A Selected Chronological Bibliography of Biology and Medicine
Part 2B
1858— 1884
Compiled by James Southworth
Steen, Ph.D.
Delta State University
Dedicated to my loving family
This document celebrates those secondary authors and laboratory technicians
without whom most of this great labor of discovery would have proved
impossible.
Please forward any editorial comments to: James S. Steen, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, DSU Box 3262, Cleveland, MS 38733. jsteen08@bellsouth.net
1858
Stanislao Cannizzaro (IT) demonstrated the validity of Avogadro's
number (261).
Friedrich August Kekulé (DE) was the first to suggest that carbon
is tetravalent, with the ability to bond with up to three other elements and
possessing the ability to bond with one, two, three, or even four other carbon
atoms. Kekulé also allowed for double and triple bonds (942).
Archibald Scott Couper (GB), contributed significantly when he suggested
that the chemical bonds could be represented as dashes, assumed carbon to have
a combining power of four, and the ability to combine with itself (332; 333).
Kekulé structures quickly became the most popular way
of representing molecules. Kekulé along with Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf
Baeyer (DE) pioneered the concepts of structural organic chemistry.
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE) defined what would come to be
known as molecular biology. "Whenever
the body of an animal is subdivided to its ultimate parts, one always finally
arrives at a limited number of chemical atoms…. One draws the conclusion in
harmony with this observation, that all forms of activity arising in the animal
body must be a result of the simple attractions and repulsions which would be
observed in the coming together of those elementary objects." (1170)
Johann Peter Griess (DE) discovered the diazo compounds that are
so important in the chemistry of dyestuffs (749).
Josef von Gerlach (DE) while experimenting with solutions of
carmine and leaving a section of brain tissue in a dilute carmine solution
overnight, reported good differential staining of the nucleus and nuclear
granules compared with little or no staining of the cytoplasm and intercellular
substance. He concluded that previous staining solutions had been too
concentrated, and noted that the dye was absorbed by specific cellular elements
and could not be washed out. He is regarded as the originator of controlled and
standardized methods of staining in histology (1863; 1864).
Johann Florian Heller (AT) developed the caustic Potash Test for
blood in the urine (810).
Otto Maschke (DE) succeeded in extracting the reserve protein of the Brazil nut and
crystallizing it in his laboratory. Later this protein was called excelsin
(1230; 1232).
Moritz Traube (PL) and Richard
Gscheidlen (DE) proposed that catalytic power in tissues resides in proteins
and that biological oxidations are based on the activation of molecular oxygen
by intracellular enzymes (1796; 1798-1800).
Louis Pasteur (FR) reported that during the tartaric acid
fermentation he had observed an organism (probably Penicillium) to use only the dextrorotatory ammonium tartrate when
grown in a mixture of dextrorotatory and levorotatory ammonium tartrate. Thus,
he developed a practical method for separating compounds, which are identical
except for the spatial arrangement of the substituent group (1437; 1438).
Félix Archimède Pouchet (FR) began the presentation of a series of
papers to the Academy of Sciences of Paris in which he claimed that he had
proven the existence of spontaneous generation or heterogenesis. He was not of
the opinion that life springs de novo
from a fortuitous arrangement of molecules. He believed in the necessary
existence of a vital force coming from pre-existing living matter. Like
previous experimenters on the question of spontaneous generation, Pouchet
admitted that the real point at issue was whether there are germs in the air or
not (1506-1512).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) concluded that cells with more than one
nucleus arose by failure of the cell to complete its division (1543).
Karl Wilhelm Nägeli (CH), coined the term meristem, described the function of the apical cell, explained the
significance of primary meristem, and identified starch grains. He developed
the distinction between meristematic tissue (bildungsgewebe) and structural
parts (dauergewebe) whose cells do not multiply (1336).
Julius Gotthelf Kühn (DE) observed and described a fungus on
diseased potato (Rhizoctonia solani) (1041).
Spencer Fullerton Baird (US), John Cassin (US), and George Newbold
Lawrence (US) authored the most important treatise on the systematics and
nomenclature of North American birds up to that time (54).
Spencer Fullerton Baird (US), John Cassin (US), and George Newbold
Lawrence (US) authored the most important treatise on the systematics and
nomenclature of North American mammals up to that time (53).
Louis Xavier Édouard Léopold Ollier (FR) described the inner layer
of the periosteum, closest to the bone. The osteoblasts are in this layer (1395).
Heinrich Müller (DE) performed histological examinations of bone
growth including a comparison of normal to abnormal bone structure. He
described the healing of a ricketic lesion (1324).
Gustav Pommer (DE) carefully described the distinguishing
histologic features of bone structure in rickets,
osteomalacia, and osteoporosis (1505).
Heinrich Müller (DE) published descriptions of three eye muscles:
the superior and inferior muscles of the tarsal plate, the muscle that bridges
the inferior orbital fissure, and the innermost fibers of the circular portion
of the ciliary muscle (1326; 1327).
Wilhelm Max Wundt (DE) described the isotonic curves produced by muscle under continuous and constant
excitation (1995).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) confirmed Remak’s conclusion that
the cells of diseased tissue descended from normal cells of ordinary tissue.
There was no sudden break or discontinuity signifying the disease, but a smooth
development of abnormality. Thus, he helped bring disease down to the cellular
level (1840; 1845). The medical historian Ralph Herman Major states that for this
and his other great works Virchow "…was unquestionably the outstanding
physician of his generation, a man who stands aloof in the select company of
Hippocrates, Galen, Morgagni, Auenbrugger, and Laënnec. He was the creator of
the modern science of pathology, in which subject he had among his precursors
only one rival, Morgagni, and among his successors none." (1200).
Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) described the sensory
epithelium in the ear of fishes as composed of basal cells and cylinder cells,
with numerous nuclei between them, surrounded by protoplasm and having
prolongations upwards and downwards, the former passing between the cylinder
cells, and the latter between the nuclei of the basal cells. These intermediate
cells he called Fadenzellen (1661).
Rudolph Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) confirmed that syphilis is a disease, which involves
all organs and tissues of the body and showed that the causal organism is
transferred through the blood to the various organs and tissues (1841).
Casimir Joseph Davaine (FR) and Giovanni Battista Grassi (IT)
determined that humans become infected with Ascaris
lumbricoides by ingesting the eggs (376; 735).
Casimir Joseph Davaine (FR) observed that living Ascaris larvae can be found in the small
intestine of a rat 12 hours after feeding Ascaris eggs (378).
Francis Hugh Stewart (GB) was the first to observe that in host
animals not all the hatched Ascaris larvae
were promptly eliminated in the feces, but that some penetrated the wall of the
alimentary canal, and wandered to other parts of the body, during which time
they increased in size and underwent other morphologic changes (1741).
Francis Hugh Stewart (GB) observed further that the Ascaris larvae do not remain in the
lungs, but migrate into the bronchi and up the trachea into the mouth of the
rat or mouse (1742).
Francis Hugh Stewart (GB) noted that after the Ascaris larvae had passed into the
bronchi and up the trachea they then were conveyed down the esophagus and into
the intestine, and accumulated in the cecum and large intestine. After arrival
in the large intestine, a large number of the larvae are voided in the feces
without undergoing any marked change in size cr structure from the stage
attained in the lungs (1743).
