Journal of Medical Biography

John Hughlings Jackson was associated with the London Hospital as a Lecturer and Physician for nearly 40 years while also on the staff at The National Hospital, Queen Square. His experience at the two hospitals was complementary; sometimes, a patient would be exchanged between the two hospitals. At the London Hospital, he was especially revered by students, colleagues and even by the House Governor, for his knowledge and his contributions to neurology. His ideas helped to resolve the chaotic contemporary understanding of neurological phenomena into a coherent whole, determining the direction of future neurological research in the following century. His life and work was supported and strengthened by the help and friendship of his colleagues at the London Hospital, especially Sir Jonathan Hutchinson.

Roy Lee Moodie was a geologist whose interest in ancient disease was stimulated by his finding of pathological change in some of the fossils that he studied, including many from the Rancho La Brea site in California. He occupied teaching positions in Chicago, Dallas and Santa Monica and in 1928 began an acquaintance and a correspondence with Henry Wellcome who was then in the United States and appearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Moodie persuaded Wellcome to sponsor his palaeopathological work and the following year he was appointed palaeopathologist to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (WHMM) at a salary of six thousand dollars a year, the first person to hold such a title and the first and only occupant of the title at the WHMM or its successor organisations. He published extensively from 1915 until his death in 1934, including his great compendium Paleopathology; an Introduction to the Study of Ancient Evidences of Disease, and the collected papers of Sir Marc Armand Ruffer. He is perhaps best remembered or, at least, most widely quoted for attributing the beginnings of palaeopathology to a publication of Esper in 1774 although the passage in which he did so contained two major errors that have been perpetuated in the literature ever since, the authorship of the publication and the diagnosis of the lesion that he supposed began the study of disease in antiquity.

This paper addresses the myths surrounding the birth and death of Asclepios, the popular healing God of the Greeks and his place among other deities of the Greek Pantheon. The enigmatic invocation of Asclepios by Socrates, the Athenian philosopher condemned to take the hemlock, in his final moments is also discussed.

Samuel Holden Parsons Lee practised medicine at a time when the germ theory of disease had not yet been proposed and antibiotics remained undiscovered. In 1798 he served selflessly as the only physician in town who was willing to battle the Yellow Fever outbreak of New London, Connecticut. Because he practised at the dawn of the age of patent medicine, unfortunately his name also came to be associated with medical quackery. We argue that his contributions have been grossly underestimated. He compounded and vended medications – including bilious pills and bitters – that were gold standards of the day. Moreover, one preparation for treatment of kidney stones led to his sub-specialization in this field and was met with such success that its sale continued for nearly 100 years after his death. While a talented medical man, Lee also had a knack for business, finding success in trading, whaling and real estate.

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, mathematician, inventor, and correspondent of Spinoza, is often thought to have studied medicine at Leiden, though documentation of this fact has been lacking. Tschirnhaus’ medical education is here documented, along with the nature of his medical practice.

Dr James Marion Sims was born in 1813 in Lancaster County, South Carolina. It was while pioneering numerous surgical procedures in Alabama that in 1849 he achieved the outstanding landmark in medical history of successfully, and consistently, repairing vesicovaginal fistulae. Sims soon developed a reputation as a fine surgeon, with new operations and techniques, using novel surgical instruments and his innovative approaches frequently published. Moving to New York City in 1853, he further established hospitals devoted entirely to women’s health. Sims was controversial, with flamboyant descriptions of self-confident success, yet they were tempered with sober reflection of failure and loss. Today we remain with the Sims speculum and Sims position, eponymous tributes to his accomplishments as the ‘Father of Gynaecology’.

Notwithstanding the traditional belief that disciples of Jesus Christ introduced Christianity into China, conclusive evidence showed that it was the Nestorian missionaries who entered China in AD 635. Alongside commercial contacts between the West and China during the prosperous T’ang dynasty (618–906), trepanation, bloodletting and the universal antidote theriac were introduced from the Byzantium Empire. Nestorian Christians built churches throughout China and offered some form of medical services. During the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1260–1368), foreign physicians were present in the Royal Court; the most famous was the astronomer, linguist and physician Ai-hsieh (Isaiah), Head of the Imperial Medical Bureau. With the fall of this dynasty, Christianity, being primarily the faith of a foreign community, naturally fell into oblivion. It was not until the sixteenth-century’s Age of Discovery when a safe sea route to China was found that a new phase of Christian missionaries began.

The contemporary records of Queen Anne's health and disease are reviewed, including the strange diagnoses made and the treatments prescribed. A correct diagnosis is suggested.