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 (505).
Thomas Nutall (GB), while in North America, worked on the Torrey
and Gray Flora of North America, and
three volumes of an updated version of F. Andrew Michaux's North American Sylva. His Genera
of North American Plants and a Catalogue of the Species of the Year 1817
was the first of its kind prepared by an on-the-spot American botanist (965; 1365).
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (FR) wrote Philosophie Anatomique, in which he asked the question: "Can
the organization of vertebrated animals be referred to one uniform type?"
The answer for Geoffroy was yes: he saw all vertebrates as modifications of a
single archetype, a single form. Vestigial organs and embryonic transformations
might serve no functional purpose, but they indicated the common derivation of
an animal from its archetype. Geoffroy spent much time drawing up rules for
deciding when structures in two different organisms were variants of the same
type -- in modern terminology, when they were homologous. He observed the way
embryos develop in different animals and that the central nervous system of an
insect lies along its belly while that of a human lies along its back. From
this he theorized that they represented two lineages from a common ancestor (1648). This work
provided important evidence, which Darwin used in his On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) while studying Syzygites megalocarpus (Sporodina grandis) described the fungal
zygospore for the first time. This was the first recognition of sex in the fungi (614).
John Cheyne (GB) and William Stokes (IE) described what came to be
called Cheyne-Stokes respiration.
This is characterized by breathing with rhythmical variations in intensity,
i.e., occurring in cycles (372; 1806).
Camille Biot (FR) described an abnormal pattern of breathing
characterized by groups of quick, shallow inspirations followed by regular or
irregular periods of apnea. In common medical practice, Biot's respiration is
often clinically equivalent to Cheyne-Stokes respiration (162). Note: This breathing pattern is seen in medullary compression of
the brain, the Biot sign.
Valentine Mott (US) was the first to ligate the innominate artery
for aneurysm. The patient was a fifty-seven-year-old sailor at New York
Hospital. The anesthesia administered was a drink containing seventy drops of
tincture of opium. The patient survived for twenty-five days (1271).
Elias S. Cooper (US) removed the medial end of the clavicle and a
portion of the upper end of the sternum to improve the exposure to the
innominate artery, this being the first time this valuable maneuver was
employed during ligation of the innominate. The patient was treated for a
combined aneurysm of the common carotid and subclavian arteries. He survived
for nine days postoperative (429).
Andrew Woods Smyth (US) was the first surgeon to report long-term
survival after ligation of the innominate artery. The operation took place at
the Charity Hospital in New Orleans on 15 May 1864. Dr. Smyth ligated the right
common carotid and the innominate for an aneurysm of the right subclavian
artery in a 32-year-old mulatto man. The patient survived for eleven years (1768).
Astley Paston Cooper (GB) successfully ligated the common carotid
and the external iliac arteries for aneurysms. In 1817, he performed the first
recorded case of ligation of the aorta for aneurysm. The patient's right leg
remained viable, but the left leg was totally ischemic, livid, and cold, and
the patient died 40 hours later. Cooper’s fascia (the fascia transversalis) and Cooper’s hernia (retroperitoneal hernia)
are named to commemorate him. He developed widely followed methods of treating
dislocations and fractures (422-428).
Jean-Louis-Marc Alibert (FR) found that there is a clinical
association between psoriasis and arthritis .
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) was the first to successfully treat
aneurysm by compression (584).
1819
Theodor von Grotthuss; Theodor
Christian Johann Dietrich von Grotthuss (DE) was the first to recognize that light can bring about some
chemical reactions as it is absorbed by molecules (1981).
John William Draper (GB-US)
rediscovered that light can bring about some chemical reactions as molecules
absorb it (553). The
Draper-Grotthuss law is an expression of their discovery.
Nicolas Clement (FR) and Charles Desormes (FR) performed
experiments between 1819-1824) which led to the introduction of the term calorie for the unit of heat (24). Their
calorie was a kg-calorie (modern kcal). It was defined as the quantity of heat to raise a kg of water by
1-degree C. About 1929 this definition was superseded when a committee of the
British Academy of Sciences proposed the g-calorie as an alternate unit of
energy (1105).
Henri Braconnot (FR) boiled various plant products such as
sawdust, linen, and bark with acid and from the process obtained glucose (233). This had
previously been obtained by the boiling of starch with acid. See, Kirchhof, 1815.
It was easy to decide that the molecule of starch was built up out
of glucose units and that in many plants there must be some nonstarch material
that was also built up out of glucose units. It was this nonstarch material
that he was breaking down.
Louis Jacques Thénard (FR) is credited with the discovery of
hydrogen peroxide, the enzyme catalase,
and being the first to analyze an enzymatic reaction quantitatively (1829).
Oscar Loew (US) is also credited with the discovery of catalase. See, Oscar Loew, 1901.
James Batcheller Sumner (US) and Alexander L. Dounce (US)
crystallized catalase (1820).
Joseph Louis Proust (FR) was the first to isolate leucine. It came
from among the fermentation products of milk. He called it oxyde caséique (1510).
Henri Braconnot (FR) isolated and named leucine (Gk. leukos, white) from muscle tissue and
wool (234).
Gerardus Johannes Mulder; Gerrit Jan Mulder (NL) was the first to
secure leucine in relatively pure form and assign to it a correct formula (1288; 1291). Leucine
was proved to be aminoisocaproic acid in 1891.
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou (FR) isolated
the alkaloids brucine and veratrine (1444).
Simon Rudolph Brandes (DE) isolated atropine in a very pure form (236).
Philipp Lorenz Geiger (DE) and Heinrich F. Mein (DE) purified atropine from belladonna (Atropa belladonna) roots and hyoscyamine from henbane (743; 1234). Atropine
is used to treat thirty plus ailments from hay
fever to the tremors of Parkinson’s
disease (paralysis agitans).
Belladonna gets its name from the fact that ladies used it in eye drops to make
their eyes sparkle. It blocks acetylcholine in the musculature of the iris
resulting in dilation.
Simon Rudolph Brandes (DE) isolated an impure sample of atropine,
an alkaloid, from Atropa belladonna a
member of the Solanaceae. He tested its effects on himself and birds (237).
Alfred Ladenburg (DE)
isolated the alkaloid hyoscine (scopolamine) from the Solanaceae. It is similar
in structure to atropine and hyoscyamine and blocks acetylcholine (1060).
Louis Adelbert von Chamisso; Louis
Charles Adélaiede de Chamissot (DE) used the phrase alteration
of generations (metagenesis) when he described the life cycle of tunicates
(benthic invertebrates) (1967).
Johannes Japetus Smith Steenstrup (DK) explained how alternation
of asexual and sexual generations occurs among the coelenterates, trematodes,
and tunicates (1794; 1796). He is commemorated by Steenstrupia Forbes, 1846; Onchnesoma steenstrupi Koren &
Danielssen, 1875; Lepidophyllum
steenstrupi Odhner, 1902; Melinnacheres
steenstrupi Bresciani & Lützen, 1961;
Prionospio steenstrupi Malmgren, 1867; Myxicola
steenstrupi Krøyer, 1856; Mimonectes
steenstrupii Bovallius, 1885; Hesione
steenstrupii de Quatrefages, 1866.
Karl Asmund Rudolphi (SE-DE) was the first to describe dicroceliasis in man. This is an
infection, usually of the biliary duct, by the trematode fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum, which Rudolphi
named (1637; 1638).
Arthur Looss (DE) discovered D.
hospos (1138).
Wendell H. Krull (US) and Cortland R. Mapes (US) published the
full life cycle in a series of papers from 1951-1953 detailing their
observations and experiments. It was known that D. dendriticum affected sheep, but everything else was a mystery.
The first link in the chain was the discovery of the first intermediate host,
the land snail Cochlicopa lubrica
(synonym: Cionella lubrica). Next came the discovery that the slime
balls coughed up by the snails could be a potential method of transfer of the
parasite. Shortly thereafter, the ant, Formica fusca was found to be the
second intermediate host by which sheep were infected (1042).
Johann Gottfried Bremser (DE-AT) provided an accurate classification of Enterobius
vermicularis (Oxyuris vermicularis), distinguishing it from other oxyurids and ascarids.
Commonly called the pinworm, it is the etiologic agent of the the most
pervalent nematode infection of humans in temperate climates, affecting mainly
children less than 12 years of age (242).
Charles Turner Thackrah (GB) found that blood collected after
flowing over tissues, say in an open wound, coagulated more quickly than if the
blood had been drawn directly from the blood vessel (1826; 1827). This was
the first reported evidence for what William Henry Howell (US) would name tissue factor and Pierre Nolf (FR) would
name thromboplastic substance (927; 928; 1351).
John Bostock (GB) gave an excellent clinical description of hay fever (summer catarrh) (201).
William Prout (GB) in 1816, after trying hydriodate of potash
(potassium iodate) on himself in small doses and experiencing no ill effects,
suggested iodine treatment for goiter. This therapy was successfully
adopted by Dr. John Elliotson (1791–1868) at St. Thomas’s Hospital early in
1819 (1518).
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec (FR) was the first to realize
that damage in the lungs and small grey nodules scattered throughout the body
are both manifestations of pulmonary
tuberculosis. In 1816, he invented the stethoscope (Gk. the chest, to look
at), an instrument whose use for listening to the chest was popularized by
Nikolai Sergeievich Korotkoff (RU). Laënnec coined words like rales, bronchophony, pectoriloquy,
and egophany. He described the
symptomology, the clinical course, the physical findings, and the pathological
anatomy of pneumonia, apoplexy of the lungs, gangrene, emphysema, cysts of the lung,
tuberculosis, pleurisy, pleural effusion,
pneumo-thorax, edema of the lungs, pulmonary
tuberculosis, pulmonary abscess and
gangrene, bronchiectasis, infarction, vesicular and bronchial breathing, amphoric and cracked-pot resonance, metallic tinkling, presystolic
thrill which he described but misunderstood, and alcoholic cirrhosis of
the liver which he described and christened. He was the first to recognize the
unity of the tuberculosis condition, which had previously been thought to be
several different diseases. He noted variations in the heart’s contractions
with or without palpable pulse reflecting atrial
fibrillation (1061-1063).
Karl Frederich Burdach (DE) named the globus pallelus or globus
pallidus (pale clump) and the putamen
(shell) and described in detail the fasciculus
gracilis. He will be remembered as a neuroanatomist with his name
associated as in Burdach’s fiber, fissure, nucleus, and tract. He
named claustrum, brachium conjunctivum (superior cerebellar peduncle), and the cuneus. Finally, he localized vision in
the posterior part of the brain and assigned the sensation of consciousness to
the thalamic region of the brain (329).
William Benjamin Carpenter (GB) would take this idea further when
he linked the thalamus with the cerebral cortex by saying, "The Sensory Ganglia constitute the seat of
consciousness not merely for impressions on the Organ of Sense, but also for
changes in the cortical substance of the cerebrum so that until the latter have
reacted downwards upon the Sensorium, we have no consciousness either of the
formation of ideas, or of any intellectual process of which these may be the
subjects." (340)
George N. Thompson (US) and Johannes M. Nielsen (US) "concluded
that the engramme system essential to crude consciousness is located where the
mesencephalon, subthalamus, and hypothalamus meet." (1831)
Philbert-Joseph Roux (FR) performed the first staphylorrhaphy
(surgical closure of a cleft palate) in 1819 (1632).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) successfully ligated the subclavian
artery (585).
The
American Journal of Science was founded.
1820
Eleven physicians meet in Washington, D.C., to establish the U.S.
Pharmacopeia, the first compendium of standard drugs for the United States.
Only 217 drugs that met the criteria of “most fully established and best
understood” were admitted.
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) and Joseph-Bienaimé Caventou (FR)
isolated and purified the alkaloid colchicine, which they extracted from meadow
saffron (Colchicum autumnale), also
called autumn crocus (1445).
John Want (GB) discovered that colchic (colchicine) from Colchicum autumnalis was the
secret ingredient in “medicinal water” used to treat gout (2090).
Alfred Houdé (FR), in 1884, obtained a
crystallized preparation of colchicine (924).
Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (DE) isolated an alkaloid stimulant from
mocha beans and named it caffeine (1640).
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier (FR) isolated caffeine from coffee beans (1439).
Hermann Emil Fischer (DE) and Lorenz Ach (DE) synthesized caffeine (679).
Henri Braconnot (FR) isolated what he called sucre de gélatine (later named glycocolle, then glycine) by heating
gelatin in the presence of dilute sulfuric acid. Initially he thought glycine
was a sugar because of its sweet taste (234). This was
the first instance in which a pure amino acid was obtained from a protein by
acid hydrolysis. Glycine is also called aminoacetic acid.
Auguste Laurent (FR) determined the correct empirical formula for
the amino acid glycine (1077).
William Henry Perkin (GB) and Baldwin F. Duppa (GB) synthesized
glycine by treating bromoacetic acid with ammonia. This was
the first amino acid to be manufactured (1449).
Robert Brainard Corey (US) and Gustav Albrecht (US) determined the
structure of the amino acid, glycine. This was the first amino acid structure
solved (432).
Frederick Christian Accum (DE), working in England, wrote a
treatise in which he described the numerous kinds of food adulteration
practiced at the time and the various methods available to detect them. This
treatise had an impact on most of the civilized world and spawned a generation
of books on the subject in England, the United States, and Europe. Ultimately,
it resulted in the modern era of food regulatory statutes (8). Thomas
Wakeley (GB), Member of Parliament and founder and editor of The Lancet, set up a sanitary commission
whose findings led to the passage of the Adulteration Act and Sale of Food and
Drugs Act.
Christian Friedrich Nasse (DE) formulated Nasse's law: hemophilia
occurs only in males and is passed on by unaffected females (1325).
Johann Lukas Schönlein (DE) coined the term hemophilia (1697).
William Norris (GB) noted that fungoid disease (melanoma), a pigmented skin cell cancer,
was especially prevalent in one family under study. This of course suggested a
familial influence on the appearance of the cancer (1353).
Charles Robert Harington (GB) and George Barger (GB) determined
the structure of thyroxine and synthesized it (831).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) reported on the
embryonic development of the genital and urinary organs (1554; 1559).
Robert Gooch (GB) described postpartum
psychosis (769).
1821
Stephen Elliott (US) authored the remarkable, A Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia (625). He is
commemorated by the genus Elliottia.
Johann Friederich Meckel (called the Younger) (DE) proposed that
higher animals, during their development, pass through the stages of lower
animals, through which periodical and class differences can be traced (1230).
Jean-Antoine
Colladon (CH) observed what is now recognized as dominance when he crossed grey
and white mice and found that their offspring were always either grey or white,
but never intermediates. He continued these experiments as far as the third
generation and it is evident that what he was doing was to make back-crosses
between heterozygous grey mice and homozygous recessive white mice; but the
absence of blending, itself a discovery, led him to conclude that grey mice and
white mice were different species (496; 504). Some consider this the discovery of
the law of hybridization.
Pierre-Fidèle Bretonneau (FR) proposed the general theory that
different diseases are due to different specific causes. He said, “The
specificity of diseases is proved by such a mass of facts, and there is
probably no truth better demonstrated and more fruitful.” This concept is often
referred to as the doctrine of etiological specificity. In 1821, he read a
paper before the Paris Académie de
Médecine in which he concluded that a sizable epidemic of throat distemper which occurred in and
about Tours, France in 1819 was due to a specific disease, characterized by the
formation of a false membrane in the respiratory tract. He asserted that croup, malignant angina, and scorbutic
gangrene of the gums were all the same malady, a specific disease, for
which he proposed the name diphtérite (diphtheritis), because
of the unique membrane in the throat, clearly differentiating it from other
afflictions of the throat. Diphtheritis
is derived from two Greek words, one meaning skin or membrane and the other
meaning inflammation. Later the designation was changed to diphtheria, the term by which the disease is known today.
Bretonneau said, “it is vain to deny that contagion, if not the source of
epidemics, is the source of most epidemics.” He also demonstrated the typical ulcers
on Peyer’s patches in cases of typhoid
fever and differentiated these from tuberculous lesions (246; 247).
Pierre-Fidèle Bretonneau (FR) recorded the first successful use of tracheotomy
in a case of diphtheria (1238).
Antonio Scarpa (IT) provides a classic
description of sliding hernia, or
hernia of the large bowel (1672).
Valentine Mott (US), in 1821, excised the right side of the lower
jaw, after ligating the carotid artery (1272).
Charles Waterton (GB) opened the world's first nature reserve on
the grounds of his estate at Walton Hall near Wakefield, England.
Le Journal de Physiologie Expérimentale was
founded. It is the first periodical devoted exclusively to physiology (1198).
1822
Marie Humbert Bernard Gaspard (FR) thoroughly investigated the
process of putrefaction in animals. At this time, putrefaction was believed to
be intimately associated with the development of septicemia, pyemia, putrid infection, and putrid intoxication. It was supposed
that these conditions were due to the absorption of putrid substances into the
blood stream because the injection of putrid matter into an animal invariably
led to illness or death (732; 733). Note: The modern definition of
putrefaction is the enzymatic decomposition of organic matter, especially
proteins, by anaerobic microorganisms, with formation of malodorous substances
such as indole, skatole, cadaverine, and putrescine. Pyemia is the disease state due to the presence of pyogenic
microorganisms in the blood and the formation, wherever these organisms lodge,
of embolic or metastatic abscesses. Septicemia
is a severe bacteremic infection usually involving invasion of the bloodstream.
Sepsis is the poisoning of an
individual by products of putrefaction, or a severe toxic febrile state
resulting from infection with pyogenic microbes, with or without septicemia.
Francois Magendie (FR) introduced to medicine the effects and uses
of morphine, veratrine, brucine, piperine, emetine, as well as quinine, and
strychnine (1180; 1183).
Herbert Mayo (GB) assigned the motor nerve fibers of the face
muscles to the VIIth nerve, the facial nerve, and common sensibility to the Vth
nerve, the trigeminus (1224).
Pierre Salomon Ségalas d'Etchepare (FR) found that polyuria follows an injection of urea (1731).
Friedrich Wöhler (DE) was the first to introduce the idea that the
role of the kidney is to keep in equilibrium the blood content of water and of
those substances, which appear in the urine. He observed that the blood is
alkaline while the urine is acid; the urine becomes alkaline after the
ingestion of the salts of organic acids; the solutes of the urine are excreted
independently of one another; and an excess of solute in the urine entails an
increased excretion of water (2156). This work
is the origin of the concept of osmotic diuresis.
Charles Chossat (FR) found a connection between urinary water
excretion and the excretion of “animal substances,” that is, those containing
nitrogen (373).
Friedrich G. Goll (CH), Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE), and
Max Hermann (AT) showed that urine flow could be stopped by lowering the blood
pressure by either bleeding, compression of the renal artery, stimulation of
the vagus, or by cutting the spinal cord and that diuresis results from a rise
of blood pressure (764; 886).
Charles
Robert Richet (FR) and Robert Mustard-Martin (FR) revealed
that: intravenous lactose, saccharose, levulose, and dextrose each caused the
immediate appearance
of the sugar in the urine, followed by an increase in urine
flow within the first minute (1606; 1607); the polyuria was dependent on
the amount of sugar that was injected and not on its
concentration (1608).
Charles
Eduard Hédon (FR) and Jean Arrous (FR) discovered that the
diuretic response to the intravenous injection of the same weight of various sugars is proportional to
their molar concentration (859).
Emile
Charles Achard (FR) and Joseph Castaigne (FR) developed a urinary test using
methylene blue dye to examine kidney function. The criterion used was to find
the percentage of dye, injected subcutaneously, that showed up in the urine
within a 24-hour period (9).
Hermann
Strauss (DE), Georges
Fernand Isidore Widal
(FR), André Lemierre (FR), and Adolphe Javal
(FR) concluded that edema is due solely to the urinary retention of
sodium chloride
and introduced the low sodium diet for congestive heart failure (1813; 1814; 2123-2126).
Leo Ambard (FR) provided a way to globally evaluate
renal function by using the ratio plasma urea/urine urea output. This Ambard's
Constant is the initial step of the concept of clearance (30).
Karl Friedrich Burdach (DE), in 1822, named the cingular gyrus (the collosal convolution) and distinguished lateral and medial
geniculate (knee -like bends) (329).
Jean Zuléma Amussat (FR) was one of the inventors of lithotripsy (33).
James Carson (GB) discussed the value of induced pneumothorax for
the treatment of a diseased lung (342).
Carlo Forlanini (IT) proposed that ablation of the lung or
artificial pneumothorax could be a positive contribution to the therapy of phthisis (tuberculosis) (700).
William Cayley (GB) used artificial
pneumothorax induced by pleural incision to treat intractable hemoptysis (349).
Samuel Jackson (US) mentions what later became known as Korsakoff’s psychosis in
a review of the peripheral neuritis of alcoholism (970).
Sergei Sergeievich
Korsakoff; Sergei Sergeyevich Korsakov (RU) emphasized
the association of alcoholic
polyneuropathy with a specific pattern of mental disturbance— Korsakoff’s psychosis— as follows:
"This mental disorder appears at times in the form of sharply delineated
irritable weakness of the mental sphere, at times in the form of confusion with
characteristic mistakes in orientation for place, time and situation, and at
times as an almost pure form of acute amnesia, where the recent memory is most
severely involved, while the remote memory is well preserved . . . Some have
suffered so widespread memory loss that they literally forget everything
immediately.” This syndrome is characterized by a severe memory defect,
especially for recent events, for which the patient compensates by
confabulation (1033). Korsakoff
wrote on paranoia (paranoia
hyperphantastica as he described it in his textbook) and classified
psychiatric illnesses (1034). Known as a humanitarian, he improved conditions in mental
institutions. He was the first great psychiatrist in Russia. He is considered a
moral genius, as were Philippe Pinel
(FR) and Jean-Martin Charcot (FR).
Alexandre-Francois Ollivier (FR) produced experimental hospital gangrene
by autoinfection (1372).
Storks injured by arrows (termed as pfeilstorch in German)
traceable to African tribes were found in Germany in 1822 and constituted some
of the earliest evidence of long distance migration in European birds (822).
Jean-Baptiste-Julien d' Omalius d'Halloy (BE) first used the term Terrain Cretace (Cretaceous Period) to
describe chalk and greensand of Northern France (1374; 1375). The
Cretaceous is usually noted for being the last portion of the Age of Dinosaurs, but that does not mean
that new kinds of dinosaurs did not appear then.
William Daniel Conybeare (GB) and William Phillips (GB) named the
Carboniferous Period in their book Outlines
of Geology of England and Wales (419).
William Buckland (GB) published an account of how ancient hyenas
lived and fed, in Kirkdale cave near Kirkbymoorside in the Vale of Pickering,
North Yorkshire, England. Bones in the cave included hippopotamus (the farthest
north any such remains have been found), elephant, and the remains of numerous cave
hyenas and their coprolites. This is one of the first descriptions of living
habits based on fossil evidence (318). Note:
Material covering the bones dates them at c. 125 K BP. Note: The word
archaeologists now use for fossil feces – coprolites – is a word
invented by Buckland.
Gideon Algernon Mantell (GB), as an amateur paleontologist,
discovered and described from Cretaceous England many fossilized animals
including: Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, Pelorosaurus, the first discovered
brachiosaur, and Hylaeosaurus (1202; 1203).
The German scientific society Versammlungen
Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte was founded at Leipzig.
1823
Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (DE) discovered that powdered platinum
greatly accelerates certain chemical reactions (531).
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) was to later name this phenomenon katalytische kraft (catalytic power) (1961-1964). The term
is coined on page 243 of the 1836b article. See,
Fulhame, 1794
Joakim Frederik Schouw (DK) wrote Grundzüge einer Allgemeinen Pflanzengeographie in which he divided
the vegetation of Europe into twenty-two botanical regions, and,
thereby became a co-founder of scientific
phytogeography (1700).
John Vaughn Thompson (IE) first discovered the nature of
crustacean larvae between 1823 and 1826. By observing the transformation of a
zoea into a 10-legged megalopa and the metamorphosis of swimming cyprids into
benthic barnacles, Thompson not only clarified the taxonomic affinities of
barnacles (originally considered baby geese, then molluscs) and zoeae
(previously a distinct genus of uncertain affinity), but also paved the way for
further work on invertebrate larvae (1833; 1835).
Thomas Stewart Traill (GB) made the first attempt to determine the
fat content of human blood. He found 4.5% of liquid fat in his sample (1870).
Audubon named the Traill's Flycatcher
after him.
Herbert Mayo (GB) discovered that the optic tubercles and the
crura of the brain give the pupillary reflex when the stump of the optic nerve
is irritated (1225).
Alexandre John Gaspard Marcet (CH-GB) gave the earliest
description of a case of what would later be called alcaptonuria. It was in a male infant 17 months of age. The child’s
diaper was stained a deep purple color immediately after birth. The urine
turned black soon after being voided and exposed to the air. It exhibited rapid
blackening with alkalies and a failure of acids to restore the original color (1207).
Léon Rostan (FR) suggested that cerebral softening might be caused
by defective arterial supply to the brain. He said, "…this change in the
brain seems often to be a senile degeneration, showing great similarity to the
gangrene of old age. As in the latter disease cerebral softening appears to be
a disorganization in which the vessels designed to bring blood and life to the
affected organs are ossified…by the process of old age." He pointed out
that cerebral softening may be confined to the cortex of the brain and that
this malady is accompanied by loss of memory, loss of voluntary movement, mental
derangement, senile dementia, and finally by complete coma (1628).
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) proved that cerebral activity
is dependent on oxygen provided by circulating blood (310).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) was the first to treat wry neck by subcutaneous section of the
sternomastoid muscle, 1822 (58). See, Valentine Mott, 1818.
George James Guthrie (GB) wrote the first systematic English
textbook on ophthalmic surgery (819).
William Buckland (GB) found a human skeleton within the Paviland
Cave on the south coast of the Gower peninsula, South Wales. It was covered
with red ocher and ceremonially buried with ivory ornaments and perforated
seashells, the circumstances hinting at a ritual or shamanic use of the site. Buckland
thought it dated from the Roman occupation and called it the Red Lady (319). Note:
The skeleton was later identified as Cro-Magnon and dated from roughly 30 K -
20 K years ago; the Early Upper Paleolithic (Early Stone Age).
The medical journal The Lancet was founded (1144).
1824-1836
James Edward Smith (GB), William Jackson Hooker (GB), and Miles
Joseph Berkeley (GB) published their book, The
English Flora, to which Berkeley contributed 155 fungus genera, 1,360
species, many of them new (1765).
1824
Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (FR) was the first to consider
quantitatively the manner in which heat and work are interconnected. He was
thus the founder of thermodynamics (339).
Hugo von Mohl (DE) provided a clear account of the monocot
vascular bundle. In doing so, he concluded that the tissues in the vascular
bundles are the same as in dicots; the difference is only in that they are
arranged differently (2047; 2052).
Thomas Say (US) was an outstanding entomologist, conchologist, and
herpetologist who participated in many scientific expeditions and wrote many
scientific works. Two of his noteworthy publications are cited (1669; 1670).
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) described the movement of vesicular globules (leukocytes) from the
vascular lumen to the extravascular space in the transilluminated tadpole tail (596).
Gabriel Andral (FR) and William Addison (GB) reported almost
simultaneously the first descriptions of leukocytes; both concluded that the
red as well as the white globules of the blood were altered in disease (15; 37). Addison also deduced that pus
cells were blood leukocytes that had passed through the wall of capillary
vessels.
William Addison (GB) discovered the emigration of
polymorphonuclear leukocytes from circulation into tissues, and that this
movement increased during inflammation (15; 16).
Gabriel Andral (FR) wrote this first monograph on hematology and
one of the most important works in the history of hematology. Here he first
uses the terms anemia and hyperanemia and clearly describes a
number of diseases of the blood including lead
poisoning, septicemia and polycythaemia (37).
Augustus Volnay Waller (FR-GB) independently discovered the
emigration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes in inflammation (2078; 2079).
Thomas Wharton Jones (GB) reported for the first time the ameboid
movements of leukocytes. Jones differentiated the leukocytes into non-granular,
finely granulated, and coarsely granulated types; later to be called lymphocytes,
neutrophils, and eosinophils, respectively (981).
Casimir Joseph Davaine (FR) and Nathanael Lieberkühn (DE) observed
leukocyte ameboid movement (478; 1118).
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (DE) described the ability
of molluscan leukocytes to ingest India ink particles (821).
Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) observed ingestion of
particles by mammalian polymorphonuclear leukocyte blood cells (1707).
Albert von Recklinghausen (DE) described granular cells in the
frog mesentery; later named mast cells
by Paul Ehrlich. He noted translocational locomotion of leukocytes for the first time and observed ingestion of particles by
mammalian polymorphonuclear blood cells (2054).
William Peyer (GB) and Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE)
gave descriptions of translocational locomotion and phagocytosis, which were
nearly as complete as any made today (1459; 1708).
Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (DE) showed that the essential feature
of inflammation is the passage of white blood cells through the walls of
capillaries (diapedesis), and that pus and pus-cells are formed in this
way from blood. These experiments traced the migration of stained leukocytes to
the center of inflammation in the cornea (400-402). Note: This is the discovery of the
origin of pus.
Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering (DE), in 1868, found that leukocytes
became adherent to blood vessels near sites of injury (1242).
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (DE-AT) noted that connective
tissue destruction appeared to be associated with leukocyte collections in
inflamed sites (161).
Julius Arnold (DE) mentioned that leukocytes pass through
specialized openings between endothelial cells via “para-cellular” migration,
which he referred to as diapedesis (47).
John Goss (GB) observed segregation of a recessive trait in peas
but failed to note numerical ratios. In the same year, Alexander Seton (GB)
published similar observations (776; 1734).
Moritz Herold (DE) was the first to
do considerable original work on the embryonic development of a division of the
invertebrates—the aranea (spiders) (887).
James Scarth Combe (GB) was the first to describe a case of what
would later be called pernicious anemia (413).
Thomas Addison (GB) and Hermann Lebert (DE) independently
described idiopathic or pernicious anemia based on single cases.
Addison called it melasma suprarenale (11-13; 1088).
Michael Anton Biermer (DE) provided the classic description of pernicious anemia (pernicious because
no remedy could be found) characterized by anemia, general languor and
debility, remarkable feebleness of the heart's action, irritability of the
stomach, and a peculiar change of the color in the skin resulting from the
deterioration of the adrenal cortex (152; 153).
William Gardner (CA) and William Osler (CA) wrote a thorough and
classic account of pernicious anemia (729). Note:
This is the first complete account of pernicious
anemia and beyond question a major achievement of clinical endocrinology.
George Richards Minot (US) and William Parry Murphy (US)
demonstrated that adding liver to their diet could successfully treat patients
suffering from pernicious anemia. They suspected that a dietary deficiency of
some vitamin was the root cause of the disease (1253; 1319).
William Bosworth Castle (US) and Thomas Hale Ham (US) showed that
the substance responsible for preventing pernicious
anemia arises from the combination of an intrinsic factor in the gastric juice and an extrinsic factor in the diet. This antianemic factor is stored in
the liver (344; 345). Castle
called the essential gastric secretion "intrinsic factor" because it
is formed in the body.
Lionel Berk (US), William Bosworth Castle (US), Arnold D. Welch
(US), Robert W. Heinle (US), Rudolf Anker (US) and Martin Epstein (US) found
that absence of gastric juice carrying intrinsic factor would fail to activate
and protect vitamin B12 thus leading to pernicious anemia (111).
This intrinsic factor was subsequently found to be a glycoprotein
with which vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) must combine to be absorbed by the gut.
Intrinsic factor is secreted by parietal cells of the gastric glands in the
stomach, where it binds with the vitamin. Thus bound, intrinsic factor protects
vitamin B12 from digestion as it passes through the gastrointestinal tract. See,
Grasbeck, 1965.
Horace Albert Barker (US), Herbert Weissbach (US), and Robert D.
Smyth (US) isolated several forms of the B12 coenzyme in pure form and showed
that it contained the elements of adenine and a pentose linked to the corrinoid
(75).
Mary Shaw Shorb (US) showed that there is a direct relationship
between the ability of liver extracts to cure pernicious anemia and their ability to stimulate the growth of the
microorganism Lactobacillus lactis
Dorner. Thus, a bioassay method was established for what would later prove to
be vitamin B12 (1739; 1740).
Edward Lawrence Rickes (US), Norman G. Brink (US), Frank R.
Koniuszy (US), Thomas R. Wood (US), and Karl August Folkers (US) were the first
to purify, crystallize, and characterize the vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) molecule,
which surprisingly contains a cyanide group and a cobalt atom (1609). Randolph
West (US) clinically verified the ability of the crystalline preparation to
arrest Addisonian pernicious anemia (2119).
P. Galen Lenhert (US) and Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (GB)
demonstrated by X-ray diffraction analysis that the coenzyme form of B12 was
formed by the direct ligation of C-5 of 5′-deoxyadenosine to the Co atom at the center of the corrinoid ring
of vitamin B12. This was the first demonstration of the existence of a
biologically stable and functional carbon-metal bond (1101).
D. Schuette (DE) was possibly the first to report use of cod liver
oil as a treatment for rickets (wrickken = to twist) (1227; 1704). Note: cod-liver oil had been a folk
remedy since time inmemorial.
Francis Glisson (GB), in 1650, recommended rachitis—Greek for
spine—as the medical term now used (750).
Pierre Paul Broca (FR) described rickets as a nutritional disease (288).
William Prout (GB) discovered that the stomachs of dogs, rabbits,
horses, cats, hares, and humans contain free hydrochloric acid (1514).
Friedrich Heinrich Bidder (LV-DE) and Carl Ernst Heinrich Schmidt
(LV-DE) proved that the acid of gastric juice is exclusively hydrochloric acid.
They quantitatively analyzed gastric juice collected by means of a fistula
created in different species of live fasting animals (150).
William Frédéric Edwards (GB-FR) studied minimum and maximum
temperatures compatible with life; heat production in young animals and adults;
resistance of young animals to cold and oxygen deprivation; the importance of humidity,
pressure, and movement of air in the loss of heat by transpiration; and the
role of light in the development of batrachians (frogs, toads, and newts) (610; 611).
Henry Hill Hickman (GB) used carbon dioxide to anesthetize animals
prior to surgery and suggested it use on man (343; 895).
Jean Civiale (FR), by modifying the primitive lithotrite of Albucasis,
introduced a trilable, grasping and fragmenting instrument in 1824. This can be
considered the beginning of the use of lithotriptors and ‘endourology’ in stone
fragmentation. Henry Bigelow (), in 1874, developed a stronger and harder
lithotrite, which was introduced into the bladder with the help of anaesthesia.
He filled the bladder, crushed the stones, and evacuated the fragments. This
was called litholopaxy. Suddenly, the
mortality rate dropped from 25% to 2.4%.
William Buckland (GB) published Notice on the Megalosaurus or giant fossil lizard of Stonesfield.
This was the first time a dinosaur fossil was described and named (the term dinosaur did not yet exist). In the same
science meeting where he described Megalosaurus Buckland also announced the
first fossil mammal from the Age of Reptiles (320). Note: In 1822, Gideon Algernon Mantell
(GB) found the fossilized tooth of a Cretaceous animal he would characterize as
herbivorous, reptilian, and tens of feet long; he would name it Iguanodon.
After he prepared a paper reporting Iguanodon for the Royal Society the
aforementioned William Buckland urged Mantell to delay, consequently it was
Buckland not Mantell who first published on a dinosaur discovery.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA)
was founded at London, England.
The Annales des Sciences Naturelles
was founded.
1825
Albert
Policard (FR) and André Paillot (FR) were among the first to use
epi-illumination fluorescence microscopy (vertically incident exciting light) (1486).
Johan Sebastiaan Ploem (NL) developed
epi-illumination with narrow band blue and green light (1481; 1482).
Johan Sebastiaan Ploem (NL) and Hans J. Tanke (NL) popularized
epi-illumination using fluorescence microscopy (1483).
Michael Faraday (GB) reported that benzene reacted with chlorine
in sunlight to give a solid body and dense, viscous fluid. This was undoubtedly
the first sample of technical benzene hexachloride (BHC). He knew nothing of
its biological activity (640).
Teunis van der Linden (NL) was the first to isolate and describe
γ-hexachlorcyclohexane (1903). Giovanni Battista Amici The
gamma isomer came to be known as lindane
in his honor. Lindane (gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane) has been
widely used as an antiscabetic and a pediculicidal agent with reasonably good
efficacy. Bender
mentions the insecticidal properties of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) in a patent
paper in 1933. HCH was first patented in the 1940s.
It should not be confused with benzene hexachloride (BHC), a mixture of various
isomers and by-products. Note:
Lindane is a nerve poison that interferes with GABA neurotransmitter function.
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (CH) wrote Mémoires sur la Famille des Léguminenses, the beginning of
phylogenetic interpretation of this family (501).
Robert E. Grant (GB) created the name Porifera "pore-bearer"
from (L. porus - pore; ferre - to bear) for the
sponges. He began his work in 1825, becoming the first great student of the
morphology and physiology of the sponges (787).
Henri-Marie Ducrotay de Blaineville (FR) proposed that Malacozoa
replace the name Mollusca. Although this was not adopted the term malacologist
survived as the name of one who studies mollusks
(497).
Pierre André Latreille (FR) elevated the batrachians (frogs,
toads, and newts) into a separate class, the amphibians (1075).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ)
discovered the germinal vesicle (nucleus of the oocyte) in the germ-disk of
birds. He was the first to describe the blastula of a fertilized animal egg
(bird) (1520; 1522).
Karl Ernst
von Baer (EE-DE-RU)
discovered the mammalian ovum (1949).
Jean Jacques Marie Cyprien Victor Coste (FR), Jacques Matthieu
Delpech (FR), and Thomas Wharton Jones (GB) independently discovered the
germinal vesicle (nucleus of the oocyte) in mammals (441; 980).
Rudolph
Wagner (DE) discovered an important formation in the ovum of several species of
mammals, which he called the macula
germinativa – later known as the nucleolus (2068).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) discovered embryonic precursors of
gills in the embryos of higher animals that lack gills as adults (1555; 1556). He found
branchial clefts and branchial arches in the embryos of birds and mammals then
worked out the detailed homologies of the gill arches and hyoid in the higher
vertebrates. He followed the embryological history of these structures and
found that the branchial clefts disappear eventually and that the blood vessels
adapt themselves to the lungs. He held that the upper jaw develops from the
first visceral arch as a process independent of the lower jaw (1559; 1560; 1562).
Karl Bogislaus Reichert (DE) described the fate of the first and
second visceral arches in Anura and Urodela (1584).
William Beaumont (US), over a period of several years, observed
the responses of the stomach of his famous patient, Alexis St. Martin, who had
a permanent fistula into his stomach as the result of a gunshot wound. He
extended the work of others on digestion by making clear the physiological
responses of the gastric mucosa to chemical and mechanical stimuli. He
established the presence of a “chemical principal” in the gastric juice and
demonstrated that an empty stomach is devoid of acid; the presence of stomach
acid is induced by the presence of food (91; 92; 1148). See, Helm, 1801
Caleb Hillier Parry (GB), in 1825, gave one of the earliest
descriptions of exophthalmic goiter from a case he observed in 1786 (1420). Note: This and thyromegaly
can be symptoms of hyperthyroidism.
Robert James Graves (IE) described a syndrome of palpitation,
goiter, and exophthalmos which would later be called Grave's disease (790).
Ernst Heinrich Weber (DE) and Wilhelm Eduard Weber (DE) were the
first to make a detailed application of hydrodynamic principles to the study of
the circulation of the blood (2102).
Francois Magendie (FR) later gave an excellent description of cerebrospinal
fluid and identified the median aperture (also known as the medial aperture, and foramen
of Magendie) which drains cerebrospinal fluid from the fourth ventricle
into the cisterna magna (1181; 1182; 1186).
J.-J.-A.-Ernest Faivre (FR) and Hubert Luschka (DE) provided
microscopic studies, which gave origin to the hypothesis that the choroid
plexuses of the cerebral ventricles elaborate the cerebrospinal fluid (637; 1159).
Auguste Pettit (FR) and Joseph Girard (FR) reported an increase in
volume of the choroidal cytoplasm after injections of muscarin, pilocarpine,
etc., chemicals known to increase the production of cerebrospinal fluid (1457).
Lewis Hill Weed (US) presented evidence that the perivascular
spaces of the central nervous system also pour a small amount of fluid into the
subarachnoid space (2104).
Lewis Hill Weed (US) and Harvey Williams Cushing (US) recorded the
outflow of cerebrospinal fluid from a catheter inserted into the third
ventricle through the aqueduct of Sylvius thus demonstrating an
intraventricular source of the fluid (2105).
Walter J. Meek (US) confirmed the work of Pettit and Girard (1232).
Louis Barkhouse Flexner (US) and Hyman Winters (US) found that the
cerebrospinal fluid is passed by the cells of the choroid plexuses, which do
work in the process, in small amount into the neural cavities (688; 689).
