkable surgeon in "rural"
Kentucky, performed 225 lithotomies, the first 100 without death, successfully
trephinated the skull in five patients, and successfully ligated the subclavian
artery for axillary aneurysm and the common carotid for an intracranial aneurysm.
While Dudley was professor of anatomy and surgery in the medical
department of Transylvania University in Lexington, it was considered equal to
the best medical schools in the east. As a youth he managed to study with a
local practitioner on the Kentucky frontier then graduate with an M.D. degree
from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1806. After a brief period of practice
in Kentucky he raised the funds to send himself to Europe where he studied with
many of the medical luminaries of his time before returning to Lexington,
Kentucky (569; 1198).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) successfully ligated the external iliac,
1815 (587).
Jacques Lisfranc (FR) devised an operation for partial amputation
of the foot at the tarsometatarsal articulation (1125).
Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol (FR) distinguished between “petit
mal” and “grand mal” (632).
1816
John Vaughan Thompson (IE), in 1816, trailed a fine muslin hoop
net in the seas off Madagascar to collect small life forms. See, Thompson, 1829.
John Cranch (GB) almost simultaneously used fine nets to collect
small aquatic life forms during the James Kingston Tackey expedition to the
river Zaire (Congo) (1086). Note:
Thompson and Cranch were possibly the first to collect and describe plankton.
Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux (FR) described marine hydrozoa and
bryozoa (1065).
William Jackson Hooker (GB) wrote British Jungermanniae, which established hepaticology (the study of
liverworts) as an independent discipline (913). He became
director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 1841. An energetic director, he and
his son, Joseph Dalton Hooker, oversaw a rapid growth in the garden's library
and land holdings taking it to a world-famous status. Joseph Dalton Hooker
became director in 1865.
William Prout (GB) showed that the urine of a boa constrictor
contains 90 percent uric acid (1512).
William Prout (GB) discovered that uric acid reacts with ammonia
to yield murexide, which has a violet color. This color reaction became the
basis for a delicate test for uric acid (1513).
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) demonstrated the analogy between
the fetal envelopes in ovipara and vivipara suggesting a unity of the main
features in the development of animals (595).
Karl
Ferdinand von Graefe (PL-DE), in 1816, and Philbert Roux (FR), in 1819,
independently performed the first closure of congenital cleft soft palate (1799; 1980).
Marie-Jules-César Lelorgne de Savigny (FR) established
the homology of the jaws with other appendages of all insects whether biting or
sucking (507).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) in a paper on the isopod, Asellus, then on many other
invertebrates, recognized that antennae, jaws, and feet exhibit developmental
homology (1561; 1563).
John King (US), in 1816, operated for abdominal pregnancy, saving
both mother and child (1005).
1817-1823
The first great cholera
pandemic of the 19th century swept Asia, probably originating near Calcutta and
spreading from there throughout Southeast Asia, Japan and China. The death toll
from this outbreak is not known, however, based on the 10,000-recorded deaths
among British troops, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands across
India succumbed to the disease. In 1820, 100,000 people died on the Indonesian
island of Java alone. Although it spread as far as Southern Russia and the
Middle East, an exceptionally cold winter in 1823-24 kept it from reaching
Western Europe (1030). Note:
Scholars usually refer to a wave of seven cholera pandemics, and generally
describe them as occurring 1817-23, 1826-37, 1846-63, 1865-75, 1881-96, and
1902-23, and 1961-present (1238).
1817
"Nature has neither core nor shell; she is everything at
once." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1977)
Pierre-Jean Robiquet (FR) was the first to note the chemical
nature of narcotine and isolate it in a pure state (1618).
Johann Baptist von Spix (DE) and Carl Friedrich Philipp von
Martius (DE) conducted zoological and botanical explorations of Brazil
(1817–1820) (1783).
Francois Magendie (FR) isolated emetine (1178).
Edward Bright Vedder (US) was the first to demonstrate the value
of emetine in the treatment of amoebic
dysentery (1912).
Leonard Rogers (GB) established the clinical use of emetine in the
treatment of amoebic dysentery (1621; 1622).
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou (FR)
isolated and named chlorophyll (chlorophyll,
Greek, green leaf) (1441).
Amos Eaton (US) wrote his Manual
of Botany for the Northern States, which was an important predecessor of
Gray's Manual (604).
Leopold Gmelin (DE) described the bile acids and developed the
Gmelin Test for detecting the presence of bile pigments (1857). He was
also the first to apply the names ester
and ketone to two classes of organic
compounds. His most notable contribution, however, was the Handbuch der Chemie, first published in a 2-volume version in 1817
and 1819 and later enlarged to 13 volumes. The work was translated into English
as Handbook of Chemistry (19 vol.,
1848-71) (751).
Thomas Bateman (GB) and Robert Willan (GB) first described and
later assigned a name to molluscum
contagiosum, a cutaneous and mucosal eruption of a contagious nature (85; 86).
William Henderson (GB) and Robert Paterson (GB) described the
intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies now known as molluscum bodies or Henderson-Paterson
bodies (304; 868; 1429).
Max Juliusberg (DE), Udo J. Wile (US), and Lyle B. Kingery (US)
were able to extract filterable virus from lesions of molluscum contagiosum and show transmissibility (984; 2130).
Ernest William Goodpasture (US) later described the similarities
of molluscum and vaccinia (771).
Henry Jacob Bigelow (US) compiled a survey of the medicinal plants
of the United States. It was one of the first two books in America to include
plates printed in color (155). Bigelow
also co-authored the first national pharmacopoeia in 1820.
Alexandre John Gaspard Marcet (CH-GB) found xanthine in kidney
stones—naming it xanthic oxide (1206).