Ernst Leberecht Wagner (DE) presented the first important
contribution to the knowledge of the gross pathology of uterine cancer (1915).
Robert Remak (PL-DE) having treated some 70 patients with galvanic
current believed that it was superior to faradic current for electrotherapy (1544).
Henry Gray (GB) and Henry Vandyke Carter (GB) produced the first
edition of Anatomy, Descriptive and
Surgical. This would become known simply as Gray’s Anatomy, the most influential human anatomy book in history,
going through many editions (745). Note: Gray died of smallpox
at thirty-four years of age. Carter died of tuberculosis very near his
sixty-sixth birthday. Note: "For the illustrations, he commissioned
a medical student at St. George's named Henry Vandyke Carter for a payment of
150 pounds spread over fifteen months. Carter was painfully shy but highly
gifted. All of his illustrations had to be drawn in reverse so that they would
print the right way around on paper, which must have been an almost
unimaginable challenge. Carter did not only all 363 drawings but also nearly
all the preparatory dissection."
"As a collaborator, Gray was spectacularly petty. It is not
clear whether he ever paid Carter in full or indeed at all. He certainly never
shared royalties. He instructed the printers to reduce the size of Carter's
name on the title page and to remove a reference to his medical qualifications,
to make him look like a journeyman illustrator. Only Gray's name appeared on
the spine, which is why it became known as Gray's Anatomy rather than Gray
and Carter's, as it really should have."(238)
Johannes Hubertus van den Broek (NL) pioneered work demonstrating
that many normal tissues such as blood, urine, and vegetable matter are free of
microorganisms. He aseptically cut open grapes then squeezed the juice into
sterile containers. Even after months the juice showed no signs of fermentation.
When he introduced sterile oxygen, no fermentation occurred. When he introduced
yeast cells the grape juice underwent fermentation (1828; 1829).
Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (FR) delineated tabetic locomotor ataxia as a
degeneration of the posterior roots and column of the spinal cord and the brain
stem. Characterized by attacks of pain, progressive ataxia, loss of reflexes,
functional disorders of the bladder, larynx, and gastrointestinal system, and
impotence. It develops in conjunction with syphilis
and most frequently affects middle-aged men (435; 438).
John Murray Carnochan (US) excised the superior maxillary nerve
(including Meckel’s ganglion) for facial neuralgia (266).
Philip Lutley Sclater (GB) suggested six earthly zoological
regions which he called the Palaearctic, Aethiopian, Indian, Australasian,
Nearctic and Neotropical. They are still in use (1680).
Alfred Russel Wallace (GB), while ill in Borneo, had a brilliant
insight into how natural selection works. He quickly wrote to Charles Robert
Darwin (GB) expressing these thoughts. Darwin had for many years been working
on the same theory. The two jointly published a paper, On the tendency of species to form varieties; and On the perpetuation
of varieties and species by natural selection, in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society expressing their
thoughts on the subject. This article included Wallace's paper and
excerpts from Darwin's unpublished book, as well as a letter Darwin had written
to Asa Grey on the subject in 1857 (373). Darwin's monograph was published the
following year (368).
Philip Lutley Sclater (GB) produced studies of the geographical
distribution of birds, which resulted in the classification of the zoological
regions of the world into six major categories. This was the first serious
attempt to study geographical distribution of organisms (1680).
Philip and William Lutley Sclater (GB) later extended these
studies to mammals, and it is still the basis for work in zoogeography (1681).
Alfred Russel Wallace (GB) gave an
accounting of "what animals live where and why" which helped provide
a firm foundation for the subsequent development of the field of zoogeography. Wallace’s Line separates the
predominately Australian fauna from that of Asia
(1922; 1923).
Henry Darwin Rogers (US) named the Pennsylvanian period, and
Alexander Winchell (US) named the Mississippian period; both these divisions
were given system/period status in Geology
by Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin (US) and Rollin Daniel Salisbury (US) (282; 1571; 1973).
Joseph Leidy (US) reported the findings by John Estaugh Hopkins (US),
in 1838, and William Parker Foulke (US), in 1858, of the first relatively
complete dinosaur skeleton. Leidy named this creature, found in New Jersey, Hadrosaurus foulkii (1105).
Ibis, journal of the British
Ornithological Union, was founded.
1859
"At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced
that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable." Charles
Robert Darwin (367)
"You would be surprised at the number of years it took me to
see clearly what some of the problems were which had to be solved…. Looking
back, I think it was more difficult to see what the problems were than to solve
them." Letter from Charles Robert Darwin to Charles Lyell (374)
"This depends not on a struggle for
existence, but on a struggle between males for possession of the females; the
result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring."
Charles Robert Darwin (368). This is Darwin’s definition of sexual
selection.
"It may be considered as a general fact, very likely to be
more fully illustrated as investigations cover a wider ground, that the phases
of development of all living animals correspond to the order of succession of
their extinct representatives in past geological times. As far as this goes,
the oldest representatives of every class may then be considered as embryonic
types of their respective orders or families among the living." Jean Louis
Rodolphe Agassiz (CH-US) (10)
John William Dawson (CA) discovered fossil plant remains (Psilophyton princeps) in Middle and
Lower Devonian rocks from the Gaspé Peninsula in Eastern Canada (381; 382).
Thore Gustaf Halle (SE), Robert Kidston (GB), and William H. Lang
(GB) later found similar confirming fossils and established the order
Psilophytes (780; 955).
Harlan Parker Banks (US) subsequently split the Psilophytes into
three divisions: Rhyniophytina (Rhyniophyta), Zosterophyllophyta, and
Trimerophytina (Trimerophytophyta) (72).
Jean Baptiste Joseph Dieudonné Boussingault (FR) demonstrated a
spontaneous increase of nitrates in plant-free soil (185).
Charles Hanson Greville Williams (GB) made the dye safranin (321).
Otto Maschke (DE) introduced the use of indigo to histology. He
noted that the affinity of proteins for dyes might serve to differentiate
between the different members of this group (1231).
Heinrich Müller (DE) developed a simple dichromate solution
(Müllers fluid) with an indifferent salt (potassium sulfate) that was used as a
primary tissue fixative. It has limited application as a preservative, but it
may be used as a secondary fixative for post chroming (1325).
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE) used strong salt solutions to extract
then characterize the protein he called
myosin from muscle (1042; 1045; 1052).
Carl H.D. Boedeker (DE) established the biochemical basis for alcaptonuria by isolating the chemical
cause for the darkening seen in the patient’s urine. The chemical is
2,5-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid or homogentisic acid; he named it alcapton then
later alkapton (167; 168).
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (DE) first described
central retinal artery occlusion (1865).
Edward Smith (GB) made many observations on the relationship of
human activity to energy requirements. He noted that the amount of urea in the
urine was determined by the amount of nitrogenous substance in the diet and not
by level of activity. He observed that output of exhaled carbon dioxide rose
with the level of activity (1708).
Claude Bernard (FR) reported that he was unsuccessful when he
tried to acidify blood by injecting dilute solutions of acetic or lactic acid
intravenously. The animal always died before the blood reached neutrality. Here
he also describes some organs as secreting substances outside the blood, others
as secreting substances directly into the blood, while others secrete
substances both outside and into the blood (103).
