Search

Prominent French physician, Rene Laenek, one of the founders of current clinical medicine and pathologic anatomy, proved tuberculosis to be unique and specific disease. He developed auscultation method which had been stimulated by his invention of stethoscope.

Two centuries have now passed since the birth of Joseph Dietl, whose uncommon ability, industry, inexhaustible energy, dogged perseverance, and courage contributed to the development of medical science in Europe. He also contributed to reform of the educational system, and to bringing order to the badly neglected city of Cracow. He belonged to the so-called New Vienna School of Medicine. Dietl, chief physician at the Wieden Hospital in Vienna since 1941, had voiced his disbelief in the existing therapy in such strong terms that it was recorded in the history of medicine as the program of therapeutic nihilism. Dietl demonstrated experimentally in Vienna and Cracow that bloodletting in pneumonia is not indicated, since it does not promote recovery and is indeed harmful, raising mortality rates three times compared to those patients who had received dietary treatment only. He eliminated bloodletting in pneumonia therapy. Dietl was the first to investigate and classify Galician and Silesian therapeutic springs as well as work out detailed prescriptions for spa treatments. He understood that treatment in a health resort could not be limited to balneotherapy, and he indicated that climatotherapy and physiotherapy should also play a role. Dietl described the crisis attributable to a kink in the renal vessels or ureter when the kidney dropped. It was also Dietl who gave a description of the floating kidney problem and of kidney partial incarceration, a condition still known as Dietl's crisis. He recommended conservative therapy for these cases.

Three lines of evidence suggest that Sir Andrew Clark had a significant influence on William Osler's postgraduate training: (1) numerous references to Clark in Osler's textbook of medicine; (2) the similarity of Clark's and Osler's aphoristic messages for students; and (3) personal encounters, including Clark's reminiscence that he 'had striven ten years for bread, ten years for bread and butter, and twenty years for cakes and ale'. Clark's meticulous approach to clinical problems, his work ethic and his enthusiasm for bedside teaching may have fostered or reinforced these same attributes in Osler. Osler honoured Clark's memory by helping Sir John MacAlister and others realize Clark's ambition to unite various London medical societies into a single organization, which, in 1907, became the Royal Society of Medicine.

The year 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of cellulose acetate (CA) electrophoresis by Joachim Kohn, a pathologist at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton, London. During a career in pathology that began in 1950 and spanned 37 years, Kohn published more than 50 papers in clinical laboratory medicine. He was the first to report the use of CA microbiology filters as solid supports for zone electrophoresis and the separation of hemoglobin phenotypes on CA membranes. Kohn also invented a new electrophoresis chamber and an 8-position stamp applicator especially for use with CA membranes. Beginning in 1957, Kohn pioneered the development of CA techniques for immunoelectrophoresis, counter immunoelectrophoresis, radial immunodiffusion, protein blotting, and immunofixation. He also designed a transport dressing for burn patients and was the first person to describe the use of an enzyme-based dipstick for measuring fingerstick blood glucose concentrations. This short review highlights Kohn's discovery of CA electrophoresis and his contributions to the development of this procedure.

Clinical photography in the late 19th century aimed at unveiling the hidden processes invisible to the clinical eye. Changes in the outer form hinted at deeper lying causes, and decoding these forms was supposed to extend the range of the clinical eye in to the realm of invisibility. Two suppositions supported this hope: the belief that each disease as an ontological entity showed typical exterior signs which allowed a diagnosis at sight, and the technological trust in photography as a precise and objective means of representation superior to the human eye. For a short time, clinical photography seemed to be the 'via regia" of diagnosis. Heinrich Curschmann's Klinische Abbildungen and Ludwig Jankau's periodical Internationale medizinisch-photographische Monatsschrift marked the climax of this development in Germany. Röntgen's discovery and its immediate application in clinical medicine put an end to the optimistic expectations: clinical photography was from now on only one among many different means of documenting clinical signs and findings.

Clinical practice became clinical science in the years 1720-1820. There were many reasons for this transformation. The discoveries by Santorio Santorio, William Harvey, Marcello Malpighi, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Lorenzo Bellini, Thomas Sydenham, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, were perceived by students who asked for changes in the medical curriculum. In 1761 Morgagni centered the study of diseases on morbid anatomy, a way to control at autopsy the validity of diagnosis. J.P. Frank who worked on public health and John Locke who supported a method of scientific reasoning based on asking questions were also instrumental for changes. Hospitals, formerly hospices for the poor, became places for curing and healing. Military hospitals represented models to be followed. In Vienna Marie Therese inaugurated the Allegemein Krankenhaus in 1785. In revolutionary France Fourcroy with the law Frimaire An III, 1794 gave a new rationale. Medicine and surgery were unified in the curriculum. Basic sciences were introduced. Dissection became compulsory, practical teaching became the rule. But it was with John Hunter, Domenico Cotugno and P. Joseph Desault that the great advancement was achieved. They were anatomists and therefore they made the knowledge of human body the core of medical curriculum. However experimentation on animals, as well as practical bedside teaching at the hospital also became important. Through their work hospitals and universities were associated in a common goal.

The figure of Giovanbattista da Monte (1489-1551) is associated with the introduction of clinical teaching at the patient's beside, in 1543, at the San Francesco Hospital of Padua. In the XVI century, teaching was still based on the explanation and comment of the ancient authors and the educational programme was founded on theoretical aspects. The "practical" approach consisted of the treatment "ex cathedra" of diseases according to the various parts of the body, without observing the course of the pathological events with a direct confirmation at the patient's beside.To his merit, Da Monte established the practise of training students to gather the case history, to carry out an objective examination, and to closely examine disease phenomena with lessons at the bedside of the patient. Practical clinical training was thus introduced as the crucial moment in the formation of the physician.

The article raises a question of the passion by many doctors for treating the patients with a great number of medicines. Recommendations on the medicine-free therapy are given which include giving up harmful habits and on healthy mode of life.

Pre-Holocaust German art celebrates the doctor as a hero, triumphant over disease and poor hygiene. It emphasizes the ontological conception of disease and the ability of medicine to cure pathology or remove it. Some New Objectivity artists question this conceptualization by pushing it to the extreme of realistic representations. However, the clinical encounter has virtually disappeared from post-Holocaust art. Medicine is depicted in three main ways: as an ambiguous and alien Faustian craft; with a focus on holistic notions of healing, thus avoiding biomedicine altogether; or with a focus on the subjective experience of illness, thus ignoring the interaction between medicine and the diseased person.

Eight hundred years have gone by since the death of Maimonides. An extraordinaire Jewish Spanish physician. This review of his life and achievements provides insight into the world of a remarkable 12th-century physician and may offer valuable lessons for physicians today. His descriptions of many diseases such as hepatitis, pneumonia, and many others are remarkably modern by current standards. His legacy as a physician, lives on for posterity. He was a physician of whom modern medicine would be proud if he were alive today.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a young and promising German who at age 29 decided to undertake the profession of Medical Doctor at the University of Strassburg after finishing a career in musical studies in Paris (1899) and obtaining in Berlin a doctoral degree in Philosophy and Theology. Surprisingly, Albert Schweitzer, despite his comfortable life in Europe, decided in 1913 to practice his medical career in a remote and small Equatorial African country. He devoted nearly 50 years of his life caring for the Black population at Lamaberene, where he built a hospital. In this paper, we attempt to develop some theoretical aspects related with interculturality in the medical practice of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. We begin by considering certain sociocultural variables in hospitals that give care to patients with cultural characteristics that are substantially different from those of the health care personnel who organize, administer, and execute medical functions.