Journal of Medical Biography最新文献

British-born Dr Edward Waldegrave Wardley (MRCSL, 1842) is an unacknowledged pioneer in the history of mental health care in Australia. Between 1857 and 1872, he assisted in the development of a policy of non-restraint across lunatic asylums in New South Wales (NSW). He then went on to extend this approach to the treatment of NSW's criminally insane patients. In addition, he trialled experiments to intellectually engage educated psychiatric patients across the colony. A prolific writer, and sufferer of chronic depression, Dr Wardley serves as a unique example of a nineteenth-century alienist with lived experience of mental illness.

Elinor Catherine Hamlin (1924-2020) was a world-renowned Australian obstetrician and gynaecologist who dedicated almost her entire adult working life to eradicating obstetric fistula in Ethiopia. Leaving behind a comfortable life in Sydney and later Adelaide, she travelled with her husband Reginald Hamlin (1908-1993) to Addis Ababa in 1959, with the view to working there for three years and helping set up a midwifery school at the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital. But the couple ended up spending the rest of their lives in Ethiopia, where they revolutionised maternal healthcare services and standardised best practice measures for fistula patient care. In 1975 they jointly opened the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital - at that time the only operating specialist fistula hospital in the world - which was destined to become a global centre of excellence in obstetric fistula surgery. Today the hospital carries on Catherine Hamlin's legacy as one of Sydney's most impactful medical graduates on the world stage.

Alice Alanna Cashin (1870-1939) was a pioneering Australian nurse whose career spanned both conflict and humanitarian service. Born to Irish immigrants in Australia, Cashin trained at St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, before expanding her expertise in London and joining the British Red Cross during World War I. Her service included critical roles in France and Egypt, and she was eventually promoted to 'seas-matron' on the HMHS Gloucester Castle. During a torpedo attack by a German U-Boat, Cashin displayed extraordinary bravery, overseeing the evacuation of over 399 patients and ensuring their safety before leaving on the last lifeboat. After the war, she managed a military hospital in England before returning to Australia to care for her ailing father and later her elderly uncle. Cashin's post-war years included a modest stint running a stationery shop and her retirement in Victoria Road. Her exemplary service earned her multiple accolades, including the Star Medal and the Royal Red Cross Medal, the latter being the first awarded to an Australian. She was also honoured with multiple mentions in dispatches and personal invitations to Buckingham Palace. Alice Cashin's legacy is memorialised at the Woronora Cemetery, with her medals and accolades displayed at the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney, reflecting her enduring impact on the nursing profession and her remarkable dedication to service and care.

Arnold James Knight was born on the 17th May 1789, the youngest of three sons and seven daughters born to Alexander and Catherine Knight of Sixhills Grange, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. The Knight family were Catholics and traced their origins to the fifteenth Century. As a child, Arnold Knight was taught by the Rev. James Simkiss, a man of profound learning and scientific knowledge, and aged 10 he was sent to Baddesley Green Academy, Edgbaston, to be taught by the Franciscan Monks. At 16, he went to St Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham to 'improve his Latin and Greek'. Oscott College today is a seminary in the Archdiocese of Birmingham but then it was also a lay school where the notable Catholic families sent their sons to be educated. At Oscott, his piety and academic ability so impressed his teachers that they hoped he would study for the priesthood but he decided to study medicine.

Jean-Nicolas Marjolin was a 19th century French anatomist and surgeon. Although not strictly speaking a pivotal figure in history of medicine, he deserves to be known for at least three reasons. He (more or less accurately) described a type of ulcer which is nowadays referred to as Marjolin's ulcer (1828); he had the privilege of operating on the world-famous Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord for an anthrax (1838); and a rose has been named after him since 1860.

Dr (Professor) Bishnupada Mukhopadhaya's life story is a testament to his dedication, exceptional skill, and unwavering commitment to advancing the field of orthopaedics in India. His impact transcends his surgical skills. He leaves behind a legacy of excellence, not just through the numerous awards he received but through the countless lives he touched, the institutions he built, and the unwavering spirit of continuous learning he instilled in generations of orthopaedic surgeons in India. His biography highlights the key contributions across various aspects of the field, serving as a source of motivation and encouragement for all those who strive for continuous learning in the field of orthopaedics.

While the contributions of Dr Marjory W. Warren to geriatric medicine are widely acknowledged, their specifics have become obscured by the passage of time. The primary objective of this narrative review of her medical publications was to clarify the contributions she made for this field of medical practice. A total of 82 publications were found. In them Warren presented a then novel and hopeful approach to the management of older patients that included making care plans derived from comprehensive assessments, implementing team-based interventions, and ensuring continuity of care. These innovations, though, took years to implement and included what would now be considered a number of paternalistic and hierarchical aspects. Objective patient outcome data was rarely presented. While responsible for innovations that remain key to the field, some of what she proposed are either no longer possible (e.g. large in-patient units with prolonged lengths of stay) or have required modifications to align with current practice.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was one of the most impactful United States political figures of the early and mid-nineteenth century. He served in Congress and as the Secretary of State for three Presidents. He died in October of 1852 and his autopsy appeared in the medical literature. Historians have reported that his cause of death was either related to a traumatic head injury he sustained in May of 1852 or from complications of alcoholic cirrhosis. In this manuscript, we will review Webster's medical history and autopsy to determine his cause of death.

The famous French scientist, Emile Roux, was previously discovered to have been secretly married to an English woman, Rose Anna Shedlock, one of the first women medical school students in Britain and Europe. Emile and Rose most likely met while in medical school in Paris, although for very different reasons, neither graduated. It was previously suggested that Rose left medical school after only a few years, although we present new evidence that that she was still a medical student four years later when she would have been near completion. Regardless, Rose moved back to England prior to taking her qualifying exams, where we found she lived at a girl's boarding school where one of her sisters was head mistress. In the following year, Emile travelled to London where he and Rose were married in a quiet civil ceremony. Soon after the wedding, Emile returned to Paris where he began working as an assistant to Louis Pasteur. In a tragic twist of fate, Rose died a year later in Madeira, which we have now noted was within days of when Emile performed his breakthrough experiments that led to the creation of vaccines in the laboratory.

The work of the serial killers William Burke and William Hare, immigrant Ulstermen who came to Scotland in 1818, is well known. When they were finally caught, having murdered 16 people and sold their bodies for dissection, Hare turned King's evidence and after a dramatic trial Burke was hanged in January 1829. The notoriety of the case resulted in a crowd for Burke's public execution that is generally regarded as the largest that ever assembled in Edinburgh for a hanging, being estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 people. A contemporary journal kept by a medical student named Thomas Hume was recently acquired by The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. It contains new information regarding a contingent of immigrant Irishmen who were present at the hanging. In the lead-up to the execution, they took up a position in front of the gallows and tried to prevent any non-Irish from approaching the area immediately in front of the gallows, a futile aim given the huge, rapidly accumulating mob. On being questioned by Hume on their motives, they said it was bad enough for Burke, 'the poor devil', to be hanged, but they feared he would be mocked and denigrated by the crowd and so they were there to keep the crowd away from him as much as they could. The Irish in Scotland at that time were a marginalised and ghettoised group who saw Burke as one of their own. Therefore, they most likely saw it as their duty to at least try and protect him during, in their view, his final and most harsh mistreatment by a society that had habitually mistreated him and them.