Moritz Schiff (DE-FR-CH) proved that removal of the thyroid gland
in dogs is fatal (1643). He later discovered that grafts or injections of thyroid
extracts can prevent death (1645). Schiff used ground sheep thyroid to successfully treat patients
operated on for struma, i.e., goiter.
They received injections of the extract twice a week, and after a few months
were cured. See, Albucasis, c. 1000.
William Withey Gull (GB) was the first to describe the idiopathic
form of hypothyroidism, called Gull’s disease, and associate it with
atrophy of the thyroid gland—which he regarded correctly as the adult form of cretinism (762; 763).
William M. Ord (GB), who worked with Gull, is credited with
coining the name myxedema for the
non-pitting edema he observed in patients (1401).
Antonio-Maria Bettencourt-Rodrigues
(PT) and Jose-Antonio Serrano (PT) reported success in implanting a sheep
thyroid gland under the skin of the infra-mammary area of a woman suffering
from myxedema. The operation was
followed by immediate improvement (128; 129).
George Redmayne Murray (GB) postulated
that extracts of thyroid glands should be effective in hypothyroidism. In July 1891 he presented at the Annual Meeting of
the British Medical Association his observation of a female patient with hypothyroidism (myxedema) treated successfully with hypodermic injections of
extract from the thyroid glands of sheep (1331).
Hector W.G. MacKenzie (GB) and Edward
L. Fox (GB) reported respectively that oral administration of fresh sheep
thyroid glands and thyroid extract were effective in reversing the signs and
symptoms of hypothyroidism in a
female patient (596; 1189).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) compared the serous and mucous layers
characterized by Christian Heinrich Pander with the ectoderm and endoderm of
the Coelonterata (879). See, Pander, 1817
Charles Robert Darwin (GB) published his book, On the Origin of Species by Natural
Selection. In this book Darwin gave strong support for the new paradigm
that life has had a complex, ever-changing history, i.e., evolution. He also
put forward natural selection as the force propelling evolution.
Since this was such a seminal work I offer this excerpt: "A
struggle for existence inevitably follows from the high rate at which all
organic beings tend to increase. Everything, which during its natural lifetime
produces several eggs or seeds, must suffer destruction during some period of
its life, and during some season or occasional year, otherwise, on the
principle of geometrical increase, its numbers would quickly become so
inordinately great that no country could support the product. Hence, as more
individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be
a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same
species, or with individuals of distinct species, or with the physical
conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force
to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms… There is no exception to the rule
that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not
destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair.
Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and
from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an
individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic
beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual,
and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will
thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any
species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have
called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful is preserved,
by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man’s power
of selection. We have seen that man by selection can produce great results, and
can adapt organic beings to his own uses, through the accumulation of slight
but useful variations, given to him by the hand of nature. But Natural
Selection… is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably
superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art." (368) See Anaximander, c.580
B.C.E. and Patrick Matthew, 1831.
Karl Gegenbaur (DE) emphasized that
structural similarities among various animals provide clues to their
evolutionary history. He noted that the most reliable clue to evolutionary
history is homology, the comparison of anatomical parts which have a
common evolutionary origin (668).
Albert Günther (GB) published his Catalogue of the Fishes of the British
Museum. This large work contains descriptions of over 6,800 species and
mentions another 1,700 (764).
Charles Robert Darwin (GB) performed the first experiment to
strongly suggest dispersal of aquatic invasive species by movement of waterfowl (368). This phenomenon is known as
epizoochory.
Jules de Guerne (FR) reported dispersal of algae by waterfowl (2004). This information came by way of a
report by Zacharias.
Jules de Guerne (FR) reported dispersal of leeches by duck (395).
Florence Nightingale (GB) by training, example, will, and strength
of character changed nursing forever; becoming the founder of modern nursing (1200; 1363; 1364). The first edition of her book, Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not, was published in
1859.
Starting with her service in the Crimean War in 1885 Nightingale
probably suffered from not one but four disorders. She likely had an underlying
bipolar personality disorder, which
both magnified the post-traumatic effects of her Crimean experience and enabled
her to carry on despite them. She very likely contracted brucellosis in the Crimea, and, almost certainly, it was the post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD)
that sent her to bed for thirty years after the war. She recovered from the
latter only to develop a form of dementia,
possibly Alzheimer's (1191).
Charles Marie Édouard Chassaignac (FR) was not the inventor of
surgical drainage, but he was the first to apply India-rubber tubes to drain abscesses (292).
Iwan Michajlowitsch Setschenow; Iwan Michajlowitsch Sechenov; Iwan
Michajlowitsch Secenov (RU), working with Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (DE), described
the mercurial blood-gas pump, which enabled them to separate gases from a given
quantity of blood (1695). This opened the way for studying the
relationships between gases and the blood.
Samuel Wilks (GB) gives the first clinical description of ulcerative
colitis. The patient, a 42-year-old woman, had succumbed to an illness of
diarrhea and fever, first mis-diagnosed as “arsenic poisoning.” Autopsy
demonstrated a transmural inflammation of the entire colon and terminal ileum,
initially labeled ulcerative colitis it was later re-classified as Crohn’s
disease (540; 1963).
Hugh Evelyn Lockhart-Mummery (GB) and Basil C. Morson (GB) set out
clearly the clinical and pathological features of Crohn’s disease of the
large intestine as seen in a series of 75 patients. This combined clinical and
pathological study makes it clear that Crohn’s disease is a different
disease from ulcerative colitis and that the two do not occur together
in the same patient (1149; 1150).
Jean-Baptiste Octave Landry (FR) first described a case of what
was later named Guillain-Barré syndrome (1076).
Georges Guillain (FR), Jean Alexandre Barré (FR),
and André Strohl (FR) diagnosed two soldiers with the illness and
described the key diagnostic abnormality—albuminocytological dissociation—of
increased spinal fluid protein concentration but a normal cell count (757). Note: Campylobacter
sp. infections are a common antecedent to the acute neurological disease, Guillain-Barré
syndrome.
François Leuret (FR) and Louis Pierre Gratiolet (FR) pointed out
that the two hemispheres of the brain develop asymmetrically: the frontal gyri
are formed faster, i.e., earlier in fetal life, on the left than on the right,
whereas in the occipital-sphenoidal, i.e., parietal area, the reverse occurs (1124).
Achille-Louis-Francois Foville (FR) described a syndrome
(Foville’s syndrome) caused by the blockage of the perforating branches of the
basilar artery in the region of the brainstem known as the pons. This produces
ipsilateral horizontal gaze palsy and facial nerve palsy and contralateral
hemiparesis, hemisensory loss, and internuclear ophthalmoplegia (594). Structures affected by the infarct
are the paramedian pontine reticular
formation, nuclei of cranial nerves VI and VII, corticospinal tract,
medial lemniscus, and the medial longitudinal fasciculus.
Jean-Jacques Pouech (FR) was the first naturalist to discover
dinosaur eggshells. The material was Late Cretaceous rock from the Pyrenees
Mountains (1513).