Karl Friedridi Philipp Martius (DE) was the first to describe the
hyphomycetes (1213).
Christian Heinrich Pander (LV), from his study of over a thousand
chick eggs announced the trilaminar structure of the chick blastoderm, a
terminology that he coined. He suggested that developing chick embryos contain
three germ layers. The delamination of the blastoderm (young embryo) results in
the formation of the mucous membrane (endoderm) and the serous membrane
(ectoderm). The serous membrane undergoes delamination, giving rise to a third
layer, the vascular membrane (mesoderm) (1405; 1406).
Francois Magendie (FR) wrote the first modern physiology textbook
in which the importance of nitrogenous foods (protein) in the diet of mammals
was demonstrated (1177).
James Parkinson (GB) wrote a little known medical monograph
entitled Observations on the Nature and
Cure of Gout, however, his Essay on
the Shaking Palsy gained him immortality in the annals of medicine. He
described what became known as Parkinson’s
disease thus, “Involuntary tremulous motion, with lessened muscular power,
in parts not in action and even when supported; with a propensity to bend the
trunk forwards, and to pass from a walking to a running pace: the senses and
intellect being uninjured” (1418; 1419).
Jean-Martin Charcot (FR) and Edme Félix Alfred Vulpian (FR), four
decades later, added rigidity to Parkinson's excellent clinical description and
attached the name la maladie de Parkinson
[Parkinson's disease] to the syndrome (361; 362).
Edouard Brissaud (FR) and Henry Meige (FR) suggested that paralysis agitans (Parkinson’s) might be
due to a vascular lesion in the substantia
nigrans of the mid-brain (285).
Constantin Trétiakoff (FR) provided pathological evidence, which
supported Brissaud’s suggestion (1875).
Charles Foix (FR) and Jean Nicolesco (FR) showed that the specific
lesions in Parkinson’s disease are in
the substantia nigra of the mid-brain (697; 698).
Herbert
Ehringer (AT)
and Oleh Hornykiewicz (AT) showed that brain dopamine is lower than normal in Parkinson's disease patients (620).
Walther
Birkmayer (AT) and Oleh Hornykiewicz (AT) injected Parkinson’s disease patients with L-DOPA
thereby producing a spectacular improvement of all motor deficits of the
patients (168).
Oleh Hornykiewicz (AT) proved the
existence of a nigro-striatal dopamine pathway in the human brain (922).
George Constantin Cotzias (GR-US), Paul S. Papavasiliou (US), and
Rosemary Gellene (US) demonstrated the effectiveness of accommodating patients
to large daily dosages of L-DOPA in the treatment of Parkinson's disease (442; 443).
Jan J. Korten (NL), Antoine Keyser (NL), Ed M.G. Joosten (NL),
Fons J.M. Gabreëls (NL), and Eileen Critchley (GB) introduced the use of
carbidopa (Sinemet) as a treatment for Parkinson's
disease (4; 449; 1035).
Eric Olaf Backlund (SE), Per-Ola Granberg (SE), Bertil Hamberger
(SE), Evert Knutsson (SE), Anders Martensson (SE), Göran C. Sedvall (SE), Ake
Sieger (SE), and Lars Olson (SE) surgically transplanted parts of the adrenal
medulla autologously into the brain of a patient with severe Parkinson's disease (62). The
results have been promising.
Mihael H. Polymeropoulos (GR-US), Christian Lavedan (US),
Elizabeth Leroy (US), Susan E. Ide (US), Anindya Dehejia (US), Amalia Dutra
(US), Brian Pike (US), Holly Root (US), Jeffrey Rubenstein (US), Rebecca Boyer
(US), Edward S. Stenroos (US), Settara Chandrasekharappa (IN-US), Aglaia
Athanassiadou (GR), Theodore Papapetropoulos (GR), William G. Johnson (US),
Alice M. Lazzarini (US), Roger C. Duvoisin (US), Giuseppe Di Iorio (IT),
Lawrence I. Golbe (US), and Robert L. Nussbaum (US) discovered a mutation in
the alpha-synuclein gene identified in families with Parkinson's disease (1488).
Thomas Bateman (GB) and Robert Willan (GB) described the nature of
recurrent Herpes simplex virus
infection accurately as "a restricted group of localized vesicles with a
short, self-limited course." This publication was particularly important
because it contained descriptions of herpes
iris (now known as erythema
multiforme) and eczema due to
external irritation. It also contained descriptions of molluscum contagiosum (86).
Eugène Houssard (FR) described chronic subdural hematoma which he
thought was of inflammatory origin (925). Chronic subdural hematoma had
been recognized by Wepfer in 1657.
India experienced an outbreak of cholera.
The first issue of the Journal
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia was published. It is the
first natural history journal from North America.
1818
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is
ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being
self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer (DE) (1699)
Jöns Jakob Berzelius (SE) discovered selenium (143).
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) and Joseph-Biènaimé Caventou (FR)
reported the isolation of pure strychnine from the beans of Strychnos ignatii (Saint Ignatius’s
bean) and Strychnos nux vomica (1442; 1443).
Michel-Eugène Chevreul (FR) identified what he called cholestérine
(cholesterol) (Gk. Chole, bile + stereos, solid) as an unsaponifiable fat (369).
Georg August Goldfuss (DE) coined the name Protozoa (Gk, protos, first, zoon, animal) but he did not restrict it just to the protozoa as we
know them today (759).
Giovanni Battista Amici (IT) described circulating protoplasm in Chara cells (31).
Pieter de Riemer (NL) appears to have been the first to freeze tissues in order to permit fine sectioning and to use anatomical sections for anatomical illustration