Journal of Medical Biography

The 150th anniversary of the death of Sir John Forbes passed on 13 November 2011 perhaps unnoticed except in his native land. This memoir is an attempt to remind the medical profession of some of his achievements and of the value of percussion and auscultation in the bedside diagnosis of diseases of the heart and lungs.

In addition to the holdings at Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Musée du Pasteur Institut à Paris, major parts of la Bibliothèque de Louis Pasteur are in four institutions in the United States – Reynolds Historical Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama; Burndy Library on the History of Science and Technology at Huntington Library in San Marino, California; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at University of Texas in Austin, Texas; and Truman G Blocker History of Medicine Collections, The Moody Medical Library, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas. The circuitous paths that led each part of la Bibliothèque de Louis Pasteur to their present locations were traced and the lives of key individuals in medicine, science and the humanities who obtained these valuable documents were recounted. The documents in each institution were discussed and a plan was considered to make them accessible to scholars who wish to further explore the life of Louis Pasteur.

The War of 1812–14 between the United States of America and Great Britain gave rise to several journals relating the sufferings of prisoners of war confined in prison ships and gaols in England. One of these is A Journal of a Young Man from Massachusetts, said to have been written by Dr Amos G Babcock, an American ship’s surgeon, and first published in 1816. This article sets out arguments for and against the truth of this assertion.

Andrea Pasta was an eclectic visionary light years ahead of his time. He made numerous contributions to the field of medicine, some recognized by his contemporaries and others so visionary that they are being applied only in modern times. His contributions spanned the disciplines of psychology, gynaecology, haematology, infectious diseases and the doctor–patient relationship. Well known among his contemporaries, he combined a passion for clinical medicine and a keen interest in history and art with a strict research methodology and an approach to caring for patients as human beings. By studying his life and works, we can better understand the magnitude and significance of his innovative method and its applicability in modern times and also the significance of his many contributions.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British physicians led the way in tropical medicine research. Several years later scientific advances had slowed, and Fairley's numerous contributions were thus most welcome. Neil Hamilton Fairley was born of Scottish parents at Victoria, Australia. After qualification at Melbourne, he joined the Australian Army Medical Service (AAMS) and after several minor research projects, made valuable contributions to the understanding of tropical sprue at Bombay (now Mumbai), India. However, Fairley's major researches were carried out during World War II (1939–45). Together with J S K Boyd he demonstrated the great value of sulphaguanidine in bacillary dysentery. Working in northern Australia and the south-Pacific region, he both contributed to elucidation of the Plasmodium vivax life-cycle, and more importantly demonstrated the value of alternative anti-malarial compounds to quinine (which was not readily available). Back in London after the war, Fairley briefly occupied the Wellcome Chair of Tropical Medicine, strongly supported London's clinical tropical medicine, and was subsequently knighted in 1950.

Maria Polydouri was a notable Greek poet. Often likened to the French poètes maudits, her poetry reflected a lyrical charisma and her unsettled life an untimely ending. The passing of both her parents within less than two months when she was aged 18 and her incomplete, desperate affair with the syphilitic poet Kostas Karyotakis, defined her existence. She took up many uncompleted occupations and remained socially committed. It seems that in 1923 she caught tuberculosis that was diagnosed ultimately in 1927 and led to her hospitalization at first in Paris and later in Athens. A progressive and restless spirit until the end, she wrote her best poems while in hospital. Polydouri’s final years and death received national attention and marked her out as a Greek literary legend.

This article discusses the work of pioneering surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe and particularly his reconstructive surgery and patient-centred approach during the Second World War. It also covers how this affected the lives of his patients and the subsequent formation of the Guinea Pig Club.

Born in San Francisco in 1874 into the family of German immigrants in which he was the only one to proceed beyond elementary education, Joseph Erlanger graduated from the University of California (Berkeley) in 1894. He was about to enter the local Cooper Medical School when he was told that the new medical school in Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) aimed to surpass all others, and there he graduated and was later coached for a career in academic life by William H Howell (1860–1945). In due course he held the Chairs of Physiology in the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Washington University at St Louis, Missouri. He showed that the Bundle of His is indeed the functional link between the atria and the ventricles in the mammalian heart and that the Korotkoff sounds are produced by a ‘breaker’ phenomenon resulting from instability of the pulse wave in a partially occluded artery. With Herbert S Gasser (1888–1963) he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944 for their work on action currents in peripheral nerve fibres. The history of science occupied him during his retirement. He died at St Louis in 1965.

Letitia Fairfield – doctor, lawyer, public health worker, feminist and war worker – was a woman of surprising contradictions. She displayed some eccentric tendencies that sometimes did not sit comfortably with her role as a medical professional; she was, for example, a believer in witchcraft and a convert to Roman Catholicism. However, she made great contributions to medicine throughout her active career and did so during a period in which female access to medical education was limited. Few of her female or male peers received such respect or oversaw such change. Despite pushing contemporary professional boundaries and reaching a level of seniority unusual for female doctors of her era, however, Letitia was, whether through choice or through convention, channelled into traditionally female areas of medicine. Thus, her medical success arguably was due not only to her motivation and capability but also because she represented no real competition to men.