1860
Stanislao Cannizzaro (IT), at a meeting of chemists in Karlsruhe,
Germany, spoke so convincingly in support of Charles Frédéric Gerhardt’s system
of atomic and molecular weights that most chemists in Western Europe quickly
accepted it (24; 1376).
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (DE) and Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen
(DE) introduced the technique of spectroscopy into chemical analyses (960).
Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (FR) prepared invertase (beta-fructofuranosidase)
in dry form from yeast cells
by alcoholic precipitation. Invertase
converts cane sugar into glucose and fructose. Berthelot named it, ferment inversif. This
ferment’s (enzyme’s) hydrolysis of sucrose contradicts the notion that fermentation requires an
intrinsic vital force present only in living cells (120). Bèchamp (FR) called this enzyme zymase.
Victor Paschutin (DE) and Claude Bernard (FR) independently
discovered that the epithelial cells of the mucosa of the small intestine
secrete invertase (108; 1436).
Horace T. Brown (BR) and John Heron (BR) discovered invertase in the leaves of higher plants (226).
Alvan Wentworth Chapman (US) while
living in virtual isolation from academic support, first in Georgia, then in
Florida, produced his Flora of the
Southern United States; a remarkable feat (283).
Light trap development started for
insect control; chiefly for cotton leaf worm (1694).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) debated Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (GB)
and Richard Owen (GB) under the auspices of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science at Oxford, England on June 30, 1860. Their subject was
the zoological position of man, i.e., Darwin’s theory of evolution. The
audience numbered over one thousand. Although
the debate was somewhat superficial it is one of the great turning points of
human thought. The attitude of most educated people respecting our place in
nature was permanently affected. Note:
The debate was not recorded.
Wilhelm Krause
(DE) described specialized cutaneous nerve endings, which were later named Krause end bulbs (1035-1037).
Louis Pasteur (FR) wrote that he is a staunch upholder of the view
that yeast is a living organism which, during its life, splits sugar not only
into alcohol and carbon dioxide but also into other substances. Among these
other substances he noted glycerol (1442; 1443).
He demonstrated that germs are not uniformly distributed in air by
using several sterile sealed glass bulbs filled with infusion. He would break
the sealed tips then re-seal them with flame a few minutes later. Flasks were
opened and then re-sealed at several locations including: the cellars of the
Paris Observatory, the road to Dole, Mount Poupet (850 meters), Mount
Montanvert (1,910 meters), and the Mer de Glace (1,400-2,140 meters). In
general, he found that the air in rural and elevated locations contained fewer
germs than air from urban and low altitudes (1439-1441).
Robert Caspary (DE) discovered that light promotes the germination
of certain seeds (272).
Adolph Cieslar (DE) found that some colors stimulate germination
while others inhibit (297).
Lewis H. Flint (US) and Edward D. McAlister (US), using Arlington
Fancy lettuce seeds, revealed that light in the violet-blue-green region is
inhibitory to seed germination with 760 nm being the most inhibitory. They
found that yellow-orange-red light stimulates seed germination with 670 nm
being the most effective. Flint and McAlister suggested that chlorophyll, the
green pigment that harnesses light energy during photosynthesis, might be the
photoreceptor in seed germination (578-581).
Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf Leuckart (DE) demonstrated that the
worm-like parasite known as Linguatulidae (Pentasoma) found in the body cavity
of serpents and other vertebrates are degenerate Arthropoda, probably related
to the Arachnida (1117).
John McCrady (US) and Fritz Müller (DE) were the first to identify
the larvae of inarticulate brachiopods. The systematic position of these larvae
was inferred correctly from the very beginning (1244; 1319).
Fritz Müller (DE) described the swimming behavior of these larvae,
noting that they swim vertically because of the shell weight. He also observed
that larvae clap their shells together and sink when disturbed and that they
feed on diatoms (1320).
Felix Joseph Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers (FR) described larva of an
articulate brachiopod at about the same time in France (Lacaze-Duthiers 1861).
Casimir Joseph Davaine (FR) wrote, Traité des Entozoaires et des Maladies Vermineuses de L'Homme et des
Animaux Domestiques, a classic book in parasitology (377).
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm Bischoff (DE) and Karl von Voit (DE)
developed a test for studying nitrogen intake and output. By matching the
nitrogen contained in the urea excreted with that contained in the protein
ingested, they could tell the state of the nitrogen balance; that is whether
the body was storing nitrogen, losing nitrogen, or keeping the balance even.
They found that if animals were fed pure proteins such as gelatin they would
waste away and die. This line of investigation led to the discovery of
essential amino acids (140).
Adolph Eugen Fick (DE) proposed his method for measuring cardiac
output. It is based on the principle that the total uptake of oxygen by an
organ is the product of blood flow to the organ and the arteriovenous
concentration difference of oxygen across the organ. Cardiac output is measured
as the product of oxygen consumption of the lungs per minute and the
arteriovenous oxygen difference across the lungs. If there is no intracardiac
shunt, then pulmonary blood flow is nearly equivalent to systemic blood flow or
cardiac output. Oxygen consumption is measured as the oxygen extracted by the
lungs per minute by the polarographic method or the Douglas bag. His
calculations are the basis for today's procedures of cardiac catheterization (536).
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow (DE) was the first to describe the
protozoan Isospora belli. He found it
in the intestinal mucosa at autopsy (1843).
Charles Morley Wenyon (GB) officially named this parasite Isospora
belli (1952). Isosporiasis
is an uncommon diarrheal illness caused by Isospora belli. The genus Isospora
is closely related to the genera Cryptosporidium,
Cyclospora, and Toxoplasma. The parasite is now known as Cystoisospora belli
and the infection as cystoisosporiasis.
H.M. Woodstock (GB) was the first to characterize a case of human
infection (isosporiasis/
cystoisosporiasis) with Cystoisospora belli (1984).
Francois Jules Lemaire (FR), based on the germ theory of
putrefaction, suggested that carbolic acid (phenol) be used to treat wounds.
His work precedes that of Joseph Lister. Lister later applied this knowledge
and organized a system of antiseptic treatment (1110; 1111).
Gustav Theodor Fechner (DE) developed Fechner's law (the intensity of a sensation produced by a varying
stimulus varies directly as the logarithm of that stimulus) (520).
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE) noted the plasma origin of fibrin
and named its precursor form fibrinogen (1842; 1844). See, Babington, 1830.
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (DE) pointed out that
most cases of blindness and impaired vision connected with cerebral disorders
are traceable to optic neuritis rather than to paralysis of the optic
nerve (1866).
Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (FR) described a
condition he called primary
labioglossolaryngeal paralysis. The onset is typically between 50 and 60
years of age and characterized by gradually increasing dysphagia, i.e., difficulty swallowing, progressive speech defect,
from minor defect in articulation to the production of incomprehensible sound
(laryngeal). Weakness and spasticity of the muscles of the pharynx, larynx, and
tongue, spasticity of extremity muscles, hyper-reflexia, and loss of emotional
control with episodes of sudden laughing and crying (436). Duchenne’s syndrome is
a synonym.
Adolph Wachsmuth (EE) suggested the name progressive bulbar paralysis (1914).
Jean Martin Charcot (FR) and Alexis Joffroy (FR) contributed the
description of its characteristic pathology (289).