See, Domenico Felice Antonio Cotugno, 1770
Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (FR) is considered by many to be
the founder of medical statistics. He emphasized the careful collection of
facts that had been well and completely observed followed by an equally careful
analysis of the facts. He called this the numerical
method. In his book, Recherches
Anatomico-Pathologiques sue la Phthisie, he reported on 123 cases of phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis)
carefully reporting the symptoms, lesions in the various organs, and clinical
course of each patient. In his book,
Recherches Anatomiques Pathologiques et Therapeutiques sur la Maladie Conne
sous les noms de Fièvre Putride, Adynamique, Ataxique, Typhoide, etc., he
reported on 138 patients suffering from typhoid
using his same careful methodology. In his Recherches
sur les Effets de la Saigéee dans Quelques Maladies Inflammatoires, et sur
l’Action de l’Emetique et des Vesicatoires dans la Pneumonie, he presented
statistical evidence that venesection (bloodletting) never arrested an attack
of pneumonia and appeared to have no
beneficial effect (1145-1147).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ)
discovered what later was called the Purkinje
shift or Purkinje effect. Blue
objects became brighter than yellow objects when they were placed in dim light.
This was later explained, as the rods, which are responsible for vision in dim
light, are more sensitive to short wavelengths than to long wavelengths (1521).
John Edward Gray (GB) proposed the family name Hominidae for
members of the zoological family of man (797).
1826-1828
Dengue
fever
spread from Savannah, Georgia, to other cities along the southeastern coast of
the United States, and through the Caribbean (1030).
1826-1837
The second cholera
pandemic of the 19th century, and the most devastating one, began in Bengal and
spread through India in 1826. It reached Afghanistan in 1827 and spread further
into central Asia and the Middle East. By late 1830 it had reached Moscow, and
from there spread westward into Europe in 1831. It reached England on a ship
from Hamburg in October 1831 and spread throughout the British Isles; in
England alone 22,000 died. Irish immigrants, fleeing poverty and the potato
famine, carried the disease from Europe to North America. On their arrival in
the summer of 1832, 1,220 died in Montreal and another thousand across Quebec.
The disease then entered the U.S. through Detroit and New York and reached
Latin America by 1833. Another outbreak across England and Wales began in 1848,
killing 52,000 over two years (1030).
1826
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) discovered and named the
phenomenon of osmosis, the free
passage of water through a membrane that may restrict the movement of
substances in solution. He measured osmotic pressure and determined that the
pressure related directly to the concentration of dissolved solute. Dutrochet
realized that this explained how roots take up water, the movement of water
within the plant, and turgor (597-599). See, Jean Antoine Nollet, 1748.
Wilhelm Friedrich Philipp Pfeffer (DE) discovered that if he
placed a protein solution inside a semipermeable membrane immersed in water the
internal pressure of the bag would rise. The process is osmosis and Pfeffer showed how one might measure the osmotic pressure resulting. He was the
first to measure osmotic pressure. Pfeffer also showed that the pressure
depended upon the size of the molecules dissolved within the bag. This meant
that, from osmotic pressure, the molecular weight of specific proteins could be
determined. In this way Pfeffer was able to make the first reasonably reliable
measurements of the size of giant molecules (1460).
Burton
Edward Livingston (US) gave an excellent presentation of the current state of
knowledge regarding diffusion and osmosis in plants (1128).
Per Fredrik Thorkelsson Scholander (SE-NO-US) proposed the solvent
tension theory of osmosis (1693).
Augustin Sageret (FR) experimentaly crossed muskmelons and
cantelopes. He noticed that his parent forms differed from one another in
characters that could be contrasted in pairs: flesh white or yellow, seeds
white or yellow, flavor acid or sweet. He observed that some of these
characters were dominant over others and that the F1 generation was uniform,
and he concluded that a hybrid did not show fusion of parental characters, but
a 'distribution.' This, however, was not equivalent to a discovery of segregation
of unit factors (496; 1645). In this
paper Sageret canonized the concept of dominance, the genetic term still
in use.
Friedrich Tiedemann (DE) and Leopold Gmelin (DE) demonstrated that
digestion is, in fact, a complicated series of processes, involving several
organs (previously it was thought to be a simple dissolution process). They
found that some substances are transformed during digestion, e.g., starch to
glucose. They showed that various digestive juices have discrete properties,
e.g., secretions of the pancreas can digest proteins, and saliva cannot. They
discovered that some biliary substances are purely excretory, e.g., bile
pigments, while others play important physiological roles, e.g., absorption of
fats. They also discovered shortly after William Prout (GB) and independently
of him that the stomach produces hydrochloric acid. Gmelin’s nitric acid test
for the presence of bilirubin in chyle, blood serum, and urine is contained
here (1856; 1857).
Urbain Leblanc (FR) described in cattle what he mistakenly thought
was a tumor, so he named it osteosarcoma
tumors (lumpy jaw; actinomycosis; oral
necrobacillosis; clyers), the most prominent symptoms being swelling and
suppuration of the jaw (338; 1089; 1090).
William Dick (GB) treated ‘clyers’ (lumpy jaw, actinomycosis) of cattle with iodine as early as 1839 (25).
Otto Bollinger (DE)
described a series of pathologic processes of the jaws and throats of cattle,
which had previously been considered as osteosarcoma,
bone cancer and wooden tongue. He demonstrated the granulomatous nature of the
condition and described detritus containing granulation cells, leukocytes, and
opaque, yellow granular bodies, which he regarded as true fungi (196).
Carl Otto Harz (DE) was the first to call the infectious agent ray fungus, or actinomycosis (848).
James A. Cahill, Jr. (US) described actinomycosis in man (338).
James Homer Wright (US) clarified the pathology of actinomycosis (2169).
Charles Bell (GB) recognized what he termed a sixth sense, which later was characterized as proprioceptive
function (97).
René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec (FR) coined the term cirrhosis during a discussion of liver
disease, "This type of growth [of the liver] belongs to the group of those
which are confused under the name of scirrhus.
I believe we ought to designate it with the name of cirrhosis, because of its color. Its development in the liver is
one of the most common causes of ascites and has the peculiarity that…the
tissue of the liver is absorbed, and it ends often…by disappearing entirely." (1061)
(1210). In 1850,
Robert William Smith (GB), a professor of surgery at Trinity College in Dublin,
in his essay Observations upon the Warty
Ulcers, first linked Marjolin’s name to the phenomenon he described.
Antoine Lembert (FR) introduced a suture, which ensures that
during suture of the intestine (enterorrhaphy) serous surface is applied to serous
surface when suturing the intestine. This technique laid the foundation of all
modern gastric and intestinal surgery (1100).
Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (DE) was the first to successfully
apply Lembert’s suture when he performed the first resection of the small
intestine, in a patient with a gangrenous segment of the bowel (527).
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (DE) performed a number of bowel
resections, which are here recounted by Ernst Hauer (DE) (851).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) gave the first clear pathological description
of congenital dislocation of the hip
joint. He distinguished this syndrome caused by failure of fetal
development of the acetabulum from deformities due to tuberculosis and
pyoarthrotic disease of the hip joint (588).
Johann
Friedrich Dieffenbach (DE) achieved the first surgical closure of the hard
palate (524; 525; 1685).
Carl
Friedrich Benedictus Quittenbaum (DE), in 1826, is credited with the first
elective splenectomy. The patient only lived six hours
postoperatively (1533; 2114).
Jules Emile Péan (FR) reported the first successful
splenectomy. He described his operation on a 20-year-old woman who he believed
had a large ovarian or uterine tumor (1436).
Bernard Delaitre (FR), Bruno Maignien (FR), Philippe Icard
(FR), Brendan J. Carroll (US), Edward H. Phillips (US), Chester J. Semel (US),
Moses J. Fallas (US), and Leon Morgenstern (US) almost simultaneously reported
the first laproscopic splenectomy (341; 513).
The journal Bijdragen Tot de Natuurku`ndige
Wetenschappen was founded.
1827-1828
There is an epidemic of acrodynia
(epidemic erythema) in France.
Acrodynia means pain of the extremities. Karl Petren (SE) notes that the
so-called epidemic of acrodynia may have been due to arsenical poisoning.
Arsenic was used in the French wine districts for destroying the parasites that
attack the grape vines (157; 1453).
1827
"I have never yet examined the body of a patient dying with
dropsy attended coagulable urine, in whom some obvious derangement was not
discovered in the kidneys.... In all the cases in which I have observed the
albuminous urine, it has appeared to me that the kidney has itself acted a more
important part and has been more deranged both functionally and organically
than has generally been imagined." Richard Bright (253)
Auguste Arthur Plisson (FR) was the first to isolate aspartic
acid. It came from an extract of the root of the marshmallow plant (Althaea officinalis) (1480). Plisson
named it.
Karl Heinrich Leopold Ritthausen (DE) described the isolation of
proteins from plant seeds in a long series of experiments. He also isolated the
long known aspartic acid from hydrolysates of legumin and conglutin (1614; 1615). Aspartic
acid is also known as aminosuccinic acid.
William Prout (GB) was the first to divide the components of
foodstuffs into saccharinous, oleaginous, and albuminous (a historic
designation since they correspond to later carbohydrates, fats, and proteins).
He recognized fat as an important nutrient in the diet along with protein and
carbohydrate. He also determined the composition of urea and lithic acid (uric
acid) (1515-1517).
Pierre-Jean-François Turpin (FR), an outstanding artist, reports
and illustrates his observations of cell division in algae (1890).
John James Audubon (FR-US), an artist of birds without peer, began
the publication of his four-volume work, The
Birds of America (54). This
elephant folio is over three feet high and contains 435 hand-colored aquatint
plates. This is the most famous of all ornithological works. His five-volume Ornithological Biography followed in
1831. It contains the bird descriptions for The
Birds of America (55).
Thomas Hodgkin (GB) and Joseph Jackson Lister (GB) described for
the first time the true microscopic structure of a range of tissues, e.g.,
striated muscle and biconcave blood cells. Some science historians consider
this paper the origin of animal histology (902).
Augustin Sageret (FR) made crosses of the so-called
“cantaloupe” and “chaté” varieties of melons, which have different grooves and
netting.
He studied the combination of these characters in hybrids (1646). Sageret
cited unit characters in human eye color and used the term dominant.
John Creery Ferguson (IE) was the first in the British Isles to
auscultate a fetal heart tone. He had obtained his fetal stethoscope from
Jacques Kergeradec (FR) in Paris during 1827.
Karl Ernst von Baer (EE-DE-RU) was the first to point out that the
ovarian follicle contains the mammalian egg. He made it clear that mammalian
development (including man’s) is not fundamentally different from that of other
animals. He regarded the sperm cells as entozoa,
i.e., parasites, and named them spermatozoa (1949; 1950; 1952; 1953).
Francois Magendie (FR) discovered the median aperture in the roof
of the fourth ventricle connecting it with the subarachnoid space. This later
became known as the foramen of Magendie (1186).
Hubert Luschka (DE) described the paired lateral foramina in the
meningeal roof of the fourth ventricle (Luschka’s foramen). They drain the
fourth ventricle into the subarachnoid space at the cerebellopontine angle (1160).
Nathan Smith (US) gave this early and important description of
“necrosis” which today we would call osteomyelitis
(1766). Note: In New England at this time it was known as fever-sore.
Richard Bright (GB) gave an excellent description of a syndrome
characterized by dropsy (edema), sclerosis of the kidney, albuminous urine,
cardiac hypertrophy, and an increase in blood urea. In his honor it has been
called Bright’s disease (glomerulonephritis) or Morbus Brightii. With nothing more
sophisticated than a candle and a silver spoon, he discovered protein in urine,
the diagnostic characteristic of Bright's
disease of the kidneys. He was the first to suggest a connection between a
large heavy heart and contracted kidneys.
Bright also wrote on cerebral
lesions, acute yellow atrophy of the
liver, nephritis, condensation of
the lung in whooping cough,
pathologic lesions in typhoid fever, paralysis and tetanus, cerebral hemorrhage,
laryngeal phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis), acute otitis, pancreatic diabetes, unilateral
convulsions, and status lymphaticus
(202; 250-284).
Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed (GB), using a primitive
sphygmograph, described high blood pressure (1193). He also linked left ventricular
hypertrophy to hypertension due to nephritis and reported the presence of high
blood pressure in patients without renal disease (1195; 1196).
Robert M. Kark (ZA-GB-US), Conrad L. Pirani (US), Victor E. Pollak
(US), Robert C. Muehrcke (US), and John D. Blainey (US) perfected the technique
of renal biopsy in the prone position. They biopsied patients and diagnosed
many cases of nephritic syndromes, and toxemia of pregnancy (987).
John Rhea Barton (US) performed a femoral osteotomy between the
greater and lesser trochanters to secure motion in an ankylosed hip. He
performed a subtrochanteric osteotomy of the femur for a severe
flexion-adduction deformity of the hip (79). This has
been called the first successful arthroplasty.
Ludwig van Beethoven (DE) was a 56-year-old man who presented with
fever and chills associated with ascites, abdominal pain and a hacking cough
with scant hemoptysis. Another dominant feature of his medical history was
deafness, which had its onset at the age of 28. Hemoptysis and epistaxis became
more frequent and Beethoven eventually developed anuria, became comatose, and
died.
Michael S. Donnenberg (US), Michael T. Collins (US), R. Michael
Benitez (US), and Philip A. Mackowiak (US) support Beethoven’s cause of death
as pneumonia, possibly complicated by
bacterial peritonitis; tertiary syphilis with gummatous cirrhosis, luetic otitis, and luetic iridocyclitis (resolved); and irritable bowel syndrome (543; 1174).
Collin S.
Karmody (US) and Edgar S. Bachor (US) offered a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to
provide a single entity that explains most of Beethoven's symptoms and was
finally the cause of his death. They concluded that Beethoven's sensorineural
hearing loss was an immunopathy associated with IBD (988).
Valentine
Mott (US) was the first to ligate the common iliac artery at its origin. This
was during an operation for aneurysm (1273; 1274).
The Medical Gazette was founded in London.
The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
was founded.
The Western Journal of the Medical and Physical
Sciences was founded.
1828
Robert Brown (GB) reported that under the microscope pollen grains
in water, jiggled around irregularly. He tried nonliving particles of about the
same size and found the same type of motion. This became known as Brownian movement or Brownian motion (300; 301).
Albert Einstein (CH-US) and Jean Perrin (FR) later supported
Brown’s concept (623; 624; 1450). See, Jan Ingen-Housz (Ingenhousz), c.
1790. Note: Brownian motion provided
the first incontrovertible evidence of the existence of atoms/molecules. While
others had speculated on the existence of atoms, Einstein and Perrin are given
credit for being the first to realize that Brownian motion offered evidence for
their existence.
Friedrich Wöhler (DE) was the first person to accomplish the in vitro synthesis of an organic
compound from inorganic compounds. He reacted lead cyanate or silver cyanate
with ammonia to produce urea crystals (1966; 2157).
Antoine Béchamp (FR) obtained urea in vitro by protein oxidation (93).
Francois-Vincent Raspail (FR), in 1828, noted that plant proteins
and sugars together give a purplish-red color when treated with strong sulfuric
acid, thus providing the basis of the aldehyde test for the amino-acid
tryptophan nearly fifty years before it was introduced (1548).
Francois-Vincent Raspail (FR) applied chemical tests to the
protoplasm of Chora, which form the bases of three reactions that are still
widely used in the laboratory for the identification of proteins, the
xanthoproteic reaction, Liebermann's test and the aldehyde reaction. He tested
the reaction of protoplasm with a blue dye obtained from a species of sun
spurge, found in the Mediterranean, which turned pink in acid solution (1548; 1549). This
anticipated the Voisenet-Fürth reaction.
Count Karl Axel Hampus Mörner (SE) quantified the xanthoproteic
reaction (1269).
Francois-Vincent Raspail (FR) used hydrochloric acid to detect
carbohydrates (furfural or Liebermann reaction). In 1829, he
applied the natural acid-base indicator, turnsole,
to living cells and determined that the cell interior is acidic. In the same
year he proved the presence or absence of various metals in cells by
incinerating them and analyzing the ashes and demonstrated by what became known
as the xanthoproteic, Liebermann, and aldehyde tests the presence of albuminous matter in the cytoplasm
(he called it sap) of plant cells (1550). He is also
credited with determining the agent of scabies
(the mite Sarcoptes scabiei). See, Giovan Cosimo Bonomo, 1687.
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) coined the
term bacterium as a representative
name for some bacterial types. The word comes from the Greek meaning “small
stick” (619).
Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart (FR) recognized four successive
periods of vegetation on earth, each characterized geologically. Three were
particularly well characterized: the first, extending to the end of the Carboniferous,
dominated by the vascular cryptogams; the third, covering the Jurassic and the
Cretaceous, dominated by ferns and the gymnosperms; the fourth, which was the
Tertiary, dominated by the dicotyledons.
He also divided the vegetable kingdom into six classes: Agame
(thallophytes), cellular cryptogams (liverworts and mosses, i.e., Hepaticae and
Muscae), vascular cryptogams, and three classes of phanerogams: gymnosperms,
monocotyledonous angiosperms, and dicotyledonous angiosperms.
Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart (FR) made the first attempt at a
synthesis of paleobotany: the inventory of fossil genera and the place of these
genera in natural classification. He is one of the founders of paleobotany (293; 294).
Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (DE) was the first to accurately
draw the rods of the retina, which he called cylinders. He saw these rods in
the retinas of birds, mammals, amphibians, and fish. Treviranus associated
these structures and their terminal papillae with the optic nerve and with the
reception of light (1876; 1878). He
incorrectly thought that the rods faced the vitreous chamber.
Friedrich Heinrich Bidder (LV-DE) was the first to recognize the
inverted nature of the retinal receptors (147).
Heinrich Müller (DE) identified and numbered the principle layers
of the retina (1296; 1297).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (DE) described two distinct types of
nerve endings in the retina (rods and cones) (2007; 2008).
Maximillian
Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) described the inner and outer segments of the photoreceptors
and other elements of the retina, including bipolar cells. He detailed all 10
layers of the retina and proposed that rods are responsible for colorless night
vision, whereas cones are necessary for daylight color vision and
high-resolution spatial vision. Schultze noted that there is a strong
correlation between the peak period of an animal’s activity and the ratio of
rods to cones in its retina (1709-1711).
Henri Parinaud (FR) and Augustin Charpentier (FR), independently
of Schultze, postulated two classes of photoreceptors (rods and cones), one
sensitive to dim light, and the other to daylight. Parinaud wrote that night
blindness (hemeralopia) is due to a defect in the rods (363; 1413).
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE) recognized that stimulation of the
cones of the retina mediated the sensation of color while the rods conveyed
light or darkness (1046).
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (ES) showed conclusively that in the
vertebrate retina there are not only independent receptors and retinal ganglion
cells but also bipolar cells between them (1543).
Johannes
Adolf von Kries (DE) formulated the modern "duplicity" or
"duplexity" theory of vision mediated by rods at low light levels and
three types of cones at higher light levels (2014).
Karl Ernst von Baer (EE-DE-RU) wrote On Developmental History of Animals, which marks the beginning of
modern scientific embryology and contains his strong opposition to
preformationism. His publications between 1828 and 1838 described the germ
layers of the developing embryo (he thought there were four layers) and how the
early stages of the development of vertebrate embryos were quite similar even
among creatures that in the end were quite dissimilar. This implies that
development proceeds from the sculpturing of general features to the chiseling
of fine details, which give the species its distinctive characteristics. He
worked out the genesis of all the principal organs from the germ layers. His
work led him to conclude that relationships among animals could be deduced more
properly by comparing embryos than by comparing adult structure (the origin of
comparative embryology). Von Baer was able to show that embryonic notochords
appear among vertebrates and some non-vertebrates. This feature-in-common led
to their being placed together in the phylum Chordata (1950-1953). See, Pander 1817
Karl Ernst
von Baer (EE-DE-RU)
theorized that, "The eye seems to be an outgrowth of the neural tube,
which protrudes through the muscle layer as far as the skin layer, and the
outer parts of the eye are changes in the skin evoked as a result." (1951)
Hans Spemann (DE) performed experimental analysis of lens
formation in the frog. He cauterized the prospective retina arrangement in the
neurula stage of Rana fusca. A few
days later, Spemann observed that both the eye and the lens were missing on the
operated side of the tadpole. In those cases where the retinal rudiment had not
been destroyed, the ability to form lenses appeared to correlate with the
ability of the remnant to contact the overlying ectoderm. Spemann claimed that
contact of the optic vesicle with the overlying ectoderm was needed to turn
that ectoderm into a lens, but he did not know whether it was a sufficient
cause. Moreover, he did not know yet whether the optic cup instructed the
ectoderm to form a lens or merely acted as a trigger to permit a pre-existing
potency to become expressed (1775).
Warren Harmon Lewis (US) provided stringent experimental proof of
lens induction following displacement of optic vesicles (which he had pushed
caudally underneath the skin). He also achieved heteroplastic lens induction,
by placing Rana sylvatica epidermis
over the denuded optic vesicle of R.
palustris, where it produced a lens (1117).
Helen Dean King (US) found that if the optic cup and the overlying
ectoderm are from the same species, lens induction is more likely to be
successful (1004).
Ross Granville Harrison (US) obtained experimental induction of
the lens by transplanting the optic cup (834).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) described the embryonic development of
lungs and air sacs in birds (1557).
Armand Juillet (FR) published a comprehensive treatise embracing
the anatomical, embryological, histological, and comparative study of
the bird's lung (983).
Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (FR) and Achille
Valenciennes (FR) wrote Histoire
Naturelle des Poissons [Natural
History of the Fishes] which summarized and logically organized everything
known about fishes up to that time. It included 11,253 pages of text and 650
plates in 22 volumes issued between 1828 and 1849. The work described 4,514
species of fish, 2,311 of these new to science. By studying fish skeletons and
internal organs Cuvier separated out spiny-ray finned fishes
(acanthopterygians) and realized the importance of whether the pelvis is
attached skeletally to the bony structure, not just its relative placement (466).
Charles Alexandre Lesueur (FR) was a student of Cuvier. He made a
cabinet of fish dwelling within the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River
regions.
Leon Dufour (FR) established the generic name Gregarina and considered them to be worms (now known to be
sporozoans). He observed them in association with insects (571). Filippo
Cavolini (IT), in 1787, described a gregarine from the glandular appendages of
the stomach of the crustacean Pachygraspus
marmoratus Stim. He thought it to be a tapeworm (348).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) reported
gregarines in the intestine of barnacles and characterized them from the
intestine of Balanus pallidus as Gregarina balani. He noted the
unicellular nature of gregarines and added considerably to our knowledge of the
frequent occurrence and wide distribution of these organisms (2003).
Norman Dion Levine (US) and Virginia Ivens (US) renamed them to
the phylum Apicomplexa (1112).
James Annersley (GB) wrote, Researches
into the Causes, Nature and Treatment of the More Prevalent Diseases of India
and of Warm Climates Generally, which is regarded as containing the first
accurate descriptions of both intestinal
and hepatic amoebiasis (39).
George Budd (GB) made the connection between amoebic dysentery and liver abscesses (322).
Friedrich Alekshandrevitch Lösch; Fedor Lesh (DE) discovered the
amoeba, Amoeba coli (Entamoeba histolytica), in 1873 in Russia, and established the
relationship between the parasite and the disease in dogs experimentally
infected with amoebae from humans (1141; 1142).
Stephanos Kartulis (GR) found Entamoeba
histolytica in intestinal ulcers of Egyptian patients suffering from dysentery. He noted that he never found
amoebae from nondysenteric cases (993; 994).
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) and Georg Theodor August Gaffky
(DE) found Entamoeba histolytica in
sections of human intestine (1026).
Stephanos Kartulis (GR) also showed that cats could be infected
with amoebae per rectum and thus develop dysentery (995).
William Thomas Councilman (US) and Henri Amadée Lafleur (US),
while working at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, authored a paper which represented
a definitive statement of what was known about the pathology of amoebiasis at the end of the 19th
century, and much of it is still valid today (444).
Heinrich Irenaeus Quincke (DE) and Ernst Roos (DE) distinguished Entamoeba histolytica
from Enatamoeba coli (1532).
Fritz Richard Schaudinn (DE) was one of the first to show that dysentery can be caused by the amoeba he
named Entamoeba histolytica. He
distinguished it from the harmless Entamoeba
coli (1675).
Alexandre Joseph Emilé Brumpt (FR)
proposed two species to distinguish pathogenic and non-pathogenic infections: E. dysenteriae and E. dispar (315).
Based on DNA
evidence it has been established that two distinct species exist within what
was originally known as Entamoeba
histolytica. These are E. dispar and
E. histolytica, for the nonpathogenic
and pathogenic forms, respectively.
Ernest
Linwood Walker (US) and Andrew Watson Sellards (US) demonstrated the infective
cyst form of E. histolytica (2073).
Thomas Hodgkin (GB) discovered aortic
insufficiency (899).
Dominic John Corrigan (GB) described the typical pulse of aortic insufficiency, since commonly
known as the Corrigan pulse. He identified it as a sharpely declining
"water hammer" pulse (434). Note:
This clinical discovery is all the more remarkable because all he had was
fingers, a wooden monaural stethoscope, and his great medical acumen.
Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille (FR) demonstrated that blood
pressure rises during expiration and falls during inspiration. He also
discovered that at each heartbeat the dilatation of an artery is about 1/23 of
normal (1484). Poiseuille
accurately measured blood pressure using his hemodynamometer. Mercury was
layered over potassium carbonate (anticoagulant) in a tube. The end containing
the potassium carbonate was connected directly to the blood stream.
Jacques Mathieu Delpech (FR) made one of the most significant
discoveries of operative orthopedics, namely subcutaneous tenotomy. He also
established the tuberculous nature of Pott’s
disease, established the true function of the ligaments, and presented a
complete list of human physical deformities (514-516).
James Syme (GB) performed one of the most remarkable operations of
the 19th century. He removed, without anesthesia, a four and one-half pound
tumor from the lower jaw of Robert Penman. The patient not only survived the
operation, but also remained in excellent health for many years afterwards. The
operation was performed with the patient sitting in an ordinary chair, and in
all took twenty-four minutes with the loss of seven or eight ounces of blood (1821).
Valentine Mott (US) excised the left clavicle for osteosarcoma (1275).
S. Pomeroy
White (US) successfully ligated the internal iliac artery (2121).
John
Abercrombie (GB) wrote Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of
the Brain and Spinal Cord, regarded as the first textbook in neuropathology
(6).
Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal was founded.
Glasgow
Medical Journal was founded.
Lancette
Francaise
(Gazette des Hopitaux) was founded.
1829-1833
In the Pacific Northwest, malaria
(the ague) killed an estimated 150,000 Native Americans. Other diseases may
have contributed to the death toll, but contemporary writing describes symptoms
that closely correspond to those of malaria.
The disease was probably introduced in February 1829 by a ship reaching Oregon
after coming from Chile, carrying infected mosquitoes in water tanks onboard
ship. The Columbia River was flooded at the time, creating stagnant water in
which the mosquitoes could breed (1030).
1829-1832
During late 1829 an influenza
epidemic began in China, then spread from there to the Philippines in September
1830, to Indonesia in January 1831, through the Malay Peninsula and into Asia
in 1832. The disease also broke out in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the winter
of 1830-31 and spread westward overland through the summer of 1831. By November
it had reached the U.S. and continued to spread there in 1832. Another outbreak
of influenza spread through Asia and
Europe during 1836-37 but except for a single Canadian focus did not reach
North America (1030).
1829
"Animals
have no habits but those that result from the structure of their organs; if the
latter varies, they vary in the same manner all their springs of action, all
their faculties and all their actions." Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (40)
Thomas Graham (GB) discovered that the rate of diffusion of a gas
is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular weight. He also
showed that the various forms of phosphoric acid differed in their hydrogen
content. This introduced chemists to the idea of polybasic acids (782; 783).
Louis René Le Canu (FR) isolated and correctly characterized
cholesterine (cholesterol) from an extract of hen egg yolk (1081).
Johann Friedrich Gustav von Eschscholtz (EE-RU-DE) created the
orders Ctenophorae, Discophorae (all medusae), and Siphonophorae (1968).
Von Eschscholtz was one of the first and most important scientists
in the exploration of the Pacific, Alaska, and California. Among his
publications were the System der Akalephen (1829), and the Zoologischer
Atlas (1829–1833). Von Eschscholtz was the first naturalist to describe the
acorn worm (Balanoglossus), which he encountered in the Marshall Islands in
1825(1968; 1969). He is commemorated by the plant
genus Eschscholzia.
Joseph Claude Recamier (FR) coined the term metastasis to describe the transfer of disease from one organ or
body area to another to which it is not directly connected (1577).
John Stevens Henslow (GB) was a botanist, a vicar of the church, a
professor of mineralogy and botany at Cambridge University, and the teacher of
Charles Darwin who recommended that Darwin serve as a naturalist aboard H.M.S.
Beagle (884; 885). He began
teaching at Cambridge in 1826.
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) found confirmation of the germ-layer
theory of Pandar and von Baer in the embryonic development of the invertebrate
crayfish (1558).
Léon Jean Baptiste Cruveilhier (FR) in his lavish pathological
atlases, among other things, described and illustrated cysts, colic diverticulosis,
fibrous bodies of the breast, diffuse cerebral sclerosis, gelatinous disease of the peritoneum, dilation
of the veins of the abdominal wall, and disseminated
(multiple) sclerosis for the first time. He also gave an early description
of progressive muscular atrophy, and gastric ulcer (414; 452; 453). His
description of enteric ulcer follows:
“There is first an erosion of the mucosa…. The erosion or inflammation becomes
an ulcer…. Simple ulcer…does not present other than a gross resemblance to
cancerous ulcer… The best proof, however, that these ulcerations are not
cancerous is their curability…. The [principal] symptoms are…loss of appetite
or bizarre appetite, insurmountable distress, difficult digestion…heavy pains
in the epigastrium, and sometimes epigastric pain extremely sharp during the
process of digestion or indeed when there is no food in the stomach…. The
patient has the sensation of an enemy who is always present.”
Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (DE) provided an exhaustive
description of the pathological and clinical findings of multiple sclerosis. He named this affliction brain sclerosis,
“hirnsklerose” and was the first to diagnose it in a living patient, which was
confirmed by autopsy years later (1974).
Gabriel Andral (FR) recognized a direct correlation between the
pathology of the blood and that of the organs and tissues. He urged chemical
analysis of the blood, especially in morbid conditions. He discussed the role
of the blood in plethora, anemia, pyrexia, and so-called organic diseases such as cardiac hypertrophy (36).
Michael Sars (NO) and John Graham Dalyell (GB) worked out the life
cycle of Aurelia aurita and, more
generally, of scyphozoans; demonstrating the relationship between the polyploid
and medusoid stages (470; 1664; 1665; 1668).
John Vaughan Thompson (IE) published the first records of the vast
community of planktonic life. He correctly described barnacles as crustaceans
and was the first to describe the planktonic stages of crabs (1834; 1836; 1838; 1840-1842; 1844).
Hermann Burmeister (AR) also saw the larval stages of barnacles
and realized that they should be placed with the crustaceans and not with the
molluscs (331).
Johann Friedrich Georg Christian Martin Lobstein (DE-FR) coined
the term arteriosclerosis (1130).
Benjamin Guy Babington (GB) invented the laryngoscope, which he
called a glottiscope (61). His
colleague, W. Thomas Hodgkin (GB), later suggested the name laryngiscope.
Alfred Kirstein (DE) learned of an inadvertent tracheal insertion
of an esophagoscope and proceeded to develop a rigid laryngoscope with
transmitted light for direct observation. This consisted of a lamp within the
handle, focused on a lens and redirected through the scope by a prism (1014).
Dominique Jean Larrey (FR) performed the first successful surgery
on the pericardium, the patient died within a month (1071).
Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (DE) is considered the founder of
modern plastic surgery. He performed the first successful closure of both hard
and soft palate; made early references to tenotomy, myotomy, otoplasty, early
rhinoplasty, and blepharoplasty. Between 1829 and 1845 Dieffenbach wrote
important texts on surgery such as Die
Operative Chirurgie (529; 2179).
Valentine Mott (US) ligated the carotid during operation for an
aneurysm of the arteria
innominata (1274; 1276).
Valentine Mott (US) ligated the carotid during operation for
anastomosing aneurysm in a three-month old infant (1277).
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (FR) suggested that in some apes
and man certain infantile characteristics such as large brain and great possibility
for adaptation persist into adulthood (1651). This was
long before Louis Lodewijk Bolk (NL) enunciated the theory of neoteny. See, Bolk, 1918.
Alexandre-Théodore
Brongniart, Jr. (FR) named the Jurassic Period in geologic history for the
extensive marine limestone exposures of the Jura Mountains, in the region where
Germany, France and Switzerland meet (296).
Note: Today this represents the
middle Jurassic.
Jules Pierre Desnoyers
(FR) was the first to apply the term Quaternary to a geological time when he
discussed Tertiary sediments of the Seine River Valley (he was incorrect) (518).
Henri P.I. Reboul (FR) redefined the period from approximately 2
Ma to the present (1576).
James Smithson (GB) donated seed money in his will for the
founding of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
1830-1831
Cholera overruns
Russia and invades Western Europe (730).
1830
"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going
to be a butterfly."Yisrael ben Gedalyah Lipschutz (1124)
Charles Lyell (GB) wrote Principles
of Geology, a three-volume book on geology, in which he popularized and
amplified the Huttonian view that geological change is gradual over eons of
time and that the forces for change are the same today as in the past, namely
heat and erosion (uniformitarianism). Emphasis on the immensity of geological
time was his greatest contribution to or understanding of the earth’s history.
It was he who first named the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene geological epochs (1162-1164). This new
view of the geological past suggested that the question about man’s own
antiquity was capable of an empirical answer.
David Brewster (GB) discovered the laws governing polarization of
light by refraction (249).
Joseph Jackson Lister (GB), a London wine merchant, discovered the
principle of aplanatic foci then subsequently developed the modern type of
compound microscope free of chromatic and spherical aberrations. Only from this
time can modern microscopy be said to date. He was the father of Joseph, Lord
Lister, the surgeon (1127).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) discovered the compound he named
hippuric (from equine urine) acid. In contrast to benzoic acid it contains
nitrogen (2020).
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) was the first to formally define the
concept of isomerism. “By isomeric substances I
understand those which possess the same chemical composition and the same
atomic [molecular] weight, but different properties.” He coined
the terms isomer and isomerism
(1958). He named
the phenomenon isomeria.
Louis René Le Canu (FR) was the first to prepare blood hematin
(iron protoporphyrin) in pure form. He determined that the iron in blood is
associated with the hematin pigment (1082; 1083).
Friedrich Tiedemann (FR) prepared blood hematin (iron
protoporphyrin) in crude form (1855). Porphyrin
comes from the Greek meaning purple.
Johann Joseph Scherer (DE) described a purple-red iron-free
residue that he had extracted from blood using concentrated sulfuric acid (1676).
Gerardus Johannes Mulder; Gerrit Jan Mulder (NL) called Scherer's
purple-red extract “iron-free hematin” (1292).
Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum (DE-GB) recognized the “splendid
blood-red” fluorescence of Scherer's hematin, which he purified and called
“cruentine” (1848).
Ernst Felix Immanuel Hoppe-Seyler (DE) called the purple substance
found in iron-free hematin hemato-porphyrin, in other words
“purple-blood” (918; 919).
Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal (DE), Christian Julius Wilhelm Schiede (DE), Ferdinand Deppe (), and
Louis Adelbert von Chamisso (FR-DE) described many of the most important plants
of Mexico (2059).
William Sharpey (GB) wrote on cilia and ciliary motion. “In the
course of some investigations on the development of the tadpole, in which I was
lately engaged, I was accidentally led to observe, that the surface of the
animal possessed the power of exciting currents of water contiguous to it, in a
constant and determinate direction” (1735).
John Vaughan Thompson (IE) was the first to recognize the class
Polyzoa (1837).
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) introduced the name Bryozoa
(moss-like animals), which replaced Polyzoa (619).
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) coined the genus name Euglena in 1830 but it was not diagnosed
until 1838 (615; 617).
Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (FR) originated the concept of
parallel evolution in which both the evolution of the phyla and their adaptive
convergences are allowed for during classification (1649).
Friedrich Schlemm (DE) discovered the corneal nerves (1684).
William MacKenzie (GB) presented a classic description of the
symptomatology of glaucoma, and was
probably the first to draw attention to the increase of intra-ocular pressure
as a characteristic of the condition (1173).
John Conolly (GB) practiced the doctrines of Philippe Pinel (FR)
and introduced the non-restraint treatment of the insane (415). “Restraint
and neglect are synonymous. They are a substitute for the thousand attentions
needed by a disturbed patient” (416).
1831
Samuel Guthrie (US), Eugène Soubeiran (FR), and Johann Justus von Liebig
(DE), independently and very near the same time, are all credited with being
the first to prepare chloroform. Liebig also synthesized chloral hydrate by
chlorinating ethanol (820; 1774; 2022; 2023).
Jean Baptiste André Dumas (FR)
determined the composition of and named chloroform (578).
Mathias Eugenius Oscar Liebreich (DE) was the first to use choral
hydrate as a sedative-hypnotic (1121). It is infamous as “Knock out drops” or
the "Mickey Finn" but has only had legitimate medical use as a
sedative in minor surgery and as a topical analgesic (734).
Chloral hydrate, was the first synthetic drug that could truly be
called sleep inducing (hypnotic), it depresses the CNS. It became the first
commercial sleeping pill but use was discontinued because it irritates the
endothelium of blood vessels causing phlebitis. Another negative is that its
hypnotic effect is often too long lasting. A Chicago bar owner by the name of
Mickey Finn used it to “knock out” rich patrons then rob them.
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) described a
novel apparatus for measuring the carbon content of organic materials upon
combustion. It was based on trapping carbon dioxide in a five-bulb trap filled
with potash (KOH) (2021).
Heinrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Wackenroder
(DE), in 1831, isolated beta-carotene from carrot roots (Daucus carotus) (2177).
Eduard
Schwarz (AT), a ships doctor, knew that night
blindness was a recurring problem among sailors on long sea voyages. The
wisdom of traditional liver therapy was largely being ignored. On one voyage
(1857-1859) he deprived the sailors of liver, 75 of the 352 men developed the
condition. Every evening when dusk came, they lost their vision and had to be
led about like the blind. Schwartz fed them ox or pork liver and found that the
night vision in all the afflicted was restored (1725; 2161).
Richard
Martin Willstätter (DE) and Walter Mieg (DE) established the empirical formula
of beta-carotene as C40H56 (2141).
Harry Steenbock (US), Erwin G. Gross (US), Paul W. Boutwell (US),
and Mariana T. Sell (US) observed that yellow foods are good sources of vitamin
A (retinol), whereas white foods and red foods are not (1790-1793).
Paul Karrer (RU-CH), A. Helfenstein (CH), Hansuli Wehrli (CH), and
Albert Wettstein (CH) determined the chemical structure of beta-carotene (990).
Paul Karrer (RU-CH), Rudolph Morf (CH), and Kurt Schöpp (CH)
worked out the constitutional formula for vitamin A (retinol) and proved that
it is related to carotenoids in structure; showing that beta-carotene consists
of two vitamin A molecules end to end minus two water molecules (991; 992).
Otto Isler (CH), W. Huber (CH), A. Ronco (CH), and Max Kofler (CH)
synthesized vitamin A (966).
Paul Karrer (RU-CH) and Conrad Hans Eugster (CH) synthesized
beta-carotene (989).
Hans Herloff Inhoffen (DE), Ferdinand Bohlmann (DE), Käthe Bertram
(DE), Günter Rummert (DE), and Horst Pommer (DE) synthesized beta-carotene (963).
Nicholas A. Milas (US), Pauls Davis (), Igor Belic (), and
Dragutin A. Fles (HR) synthesized beta-carotene (1249).
John E. Dowling (US) and George Wald (US) reported that the
general tissue functions of vitamin A that support growth and maintenance in
the rat are served also by vitamin A acid; but since this substance is not
reduced, it forms neither the alcohol, the form in which vitamin A is stored,
nor the aldehyde (retinene) needed for the synthesis of visual pigments. For this
reason, rats maintained on vitamin A acid, though growing normally and
otherwise in good condition, become extremely night-blind, and eventually
blind. The failure to form visual pigments also has specific anatomical
consequences: the outer segments of the visual cells deteriorate, followed by
the loss of almost all the cells themselves, in an otherwise normal retina.
These anatomical changes resemble those observed in certain hereditary forms of
blindness and in human retinitis
pigmentosa (546).
Masamitsu Kanai (US), Amiram Raz (US), and DeWitt S. Goodman (US)
isolated and characterized retinol-binding protein: the transport protein for
vitamin A (retinol) in human plasma (986).
