Journal of Medical Biography最新文献

Antonio de Tornay has been a subject of study in the last decade, in particular his medical work designed to treat the ailments of García Álvarez de Toledo, 1st Duke of Alba. Of the series of texts written for this purpose, the one named Opúsculo de cozinas stands out. It is an ambitious project that completes a consilium and a regimen sanitatis written previously for the same figure. The brief treatise was originally divided into five parts, but only the first one, on the subject of different types of meat, survives. It includes a brief section on the way to carve meat in the French style. The objective of this study is to reconstruct the intellectual figure of Tornay and analyse his work from a medical and a historical perspective. These texts, far from anecdotal, exemplify some fundamental types of Hippocratic-Galenic medicine in the vernacular, aimed at treating specific ailments by adapting them to the needs of the courtly elites.

The story of John Elmer Weeks (1853-1949) is as impressive as it is inspiring. Based on a New Year's resolution with a friend, Weeks decided to pursue a career in medicine and worked as a full-time mechanic to fund his medical school preparation and admissions process. The field of ophthalmology, and the study of medicine at large, has much to thank for that fateful New Year's resolution. From culturing the Koch-Weeks bacillus, the causative agent of a form of infectious conjunctivitis, to publishing a landmark textbook titled "A Treatise on Diseases of the Eye," Weeks has left his mark on the study of ophthalmology and medicine. Despite all these accomplishments, what may be most impressive is Weeks' admirable sense of humility. Dr David W. E. Baird, the Dean of the University of Oregon Medical School, wrote about Dr Weeks: "It would be well for every medical student and every young doctor to learn as much as possible about Dr Weeks and to emulate his high qualities." This biography, based on Weeks' autobiography and archival materials at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), aims to accomplish Dr Baird's wish.

Bernardino Genga of Mondolfo, Italy, a pioneer of surgical anatomy, taught and practiced in seventeenth-century papal Rome. He was a contemporary of Marcello Malpighi, father of microscopic anatomy and personal physician to Pope Innocenzo XII. When Malpighi died in 1694, his pupil Giorgio Baglivi performed an autopsy in the presence of Giovanni Maria Lancisi, a leading Roman physician and anatomist. Baglivi and Lancisi wrote the only reports known to date of the autopsy. Research in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano uncovered an unpublished manuscript by Bernardino Genga describing Malpighi's autopsy. Genga's manuscript, compared in this paper with those of Baglivi and Lancisi, is historically significant because it reveals his presence at Malpighi's autopsy, demonstrating he was alive in 1694. This new evidence prompts a re-evaluation of Genga's unsettled chronology and the context of his latest works, previously deemed posthumous.

Dr Konstantin Omiros Kalangos, a specialist in internal medicine, was well known in Yeşilköy, a district of Istanbul, for providing long-term care and offering free treatment to patients with limited financial means. His family background included multiple individuals across generations who received medical training and practiced medicine. During the period from the 1950s to the 2000s, when he practiced in Yeşilköy, he treated thousands of patients in the ground-floor clinic of his family's residence. In an era increasingly dominated by technological diagnostics, he maintained that medical assessment was impossible without physical contact, placing the physical examination and direct physician-patient interaction at the centre of diagnosis. Oral history interviews conducted in Yeşilköy repeatedly highlight his compassion, clinical expertise, and ethical commitment; many residents remember him as a physician who embodied the values associated with the Hippocratic Oath. This study examines the life, professional practice, and cultural impact of Dr Kalangos. It draws on materials from the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, the Directorate of State Archives, the Ottoman Archives (BOA), the Ayastefanos Greek Church Archives, family papers, oral history interviews, patient ledgers, handwritten medical lecture notes, and relevant secondary literature.

Vancouver General Hospital has a rich neurosurgical history; however, little is documented of the role the institution played in the history of extracranial to intracranial (EC-IC) bypass as a surgical therapy. A review of the literature on the history of cerebrovascular neurosurgery was performed to augment a comprehensive personal interview provided by Dr Sydney Peerless to provide a new insight into the journey towards our contemporary understanding of bypass surgery. Along this timeline, we outline key historic figures and their contributions, as well as document the first small vessel EC-IC bypass at Vancouver General Hospital in western Canada.

We describe a basic 'cross-over' trial undertaken by Sir Nicholas Gilbourne of Kent, England, in or before 1631. This was used to test the effectiveness of 'weapon salve', an ointment claimed to cure 'sympathetically' (i.e. remotely) by application to the weapon that inflicted an injury. Gilbourne reports very basic outcomes but these represent key stages of a modern cross-over trial: no treatment, treatment, no treatment, treatment. We discuss the value of such historical vignettes - even a magical one - for medical students in two respects: understanding research methodology and learning about consultation strategies. Gilbourne's conclusion is clearly fanciful but the basic principles behind his experiment are sound. Historical examples like this can inspire medical students to think critically about research methods and treatment strategies.

This paper examines Drs Julius and Edwin van Millingen, father and son physicians from a Constantinople-based Levantine family. They thrived in late 19th-century Ottoman Constantinople, a period of modernization aimed at survival amid decline. The profiles of Millingen family members set an exemplary case of the Levantine families who preferred to settle and pursue their careers in the Ottoman capital, particularly for generations in the Pera (Beyoglu) bourgeoisie, associated with the prominent industrial and literate centers in Europe. Dr Julius Michael van Millingen (1800-1878) was physician and companion to Lord Byron (1788-1824), and served as the private physician of the Sultan Abdulmecid (1839-1861), and the Queen Mother, Bezm-i Alem Valide Sultan (1807-1853) at the Imperial Ottoman Palace. He published considerable writings on balneology, then. His son, Dr Edwin van Millingen (1850-1900), an Istanbul-born ophthalmologist, worked at top hospitals, taught at the Imperial School of Medicine, and collaborated with the Société Impériale de Médecine. He reported on common ophthalmological diseases, with detailed statistics and meticulously organized tabular data. The multicultural lives of this Levantine family offer a unique glimpse into 19th-century Turkish medical history, reflecting close ties with Western medical centers.