Bénédict Augustin Morel (FR) introduced the term démence-precoce (dementia praecox) to refer to a mental and emotional deterioration
beginning at the time of puberty (1306).
Emil Wilhelm Magnus Georg Kraepelin (DE) was the first to
clinically distinguish manic-depressive
psychoses and dementia praecox.
He described dementia praecox as a "tangible
affection of the brain, probably damage or destruction of cortical cells…which
was the result of chemical disturbances." (1031; 1032)
Paul Eugen Bleuler (CH) later introduced the term schizophrenia as synonymous with dementia praecox (157). "I call dementia
praecox schizophrenia because (as
I hope to demonstrate) the splitting
of the different psychic functions is one of its most important
characteristics. For the sake of convenience, I use the word in the singular
although it is apparent that the group includes several diseases." (158). See, Willis, 1664
Auguste Ambroise Tardieu (FR) first described battered-child
syndrome (1763).
C. Henry Kempe (US), Frederic N. Silverman (US), Brandt F. Steele
(US), William Droegemueller (US), Henry K. Silver (US), and John Patrick Caffey
(US) defined the battered-child syndrome,
resulting in a dramatic increase in public awareness of the impact of overt
physical abuse on children (259; 945). Note: Also called Tardieu's syndrome or Caffey-Kempe syndrome.
John Phillips (GB) diagramed the progressive but fluctuating
diversity of life on earth based on the fossil record, publishing the first
Phanerozoic diversity curve (Great Britain). His work evidences massive extinctions
at the end of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, and increased diversity in each
subsequent age (1498).
David M. Raup (US) showed that global records of the Phanerozoic
sedimentary rock record exhibit a pattern that is nearly the reverse of Britain
by itself (1533).
Berliner Medicinische
Gesellschaft was
founded.
1861-1865
The U.S. Civil War brought epidemics of dysentery, typhoid fever,
hepatitis, malaria, smallpox, measles, and venereal diseases. More
than three times as many soldiers died of infectious disease than died of
battle wounds (996).
“During the first year of war there were 21,676 reported cases
of measles and 551 deaths in the Union Army alone. Deaths were primarily from
respiratory and cerebral (brain) involvement. It was recorded, ‘This
infection is always serious, often fatal either directly or through its
sequelae. The Prognosis therefore should be guarded.
The American Civil War was the last large-scale military conflict
fought before the germ theory of disease was developed… Two-thirds of soldiers
who died in that war, 660,000 in all, were killed by uncontrolled infectious
diseases. Of these, in the Union Army over 67,000 had measles and more than 4,000
died.” Michael B.A.
Oldstone (1392).
1861
"The only satisfactory method of explaining our perception of
colors is to suppose that we have in our eyes several different sets of nerves,
one set being most affected by one kind of light and another set by a different
kind of light." James Clark Maxwell (793).
Hermann von Meyer (DE) gave the name Archaeopteryx (Archeopteryx)
to a fossil discovered in fine sandstone Jurassic strata of a quarry near
Solenhofen in Bavaria. It appeared to be intermediate in character between
reptiles and birds. The Natural History Section of the British Museum purchased
the specimen, which was described by Richard Owen (GB) (1423). In 1876 another fossil Archaeopteryx
was discovered. This fossil, which now resides in the Humboldt Museum für
Naturkunde in Berlin, is of such rare quality and importance that Dr. Alan
Feduccia says it, “may well be the most important natural history specimen in
existence, comparable perhaps in scientific and even monetary value to the
Rosetta stone” (521; 1690).
Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov (RU) introduced the term chemical structure in the following
context: "there will be possible only one such rational formula for
each substance. If then the general laws will have been derived which govern
the dependence of the chemical characteristics of the substances on their
structure, such a formula will express all these characteristics … Time and
experience will teach us best how the new formulas will have to appear if they
are to express chemical structure." (973)
Ernst Wilhelm Brücke (DE) was the first to use adsorption methods
for enzyme purification (232).
Friedrich Goppelsröder (CH) undoubtedly originated chromatography
as an analytical laboratory tool. His work employed paper chromatography to
separate individual dyes from complex mixtures (719; 720).
Thomas Graham (GB) developed the concept of dialysis as a means of
removing solute from a solution. Using parchment as the semipermeable membrane
he demonstrated removal of urea from urine (729; 730).
Thomas Graham (GB) worked on understanding the colloidal state of
matter and thus advanced the understanding of protoplasmic systems (731).
False hellebore (Veratrum californicum ) was first
recommended as a bioicide for control of imported cabbageworm (1694). It contains the alkaloid
veratrine and is also a good parasiticide. The inventor is unknown.
Adolf Friedrich Ludwig Strecker (DE) characterized a nitrogen
containing substance in bile and named it choline (1670).
Gabriel Gustav Valentin (DE-CH) was the first to use polarized
light in the study of plant and animal tissues (1818).
Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) defined a cell as, "a cell is a little lump of protoplasm, in the
interior of which lies a nucleus." The actual words are: "Eine zelle
ist ein kliimpchen protoplasma, in dessen innerem ein kern liegt." In this
paper he declares that the likeness between animal and vegetable protoplasm is
not only structural and chemical, but also physiologic (1662).
Louis Pasteur (FR) demonstrated that air really contains germs by
creating an aspirator to draw outside air through a glass tube and pass it over
a plug of gun cotton acting as a filter. After aspiration was complete the gun
cotton was placed in a mixture of alcohol and ether to dissolve the gun cotton.
The dust being insoluble collected at the bottom of the tube and was examined
under the microscope. It showed, in addition to inorganic matter, a
considerable number of small, round, or oval bodies, indistinguishable from the
spores of minute plants or the ova of animalcules. The number of the bodies varied
according to the temperature, moisture, and movement of the air, and the
distance above the soil at which the gun cotton had been placed.
He showed that infusions could be sterilized in an open flask
provided that the neck of the latter is drawn out and bent down in such a way
that the germs cannot descend into the infusion. This type of experiment,
previously used by Hermann Hoffmann (DE), removed all criticism on the question
of air, as such, activating into life an organic infusion. If the bent neck of
an open flask that had long remained sterile was cut off the infusion rapidly
teemed with living things (848; 1445; 1449). See,
Spallanzani, 1776.s
Louis Pasteur (FR) discovered anaerobes when he studied and
reported on the butyric acid fermentation. Examining a drop of fluid containing
the butyric vibrio under a cover glass on a slide, he was astonished to see on
the margin of the drop where it was in contact with air that the vibrios had
ceased to move although they were actively motile in the center. The question
immediately arose as to whether the air or oxygen was necessary to their
movement and vitality. He tested this by passing a stream of oxygen through an
active butyric fermenting liquid with the result that the fermentation was
inhibited. He discovered other anaerobes and coined the term anaérobies (anaerobes) in 1863 (1444; 1446; 1450).
Louis Pasteur (FR) showed that acidic infusions can be sterilized
with temperatures around 100°C., but alkaline infusions require temperatures
above 100°C (1445).
Louis Pasteur (FR) formulated a medium for growing bacteria, which
became known as Pasteur fluid. It
consisted of water 100 parts, pure candy sugar 10 parts, ammonium tartrate 1
part, and 1 part of ash of yeast (1444; 1446).