Friedrich Tiedemann (DE) and Leopold Gmelin (DE) reported a color
test for the presence of protein. They treated the proteins with chlorine
water. The proteins had usually been at least partially broken down by harsh
treatment (1857).
Erhard
Friedrich Leuchs (DE) described the hydrolysis of starch by saliva, due to the
presence of an enzyme in saliva (ptyalin
or salivary amylase) (1107; 1108).
Anselme Payen
(FR) and Jean-François Persoz (FR) isolated an amylase complex from germinating barley and named it diastase (1434).
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) named it ptyalin (to spit) (1960).
Louis Mialhe (FR) purified what he called animal diastase (salivary amylase or alpha
amylase) by precipitating it with alcohol (1245; 1246).
Alexander
Jakulowitsch Danilewsky; Alexander Jakulowitsch Danielewski (RU)
separated pancreatic amylase from trypsin (475).
Robert Brown (GB) published a paper in England describing the
microscopic structure of the reproductive organs of the Orchideae and
Asclepiadeae. This study established the nucleus
as a constant feature of plant cells and as fundamental unit of cells. It was
Brown who coined the term nucleus,
meaning little nut. "In each cell of the epidermis of a great part of the
family, especially of those with membranous leaves, a single circular areola,
generally somewhat more opaque than the membrane of the cell, is observable…only
one areola belongs to each cell…This areola, or nucleus of the cell as perhaps
it might be termed, is not confined to the epidermis, being also found not only
in the pubescence of the surface particularly when jointed, as in Cypripedium,
but in many cases in the parenchyma or internal cells of the tissue…The nucleus
of the cell is not confined to the Orchideae but is equally manifest in many
other Monocotyledonous families; and I have found it, hitherto however in very
few cases, in the epidermis of Dicotyledonous plants." (302; 303) Brown is
also credited with being among the first to recognize the significance of
pollen in fertilization. Note: Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen (DE) very
likely described the nucleus of the cell while examining the algae Spirogyra.
If true, this would make Meyen the discoveror of the cell nucleus (1243).
Lorenz Oken (DE) reasoned that growth and development of both
plants and animals is driven by the multiplication and specialization of the
primary vesicles (cells). He states that the process of differentiation between
the primary vesicles produces vessels through which sap runs (1371).
Marshall Hall (GB) in explaining the distribution of the blood
vessels in the tail of the stickleback wrote, “The arteries run immediately
along the ray, giving off a few capillary vessels in its course; where the ray
divides, the artery gives off a branch to supply the new space formed by this
division; at the extremity of the ray, the artery
turns and assumes the character of a vein.” He described for the
first time the finer arteriolo-venular communications known in modern
terminology as direct channels or thoroughfare channels and reported that in
the mesenteric circulation, arteries were seen to give off a minute branch, "and
this early to turn around and pursue a venous course." (824; 1066) See, Marcello Malpighi, 1661.
Carl Joseph Eberth (DE), Leopold Auerbach (DE), and Christoph
Theodor Aeby (CH) independently published papers which clearly described the
cellular nature of capillary walls (18; 57; 606).
William Brooke O’Shaughnessy (IE) used intravenous potassium and
sodium to successfully treat the loss of these ions in cholera patients (1368).
O’Shaughnessy noted electrolyte imbalance in cholera cases. "The blood drawn in the worst of cases of the
cholera is unchanged in its anatomical or globular structure…. It has lost a
large proportion of its water, 1000 parts of…serum having but the average of
860 parts of water…. It has lost also a great proportion of its neutral saline
ingredients…. Of the free alkali contained in healthy serum, not a particle is
present in some…cases, and barely a trace in others…. All the salts deficient
in the blood…are present in large quantities in the peculiar white dejected
matters." (1367)
Thomas Latta (GB) introduced the practice of intravenous infusion
of saline solution to patients suffering from shock associated with cholera. "I at
length resolved to throw the fluid immediately into the
circulation. In this, having no precedent to direct me, I
proceeded with much caution." His first patient was an ‘aged female’,
and he used the basilic vein. The result was remarkable,
"Ounce after ounce was injected ... when six pints had been injected,
she expressed in a firm voice that she was free from all
uneasiness" (1076; 1233).
Robert
Lewins (GB), Thomas Craigie (GB), and John
Macintosh (GB) used the same technique at very near the same date (1113).
William Edmonds Horner (US) found that the rice-water stools in
cases of Asiatic cholera consist of
epithelium stripped from the small intestine (920; 921).
Salomon Levi Steinheim (DE) and Jean Baptiste-Hippolyte Dance (FR)
were the first to describe the clinical symptoms of tetany (472; 1798).
Francois Remy Lucien Corvisart (FR) coined the term tetanie (tetany) in his thesis (436).
Lothar von Frankl-Hochwart (AT) performed detailed work on tetany then published the first
comprehensive monograph dealing with this disease (1972).
James Syme (GB) penned a booklet detailing cases where joint
excision could be used instead of amputation for diseased joints, as in
tuberculosis, and injured joints. In 1842, Syme described an amputation at the
ankle. This amputation bears his name, as it replaced a portion of below knee
amputations, which were ordinary practice at that time (1822; 1823).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) described the condition now known as Dupuytren’s contracture (contracture of
palmar fascia) and cured it by operation (589; 592).
Felix Platter (CH) was the first to describe flexion contracture
deformity of the fingers (Dupuytren’s
contracture). This work also contains the first known report of death from hypertrophy of the thymus in an infant (1479).
The H.M.S. Beagle put to
sea on a cartographic voyage with Charles Robert Darwin (GB) aboard as
naturalist.
1832
"She had apparently reached the last moments of her earthly
existence [when the first injection was given]...The sharpened features, and
sunken eyes and fallen jaw, pale and cold, bearing the manifest impress of
death's signal began to glow with returning animation…and in the short space of
half an hour, when six pints were injected, she was free from all uneasiness…and
fancied that all she needed was a little sleep." James L. Gamble recalling
Thomas Latta's account in 1832 of a patient and her response to rapid
replacement of fluid loss (728). See, Latta in 1831.
William Frédéric Edwards (GB-FR) and Jean-Baptiste Marie Baudry de
Balzac (DE-FR) were the first to declare that gelatin alone could not replace
albuminous bodies in animal nutrition (612). At this
time gelatin referred to a substance formed by boiling meat, tendons, etc. with
water, rather than the product of deep-seated hydrolysis as would occur with
Papin’s digestor.
Bartolomeo Bizio (IT) made a study of ‘blood spots’ on communion
wafers, and found them to consist of a bacterium, which he named Serratia marcescens. He used bread as a
growth medium (175).
Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier (BE) was the first to observe
cell division in a multicellular organism, Conferva
aurea (alga), and to conclude from direct experimental evidence that the
growth of the organism was determined by this mechanism alone (581). See, Lorenz Oken, 1831
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (CH) theorized that all plants
liberate substances into the soil adjacent to them. These excreted chemicals
may be beneficial to some neighboring plants and harmful to others. He observed
that the movements of the stem and leaves in response to light produce
differential growth effects on their opposite sides and coined the term tropism to connote this movement of a
plant towards a source of light (heliotropism) (502). Taxis is often used in reference to
tropic behavior in animals.
Thomas Nuttall (GB-US) wrote A Manual of the Ornithology of the
United States and Canada that was to become the standard text on the
subject for most of the 19th century (1366).
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (FR) originated modern experimental
teratology when he produced abnormal development in chick embryos by varying
their environment. These results were reported by his son Isidore Saint-Hilaire
and provided an argument against preformation (1652).
Johann Lukas Schönlein (DE) and Edward Heinrich Henoch (DE)
described allergic non-thrombocytopenic purpura (Schönlein-Henoch purpura) and made the connection between purpura
and abdominal pains (883; 1696; 1698). Note:
also called purpura
rheumatica
William Heberden (GB) had been the first to report this condition
(Heberden-Willan
disease) (856).
William Osler (CA) was the first to suggest the relationship of
the condition to allergy (1380). Note:
This syndrome is an allergic reaction to bacteria (especially ß-hemolytic
streptococci), food or drugs; it is a form of anaphylactoid (allergic) or
non-thrombopenic purpura, which is the most common connective-tissue disorder
in children. Schönlein-Henoch purpura
is a systemic vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels) and is characterized
by deposition of immune complexes containing the antibody immunoglobulin A (IgA).
Thomas Hodgkin (GB) described the malignant lymphoma which bears
his name—Hodgkin’s disease (900; 901). See, Marcello
Malpighi, 1666.
Samuel Wilks (GB), a fellow physician, also described this
lymphoma disease and named it for Hodgkin (2133).
William
Osler (CA) mentions chemotherapy for lymphoma (Fowler's solution - arsenic
containing medicinal) (1378).
Carl
Sternberg (AT) and Dorothy Reed (US) independently described the giant cells
associated with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (1579; 1800).
They are now called Reed-Sternberg cells.
Paul Chevalier (FR) and Jean Jacques Robert Bernard (FR) gave the
first description of the use of high dosage radiotherapy in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease (364).
Franziska Jundt (DE), Nina Raetzel (DE), Christine Muller (DE),
Cornelis F. Calkhoven (DE), Katharina Kley (DE), Stephen Mathas (DE), Andreas
Lietz (DE), Achim Leutz (DE), and Bernd Dorken (DE) determined
the mechanism that causes normal B-lymphocytes to mutate into the cancerous
cells in Hodgkin's lymphoma (985).
Jason S. Knight (US), Nikhil Sharma (US), and Erle S. Robertson
(US) determined the link between Epstein-Barr
Virus (EBV) and several cancers including Hodgkin's lymphoma via molecular elimination of the retinoblastoma
protein (Rb) (1018).
Jean Victor Audouin (FR) and Henri Milne-Edwards (FR) discussed
the correlation between the increasing degree of exposure to air from low to
high-tide levels and the pattern of distribution of organisms in narrow
horizontal zones (53). Today this
is referred to as vertical zonation.
James Hope (GB) described aortic
valve murmurs (915).
Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (DE) was the first to attempt cardiac
catheterization on a human, performed during an unsuccessful attempt to obtain
blood from a patient suffering from cholera (526).
Valentine Mott (US) ligated both carotid arteries simultaneously
(at an interval of 15 minutes) during an operation for carcinoma of the parotids. Death occurred within 24 hours with the
patient in a state of coma (1278).
Guillaume Dupuytren (FR) gave lectures covering the entire
surgical panorama of that day, often casuistically disposed with anamnesis,
pathological anatomy, differential diagnostics, therapy, postoperative course
and unfortunate cases closed with an autopsy report (590; 591).
London England experienced an outbreak of cholera followed by two
more in 1849 and 1855.
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) established the journal Annalen der Pharmazie, later renamed the
Annalen der Chemie und Pharmazie.
The
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London was founded.
1833
"The
external world is all-powerful in alteration of the form of organized bodies…
these [modifications] are inherited, and they influence all the rest of the
organization of the animal, because if these modifications lead to injurious
effects, the animals which exhibit them perish and are replaced by others of a
somewhat different form, a form changed so as to be adapted to the new
environment." Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (FR)
(1650)
Karl Ludwig
Reichenbach
(DE) discovered creosote (1583).
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR) and Théophile Jules Pelouze (FR)
determined the elemental composition of lactic acid (741).
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (FR) proposed that all plant seeds contain
nitrogen (740).
Hugo von Mohl (DE) demonstrated that sporangia of pteridophytes
(ferns, horsetails, and club-mosses) and the pollen-producing organs of the
phanerograms (seed plants) are analogous (2048).
Ferdinand Rose (DE) observed that a green precipitate developed
when a protein solution (e.g., egg white or ox serum) was treated with copper
sulfate. In the alkaline range, the precipitate became soluble and formed a
deep blue-violet color (1625).
Gustav Heinrich W. Wiedemann (DE) showed that the blue-violet
color resulting from the reaction of albumins with a solution of alkaline
copper sulfate is due to the substance he called biuret (biuret had been
identified as a product of the prolonged heating of urea at high temperatures).
This is the origin of the famous Biuret Test for proteins (2127).
Karl Heinrich Leopold Ritthausen (DE) and R. Pott (DE) first
applied the biuret reaction to the study of proteins (1616).
Anselme Payen (FR) and Jean-Francois Persoz (FR) isolated and
purified a substance from malt extract, which hastened the conversion of starch
to sugar and was destroyed by boiling. They called it diastase (Gk. diastasis,
separation). This enzyme, which today we call amylase, was the first enzyme to be purified. Its name set the
fashion of using the suffix -ase to
name enzymes (1458).
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE) conducted similar experiments
in 1836 (1716). These
organic catalysts were not yet called enzymes—a name later coined by Wilhelm
Friedrich Kühne (DE) (1044). Note from page 190 in Kühne's article:
"Um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen und lästige Umschreibungen zu vermeiden
schlägt Vortragender vor, die ungeformten oder nicht organisirten Fermente,
deren Wirkung ohne Anwesenheit von Organismen und ausserhalb derselben erfolgen
kann, als Enzyme zu bezeichnen." Translation : In order to avoid
misunderstandings and cumbersome circumlocutions, the presenter proposes to
designate as "enzymes" the unformed or not organized ferments, whose
action can occur without the presence of organisms and outside of the same.
Alfons Wendt (CZ), under the direction of Johannes Evangelista
Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ), discovered the sudoriferous (sweat)
glands of the skin with their excretory ducts (2116).
Armand Trousseau (FR) and Amédée Bonnet (FR) reported 200 cases of
diphtheria treated with tracheostomy (1882; 1884).
William Wallace (IE), in 1833, originally described the disease known
variously as lymphogranuloma venereum
(LGV), lymphogranuloma inguinale, lymphopathia venerea, Durand-Nicolas-Favre disease, tropical bubo, climatic bubo, strumous bubo,
and poradenitis inguinales (2074).
N. Joseph Durand (FR), Joseph Nicolas (FR), and Maurice Favre (FR)
defined it as a clinical and pathological entity
(593). The
causative agent is Chlamydia trachomatis (serologic
type L1, L2, or L3).
Wilhelm Siegmund Frei (DE) developed a skin test for lymphogranuloma venereum. It consists of intracutaneous administration of heated
pus from an infected bubo, a positive reaction being indicated by the
development of an inflamed necrotic area (708).
Sven Curt Alfred Hellerström (SE) and Erik Wassen (SE) transmitted
lymphogranuloma venereum to monkeys
by intracerebral inoculation (867).
Murray Sanders (US), and Geoffrey Rake (US), Clara M. McKee (US),
and Morris F. Schaffer (US) successfully cultivated the agent of lymphogranuloma venereum in tissue
culture and chick embryos respectively (1542; 1660).
John Hilton (GB) gave the first macroscopic description of
parasitic cysts of Trichina in human
muscle (897).
Richard Owen (GB) named the organism Trichina spirilis. Louis Joseph Alcide Railliet (FR) later changed
the name to Trichinella spirilis (1383; 1541).
Joseph Leidy (US) discovered the cyst of the human parasite Trichina spiralis in pork (1095; 1097).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) was the first to describe the
adult form of the Trichina worm (1937).
Friedrich Albert Zenker (DE) noted the intestinal and muscular
forms of trichinosis and concluded
that eating raw pork infected humans (2181).
Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf Leuckart (DE) and Friedrich Albert
Zenker (DE) found that Trichina spiralis
causes trichonosis in man (1109; 1110; 2180).
James Paget (GB) and Samuel Wilks (GB) gave the first microscopic
description of Trichina cysts in
human muscle (1398; 1399).
Gilbert Breschet (FR) traced human fetal development from
conception until birth. He described embryonic and fetal development, which lead
to parturition and birth defects (243).
Evory Kennedy (IE) gave the first detailed account of fetal heart
tones (1000).
Valentine Mott (US) ligated the right subclavian artery within the
scaleni during an operation for aneurysm (1279).
Carl von Rokitansky (CZ-AT) practiced as a pathologist in Vienna
at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus from 1833 to 1875. During this time, he either
personally performed or supervised 59,786 autopsies (of which at least 25,000
were medico-legal) reporting the effects of disease on the tissues and organs.
This was a novel approach and paved the way for treating patients to halt the
anatomical changes occurring during a disease state rather than treating the
symptoms, as was common practice. For centuries the accepted method of
attempting a cure had been treatment of symptoms, e.g., lower a fever by
wrapping the patient in cold towels and placing ice in the mouth.
Rokitansky was one of the first to recognize a relationship
between the brain and digestive tract function by pointing out that infectious
lesions involving the base of the brain were commonly associated with gastric hemorrhage and perforations of stomach and duodenum. He
was the first to differentiate between lobar
and lobular pneumonia, gave the first pathological account of spondyloisthesis, the first accurate
description of acute yellow atrophy of
the liver, and the correct classification of patent ductus arteriosis as a congenital lesion (1694; 2056).
1833-1834
A pandemic of influenza
occurs in Europe (455).
1834
- 1854
André Marie Constant Duméril (FR) and Gabriel Bibron (FR) authored
Erpétologie Générale; ou, Histoire
Naturelle Complète des Reptiles, a ten-volume work representing a major
summary of the field of herpetology. It gives a comprehensive scientific
account of the reptiles in general (including the amphibians as the distinct
order Batrachia), as to their structure and physiology as well as their
systematics, together with an historical account of the literature of the
subject (580). Note: Auguste H. A. Dumeril (FR), son of
the senior author, aided in the preparation of volumes 7 and 9 after the death
of Bibron.
1834-1836
There is a dysentery
(the "bloody flux") pandemic in Central Europe (3).
1834
Michael Faraday (GB) in his report On Electrochemical Decomposition introduced terms suggested to him
by William Whewell (GB), and still used today (e.g., anode, cathode, electrolyte, ion, anion, cation) (641; 2138).
Friedlieb
Ferdinand
Runge (DE) obtained carbolic acid (now called phenol)
from coal tar (1641).
Friedlieb
Ferdinand
Runge (DE) discovered that coal tar contains several interesting compounds. One
of these gave a beautiful bright red color on contact with hydrochloric acid.
He called it pyrrole after the Greek word for ‘fiery red oil’
(1642).
Aniline blue or its constituents are used to stain collagen as the fiber stain
in Masson's trichrome, as well as to reveal callose structures in
plant tissues. It can be used in the Mallory's connective tissue stain and
Gömöri trichrome stain. It is used in differential staining.
Thomas
Anderson (GB) obtained pyrrole in a pure state from ivory oil. He transformed
it into its potassium salt then hydrolyzed and distilled it to yield pure
pyrrole (35).
Johann
Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer (DE) and Adolf Emmerling (DE) suggested the
structure of pyrrole (67).
Chichester
Alexander Bell (GB) and Edwin Lapper (GB) synthesized pyrrole (98).
Ludwig Knorr
(DE) and Carl Ludwig Paal (DE) developed synthetic methods for producing
derivatives of pyrrole (1019; 1395).
Hans Fischer
(DE) and Erich Bartholomäus (DE), Amandus Hahn (DE), W. Zimmerman (DE), Heinrich
Röse (DE), Hans Orth (DE), and Bruno Pützer (DE) synthesized naturally
occurring pyrrolic pigments (652; 655; 658; 659; 661; 666-668; 670; 672; 676).
Leon Pavel
Teodor Marchlewski (PL), in collaboration with Wilhelm Marceli Nencki (PL)
proved that hemin and chlorophyll are structurally related (657; 1208).
These are the tetrapyrrolic pigments of life.
Hans Fischer
(DE) showed that the urine and feces of a case of congenital porphyria, a disease then recently discovered, contained
uroporphyrin and coproporphyrin (652; 654; 668).
Hans Fischer
(DE) discovered porphyrin syntheses then subsequently synthesized over 130
isomers (652; 655; 670).
Hans Fischer
(DE) introduced iron into protoporphyrin thus synthesizing hemin
indistinguishable from natural hemin obtained from hemoglobin (656).
Paula Sachs
(DE) found that urine from patients with acute porphyria gives a positive
Ehrlich reaction, which is characteristic for pyrrole and its derivatives (1644).
Gerry H.
Cookson (GB) and Claude Rimington (GB) characterized the component responsible
for the positive Ehrlich reaction as porphobilinogen, the precursor of all
tetrapyrrolic pigments known (421).
Hans Fischer (DE)
developed the techniques necessary to synthesize biliverdin and bilirubin (651; 653;
660; 662-665;
669; 671). Note: In the spleen heme is converted to
biliverdin, which is converted to unconjugated bilirubin. Unconjugated
bilirubin enters the blood prior to being converted to conjugated bilirubin in
the liver. It then enters the small intestine in bile. Conjugated bilirubin is
converted to urobilinogen in the small intestine then transported to the
kidneys via the blood. In the kidney urobilinogen is converted to urobilin,
which is excreted in the urine.
Hans Fischer (DE)
put forward his formula for the structure of chlorophyll a. He found that the formula for chlorophyll b is the same
as that for chlorophyll a, except that in the former a formyl group
replaces the methyl group in pyrrole ring II of the latter (673-675). At his death
Fischer had nearly completed the synthesis of chlorophyll. Note: See, Woodward 1960
for the synthesis of chlorophyll.
Hans Fischer (DE)
discussed the relationship between hemin and chlorophyll (657).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) and Eilhardt Mitscherlich (DE)
established the elementary composition of uric acid (1254; 2024).
Carl Julius Fritsche (DE) correctly described the structure of
starch granules (714).
Roch-Théogéne Guérin-Varry (FR) fractionated starch from wheat (Triticum spp.) into an integumentary
part and two soluble parts, which he called amidon
and amylin. When he analyzed these
soluble fractions, he discovered that they contained hydrogen and oxygen in the
same ratio as occurred in water (812-814).
Anselme Payen (FR), in 1834, purified cellulose from plant tissue
and named it. The name cellulose started the trend of using the -ose suffix in
naming sugars (1431).
Ludovici Davidis de Schweinitz; Lewis David von Schweinitz (US)
described over 3,000 species of fungi, more than half of which were species new
to science (508). De
Schweinitz was considered a world authority on the cryptogamia.
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) classified the cyphonautes
larvae of bryozoans as rotifers (616).
A. Schneider (DE) observed the metamorphosis of Electra (1689).
Henri Prouho (FR) presented additional descriptions of cyphonautes
(1509).
Jules Barrois (FR) and D.W.J. Vigelius (NL) described coronate
larvae of ascophoran bryozoans for the first time (78; 1924).
Johann
Nepomuk
Eberle (DE) showed that an acidic extract of the gastric mucosa causes the
dissolution of coagulated egg white (605).
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE) showed that glandular
structures in the gastric mucosa of the stomach are responsible for the
properties of gastric juice. He also discovered that corrosive sublimate
(mercuric chloride) formed a precipitate in such extracts, and that on
converting the mercury to its insoluble sulfide and filtering, the filtrate possessed
a high degree of digestive power. The active substance thus precipitated he
called pepsin (Gk. pepsis, cooking, digestion). This paper
constitutes the first mechanistic enzyme study. "Free acid is…essential in
digestive action [but is] however not the only active element…. Since [another
substance] active in very small amounts carries on the digestion of the most
important animal nutrients, one might with justice apply to it the name pepsin." (1716; 1717) See, Beaumont, 1825.
Francois Remy Lucien Corvisart (FR) used pepsin therapeutically to improve digestion (437; 438).
Karl Gotthelf Lehmann (DE), in 1853, gave the name peptone to the end product of
pepsin-hydrochloric acid action on proteins (1093).
Rudolf Peter Heinrich Heidenhain (DE) noticed in the stomach three
types of cells in the gastric glands and showed that one, the chief or zymogenic cells, secret the enzyme pepsin, a second type the parietal
cells secrete hydrochloric acid, and the third type is the epithelial cell (861; 862).
Nikolai Nikolaevich Lubavin (RU-CH-DE) observed that the action of
pepsin on proteins results in the
uptake of water and cleavage, with the formation of peptones and later leucine
and tyrosine (1149).
Joseph Dalton Hooker (GB), Eugen Franz von Gorup-Besánez (AT-DE)
and H. Will (DE) concluded that carnivorous plants produce an enzyme like
pepsin (911; 1978).
John Howard Northrop (US) was the first to crystallize the enzyme pepsin. He demonstrated that it is a
protein (1355; 1356).
Joseph Stewart Fruton (PL-US) and Max Bergman (DE-US) produced a
synthetic polypeptide that they cleaved with purified pepsin, thus
demonstrating that pepsin hydrolyzes peptide bonds (110; 717).
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB) defined peripheral neuritis and described the sensory element in sphincter
control (1860).
Friedrich August von Alberti (DE) first used the term Triassic
when he recognized the unity of the three characteristic strata that compose
the sedimentary deposits of the Triassic period in Northern Europe. The three-division
sequence consists of variegated Bunter sandstone, Muschelkalk (shell)
sandstone, and Keuper sandstone (1946). The Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era was a time of transition
and follows the largest extinction event in the history of life, and so is a
time when the survivors of that event spread and recolonized.
The organisms of the Triassic can be considered to belong to one
of three groups: holdovers from the Permo-Triassic extinction, new groups which
flourished briefly, and new groups which went on to dominate the Mesozoic
world. The holdovers included the lycophytes, glossopterids, and dicynodonts.
While those that went on to dominate the Mesozoic world include modern
conifers, cycadeoids, and the dinosaurs.
Rocks rich in Triassic fossils include: the Moenkopi Formation,
Arizona; Ischigualasto Badlands, Argentina; Newark Supergroup, Eastern U.S.;
Djadochta, Mongolia; and the Chinle Formation, Arizona.
The journal Müller’s Archiv
(Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie)
was founded.
Comptes
Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences, Paris
was founded. It was subdivided into series A, B, and C in 1966.
India Journal of Medical Sciences
was founded.
c.
1835
Ernst Heinrich Weber (DE) discovered that the minimum difference
in intensity that the brain can distinguish between two sensations of identical
kind maintains a constant relationship to the total intensity of sensation (2100).
John Hunter (GB) advised in cases of breast cancer, "We
should examine, for example, the glands in the groin or axilla, to ascertain if
they are thickened or swoln, and also the course of the absorbents; for if
these are sound and movable, then the disease may be safely removed. But if
they are deep or fixed as not to admit of removal, then we must consider
whether the whole limb can be removed, above the consequent tumours; and if
not, we ought to do nothing." In cases of the cancerous testicle Hunter
remarks, "but when I recollected that the scrotum was affected, I knew it
to be owing to the lymphatics of the scrotum, which pass through the groin." (533; 938) This
illustrates his appreciation of lymphatic involvement in malignant disease. Note: John Hunter died in 1793, so the
original manuscript was written some time earlier.
John Hunter (GB) was the first to clearly describe the
pathological details of the formation of sequestra
in chronic osteomyelitis. "Exfoliation. —This is the separation of a dead
bone from the living, and is not generally understood … When a piece of bone
becomes dead, it is then to the animal machine as any other extraneous body and
adheres only by the attraction of cohesion to the machine. The first business
of the machine, therefore, is to get rid of this cohesion and discharge it …" (938) Note: John Hunter died in 1793, so the
original manuscript was written some time earlier.
John Hunter (GB) was the first to present a satisfactory theory of
the mechanism of referred pain. "This delusion of the senses makes disease
seem where it really is not, from the different seat of the symptoms and of the
diseased part…When the trunk of the nerve is injured, the pain is referred to
the termination of it, as, after amputation of the leg, pain is felt in the
toes." (938) Note: John Hunter died in 1793, so the
original manuscript was written some time earlier.
Samuel Martyn (GB) discussed the concept of referred pain (1214).
John Hilton (GB) discussed a case for referred pain and described
the synovial membrane as a serous membrane endowed with secreting and absorbing
powers (898).
John Hunter (GB) explained accommodation by the eye. "I saw
no power that could adapt the eye to the various distances … unless we suppose
the crystalline humour [lens] to be varied in figure." (938) Note: John Hunter died in 1793, so the
original manuscript was written some time earlier.
John Hunter (GB) observed that the organ of hearing in Mollusks
(Cephalopods) is of different construction from that in fishes. He suggested a
progression from the invertebrates through the vertebrates, with the Mollusks
lacking a semicircular canal, the Cyclostomes having one semicircular canal,
the lamprey two, the cartilaginous and bony fishes three (938). Note: John Hunter died in 1793, so the
original manuscript was written some time earlier.
1835-1839
Typhus
fever
is epidemic in Scotland (446).
1835
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (BE) showed the importance of
statistical analysis for biologists and laid the foundation of biometry (1530; 1531)
Michel-Eugène Chevreul (FR) extracted creatine (Gk. kreas, flesh) from
meat (371).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE), in 1847, confirmed the presence of
creatine in the muscle of several animals in and noted that a fox shot during
the hunt contained ten times more creatine than a fox living in captivity. He
also described the formation of creatinine from creatine (2038).
Pierre-Jean Robiquet (FR) made the dye rufigallol (412).
Pierre-Joseph
Pelletier (FR) refined his procedure for fractioning opium and separated
codeine, paramorphine (thebaine), and pseudo-morphine (oxydimorphine,
dehydromorphine). The latter was found to be non-poisonous and to contain less
carbon and more oxygen than morphine (1440).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) proved that the first step in the
oxidation of alcohol by organisms is the formation of an aldehyde (2025; 2026).
Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (DE) was among the first authors to
use the term cell in its modern
biological context. Writing in volume 13 of Encyclopädisches
Wörterbuch der Medicinischen Wissenschaften he described the microscopic
anatomy of the prismatic epithelium of the gall bladder saying, “If they are
turned upward under the microscope, these surfaces appear more or less angular
and like cells” (871).
Athanase Peltier (FR) and Félix Dujardin (FR) demonstrated that
the spermatozoa are produced in the lining of the seminiferous tubules of the
testis (573; 574; 1448).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH), in 1847, demonstrated the true
development of the spermatozoa, showing that they are not extraneous bodies,
but originate in testicular cells and fertilize the ovum (2002).
Hugo von Mohl (DE), for the first time, carefully described some
details of mitosis in plants including the appearance of the cell plate between
daughter cells. He remarked, "Cell division is everywhere
easily and plainly seen in Confervae, Mycelia, Chara and also in terminal buds
and root tips of Phanerogams." He described and drew quadripartition by furrowing in the
pollen-mother-cells of Cucurbita (2049).
Wilhelm Friedrich Benedikt Hofmeister (DE) used Tradescantia and other species of plants
to provide the first accurate descriptions of all stages of mitosis. He was
able to describe the loss of the nuclear membrane prior to cell division. He
also presented evidence of cell division leading to the formation of tetrads
within pollen (meiosis) but did not grasp its significance (906).
Friedrich Anton Schneider (DE) published one of the first
reasonably accurate descriptions of indirect cell division which Walther
Flemming (DE) would name mitosis. His
material was the dividing egg of Mesostomum
ehrenbergii, one of the platyhelminths. He observed prophase, metaphase,
and the formation of a spindle. He did not name them (1691). Schneider
discovered the connection between the adult and larva of phoronids and is
commemorated by Spirinia schneideri
Villot, 1875 and Protodrilus schneideri
Langerhans, 1880) (1690).
Otto Bütschli (DE) and Hermann Fol (CH) independently
described complex nuclear changes which occurred during cell division and which
are now termed mitosis (335; 699).
Édouard-Gérard Balbiani (FR) was the first to recognize the
mechanical significance of the mitotic events. He noted that narrow little
sticks (chromosomes) were divided into two groups then partitioned between the
two daughter cells (72).
W. Schleiclier (DE) had named this type of cell division
karyokinesis (1680; 1681).
Walther Flemming (DE) was a pioneer in applying stains to cells.
The nucleus had strong affinity for one of the dyes he used so he called the
nuclear material chromatin (Greek, color) and speculated that it might be
synonymous with nuclein. When he dyed a section of growing tissue, cells were
caught at different stages of cell division and he could sort out the
successive stages through which the chromatin material passed. As the process
of cell division began, the chromatin coalesced into short threadlike objects
that eventually came to be called chromosomes
(colored bodies). Because these thread-like chromosomes were so characteristic
a feature of cell division, Flemming named the process mitosis, from a Greek word for thread. He chose the epithelial
cells of salamander larvae for his studies.
As cell division proceeded, the chromosomes doubled in number.
After that came what seemed the crucial step. The chromosomes, entangled in the
fine threads of a structure that Flemming named the aster (star), were pulled apart along their length, half going to
one end of the cell, half to the other. The cell then divided and the two
daughter cells, each left with an equal supply of the chromatin material. And,
because of the doubling of the chromosomes before the division, each daughter
cell had as much chromatin as the original undivided cell (683-687).
W. Schleiclier (DE), working with frog and cat tissue, was one of
the first to describe mitosis in animal cells. He coined the term karyokinesis to describe the nuclear
events during mitosis (1680; 1681).
Eduard Adolf Strasburger (PL-DE) accurately described the
processes of mitotic cell division and demonstrated that cells are formed
directly from previously existing cells (1808; 1809).
Walther Flemming (DE) studied amphibian oocytes, described their
giant nucleus or germinal vesicle, and discovered their unusual lampbrush
chromosomes, and multiple, peripheral nucleoli. He coined the terms chromatin, mitosis, and spireme (686).
Wilhelm Pfitzner (DE) coined the term chromomeres to name the granules that may appear along a chromosome (1462).
Giulio Cesare Bizzozero (IT), in 1883, made drawings of cells in
various stages of mitosis in spleen tissue from the Triton (large sea snail) (1226).
Wilhelm Roux (DE) hypothesized that mitosis is a devise, which
ensures that the qualitative properties of the cell nucleus are equally
distributed to the two daughter cells. He proposed that each of the chromosomes
carries a different genetic load. Roux posited that chromatin grains had
distinctly different qualities. Chromatin grains were arranged along
chromosomes and each chromosome (Mutterfaden, mother thread) was able to
split into two daughter threads or chromatids in present terminology. In this
way the two halves of each chromatin grain could be distributed with the help
of the spindle apparatus to opposite poles of the cell, irrespective of any
possible brisk movements, which might disarrange parts of the filaments, if
only it was secured that the filaments were not torn into pieces and dissolved
from their centre. Roux further postulated that under normal circumstances two
daughter threads resulting from a given mother thread should always be
distributed to opposites sites. Otherwise the very reason of the molecular
division (Molekularteilung) [of chromatin grains] would be abolished and
the latter would become superfluous (1633; 1634).
Eduard Adolf Strasburger (PL-DE) coined the terms prophase, metaphase, and anaphase (1810).
Karl Rabl (DE), from his work with Salamandra maculata und Proteus, theorized that the chromosomes
retain their individuality in all stages of the cell cycle. He conjectured that
the threads of chromatin into which a given chromosome dissolves when the nucleus enters the resting stage condense again into the same chromosome at the next
mitosis. He insisted on constancy in the number of chromosomal filaments
characteristic of a given tissue (1534; 1535).
Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried Waldeyer; Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried
von Waldeyer-Hartz (DE) coined the word chromosome
to refer to the chromatin staves (2072). Note:
He called them chromosomes because of how well they absorbed chemical
dyes under the microscope.
Theodor Boveri (DE) observed that chromatin is the substance that
transforms into chromosomes during mitosis (223).
David Paul
Hansemann (DE) described in detail the mitotic figures of 13 different
carcinoma samples. In every case, he found examples of aberrant mitotic
figures. These included multipolar mitoses and anaphase figures that showed
asymmetric distribution of 'chromatin loops' (or chromosomes). He postulated
that these aberrant cell divisions were responsible for the decreased or
increased chromatin content found in cancer cells (1982). This is
called the aneuploidy
theory of cancer development.
Henrik
Lundegardh (SE) coined the term interphase
as it applies to mitosis (1158).
Theodor
Boveri (DE) suggested that aberrant mitoses lead to the unequal distribution of
chromosomes, which, in most cases, are detrimental. Yet, on occasion, a
"particular, incorrect combination of chromosomes" will generate a
malignant cell endowed with the ability of unlimited growth (schrankenloser vermehrung), which will pass the defect on to its
progeny. He foretold the existence of cell-cycle checkpoints (hemmungseinrichtungen), tumor-suppressor
genes (teilungshemmende chromosomen)
and oncogenes (teilungsfoerdernde
chromosomen). He further envisaged that poisons
(including nicotine), radiation, physical insults, pathogens, chronic
inflammation and tissue repair might all be linked to the development of cancer
by indirectly promoting aberrant mitoses or other events that cause chromosome
imbalances. Boveri applied his model further to explain the emergence of
different tumor types within one tissue, and anticipated the clonal origin of
tumors, the allelic loss of recessive chromosome elements, the heritability of
cancer susceptibilities, the similarity of the steps that initiate
tumorigenesis and those responsible for cancer progression, and the sensitivity
of cancer cells to radiotherapy (222; 224).
Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (DE) asserted that spermatozoa are analogous to the
pollen of plants (1877).
Agostino Bassi (IT), a lawyer by trade and amateur scientist by
love, demonstrated that a fungus—later named Botrytis bassiana in his honor—is the causative agent of calcinaccio, a devastating disease of
silkworms (the English called it muscardine).
This was the first demonstration that an infectious animal disease was due to a
microbe. William Bulloch (GB), the historian, says, “He is justly regarded as
the real founder of the doctrine of pathogenic microorganisms of vegetable
origin" (326).
Bassi also wrote on the use of germicides such as heat, alcohol,
acids, alkalies, sulfur, chlorine, calcium chloride, and potassium nitrate. For
cholera he recommended immediate isolation of the patient followed by disinfection
of their clothes and excreta. When vaccinating children in series he strongly
recommended sterilizing the needle between each vaccination to prevent
complications or the transference of diseases other than vaccinia (81; 83; 326).
Felix Dujardin (FR) associated the sarcode (protoplasm) of protozoa with life processes and placed the
foraminiferans among the rhizopods (572).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ) and
Gabriel Gustav Valentin (DE-CH) discovered ciliary movements on epithelial
cells within the multicellular animal body (1526).
Michael Sars (NO) was a pioneer in studies of development,
metamorphosis and metagenesis of several marine animal groups, like Scyphozoa,
Mollusca, Asteroida, and Annellida. Along with Sven Lovén (SE) he found and
described the trochophore larvae (annelid). He was the first to describe the
veliger larvae of mollusks (1837, 1840) and the bipinnaria larvae (1835), which
he later identified as a stage in development of sea stars (1665-1667).
Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (FR) was the first doctor to
question the usefulness of bloodletting. He considered this approach to have
had very limited advantages (347).
François- Vincent Raspail (FR) questioned the method in 1845
saying: "But why resort to violent and bloody means? Do you wish to calm
fever? You will not succeed by bleeding [ . . . ] So leave your lancet there,
it has made enough troubles since Hippocrates." (1553)
Jean Baptiste Bouillaud (FR) used experiments as well as
controlled clinical and autopsy findings, to confirm the view of Gall, that the
center for articulate speech is located in the anterior lobes of the brain. He
further pointed out the difference between the ability to create words and the ability
to articulate them—internal and external language.
Bouillaud was an outstanding cardiologist, being the first to name
and describe accurately the endocardium
and endocarditis. He realized that endocarditis usually began with
exudation and terminated with cicatrisation
(scaring) and deformity of the valves. He pointed out the association
between endocarditis and acute articular rheumatism (rheumatic
heart disease). See, Baillie, 1793.
He elucidated the mechanism and significance of the normal heart sounds,
described the positive venous pulse in the neck, stressed its value in the
diagnosis of tricuspid insufficiency, and described the bruit du diable, gallop rhythm, the double sound at the apex in mitral stenosis, the friction in pericarditis, extrasystoles, and auricular
fibrillation (208-210).
Pierre-Carl-Èdouard Potain (FR) determined that the “Gallop
rhythm" [bruit de galop] results
from the abruptness with which the dilation of the ventricle takes place during
the pre-systolic period…. It appears to be an indirect consequence of the
excessive arterial tension which interstitial nephritis produces (1492).
Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (FR) coined and defined the terms endocarditis and valvular endocarditis (207).
Samuel Wilks (GB) discussed bacterial endocarditis as a source of pyemia in peripheral circulation (2134).
James Young Simpson (GB) wrote on diseases of the placenta (1748), peritonitis in the fetus (1750), hernia in the fetus (1751), and
hermaphrodism (1749).
Wilhelm Friedrich von Ludwig (DE) described Ludwig's angina,
otherwise known as angina ludovici; a serious,
potentially life-threatening cellulitis or connective tissue infection, of the
floor of the mouth, usually occurring in adults with concomitant dental
infections and if left untreated, may obstruct the airways, necessitating
tracheotomy (2043).
Cellulitis is a diffuse
inflammation of connective tissue, caused by bacteria, with severe inflammation
of dermal and subcutaneous layers of the skin. Cellulitis can be caused by
normal skin flora or by exogenous bacteria. Erysipelas
is the term used for a more superficial infection of the dermis and upper
subcutaneous layer that presents clinically with a well-defined edge.
Jean Zuléma Amussat (FR) presented his method for alleviating
hemorrhages of the arteries (34).
