The Legendary Red Medicine
Read all about it in "The Last Family Doctor" (Keynote Books, 2011)
A Revolution In A Tube
Rene Laennec's wooden-tube, monaural stethoscope of 1816
A Low-Tech Wonder
James Mackenzie’s clinical polygraph of 1892 (show here in a refined version of 1914) permitted simultaneous tracings, via separate receivers, of the radial, venous, and arterial pulses. Used in conjunction with an even lower-tech instrument, the stethoscope, it allowed Mackenzie to make the first diagnosis of “auricular paralysis,” i.e., atrial fibrillation, in 1898.
How’s Your Blood Pressure?
Scipione Riva-Rocci's mercury sphygmomanometer of 1896, little different from mercury-column blood pressure meters of today
It Wasn’t Pretty But It Got The Job Done
The string-galvanometer EKG machine developed by Willem Einthoven between 1900 and 1903. All its key components relied on technologies that only became available in the 1880s. The machine initially confirmed clinical diagnoses of atrial fibrillation and heart block, but came into its own after James Herrick described EKG changes in myocardial infarction in 1918.
The Mighty B-D “Empire”
The Becton-Dickinson all-metal "Empire," a general utility syringe, was available in sizes from .25 to 8 ounces. It first appeared in the B-D catalog of 1911, where it was offered with a variety of tips for all manner of irrigation (nasal, ear, intra-trachael, intra-venous, urethral, and rectal).
Organotherapy, anyone?
Following the Mauritian physiologist Brown-Séquard’s report on the rejuvenating effects of testicular extract of 1889, physicians began prescribing extracts of the glandular organs of animals to remedy problems associated with the corresponding organ in the human body. Parke, Davis’s “desiccated ovarian residue,” in capsule form, was prescribed in the early twentieth century for conditions associated with ovarian dysfunction, especially menstrual disorders.
Search Results for: diphtheria
Anti-vaxxers in Free Fall
I read a news story in which a man is dying of Covid-19 in the hospital. He is asked whether he regrets not getting vaccinated and rallies enough to reply, “No, I don’t believe in the vaccine.” So what then … Continue reading
Remembering Cholera in the Time of Covid
It came in crippling waves, the deadly intestinal infection that, in 1832 alone, killed 150,000 Americans. Its telltale symptom was copious watery diarrhea (“rice water”) accompanied by heavy vomiting, loss of internal fluids and electrolytes, and dehydration; hence its name, … Continue reading
The War on Children’s Plague
In the early 19th century, doctors called it angina maligna (gangrenous pharyngitis) or “malignant sore throat.” Then in 1826, the French physician Pierre-Fidele Bretonneau grouped both together as diphtherite. It was a horrible childhood disease in which severe inflammation of … Continue reading
Anti-vaccinationism, American Style
Here is an irony: America’s staggering production of generations of scientific brainpower coexists with the deep skepticism about science of many Americans. Donald Trump, a prideful scientific illiterate, rode to power on the back of many others who, like him, … Continue reading
Covid-19 and Trump’s Medieval Turn of Mind
“We ought to give it [hydroxychloroquine] a try . . . feel good about it. That’s all it is, just a feeling, you know, smart guy. I feel good about it.” – Donald J. Trump, March 20, 2020 “I see … Continue reading
Remembering the Nurses of WWI (IV)
“Mustard gas burns. Terrific suffering.” [The fourth of a series of essays about the gallant nurses of World War I commemorating the centennial of America’s entry into the war on April 6, 1917. The nursing care of soldiers exposed to … Continue reading
Medical Freedom, Then and Now
“A nation’s liberties seem to depend upon headier and heartier attributes than the liberty to die without medical care.” ~Milton Mayer, “The Dogged Retreat of the Doctors” (1949) Conservative supreme court justices who voice grave skepticism about the constitutionality … Continue reading
“Socialized Medicine,” anyone?
The primary season is upon us, which means it’s time for Republicans to remind us of the grave perils of “socialized medicine.” One-time candidate Michele Bachmann accuses Mitt Romney of “put[ting] into place socialized medicine” when governor of Massachusetts. Newt … Continue reading
Medicine, Health, and History 