Louis Pasteur (FR) demonstrated that yeast can grow and ferment in
the absence of gaseous oxygen and discovered that per gram of glucose more
yeast is formed in the presence of air than in its absence. It was the first
demonstration that aerobic metabolism is more
efficient than anaerobic metabolism and the first clue to the difference in
efficiency of glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. Pasteur also observed
that in the presence of air, glucose disappeared more slowly than in the
absence of air, which pointed to the operation of a control mechanism that was
later called the Pasteur effect (1444; 1447; 1455).
John Bennett Lawes (GB), Joseph Henry Gilbert (GB), and Evan Pugh
(GB) firmly established that green plants alone are incapable of using
atmospheric nitrogen (1102).
Moritz Traube (PL) supported the idea that most respiratory
activity occurs in the tissues outside the circulatory system when he wrote … "The
released oxygen passes in a dissolved state through the capillary walls and
forms with the muscle fiber a loose combination that is able to transfer the
oxygen to other substances, dissolved in the muscle fluid, and [the muscle
fiber] can then take up new oxygen. … the fact that all organs of the animal
body require arterial blood indicates that not only the blood, but all organs
of the body respire … What we call respiration is therefore a very complex
process. It represents the sum of the consumption of all those quantities of
oxygen needed by each organ, either for its nutrition or for its maintenance.
Thus, there can be an increase in the respiration of the brain, or liver and
spleen, or indeed individual groups of muscle, without an accelerated
respiration in other organs of the body … The motive forces, however, which
oxygen elicits in the muscles, nerves, spinal cord, and brain are a consequence
of the characteristic construction and chemical nature of the apparatus in
which the oxidative processes proceed, so that these forces do not appear in
the form of heat, but in the form of their specific, as yet inexplicable, vital
functions." (1799)
Max Josef Pettenkofer (DE) designed a respiratory machine large
enough to accommodate a man. He and Karl Voit (DE) accurately determined the
respiratory quotients of protein, carbohydrate, and fat when metabolized in the
body. They were able to study man’s overall metabolic rate under various
conditions and were the first to establish the basal metabolic rate. This would
later help diagnose diseases like abnormal thyroid (1146).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) authored the first work of
comparative embryology, which includes the relationship of the notochord to the
development of the spine skull in the adult. He was the first to interpret the
development of the embryo in terms of the cell theory (1885).
Jean Louis René Antoine Édouard Claparéde (CH) discovered giant
axons in annelid worms (298).
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) wrote an essay, which was instrumental in
humans being considered in zoological terms and their origin as a result of the
evolutionary process (880). He also revised much of the information concerning fishes from
the Devonian Epoch (881).
Étienne-Jules Marey (FR) and Jean Baptiste Auguste Chauveau (FR)
elucidated the nature of the apex beat of the heart. They simultaneously
recorded the apex beat movement and pressures in the right atrium and right
ventricle in an awake horse using elastic balloons attached to catheters as
motion and pressure transducers. Access to the right heart chambers was by way
of the external jugular vein. Each movement or pressure change generated a
pulsation within the air-filled catheters and was, in turn, transmitted to a
rotating smoked-drum sphygmograph. Their finding that the apical impulse is
caused by early forceful ventricular contraction was the first graphic
recording of intracardiac events (293; 1219).
Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed (GB),using a primitive
sphygmograph, described high blood pressure (1197). He also linked left ventricular
hypertrophy to hypertension due to nephritis and reported the presence of high
blood pressure in patients without renal disease (1198; 1199).
Friedrich Wilhelm Felix von Bärensprung (DE) is credited with
being the first to describe the involvement of the Gasserian ganglion of the
trigeminal nerve with Herpes zoster
on the face (1854).
Jeffrey Allen
Marston (GB) provided the first modern clinical description of brucellosis, which
he termed Mediterranean gastric remittent
fever (1229).
David Bruce (AU-GB) was assigned by the British military to find
the cause of Malta fever, a
debilitating disease long known from the Central Mediterranean and the cause of
British soldiers dying on the island of Malta. He and his wife— Mary Elizabeth
Steele Bruce (GB) — did so by discovering that a bacterium they named Micrococcus melitensis (later named Brucella melitensis) is the cause of this infection (later called brucellosis). This is an undulant fever
like malaria, but unlike malaria it is transmitted by contaminated goat’s milk (229-231).
Bernhard Laurits Frederik Bang (DK) and Valdemar Stribolt (DK)
isolated Brucella abortus and
determined the etiology of contagious
abortion (Bang’s disease) in
cattle (71).
M. Louis Hughes (GB) suggested the name undulant fever (873; 874).
Themistocles Zammit (MT) discovered that the Brucellae are
transmitted to man chiefly through the consumption of raw goat or cow milk (2005-2007). For this achievement he was
knighted.
Bruce was an avid collector of marine copepods and is commemorated
by Botrynema brucei Browne, 1908; Nicothoe brucei Kabata; Pseudomesochra brucei T. & A. Scott,
1901; and Paramphiascella brucei, T.
& A. Scott, 1901.
Maybelle L. Feusier (US) and Karl Friedrich Meyer (CH-US)
suggested the generic name Brucella in
honor of David Bruce (AU-GB) (535).
Hubert Luschka (DE) provided the first authentic description of polyposis of the colon (1175).
Prosper Ménière (FR) was the first to attribute the sudden onset
of vertigo, tinnitus (ringing or sounds in the ears), hearing loss, nausea and
vomiting to an abnormality within the inner ear. This became known as Ménière’s disease or endolymphatic hydrops (glaucoma of the ear) (1263-1265). Note: This syndrome is easily
confused with cerebral congestion of the apoplectic type.
Thomas Henry Huxley (GB) coined the term calcarine sulcus in referring to the spur shaped hippocampus minor
in the black spider monkey, Ateles
paniscus (882).
Paul Louis Duroziez (FR) described the double intermittent murmur
over the femoral arteries as a sign of aortic insufficiency (448).
Erastus Bradley Wolcott (US) performed the first nephrectomy. It was for renal tumor (1981).
Henri Dunant (CH) wrote, Un
Souvenir de Solférino, which was inspired by his having witnessed the
suffering at the Battle of Solférino in 1859 (445). Note: The impact of his book led directly to the founding
of the Red Cross by the Geneva Convention of 1864.
1862
"Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate
practical utility may rest assured that he seeks in vain." Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1882)
William Thomson; Lord Kelvin (GB) computed the age of the Earth at
between 25 million years and 400 million years (1783).
Max Josef Pettenkofer (DE) devised a quantitative test for free
carbonic acid. The gaseous mixture is shaken up with baryta or limewater of known
strength and the change in alkalinity ascertained by means of oxalic acid. He also devised a qualitative test
for strophanthin (1490).
Friedrich Wilhelm Beneke (DE) introduced the use of the aniline
dyes to histology. He employed acetic acid colored with what he called “lilac”
anilin (94).
Alexander Jakovlevich Danilevsky; Danielewski (RU) was the first
to use preparative enzyme separation. He used selective adsorption onto
collodion to subdivide a complex mixture of enzymes into purified fractions.
His starting material was pancreatin (361).
