Journal of Medical Biography

When William Osier (1849–1919), at the age of 35, moved from Montreal to Philadelphia (the leading medical centre in the United States) in 1884, Jacob Mendez Da Costa (1833–1900) was 51, and Chair of Practice at Jefferson Medical College. During Osier's five frenetic years in Philadelphia, he and Da Costa shared medical and professional experiences, interactions with friends and colleagues, and participation in the leading medical organizations in the United States. The shared experiences reflect Philadelphia in the 1880s, the traditions, the times and the individuals. Although Da Costa was considered the greatest clinical teacher of his day, his career embodied Quaker Philadelphia and his legacy does not reflect the stature of the clinician and the man. In time, Osier became Sir William Osier, a man for the ages.

This paper gives the first published English translation of William Harvey's epitaph. The translation is based on a re-examination of the stone itself, and is accompanied by an explanatory commentary.

Paracelsus lived during the Renaissance. His sober spirit of scientific observation and critical reason were accompanied by emotional turbulence and a volcanic temperament. He remains both a mystery and an object of nostalgia. Paracelsus is today celebrated as the first modern medical scientist. Paracelsus' early life, achievements and latter years are described.

This paper describes the microscopic studies of human and experimental cancers made by Henry Wade during the years 1904–9. William Ford Robertson, his mentor, and Wade claimed to have discovered a microbial cause of human cancer. The claim was at once fiercely disputed. Wade turned to the investigation of a transmissible sarcoma of the dog, during which he demonstrated an early form of immune transplant rejection. He also undertook studies of Hodgkin's disease. Later in life, Wade established urological surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

The contributions of the Huguenot physician John Andree to the founding of the London Hospital in 1740, and to the development of the new voluntary hospital in its early years, are assessed in the context of his own special interests. These included his promotion of the merits of Tilbury water, his observations on epilepsy and his criticism of the use of hemlock for the treatment of cancer.

The samurai chemist Jokichi Takamine (1854–1922) crystallized adrenalin, the first hormone to be isolated in the twentieth century, from the adrenal medulla, in the summer of 1900. This paper reviews Takamine's route to the discovery of adrenalin and presents historical photographs and documents collected in Kanazawa, Japan, where he grew up, and the United States, where he made his major discoveries.

A medical practitioner, Professor Cottard, features in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, which has been described as one of the supreme achievements of world literature. Proust modelled the character of Cottard on the real-life Parisian neurologist and psychiatrist Dr Jules Cotard (1840–1889). Marcel Proust's father, Dr Adrien Proust, was an eminent Parisian surgeon and a contemporary of Cotard. A review of the biographical literature (in French) relating to Dr Jules Cotard and an analysis of his published work (in English and French) have revealed a striking parallelism between the lives of the fictional Cottard and Jules Cotard.

William West was an early-nineteenth-century successful small-town surgeon-apothecary who took a major role in the local movement for medical reform. He published the first series of ovariotomies in England in 1837. His son suffered from a type of infantile spasm which West described in the Lancet in 1841, and which is now known as West's syndrome.

The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus, which dates back nearly five millennia, is the oldest known medical text and contains the first written example of the word “brain”, as well as the earliest known descriptions of the meninges and the cerebrospinal fluid. The papyrus describes 48 cases and gives the first accounts of several forms of brain injury and their associated complications. The Egyptian author presents an analytical approach to the reported cases and classifies them as favourable, uncertain or intractable, depending on prognosis. The authors believe that case 20 of the papyrus presents the first possible case of aphasia, which occurred following head trauma. The patient, frustrated by his inability to speak, developed nuchal stiffness, which might have been due to meningeal irritation. The case concludes with the advice that a patient with such a grave condition should only be comforted, not treated.

In 1973 Mr Richard Hughes, who was working on the third novel of his trilogy on the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, came to see me regarding a document, some 300 pages long, on the medical treatment given by Dr Theodore Morell to Hitler. The document had been obtained at the Nuremberg war trials. My original report to Hughes on the content of this document is reproduced here.