1836
"The great rule is, to avoid everything which obviously
deranges the stomach." Richard Bright (264)
Auguste Laurent (FR) advanced the hypothesis that the
structural grouping of atoms within molecules determines how the molecules
combine in organic reactions (1363).
Gerardus Johannes Mulder; Gerrit Jan Mulder (NL), a pioneer in the
investigations of molecules associated with living tissue, analyzed silk, egg
albumin, serum albumin, blood fibrin, casein, gelatin from several sources, and
other substances of similar properties. He concluded that they all contained a
common radical which, at the suggestion of von Berzelius, he called protéine, later protein (Gk. proteios,
primary) (1282-1287; 1290; 1293). Six years
later he wrote, "There is present in plants and animals a substance which
… performs an important function in both. It is one of the very complex
substances, which under various circumstances may alter their composition and
serves … for the regulation of chemical metabolism … It is without doubt the
most important of the known components of living matter, and it would appear
that, without it, life would not be possible. The substance has been named protein." (1289)
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) demonstrated that the hydrolysis of
starch is catalyzed more efficiently by malt diastase than by sulfuric acid and published the first general
theory of chemical catalysis (1961-1964). Note: The 1836b paper contains the first
definition of catalysis.
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) coined the term catalysis to name a force involved in the decomposition of hydrogen
peroxide. "The catalytic
force is reflected in the capacity that some substances have, by their
mere presence and not by their own reactivity, to awaken activities that are
slumbering in molecules at a given temperature. I shall also
call catalysis the decomposition of
bodies by this force."(1961-1964)
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) attributed fermentation to the catalytic force doctrine, which says that yeasts serve as catalysts setting off the
fermentation process. Fermentation itself is purely chemical, not requiring
living things to carry it out (1962).
Charles Giles Bridle Daubeny (GB) investigated the efficiency of
different parts of the visible light spectrum in photosynthesis (477).
Franz Joseph Andreas Nicolas Unger (AT) proposed the chemical concept of plant distribution,
i.e., that mineral content of rocks and soils is the major edaphic influence on substrate-specific plant distribution (1892).
Franz Schulze (DE) proved that when a solution containing animal
or vegetable matter is boiled, no putrefaction sets in provided that all air,
which can have access to the liquid, is previously passed through strong
sulfuric acid. Heating the air gives the same result. He also found that
boiling would stop a wine fermentation that is in progress. The wine fermentation
will remain inactive if air contacting it is treated as above (1712).
Asa Gray (US) championed Darwin’s theory of evolution and authored
several important botanical works including: Darwinana; Elements of Botany;
Flora of North America; How Plants Grow; Field, Forrest, and Garden Botany; and Manual of Botany of the Northern United States (791-796). The Manual of Botany of the Northern United
States is now called Gray’s Manual of
Botany. It has for many years been the most important and influential book
dealing with the Northern American flora.
Merritt Lyndon Fernald (US) authored the eighth edition of Gray's Manual of Botany, the standard
for plant identification in North America (648).
William Henry Harvey (IE), a great student and popularizer of the
algae, was the first to subdivide them into four divisions based on the dominant pigment in their thallus:
the Chlorospermeae (green algae), Rhodospermeae (red algae), Melanospermeae
(brown algae) and Diatomaceae (diatoms and desmids) (843-847). Today these are
called Rhodophyta, Heterokontophyta, Chlorophyta, and Diatomaceae.
Edward Arthur Lionel Batters (GB) presented a systematic correlation of
records, extensive distribution mapping, and the development of identification
keys for the algae (88).
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque; Constantine Samuel
Rafinesque-Schmaltz (TR-FR-IT-US), a brilliant eccentric self-taught polymath,
published 6,700 binomial names of plants, many of which have priority over more
familiar names (189; 1240).
In his Flora Telluriana
he details 2,000 new species of plants (1537; 1538).
Rafinesque was the first to declare earthworks, primarily from the
Ohio Valley, as the "Ancient Monuments of America." He listed more
than 500 such archaeological sites in Ohio and Kentucky (1539; 2096).
John Vaughan Thompson (IE) was the first to describe the barnacle,
Sacculina, and its parasitism of the
shore crab, Carcinus maenas (1843).
Alfred Francois Donné (FR), while examining women with abnormal
vaginal discharge, discovered and named Trichomonas
vaginalis. He at first believed it to be the infectious agent in gonorrhea.
He later determined it to be a normal inhabitant of the female genital tract.
Donné was, by this work, the first to describe living organisms in pathological
conditions, as observed by modern methods (538).
John Le Couteur (GB) published a summary of his work on wheat
breeding. This summary has been the basis and origin of variety testing (1085).
Patrick Sheriff (GB), c. 1850, improved cereals by deliberately
selecting individual ears of great excellence and segregating their progeny
from mingling with mediocre stock. He became a celebrated breeder and originator of desirable
varieties (512). “A good variety may be safely regarded
as the forerunner of a better one” (1738).
Richard Bright (GB) and Thomas Addison (GB) gave a very accurate
description of appendicitis (284).
Appendicitis had been described as early as 30 B.C.E. See, Aulus Cornelius Celsus.
John Vaughan Thompson (IE) discovered
the Pentacrinus europaeus, and showed
that it is the larval form of the feather-star Antedon (Comatula) (1839).
Gilbert Breschet (FR) discovered the rete mirabile (marvelous network), the organ that enables whales
and dolphins to survive at great depths (244). The
rete mirabile exchanges heat, ions,
or gases between vessel walls so that the two bloodstreams within the rete maintain a gradient with respect to
temperature, or concentration of gases or solutes.
Charles Dickens (GB), the novelist, described his character Joe
the Fat Boy as loud snoring, hypersomnambulant, obese, with a bizarre
personality, polycythemia, and congestive heart failure (523). Doubtless
what is today called obstructive sleep
apnea syndrome.
Albert G. Bickelmann (US), C. Sydney Burwell (US), Eugene Debs
Robin (US), and Robert D. Whaley (US) described a medical case, which they
named Pickwickian Syndrome. Their
patient, a 51-year-old business executive who stood 5 feet 5 inches and weighed
over 260 pounds entered the hospital because of obesity, fatigue, and somnolence (146). The name
was chosen because the symptoms are the same as those of the fat boy, Joe,
described by Charles Dickens in his The
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 119 years earlier.
Joseph Honoré Simon Beau (FR) was one of the first to characterize
myocardial insufficiency and
inability of the heart to perform a complete systole. This incomplete
contraction involves the ventricles primarily (90).
Philippe Frédéric Blandin (FR) wrote the first general treatise on
plastic surgery, including a review of the history of plastic surgery (182).
Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (DK) studied the characteristics of
the tools from different periods of prehistory. Based on the predominant
materials of which these tools were made, he divided early human history into
the Stone Age, the Bronze (Brass) Age, and the Iron Age (1845). Note: The three-age system originated
with Lucretius, however, this work popularized the concept in a practical way.
Thomsen’s
work led to the Law of Association,
which deduces that objects placed in a grave as part of a burial generally
consist of things in use at the time of interment.
John Lubbock
(GB) further subdivided the Stone Age into Paleolithic and Neolithic periods (1150).
Late in the nineteenth century, the Mesolithic period was conceived.
Adam
Sedgwick (GB), while working in central Wales, proposed the existence of a
separate system below the Silurian,
which he named the Cambrian --
commemorating Cambria, the Latin name for Wales (1728). This
represents the discovery of the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. The
system was not fully recognized until the faunas were described by Frederick
Mac Coy (IE)-AU) and John W. Salter (GB) (1657; 1727).
1837-1840
England experiences an epidemic of smallpox (red plague) and typhus fever.
1837-1850
An epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis spreads out over Europe
from Bayonne, France.
1837
"It is quite impossible for any man to gain information
respecting acute disease, unless he watch its progress. Day after day it must
be seen; the lapse of eight and-forty hours will so change the face of
disease.... Acute disease must be seen at least once a-day by those who wish to
learn; in many cases twice a-day will not be too often." Richard Bright.
Address delivered at the Commencement of a Course of Lectures on the Practice
of Medicine (273).
Giovanni Battista Amici (IT) developed very high-powered
achromatic lenses for the compound microscope (32). See, Beeldsnijder, 1791.
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) detailed the constitution of organic
compounds and described the modern method of chemical analysis. With this book
von Liebig introduced the concept of metabolism into physiology. He envisioned
his book, titled Die Thier-chemie in later editions, as a complement to
his researches into the chemistry of plants. In it he showed, like Lavoisier,
that animal heat is not innate, but the result of combustion, introduced the
concept of metabolism (Stoffwechsel); and classified animal foodstuffs as fats,
carbohydrates and proteins according to their function. He thus became the
founder of the modern science of nutrition. Liebig provided one of the first
comprehensive pictures of the overall meaning of the ceaseless chemical
exchanges which form an integral part of the vital processes (2027; 2031-2033; 2036).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) showed that aldehyde is an
intermediary product in the oxidation of alcohol to acetic acid (2028; 2029).
Friedrich Wöhler (DE) and Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) isolated
the enzyme emulsin from almond
extract (2160).
Charles Cagniard-Latour; Cagniard de la Tour (FR) stated that the
non-motile globular yeasts of beer are organized bodies probably belonging to
the vegetable kingdom. He found that wines contain similar yeast globules which
can survive cooling to -5°C in liquid carbon dioxide. He believed that yeast
activity formed carbonic acid and alcohol from sugar. Latour observed yeast
budding and stated that yeast is a mass of globular bodies capable of
reproduction and therefore organized. He stated that yeast is not a simple
chemical substance, as had been supposed (336; 337).
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE) examined beer yeast with a
microscope and described granules, which were often arranged in rows resembling
a segmented fungus. He concluded that yeast is without doubt a plant and
clearly connected the yeast plant with the fermentation process. He observed
that yeast budding, gas development, and fermentation are frequently concurrent
events and noted that when the process is at an end the yeast sink to the
bottom. He pointed out the differences between the yeasts of beer and wine and
spoke of the yeast plant as Zuckerpilz (sugar fungus), from which the term
Saccharomyces was later derived. Schwann also noted the requirement of a
nitrogenous substance during the yeast fermentation.
He carried out experiments that led him to conclude that
putrefaction is brought about by microorganisms (1718-1720).
Friedrich Traugott Kützing (DE) described the microbial nature of
the scum called mother of vinegar
that grows on alcohol, which is being converted to vinegar.
He was clearly of the opinion that yeast was not a chemical
substance but a living thing, and in a discussion on the terms organic and
inorganic he developed the idea that all fermentation is vital. Kützing was
possibly the first investigator to suggest that different fermentations were
due to physiologically different organisms (1055).
August Carl Joseph Corda (CZ) produced a large body of work on the
fungi in which he used the microscope to add thousands of new microscopic
species (431).
Joseph-Henri Léveillé (FR), Ferdinand Moritz Ascherson (DE),
August Carl Joseph Corda (CZ), Johann Friedrich Klotzsch (DE), Philipp Phoebus
(DE) and Miles Joseph Berkeley (GB) each independently described the structure
of the fungal basidium. Léveille’s
paper is best known, for in it he coined the terms basidium and cystidium. Berkeley's 1936 paper introduced the term mycology (49; 112; 113; 116; 431; 1017; 1111; 1466).
Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (DE) was the first to describe the
epithelia of the skin and intestines, defined columnar and ciliated epithelium,
and pointed out that this tissue constitutes the true lining membrane of all
free surfaces of the body and the inner lining of its tubes and cavities (872).
Pierre-François-Olive Rayer (FR) was the first to describe
glanders in man (1572). He
demonstrated the transmissibility of glanders (a bacterial disease primarily of
solipeds) by infecting a horse with material from a case of glanders in a human
subject (1573).
Étinne-Guillaume La Fosse (FR) wrote a treatise on the cause of
glanders in horses (1057).
Friederich August Johannes Löffler (DE) and Johann Wilhelm Schütz
(DE) discovered that the bacterium Pseudomonas
mallei (Burkholderia mallei) is
the cause of glanders. This is primarily a disease of horses, mules, and the
ass (1131).
Matthias Jakob Schleiden (DE) published detailed observations on
the origin and development of the plant ovule. He confirmed that the pollen
tube grows to the ovule and observed that it enters the ovule through the
micropyle (1682).
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) reported that stomata
communicate with lacunae in deeper plant tissue, that only cells containing
green pigment can absorb carbon dioxide and transform light energy to chemical
energy and demonstrated that mushrooms are in fact the fruiting bodies of the
mycelium, detected heat from an individual plant and from an insect muscle (600).
Alfred Francois Donné (FR) reported the presence of globules and
granular bodies in human milk (539). Some of
these were very likely to have been cells.
Hugo von Mohl (DE) discovered chloroplasts in plant cells, calling
them Chlorophyllkörnern (chlorophyll
granules) (1786; 2050; 2053).
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm Bischoff (DE) published a study on
respiration, in which he proved that free carbonic acid and oxygen coexisted in
blood (169).
Louis René Le Canu (FR) found that cholesterol is a constituent of
normal human blood (1083; 1084).
Ernst Friedrich Burdach; Karl Friedrich Burdach (DE) published a
book on microscopic anatomy of the nervous system (330).
Heinrich Gustav Magnus (DE) discovered that blood, whether from
artery or from vein, contains large amounts of both oxygen and carbon dioxide,
that the carbon dioxide released in the lungs is not formed locally by
oxidation but has been carried there by the blood, and that more oxygen and
less carbon dioxide is contained in arterial than in venous blood. This
suggested that carbon dioxide might facilitate the release of oxygen from the
blood and that combustion takes place in the capillaries rather than in the
lungs (1189; 1192).
Heinrich Gustav Magnus (DE) was the first to postulate that oxygen
and carbon dioxide cross the alveolar-capillary membrane of the lungs by
diffusion (1190).
John Gould
(GB) was recruited by Charles Darwin to identify his bird specimens
collected during the voyage of the Beagle. It was Gould who identified Darwin's
Galapagos finches as separate species, thus providing one of the crucial
insights in the development of Darwin's theory. Today these
unique finches are known as Darwin's
finches or Galapagos finches.
Peter Raymond
Grant (GB-CA-US) and Barbara Rosemary Grant (GB-CA-US) spent forty years
proving that Charles Darwin did not know the full strength of his theory of
evolution. They showed that among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, natural
selection sometimes takes place so rapidly we can watch it work (784-786).
Jonathan
Weiner (US) wrote The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
which described and supported the early work of the Grants (2109).
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hillarie (FR), in 1837, lectured at the
Athena in Paris on animal behavior. He coined the word ethnologic
(ethnology), meaning the study of the relationships of organized beings in the
family and society, in the aggregate and the community, and teratology, meaning the study of
abnormal individuals (1653). Ethology
and ethnology (the study of human groups) are so close in spelling that
confusion often arises.
Smallpox (red
plague) appeared in a Sioux tribe in Missouri, June 1837, then spread to
Blackfoot and other tribes in Montana and Saskatchewan. The last previous
outbreak among the Blackfoot had been in 1781, so by 1837 most of the
population was susceptible (1030).
William Lonsdale (GB), in 1837, suggested
from a study of the fossils of the South Devon limestones that they would prove
to be of an age intermediate between the Carboniferous and Silurian systems. It
was Lonsdale who coined the term Devonian, commemorating Devon county, England (1135).
Adam Sedgwick (GB) and Roderick Impey Murchison (GB) presented
researches on certain rocks in Devonshire, England, which had a distinctive
fossil assemblage that led them to propose a new division of the geological time
scale -- the Devonian. Sedgwick and Murchison first used Devonian in a
publication (1729). This
represents the discovery of the Devonian Period—408 Ma to 360 Ma—of the
Paleozoic Era.
1838
Jöns Jakob von Berzelius (SE) gave the name organic to substances of living or once-living tissue (1965).
Anselme Payen (FR) discovered and determined the chemical
composition of cellulose (1431).
Alexandre-Théodore
Brongniart, Jr.
(FR), Théophile-Jules Pelouze (FR), and Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas (FR),
in their report to the French national Academy, coined the terms glucose and cellulose. They defined cellulose as the major constituent of wood,
related chemically to starch. They defined it as "... a compound which
fills the cells and which makes up the substance of the wood itself." (297) As the
group’s recorder, Dumas was most likely the person who coined these words.
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) found evidence
that nitrogen enters legume plants by some unknown mechanism, but not the
non-legumes (211).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) carried out
greenhouse experiments, which clearly showed that leguminous plants could fix
atmospheric nitrogen (214).
Karl Friedrich Johannes Lachmann (DE) studied
the nodules in the roots of legumes and observed bacteria (1059).
Albert B.
Frank (DE) showed that the root nodules in legumes are formed due to infection
by the organism he named Schinzia
leguminosarum believing it to be a fungus (703).
Martinus Willem Beijerinck (NL) isolated symbiotic nitrogen-fixing
bacteria (Rhizobium) from root
nodules of leguminous plants by using an enrichment culture medium minus
nitrogen containing compounds. He speculated but could not prove that these
bacteria fixed nitrogen (95).
Albert B.
Frank (DE) realized that the infectious agent in the root nodules of legumes is
a bacterium. He names it Rhizobium leguminosarum (704).
Perry William Wilson (US), Ervin W. Hopkins (US), Edwin Broun Fred
(US), Carl E. Georgi (US), Fred S. Orcutt (US), Miner R. Salmon (US), Joseph C.
Burton (US), V.S. Bond (US), Wayne William Umbreit (US), Philip M. West (US),
Sylvan B. Lee (US), George Bond (US), and Robert Harza Burris (US) established:
1) growth substance requirements for rhizobia, 2) the effects of carbon dioxide
and light intensity on nitrogen fixation, 3) the pN2 function and the pO2
function in nitrogen fixation, 4) the Michaelis constant for nitrogen fixation
in Red Clover, 5) that by using heavy nitrogen they could collect data
supporting ammonia as a key intermediate in nitrogen fixation, and 6) that
hydrogen is a specific and competitive inhibitor of nitrogen fixation in free
living Azotobacter vinelandii and in
the rhizobia of red clover (334; 706; 745; 2118; 2143-2154).
Robert F. Fisher (US), Thomas T. Egelhoff (US), John T. Mulligan
(US), and Sharon Rugel Long (US) discovered that legumes release a flavonoid,
which penetrates the rhizobial cells and stimulates a gene-activating protein.
The activated bacterial genes produce a Nod factor, which leads to nodule
formation by triggering cell division in the legume (680).
Patrice Lerouge (FR), Philippe Roche (FR), Catherine Faucher (FR),
Fabienne Maillet (FR), Georges Truchet (FR), Jean Claude Promé (FR), Jean
Dénarié (FR), and Frédéric Debelle (FR) purified NodRm-1 (a sulfated beta-1,
4-tetrasaccharide of D-glucosamine), the major alfalfa specific signal from Rhizobium meliloti, which causes root
hair deformation and forecasts nodular formation
(1104; 1620).
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) described the first
observations of wave-shaped flagella, which he thought were probably necessary
for motility (618).
George Owen Rees (GB) described a method for isolating sugar from
diabetic blood serum (1580).
Eugène-Melchior Péligot (FR) determined that the sugar in diabetic
urine is grape sugar (glucose) (1438).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ), in
1837, discovered the pear-shaped cells in the cerebellar cortex which bear his
name (1523). Note:
Tradition has it that Purkinje was the first to use the microtome, Canada
balsam, glacial acetic acid, potassium dichromate, and the Drummond limelight
in the study of tissues.
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE) described ganglion-globules in
the gray matter of the brain and spinal cord that contain nuclei and nucleoli,
also the double-contoured white substance, which forms the sheath around white
nerve fibers (the sheath of Schwann),
even noting that the sheath material was fat-like in nature and responsible for
the white color of the fibers. It is he for whom the Schwann cells that make up the nerve sheaths are named (1721; 1722; 1724).
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (DE) proposed that all bacteria be
placed in the class Infusoria. He put the study of microorganisms on a
systematic basis and was able to establish several groups by clearly
recognizing fundamental morphological distinctions, such as those
differentiating the spirochetes from certain of the protozoa with which others
had grouped them. Some of the names he used, such as bacterium and spirillum,
are still used today. It was he who first used the generic term Spirochaeta for the large free-living
forms he was observing. He describes the use of indigo and carmine to reveal
the stomachs [food vacuoles] of infusorians (617).
John Torrey (US), professor of botany at what is now Columbia
University, coauthored A Flora of North
America with Asa Gray and authored A
Flora of the State of New York (1868; 1869). He is
commemorated by the genus Torreya (a
rare Florida gymnosperm).
George Johnston (GB) coined the term hydroida as it applied to animals (977).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) mentions that nonmyelinate, sympathetic
fibers, "are covered with small, oval or rounded, but more rarely
irregular, corpuscles, which exhibit one or more nuclei, in size almost equal
to the nuclei of the ganglion globules [nerve cells]," thus most likely
referring to "Schwann cells" of nonmyelinated fibers. He suggested
that nerve fiber and nerve cell are joined and demonstrated that the neurofibers
originated in the ganglionic cells (1589). See, Ross Granville Harrison, 1907.
Carlo Matteucci (IT) discovered that the frog’s heart, upon
contraction, produces an electric current (1216; 1218).
George Gulliver (GB), Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle (DE), Julius
Vogel (DE), and William Hewson (GB) indicated that leukocytes are components of
the pus found in suppurating wounds (816; 873; 893; 1942).
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE) was the first to describe
multinucleate cells in vertebrate tissue. He was studying tumor tissue at the
time. Müller was a distinguished physiologist and considered the founder of
scientific medicine in Germany (1306).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) worked on the embryonic development of
the vertebrate skull and among other things found that the two lobes of the
pituitary gland have separate embryologic origins. A portion of the roof of the
pharynx pushes upward towards the floor of the brain forming the anterior
pituitary (adenohypophysis, pars distalis, pars tuberalis, pars
intermedia). Where it meets a portion of the brain pushing downward forming
the posterior pituitary (neurohypophysis,
pars nervosa). Rathke's pouch
eventually loses its connection with the pharynx
(888; 1564; 1565; 1567).
Phillippe Ricord (FR) established syphilis and gonorrhea as
separate and distinct diseases. He classified the symptoms of syphilis as 1) Primary symptom (accident primitif), chancre from the
direct action of the virus which it produces, and by means of which it
propagates itself, 2) Secondary symptoms, or symptoms of general infection, and
3) Tertiary symptoms, (accidents
tertiares) occurring at indefinite periods, but generally long after the
cessation of the primary affection.
He warns that when gonorrheal matter is in the conjunctive of the
eyes one must always insist on quick application of silver nitrate to preserve
sight (1610).
Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol (FR) was the first to clinically
describe what later became known as Down’s syndrome (633).
Édouard Séguin (FR) also described the Down’s syndrome (1732).
John Langdon Haydon Down (GB) described the syndrome that bears
his name, but did not discover its cause (547-550).
Jérôme Jean Louis Marie LeJeune (FR), Marthe Gautier (FR), Raymond
Alexandre Turpin (FR), Patricia Ann Jacobs (GB), Albert Gordon Baikie (GB-AU),
William Michael Court-Brown (GB), and John A. Strong (GB) were the first to
associate a genetic disease in humans with a chromosomal abnormality. They
found that Down’s syndrome patients
possess an extra small acrocentric chromosome number 21 (972; 1098; 1099). Down’s
syndrome is one of the most common causes of mental retardation.
Edward Selleck Hare (GB), Publio Ciuffini (IT), Henry Khunrath
Pancoast (US), and José W. Tobías (AR) described the medical condition later
known as Hare’s syndrome or Ciuffini-Pancoast-Tobías syndrome or Pancoast’s disease or superior pulmonary sulcus tumor (830; 1403; 1404; 1859).
Karl Wigand
Maximilian Jacobi (DE) presented the first formulation of the concept and intent of
psychosomatic medicine (an attempt to integrate
psychopathology with biology and physiology) (971).
Isaac Ray (US) wrote the first treatise on the medical
jurisprudence of insanity (1571).
Pierre-Francois Verhulst (BE) developed the logistic model of
population to describe the self-limiting growth of a biological population (1916; 1917).
Raymond Pearl (US) and Lester James Reed (US) rediscovered the
S-shaped logistic curve when they
found that human population growth over time seemed to follow this curve (1437).
Vito Volterra (IT) used the logistic equation to construct a
nonlinear differential equation model of competition between two species and
developed a model of predation in a two-species system, if prey increase,
predators will also until prey decrease. As the predators starve, the prey
increases. The two populations fluctuate out of phase with each other due to
the length of the gestation period delaying the population peaks; i.e., the
predator population is still growing after the prey population has begun to
decline (1945).
Alfred James Lotka (US) anticipated Volterra with a
mathematical model of two-species predation (1143). Today
these are known as the Lotka-Volterra
equations.
Alexander John Nicholson (AU) and Victor Albert Bailey (AU) tried
to improve on the Lotka-Volterra predation model by considering the effects of
competition from members of the same species, as well as delays caused by age
distribution of the populations (1339).
Thomas Bell (GB), Charles Robert Darwin (GB), Thomas Campbell
Eyton (GB), George Scharf (GB), and George Robert Waterhouse (GB) published The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle,
Under the Command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., During the Years 1832 to 1836. :
Published With the Approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury (100).
Charles Robert Darwin (GB) published the second edition of The Voyage of the Beagle in 1845 (476).
The
Great United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was
launched to the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands. It was of major importance
to the growth of science in the United States, in particular the then-young
field of oceanography (1789).
Jacques Boucher De Crèvecouer De Perthes (FR) found near
Abbeville, France, the first evidence of Stone Age man. He determined that they
were from the Pleistocene epoch. De Perthes was the first to develop the idea
that prehistory could be measured based on periods of geologic time (205; 206).
1839
"Every mentally ill person is also physically ill."
Johannes Baptista Friedreich (DE) (712)
"The elementary parts of all tissues are formed of cells in
an analogous, though very diversified manner, so that it may be asserted, that there is one universal principle of
development for the elementary parts of organisms, however different, and that
this principle is the formation of cells." Theodor Ambrose Hubert
Schwann (1722)
Michael Faraday (GB) showed that the laws of definite and multiple
proportions hold not only for chemical elements, but also for electricity (642).
Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (DE) introduced a test whereby the
amount of fermentable sugar present could be determined by the amount of carbon
dioxide released by yeast placed in the unknown mixture (532).
Anselme Payen (FR) isolated from plants a compound
that he recognized as a carbohydrate and which he termed cellulose because it was derived from cell membranes of plants.
Payen considered cellulose to be an isomer of starch and dextrine
and ascribed the different properties of the three compounds to
different states of aggregation (1432; 1433).
Pierre-Jean Robiquet (FR) predicted that there is a relationship
between an animal’s surface area and its food requirements (1619).
Charles Thornton Coathupe (GB) reported that the amount of carbon
dioxide in air expired by humans varied between 3.63% and 4.37% (385).
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE) introduced the term metabolic (Gk. metabolikon, disposed to cause or suffer change) to denote the
chemical transformations undergone by cell constituents and surrounding
material (1239).
Bernard Rudolf Konrad von Langenbeck (DE) discovered that a
yeast-like organism was associated with the white patches of thrush in the
mouth, pharynx, and esophagus in a case of typhoid fever (2015). Note: He is perhaps best known today as
the "father of the surgical residency."
Fredrik Theodor Berg (SE) recognized the etiological agent of
thrush as a mold-like fungus (105).
David Gruby (HU-FR) found Candida albicans in thrush and demonstrated its fungal nature (807).
John Hughes
Bennett (GB) reported a cryptogram as the cause of buccal thrush in infants (103).
Fredrik Theodor Berg (SE) independently discovered that a fungus (Candida albicans) causes thrush in man (106; 107).
J. Stuart Wilkinson (GB) described vulvovaginal candidiasis for the first time (2132).
Charles-Philippe Robin (FR) named the causative agent Oïdium albicans (Candida albicans) (1617).
Max B. Burchardt (DE)
published experimental, microscopical observations of the thrush
fungus. He studied its growth in epithelial preparations on microscope slides
over 2 or 3 days and observed septate, branched filaments bearing lateral buds,
some filaments growing by the lengthening of terminal buds. These filaments
were pseudohyphae, which he described and illustrated (327).
David Haussmann (FR) demonstrated that the causative organism in
both vulvovaginal candidiasis and oral candidiasis was Oïdium albicans (Candida albicans) (852; 1166).
Raymond Jacques Adrien Sabouraud (FR) would rediscover Gruby’s
findings in 1894.
Christine Marie Berkhout (NL) later proposed the genus name Candida for this yeast-like fungus (118).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) was convinced that fermentations were
of a purely chemical nature and not associated with life forms. His prestige
made it difficult for those who espoused that microorganisms caused
fermentations to be heard. He demonstrated that the source of animal heat is
really the consumption of the fuel taken in through the stomach and lungs (2030).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) strongly defends his abiotic
chemical explanation for fermentation even in the face of the growing evidence
for a biotic explanation (2041; 2042).
Louis Pasteur (FR), in response to von Liebig, brilliantly presses
home the case for a biotic theory of fermentation (1428).
Benno Müller-Hill (DE) wrote, "Pasteur was right with his
experiments, but Liebig was right with his intuition that fermentation was
simple chemistry." (1316)
Pierre Sarrus (FR) and Jean-Francois Rameaux (FR) proposed what
was called the “surface law”. They suggested that the heat production of
different-sized species should be related to their surface area rather than
their body masses if they were to maintain the same body temperature (1663). Note: D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (GB) reminds us, “we are taught
by elementary mathematics—and by Archimedes himself—that in similar figures the
surface increases as the square, and the volume as the cube, of the
linear dimensions.” Thompson then describes the implications of size for
both structure and function of animals and plants (1830).
Max Rubner (DE), in 1883, demonstrated the “surface law” in
accurate respiration trials on dogs (1636).
Max Kleiber (CH-US) supported the concept that the basal
metabolism of animals differing in sex is nearly proportional to their
respective body surfaces, i.e., the surface law (1015; 1016).
Victor Regnault (FR) and Jules Reiset (FR) developed an innovative
respirometer (one that provided oxygen at the rate it was consumed) and
measured the metabolic rates of several animals (including rabbits, dogs, fowl,
ducks, finches, sparrows, frogs, salamanders, lizards and beetles). Because
their measurements were carried out at temperatures ranging from ~15 °C to ~23
°C (average ~18 °C), and generally on animals feeding, these were not
measurements of basal metabolism. However, they did report a number of seminal
findings: (i) mammals and birds of the same size had similar mass-specific
rates of oxygen consumption; (ii) the mass-specific oxygen consumption of the
small bird species (average mass ~23 g) was more than 8-fold greater than the
larger birds (average mass ~1.4 kg); and (iii) there was a huge difference in
the metabolic rates of the endotherms (mammals and birds) compared to the
ectothermic vertebrates (amphibians and reptiles). For example, with respect to
this last point, although they were approximately the same size, the
mass-specific oxygen consumption rates of the small bird species was ~135 times
that of the amphibians and reptiles.
Interestingly, Regnault and Reiset also showed that when they kept
rabbits and dogs in an atmosphere that had 2–3 times normal oxygen levels they
had the same metabolic rates as those in normal atmospheric oxygen. In other
words, metabolic rate seemed to be an intrinsic characteristic of the species
and was not limited by the supply of oxygen. In this way it differed from
combustion (1582).
Schack August Steenberg Krogh (SE) showed that: (i) the Standard Metabolic Rate of cold-blooded
animals (measured at the same temperature as each other) and expressed relative
to body mass increased with decreasing body size; and (ii) even when compared
at the same temperature that the "oxidative energy of the tissues is
greater in the warm-blooded than in the cold-blooded organism." (1039)
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) described the embryonic development of
the snake (1565; 1566).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) and Henry James Clark (US) described
the embryonic development of the turtle (378; 1569).
Martin Heinrich Rathke (DE) described the embryonic development of
the crocodile (1570).
Johann Lukas Schönlein (DE) discovered that favus (honeycomb) of the human scalp, a disease long known, is due
to a parasitic fungus (later named Achorion
schoenleinii then Trichophyton
schoenleinii) growing at the roots of the hair (1697). Note: this was the first infectious
disease the etiology of which was scientifically explained. The citation’s
title contains the term impetigo, which at this time meant an inflammatory skin
disease characterized by isolated pustules.
David Gruby (HU-FR) described the fungi associated with four of
the common types of ringworm in man. He conclusively proved for the first time,
that a microbial organism could cause disease in man. Culturing the fungus of favus (honeycomb disease) of the scalp he reproduced the disease by
reinoculating the fungus into normal areas of the skin, thereby fulfilling what
became famous forty years later as Koch’s postulates, in the study of anthrax (805; 806). This
experiment proved, for the first time, that a microorganism was the cause of a
human disease. See, Schönlein,
1839.
Robert Remak (PL-DE) cultured the etiologic agent of favus on apple slices, induced the
infection in himself and validly described it as Achorion schoenleinii, in honor of his colleague Schönlein (1593).
Johann Lukas Schönlein (DE) is also attributed with naming the
disease, Tuberculosis (1697). Prior to Schönlein's
designation, Tuberculosis had been
called "consumption".
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) and Louis
Frédéric Le Bel (FR) quantitatively studied the balance between the elementary
constitution of the maintenance ration of a cow and that of the excretions and
the milk (221).
Francois Magendie (FR) was possibly the first experimenter to
induce anaphylaxis. He found that rabbits that tolerated an initial injection
of egg albumin often died upon receiving a second injection (1184).
Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau (FR) described hidradenitis suppurativa, a chronic
acneiform infection of the cutaneous apocrine glands that also can involve
adjacent subcutaneous tissue and fascia (1914).
Bogislaus Palicki (CZ), in his dissertation directed by Johannes
Evangelista Purkinje (Jan Evangelista Purkyne) (CZ), discovered Purkinje fibers
in heart muscle (1400; 1401).
Wilhelm Kaspar (CZ), in 1839, in his dissertation directed by
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje (Jan Evangelista Purkyne) (CZ), discovered
Purkinje fibers in the wall of the uterus (996).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje (CZ) reports the discovery of
Purkinje fibers (1525).
Pierre-François-Olive Rayer (FR) is recognized as the
"father" of renal microscopy. It was probably Rayer who first used
the term Bright's disease (maladie de Bright) (1574).
James Hope (GB) described mitral regurgitation and discussed why
it is undesirable. He also discussed how to diagnose pulmonary stenosis (916).
Isaac E. Taylor (US) and James Augustus Washington (US), in 1839,
administered a solution of morphine in an Anel syringe. This was one of the
earliest subcutaneous injections of an anesthetic (42).
Eduard Caspar Jacob von Siebold (DE) wrote the first and arguably
the most important history of obstetrics (2060).
Samuel David Gross (US), an outstanding surgeon, wrote Elements of Pathology and Anatomy, the
first exhaustive treatise on pathological anatomy in the English language. In
1854, he wrote A Practical Treatise on
Foreign Bodies in the Air-Passages, the first systematic treatise on this
subject and, in 1859, finished System of
Surgery, published in two volumes totaling 2,360 pages. Gross became world
famous being honored by Oxford University with the D.C.L. degree and Cambridge
University with the L.L.D. degree (802-804).
Richard Owen (GB) announced one of his most important discoveries:
his identification of the bones of a giant bird from New Zealand. The Moa now
ranks among the world's most famous extinct birds (1384).
Roderick Impey Murchison (GB), while studying the rocks of Wales,
documented rock strata containing a distinctive set of fossils, one in which
very few fish were found, but that included numerous different types of
trilobites, brachiopods, and other such fossils. Murchison named the system of
rocks containing such fossils the Silurian,
commemorating the Silures, a Celtic tribe living in the Welsh Borderlands at
the time of the Romans (1317). This
represents the discovery of the Silurian Period of the Paleozoic Era.
1840-1849
There was a pandemic of cholera.
c.
1840
Sam Shuster (GB), from an analysis of original correspondence,
established that Karl Marx's incapacitating skin disease was hidradenitis suppurativa, not 'boils' as
was universally assumed at the time and since. Shuster says, "The
psychological effect of this illness on the man and his work appears to have
been considerable …In addition to reducing his ability to work, which
contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his
self-esteem." (1741)
1840
“Race after race resigned their fleeting breath— The rocks alone
their curious annals save.” Timothy Abbott Conrad (417)
Germain Henri Hess (CH-RU) measured the heats evolved in various
reactions and was able to demonstrate that the quantity of heat produced in
going from substance A to substance B was the same no matter by what chemical
route the reaction proceeded or in how many stages (892).
Johann Justus von Liebig's Thierchemie which united the
fields of chemistry and physiology was published (2032).
Christian Friedrich Schönbein (CH) discovered and named ozone (Gk.
ozein, to smell). He found that it
forms during electrical discharges (1695).
Sydney Chapman (GB) published the theory of ozone formation and
depletion. The reactions are still valid and called the 'Chapman cycle' or the
'Chapman reactions'. Oxygen and ozone are transformed into each other. The
bonds are broken by photolysis due to solar radiation. To break the bond in O2
the energy of the sunlight must be higher (wavelength shorter than 240 nm), than
for ozone (wavelength shorter than 900 nm). Formation and depletion are in
equilibrium and the net result is a 'zero' reaction: Oxygen absorbs in the
highly energetic UV-C range, ozone in the slightly less energetic UV-B range.
Longer wavelengths partially pass the atmosphere and reach the Earth surface (359).
Richard S. Stolarski (US) and Ralph J. Cicerone (US) proposed that
chlorine coming from rocket fuel in supersonic transport (SST) aircrafts could
destroy ozone (1807).
Mario J. Molina (MX-US) and F. Sherwood Rowland (US) published an
article highlighting the threat to the ozone layer posed by chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) used as refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and in making plastic foams (1262).
Joseph C. Farman (GB), Brian G. Gardiner (GB), and Jonathan D.
Shanklin (GB) reported a 40% decrease in ozone over the Antarctic between 1977
and 1984 (643).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) and Friedrich Wöhler (DE) attributed
decomposition, eremacausis (Gk. erema, quietly + causis, burning), putrefaction, and fermentation to chemical
instability of certain substances which were able to communicate their
instability to other substances in succession. Liebig asserted that animalcules
are the result, not the cause of fermentation and further that "if
agitated in a vessel filled with a solution of sugar the molecules of yeast
communicate their condition to the particles of sugar, the result being the
formation of alcohol and carbon dioxide, compounds in which the constituents
are retained in combination with a greater force than in sugar. In contact with
sugar, yeast disappears, and none is reproduced, but when added to the gluten
(albumin) contained in vegetable juices new yeast is formed. Yeast, therefore,
is produced from gluten."
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) introduced the concept of metabolism
and was the first to realize that the addition of a single fertilizer will
increase crop yield only if a particular soil can deliver all the other
necessary nutrients. Depending on the circumstances, therefore, any of the
essential minerals (nitrates, phosphates, potassium, etc.) might become the
controlling factor. This generalization became known as Liebig's "Law of
the Minimum" and it remains today a central concept in agriculture (2031). Note: Thanks to Felicjan Odrowąż Sypniewski's
(PL-DE) notes and observations Karl Phillip Sprengel (DE) formulated his
"Theorem of Minimum." Johann Justus von Liebig, who later popularized
this theorem, was mistakenly attributed to its authorship (1785)).
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (CH-US) wrote a large five-volume work
on fossil fishes. He was the first to conclude—from his studies of glaciers—
that there had been an Ice Age. He borrowed the phrase ice age (Eiszeit) from a poem by his friend Karl
Schimper (21-23; 1209). He is
commemorated by Phascolosoma agassizii
Keferstein, 1867, Polydora agassizi
Claparède, 1969, Linvillea agassizi
(McCrady, 1857), and Aglauropsis agassizi
Fr. Müller, 1865.
James Croll (GB) was the first to suggest that variations in the
Earth’s orbit might have initiated ice ages (450).
Milutin Milankovitch; Milutin Milankovic (Serbian), in 1930, found
that for Croll’s theory to be a more accurate predictor of ice ages it must
consider that over long periods of time the Earth tilts, pitches, and wobbles
relative to the Sun (1248).
Johannes Evangelista Purkinje; Jan Evangelista Purkyne (CZ) was
one of the first to use a mechanical microtome to prepare thin sections of
tissue for microscopic analysis, introducing glacial acetic acid, potassium
dichromate and Canada balsam in the preparation of tissue samples for
microscopic examination. He was aware of the cellular nature of the skin and
other animal organs. He coined the word protoplasm
in reference to the living embryonic material in the egg and together with Hugo
von Mohl (DE) who applied the term protoplasm
to the living content of plant cells, established the protoplasm concept (1524; 1817; 2051).
Ferdinand Julius Cohn (DE) unified the concept of protoplasm by
applying it equally to both plant and animal cells (392).
René-Joachim-Henri Dutrochet (FR) detected heat production by a
plant and by an insect’s muscles during movement
(601).
Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (DE), one of the most celebrated
anatomists of the world and the greatest histologist of his time, was one of
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch’s teachers. He wrote, Von den Miasmen und Contagien und von den Miasmatisch-Contagiösen
Krankheiten (On Miasmas and Contagions and Concerning Miasmatic-Contagious
Diseases), a monograph in which he lays the foundation for Koch’s
postulates and stated, "The material of contagions is not only organic but
a living one and is indeed endowed with a life of its own, which is, in
relation to the diseased body, a parasitic organism." He insisted that in
order to claim a given microbe caused a disease (1) there be constancy in the
association of a given disease and its supposed parasitic cause, as well as its
absence in other diseases, (2) isolation and separation from other microbes,
and finally, (3) proof of the power of the isolated germ to produce disease (880).
He was the first to describe the epithelium of the skin and
intestines, to define columnar and ciliated epithelium, and to point out the
importance of epithelium as the lining membrane of all free surfaces of the
body and of its tubes and cavities. His Allgemeine
Anatomie was the first systematic treatise on microscopic anatomy. In it,
for the first time, he described the presence of smooth muscle in the
endothelial lining of small arteries, a finding critical to the later understanding
of the vasomotor mechanism. The 1866-1871 citation contains the first logical
account and nomenclature of the axes and planes of the body. The sections on
ligaments, the muscles, the viscera, and the nervous system are very important (874; 875; 877; 879). The loop of Henle in the nephritic unit of
the kidney is named for him. He described these tubular loops as running
perpendicular to the kidney surface and penetrating at a variable depth in the
medulla. The descending portion of these loops had a small outer diameter (thin
limb) as compared to that of the ascending portion located in the outer medulla
(thick limb) (878).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) confirmed Henle’s finding of
smooth muscle in the endothelial wall of arteries (2001).
Henle and Karl von Pfeufer (DE) established the journal, Zeitschrift für Rationelle Medizin.
Friedrich Ludwig Hünefeld (DE) reported seeing brick red, sharp
edged crystals of blood pigment in dried menstrual blood of humans and swine,
which had been placed between glass plates in a desiccator (937). Note: The discovery of hemoglobin
William Bowman (GB) published his paper on the minute structure and
functions of the striated, voluntary muscle. He coined the term sarcolemma (225; 226).
Louis-Michel-Francois Doyère (FR), Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE),
Charles Marie Benjamin Rouget (FR), and Louis-Antoine Ranvier (FR) demonstrated
that motor nerves end on muscle fiber at a specialized structure, the plaque terminale, or endplate. There,
the nerve loses its myelin sheath and branches on top of a cytoplasmic eminence
of the muscle fiber particularly rich in nuclei (551; 1043; 1546; 1630; 1631).
Carlo Mattecci (IT) had demonstrated the electrical negativity of
a cross section of muscle and proceeded to show the electrical oscillations in
a tetanized muscle (1217).
Benedikt Stilling (DE) was the first to investigate vasomotor
nerves (1803).
Frederick William Hope (GB) coined myiasis to refer to diseases of humans originating specifically
with dipterous larvae (e.g., botfly, blowfly, fleshfly, and screwfly), as
opposed to those caused by insect larvae in general, scholechiasis, which was coined by William Kirby (GB) and William
Spence (GB) (914; 1009).
William S. Baer (US), an orthopedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins
Medical School during the late 1920s, used maggot therapy to treat a series of
patients with osteomyelitis, an infection of bone or bone marrow. The idea was
based on an experience in World War I in which two soldiers presented to him
with broken femurs after having lain on the ground for seven days without food
and water. Dr. Baer could not figure out why neither man had a fever or signs
of sepsis. He observed: "On removing the clothing from the wounded part,
much was my surprise to see the wound filled with thousands and thousands of
maggots, apparently those of the blow fly. The sight was very disgusting, and
measures were taken hurriedly to wash out these abominable looking creatures."
However, he then saw that the wounds were filled with “beautiful pink
granulation tissue” and were healing well (64).
Throughout recorded history maggots have been used therapeutically
to clean out necrotic wounds, an application known as maggot therapy. Maggot
therapy – also known as maggot debridement therapy (MDT), larval therapy, larva
therapy, or larvae therapy – is the intentional introduction by a health care
practitioner of live, disinfected green bottle fly maggots (larvae) into the
non-healing skin and soft tissue wound(s) of a human or other animal for the
purpose of selectively cleaning out only the necrotic (dead) tissue within a
wound in order to promote wound healing. Although maggot therapy has been used
in the US for the past 80 years, the FDA approved it as a “medical device” only
in 2004 (along with leeches in the same year). Maggots are approved for
treating neuropathic (diabetic) foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, venous stasis
ulcers, and traumatic and post-surgical wounds that are unresponsive to
conventional therapies (1635). The
American Medical Association and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
recently clarified the reimbursement guidelines to the wound care community for
medicinal maggots, and this therapy may soon be covered by insurance (17).
Jules-Gabriel-François Baillarger (FR), while engaged in
clinicopathological correlations with simple methodology, divided the cerebral
cortex into six layers of alternate white and grey lamina. He was able to
satisfy himself that the white lines seen by Francisco Gennari in the occipital
area could be traced in all parts of the cortex, although they were far less
conspicuous anteriorly than posteriorly. This continuation of Gennari's line
has therefore come to be known as the "external line or white stripe of
Baillarger". He discussed the connections between gray matter of the
cerebral cortex and the internal white matter. He also demonstrated that the
surface of the human brain in comparison to its own volume is less than that in
smaller animals and that as a compensatory measure larger brains undergo
greater fissuration than smaller ones – in short that the difference in
external form of lissencephalic and gyrencephalic brains is explicable on the
basis of the geometric law of volumes, that the volume increases as the cube of
the diameter while the surface increases as the square (68).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) used microscopic observations to confirm
Baillarger’s 6-layered cortex of the brain. He was the first to illustrate
these layers (1592).
Pierre Adolphe Piorry (FR) and Sébastien Didier L’Héritier (FR)
coined the term uraemia (uremia) to
describe the condition in renal failure patients characterized by retention of
products of urine in the blood (181; 1468).
Friedrich Theodor Frerichs (DE) described the clinical uremic syndrome and accepted a toxic
mechanism as its etiology (709).
Joseph
Picard (FR) developed a sensitive method to detect blood in urea. He was able
to detect a 40% fall in urea concentration occurring between renal artery and
vein (1467).
This work along with Frerichs’ made popular the concept and the term uremia.
Victor-Timothée
Feltz (FR) and Eugene Ritter (FR) declared that retained potassium is the
uremic poison (647).
Moritz Heinrich Romberg (DE) wrote the first systematic treatise
in neurology and a milestone in the development of clinical neurology. It
included a classic on achondroplasia (congenital rickets). He and Peter Frank
were pioneers in the study of the spinal cord. He described the classic,
Romberg sign (swaying of the body with the feet close together and the eyes
closed: a sign of locomotor ataxia) and stated that no ataxic can stand still
with eyes shut. Patients with the tabes
dorsalis of syphilis typically sway or lose their balance. He described
Romberg's sign as: "The gait
begins to be insecure... he puts down his feet with greater force...The
individual keeps his eyes on his feet to prevent his movements from becoming
still more unsteady. If he is ordered to close his eyes while in the erect
posture, he at once commences to totter and swing from side to side; the
insecurity of his gait also exhibits itself more in the dark." (1623; 1624)
Jonathan Mason Warren (US), about 1840, was one of the first
surgeons to use free skin grafts.
Small, entirely detached pieces of skin were taken from the arm or thigh to
fill in gaps in a wound (2095).
Washington Joseph Duffee (US), in 1840, performed a primary
amputation at the hip joint in a case of coxalgia. The patient experienced a
full recovery (1270).
Edward Shipper (US) performed a successful amputation at the hip
joint during the American Civil War (1381).
Richard Owen (GB), beginning in 1840, produced works of the
highest importance in paleontology (1385; 1387; 1390; 1393; 1394).
John Phillips (GB), a nephew of William Smith (GB), proposed the
geologic eras: Paleozoic (ancient life), Mesozoic (middle life), and Kainozoic
which became (Cenozoic) (recent life) (1464). See, Smith in 1799.
1841
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) traced the histogenesis of the
spermatozoa in invertebrates and proved that they are differentiated tissue
cells and not parasites as thought by some. He also concluded that the physical
basis of inheritance must be the chromosomes (1998).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) demonstrated that spermatozoa of
higher organisms are cellular products of the organism. He also extended this
finding to the ovum, from which the organism is derived by cell division (2000).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) provided experimental evidence that only the
division of pre-existing cells produces body cells of animals. He was probably
the first to describe division of the cell nucleus and to observe the
multiplication of vertebrate cells outside the body (1590; 1591; 1599; 1601).
Franz Joseph Andreas Nicolas Unger (AT) concluded that the growth
of all parts of the plant is normally driven by meristematic cell division (1893; 1894).
The Magendie Commission (FR) reported, based on experiments using
dogs, that no extract of bone could replace meat in the diet. Gelatin, albumen,
and fibrin, taken separately, nourish animals for a very limited period. The
seasoning of foods did not improve their nutritional value. Normal muscular
flesh with its attendant gelatin, albumen, fibrin, fats, and salts supply sufficient
nutrients for prolonged survival (later proved incorrect). Raw bones supply
sufficient nutrients for prolonged survival but must be eaten in large
quantities. Harsh treatment of meat and bone with high temperatures or acids
substantially reduces their nutritive value. Gluten of wheat (Triticum spp.) or maize (Oryza sativa) supported prolonged
survival (later proved incorrect). Fats alone cannot sustain life over a
prolonged period (1185). (60)
Alexander Ure (GB) performed the first human
metabolic study
when he administered benzoic acid to himself and to volunteers. He succeeded in
isolating large quantities of hippuric acid from their urine. Ure thus must be
given the credit of being the first one to discover a biotransformation of a
foreign compound. He proposed the use of benzoic acid
for the treatment of gout (1897).
Friedrich
Wöhler (DE) and Friedrich Theodor Frerichs (DE) confirmed this work using dogs (2158; 2159).
Gabriel Gustav Valentin (DE-CH) made the first observation of a
trypanosome in the blood. The host animal was a trout (1899).
Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (DE), F. Berger (FR), Alfred Tulk (GB),
and Carl Gustav Theodor Simon (DE) independently discovered Demodex folliculorum, the mite of hair
follicles (108; 876; 1745; 1889).
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE) and Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (DE)
made a thorough study of the cyclostomata, which they placed among the fishes.
This work established the outline of elasmobranch taxonomy for the remainder of
the 19th century (1315).
Martin
Heinrich Rathke (DE) was the first to describe the lancet fish (Amphioxus lanceolatus). It had
been considered to be the larvae of a mollusk (1568).
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE), Anders Adolf Retzius (SE), and Gustaf
Magnus Retzius (SE) carefully studied and described Branchiostoma lanceolatum (Amphioxus
lanceolatus, i.e., the lancelet) (1309; 1314; 1603).
Ferdinand Karl Franz von Hebra (AT) permanently shed the term
“lepra” from the description of psoriasis, which ultimately separated the two
diseases from one another once and for all. ref
Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (DE) reported on 140 cases of
tenotomy for treatment of clubfoot (528).
Valentine Mott (US), in 1841, removed a large fibrous growth from
the nostril by dividing the nasal and maxillary bones (1280).
Richard Owen (GB), in his report to the Eleventh Meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, coined the word dinosaur. "The combination of such
characters, some, as the sacral ones, altogether peculiar among reptiles,
others borrowed, as it were, from groups now distant from each other, and all
manifested by creatures far surpassing in size the largest of existing
reptiles, will, it is presumed, be deemed sufficient ground for establishing a
distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian reptiles, for which I would propose the
name Dinosauria." He put together two Greek words: deinos meaning terrible and sauros
meaning lizard. The result has been a favorite of paleontologists and children
ever since. The original dinosaurs of this new group were Megalosaurus, Iguanodon
and Hylaeosaurus (1386; 1866). See, Gideon Algernon Mantell, 1822 and
William Buckland, 1824.
Although Richard Owen (GB) was an outstanding anatomist and museum
curator he was not above pirating the work of others; such as that of Gideon
Algernon Mantell (316).
Roderick Impey Murchison (GB) defined the Permian Period in geological
history; named after the strata of the Perm region in Russia (1318).
1842-1844
Scotland experiences an epidemic of relapsing fever.
1842
Julius Robert Mayer (DE) was a brilliant theorist who presented
the mechanical theory of heat. James
Prescott Joule (GB) later received credit for this concept because of his many
elegant experiments (982). Julius
Robert Mayer also presented a logical argument for the conservation of energy
in his law of the equivalence of heat and
work. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) later received credit for
this idea because of his experiments in which he proved mathematically that all
forms of energy, such as heat, light, electricity, and chemical phenomena, can
be transformed from one form to another but are indestructible as well as
impossible of creation. He said that this
conservation of energy is a fundamental principle of physics (1984). Mayer
included living phenomena in the realm of energy conservation.
Julius Robert Mayer (DE) suggested that solar energy is the
ultimate source of all energy on the earth, both living and non-living. He
proposed that solar energy is derived from the slow contraction of the sun or
from the fall of meteors into the sun. In either case kinetic energy was being
converted into radiant energy. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) and
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) (GB) received credit for this idea (1221-1223; 2044).
Karl Friedrich Mohr (DE) was the first to record the concept of
the conservation of energy (1259).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) noted that, "The blood
corpuscles contain an iron compound. From the invariable presence of iron in
red blood it must be concluded that it is essential for animal life, and… there
can be no doubt that they (corpuscles) assume a role in the respiratory
process." He discussed the tendency of some iron compounds to take up
oxygen, and for the products to be reduced through the loss of oxygen… He
called attention to the fact that in Prussian blue (ferrocyanide and
ferricyanide) iron is present in combination "with all the organic
constituents of the animal body: hydrogen and oxygen (water), carbon and
nitrogen (cyanogen)" and concluded that… "blood corpuscles of the
arterial blood contain iron compound that is saturated with oxygen, and in
which the living blood loses its oxygen during the passage through the capillary
vessels; the same occurs when blood is taken from the body and begins to
decompose (begins to putrefy); the oxygen-rich compound is transformed by the
loss of oxygen (reduction) into a less-oxygenated compound. One of the
resultant products of oxidation is carbonic acid." He helped establish the
view that body heat and vital activity arise out of energy derived from the
oxidation of foodstuffs within the body and declared fats and
carbohydrates—rather than carbon and hydrogen—the fuels of the body. He
introduced the concept of stoffwechsel
(metabolism) (2032; 2033). This book
is regarded as the first formal treatise on organic chemistry as applied to physiology
and to pathology.
Eilhard
Mitscherlich (DE) used a parchment filter to divide a sugar solution into two
compartments, one in contact with yeasts the other deprived of contact with
yeast cells. Fermentation only took place where yeasts were in contact with
sugar. He also found that yeast extract could
convert cane sugar into a levorotatory sugar (1255).
Augustin
Pierre Dubrunfaut (FR) then showed the levorotatory sugar to be a mixture of
glucose and fructose (560).
Henri
Milne-Edwards (FR) and Pierre-Joseph van Bénéden (BE) first
observed ascidian tadpoles. Because they had reared them from eggs, both
workers recognized that they were larval ascidians (1251; 1901). Note:
Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians, tunicates, and sea squirts.
John Edwards
Holbrook (US), with the publication of North
American Herpetology, became the leading American zoologist (908).
John Gill (GB), while working in the Madura region of India, in
1842, was the first to describe mycetoma, which later became known as Madura
foot or maduromycosis (403; 748).
Alexandre Joseph Emilé Brumpt (FR) showed that several
different fungi could cause the same clinical picture. He originated the Genus Madurella at this time (314).
Albert J.
Chalmers (GB) and John B. Christopherson (GB) coined the term maduromycoses to refer to mycetomas of
fungal etiology (358).
David Gruby (HU-FR) described ectothrix (Trichophyton ectothrix)
invasion of
the beard and scalp causing the disease Sycosis barbae (Barber's itch) (808). This
organism would later be named Trichophyton
mentogrophytes.
David Gruby (HU-FR) gave the first
accurate description of Microsporon
audouinii, the fungus of Willan's
porrigo decalvans, tinea tonsurans,
and Gruby's disease (809).
David Gruby (HU-FR) described endothrix hair invasion by Herpes (Trichophyton) tonsurans (810). This is
called Tinea capitis (Ringworm of the
scalp).
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) discovered that the
nerve fibers originate in the ganglion cells. For the first time the connection
between nerve fibers and nerve cells was established (1983). This
represents the origin of the histological basis of nervous physiology and
pathology.
Rudolph Wagner (DE) demonstrated the link between the ganglion
cells of the brain and the peripheral nerve fibers (2069).
Charles Chossat (FR) studied the effect of diet on bone formation
in pigeons. He found that birds on a wheat (Triticum
spp.) only diet did not produce normal bones. If calcium carbonate was added to
the wheat diet their bones were normal (374; 375).
Henry Bence Jones (GB) asserted that sodium chloride is
indispensable in the human diet (978).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) used oxen to
prove experimentally what man had known empirically for centuries, that is,
that animals require sodium chloride in their diet (216-218).
Friedrich Heinrich Bidder (LV-DE) and Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann (DE)
showed the sympathetic nervous system to consist largely of small, medullated
fibers originating from the sympathetic and spinal ganglia (151).
William Bowman (GB) published his theory of urinary secretion and
described the capsule which surrounds the “bare or naked system of
capillaries,” called the Malpighian body (glomerulus), and is continuous with
the uriniferous tubule (227). This
capsule now bears his name as Bowman’s
capsule.
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) presented his physical theory
of urine secretion by which a significant amount of liquid is removed from the
blood by pressure in the glomerulus then partially recaptured by endo-osmotic
flow from the urinary canals into the surrounding blood vessels. “The
glomerular filtrate is driven…into the urinary vessels and thereby comes in
contact with the blood which is flowing in the narrow vessels…and…has
originated from the glomerulus [and] would draw water from the urinary canals
into the blood vessels whereby the urine would become concentrated” (1151; 1152).
Alfred Francois Donné (FR) was the first to describe blood
platelets or "globulins" (540). At the
time he thought that globulins originated from lymph (les globulins du chyle) and in the late 1800s scientists described
platelets variously as being precursors or disintegration products of
erythrocytes, leukocytes, or fibrin and even as bacteria.
Maximillian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) was the first to
describe the four different types of blood leukocytes corresponding to what we
now recognize as the lymphocyte, the monocyte, the eosinophil, and the neutrophil.
He also provided a description of the blood platelet (1708).
Carl Heitzmann (HU-AT-US) was one of the first to describe blood
platelets as hematoblasts, thinking them to be precursors of erythrocytes (863).
Georges Hayem (FR) reported the first accurate platelet counts.
The platelet numbers he reported do not differ significantly from those
reported as normal today (645; 854; 855).
Giulio Cesare Bizzozero (IT) was the first to describe platelets
as distinct blood elements referring to them as petites plaques. Because he used living animals for his studies, he
was able to indicate the relationship of platelets to thrombosis and he
described the changes platelets underwent when activated as "viscous
metamorphosis." He said that in a blood clot, there is first the platelet
thrombus followed by the more massive fibrin thrombus (179; 180).
Carl Joseph Eberth (DE) and Curt Schimmelbuch (DE) induced
thrombus formation in mesenteric vessels of animals and regarded platelet
agglutination as the initial phase of thrombosis
(607).
James Homer Wright (US) described megakaryocytes as the cell of
origin of platelets—he called them “cell plates”
(2170).
William Waddell Duke (US) proposed that the bleeding time is
closely correlated to platelet number and described a method for determining
the bleeding time and coagulation time (576; 577). See, Milian, 1901.
James Homer Wright (US) and George Richards Minot (US) found that
platelet viscous metamorphosis may occur before fibrin formation (2171).
Karl Albert Ludwig Aschoff (DE) classified the etiopathogenic
components of thrombosis into three groups: parietal factors, hemostasis, and
blood dyscrasia disorders (50).
Theodor
Ludwig Wilhelm Bischoff (DE) provided the most comprehensive research into the
history of the development of the ovum in Mammalia, which had been done so far.
He specifically studied ovum development in man, dogs, guinea-pigs, and
roe-deer (170-174).
William E. Clark (US), in January 1842, used ether to anesthetize
a patient whose tooth was then extracted by doctor Elijah Pope (US) (1165). This is
the first recorded use of ether as an anesthetic.
Crawford Williamson Long (US) was the first physician to use ether
as an anesthetic in surgery. "Since '42, I have performed one or more
surgical operations annually, in patients in a state of etherization…. From one
[patient] I removed three tumours the same day…. I amputated two fingers of a
negro boy." (1133)
Charles Thomas Jackson (US) is one of the people who claimed to
have been the first to use ether as an anesthetic. Jackson's claims for
priority were substantially as follows: He had already experimented on the
anesthetic properties of chloroform and of nitrous-oxide gas, and previous to
the winter of 1841-'2, having received some perfectly pure sulfuric ether, he
tried its effects upon himself, administering it with a mixture of atmospheric
air, and inhaled it to such an extent as to lose all consciousness, without
suffering any of the dangerous or disagreeable consequences that had hitherto
attended the inhalation of impure sulfuric ether unmingled with atmospheric
air. In 1852 a memorial was presented to congress, signed by 143 physicians of
Boston and its vicinity, ascribing the discovery exclusively to Dr. Jackson.
Jackson never published.
Charles Oscar Waters (US) described a form of chorea (magrums),
including an accurate description of its progression, and the strong heredity
of the disease (582). This later
became known as Huntington's disease.
Johan Christian Lund (NO) was the first to describe setesdalsrykkja or rykkja, i.e., “jerking disease” (Huntington’s disease) (1156; 1157).
George Huntington (US) wrote his classic paper in which he
diagnosed hereditary chorea (now
called Huntington’s disease). He
noted the familial nature of the disorder and provided a graphic description of
it (939).
William Bateson (GB) used the pedigrees of affected families to
establish that Huntington's disease
did have an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern (87). This was
the first human genetic disease inherited in the autosomal dominant mode to be
uncovered.
Alois Alzheimer (DE) recognized cortical loss in Huntington’s but
emphasized that it was striatal damage that caused the motor disturbances (29).
James F. Gusella (US), Nancy S. Wexler (VZ), P. Michael Conneally
(US), Susan L. Naylor (US), Mary Anne Anderson (US), Rudolph E. Tanzi (US),
Paul C. Watkins (US), Kathleen Ottina (US), Margaret R. Wallace (US), Alan Y.
Sakaguchi (US), Anne B. Young (VZ), Ira Shoulson (VZ), Ernesto Bonilla (VZ),
and Joseph B. Martin (US) of The US–Venezuela Huntington's Disease
Collaborative Research Project discovered the approximate location of a
causal gene for Huntington's disease (817; 818).
Marcy E. MacDonald (US), Christine M. Ambrose (US), Mabel P. Duyao (US), Richard H. Myers (US), Carol Lin (US), Lakshmi Srinidhi (US), Glenn Barnes (US), Sherryl A. Taylor (US), Marianne James (US), Nicolet Groot (US), Heather MacFarlane (US), Barbara Jenkins (US), Mary Anne Anderson (US), Nancy S. Wexler (US), James F. Gusella (US), Gillian P. Bates (GB), Sarah Baxendale (GB), Holger Hummerich (GB), Susan Kirby (GB), Mike North (GB), Sandra Youngman (GB), Richard Mott (GB), Gunther Zehetner (GB), Zdenek Sedlacek (GB), Annemarie Poustka (GB), Anna-Maria Frischauf (GB), Hans Lehrach (GB),
Alan J. Buckler (US), Deanna Church (US), Lynn Doucette-Stamm (US),
Michael C. O'Donovan (US), Laura Riba-Ramirez (US),
Manish Shah (US), Vincent P. Stanton (US), Scott A.
Strobel (US), Karen M. Draths (US), Jennifer L. Wales
(US), Peter Dervan (US), David E. Housman (US), Michael
Altherr (US), Rita Shiang (US),
Leslie Thompson (US), Thomas Fielder (US), John J. Wasmuth (US),
Danilo Tagle (US), John Valdes (US), Lawrence Elmer (US), Marc Allard (US), Lucio
Castilla (US), Manju Swaroop (US), Kris Blanchard (US), Francis S. Collins
(US), Russell Snell (GB), Tracey Holloway (GB), Kathleen Gillespie (GB), Nicole
Datson (GB), Duncan Shaw (GB) and Peter S. Harper (GB) discovered the precise
causal gene for Huntington's disease
at 4p16.3, making this the first autosomal disease locus found using genetic
linkage analysis (1171).
A Mr. Walker (GB) reported on a case in which the patient
exhibited sympathetic ophthalmia. The
right eye sustained such a severe laceration that sight was lost in that eye.
Six months later the left eye exhibited inflammation and sight was slowly lost
in that eye also. Some several months after inflammation subsided in the left
eye an operation to restore vision in it was successful (1).Note:
This was not the first clinical case of sympathetic ophthalmia, however it was one of the first cases in which sight was
successfully restored to the sympathetic eye.
Domenico Antonio Rigoni-Stern (IT) examined the
death records of the city of Verona for the years of 1760 to 1839. He
found that cancer of the cervix of the uterus was rare in nuns, but the nuns
were afflicted with a veritable epidemic of breast cancer. Housewives had
breast cancer far less frequently than nuns, but cancer of the cervix was
widespread among them (1611; 1612).
Dimitrios
Trichopoulos (GR-US), Brian MacMahon (US), and Philip Cole (US) compared the
reproductive experience of women with breast cancer with that of women of
comparable ages who did not have it. They found that a woman who had a live
born infant at an early age was afforded considerable protection against breast
cancer when compared to women who had not delivered such an infant while they
were young. They also showed that a woman who had never given birth to a full
term, live born infant was twice as likely to develop breast cancer as a woman
who had borne one at any age (1879).
Norman Chevers (GB) described aortic subvalvular stenosis (365).
James Syme (GB) performed his first innovative ankle
disarticulation (1659).
Pierre
Michel Toussant de Serres (FR) wrote the first scientific study of animal migrations (509).
Johannes Japetus Smith Steenstrup (DK) discovered the possibility
of using the subfossils (not yet truly fossilized) of the post glacial as a
means of interpreting climate changes and correlated vegetation change, which
he called succession in the recent past (447; 1795).
Archiv
für Physiologische Heilkunde was founded.
Zeitschrift
für Rationelle Medicin was founded.
1843
"The plant cell, like the animal cell, is a type of
laboratory of cellular tissues that organize themselves and develop within its
innermost substance; its imperforate walls, to judge from our strongest
magnifying instruments, have the property of drawing out by aspiration from the
ambient liquid the elements necessary for its elaboration. Thus, they have the
property of acting as a sorter, of admitting certain substances and preventing
the passage of others, and consequently of separating the elements of certain
combinations in order to admit only a portion of them.
Since disease originates in the elementary cell, the organization
and microscopic functions of which reproduce the general organization exactly
and in all its relationships, nothing is more suited to simplifying the work of
classification and of systematic division than to take the elementary cell as
the basis of division." Francois-Vincent Raspail (FR) (1552)
With thinking such as this Raspail helped point the way to the
cell theory and to cellular pathology.
Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (DE) carried out the second
"total synthesis" of an organic compound (acetic acid) from truly
inorganic precursors. Carbon disulfide was the starting material (1031; 1032).
Jean Baptiste André Dumas (FR) published the empirical formula for
glucose (579).
Joseph Redtenbacher (CZ) distilled glycerol with a small addition
of phosphorus pentoxide and obtained acrolein (acrylic aldehyde), which he
identified with the highly irritating vapors formed when fats are heated to
decomposition. This odor formation was subsequently employed as a qualitative
test for fats (1578).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) surmised that organic acids might be
the intermediate substances on the path of carbon from carbon dioxide (CO2) to
carbohydrates. He proposed that various organic acids, such as oxalic, malic,
tartaric and citric acids, were the intermediates in the stepwise reduction of
CO2 to carbohydrates (1340; 1430; 2035).
Julius Vogel (DE) showed that cholesterol is
present in atherosclerotic plaques (1943).
George Busk (GB), in 1843, was the first to describe a clinical
case of fasciolopsiasis (giant
intestinal fluke). He found 14 flukes in the duodenum of a sailor from eastern
India during an autopsy. The discovery was not published.
George Budd (GB) clearly documented this fluke. It was later named
Fasciolopsis buski by others and
recognized as the trematode fluke causing
fasciolopsiasis (321; 644).
Thomas Spencer Cobbold (GB) described this intestinal fluke in
detail (386).
Angelo Dubini (IT), in 1838, observed a “new human intestinal
worm” following the dissection of the corpse of a peasant woman who had “died
of croupous pneumonia”. This hookworm is the agent causing ankylostomiasis, the hookworm disease. He named the hookworm, Ancylostoma duodenale (557; 558).
Theodor Maximillian Bilharz (DE) proposed a connection between
hookworms (Ancylostoma) and Egyptian chlorosis (159).
Wilhelm
Griesinger (DE) recognized Ancylostoma as the cause of Egyptian chlorosis (798; 799).
R.J. Lee (GB) was the first to describe cutaneous larva migrans (CLM) which he called "the creeping
eruption" (1092). Today, it
is one of the most common helminth (hookworm) infections (usually caused by Ancylostoma braziliense) acquired from
subtropical and tropical regions of the world.
Camillo Bozzolo (IT) introduced thymol as a treatment for hookworm infestation (229).
Arthur Looss (DE), working in Egypt, was dropping cultures of
hookworm larvae into the mouths of guinea pigs when he spilled some of the
culture onto his hand. He noticed that it produced an itching and redness and wondered
if infection would occur this way. He began examining his feces at intervals
and, after a few weeks, found that he was passing hookworm eggs. He elucidated
the entire life cycle of the parasitic hookworm nematode called Ancylostoma duodenale (1136-1139).
James Braid (GB) coined the terms hypnosis, hypnotism, hypnotize, and hypnotist (235).
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (CH-US) completed Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles… describing the fossil fish of
the world. This single monograph increased tenfold the formally described
vertebrates known to science (20).
Pierre-Joseph van Bénéden (BE) founded the first marine biological
laboratory. It was located at Ostend, Belgium.
1844
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) wrote Bemerkungen uber das Verhaltniss der Thierchemie zur Thier -Physiologie,
which united the fields of chemistry and physiology (2036).
Heinrich Gustav Magnus (DE) and Julius Bodo Unger (DE) isolated
guanine from the guano of birds. This was forty years prior to its recognition
as a nucleic acid constituent (1191; 1895; 1896).
Johann Florian Heller (AT) devised the "Ring Test" for
albumin (864).
Johann Florian Heller (AT) devised the caustic "Potash Test"
for sugar in urine (865).
Théophile Jules Pelouze (FR) and Amédée Gélis (FR) were the first
to describe the synthesis of a natural neutral lipid, tributyrin, by reacting
butyric acid with glycerine in the presence of concentrated sulfuric acid (1447).
Nicolas-Theodore Gobley (FR) described the isolation from egg yolk
of a substance, which contained both nitrogen and phosphorus in addition to
glycerol and fatty acids. He called it lecithin (Gk. lekithos, egg yolk) (752-754; 756).
Ernst Felix Immanuel Hoppe-Seyler (DE) rediscovered lecithin, a
fat (phospholipid) containing nitrogen and phosphorus (917).
Carl Schmidt (DE) coined the term kohlenhydrate, i.e., carbohydrate to include sugars, starches, and other natural products whose precipitates
contained carbon plus hydrogen and oxygen in the same ratio as in water (CH2O) (1686). Schmidt
was the first to demonstrate the presence of sugar in the blood
Karl Friedrich Gaertner (DE) distinguished spores from seeds, and
endosperm from cotyledons. He noted the distinction between the uniformity of
the first hybrid generation and the diversity of later generations, and
reported hybrid vigor (723-725).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) performed
experiments, which showed that animals couldn’t live on beetroots or potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) alone without sustaining
a weight loss. He concluded that animals could not use nitrogen from the
atmosphere to supplement inadequate protein in their diet (213).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) and Jean-Francois
Persoz (FR) offered experimental proof that animals can synthesize fat from
carbohydrate (212; 1451).
Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger (DE) recognized that hypoxia
stimulates ventilation of the lungs (1463).
Max Josef Pettenkofer (DE) devised a qualitative test for bile
salts (cholic acid) (1454).
Max Josef Pettenkofer (DE) discovered kreatinin (creatinine) in
human urine then devised a qualitative test for it (1455).
Max Jaffe (DE)
reported that creatinine in a solution of alkaline picrate produced an intense
red color. He found the amount of precipitate directly proportional to the
creatinine concentration, he also noted that the reaction was highly
nonspecific and could be observed with many other organic compounds (974). See,
Folin 1914.
Agostino Bassi (IT) suggested that parasites were the causes of various diseases (including plague, smallpox (red plague), syphilis,
and cholera) and advocated methods of
prevention. He became the founder of the doctrine of parasitic microbes (82).
Joseph Lister (GB), in 1844, made clinical use of Penicillium saying, "Should a
suitable case present, I shall endeavor to employ Penicillium glaucum and observe if the growth of the organisms be
inhibited in the human tissues." Such an opportunity did arise, and he
reported using Penicillium to great
effect on a patient injured in a road accident (936).
John Tyndall (GB), in 1875, described to the Royal Society in
London how a species of Penicillium
had made several bacteria burst open and die (1891).
Ernest Duchesne (FR) described in his dissertation the
effectiveness of Penicillium glaucum
in animals injected with normally fatal doses of pathogenic bacteria. In a
subsequent article he emphasized the therapeutic value of Penicillium (567; 568).
André Gratia (BE) and Sara Dath (BE) mentioned that
a Penicillium strain exerted a highly
bacteriolytic
activity against anthrax-causing bacteria (788).
Georges Papacostas (FR) and Jean Gaté (FR) used the term
antibiotic and reported clinical applications of antibiotic substances (1412).
Alexander Fleming (GB) observed that some mold contaminants of his
plates of Staphylococcus aureus exerted
a specific antagonism toward the bacteria. He postulated that the mold Penicillium produced a potent
antibacterial agent, naming the agent penicillin
and observing that it killed gram-positive bacteria more effectively than
gram-negative bacteria (682).
Cecil George Paine (GB) was the first person to obtain effective cures with the drug. In 1930,
he administered crude penicillin topically to successfully treat patients with eye
infections at Sheffield Hospital. In this crude form it could not successfully
treat many infections. Note: Paine
never published this work.
Ernst Boris Chain (DE-GB), Howard Walter Florey (AU-GB),
Arthur Duncan Gardner (GB), Norman G. Heatley (GB), Margaret Augusta Jennings
(GB), Jena Orr-Ewing (GB), A. Gordon Sanders (GB), Edward Penley Abraham (GB),
and Charles M. Fletcher (GB) developed the cultural and chemical methodology to
produce pure penicillin from Penicillium
and found that it displayed potent in
vivo antimicrobial activity against certain pathogens. This purified antibiotic
was first used clinically on an Oxford, England policeman (Albert Alexander)
suffering from staphylococcal pyemia (7; 357).
Anne Miller (US), in 1942, became the first American civilian
patient to be successfully treated with penicillin. She was lying near death at
New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, after miscarrying and developing an
infection that led to blood poisoning.
Robert Remak (PL-DE) was the first to describe the intrinsic
nerve ganglia of the heart (Remak’s ganglia). This helped explain the
relatively autonomous nature of the heart beat (1592).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) discovered the nerve ganglion located in the sinus venosus of the frog’s heart (1594).
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) discovered the ganglion cells
of the interauricular ganglion of the heart (Ludwig's ganglion) (1154).
Friedrich Heinrich Bidder (LV-DE) discovered two large masses of
ganglion cells at the juncture of the auricles and ventricles of the heart (148).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) demonstrated the relative
independence of the sympathetic nervous system (1999).
Claude Bernard (FR), in one of the earliest cardiac
catheterizations, inserted a mercury thermometer into the carotid artery of a
horse and advanced it through the aortic valve into the left ventricle to
measure blood temperature. He adapted this experiment over the next forty years
for measuring intracardiac pressures in a variety of animals. It was Bernard
who coined the phrase cardiac
catheterization (1281).
James Young Simpson (GB), in 1844, introduced into obstetrical
practice dilatation of the cervix uteri
for diagnostic purposes (1752; 1758; 1760). He was
the first to use chloroform in obstetrics and the first in Britain to use ether (1755).
Simpson introduced the terms ovariotomy and coccydynia (1760).
Auguste Nélaton (FR) placed alcohol-soaked dressings on open
wounds and reported a decreased infection rate (1331).
Theodor Ambrose Hubert Schwann (DE), using an artificial biliary
fistula in a dog, established that bile from the liver and gall bladder is
indispensable to digestion (1723).
Karl Moritz Gottsche (DE), Johann Bernhard Wilhelm Lindenberg
(DE), and Christian Godfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (DE) brought together in
one publication the descriptions of the world’s known hepatics (liverworts);
some 1,600 species (777).
Hermann Schlegel (NL) was the first to use a third name—ternary
nomenclature—added to the Linnean binomial when he used it to designate
geographic variants among birds (1742).
Friedrich A. Puchelt (DE) gave the first clinical report
describing astereogenesis or failure
to identify the form of an object being held (1519).
Arthur L. Wigan (GB) wrote philosophically about each hemisphere
of the brain housing its own distinct mind. Wigan wrote that the two minds
ordinarily worked in a unified, highly adaptive manner, but also possessed the
ability to function independently (2128).
Walter Edward Dandy (US) argued that no symptoms follow splitting
of the corpus collosum (473).
Roger Wolcott Sperry (US), Ronald Myers (US), Joseph E. Bogen
(US), Philip J. Vogel (US), and Michael S. Gazzaniga (US) reported on cases of
cerebral commissurotomy (brain splitting) in cats, monkeys and epileptic
patients in whom the corpus callosum
— the bundle of axons fibers that connects the two brain hemispheres — had been
severed to prevent seizures. Several tests revealed how the two brain
hemispheres hold independent streams of conscious awareness, perceptions,
thoughts, and memories and, importantly, that neuronal connections are formed
and maintained with a high degree of precision (190; 191; 1320; 1778; 1781).
Roger Wolcott Sperry (US) reported that under controlled testing
conditions, the left hemisphere showed that it is much more verbal than the
right, as well as more analytic and more rational. The right hemisphere, in
turn, came out being more holistic, emotional, impulsive, and artistic (1779; 1780).
Michael S. Gazzaniga (US) later wrote, "Results accumulated
over a period of six years demonstrated that the cortical commissures were
critical to the inter-hemispheric integration of perceptual and motor function.
These studies also revealed that the mute right hemisphere was specialized for
certain functions that deal with nonverbal processes, while, not surprisingly,
the left hemisphere was dominant for language. For the first time in the
history of brain science the specialized functions of each hemisphere could be
positively demonstrated as a function of which hemisphere was asked to respond."
(1106). This work
forms the basis of human developmental neurobiology and psychobiology.
Ernst Maria Johann Karl von Feuchtersleben (AT), in 1844,
introduced the term psychosis in its
modern context during lectures on psychiatry (1971).
Robert Chambers (GB), first writing anonymously and then under the
pseudonym Samuel Richard Bosanquet, introduced the idea of evolution to the
wider public in a popular book. He argued for an ancient solar system begun in
fire, then coalescing under gravity as it cooled and geological processes,
violent at first, then gradually subsiding over eons. He reasoned that life
arose by a natural and material process with simple forms gradually giving rise
to more complex forms. Man was a product of this process (2; 200).
c.
1845
Rudolf Buchheim (EE), in Dorpot, Estonia, set up the world’s first
laboratory devoted to the study of the actions of drugs (418).
1845
"What exact relation disease of the kidney bears to
hypertrophy of the heart, we do not know even yet. But the two are too often
coincident in the same subjects for them not to bear some, and that a very
important, relation to each other." Peter Mere Latham (1073)
Alfred Francois Donné (FR) produced the first engravings from
photomicrographs, in this case, daguerreotypes (542). He had
shown these photomicrographs to the French Academy of Science in 1839.
Raffaelle Piria (IT) described salicin (salicyl alcohol glucoside)
from willow bark (1469).
Raffaelle Piria (IT) showed that aspartic acid is converted to
malic acid upon treatment with nitrous acid (1470).
Victor Dessaignes (FR) made aspartic acid from malic acid or
fumaric acid (520).
John F.W. Herschel (GB) described the fluorescent properties of
quinine sulfate ushering in the 'modern' period for observing fluorescence and
realizing its nature (889).
George Gabriel Stokes (GB) described a vast collection of
fluorescent substances, from quinine sulfate to Oporto wine. It was he who
coined the word fluorescence to
describe light emission induced during excitation (1804).
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer (DE) synthesized the first
fluorescent dye, fluorescein (65; 66).
Carl Schmidt (DE) discovered that the tunicates contain cellulose (1687). This was
unexpected since cellulose was thought to be unique to plants.