Ferdinand Gustav Julius Sachs (DE) showed that plants like animals
respond to their environments and documented plant tropisms; worked out plant
transpiration and proved that chlorophyll in plant cells is confined to certain
discrete green plastid bodies within the cell and produced experimental
evidence that starch is a product of photosynthesis. He originated the Simple
Iodine Test for the presence of starch (1613; 1614; 1619).
Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (DE) later named these green
plastids chloroplasts (1646). See, von Mohl, 1837,
concerning chloroplasts.
Louis Pasteur (FR) discovered that the acetic acid fermentation is
due to the activity of microorganisms in the genus Mycoderma (1448).
Charles Robert Darwin (GB) wrote a book that propelled floral
ecology into respectability (369).
George Bentham (GB) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (GB) undertook the
ambitious task of compiling an unambiguous descriptive classification of all seed
plants. They produced the monumental Genera
Plantarum covering 200 "orders" (analogous to what are now known
as families) with 7,569 genera, which included more than 97,200 species. The
families recognized in this work are, in general, those recognized today (99).
Pieter Bleeker (NL) published his Atlas Ichthyologique des
Indes Orientales Néêrlandaises, a comprehensive account of his studies done
in Indonesia, featuring over 1,500 illustrations. It was published in 36
volumes between 1862 and his death in 1878. Between 1977 and 1983, the
Smithsonian republished the work in 10 volumes (156). Note: Bleeker published more
than 500 papers on ichthyology, describing 511 new genera and 1,925
new species.
The Congress of the United
States created the Department of Agriculture and included within it a Division
of Chemistry (322-324).
Henry Walter Bates (GB) observed mimicry of distasteful or
poisonous species by harmless, palatable species in the lepidoptera and
suggested that the mimics enjoy protection from predation because of their
resemblance (77). This phenomenon is called Batesian
mimicry in his honor.
Fritz Müller; Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller (DE) in discussing
mimicry explained that predators must learn through warning characteristics
which species are palatable, and that in the process some of the prey
population must be sacrificed (1321-1323).
Thomas Richard Fraser (GB), in 1862, discovered that when extracts
of Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum)
are introduced into the eye they cause the contraction of the pupil (606).
Douglas Moray Cooper Lamb Argyll-Robertson (GB) discovered its
ability to stimulate the ciliary nerves and cause contraction of the sphincter pupillae by instilling an
extract of the bean into his own eye (25).
Douglas Moray Cooper Lamb Argyll-Robertson (GB) introduced Calabar
bean extract (physostigmine) as an agent to constrict the pupil. From his
examinations of 5 tabetic patients he described what is known as Argyll Robertson pupil. “I could not
observe any contraction of either pupil under the influence of light, but, on
accommodating the eyes for a near object, both pupils contracted.” He also
studied miosis (excessive
contractions of the pupil) caused by various drugs, and wrote on the tonic pupil (26).
Thomas Richard Fraser (GB) was able to counteract the effect of
Calabar extract by use of atropine (606).
Adolf Weber (DE) reported the positive therapeutic value of
Calabar bean extracts in treating glaucoma (1934).
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (DE) and Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE)
discovered and described vertebrate muscle spindles (1043; 1886).
Bryan H.C. Matthews (GB) discovered that muscle spindles function
as proprioceptive units (1234).
Ake B. Valbo (SE) and Karl-Erik Hagbarth (SE) made recordings from
muscle spindle afferents in their own arm nerves to demonstrate the structures'
natural function as tension receptors (1817).
John William Sutton Pringle (GB) discovered that the campaniform
sensilla on the palps of the cockroach respond to strain and are mechanosensory
proprioceptors. This paper was the first to completely
describe the function of single campaniform sensilla (1517).
Herman Snellen (NL) invented the eye chart with black block shaped
letters to test vision (1712).
Ernst Kohlschütter (DE) performed the first experiments to
determine the depth of sleep throughout the night (995).
Jean Baptiste Edouard Gélineau (FR) coined the term narcolepsy, defining it as an ailment
characterized by a compelling need to sleep for short durations at close
intervals (670).
George Thomas White Patrick (US) and J. Allen Gilbert (US)
performed the first “controlled” sleep-deprivation study on human subjects (1478).
Marie Mikhailovna de Manacéïne (RU) deprived 10 puppies of sleep
for four or five days and found that it proved fatal despite the presence of
food and water. The younger the puppy the more quickly it died (397; 398).
Ludwig Mauthner (HU-AT) deduced that normal sleep could be due to
“fatigue” of the cells in the gray matter of the midbrain near the aqueduct of
Sylvius. This fatigue could cause a functional break in the sensory pathways
between the brainstem and the cerebral cortex, effectively deafferenting the
cortex (1235).
Walter Rudolf Hess (CH) showed that stimulation of the gray matter
surrounding the third ventricle of the brainstem caused animals to go to sleep.
The animals could then be roused normally (824; 825).
Maurice Raynaud (FR) described local asphyxia and symmetrical
gangrene of the extremities, i.e., Raynaud
phenomenon (1535).
Alfred Washington Adson (US) undertook innovative neurosurgery for
the treatment of glossopharyngeal neuralgia to relieve Raynaud’s Disease. Permanent relief lies in division of the glossopharyngeal nerve
proximal to the superior ganglion, through an intracranial approach (9).
Claude Bernard (FR) and Johann Friedrich Horner (CH) independently
described the effects of paralysis of the human cervical sympathetic nerves, a
condition later called Bernard-Horner
syndrome. Quoting Horner, "The pupil of the right eye is considerably
more constricted than that of the left, but reacts to light; the globe has sunk
inward very slightly…. Both eyes…have normal visual acuity. During the clinical
discussion of the case, the right side of her face became red and warm…while
the left side remained pale and cool. The right side seemed turgid and rounded,
the left more sunken and angular; the one perfectly dry, the other moist. The
boundary of the redness and warmth was exactly in the midline." (104; 862)
Claude Bernard (FR) discovered that if he severed the cervical
sympathetic nerve there was an accompanying rise in local skin temperature (104).
Friedrich Albert Zenker (DE) was the first to describe pulmonary fat embolism in man (2009).
Aldred Scott Warthin (US) provided a classic description of fat embolism (1933).
Richard Owen (GB) discovered the parathyroid glands while
performing necropsy on a rhinoceros, which had died at the London Zoo (1422). The necropsy took place in 1850.
Ivor Sandström (SE) described human parathyroid glands (1626).
Austin Flint (US) described a type of heart murmur that is called
Flint’s Murmur or Austin Flint Murmur
in his honor. It is a presystolic or late diastolic (mitral) heart murmur
present in some cases of aortic insufficiency and best heard at the apex of the
heart (577).
William Withey Gull (GB) described the clinical signs of syringomyelia (abnormal liquid filled
cavities within the spinal cord) (761).
Hans Chiari (AT) coined the term syringomyelia (294).
1863-1879
The fourth cholera pandemic of the 19th century appeared in
Bengal, India then spread to the Middle East where it killed 30,000 pilgrims to
Mec From there it spread by way of Suez to Mediterranean ports then on to
Africa, Western Europe, North America, and Russia. It arrived in New York on a
ship coming from France in October 1865 and spread rapidly. Public health
reform kept the death toll lower than in previous epidemics, but there were
tens of thousands of deaths nonetheless. Another wave swept through the South
and Midwest in 1873, hitting particularly hard in the Mississippi and Ohio
valleys. It claimed 90,000 lives in Russia during 1866. In Zanzibar 70,000
people were reported to have died in 1869–70 (181; 258; 996; 1359).
