The 1843 volume of The Dublin Journal of Medical Science contains this gem from Mr Robert Twiss, a surgeon from Kerry. Though it’s only a short report it made quite a stir on publication, and was still being cited in textbooks of dentistry many decades later. The first sentence is nothing if not arresting:
On the 24th of April, 1841, … Read more
In 1891 The Lancet printed this case report by Andrew Ross, a doctor who some years earlier had been practising in the small Australian settlement of Molong in New South Wales:
On Dec. 25th a messenger arrived requesting my attendance on one “Harry,” an aboriginal, who had, in an encounter with another of the race, arising through some quarrel over … Read more
William Salmon was a seventeenth-century physician and a prolific writer, the author of numerous books on surgery and internal medicine. He also practised alchemy and astrology in an age which regarded these disciplines as legitimate and empirical sciences (his contemporary Isaac Newton was also an enthusiastic alchemist).
In 1687 Salmon published a book entitled Παρατηρηματα (‘Observations’, for those few … Read more
In 1862 an Edinburgh-trained physician, Dr James Hastings, published a slim volume about the treatment of tuberculosis and other diseases of the lung. It advocates the use of substances which much of the profession would regard as unorthodox, as he acknowledges in his preface:
It has been suggested that the peculiar character of these agents may possibly prove a bar … Read more
In 1867 The Medical Press and Circular published a series of articles by the physician Dr John Chapman on a subject in which he was a world authority: flatulence. To be fair to Dr Chapman, he was also an influential publisher and an expert in psychology specialising in ‘neurotics’ – those we would now describe as suffering from anxiety disorders. … Read more
Around 7,000 people in the US are bitten by venomous snakes every year. Many of these are rattlesnake bites, but thanks to modern medicine there are only a handful of fatalities. The most important breakthrough of the last century was the invention of antivenin (also known as antivenom) – a remedy made by injecting rattlesnake venom into animals and then … Read more
This is hay fever season (if you’re reading this in the northern hemisphere, at least) – the time of year when airborne pollen makes life a misery for anybody unlucky enough to be allergic to the stuff. The condition is incurable, but a range of drugs including antihistamines can reduce the symptoms significantly. No such luck in the nineteenth century, … Read more
In 1843 a Dr T.O. Ward wrote to the London Medical Gazette on the subject of pain. A previous correspondent had suggested that victims of asphyxiation felt nothing and were insensible to pain. Dr Ward begged to differ, drawing on his own childhood as evidence:
When a boy, I was very fond of making boyish experiments on my powers of … Read more
Morning sickness is a common affliction which affects the majority of pregnant women. A few suffer a far more debilitating form known as hyperemesis gravidarum, in which vomiting is so severe that dehydration and weight loss can occur. The Duchess of Cambridge required hospital treatment for the complication while pregnant with Prince George.
In September 1842 Charles Meigs, Professor … Read more
It must have been a slow news week when The Medical Record decided to print the following story in July 1874. Any journalist is familiar with the terror of an imminent deadline and acres of empty space that need to be filled, but I’d like to think I’d never be so desperate that I had to resort to filling it … Read more