Nicolas-Theodore Gobley (FR) described in egg yolk and brain the
presence of a phosphorus-containing fraction, which gave by hydrolysis oleic
acid, margaric acid, and phosphoglyceric acid (755; 757; 758). This
represents the discovery of phospholipids.
Johannes Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum (DE-GB) coined the term phosphatide to designate
phosphorus-containing lipids (1849).
Julius Robert Mayer (DE) was the first to state that the
fundamental physical function of photosynthesis is the conversion of light
energy into chemical energy saying: "Nature has put itself the problem of
how to catch in flight light streaming to the Earth and to store the most
elusive of all powers in rigid form. The plants take in one form of power,
light; and produce another power, chemical difference." (1222).
John Reid (GB) and Pierre-Joseph van Bénéden (BE) independently
discovered entoproct larvae (1586; 1900). Note:
Entoprocta (Kamptozoa) is an enigmatic, acoelomate, tentacle-bearing phylum
with indirect development, either via a swimming- or a creeping-type larva and
still debated phylogenetic position within Lophotrochozoa.
Johann Dzierzon (PL), a Polish apiarist, discovered the phenomenon
of parthenogenesis in bees and designed the first successful movable-frame beehive
(603).
Apollinaire Bouchardat (FR) and Claude M.S. Sandras (FR) detected
a diastase in the pancreas but were
unsure of their findings (204).
Ernst Heinrich Weber (DE) and Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Weber (DE)
shared the discovery of the inhibitory power of the vagus nerve upon the
beating of the heart in frogs, fish, birds, cats, dogs, and rabbits (2098; 2101).
Robert Dundas Thomson (GB) was the first to show that after a meal
rich in fat, the blood level of fat will rise (1846).
Robert Dundas Thomson (GB) and Friedrich Knapp (DE) are credited
with devising a method for determining animal rations, using data from chemical
analysis of foods and excreta (1847).
Miles Joseph Berkeley (GB) insisted that a fungus, Botrytis, (later names Phytophthora infestans [Mont.] De Bary)
was responsible for the potato blight which attacked the crops of Great Britain
and Ireland in 1845. He did not, however, prove this. Berkeley was a leader in
taxonomic mycology in England where he named approximately six thousand new
species of fungi (112; 114-117; 1765).
Heinrich Anton de Bary (DE) and Mikhail Stepanowitsch Woronin (DE)
reported having inoculated spores of Phytophthora infestans (formerly Peronospora
infestans) on healthy potato leaves and observed the penetration of the
leaf and the subsequent growth of the mycelium that affected the tissue, the
formation of conidia, and the appearance of the characteristic black spots of
the potato blight. He also did similar experiments on potato stalks and tubers.
He watched conidia in the soil and their infection of the tubers, observing
that mycelium could survive the cold winter in the tubers. From all these
studies, he concluded that organisms could not be generated spontaneously (489; 491; 495).
Bernhard
Rudolf Konrad von Langenbeck (DE), in 1845, was the first to report a case of
what would later be called human
actinomycosis. It occurred in a patient with vertebral caries and was
attributed to a fungus. James Adolf Israel (DE) later reported Langenbeck’s discovery (967).
Otto Bollinger (DE) was the first to recognize tumors (lumpy jaw of cattle) caused by Actinomyces bovis as a specific
parasitic disease. At this time the organism had neither been named nor
classified (197; 198).
Karl Otto Harz (DE), at the suggestion of Otto Bollinger (DE),
studied parasitic material isolated from osteosarcomic tumors, lumpy jaw, in cattle and gave it the
name Actinomyces bovis because of the
ray-like structure of its growth in the tissues (848).
James Adolf Israel (DE) and Emil Ponfick (DE) discovered granules
in human autopsy material and described actinomycosis
in humans. Thoracic actinomycoses was
described for the first time in the 1882 reference (967-969; 1489; 1490).
James Adolf Israel (DE) described human cases of actinomycosis very similar to lumpy jaw in cattle (967).
Max Wolff (DE) and James Adolf Israel (DE) delineated the
anaerobic nature of actinomyces (Actinomyces
israelii), obtained axenic cultures of Actinomyces
israelii from man, and proved their pathogenicity by animal inoculations (2166).
Selman
Abraham Waksman (RU-US) showed that actinomyces are gram-positive bacteria (2071).
John Leconte (US) described the nervous system of the alligator (1091).
Johann Franz Simon (DE) performed clinical trials for the
treatment of chlorosis (green
sickness, a peculiar anemia most likely to affect young girls about the time of
puberty) by iron administration. He monitored the patient’s progress and the
success of the treatment by analyzing the blood for hematin (iron
protoporphyrin) content (1747). Chlorosis is very likely the equivalent
of what is today called iron deficiency
anemia.
Knud Helge Faber (DK) gave a clinical description of achylia gastrica (atrophic gastritis)
which is very suggestive of iron deficiency anemia (635).
Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold (DE) and Hermann Friedrich Stannius
(DE) were the first to introduce the taxa Arthropoda, Rhizopoda, and define the
taxon Protozoa in their present sense. They made it quite clear that protozoa
are single cell life forms and established Protozoa as the basic phylum of the
animal kingdom. They were the first to study cilia and showed that they could
be used for locomotion (2061; 2062).
John Goodsir (GB) established that cells are the active structures
involved in glandular secretion, and observed that bone-forming properties
reside with certain corpuscles (cells) found within osseous tissue. This
represents the foundation of the study of osteogenesis, as distinct from
descriptive osteology. He determined that the cell nucleus must be regarded as
the central organelle of the cell (772; 773). Rudolph
Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) dedicated his 1859 book, Cellularpathologie, to Goodsir because of his advances of knowledge
at the cellular level.
Hermann Lebert (DE) wrote Physiologie
Pathologique, one of the earliest and most important atlases of
pathological histology. This work played an important role in introducing the
idea of cellular pathology (1087).
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB), by inductive reasoning and not
experiment, was the first to call attention to the functions of the posterior
columns of the spinal cord. "The posterior columns of the spinal cord may
be in part commissural between the several segments of the cord, serving to
unite them and harmonize them in their various actions, and in part subservient
to the function of the cerebellum in regulating and coordinating the movements
necessary for perfect locomotion." (1862)
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) proved by experiment the truth
of Todd’s view. See, Brown-Séquard,
1855.
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB) discussed the role of the cerebral
cortex in mentation (the thinking process), corpus striatum in movement, and
midbrain in emotion (1862). Verify
Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Bruch (DE) wrote his dissertation on rigor mortis (311).
1846-1851
Sweden experiences an epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis.
1846
"We must
assume also that the organization of this substance is the process that
inaugurates the formation of new cells. It therefore seems justifiable for me
to propose a name that refers to its physiological function: I propose the word
protoplasma." Hugo von Mohl (2051).
"It has
long been an important problem in medical science to devise some method of
mitigating the pain of surgical operations. An efficient agent for this purpose
has at length been discovered. A patient has been rendered completely
insensible during an amputation of the thigh, regaining consciousness after a
short interval. Other severe operations have been performed without the
knowledge of the patients." Henry Jacob Bigelow (156)
Auguste Laurent (FR) developed at length the difference between an
atom and a molecule (1078).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) produced crystals of the amino acid
tyrosine (Gk. tyros, cheese) by
treating casein with alkali (2037; 2038).
Friedrich Bopp (DE), a colleague of von Liebig’s, studied tyrosine
much more carefully (199).
Claude Bernard (FR) isolated lipase
from pancreatic juice (128). Note: The publication lagged the
discovery by ten years.
Augustin Pierre Dubrunfaut (FR) discovered maltose as a major
product of the breakdown of starch by diastase
(amylase) and described it as a
disaccharide (559). He
determined that acid would convert cane sugar into a mixture of sugars called invert sugar. He later showed that the invert sugar mixture included dextrose (glucose) and levulose (fructose) (560).
Hugo von Mohl (DE) studied the contents of plant cells and used
the word protoplasm (coined by
Purkinje), to designate the physical
basis of life (2051). See, Purkinje, 1839.
Eben Norton Horsford (US) developed a method for the quantitative
estimation of plant fiber (923).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) performed
experiments, which allowed him to calculate the minimum amount of dietary
calcium phosphate necessary for normal skeletal development in the pig (215).
Max Josef Pettenkofer (DE) produced one of the earliest pieces of
evidence that food has a determining influence on the composition of urine (1456). Verify
Golding Bird (GB) weighed and determined the specific gravity of
24-hour urine collections. From these values and a formula, he calculated the
quantity of solids in 1000 grains of urine. He also used nitric acid to test
for bile in urine (a green color), and a simple polariscope or alkaline copper
reagent for glycosuria (166).
Heinrich Freidrich Link (DE) presented a classification of
inflorescence types and determined that filaments of lichens and fungi consist
of cells (2183).
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE) described phoronids (horseshoe worms)
as larvae before they were known as adults. He found large numbers of
actinotrochs at Heligoland, to which he assigned genus
and species names: Actinotrocha branchiata (1310-1312).
Thomas Strethill Wright (GB) discovered adult phoronids (2172).
Alexander Onufrievich Kowalevsky (RU) clarified the relationship
between larvae and adults in the phoronids (1037).
The first Hereford Herd Book
was published and later adopted by the 'Hereford Herd Book Society', founded in
1878.
John James Audubon (US) and John Bachman (US) authored Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America,
which, among other things, gave the first substantial report on the mammals of
North America (56).
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) adapted the kymograph
(cymograph) to record physiological phenomena. Ludwig made his first tracing on
December 12th, 1846 (1153). Physiologists first used kymographs
for recording blood pressure. The detailed study of blood pressure made
possible in this way showed that blood circulation could be explained in terms
of ordinary mechanical forces. This machine represents one of the first graphic
methods employed in experimental physiology. Ludwig by simultaneously recording
the pulse wave and respiratory pattern became the first to described sinus
arrhythmia in 1847. Note: Thomas Young (GB) invented the kymograph
(wave writer) in 1807 (2176). His invention was suggested by
the work of Jean Marie Constant Duhamel (FR) who attached a pencil to a tuning
fork in such a way that it reproduced the vibrations of the tuning fork as a
wavy line. This was also the precursor of the phonograph.
Peter Ludwig Panum (DK) is responsible for our modern
understanding of the epidemiology of measles.
Having been sent by the Danish government to study an outbreak of the disease
on the remote Faeroe Islands in the North Atlantic he demonstrated that measles is contagious, discerned both
the length of the incubation period, and the establishment of a lifelong
immunity in those who recovered from this infection.
"If among 6,000 cases of which I myself observed and treated
about 1,000, not one was found in which it would be justifiable, on any grounds
whatever, to suppose a miasmatic origin of measles, because it was absolutely
clear that the disease was transmitted from man to man and from village to
village by contagion, whether the latter was received by immediate contact with
a patient, or was conveyed to the infected person by clothes, or the like, it is
certainly reasonable at least to entertain a considerable degree of doubt as to
the miasmatic nature of the disease…. It is beyond doubt that the surest means
of hindering the spread of the disease, is to maintain quarantine." (1411) Note: This is a republishing of Panum’s
classic paper in 1846
Francesco Cenci (IT), in 1901, was the
first to use convalescent serum to induce passive immunization in individuals
exposed to measles (rubeola) (355).
Charles Nicolle (FR) and Ernest Conseil
(FR) confirmed the effectiveness of the passive immunization procedure for
measles (rubeola) (1341).
Carl Ferdinand Eickstedt (DE) discovered that Tinea versicolor is the cause of Pityriasis versicolor, a superficial dermatomycosis in man (622).
Theodorus Slyter (DE) made the same discovery (1763).
Henri Baillon (FR) named the causative agent Malassezia furfu (70).
Ferdinand Karl Franz von Hebra (AT), in 1846, under the name of seborrhea
congestiva described disc-shaped patches and introduced the butterfly
simile for the malar rash.
Pierre-Louis Alphée Cazenave (FR) gave the first good clinical
description of what he named lupus
erythemateaux (lupus erythematosus) (350-352). His
teacher Laurent-Théodore Biett (CH-FR) had identified a special variety within
the erythema genus, the erythema centrifugum or centrifugal erythema;
and the variety of lupus that destroys on the surface (154). See, J. Darier 1916-1917. See,
Hargraves 1948. Note: The name “lupus” (Latin, wolf) described the
cutaneous lesions of lupus that could ulcerate and eat away at the
patient, as would a carnivorous animal.
Moriz Kohn Kaposi (HU), in 1872, subdivided lupus into the discoid
and systemic forms and introduced the concept of systemic disease with a
potentially fatal outcome.
William Osler (CA) also
described lupus at a slightly later
date, calling it erythema exudativum
multiforme (1379).
William Thomas Greene Morton (US) successfully anesthetized the
patient Edward Abott by the administration of ether while Dr. John Collins
Warren (US) removed a tumor from the patient’s neck. This operation, performed
at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, received widespread
recognition and although it postdates William E. Clark’s and Crawford
Williamson Long’s anesthetic use of ether by five years it is nevertheless
considered the inauguration of the era of painless surgery (156; 2093; 2094).
Oliver Wendell Holmes (US) wrote Morton suggesting that the word anesthesia be used to refer to the
process of inducing insensibility in
the patient. Holmes did not coin this word; it was used by the ancient Greeks
(Gk. no pain) (1198).
John Hutchinson (GB) developed the spirometer for measuring
capacity of the lungs (940).
F. Wild (DE) and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) were the first
to establish an isolated heart preparation; they connected the aorta of a
killed animal with the carotid artery of a living donor animal, thus maintaining
perfusion of the coronary arteries of the recipient heart. This was an empty,
beating, non-ejecting mammalian heart preparation. Regular beating could be
maintained for a very long period of time if blood clotting was prevented (2129).
Elie de Cyon (LT-DE-RU-FR) and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE)
were the first to excise a heart (frog) and to keep it in this completely
isolated perfused state for a long period of time. They used it to make the
first report on the effects of temperature changes on the function of the
isolated (frog) heart (503). Note: de Cyon was born Ilya Fadeyevich
Tsion in Lithuania.
Henry Newell Martin (GB-US), using the dog, was the first to
devise a mammalian heart-lung preparation from which the systemic circulation
was cut off and replaced by an artificial system
(1212).
Oscar Langendorff (DE), using cats, rabbits and dogs, was the first
to excise a mammalian heart, perfuse it, and keep it alive for several hours (1067; 1068).
Stanley J. Sarnoff (US), Eugene Braunwald (AT-US), George H.
Welch, Jr. (US), Robert B. Case (US), Wendell N. Stainsby (US), and Radi Macruz
(BR) used a novel blood-perfused preparation consisting of an isolated dog
heart supported by a donor dog. This preparation maintained cardiac
performance, allowing critical evaluation of the effect of varying heart rate,
aortic pressure, and preload on oxygen consumption in the left ventricle (1662).
James R. Neely (US), H. Liebermeister (DE), Edward J. Battersby
(US), and Howard E. Morgan (US), using the rat, converted the Langendorff heart into a working mode.
They were able to conduct experiments for up to 3 h without deterioration in
function, while manipulating ventricular pressure development, filling
pressure, and heart rate and observing the effect on oxygen consumption and
flow (1330). Various
laboratories for studies on cardiac metabolism and coronary regulation,
applying conventional chemical methods and nuclear magnetic resonance
techniques, have used this preparation.
Both Sarnoff and Neely identified the importance of the
tension-time index (average ejection pressure of the left ventricle multiplied
by the duration of ejection) and peak systolic pressure as strong correlates of
oxygen consumption, while changes in cardiac output and work were not.
Willard Parker (US), in 1846, performed cystotomy to relieve
inflammation and rupture of the bladder (1417).
The third great pandemic of Asiatic
cholera began (326).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) and Benno Ernst Heinrich Reinhardt
(DE), founded a new journal, Archiv für
Pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für Klinische Medizin [Archives of Pathological Anatomy and
Physiology and of Clinical Medicine]. Later it became Virchow’s Archiv.
1847-1849
A dysentery (the
"bloody flux") epidemic occurs in the United States (28).
1847
"One cannot say that, again with the help of the press,
"the truth" can overcome the lie and the error. O, you who say this,
ask yourself: Do you dare to claim that human beings, in a crowd, are just as
quick to reach for truth, which is not always palatable, as for untruth, which
is always deliciously prepared, when in addition this must be combined with an
admission that one has let oneself be deceived! Or do you
dare to claim that "the truth" is just as quick to let itself be
understood as is untruth, which requires no previous knowledge, no schooling,
no discipline, no abstinence, no self-denial, no honest self-concern, no
patient labor!" Søren Kierkegaard (1002)
Lambert Heinrich Joseph von Babo (DE) discovered
that the vapor pressure of a liquid is lowered by dissolving a substance in it,
and that the relative lowering of the vapor pressure is proportional to the
concentration of the solution (1948).
Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (FR) found that chloroform has a
similar anesthetic effect to ether (696). See, Samuel Guthrie, 1831.
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) isolated and named inosinic acid (Gk. inos, muscle or sinew). He obtained it from muscle extracts (2038).
Franz Haiser (DE) discovered that inosinic acid yielded
hypoxanthine on acid hydrolysis, suggesting its relationship to the nucleic
acids, and that it contains phosphorus as phosphate. He also concluded that
there was a third component which he did not identify (823).
Apollinaire Bouchardat (FR) cleaved inulin and from it purified
levulose (fructose) (716).
Johann Florian Heller (AT) was the first to note the retention of
chlorides in pneumonic urine (866).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) discovered that the blood and lymph
have a relatively high concentration of sodium and a low concentration of
potassium while in the extravascular tissues the reverse is true (2039).
C. Blondeau (FR) made a study of various fermentations other than
the vinous. He examined the lactic, butyric, acetic, urea, and what he called
fatty fermentations. Blondeau concluded that they were all caused by vegetable
growths, and suggested that different fungi caused different fermentations (186).
George Henry Kendrick Thwaites (GB) discovered conjugation in the
diatoms and was the first to regard conjugation as a sexual process without
qualification. He considered the diatoms to be algae (1853; 1854).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) reported that involuntary
nonstriated muscle fibers in the walls of blood vessels are elongated nucleated
cells and noted that this type of cell has wide distribution within the body (2001).
Joseph Lister (GB) observed such cells in the arterioles of the
frog's web and confirmed Kölliker’s findings. Lister also showed that these
cells occur in mammals as well as amphibians (1126).
Friedrich Stein (DE) made a histological study of the female reproductive
organs of beetles. This represents the beginning of the modern study of the
insect ovary (1797).
Karl Bogislaus Reichert (DE) observed cell division of zygotes in
the nematode Strongylus auriculatus
and noted that the nuclear membrane disappeared prior to division. He
introduced the cell theory into embryology, proving that the segments of the
fertilized ovum in the mulberry stage
develop into cells and that all the organs develop from these cells (1585).
Heinrich Frey (DE) and Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf Leuckart (DE)
separated the coelenterates from the echinoderms emphasizing that although both
displayed radial symmetry they were not closely related. Leuckart denied the
existence of taxons founded on negative character states and established the
taxon Coelenterata (Gk. koilos,
cavity, enteron, intestine). It
included sponges and ctenophores (710; 711). Leuckart is commemorated by Leuckartiara Hartlaub, 1913; Podon leuckartii G.O. Sars, 1862; Protohydra leuckarti Greeff, 1870; Mesocyclops leuckarti (Claus, 1857); Sphaeronella leuckartii Salensky, 1868; Arachnomysis leuckartii Chun, 1887; Protodrilus leuckartii Hatschek, 1882; Chromadorita leuckarti (de Man, 1876);
and Sabelliphilus leuckarti Kossmann,
1877.
Karl Georg Lucas Christian Bergmann (DE) and Joel Asaph Allen (US)
independently proposed very similar rules in zoology. Bergmann’s rule states that body weight tends to a minimum in
warmer regions, increases to a certain threshold as temperature declines, and then
falls off again as temperature falls further. Birds and mammals in cold regions
have been observed to be bulkier than individuals of the same species in warm
regions. It was proposed to account for an adaptive mechanism to conserve or to
radiate body heat, depending on climate. Allen’s
rule states that animals adapted to cold have smaller and shorter limbs and
other protruding body parts (26; 109).
Jean Jacques Marie Cyprien Victor Coste (FR) in his studies of various
mammals, birds, and fishes discovered that partial division of the ovum begins
during its descent through the oviduct (440).
Daniel Cornelius Danielssen (NO) and Carl Wilhelm Boeck (NO)
published Om Spedalskhed (About Leprosy) which became the
foundation of the modern medical history of leprosy (474).
Dairo Fujii (JP), in 1847, properly recorded Katayama disease (a schistosomiasis caused by Schistosoma japonicum). The report did not become available until
1909 (719).
Kenji Kawanishi (JP) described an acute disease associated with
schistomiasis in a village called Katayama, located in the Hiroshima
Prefecture.The syndrome of acute allergy associated with developing
schistosomes is now associated with the name of this village (999).
Eitoku Mashima (JP) discovered the pathogenic agent of Japanese schistosomiasis when he found
the ova of Schistosoma japonicum in
the liver at autopsy (1215).
Tokuho Majima (JP) found schistosome eggs in patients with Katayama disease and associated the pathological
changes with the presence of the schistosome eggs (1197).
Fujiro Katsurada (JP) discovered, described, and named the
parasitic trematode Schistosoma japonicum (997; 998).
John Catto (GB) described Schistosoma
cattoi, a new blood fluke of man (346).
Yoneji Miyagawa (JP) found that the young worms of Schistoma japonicum penetrate actively
into the skin of the host, especially into the lymphatic spaces, and then for
the most part they invade the blood capillaries or the small peripheral veins,
and later gather in the right side of the heart. Some of them in the skin
tissue pass by way of the lymphatic vessels to the lymphatic glands, in which
latter some are arrested and killed, the others being able to pass through,
finally reaching the right side of the heart. The worms in the right side of
the heart now make the lung-journey following the blood stream, then return to
the left side of the heart, finally reaching the branches of the portal veins
in the liver by way of the aorta and the vessels of the intestinal walls, or by
the arteria hepatica (1256).
Keinosuke Miyairi (JP) and Masatsugu Suzuki (JP) discovered that
snails are the intermediate host of Schistosoma
japonicum (1257; 1258).
Joseph Hyrtl (AT) published his Handbuch der Topographischen Anatomie (Handbook of Topographic Anatomy), the first textbook of applied anatomy
of its kind ever issued. Other important anatomy books by him include Lehrbuch der Anatomie des Menschen, Handbuch der Praktischen Zergliederungskunst
als Anleitung zu den Sectionsubungen und zur Ausarbeitung, Anatomischer Praparate, and Onomatologia Anatomica. While Chair of
Anatomy at the University of Vienna he achieved worldwide fame as a teacher (959-962).
Ernst Wilhelm Brücke (DE) discovered a ciliary muscle later named
for him (313).
Alexander Ecker (CH) described erythrocytes inside of rabbit
spleen cells. He speculated that the red cells might have been
"jammed" into the larger cells by circulatory forces (608).
Kranid Slavjansky ()
reported the presence of coal dust within alveolar macrophages from miners’
lungs (1762).
Nathanael Lieberkühn (DE) showed that leukocytes could ingest
erythrocytes (1119).
Felix Victor Birch-Hirschfeld (DE) found that leukocytes might
take up bacterial cocci injected into the blood stream (165).
William Osler (CA) found erythrocyte-containing leukocytes in the
blood of humans with various diseases (1377).
Giulio Cesare Bizzozero (IT) described the clearance of carbon
particles by cells of lymph nodes and the internalization of small leukocytes
by larger leukocytes in the spleen (176). Verify
Giulio Cesare Bizzozero (IT) described the process of efferocytosis
in an experimental model performed in the inflamed anterior chamber of the eye
of rabbits. He described the pus: "If one investigates the exudate, it is
possible to detect, in addition to the white blood suppurative cells, different
bigger cellular elements (30–50 μm) and containing in addition to the
nucleus a variable number (from 1 to 20 and more) of round corpuscles, which in
terms of morphology and chemical reaction look exactly like the other
suppurative cells." (177)
He concluded his second report by stating: "In summary, my
observation showed the presence of big cells able to engulf white blood
suppurative cells or red blood cells in their contractile protoplasms. This
represents a way through which the pus or blood is absorbed from the anterior
chamber." (178)
James Young Simpson (GB) and Jacob Bell (GB) introduced the use of
chloroform as an anesthetic in obstetrics. After testing it on themselves it
was given to a woman during childbirth (1753; 1754; 1756).
Jean-Marc Dupuy (FR) and Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov; Nicholas
Ivanovich Pirogoff; Nikolai Iwanowitsch Pirogow (RU) discovered rectal
anesthesia (583; 1472; 1508).
Daniel Molière (FR) and Alex Iversen (DK) reintroduced rectal
anesthesia (1261).
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB), in 1847, coined locomotor ataxy (tabes
dorsalis), by which he began the separation and classification of spinal
diseases. Prior to this all spinal diseases were labeled paraplegias.
"Two kinds of paralysis may be noticed in the lower
extremities, the one consisting simply in the impairment or loss of voluntary
motion, the other distinguished by a diminution or total loss of the power
coordinating movement. In he later form, while considerable voluntary motion
remains, the patient finds great difficulty in walking and his gait is so
tottering and uncertain that his centre of gravity is easily displaced… In two
examples of this variety of paralysis I ventured to predict disease of the
posterior columns, the diagnosis being founded upon the views of their
functions which I now advocate, and this was found to exist on a postmortem
inspection; and in looking through the accounts of recorded cases in which the
posterior columns were the seat of the lesion, all seem to have commenced by
evincing more or less disturbance of the locomotive powers, sensation being
affected only when the morbid change of structure extended to and more or less
involved the posterior roots of the spinal nerves." (1861)
Jaques Francois Édouard Hervieux (FR) reported on autopsies of 44
jaundiced infants. His descriptions of pathoanatomical findings were very
detailed and systematic. A number of his clinical observations are still
thought to be accurate today, such as the essentially benign nature of neonatal
jaundice in most cases, the appearance of neonatal jaundice during the first 2
to 4 days of life as well as its disappearance within 1 to 2 weeks, and the
cephalocaudal progression of jaundice. He described jaundice of the brain in 31
of his 44 autopsied cases, with variable intensity of staining (890). Christian George Schmorl (DE)
would name this yellow staining of certain areas of the brain kernicterus (1688).
Golding Bird (GB) and John Hilton (GB) recorded the first
operation for intestinal strangulation of the small intestine. No anesthetic
was used; the patient died nine hours afterward (167).
Moritz Schiff (DE) investigated the effects of section of the
vagus on respiration (1678).
Hundreds of Cayuse Indians in the Pacific Northwest were killed by
measles. This tribe had never been exposed to measles previously, and
missionaries were blamed for introducing it. One missionary near present-day
Walla Walla tried to provide them with food and medicine, but the Indians
thought he was making it worse, and killed him, his wife and twelve others at
the mission, and took several others hostage. Several years of conflict
followed (1030).
Archiv
für Pathologische Anatomie was founded.
The American Medical Association was founded then reorganized in
1901 (1198).
David Jones Peck (US) was the first African-American man to
receive the Doctor of Medicine degree from a United States medical school (Rush
Medical College).
1848
"Science is the labor of mind applied to nature." Friedrich
Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (DE) (1994).
“In
considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings on the
material wants of life, but in its general influence on the intellectual
advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important result to be a
knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked
together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and it is the perception
of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles our enjoyments.” Friedrich
Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (DE) (1994).
Auguste Laurent (FR) and Charles Frédéric Gerhardt (FR) indicated
that leucine and glycine have very similar chemical properties and they
considered both to be part of a homologous series having the composition
CnH2n+1NO2 (1079).
Benjamin Collins Brodie, Jr. (GB) determined that beeswax consists
primarily of the solid alcohols: cerotic, myricine, and ceroleine (290-292).
This work proved the existence of solid alcohols that were homologous with
known liquid alcohols, and it had important implications for the understanding
of animal metabolism.
Louis Pasteur (FR), while professor of physics in Dijon, made the
discovery that formed the starting point for all his later brilliant studies in
bacteriology, viz., that by means of fermentation he could produce, then
separate, the two varieties of tartaric acid distinguished by their capacity to
rotate a plane of polarized light in opposite directions. He had already
separated these types on a crystallographic basis (1844). One form, he found,
was destroyed by fermentation, the other not. This discovery opened the way for
a more exact understanding of the essential nature of ferment action. From this
he developed an intense interest in the subject of fermentation in general (1422-1424).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (DE) proved the act of phagocytosis
beyond doubt when he observed the heliozoan, Actinophrys sol. in the act of ingesting another protozoan (2004).
Per Henrik Malmsten (SE) discovered that Trichophyton tonsurans causes a human dermatomycosis (1200).
Claude Bernard (FR) and Charles-Louis Barreswil (FR) suggested
that the production of glucose by the liver (glycogenesis) is a characteristic
of mammalian life and occurs independently of whether glucose is in the diet.
They concluded that "like plants, animals can create and destroy sugar
physiologically." (119; 124-126; 136)
Bernard suggested, based on experiments with the hypothalamus,
that glucose homeostasis is regulated by a balance of opposing influences
originating in the central nervous system (122).
Lawrence A. Frohman (US), Lee L. Bernardis (US), Errol B. Marliss
(CA), Lucien Girardier (CH), Josiane Seydoux (CH), Claes B. Wollheim (CH),
Yasunori Kanazawa (JP), Lelio Orci (CH), Albert Ernst Renold (CH), and Daniel
Porte, Jr. (US) showed that while Bernard was not completely correct the islets
of Langerhans are richly endowed with autonomic nerve endings containing both
adrenergic and cholinergic synaptic vesicles, and gap junctions between nerve
endings and islet cells have been observed. Stimulation of the ventromedial
nucleus of the hypothalamus and of the sympathetic nerve to the pancreas causes
an outpouring of glucagon and limits
insulin secretion, as does the administration of catecholamines. Appropriate
adrenergic blocking agents block these effects. The effect of adrenergic
stimulation is to lower the insulin: glucagon ratio, thereby increasing
hepatic glucose production and glycemia (715; 1211).
Richard Owen (GB) coined the word homology in its biological context, defining it as "the same
organ in different animals under every variety of form and function" and
elaborated between homology (homologous) and analogy (analogous) as applied to
the anatomical features of animals. He emphasized that all vertebrates have a
similar structure, which has adapted in different ways but was not
"aimed" in a linear way at man (1388; 1389; 1392).
Johann Florian Heller (AT) invented the ureometer for determining
specific gravity of urine samples (730).
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (CH-DE) refined old instruments and
devised new ones with which he detected the passage of tiny currents in nerve
and muscle (e.g., nerve galvanometer). He was able to show that the nerve
impulse is accompanied by a change in the electrical condition of the nerve (556).
Carl Müller (DE) brought together in one publication the entire
world’s mosses, which had been described. It included 2,400 species of Mucsi and only 25 species of Sphagnum (1294).
Joseph Dalton Hooker (GB) realized that planktonic diatoms are
plants and suggested that they play the same ecological role in the sea that
green plants do on land (910).
Matthias Jakob Schleiden (DE) published Die Pflanze und ihr Leben, a book that dramatically changed the
approach to botany. Microscopic examination was exalted, giving it an
importance equivalent to that of systematics. Inductive reasoning was elevated
in importance to exceed that of philosophical theorizing (1683).
Henri Milne Edwards (FR), based upon respiratory organs, divided
the gastropoda into Pulmonés, Opisthobranches, and Prosobranches, now rendered
Pulmonata, Opisthobranchia, and Prosobranchia (609).
Johann Wilhelm Spengel (DE), based upon their nervous system,
divided the gastropoda into Strepyoneura and Euthyneura. Streptoneura is
equivalent to Prosobranchia; Euthyneura embraces Opisthobranchia and Pulmonata (1776).
Edwards is commemorated by Edwardsia
de Quatrefages, 1841; Edwardsiella
Andres, 1883; Henricia J.E. Gray,
1840; Autolytus edwardsi de
Saint-Joseph, 1887; Lophoura edwardsi
Kölliker, 1853; Plesiopenaeus
edwardsianus (Johnson, 1867); Plesionika
edwardsii Brandt, 1851; Dynamene
edwardsi Lucas, 1849; Grapsicepon
edwardsi Giard & Bonnier, 1888; Glossocephalus
milneedwardsi Bovallius, 1887; Onisimus
edwardsii Krøyer, 1846; Diastylis
edwardsi Krøyer, 1841; Neoamphitrite
edwardsii de Quatrefages, 1866; Colpaster
edwardsi Perrier, 1882; Milnesium Doyère,
1840; Jasus edwardsii (Hutton, 1875),
Odontozona edwardsi (Bouvier, 1908), Milneedwardsia Bourguignat, 1877, Boeckosimus edwardsii (Krøyer, 1846), Lithophyllon edwardsi (Rosseau, 1850),
and Goniastria edwardsi Chevalier,
1971. Phascolosoma spengeli, and Spengelia Willey, 1898, commemorate
Spengel.
William Sharpey (GB) described Sharpey's
fibers (bone fibers, or perforating fibers) as a matrix of connective tissue
consisting of bundles of collagenous fibers connecting periosteum to bone. They
are part of the outer fibrous layer of periosteum, entering the outer
circumferential and interstitial lamellae of bone tissue (1528). Note: Clementi (IT) claimed priority in
this discovery.
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) demonstrated that heat
production accompanies contraction in muscle (1985).
Henry Bence Jones (GB) discovered an unusual protein (albumose) in
the urine of patients with softening of the bones-myelopathic albumosuria(979).
Charles Freeman Geschickter (US) and Murray Marcus Copeland (US)
found a myeloma protein in serum and distinguished it from the urinary Bence
Jones proteins (747).
Alfred Baring Garrod (GB) noted the link between gout and hyperuricaemia (731).
Josiah Clark Nott (US) advanced the hypothesis that yellow fever is unique and that insects
vector it from person to person (1362).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) first described a lymph node in
the left supraclavicular fossa (the area above the left clavicle) as being
associated with gastric cancer (1926). The finding of an enlarged,
hard node (also referred to as Troisier's sign for Charles Emile Troisier (FR)) has
long been regarded as strongly indicative of the presence of cancer in the
abdomen, specifically gastric cancer, that has spread through the lymph vessels
(1880). Note: This lymph node is called Virchow
node or signal node.
Johann Ferdinand Martin Hayfelder (DE-RU) was the first German
surgeon to use an anesthetic, performing many operations using ether or
chloroform. He discovered the anesthetic properties of ethyl chloride (894).
John M. Harlow (US) reports a singular incident, which was to
change our understanding of the relation between mind and brain. Phineas P.
Gage, a 25-year-old railroad foreman, was excavating rock. In preparation for
blasting he was tamping powder into a drill hole when a premature explosion
drove the tamping iron—1.1m long, 6 mm in diameter, and weighing 6 kg—through
his left cheek and out of the vault of his skull with such force that it threw
him on his back and fell several rods behind, "smeared with brain."
Despite his injuries he remained conscious and only a few minutes later was
sitting in an ox cart writing in his workbook. He recognized and reassured Dr.
Harlow, who had been summoned to the scene. The wound continued to bleed for
two days; then followed a virulent infection that rendered Gage semiconscious
for a month. His condition was so poor that a coffin had been prepared.
Nevertheless, Dr. Harlow continued treatment, and by the fifth week the
infection had resolved, and Gage had regained consciousness. He later developed
epilepsy, and in May 1861, 12 years after the injury, he died in status epilepticus.
Immediately after physical recovery Dr. Harlow described Gage as
follows: “Remembers passing and past events correctly, as well before as since the
injury. Intellectual manifestations feeble, being exceedingly capricious and
childish, but with a will as indomitable as ever; is particularly obstinate;
will not yield to restraint when it conflicts with his desires.” Dr. Harlow
reports that Gage’s employers, “who regarded him as the most efficient and
capable foreman ... considered the change in his mind so marked that they could
not give him his place again.... He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times
in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting
but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it
conflicts with his desires.... A child in his intellectual capacity and
manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man.... His mind was
radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no
longer Gage.' (832; 833)
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (CH-DE), using a sensitive
galvanometer, described an "action potential" accompanying muscular
contraction. He detected the small voltage potential present in resting muscle
(resting currents) and noted that this diminished with contraction of the
muscle (555).
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
established Science Magazine, which would become one of the world's foremost
science journals.
Zeitschrift
für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie was founded.
1849
Charles Adolphe Würtz (FR) discovered the aliphatic amines by the
action of alkali on cyanic and cyanuric esters (1421).
Eugène Auguste Nicolas Millon (FR) introduced a color test for the
presence of protein, which bears his name. The reagent was prepared by
dissolving mercury in fuming nitric acid and diluting with water. When the
reagent was heated in the presence of most proteins it gave a brick-red
precipitate (1250).
Otto Nasse (DE) discovered that a positive Millon Test is not
confined to proteids and to tyrosine but is a general reaction to all aromatic
bodies in which a hydroxyl group is connected with the benzol ring (1326; 1327).
Wilhelm Friedrich Karl August Fürst zu Salm-Horstmar (DE)
developed a totally inert soil by charring crystalline sugar and demonstrated
that normal plants could be grown on this soil provided they were supplied the
proper inorganic salts (1654-1656).
Alexander Carl Heinrich Braun (DE) helped modify the cell theory
by insisting that the plant cell wall is in fact a structure, which entombs the
true living part of the cell where physiological activities take place. The
wall must give way if the cell is to rejuvenate
(reproduce) itself (240; 241; 869).
Henri Victor Regnault (FR) and Jules Reiset (FR) were the first to
devise a closed system for respiration studies with which they refined
Lavoisier’s experiments on measuring the oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide
production of animals and calculated the first accurate ratios of carbonic acid
gas given off divided by oxygen absorbed. This relationship became known as the
respiratory quotient (1581).
Claude Bernard (FR) discovered that pancreatic juice and bile
performs some function, which is indispensable for the digestion and absorption
of fat. This he conceived to be digestion of fat into glycerol and fatty acid,
the latter forming soaps, soluble in water and capable of passing the
water-permeated membrane of the intestinal villi
(120; 121; 128; 129; 131).
Arpad Bokay (HU) gave the first indication of the existence of
enzymes in pancreatic juice hydrolyzing lecithin into glycerophosphoric acid,
fatty acids and choline (192).
Claude Bernard (FR) is credited with originating and applying the
phrase internal secretion as it
applied to the liver liberating glucose into the bloodstream (126). See, Brown-Séquard, 1856.
Heinrich R. Göppert (DE) and Ferdinand Julius Cohn (DE) used
carmine and madder (Galium, Ladies’
broomstraw; contains alizarin) with the intention of making the internal
contents of Nitella flexilis (alga)
more visible (774).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) showed that nerve fibers are
elongated portions of nerve cells (2005). See, Robert Remak, 1838.
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) declared nervous
transmission to be a material process capable of being measured—invented the myograph—then using the frog made the
first measurement of the conduction
velocity of a motor nerve axon, finding it to be about one-tenth the speed
of sound (1986; 1988).
Julius Bernstein (DE) confirmed the work of Helmholtz by measuring
the time course of the action potential (a phrase coined by him) and producing
the first plot of the action potential with the wave moving in both directions
from the point of stimulation and with an overshoot (137).
Thomas Addison (GB) described patients showing clinical features
attributable to adrenal insufficiency: anemia, debility, feebleness of the
heart, irritability of the stomach, and changes in skin color. This would
become known as Addison's disease (11-13). Note:
Some consider this to be the first hormonal disorder to be identified.
Armand Trousseau (FR) suggested that the disease should bear
Addison's name (1883). The
condition is commonly called adrenocortical
insufficiency or Addison’s disease
to this day. Causes
of adrenal insufficiency can be grouped by the way they cause the adrenals to
produce insufficient cortisol.
Franz Antoine Pollender (DE), in 1849, observed the microorganism
now known as Bacillus anthracis (Gr. anthrakos, meaning coal and referring to
the black escher in the cutaneous form of the disease) in the blood and organs
of infected animals. He thought they were of a vegetable nature. He did not
report his finding until 1855 (1487).
Pierre-Francois-Olive
Rayer (FR) inoculated sheep with blood of other sheep dead of anthrax. Microscopically he saw the anthrax bacillus in the blood of the
inoculated sheep (1575).
Casimir Joseph Davaine (FR) reasoned that bacteria must be the
cause of anthrax because they are
consistently present in the disease, the disease can be transmitted by
inoculation, and when the bacteria are absent there is no anthrax (479-486).
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) traveled to Breslau, Germany to
share his discovery of the complete life cycle of the anthrax bacillus, Bacillus
anthracis, with Ferdinand Julius Cohn and other prominent German scientists
reasoning that the facts about anthrax
suggested the possibility of spore formation. Studying the disease in small
animals and under primitive conditions in his home he had found that it was
transmissible from mouse to mouse in a series of twenty generations, and that
the lesions in each member of the series were identical. He worked out the
distribution of the bacilli in the bodies of different animals. Placing minute
particles of fresh anthrax spleens in
drops of sterile blood serum or aqueous humor, he set himself to watch, hour
after hour, what took place. His technique was simplicity itself; his apparatus
was homemade. After twenty hours he saw the anthrax
rods grow into long filaments especially at the edge of the cover glass, and,
as he watched, he saw rounded and oval granular bodies appear in the filaments.
