TRUE STORIES OF PIONEER PATIENTS AND MEDICAL DISCOVERY
Carl didn't know what was happening to his wife. The German railway clerk from Morfelder Landstasse and his wife Auguste had been happily married for twenty-eight years. The marriage produced one daughter, Thekla, and their marriage had always being harmonious; that is, until one Spring when Auguste suddenly exhibited signs of jealousy. Auguste accused Carl... Continue Reading →
In his haste to leave Upbury Farm in Yetminster, Benjamin Jesty did not even bother to mend the broken gates and fences for the new owner. He didn’t care about paying the heavy fine for the infraction, as was customary in 1796. Jesty, a farmer in his mid-sixties, hefty, balding, with a reveried gaze, was... Continue Reading →
The surgery to repair a chest deformity on fourteen-year-old Dick Heyard was going well. It was 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio, when the gangly teenager—exceptionally tall at over six feet—began having breathing problems because of his worsening funnel chest. His front torso was so caved in that his lungs barely had a third of the normal... Continue Reading →
This article also appeared in Time and HNN It is a master of stealth, stretching less than half an inch long and weighing in at 2.5 milligrams with as estimated air speed of 1 to 1.5 miles per hour. It is virtually soundless in flight, registering zero decibels from ten feet. Its tracking systems hone... Continue Reading →
A Glance at the Sometimes Gruesome Roots of CPR "How did you die?" In this 1950 educational film by The Beck Heart Foundation, a burly host was asking this simple question to a panel of eleven men and women. This was before CPR became a household term , before "Resuscitation Annie" was invented, and before Automatic External... Continue Reading →
Ronald Reagan’s last letter to the American people, penned with his own hand in November, 1994, went directly to the point: “My Fellow Americans, I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease.” In this deeply poignant moment, the former President explained that... Continue Reading →
In the field of cardiac surgery, the 1950s has been considered the golden decade as pioneer after pioneer introduced innovation after innovation to treat serious heart conditions. Walter Lillehei in Minnesotta, Wilfred Gordon Bigelow in Toronto, William Chardack in Buffalo, and Ake Senning in Stockholm were some of the trailblazers of that era. The four... Continue Reading →
A hundred years ago there were no medications for diabetes. It was a terminal illness where the only hope for prolonging life was to severely limit the food intake of diabetic patients. Below is an excerpt from the The Starvation Treatment of Diabetes by Lewis Webb Hill and Rena Eckman, published in 1916. It is from the Project... Continue Reading →
1. It wasn't called insulin During their early dog experiments on pancreatic extracts in August 1921, Frederick Banting and Charles Best named the yet unknown substance "isletin". The name was a reference to the Islets of Langerhans - cells in the pancreas that were suspected to produce a substance that regulated blood sugar levels. Later... Continue Reading →
Crowdsourcing Blood Donors in the 19th Century The transfusion of human blood started out as a very personal affair. Blood donors, usually the patient’s relatives or sometimes even their doctors, relinquished blood at the bedside. The blood was then transfused directly from one person to another using a simple syringe or special contraptions. Early 19th... Continue Reading →
In 2012 I was completing a continuing medical education course and came across the story of the first implantable pacemaker. It happened in 1958 at the Karolinska hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. This was at the tail end of a decade that is considered the golden age of cardiothoracic surgery when pioneer after pioneer introduced new... Continue Reading →
FIRST PATIENTS 