1863
"I propose with all kinds of
misgivings these new words aerobic and anaerobic, to indicate
the existence of two classes [of microbe] ... those which
survive only in the presence of free oxygen gas, and those which can
multiply without contact with free oxygen." Louis Pasteur (1450)
Carl A. Martius (DE-GB), John Dale (GB) and Heinrich Caro
(DE-GB-DE) synthesized Manchester brown (Bismarck brown), and Manchester yellow
(Martius yellow). The patent for Bismarck brown is English Patent #3307 of
1863.
Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried Waldeyer (DE) introduced the use of
logwood extract (hematoxylin) to histology (1918).
Franz Böhmer (DE) introduced the use of crystalline hematoxylin
(from logwood) to histology and dramatically increased its staining power by using
it in the presence of alum as a mordant. He also used hematoxylin in the
presence of chromium and in the presence of copper sulfate (169). Hematoxylin is the most widely used natural dye in
histotechnology. It will stain tissue components such as myelin, elastic and
collagenic fibers, muscle striations, mitochondria and so on, but its most
common application is as a nuclear dye in the standard hematoxylin and eosin
stain, the primary staining method for tissue section analysis. Hematoxylin is obtained from the
logwood tree Hematoxylon campechianum,
in the order Leguminosae (Genus Eucaesalpinieae), and so named because of the
reddish color of its heartwood (from the Greek hemato, blood, and xylo,
wood) and young leaves.
Ernst Fischer (DE) introduced the use of eosin to histology (550).
A. Wissowzky () introduced the combination of the hematoxylin and
eosin (H&E) dyes to stain tissues (1978). Hematoxylin, or more correctly its
oxidized form hematin binds with a mordant (typically Aluminum 3+) to stain DNA
in cellular matter. It is thought to bind with the negatively charged phosphate
groups that comprise the DNA backbone and then undergo complex coordination or
conjugation to become a permanent stain of the nucleus. Together with its
Aluminum 3+ mordant, the dye produces a blue color in neutral to basic
conditions. Conversely, the anionic Eosin Y will bind to positively charged
groups on proteins, such as amino groups. Lysine residues, for example have and
ε-amino group with pKa’s in the range of 10, such that they will remain as
positive ions throughout the staining process.
Rudolf Albert von Kölliker (CH) coined the term cytoplasm (1887).
Pierre Alain Bitot (FR) concluded that night blindness and xerophthalmia
are manifestations of the same condition (141).
Masamichi Mori (JP) discovered that
both night blindness and xerophthalmia could be cured by
cod-liver oil (1308).
Hippocrates, c. 400 B.C.E.,
recommended eating raw liver as a treatment of night blindness (1144).
Elmer Verner McCollum (US), Marguerite Davis (US), Thomas Burr
Osborne (US), Lafayette Benedict Mendel (US), Edna L. Ferry (US), and Alfred J.
Wakeman (US) showed that rats developed xerophthalmia
on diets in which lard supplied the fat; the condition was cured by
substitution of butterfat. This was an early indicator of fat-soluble vitamin A
(retinol) (1240-1242; 1410; 1411; 1413).
E. Freise (DE), Max Goldschmidt (DE-US), and A. Frank (DE) were
the first to analyze the histology of vitamin A (retinol) dietary depletion. In
young rats they found that eyelashes fell out, the sclerotic coat became dry
with keratomalacia, the cornea clouded and ulcerated, and their coats became
rough (610; 686).
Carl E. Bloch (DK) was the first to study what was later
identified as vitamin A (retinol) deficiency in humans. He carried out
nutritional experiments with malnourished children during World War I
and realized that both xerophthalmia and night blindness could be reversed
by a diet including whole milk or butter (162; 163).
Edward Mellanby (GB), Elmer Verner McCollum (US), Nina Simmonds
(US), J. Ernestine Becker (US), and Paul Galpin Shipley (US) demonstrated that
rickets results from a deficiency in the human diet. The deficiency is in what
was called fat soluble A common in
cod-liver oil, butter, and suet (1243; 1251-1255). Later it was found that fat-soluble A is complex, containing
among other things vitamin A (retinol) and vitamin D. Vitamin D proved to
promote calcium deposition therefore, it was the antirachitic factor (1243).
Alarik Frithjof Holmgren (SE) reported that the uptake of oxygen
by blood in the lungs assists the release of carbon dioxide by blood in the
lungs (853).
Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (DE) established the
protoplasm concept and, after noting the essential similarity between the cell
contents of protozoa, plants and animals, concluded that "the cell is an
accumulation of living substance or protoplasm
definitely delimited in space and possessing a cell membrane and nucleus." (1663)
Paul Ehrlich (DE) rediscovered the mast cell, and named it such, in his medical thesis entitled, Contributions to the Theory and Practice of
Histological Staining (461).
Carl Joseph Eberth (DE) observed ciliated epithelium within the
air-passages and later in liver cysts (452; 453).
Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne (DE) saw a nematode swimming freely within
muscle fiber. In its movements, the parasite clearly passed through the
striated part of the muscle, which closed again behind the nematode’s tail. He
concluded that the fiber was not as solid as most people thought and reasoned
that they consisted of a concentrated solution of albumins (1044).
Carl Remigius Fresenius (DE), in 1863, was among the first to use
a solid culture medium (slices of potato) for culture of microorganisms (612).
See, Pier’ Antonio Micheli, 1729.
Louis Pasteur (FR) observed the bacterial fermentation of ammonium
tartrate under oil in the absence of gaseous oxygen. He used the terms aerobic
and anaerobic to indicate microorganisms that live with or without free oxygen (1450).
Louis Pasteur (FR) was one of the first to realize the indispensability
of decay for the maintenance of life on earth, and to state explicitly that
microbes are the driving force in the process. He stated that putrefaction was
produced by organized ferments of the genus Vibrio,
and he described the appearances in point of time of the different bacteria,
aerobic and anaerobic, which bring about the putrefactive changes in organic
matter. These observations stimulated many investigator to look into the role
of microorganisms in putrefaction, putrid intoxication, wound infections,
pyemia, and septicemia (1450).
John William Draper (GB-US) showed that plants grown in solutions
of sodium bicarbonate could liberate oxygen in the light (429).
Carl Claus (DE) wrote a monograph on the marine free-living
copepods. It represents a major starting point of our knowledge of these
organisms (301).
Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf Leuckart (DE) published a study on the
parasites of man in which he worked out the complicated life histories of many
tapeworms and flukes. He created the subphylum Sporozoa for the spore-forming
parasitic protozoa. They are characterized by alternations of the asexual
(schizogony) and sexual (sporogony) generations. He created the subclass
Coccidia for those sporozoans requiring only one host (1118; 1119; 1123). Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (DE)
recorded the first instance of coccidiosis in the small intestine of man (1843).
Henry Walter Bates (GB) wrote The
Naturalist on the River Amazons, perhaps the best natural history written
during the nineteenth century (78).