The bodies became clearer and stood out in the filaments. He realized that they
were spores, which had not been seen before. He determined accurately the
optimal thermal conditions for spore formation. He succeeded in showing that
under suitable conditions the spores again grew into typical anthrax rods. He
described and correctly interpreted germination of spores and determined that
they are highly resistant to adverse conditions. He realized the
epidemiological significance of the resistant spores. He studied septicemia and demonstrated that it and anthrax are different processes. In
putrid infusions of vitreous humor he found a bacillus almost identical in
appearance as in spore production with the true anthrax bacillus but showed that it does not produce anthrax. From facts such as these he
concluded, "Only one kind of bacillus is in position to induce the
specific morbid process whereas other schizophytes are not, or, if pathogenic,
they act in a manner different from anthrax."
He tried to induce anthrax in mice by
having them ingest the organism but was unsuccessful. He confirmed Brauell’s
observation that the young of pregnant animals, dead from anthrax, are non-infective, and he studied the general pathology of
experimental anthrax in a complete
and masterly manner. He showed that the septicemic stage is reached only very
late in anthrax of mice. Dogs,
partridges, and sparrows were not susceptible to the disease (326; 1020).
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch’s (DE) culturing of the anthrax bacillus on the aqueous humor of
an ox’s eye, description of its life history, and reproduction of the disease
state with an axenic culture of the microorganism is one of the most
significant events in the history of biology and medicine. It represents among
other things the first proof that a specific disease, anthrax, can be caused by a specific microorganism.
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) purified anthrax by passing it through a series of otherwise healthy animals (1020).
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) found that when dealing with
non-pigmented organisms and pathogens, broths based on fresh beef serum or meat
extracts (bouillions) gave the best bacterial growth (1020).
John Snow (GB) concluded that fecal pollution and transfer of the
unknown specific agents from the sick to the well through direct contact and
through drinking water were responsible for the spread of cholera. His cholera
experience began at the age of eighteen years during the first pandemic of the
disease, when he saw the miners brought up from some of the coal-pits of
Northumberland in the winter of 1831-32, after having profuse discharges from
the stomach and bowels, and when fast approaching a state of collapse. In
answer to Snow’s inquiry, a relative connected with a colliery near Leeds
wrote: "The pit is one huge privy and of course the men," who spend
eight to nine hours in the pits, "always take their victuals with unwashed
hands." He came to his conclusion through care of patients, painstaking
follow-up of case after case, searching for the unknown contacts with earlier
cases, and from statistical studies.
The culmination of his studies in the disease came as a result of
the Broad Street pump epidemic in London in 1854. There were cases of cholera in London during the year but
few in this area until the latter part of August. Within 250 yards of the pump
in a two-week period from August 31, upwards of five hundred fatal cases of Asiatic cholera occurred. By laborious
questioning Snow found that most of the cases were among people in the habit of
drinking from the Broad Street pump and that few of those in the neighborhood
who used other water acquired the disease. Further studies gave convincing
evidence: the brick work of the well and nearby cesspool—only 2 feet 8 inches
away! —was in a badly decayed condition and the well was at a lower level
showing drainage from cesspool to the well. It is in this work that he
originated the concept of the well
carrier (1769; 1770; 1772).
John Snow (GB) wrote, "…[T]he disease is communicated by
something that acts directly on the alimentary canal, the excretions of the
sick at once suggest themselves as containing some material which, being
accidentally swallowed, might attach itself to the mucous membrane of the small
intestines, and there multiply itself…" (1770)
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) while studying cholera in Egypt demonstrated the
importance of the concept of the well
carrier first proposed by John Snow (1025).
G. Gros (RU) discovered a parasitic amoeba in the tartar of the teeth
(likely Endamoeba gingivalis). This
possibly represents the first discovery of a parasitic amoeba living as a
parasite on man (801).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) wrote one of the first scholarly papers
on the medusa. He noted: a lack of blood and blood vessels, a body plan
composed of two tissue layers (ectoderm and endoderm) physiologically analogous
to the serous and mucous layers in a typical embryo, that the Medusae,
Hydroids, and Sertularian polyps possess body plans similar enough to justify
their being grouped together, and that some of these Coelenterata are
complicated colonial forms of typical medusae double-membrane structures, i.e.,
Portuguese man-of-war (941; 950).
Arnold Adolph Berthold (DE) observed that the atrophy of a
rooster’s comb, which normally follows castration, could be prevented if the
testes were transplanted to another location in the rooster. Berthold realized
that there was some type of gonadal secretion involved, "…. so, it follows
that the interaction in question is exerted through the productive relationship
of the testes, that is, through their action on the blood and next through a
consequent action of the blood on the organism as a whole…" (140) The real
significance of testicular secretion into the blood became evident and thus
Berthold should be viewed as the founder of the concept of endocrine function. See, Théophile de Bordeu, 1775.
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB), in 1849, described
epileptic hemiplegia, which came to
be called Todd's paralysis (1864).
Charles Emmanuel Sédillot (FR) performed the first successful
gastrostomy (creation of an artificial gastric fistula). The patient died
within a few hours (1730).
Edgar Allan Poe (US) most likely died of complications brought on
by severe alcoholism (1174).
The third major pandemic of cholera,
again starting in Bengal, reached Europe and the U.S. in 1848-49. In 1854, the
worst year, 23,000 died in Britain alone. In that same year, British physician
John Snow succeeded in identifying contaminated water as the transmitter of the
disease, a breakthrough in eventually bringing cholera under control (1030; 1337).
Elizabeth Blackwell (GB-US) was the first woman in the modern era
to receive a medical degree. Blackwell pursued medical studies independently
beginning in 1844. In 1847, she began studying under the tutelage of Dr. Samuel
H. Dickson, a professor at Charleston Medical College. Although she applied to
more than 25 medical schools, only Geneva Medical School (now Hobart and
William Smith Colleges) accepted her. She endured much ridicule and prejudice
but still graduated at the head of her class in 1849. Blackwell established a
practice in New York but by 1869, she had decided to settle permanently in
England (2142).
William Bowman (GB) authored the first work to include a sound
description of the microscopic anatomy of the eye and the ciliary ('Bowman's')
muscle (228).
Henry Willard Williams (US), in 1849, introduced the use of
sutures for cataract surgery by using
a shortened sewing needle threaded with a strand of fine glover's silk (2137).
Ludwig Traube (DE) and Friedrich Wilhelm Felix von Bärensprung
(DE), in 1849 or 1850, introduced measurement of body temperature as a routine
clinical examination method (1874).
Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (FR) and
Francois-Amilcar Aran (FR) described a condition— Aran-Duchenne spinal muscular atrophy— characterized by chronic
progressive wasting of muscles with subsequent weakness and paralysis (41; 561; 562).
Jules Bernard Luys (FR) later found this condition to be caused by
degeneration of the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord (1161).
Luther V. Bell (US) reported an affliction characterized by wild
delirium, general disturbances of the psychic functions and of the motor
functions and fever. He found slight cerebral and meningeal engorgements on
autopsy (99). Note: Called acute peripheral
encephaliys, phrenitis mania gravis,
typhomania, acute delirium, delirium
grave, and Bell’s disease it is
caused by acute hyperemia and subsequent inflammatory changes in the cerebral
cortex.
Robert William Smith (IE) wrote a treatise on cases of generalized neurofibromatosis (von Recklinghausen’s disease) 33 years
before Recklinghausen’s account (1767).
Friedrich von Recklinghausen (DE) reported on cases of multiple
fibroma and multiple neuroma (2055). Note: Ribera (IT) may have been
the first to observe neurofibromatosis. Johann Gotfried Rheinhardt (DE) in1793,
observed neurofibromatosis.
James Young Simpson (GB) introduced into obstetrical practice the
long obstetrical forceps (1757), and the
use of iron wire sutures (1759).
c.
1850
Emmanuel Geoffroy (FR) isolated nicouline (rotenone) from a specimen of Robinia nicou, now called Lonchocarpus nicou, while traveling in
French Guiana.
This was posthumously published in 1895 (744).
The earliest
recorded insecticidal use of rotenone was against leaf-cutting caterpillars in
1848 (1658; 2091).
Kazuo Nagai
(JP) isolated the active principle from Derris chinensis and named it rotenone (1321).
Youssef
Hatefi (US) found that rotenone works by interfering with the electron
transport chain in mitochondria. Specifically, it inhibits the transfer of
electrons from iron-sulfur centers in complex I to ubiquinone. This prevents
NADH from being converted into usable cellular energy in the form of ATP (849).
The third plague
pandemic began in China in the 1850s and spread slowly until it reached the
seaports in the 1880s, then spread more rapidly around the world, striking
particularly hard in India, Egypt and North Africa, and South America. The
continental U.S. was largely spared, but Hawaii suffered a severe outbreak in
1899, and San Francisco was affected in 1900-1904, and again in 1907-1909. The
second outbreak in San Francisco was exacerbated by unsanitary conditions
following the earthquake of 1906. Sporadic outbreaks continued worldwide for
years, and officially this pandemic was not considered over until 1959 (1030).
1850
"There rolls the deep where grew the tree,
O Earth what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea." In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (PL-DE) noted that heat is
destructible and examined how it can be converted to work with the flow of heat
from a warm body to a cold one. He concluded that entropy, a concept he
introduced, must inevitably increase in the universe (379-381; 1188).
Max Schulze (DE) discovered a solution of zinc chloride-iodine-potassium
iodide in water useful for testing for cellulose, which it colors blue (1713). Note: Schulze’s reagent
Ludwig Radlkofer (DE), in 1855, published precise instructions for
preparation of Schulze’s reagent (1536).
Harry Stephen Meysey Thompson (GB) and John Thomas Way (GB)
invented ion-exchange chromatography and ion chromatography methods when they
treated various clays with ammonium sulfate or carbonate in solution to extract
the ammonia and release calcium (1832; 2097). In 1927,
the first zeolite mineral column was used to remove interfering calcium and
magnesium ions from solution to determine the sulfate content of water.
Edward R. Tompkins (US), Joseph X. Khym (US), Waldo E. Cohn (US),
Warren C. Johnson (US), Laurence L. Quill (US), and Farrington Daniels (US)
initiated the modern era of ion-exchange chromatography and ion chromatography
in their quest to purify radioisotopes and rare earths for the Manhattan
Project. A technique was required to separate and concentrate the radioactive
elements needed to make the atom bomb. Researchers chose adsorbents that would
latch onto charged transuranium elements, which could then be differentially
eluted. Ultimately, once declassified, these techniques made available new ion
exchange resins to develop the systems that are often used today for specific
purification of biologicals and inorganics (976; 1865).
Waldo E. Cohn (US) then applied the technique to separation of
mononucleotides (399).
Ludwig Ferdinand Wilhelmy (DE) described the first measurements of
the velocity of a chemical reaction in a homogeneous medium; he
polarimetrically determined the rate of inversion of cane sugar in the presence
of various acids (2131).
Adolf Friedrich Ludwig Strecker (DE) synthesized alanine via the
cyanohydrin reaction from acetylaldehyde. He proposed the term alanine, which
contains the first syllable of the word aldehyde
(1815). Alanine is
also called aminopropionic acid.
Paul Schützenberger (FR) was the first to find alanine in proteins
(silk and ovalbumin) (1714; 1715).
Theodor Weyl
(DE), in 1888, isolated alanine from acid hydrolysis of silk fibroin (2120).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) was the first to
devise a methodology whereby nitrogen of ammonia salts and nitrogen as urea
could be distinguished in urine (219).
Charles Adolphe Würtz (FR) obtained methylamine by treating casein
with alkali (2173).
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE) described echinoderm metamorphosis (1313).
Johannes Petrus Muller (DE) described "Muller's larva"
of polyclad turbellarians and observed its metamorphosis into the juvenile worm
(1313).
Johann Joseph Scherer (DE) isolated and named sarkin (hypoxanthine) from the pulp of the spleen and heart muscle (1677).
Hypoxanthine was later shown to be a secondary product formed by the
deamination of adenine.
Franz von Leydig (DE) discovered the interstitial cell in the
seminiferous tubules and in the mediaseptum and connective tissue septa of the
testes (2017; 2019). These
cells, called Leydig’s cells, are
believed to produce the male hormone testosterone, which determines male
secondary sexual characteristics.
Augustus Volnay Waller (FR-GB) and Julius Budge (DE) contrasted
degenerating nerves with unaffected nerves and demonstrated that when nerve
fibers are cut the distal portions of the fiber degenerate. This made it
possible to trace the course of fibers through the nervous system and
demonstrated the importance of the nucleus in the regeneration of fibers. He
also found that healthy nerve cells swell in water while damaged cells lost
this power (possibly the first account of the loss of semi-permeability in a
damaged cell) (2080-2082; 2086; 2088; 2089).
Georg Liebig; Georg von Liebig (DE) published a study on isolated
frog muscle activity under aerobic and anaerobic conditions in which he
concluded… "in the process of respiration the blood really acts only as a
means to effect the transport of gases to the capillaries and back, and that in
the capillaries there occurs not the formation of carbonic acid, but only the
exchange through the walls of the blood vessels of that already formed for the
oxygen of the blood … [T]he formation of carbonic acid from a part of the
respiratory oxygen … proceeds in the body not within the capillary vessels, but
outside them in the muscle tissue." (1120)
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) and Friedrich Wilhelm Noll (DE)
proposed that lymph is formed by the diffusion of fluids from the blood vessels
through the vessel walls into the surrounding tissues, the motor power being
the capillary blood pressure. The ultimate cause of the lymph flow must be
looked for in the energy of the heart’s contraction (1352).
Claude Bernard (FR) and Théophile-Jules Pelouze (FR) showed that
curare destroys the communication between nerve and muscle but that the muscle
still responds to stimuli (123; 1446). Bernard
went on to show that curare selectively abolishes the action of the motor
nerves by stopping the transmission of impulses from motor nerves to voluntary
muscles but has no effect on the sensory nerves (130; 132).
Edme Félix Alfred Vulpian (FR) demonstrated that curare interrupts
the communication between the nerve fibers and the muscle fibers and does not
act on the central nervous system (2066).
Franz von Leydig (DE) reported intracellular microorganisms within
the cells of aphids and scale insects (he did not realize what they were). This
was the first study of this type (2016; 2018). These
intracellular collections of microorganisms have been called symbiotic organs, pseudovitelli, green bodies,
bacteriosomes, mycetoms, and mycetomes.
F. Blochmann (DE) was the first to be convinced that mycetomes
contain bacteria (183-185).
Paul Buchner (DE) recognized that the bacteria of mycetomes are
symbiotic with their host (317).
Ferdinand Julius Cohn (DE) described
the developmental and sexual cycles of the algae Protococcus pluvialis (1850), Stephanosphaera
pluvialis (1856), Sphaeroplea
annulina (1855), and Volvox globator
(1875) and of the lower fungi Pilobolus
crystallinus and Empusa
(Entomophthora) muscae (392; 393; 395-398).
Pierre-Joseph van Bénéden (BE) deduced that bladderworms
(cystici), which had hitherto been regarded as a separate class of helminths,
were simply larval tapeworms. He coined the terms scolex and strobila in
reference to tapeworms (1902).
Maximillian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) was the first to render
a correct account of the general anatomical features of the nemertines.
Schultze knew the use of the proboscis, distinguished between the armed and
unarmed types of proboscis, discovered the nephridia, and defined the
nemertines—which he called Rhynchocoela or Nemertina—as turbellarians with an
anus and an eversible proboscis (1705). These
animals are commonly called ribbon worms.
Félix Dujardin (FR) identified and described the mushroom bodies (corpora
pedunculata) in the hymenopteran brain (bee, bumblebee, sphex, ant,
fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, etc.). He postulated for the first
time that they were the site of intelligence (575). Note: This major
discovery will eventually prove to be almost accurate, as these structures are
now considered the place where memory and many other behaviors are formed and
processed in invertebrates (1812).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) described the role of
different embryonic germ layers for organogenesis and reduced von Baer’s four germ layers to three and named them:
ectoderm (outer skin), mesoderm (middle skin), and endoderm (inner skin) (1595).
Moritz Hoffa (DE) and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) described
strange unregulated actions of the ventricles (later called ventricular fibrillation) during
experiments with strong electrical currents across the hearts of dogs and cats.
They demonstrated that a single electrical pulse could induce fibrillation (903).
Ernst Heinrich Weber (DE) described the role of elasticity and
resistance in the vascular system as a determinant of the distribution and rate
of flow of blood throughout the body (2099). In 1827,
he had described the effect of the elasticity of blood vessels in transforming
the pulsatile movement of the blood in the aorta into a continuous flow of
blood in arterioles and capillaries. He demonstrated that the pulse wave
traveled at 9.24 meters per second and arrived in the feet a fraction of a
second after it reached the jaw.
Marshall Hall (GB) coined the phrase spinal shock (825).
Daniel Drake (US) wrote, A
Systematic Treatise, Historical, Etiological and Practical, on the Principal
Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, as they Appear in the
Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux Varieties of its Population, one
of the unique medical treatises of the 19th century (552). Drake is
considered one of the greatest American teachers of medicine.
Lamuel Shattuck (US), Nathaniel Banks, Jr. (US), and Jehiel Abbott
(US) presented their Report of the
Sanitary Commission of Massachussetts: Report of a General Plan for the
Promotion of Public and Personal Health. The report, based on a sanitary
survey of Boston in 1845, contains such far-reaching recommendations as: We
recommend that provision be made for obtaining observations on the atmospheric
phenomena, on a systematic and uniform plan at different stations within the
Commonwealth. We recommend that measures be taken to prevent, as far as
practicable, the smoke nuisance. We recommend that, in laying out new towns and
villages and in extending those already laid out, ample provision be made for a
supply, in purity and abundance, of light, air, and water; for drainage and
sewerage, for paving, and for cleanliness.
The report also contains far-reaching recommendations relative to
housing, schools, occupational health, and adulterated food and drugs, and
recommended that persons be specially educated in sanitary science (1737). In 1948,
Charles-Edward Amory Winslow (US) called the Shattuck Report, as it is
popularly called, “Perhaps the most significant single document in the history
of public health… I know of no single document in the history of that science
quite so remarkable in its clarity and completeness and in its vision of the
future.”
Pierre Paul Broca (FR) described the venous spread of cancer
independently of Carl von Rokitansky (CZ-AT) (286; 2056; 2058).
William MacIntyre (GB) was the first to describe multiple myeloma (1172).
William Detmold (US) opened the lateral sinus of the brain for
abscess (521).
Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny (FR) is considered the founder of the
science of micropaleobotany. His most important work was the founding of the
science of stratigraphical paleontology based on observations of exposed
fossil-bearing strata in the Paraná Basin of South America between 1826 and
1834. He studied small marine fossils, pollen, grain and spores found in
sedimentary rocks for dating stages. Like his mentor Cuvier, he found that some
fossils occurred only in certain layers of a geological formation. He used
these fossils to subdivide what we today call the Jurassic into twenty-seven
stratigraphic stages, each with its particular fossils (467; 468).
An extensive epidemic of dengue
fever began in Charleston, SC, and then spread to Savannah, Augusta, New
Orleans, Mobile, Galveston, and other southern coastal cities (1030).
1851
"It was to Hofmeister, working as a young man, an amateur and
enthusiast, in the early morning hours of summer months, before business, at
Leipzig in the years before 1851, that the vision first appeared of a common
type of Life-Cycle, running through Mosses and Ferns to Gymnosperms and
Flowering Plants, linking the whole series in one scheme of reproduction and
life-history." Arthur Harry Church (1167). See,
Hofmeister below.
Alexander William Williamson (GB) was the first person to
formulate the concept of chemical reactions reaching an equilibrium state;
introducing the phrase dynamic
equilibrium. He was also the first person to clearly demonstrate that a
specific intermediate compound formed in a catalyzed reaction. This was the
formation of ethyl sulfate when sulfuric acid catalyzed the conversion of ethyl
alcohol to ethyl ether (2139).
Francois Verdeil (FR) suggested a relationship between chlorophyll
and heme upon chemical conversion of chlorophyll to a red pigment (1915).
Peter Ludwig Panum (DK) found that protein separated from serum
and egg white on dilution and the addition of acid. The blood serum gave a
precipitate, which would redissolve in water while the egg albumin gave no
precipitate. This was one of the first clues that proteins may exist in various
chemical types (1407; 1408).
Louis René Tulasne (FR), Charles Tulasne (FR) and Heinrich Anton
de Bary (DE) described the life history of certain fungi and developed the
doctrine of ‘alternation of generations’. They used the terms pleomorphism or
heteromorphism to express the observed fact that one and the same fungus
appeared in several forms, not only as regards the vegetative but also the
fructifying organs, and it was soon shown that this is a widespread type of
development, especially among the fungi which cause disease in cereals (490; 492; 494; 1885).
Wilhelm Friedrich Benedikt Hofmeister (DE) authored Vergleichende Untersuchungen [Comparative Researches], which
represented the beginning of modern work with the Bryophyta (liverworts and
mosses) and Pteridophyta (ferns, horsetails, and club-mosses). Here for the
first time was a general account of the life histories and reproductive structures
of the main types of Bryophyta and Pteridophyta together with some reference to
the gymnosperms. Descriptions of prothalli, sex organs, developmental stages in
many ferns, and alternation of sexual and asexual generations in plants was
here described for the first time. Hofmeister explained how seeds are formed:
the megaspore is not released from the megasporangium but germinates there. The
pollen grains correspond to the spores of vascular cryptogams (907).
Theodor Hartig (DE) furnished the first exact description of the
descending sap flow in the 1851 edition of his father’s book, Lehrbuch für Forster und die es Werden
Wollen (835).
Theodor Hartig (DE) discovered and described sieve tubes in plants
(836).
Edward Desor (CH-US) published observations on development of a
planktotrophic starfish (519).
Carl Vogt (DE) recognized the leeches as annelids, placed the
nematodes, gordiaceans, acanthocephalans, and gregarines under the class
Nematelmia and the true flatworms plus the nemertines under the class
Platyelmia (1944).
Karl Gegenbaur (DE) altered Vogt’s names to Platyelminthes and
Nemathelminthes. His Platyelminthes contained three groups: Turbellaria
(including nemertines), Trematoda, and Cestoda (742).
Ernst Ehlers (DE) put the nemertines in their own group, the Nemertina (613).
Charles Sedgwick Minot (US) then removed the nemertines and placed
them in their own phylum (1252).
Libbie Henrietta Hyman (US) emphasized that the etymologically
correct form Platyhelminthes (Gk. platys,
flat, helminthes, worms) should be
used (958).
Heinrich Müller (DE) discovered what he characterized as a red
pigment in the retina (rhodopsin, or visual purple). He thought it likely to be
hemoglobin (1295).
Franz Christian Boll (DE), Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE), and Carl
Anton Ewald (DE) independently discovered the visual pigment (rhodopsin) and
described the effect of light on this visual pigment found in rod cells of the
eye. They showed that light bleaches the visual pigment first to a visual
yellow then to a visual white. Kühne solubilized visual pigment (rhodopsin) and
suggested that it is a protein (193-195; 929; 1046; 1047; 1050). Boll
called the pigment sehrot (visual
red). Ewald and Kühne coined the term sehpurpur
(visual purple) and gave the pigment
its present name, rhodopsin (634; 1049).
Selig Hecht (PL-US) and Edward G. Pickels (US) formally identified
visual purple (rhodopsin) as a
protein (857).
Carl Ferdinand Arlt (AT) presented the proof that shortsightedness
is normally a consequence of an elongation of the sagittal axis of the eye (46).
Ernst Reissner (LV) discovered the membrane in the cochlea that
now bears his name (1588). This
discovery allowed the cochlea to be divided into three scalae (media, tympani,
and vestibularis).
Alfonso Giocomo Corti (IT) described the cochlear receptor organ
in the inner ear (organ of Corti) and
in the process discovered the hair cells, the rods (arches) of Corti, and the tectorial membrane (Corti’s membrane) and discussed methods for fixing and staining
mammalian epithelial cells of the cochlea. He used chromic acid, ether, acetic
acid and alcohol as fixatives with a water/alcohol/carmine mixture as his stain (435).
Gustaf Magnus Retzius (SE) observed the nerve ending on the hair
cells (1602).
Rafael Lorente de Nó (ES) showed that each inner hair cell is
innervated by one or two nerve fibers and that each nerve fiber branches to
innervate only a few hair cells (1140).
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (DE) pioneered the
scientific study of perception. In 1850, he invented an ophthalmoscope to see
within the eye, an ophthalmometer to measure the curvature of the eye, and in
1852 the phakoscope for studying the changes in lens during accommodation,
revived and expanded Young’s three-color vision theory (there are three fundamental
color sensations—red, green, and blue), and advanced the theory that the ear
detects differences in pitch through the action of the cochlea in the inner ear (1987; 1989; 1990). He
discovered that light which impinges directly on the optic nerve does not give
rise to any sensation, but that it must fall on a nerve ending in the retina
before it can be perceived.
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) confirmed that the life cycle of Salpa goes through an alternation of
solitary and chain-like colonial generations. He discovered that the solitary
form is the product of the sexual generation and the colonial form results from
budding (asexual). He determined that the tail of Appendicularia is a retained larval feature lost by most adult
ascidians. He named the phylum Coelenterata (870; 942; 944-946; 948; 951; 952; 954; 956).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) popularized the phrase describing
protoplasm as the physical basis of life.
See, Hugo von Mohl, 1846. Huxley was
the greatest champion of Darwin’s theory of evolution (957).
Josef von Gerlach (DE) was the first to show that human skin uses
oxygen from ambient air (1976).
Friedrich Theodor von Frerich (DE) theorized that uremic intoxication results from the
action of a plasma enzyme on the increased amount of urea thus leading to the
release of ammonium carbonate (1975).
Frans Cornelis Donders (NL) introduced the use of cylindrical and
prismatic glasses in impaired vision. He investigated the differentiation of presbyopia and hyperopia, along with the movements of the eye and the
accommodation of the pupil. He devised sets of letters of different sizes for
testing a patient’s visual acuity.
In his book, On the
Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye, Donders separated the
errors of refraction (the bending of light) from those of accommodation (the
change in the shape of the lens of the eye to maintain focus). He described the
errors in refraction as constant, resulting from light being focused at a
constant point either behind or in front of the retina, depending on the shape
of the eye. Errors in accommodation, he discovered, result from defects in the
eye’s focusing machinery, such as weak ciliary muscles (the muscles that change
the shape of the lens) or a hardening of the lenses. These achievements labeled
Donders as one of the first scientists who explored the physical field of the
eye (534-537).
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE), Emil Becher (DE), and Conrad
Rahn (DE) discovered innervation of the submaxillary gland and showed that its
secretion is not dependent on blood pressure but rather the gland cells respond
like muscle cells to special nerves (94; 1072; 1540). In 1856,
Ludwig found that stimulation of the lingual-chorda tympani would cause
secretion by the submaxillary gland (1155).
Pierre Paul Broca (FR) described muscular dystrophy as a primary affliction of muscle (287).
Thomas Addison (GB) and William Whitey Gall (GB) described hypercholesterolemia (FH) (14).
Thomas Addison (GB) described a case of xanthoma diabeticorum as follows: "an eruption somewhat
suddenly appeared on the arms…. It consisted of scattered tubercles of various
sizes, some being as large as a small pea…. When incised with a lancet they
were found to consist of firm tissue…. They were of a yellowish colour, mottled
with a deepish rose-tint…. [At the beginning of March] many of the tubercles
began to subside." (2135)
C. Hilton Fagge (GB) described a case of xanthomastosis with cardiovascular symptoms (636).
Julius Ehrmann (DE) described xanthomas and lipomas (621).
Georg Lehzen (DE), and Karl Knauss (DE) reported the case of an
11-year-old girl presenting with the steadily growing xanthomas, accompanied by
cardiovascular symptoms. She died suddenly, and the post-mortem study revealed
exanthomatous deposits in the aorta, with the narrowing isthmus, as in other
large arteries. Later, her sister manifested similar skin changes, highlighting
this case to be an early report on homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (1094).
Bernard Nièpce (FR) was the first to report pituitary
hyperplasia following primary hypothyroidism. He observed the
enlargement of sella turcica (bony structure around the pituitary gland)
in cretins with hypothyroidism (1345).
Hermann Kümmell (DE) crusaded in Germany for the routine of scrubbing up for surgery (1051).
Paul Fürbringer (DE) came up with a standardized procedure in
which he first washed his hands with soap, then alcohol, and finally an
antiseptic substance. Fürbringer’s laboratory-based procedure was quickly
adopted as the “gold standard” of hand disinfection in surgery (720; 721).
William Stewart Halsted (US) had rubber gloves specially made for
operating. This article makes the first mention of their use in an operating
room (827).
Jan Mikulicz-Radecki; Johannes von Mikulicz-Radecki (PL-AT)
described the use of sterilized linen gloves and a mouth
covering of gauze during surgery (2046).
Jean-Pierre Falret (FR) described a condition he called la
folie circulaire (circular insanity), of which a patient would experience
cycles of manic excitement and cycles of depression. Falret's description is
the earliest documented diagnosis of what today is known as a bipolar affective
disorder (638; 639).
Jules-Gabriel-François Baillarger (FR) described a psychiatric
disorder involving both manic and depressive episodes in the same individual, a
condition that he referred to as folie à double forme (dual-form
insanity) (69).
The journal Wiener
Medicinische Wochenschrift was founded.
1852
"Fear
not! Life still leaves
human effort scope.
But, since
life teems with ill,
Nurse no
extravagant hope".
Mathew
Arnold
(48)
"By
felling the trees which cover the tops and sides of mountains, men in all
climates seem to bring upon future generations two calamities at once; want of
fuel and a scarcity of water." Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von
Humboldt (DE) (1996).
Edward Frankland (GB) was the first to study and synthesize organometallic
molecules. During his reading of a paper to the Royal Society on organic
metallic compounds he made the empirical observation that elements possess
fixed combining powers, or "only room, so to speak, for attachment of a
fixed and definite number of the atoms of other elements." (705) This is the
theory of valence, although the term valence or valency began to be used only after 1865.
Alexander Crum-Brown (GB) developed a system of graphic formulation of compounds which is
essentially identical with that used today. His formulae were the first to show
clearly both the valency and the linking of atoms in organic compounds (451).
Carl Hermann Wichelhaus (DE) introduced the term valenz (valence) to denote what had been termed saturating capacity or atomicity (2122).
Richard Wilhelm Heinrich Abegg (PL-DE) proposed that a chemical
reaction became the transfer of electrons and that chemical bonds became the
attraction between opposite electric charges. (It turned out that he was
correct for ionic bonding but not for covalent bonding.) He suggested
that the outer electron shell governs the chemical properties of an atom.
Noting that the inert gases (neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon) all have
eight electrons and are especially stable, he proposed what become known as Abegg's
rule: the difference of the maximum positive and negative valence of an element
tends to be eight (5).
Walther Kossel (DE) and Gilbert Newton Lewis (US) independently
proposed the electronic theory of valency and brought the new atomic physics to
bear on chemical problems. This theory led organic chemists and biologists to
consider reactions in their domain as involving electronic mechanisms.
Lewis developed a theory that focused on the significance of valence electrons
(electrons in the outer shell) in chemical reactions and in bonding. Lewis’s
theory of the cubical atom layed the
groundwork for Irving Langmuir’s (US) octet
rule, in which atoms form bonds by losing, gaining, or sharing enough
electrons to have the same number of valence electrons (eight) as the nearest
noble gas in the Periodic Table. The bond formed is ionic or covalent depending
on whether the electrons are transferred or shared between atoms (1036; 1069; 1070; 1115; 1402).
Erich Armand
Arthur Joseph Hückle (DE) proposed the molecular orbital theory (930-935).
Rudolph
Pariser (US), Robert Ghormley Parr (US), and John Anthony Pople (GB) presented
the Pariser-Parr-Pople method of molecular orbital
computation (1414-1416; 1491).
Roald
Hoffmann (PL-US) developed the extended Hückel
method, a molecular orbital scheme which allowed the calculation of the
approximate sigma- and pie-electronic structure of molecules, and which gave
reasonable predictions of molecular conformations and simple potential surfaces (904).
Raffaelle Piria (IT) described populin
(benzoyl salicin) from the bark and leaves of the poplar tree (1471).
Ludwig T. Stawiarski Teichmann (PL) isolated an iron-containing
molecule from the blood of various animal types. He named it haemin (1825). Today we
know this was hemoglobin and that he
demonstrated it contains iron.
Charles
Naudin (FR) compared the origin of species in nature with that of varieties
under cultivation. "We do not believe that, when nature created species,
it acted in a way any different from the way we act to create varieties; in
plain words, we have transposed nature’s processes into our practice. What is
this process? It is to attune each member with the whole by assigning to it the
function it must carry out in the general organism of nature, a function that
is its raison d’etre." (1329)
Augustus Volnay Waller
(FR-GB) confirmed Fontana’s discovery that cut nerve cells could regenerate by
demonstrating that regeneration begins proximally to the point of the cut and
not distally to it then concluded that the cell body was necessary for cell
survival and regeneration (2082). Franz
Nissl (DE) would experimentally support this finding (1350).
Waller established that all nerve fibers are filiform cellular
processes connected with cell bodies (ganglionic corpuscles) and that the
fibers degenerate if separated from their cell bodies (2083).
He expressed his concept of the nutritive influence of nerve cell bodies on the whole fiber and
concluded that the nutritive cell bodies for the sensory fibers are in the
spinal ganglia, while, for the motor fibers, the nutritive cell bodies are in
the anterior horns of the spinal cord (2084).
He obtained experimental evidence for a perennial intraneuronal
equilibrium between anabolism and catabolism (2085).
Hermann Friedrich Stannius (DE) performed experiments on animals,
which indicated that the heartbeat can be inhibited by the vagus nerve and that
the heart contains a pacemaker. He tied ligatures between the sinus venosus and
the atrium, and between the atrium and the ventricles of a frog heart and
demonstrated that the sinus is the pacemaker of the heart, yet the atria and
ventricles are capable of independent, spontaneous contractions (1787; 1788). See, Ernst Heinrich Weber and Eduard
Friedrich Weber, 1845.
Ludwig Traube (DE) also found that if the vagus nerve is cut, the
speed of the pacemaker—consequently heart contractions— cannot be slowed (1871; 1872; 1874).
Ludwig Traube (DE), in 1852, produced the first graphic
presentation of a fever course with simultaneous recording of pulse and
respiratory frequency (1874).
Friedrich Heinrich Bidder (DE) and Carl Schmidt (DE) showed the
importance of bile in emulsifying fat in the intestine (149).
Karl Vierordt (DE) invented the first quantitative method of
counting erythrocytes. He found that man averages 5,714,400 erythrocytes per
cubic centimeter (1919-1921).
Hermann Welcker (DE), in 1853, counted white blood cells in man
and reported 12,133/ cubic millimeter (382).
Hermann Welcker (DE), in 1854, counted the cells in a patient with
chlorosis (an old word for what is probably our modern iron-deficiency anemia)
and found that an anemic patient had significantly fewer erythrocytes than a
normal person (1898).
Hermann Welcker (DE), c. 1854, made hemoglobin estimates (382).
Antony Cramer (NL) introduced dilution and counting chambers for
blood cells (448).
Magnus Gustaf Blix (SE), in 1885, offered an alternative to
counting erythrocytes. He suggested the use of centrifugal force to pack the
red cells together and to estimate their number by measuring their volume (1626).
Pierre Carl-Joseph Potain (FR), in 1867, invented the
blood-diluting pipette (382).
Georges Hayem (FR) reported the first accurate platelet counts.
The platelet numbers he reported do not differ significantly from those
reported as normal today (854).
William Richard Gowers (GB) invented the modern hemocytometer (778).
William Richard Gowers (GB) developed a method for determining the
quantity of hemoglobin in a blood sample (780).
Sven Gustaf Hedin (SE) developed a machine for measuring packed
erythrocytes—the "hämatokrit"(hematocryte) (858).
Leon L. Blum (US) laid down certain principles of turbidometry,
which led to the use of light transmission as a method of counting blood cells (187; 188).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) wrote, Handbuch der Gewebelehre des Menschen, fur Aerzte und Studirende,
the first textbook of histology. Many of his descriptions have never needed
correction (2006). Here he
found that more than one nucleus occurs in the giant cells (polykaryocytes)
of bone marrow and in certain nerve cells.
Rudolph Wagner (DE) and Georg Meissner (DE) discovered the
encapsulated receptors for touch located in the connective tissue papillae of
the skin. They conceived the stimulation of these tactile corpuscles as
pressure changes in the skin, which in turn triggered neural responses (1235; 2070). In their
honor these touch receptors are called Wagner’s
corpuscles and Meissner’s corpuscles.
George Meissner (DE) gave the first description of Tinea ungium with detection of fungi in
the nail material as the etiologic cause (1236).
Rudolf
Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) named this disease onychomycosis (1929).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) became convinced that connective
tissue cells secrete fibrillar intercellular substance (1927).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) argued that proliferation of cells to form
tissues is accomplished by cell division and that pathological new growths in
animals represent cells arising from previously existing cells (1596; 1598; 1599).
Clemens Heinrich Lambert von Babo (DE) demonstrated the rapid
separation of blood-corpuscles from the serum by centrifugation (1947).
Maximilian Perty (DE) created Ciliata for the ciliated forms of
protozoa (1452).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) grouped all the free-swimming tunicates
he had studied into the same group, Ascidiacea (sea squirts), based upon their
typical structure (943; 953).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) described how motor nerves
originate from the neurons in the nucleus glossopharyngei (anterior
horn) of the spinal cord (2006).
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) and Adolf Beutner (DE), in
1850, were the first to measure blood pressure in the pulmonary artery. They
used cats, rabbits, and dogs in which they opened the left pleural cavity then
inserted a manometer directly into the pulmonary artery (145).
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) was the first to carry out in
hemodynamics the differentiation between measurements of lateral versus
retrograde pressure. Ref
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) foreshadowed Claude Bernard's
discovery of the vasomotor system by showing in the rabbit that stimulation of
the cervical sympathetic causes blanching of the ear (305-307).
Auguste Nélaton
(FR) first described a disease characterized by sensory disorders of the lower
extremities, leading to perforating ulceration of the feet and destruction of
the underlying bones (1332). This
disease would be called Nélaton's
syndrome.
Eric Perrin Hicks
(GB) reported a family as having hereditary perforating ulcer of the foot. Derek Ernest Denny-Brown
(NZ-GB-US) reported on this same family and called the disease hereditary sensory radicular neuropathy.
It is today called hereditary sensory neuropathy type 1 (HSN1) and recognized
as the most common dominantly inherited degenerative disorder of sensory
neurons (517;
896).
Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold (DE)
first identified Hymenolepis nana syn. Rodentolepis nana, the dwarf
tapeworm, as a human parasite in 1852 (1175).
Charles Wardell Stiles (US) identified an identical parasite with
a rodent host and named it Hymenolepis fraterna syn. Rodentolepis fraterna (1802).
Hymenolepis is a genus
of cyclophyllid tapeworms responsible for hymenolepiasis.
They are parasites of humans and other mammals.
Edward Meryon (GB) was the first to give a definite description of
what is called Duchenne-Griesinger
disease. He reported on four affected brothers whom he had studied for
several years. He took pains to conduct postmortem microscopic examinations of
muscle tissue from the brothers observing the utter destruction of muscle
fibers, as well as, the breakdown of the surrounding muscle sheath, a feature
that Duchenne would fail to note (1241). Also known
as: Duchenne de Boulogne muscular dystrophy,
Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD), Duchenne's myodystrophy, Duchenne's pseudohypertrophic muscular
dystrophy, Duchenne's syndrome,
and Griesinger's disease or syndrome.
DMD was the first well-characterized muscular dystrophy.
Wilhelm Griesinger (DE) and Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne (FR)
described a condition—Duchenne-Griesinger
disease— characterized by weakness and pseudohypertrophy of the affected
muscles. The disease begins in childhood, usually between 2 and 6 years, is
progressive, and affects the shoulder and pelvic girdle muscles (564; 800). In the
1868 article he mentions his use of a biopsy procedure to obtain tissue from a
living patient for microscopic examination. Duchenne constructed a biopsy
needle (Duchenne’s trocar), which made possible percutaneous muscle biopsies
without anesthesia.
William Richard Gowers (GB) recognized that only boys are
affected, and that the disease is transmitted through healthy mothers to their
sons (779). See, Broca, 1851.
Carl von Rokitansky (CZ-AT) wrote his excellent monograph on
diseases of the arteries in which he described,
but did not name, polyarteritis nodosa
in a 23-year-old man with a 5-day history of fever and diarrhea (2057).
Carl Philipp Adolf Konrad Kussmaul
(DE) and Rudolf Maier (DE) were the first to use the phrase periarteritis nodosa and provide its classic description, the
prototype of systemic necrotizing vasculitis (1054).
Pearl M. Zeek (US) made the first attempt to classify vasculitis
by subdividing it into five categories: hypersensitivity angiitis, allergic
granulomatous angiitis, rheumatic arteritis, periarteritis nodosa,
and temporal arteritis. This first classification of vasculitis
did not include granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA – formerly Wegener’s
granulomatosis) or Takayasu arteritis (2178).
J. Davson (GB), J. Ball (GB), and Robert Platt (GB) described a
microscopic form of periarteritis nodosa that was later recognized as
being closely related to GPA and to eosinophilic granulomatosis with
polyangiitis (EGPA – formerly Churg-Strauss syndrome) (487).
Note: The most
widely accepted way of classifying systemic vasculitis includes the predominant
size of affected vessels, the association with an etiological agent (i.e.,
primary or secondary vasculitis) and the presence of antineutrophil cytoplasmic
antibodies (ANCA).
William Senhouse Kirkes (GB) discussed embolia as follows: "The
effects produced and the organs affected will be…determined by the side of the
heart from which the fibrinous masses have been detached; for if the right
valves have furnished the source of the fibrine, the lungs will bear the brunt
of the secondary mischief, displaying it in coagula in the pulmonary
arteries…but if…the left valves are affected, the mischief…may fall on any
systemic part, but especially…the brain, spleen, and kidneys." (1012)
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) demonstrated that masses in the
blood vessels resulted from thrombosis
(a term he coined) and that portions of a thrombus could become detached to
form an embolus (also his term). An embolus set free in the circulation might
eventually be trapped in a narrower vessel and lead to a serious lesion in the
neighboring parts. He also explained the genesis of thrombophlebitis and was one of the first to recognize lung-and
cerebral embolisms (1936; 1938; 1939).
Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov; Nicholas Ivanovitch Pirogoff (RU)
produced the first significant publication on the technique of frozen sections.
He thought he had invented the technique, not realizing that Pieter de Riemer
(NL) had priority. See, Pieter de Riemer,
1818.
This is also a major work on topographical anatomy and laid a firm
foundation for that field as a special area of science having great practical
significance for surgery (1473).
James Marion Sims (US), in 1845, surgically repaired vesicovaginal
fistula used lateral positioning of the patient, invention of a special curved
speculum, and use of silver sutures and a silver catheter to operate
successfully for vesicovaginal fistula, a frequent and distressing complication
of childbirth seen particularly among the poor (1761).
John Simon (GB) performed the first
uretero-intestinal anastomosis, an operation for directing the orifices of the
ureters into the rectum (1746).
1853
"Never, in any circumstances, is an optically active compound
produced by a non-living body, while almost all the substances elaborated by
nature in vegetable organisms are asymmetrical, in the manner of tartaric acid."
Louis Pasteur (1425)
Charles Frédéric Gerhardt (FR) coined the word glyceride in reference to simple
compounds forming fats and oils (746).
Patrick J. Duffy (GB) found that crystallized tristearin, a
triacylglycerol, has three melting points (570).
Johann Justus von Liebig (DE) isolated and named kynurenic (Gk. kynos, dog + ouron,
urine) acid from dog’s urine (2040).
Ludwig Karol
Teichmann- Stawiarski (PL) showed
that hemin could be crystallized from
dried blood using sodium chloride and hot glacial acetic acid (1824). By 1857
this had been introduced into forensic chemistry as a test for blood.
Johannes Petrus Müller (DE) and Ferdinand Julius Cohn (DE)
independently separated out the flagellated protozoa into their own group,
Flagellata (394).
Karl Moritz Diesing (AT) suggested the name Mastigophora to
replace Flagellata (530).
Gustave Adolphe Thuret (FR) and Joseph Decaisne (FR) showed that
in Fucus, a brown marine alga, the
eggs had to be activated by sperms before they could germinate, i.e., microgonidia
(or spermatozoids) attach themselves to the macrogonidia (or egg cell). This
represents the discovery of sexual reproduction among the cryptogams (1850-1852).
Ferdinand Julius Cohn (DE) described the life history of the alga Sphaeroplea annulina (395).
Nathanael Pringsheim (DE) confirmed sexuality in the alga and
demonstrated alternation of generations using Vaucheria, Oedogonium, Coleochaete, and Pandorina (1495-1507). Pringsheim
is honored with the genus Pringsheimiella.
Ladislav Josef Celakovsky (CZ) proposed his "antithetic
theory", according to which a regular alternation of generations occurs in
the higher cryptograms only through the interpolation of a new, nonhomologous
generation (the sporophyte) arising from the division and progressive
sterilization of the zygote of a primitive, sexually reproducing plant (353; 354).
Louis René Tulasne (FR) and Charles Tulasne (FR) demonstrated that
a species of fungal rust produces more than one type of spore and that some
rusts had three spore forms, which we now call urediospores, teliospores, and
sporidia (basidiospores) (1886-1888).
Philipp Bruch (DE), Wilhelm Philip Schimper (DE), and Theodor
Gümbel (DE) authored Bryologia Europea,
one of the most important bryological floras ever published. It set the
standard in illustration and description for all subsequent works (312).
August David Krohn (RU-DE) was the first to describe
double-shelled echinospira larvae (1041).
John Graham Dalyell (GB) performed th first embryological study of
flatworms (471).
John Snow (GB) presented the intellectual framework on which his
discoveries of the decade or two later were to be built. His most notable
application of this framework was his work on the epidemiology of cholera (1771).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB), based on comparative anatomy and
comparative embryology (largely from Karl Ernst von Baer), concluded that the
Cephalopoda, Gastropoda, and Lamellibranchiata are all members of a larger
common group (947; 955).
Edme Félix Alfred Vulpian (FR) reported on the origins of cranial
nerves III to X (2064).
Ernst Adolf
Coccius (DE) was the first to describe a break in the retina of the eye and
subsequently made the association with retinal
detachment (387).
Jules
Gonin (CH) was the first to observe the importance of retinal tears in the
development of retinal detachments (765; 766).
Jules
Gonin (CH) pioneered the procedure of ignipuncture and thermocautery, the first
successful surgery for the treatment of retinal
detachments (767; 768).
Karl Vierordt (DE) invented a non-invasive sphygmograph for
recording the pulse (1923). It was
presented at a meeting in 1853.
Karl Vierordt (DE) established the modern method of estimating
blood pressure by adding weights to a sphygmograph (sphygmos is Greek for pulse) (1922; 1923).
Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch (CZ), in 1881, invented the
sphygmomanometer. His device consisted of a water-filled bag connected to a
manometer. The manometer was used to determine the pressure required to
obliterate the arterial pulse (1954).
Augustus Volnay Waller (FR-GB) discovered the vasoconstrictor
action of the sympathetic nervous system (2087).
Smallpox (red
plague) was introduced to Hawaii by a ship arriving from San Francisco. At
least 2500, and possibly as many as 5,000 people died (1030).
1854-1860
Sweden and Germany experienced an epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis.
1854
"Dans les champs de l’observation, le hasard ne favorise que
les esprits préparés [In the fields of observation, chance favors only the
prepared minds]." Louis Pasteur {Vallery-Radot,
1909 #3757}
Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (FR) described glycerol as a
tribasic alcohol and successfully combined it with fatty acids to yield mono-
di- and triacylglycerols (138).
Richard G. Jensen (US), Joseph
Sampugna (US), R.L. Pereira (US), Ramesh C. Chandan (US), and Khem M. Shahani
(US)
described for the first time the synthesis of mixed acid triacylglycerols (975).
Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (FR) was among the first to
accomplish in vitro synthesis of
fats, formic acid, methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, methane, benzene, and
acetylene. He was the first to synthesize organic substances, which did not
occur in nature (138; 139). He coined partition coefficient, explosion wave, saccharose, and acetylene.
He was the first to use the word synthesis
to mean the production of organic compounds from their elements.
Hermann Welcker (DE) was the first to determine the total blood
volume and the size, number, surface area, and volume of the normal blood cells (2110-2112).
John Bennett Lawes (GB) and Joseph Henry Gilbert (GB) used animal
feeding experiments to clearly demonstrate that proteins from cereal and legume
seeds differed in nutritive value (1080).
The first recorded recommendation of sodium chloride as an
herbicide occurred in Germany (1858).
The first
documented insecticide in the United States was a sulfur-tobacco dip employed
to control sheep scab in 1854. The sheep mite, Psoroptes communis causes sheep scab (1733).
The inventor is unknown. The Department of Agriculture was not established
until 1862.
Wilhelm Reuling (DE) used logwood (hematoxylin) paper indicator to
show that ammonia is not excreted through the lungs during breathing (1604).
Nathanael Pringsheim (DE) noticed that
solutions of salts, acids, and sugar caused the zellinhalt (cell contents) to collapse inwards away from the cell
wall (1494).
Karl Wilhelm Nägeli (CH) discovered that many plant cells respond
to a hypertonic solution by retracting their contents. He attributed this to a
semi-permeable cell membrane allowing water to leave the cytoplasm (1324).
Hugo Marie
de Vries (NL) named and defined plasmolysis
as the detachment of the living protoplasm from the cell wall through the
action of aqueous solutions. He realized that the membrane responsible for this
osmotic phenomenon is at the boundary of the vacuole, and since it was involved
in the maintenance of turgor, he named it the tonoplast (510; 511).
Theodor Hartig (DE), while observing sieve plates, in 1837, was
probably the first to see plasmodesmata or connective
strands that sometimes connect cells (840).
Eduard Adolf Strasburger (PL-DE) introduced
the name of plasmodesmen (singular plasmodesma) (1811), The Greek
plural, plasmodesmata, became the
preferred term (1811).
Heinrich Georg Schroeder (DE) and Theodor von Dusch (DE) heated an
infusion and the air over it in a flask. The flask was connected to both a
sterile tube containing sterile cotton wool and a vacuum tank called a
gasometer where the vacuum was produced by lowering the water level. Once the
infusion and all associated apparatus cooled the vacuum tank was used to draw
fresh air through the cotton wool and into the infusion flask. Meat infusions
and malt broths treated this way remained free of putrefaction for
approximately one month. If the cotton wool was not in place a similarly
treated infusion became putrid by the second week. These two scientists were
the first to use cotton plugs to prolong the sterility of culture flasks and
tubes. They were not successful, however, in preventing contamination of milk
or of meat, without the addition of water, even when the air entering the flask
had been filtered through cotton wool (1701-1703).
Filippo Pacini (IT), during the cholera epidemics in Florence 1854-1855, microscopically examined
the blood and feces of those afflicted with the disease as well as the changes
of the intestinal mucosa of cholera
corpses. This work was done with the support of his assistant, Francesco Magni
(IT). These investigations proved the presence of millions of rod-shaped
corpuscles, which he considered to be microbes, and so named them. He stated
that cholera is a contagious disease
characterized by destruction of the intestinal epithelium, followed by extreme
loss of water from the blood (for which condition he later recommended, in
1879, the therapeutic intravenous injection of saline solution). Pacini went on
to declare that the intestinal injuries common to the disease were caused by
living microorganisms— which he called "vibrions"; he further
provided drawings of the vibrions that he had observed microscopically in
abundance in the intestine of cholera
victims (1396; 1397).
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch (DE) later isolated the cholera vibrio from cases of cholera in Egypt. Then, while in the
Orient as the head of the German Cholera Commission, he discovered the cholera vibrio in the intestinal
discharges of cholera patients,
thereby providing a ready and successful means of quarantine control of the
disease (1021-1024). This
microorganism has gone by various names including: Spirillum cholerae asiaticae (Koch), Spirillum cholerae, Vibrio
cholerae, the comma bacillus, and
Vibrio comma (Bergey). In 1965 the international committee on nomenclature
adopted Vibrio cholerae Pacini 1854
as the correct name of the cholera-causing
organism.
George Newport (GB) and George Viner Ellis (GB) proved that it was
the sperm cells, not the fluid, in semen, which fertilized frog eggs. He also
found that the point of sperm entry determines the plane of the first cleavage
and the axis of the developing embryo (1336).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) was the first to use hardening agents to
improve definition of histological preparations (1597).
Theodor Hartig (DE) reported on staining plant chlorogen granules
(chlorophyll) and other parts of the cell using gamboge, carmine, cinnabar,
copper sulfate, litmus, and ink (837-839).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) discovered the neuroglia (1928).
John Simon (GB) was a physician and public health reformer of
great importance in the 19th century. The eight annual reports that Simon
presented to the Corporation of London are the most famous health reports ever
written. They led directly to the Sanitary Act of 1866 and the great Public Health
Act of 1875. The latter provided a complete sanitary code upon which the
present system is still founded. The good public health infrastructure in
western countries is his legacy.
Maximilianus Carolus Augustus Flinzer (DE) introduced the use of
silver stain in his study of the cornea (695).
Bartolomeo Camillo Golgi (IT) discovered the silver nitrate stain
for nerve cells (763). See, Golgi, 1873
Louis-Antoine Ranvier (FR), and Santiago Ramón y Cajal (ES)
popularized the use of silver stains in neurological histology (1544; 1545).
Louis Pierre Gratiolet (FR) deduced that the two sides of the
brain control movement of the opposite sides of the body. He decided that the
progression on intellect was clear from lower vertebrates to cats to dogs to
monkeys and to man (789).
William Stokes (IE) wrote, The
Diseases of the Heart and the Aorta, which contains a very early account of
aortic valve stenosis, paroxysmal
tachycardia and a description of Cheyne-Stokes
respiration. In 1846 he described bradycardia,
Cannon waves, and heart block, since known as Adams-Stokes disease (1805; 1806).
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (IT), Thomas Spens (GB), and Robert
Adams (IE) had previously described cases of Adams-Stokes disease; the description by Adams being the most
scientific (10; 1267; 1777).
Rudolf Peter Heinrich Heidenhain (DE) demonstrated that the vagus
nerve functions to regulate heart activity; the automatic activity seemed to
him to originate in the ganglia of the heart (860).
Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov; Nicholas Ivanovitch Pirogoff (RU)
pioneered the medical use of plaster casts during the Sevastopol campaign of
the Crimean War in 1854. He conceived the idea while observing the work of a
sculptor (1475; 1476).
Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov; Nicholas Ivanovitch Pirogoff (RU)
invented an osteoplastic foot amputation at the ankle, removing a portion of
the os calcis. The foot is severed so
that part of the heel bone is left in the stump to give added support to the
lower ends of the leg bones (1474).
Gabriel Colin (FR), to explore the psychology and physiology of
the horses' feeding process, experimented with various foods and chemicals (404).
Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (US) and Fielding Bradford Meek (US), near
the confluence of the Missouri and the Judith Rivers, collected unusual teeth
later determined by paleontologist Joseph Leidy (US) to be those of the
dinosaurs Trachodon, Troodon and Deinodon, making the 1854
expedition by Hayden and Meek the first in North America to uncover dinosaur
remains (1096).
Aerztliches
Intelligenz-Blatt was founded. It became Müncher
Medicinsche Wochenschrift in 1886.
Archiv
für Ophthalmologie was founded; later renamed Albrecht
von Graefe’s Archiv für Ophthalmologie, then Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology.
Europe experiences a pandemic of dysentery (the "bloody flux").
1855
"Plants, in a state of nature, are always warring with one another,
contending for the monopoly of the soil, - the stronger ejecting the weaker, -
the more vigorous overgrowing and killing the more delicate. Every modification
of climate, every disturbance of the soil, every interference with the existing
vegetation of an area, favours some species at the expense of others." John
Dalton Hooker (GB) (912)
"For
researches [on circulatory changes] the Frog—that arch-martyr to
science—affords the most convenient subject." Carl Wedl (2103)
Hermann Emil
Fischer (DE) isolated valine from casein and determined its structural formula (677). Fischer named it valine from the Latin
validus meaning healthy (678).
Charles Adolphe Würtz (FR) proposed the correct formula for
glycerol (2174).
Friedrich Gaedcke (DE) announced that he had isolated the active
alkaloid ingredient from coca (Erythroxylum
coca) leaves. He named it erythroxyline
(cocaine) (722).
Albert Niemann (DE) is also credited with isolating cocaine from
coca plant tissue in 1859 and coining the name cocaine (1343; 1344).
In 1855, Germany introduced sulfuric acid as a herbicide in
cereals and onions (2182).
Gottleib Carl Haubner (DE) was the first to conduct digestion
trials and to discover that fiber (cellulose) is, in fact, partly digestible (850).
Wilhelm Henneberg (DE) and Friedrich Stohmann (DE), 1860-1864,
conducted trials to determine the digestibilities of all the proximate
constituents for a variety of feeds. In 1864, they
showed, among other things, that in some cases
the crude fiber was more digestible than the nitrogen-free
extract (NFE), and that the indigestible portion of the NFE
was a noncarbohydrate constituent called lignin (881).
Wilhelm Henneberg (DE) and Fridrich Strohmann (DE) studied the
fate of cellulose in the food of herbivores and found it to have a high
nutritional value. They speculated that microbial action converted cellulose
into organic acids, and methane (882).
Hans Pringsheim (CZ-GB) demonstrated that certain
cellulose-digesting bacteria liberate simple sugars, and disaccharides (1493).
William Senhouse Kirkes (GB) published a
study of apoplexy in Bright's disease. He pointed clearly to
the role of raised intra-arterial tension in the causation of arterial disease (1013).
Ludwig Traube (DE) discovered that hypertension often contributes
to advanced kidney disease as do fluid and electrolyte disturbances (1873).
F.M. von Heymann (DE) described the optic changes of malignant hypertension (1992). Later
called hypertensive neuroretinopathy
by Fishberg and Oppenheimer in 1930.
Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed (GB) was also one of the
originators of the concept that high blood pressure could damage the kidneys
and blood vessels (1194; 1196).
Theodor Hartig (DE) described aleurone grains and discovered the
nucleus in aleurone cells and was the first to describe it as the basic
component of cells (841; 842).
Karl Gotthelf Lehmann (DE) reported that fats taken in during a
meal are unaltered in the stomach then passed across the intestinal wall of the
duodenum where they appear as fat globules in the lacteals. He was mystified as
to how fats crossed the membranes of cells near the lacteals (1093).
Richard Ladislaus Heschl (AT) described the transverse gyri in the
temporal lobe (Heschl's gyri) (891). This
anatomical structure processes incoming auditory information.
Richard
Liebreich (DE) was the first to describe central retinal vein occlusion (1122).
John Russell
Reynolds (GB) described the symptomology of tabes
dorsalis (locomotor ataxia) (1605).
Heinrich
Adolf Rinne (DE) developed a hearing test (Rinne test) conducted with a tuning
fork that is used to test and compare a patients' hearing via air conduction
(normal process) or by way of bone conduction (sound to the inner ear through
the mastoid). He reasoned that if a person hears a sound for a longer period of
time through bone conduction than through air conduction, a disease is present
somewhere in the conduction apparatus (1613).
Auguste Louis Jules Millard (FR) and Adolphe-Marie Gubler (FR)
described ventral pontine syndrome (Millard–Gubler syndrome) with
symptoms that result from the functional loss of several anatomical structures
of the pons, including the sixth and seventh cranial nerves and fibers of the
corticospinal tract. Paralysis of the abducens (CN VI) leads to diplopia,
internal strabismus (i.e., esotropia), and loss of power to rotate the affected
eye outward), and disruption of the facial nerves (CN VII) leads to symptoms
including flaccid paralysis of the muscles of facial expression and loss of the
corneal reflex. Disruption of the corticospinal tract leads to contralateral
hemiplegia of the extremities (811).
Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne (FR) developed a meticulous
neurological examination to which he added electrical stimulation as a
diagnostic test in localization. In 1855, he localized
the lesion in polio to the anterior
horn cells. His great book in 1867 was a kinesiology of the entire muscular
system (563; 565; 566).
William Smellie (GB), Guillaume Benjamin Amand
Duchenne (FR) and Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (DE) described Erb's or Erb–Duchenne palsy as a form of
brachial plexus palsy most common in dystocia, an abnormal or difficult
childbirth or labor (566; 628; 1764).
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (DE-AT) wrote a monograph on colonic polyps recognizing the
relationship between adenomatous polyps
and colorectal cancers (160). He was the
first surgeon to excise a rectal cancer and by 1876 he had performed 33 such
operations.
Alexander Theodor von Middendorff (RU) wrote Die Isepiptesen
Russlands, an account of bird migration in Russia (2045).
Matthew Fontaine Maury (US) wrote the first textbook on oceanography (1220).
1856-1870
A pandemic of diphtheria
spreads into Europe, North America, and Australia. It coincides with a
deficiency of rain in these regions (1338).
Victor John Fourgeaud (US), a San Francisco doctor and legislator,
described a diphtheria epidemic in California (702).
1856
William Henry Perkin (GB) patented the aniline dye tyrian purple
(mauve) (377).
Jakub Natanson (PL) heated aniline in the presence of chloride of
ethylene resulting in a mixture that took on a rich blood-red color. This was
most likely the dye rosaniline (basic fuchsine or magenta I) (1328).
Georg Christian August Wilhelm Hofmann (DE) obtained fuchsine by
the reaction of carbon tetrachloride with aniline. Later he isolated
rosaniline, and from it, produced a series of violet dyes including aniline
blue (triphenyl rosaniline) (1993).
François-Emmanuel Verguin (FR), between 1858 and 1859, found that
reaction of aniline with stannic chloride gave a fuchsia, or rose-colored dye,
which he named fuchsin (magenta or roseine) (1529). Fuchsine is still in use as a biological stain, especially in the periodic
acid-Schiff's reagent for detecting aldehydes.
Edward Chambers Nicholson (GB) discovered a better route to the
red in which arsenic acid was employed in the oxidative condensation of
commercial aniline. He called this dye roseine (905).
Henry Medlock (GB), in 1860, patented a process for making roseine
almost identical to that of Nicholson.
Charles Girard (FR) and Georges de Laire (FR), in 1860, produced
spirit-soluble blue (aniline blue or Lyon blue) by heating magenta with aniline
(19).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) showed that
nitrates are the most suitable form of nitrogen supply for plants (220). He was
commemorated by the genus Boussingaultia.
Leon Semenowitj Cienkowski (PL-RU) convincingly demonstrated that
morphological and physiological processes on the border of animals and plants
coincide and no clear characters, delimitating the two kingdoms, can be found (376).
Arnold Cloetta (CH) discovered inosite, taurin, leucin, and uric
acid in animal lung tissue (383; 384).
Francois Remy Lucien Corvisart (FR), in 1856, was the first to
prove the digestion of proteins by pancreatic juice (trypsin) (439).
Alexander Jakovlevich Danilevsky; Alexander Jakovlevich
Danielewski (RU) experimentally separated trypsin
from pancreatic amylase by
differential adsorption (475).
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE) coined the term enzyme (Greek énzymos = leavened) to describe the pancreatic protease (trypsin). He also coined the name trypsin (1044; 1045).
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE) found that an alkaline environment
does, in fact, aid the proteolytic action of trypsin (1048).
John Howard Northrop (US) and Moses Kunitz (RU-US) were the first
to crystallize the enzyme trypsin (1357-1361).
John William Draper (US) was one of the first to produce photomicrographs,
taking pictures of what he saw under a microscope and reproducing them in a
book on physiology (554).
Angelo Malestri (IT) and Emilio Cornalia (IT) were the first to
describe inclusion viruses. They found the inclusion bodies in diseased
silkworms (433; 1199).
Peter Ludwig Panum (DK) discovered bacterial endotoxin (1409; 1410).
Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer (DE) coined the term endotoxin to describe a substance
produced by Gram-negative bacteria that could provoke fever and shock in experimental
animals (1461).
Alexander Besredka (RU-FR) demonstrated that – provided
appropriate immunization schedules were applied anti-endotoxin antibodies could
be engendered which were capable of neutralizing the poisonous effects of
endotoxin (144). Note: In the decades that followed, endotoxin was chemically
characterized and identified as a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) produced by most
Gram-negative bacteria.
Claude Bernard (FR) discovered the presence of a starch-like
substance in the mammalian liver, which he called animal starch (glycogen). He identified animal starch as the source of endogenous glucose and noted that it
is converted into maltose by the action of salivary enzyme, pancreatic juice,
malt extract, and yeast cells (127; 133-135). Note:
The liver's secretion of glucose into the blood stream in 1857d is the origin
of the doctrine of internal secretion.
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) made the first detailed study of
muscle cell granules or sarcosomes
(later mitochondria) and recognized
their wide distribution in the animal kingdom (2009-2012).
Carl Benda (DE) coined the name fädenkörner or mitochondrien
(from the Greek meaning thread granule) to identify rod-like structures found
in cytological preparations by Richard Altmann (DE). Altmann had called them bioblasts and regarded them as
microorganisms; Benda recognized them as cellularß organs (27; 101). Today we
call them mitochondria (sing.
mitochondrium). Benda developed a
staining technique using crystal violet and alizarin, which was especially good
at demonstrating mitochondria (102).
Leonor Michaelis (DE-US) discovered that mitochondria can be
stained selectively and supravitally with a dilute solution of Janus green, the
method of choice until 1952 (1247).
Margaret Reed Lewis (US) and Warren Harmon Lewis (US) described
and pondered the location of mitochondria within cells (1116).
William Starling Sullivant (US) and Leo Lesquereux (CH-US) wrote
two important books on North American mosses (1818; 1819).
George Engelmann (DE-US) produced two outstanding monographs on
the Cactaceae of the Southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico (626; 627).
Felix Joseph Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers (1856-57) reared scaphopod
embryos (tusk shells) through 35 days of larval life and described the
trochophore and veliger larvae (1058).
Alexander Onufrievich Kowalevsky (RU) later provided a more
detailed description of the trochophore and veliger larvae (1038).
Maximillian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) localized mammalian
olfactory receptors high in the nasal cavity in a small area in the superior
turbinated bone where there resided special cells with hair-like processes.
Because the area has a distinctive yellow color in humans it was given the name
locus luteus (1706).
Bartolomeo Camillo Golgi (IT) identified the endings of the
olfactory fibers, the granular cells, and the large mitral cells, along with
the arborizations within each glomerulus (760-762).
David Ferrier (GB) concluded from experiments in monkeys that
lesions in the temporal lobes often affected the sense of smell (649).
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (ES) found that the olfactory tract
projects back without crossing to end primarily in the temporal prepyriform
cortex and in the corticomedial nuclei of the amygdala (1544).
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (FR) proved that removal of both
suprarenal (adrenal) glands from dogs invariably led to an exaggerated
Addison’s disease and inevitably death. This argued for ductless glands and the
doctrine of internal secretion (308; 309).
Eduard Jäger von Jaxtthal (AT) was the first to report diabetic
macular changes in the form of yellowish spots and extravasations that
permeated part or the whole thickness of the retina (1997).
Edward Nettleship (GB) provided the first histopathological proof
of "cystoid degeneration of the macula" in patients with diabetes (1334).
Wilhelm Manz (DE) described the proliferative changes occurring in
diabetic retinopathy and the
importance of tractional retinal detachments and vitreous hemorrhages (1204).
Arthur James Ballantyne (GB) and Arnold Lowenstein (IL) provided
more evidence suggesting that diabetic
retinopathy represents a unique vasculopathy (74).
F.M. von Heymann (DE) was the first to describe retinal cytoid
bodies (in collaboration with Zenker in a case of Bright’s disease) thinking
that they were degenerate ganglion cells (1991).
Heinrich Müller (DE) correctly claimed that retinal cytoid bodies
were swollen varicose nerve fibers (1298).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) and Heinrich Müller (DE) were the
first to demonstrate that an electrical current accompanies each heartbeat.
They measured the current by applying a galvanometer to the base and apex of an
exposed ventricle of a frog’s heart. They also applied a nerve-muscle
preparation to the ventricle and observed that a twitch of the muscle occurred
just prior to ventricular systole and a much smaller twitch after systole (76; 2013). These
twitches would later be recognized as being caused by the electrical currents
of the QRS and T waves.
Edme Félix Alfred Vulpian (FR) applied a solution of ferric
chloride to slices of the adrenal glands and noted that the medulla stained
green while the cortex did not. He also noted that the same reaction was given
by samples of venous blood leaving the adrenal, but not by arterial blood
entering the gland. To account for these observations, he assumed that the
medulla synthesized a substance that was liberated into the circulation (2065). That
substance turned out to be epinephrine (adrenaline).
Berthold
Werner (PL) reported a histochemical reaction associated with the adrenal
medulla, the chromaffin reaction,
named so for a relatively specific reaction to chromate salts, observed as a
brownish deposit after fixation in chromic acid or dichromate salts (2117).
Alfred Kohn
(CZ) coined the phrases chromaffin
reaction and chromaffin cell (1029).
Heinrich Anton de Bary (DE), in 1856, while studying the fungus Sclerotina, demonstrated the action of
exoenzyme on the host, and postulated the influence of the host substrate on
pathogenicity (493).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) reported a case of pulmonary aspergillosis (1933).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) was the first to describe the atheromatous
plaque. He viewed atherosclerosis as a vascular inflammatory process (1935).
Nikolaj Nikolajewitsch Anitschkow; Nikolay Nikolaevich Anichkov (RU)
noted how high cholesterol levels promoted atherosclerosis (38).
Siegfried Josef Thannhauser (US) and Heinz Magendantz (US) were
among the first to associate both atherosclerosis and xanthoma with high serum
cholesterol levels (1828).
Robert Remak (DE) discovered the motor points—the entry points of
the nerves into the muscles – essential for stimulating the muscles by
electricity (1600).
Jakob Ernst Arthur Böttcher (DE) described the nerve ganglion
around the cochlear nerve within the internal auditory meatus (203).
Adolf Eugen Fick (DE) wrote Die
Medizinische Physik, the first book in the world dedicated to medical
physics (650).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) proposed the term erregbarkeit (excitability) for the
cell’s capacity to respond to altered nutritive action and reizbarkeit (irritability) for the cells capacity to exhibit
contraction, secretion, and conduction (1932).
William Budd (GB) published his first paper on typhoid fever. He concluded that the
specific element was furnished in the excreta of affected individuals. "The
first thing to attract attention after the disorder had become rife in North
Tawton, was the strong tendency it showed, when once introduced into a family,
to spread through the household." By his studies, Budd showed a high
probability that the specific element
was in the intestinal discharges from the fever patients and fresh cases
occurred through contact with the feces.
In another series, "kept in strict separation from one
another, as far as their persons were concerned, the common privy was almost
the only connecting link left between them. Neither dirt nor rotting manure
cause the fever but some specific element
breeding and multiplying in the body and passing to well individuals by various
routes." It was not the aesthetically objectionable and disagreeable
rotting feces that were responsible for the spread of typhoid but some specific element
in the stools from a previous case (323-325).
Austin Flint (US) was an exceptional teacher and medical
diagnostician. Through his teaching and writing he had a profound positive
influence on medicine in America. His books included: Physical Exploration and Diagnosis of Diseases Affecting the
Respiratory Organs, Compendium of Percussion and Auscultation, A Manual of
Percussion and Auscultation, A Practical Treatise on the Diagnosis, Pathology,
and Treatment of Diseases of the Heart, and A Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Medicine (690-694).
William Withey Gull (GB) was one of the first to describe the
pathological lesions in tabes dorsalis
(failure of muscular coordination) and intermittent
hemoglobinuria. He and Henry Gawen Sutton (GB) described arterio-capillary
fibrosis in chronic nephritis, called
Gull-Sutton disease (815). See, Romberg, 1840.
In 1856, bones were discovered in a cave in the Neander River
Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany by quarrymen who gave them to a local
schoolteacher and amateur naturalist, Johan Karl Fuhlrott. Fuhlrott identified
them as human and thought them to be very old. He recognized them to be
different from the usual bones of humans and showed them to the Professor of
Anatomy at the University of Bonn, Hermann Schaaffhausen. Fuhlrott and
Schaaffhausen presented papers on the fossils and the geology of the Feldhofer
Cave at a meeting of the Niederrheinische Gesellschaft für Natur- und Heilkunde
(Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society) in Bonn in 1857. They published independently at a later date (718; 1674).
William King, professor of geology at Queens College in Galway,
Ireland, presented a paper in 1864 where he argued the Neanderthal fossils of
Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen belonged to an extinct species of early human that
he named Homo neanderthalensis (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). He named
them for the Neander River Valley (tal = river in German) (1007; 1008). Note:
This specimen probably lived around 80K B.C.E.
1857
"Disease
is from of old and nothing about it has changed. It is we who change, as we
learn to recognize what was formerly imperceptible." Jean-Martin Charcot
(FR) (360)
Claude-Félix-Abel Niepce de
Saint-Victor (FR) noticed a fogging of silver chloride emulsions by uranium
salts. He reported that the blackening of the emulsions occurred even when they
were separated from the uranium salts by thin sheets of paper. He did not
appreciate the true nature of the phenomenon that probably represents the first
observation of radioactivity. Even in that early period, Niepce de Saint-Victor
already knew that the radioactive emission was spontaneous, and not due to
phosphorescence because it was detectable even months after exposure to
sunlight. Note: A case can be made that Niepce de Saint-Victor
discovered radioactivity 40 years before Becquerel(1346-1349).
Eduard Schweizer (CH) developed a solution of cupric oxide in ammonia,
which would dissolve cellulose without decomposing it (1726).
Franz von Leydig
(DE) was the first person to state in unequivocal terms that the cell wall is
not a necessary constituent of the cell. “. . . not all cells are of
bladder-like nature; a membrane separable from the contents is not always
distinguishable. For the morphological idea of a cell one requires a more or
less soft substance, primitively approaching a sphere in shape, and containing
a central body called a kernel (nucleus). The cell-substance often hardens to a
more or less independent boundary-layer or membrane, and the cell then resolves
itself, according to the terminology of scholars, into membrane, cell contents,
and kernel” (2019). Note: This book gives the best account of the rapid
growth of comparative microscopical anatomy in the two decades following
Schwann’s discoveries.
Charles Edward Isaacs (US) discovered that, “… the Malpighian tuft
or coil is covered by oval, nucleated cells, which are differently affected by
chemical reagents from those which line the capsule, and consequently have a
different organization. The Malpighian tuft is evidently, then, a glandular
structure, every way adapted for the separation of the proximate elements of
the urine…” (964). Note: Malpighian tuft or coil = glomerulus
Georg Meissner (DE) discovered the
submucosal nervous plexus consisting of small aggregations of ganglion cells,
innervating the submucosa of the alimentary tract (1237).
These became known as Meissner’s plexus.
Karl Wilhelm Nägeli (CH) introduced the term Schizomycetes (fission fungi) as a collective designation for the
bacteria (1323).
Louis Pasteur (FR) produced fermentation in a solution, which did
not contain gluten (albumin). He showed that in a solution of pure sugar with a
small quantity of ammonium phosphate and chalk, cloudiness appears, and gas was
evolved. As the fermentation proceeded the ammonia disappeared, phosphates and
calcium salts were dissolved, lactate of calcium was formed, and lactic yeast settled to the bottom. He showed
that in all probability the lactic ferment came from the air, for when he used
sterile solutions of the various ingredients and allowed only heated air to
enter, neither lactic fermentation nor lactic acid nor infusoria appeared; the
fluid remained barren. He also showed that some of the sugar was incorporated
into cellular material (1426; 1427).
Jean Baptiste Payer (FR) wrote an outstanding treatise on floral
anatomy (1435). His work
along with that of van Tieghem below represents the origin of the scholarly
treatment of floral anatomy.
Philippe Edouard Léon van Tieghem (FR) defined the plant as having
three distinct parts, the stem, the root, and the leaf. He studied the origin
and differentiation of each type of plant tissue. He studied the gross anatomy
of the phanerogams (plants with reproductive organs) and the cryptogams (plants
without reproductive organs), such as mosses and ferns. Van Tieghem created a
plant anatomy founded on the homologies of tissues and on their origin from the
initial cells (1643; 1904-1908).
Franz von Leydig (DE) described a large secretory cell, found in
the epidermis of fishes and larval amphibians. This mucous cell is peculiar in
that it does not pour its secretion over the surface of the epithelium. Von Leydig
believed that its function was to lubricate the skin; the cell now bears his
name (2019).
Karl Wilhelm Nägeli (CH) described spores that were probably Nosma bombycis, a microsporidian, when
he investigated an outbreak of a disease called pébrine in the silkworm, Bombyx
mori (1322).
Édouard-Gérard Balbiani (FR) placed Nosema bombysis, the causative agent of pébrine a disease of silkworms, in the class Sporozoa (73).
Friedrich August Brauell (DE), a professor of veterinary medicine,
carried out several inoculations to demonstrate the transmissibility of anthrax
to sheep by means of human or horse anthrax blood. Dogs and fowl were found to
resist infection. He found rod shaped objects in the anthrax bloods but did not
regard them as unique to anthrax (238; 239).
David Livingstone (GB) is credited with the first account in 1857
of a malady associated with the bite of soft ticks in Angola and Mozambique (1129).
Otto Obermeier (DE), in 1873, first described the disease-causing
ability and mechanisms of spirochetes, but was unable to reproduce relapsing
fever in inoculated test subjects and thereby unable to fulfill Koch's
postulates (456).
Relapsing fever was not successfully produced in an inoculated
subject until 1874 (456).
Albert R. Cook ( GB), Joseph Everett Dutton (GB), John Lancelot
Todd (GB), Philip H. Ross (GB), A.D. Milne (GB), Joseph Everett Dutton (GB),
John Lancelot Todd (GB), and F.C. Wellman (GB) outlined the cause of relapsing
fever and its relationship with ticks (420; 602; 1627; 2113).
Frederick George Novy (US) and Rudolph E. Knapp (US) reported the cause
of tick-borne relapsing fever across central Africa was Spirillum duttoni
(1364). Note: This microorganism
was subsequently named Spirillum duttoni, then Borrelia duttoni .
Willoughby F. Wade (GB) and Julius Jacobson (DE) characterized
cases of syphilitic retinitis (973; 2067).
Charles Locock (GB), obstetrician to Queen Victoria, was reported
to have commented that during the past 14 months he had used potassium bromide
to successfully stop epileptic seizures in all but one of 14 or 15 women with hysterical or catamenial epilepsy at a meeting of the Royal Medical and
Chirurgical Society in London on Tuesday 11 May 1857. Edward H. Sieveking (GB)
had just previously presented 52 cases of epilepsy (1743).
Claude Bernard (FR) found that glucose production continued in
diabetic cases where glycogen stores had been depleted. This was the first
recognition of the process of gluconeogenesis (133).
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (DE) justified
iridectomy for glaucoma as follows: “It seemed to me that all the
characteristic symptoms [of glaucoma] tended to one point—increase of the intra-ocular pressure…. Supported by these facts
and considerations, I considered myself perfectly justified in performing
iridectomy in glaucoma; for I knew the favorable action of the operation on the
condition of the choroid in regard to its circulation” (1979). In his
short career von Graefe performed more than 10,000 eye operations. He died at
42 as undoubtedly the most important ophthalmologist of the 19th century.
Nikolaus Friedreich (DE) gave the first description of acute leukemia (713).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) insisted that as suggestive as they are,
comparisons of adult structures are insufficient for the demonstration of
homology in animals. Only by studying the embryonic development of the various
structures from their earliest stages and determining that they follow the same
path of development can we say with certainty that they are homologous (949).
Per Henrik Malmsten (SE) described the parasitic ciliated
protozoan Balantidium coli, which was
later named by Friederich von Stein (DE) (1201; 2063). Balantidium is the only ciliated protozoan
known to infect humans. Balantidiasis
is a zoonotic disease and is acquired by humans via the fecal oral route from
the normal host, the pig, where it is asymptomatic.
Marshall Hall (GB) devised a method of artificial respiration. The
subject was first placed in the prone position and pressed upon the back,
causing an active expiration. He was then turned over on his side, with the
shoulder raised, to bring about an active inspiration (826; 1773).
Henry Robert Silvester (GB) developed a new method of
resuscitating stillborn children, and for restoring persons apparently drowned
or dead. The patient lies on his or her back, with arms raised to the sides of
the head, held there temporarily, then brought down and pressed against the
chest. Movement repeated 16 times per minute (1744).
Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer (GB) developed a method for
artificial respiration of those who were apparently drowned. Place patient
prone and face down turning their head to the side. Kneel across the patient’s
waist placing both hands flat on the patient’s lower back. Gradually throw your
weight forward onto the patient. Immediately thereafter the operator raises his
body slowly to remove the pressure leaving his hands in place. This forward and
backward motion is repeated every four to five seconds (1736).
Robert Bentley Todd (IE-GB) was the first to describe hypertrophic cirrhosis of the liver accurately,
sometimes called Todd’s Disease (1863).
Rocco Gritti (IT) described knee disarticulation using the patella
as a protective flap (1659).
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