Medico-Chirurgical Transactions Research Articles

Back to the future: republishing Bradford Hill and more from our archive

We look ahead to 2015 by looking back 50 years. Any historian will tell you that the answers to our current problems can be found in events of the past. The pace of medical advance makes this concept difficult to apply to current clinical practice but last month's JRSM gave the example of the relevance of John Haygarth's work in the 18th century to our present difficulties in dealing with Ebola.1 The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has been continuously published in various guises since 1809. It was a journal before The BMJ and The Lancet came into existence. The journal has had other names. It began as Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, and with the formation of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1907 changed name to Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. This name better reflected the role of the journal in reporting on momentous presentations at the RSM. The focus of Proceedings was very much on the clinical debates and lectures at the society. But medicine changed. International meetings are now the forum for announcing clinical breakthroughs. The RSM has a different role, focused on education, updating specialists on the latest developments in the world of medicine and not just events at Wimpole Street. The journal has changed accordingly, and as the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine it seeks to educate and inform a multispecialty readership, and publish important new research of relevance to its readers. As such, the articles in JRSM don't often arise from meetings at RSM, although such articles are happily considered for publication. Historical pieces were once a mainstay of this journal. When I started as editor I made the decision to cover less medical history to leave space for content of more direct relevance to current clinical practice and health policy. There is still room though for interesting historical pieces, as a quick browse through last year's issues will confirm. Indeed, our regular section from the James Lind Library is a treasure trove of historical developments in clinical research.2 Last year, the complete back archive of JRSM dating back to 1809 was made available on the journal's website.3 Thanks to our access policy, the vast majority of this rich content is free. The pages of the journal tell the story of the major events in medicine and allow us to reflect on the challenges faced by our clinical colleagues from a different age. We might learn from their experiences. In appreciation of this history we start a new feature that will each month republish a piece from the JRSM of 50 years ago. We begin with a landmark article by Austin Bradford Hill on association and causation in epidemiology.4 An accompanying editorial by Richard Wakeford explains its importance.5 Wakeford argues that Bradford Hill's article remains of relevance today, perhaps more so than ever, and proposes that it should be required reading for the medical profession and beyond.

Jacob Lockhart Clarke's and John Hughlings Jackson's first description of syringomyelia

Jacob Lockhart Clarke's and John Hughlings Jackson's first description of syringomyelia

John Bostock's first description of hayfever

John Bostock's first description of hayfever

Benjamin Brodie's infamous case of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and an inhaled gold coin

Benjamin Brodie's infamous case of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and an inhaled gold coin

Delivered at the Royal College of Pysicians, London. By Robert Bentley Todd, M.D., F.R.S. ON THE PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OF CONVULSIVE DISEASES

Delivered at the Royal College of Pysicians, London. By Robert Bentley Todd, M.D., F.R.S. ON THE PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT OF CONVULSIVE DISEASES

The History of the Royal Society of Medicine

The History of the Royal Society of Medicine

MODERN MEDICAL AND SURGICAL TREATMENT OF PEPTIC ULCER

In 1793 Matthew Baillie of London described the morbid anatomy and symptoms of ulcer of the stomach. The first reference in medical literature to ulcer of the duodenum appeared in 1817 in the London Medico-Chirurgical Transactions . It consisted of a report by Mr. Travers of 2 cases of perforation. In 1887 Bucquoz, following a suggestion made by Abercrombie some years previously, reported 5 cases of duodenal ulcer based on the history alone, 1 of which was verified by autopsy. The principles of the medical treatment of ulcer employed today were first laid down by Cruveilhier and others nearly one hundred years ago, and the first successful operation for perforated ulcer was reported in 1894 by H. P. Dean. So it seems that this lesion has been known to us for one hundred and fifty odd years, and for some fifty years it has been subject to the surgeon's scalpel. All

Charles Hilton Fagge (1838–1883)

THIS distinguished London physician was born on June 30, 1838, at Hythe in Kent, where his family had been in practice for two generations, and was the eldest of three brothers who joined the medical profession. He was educated at Guy's Hospital, to which he was appointed assistant physician with charge of the skin department in 1867, six years after qualification, and full physician in 1880 in succession to Dr. Habershon. He was also for many years curator of the museum, for which he compiled a catalogue of the models of the diseases of the skin in 1876. His literary output was considerable. His most notable papers were the articles on "Diseases of the Valves of the Heart"contributed to Russell Reynold's “System of Medicine"and those on “Sporadic Cretinism”, “A Line on the Gums Characteristic of Lead Poisoning”, and the “Probable Cause of Lead Colic"in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. To Guy's Hospital Reports, of which he was editor for some five years, he contributed a classical paper on “Acute Dilatation of the Stomach”in 1873, in addition to other articles. In 1866-68, in collaboration with J. H. Pye-Smith, he translated and edited for the New Sydenham Society two volumes of Hebra's “Diseases of the Skin”, the translation of the remaining five being the work of Mr. Waren Tay. His work on the “Principles and Practice of Medicine”, on which he had been engaged for ten years at the time of his death, was completed and edited by Pye-Smith. The cause of his death on November 19, 1883, at the early age of forty-five years was aneurysm of the aorta, the existence of which in his own person he had discovered about eighteen months previously while demonstrating the use of the binaural stethoscope. He nevertheless preferred to die in harness, a decision which met with the approval of Osier, among others.

A CLINICAL AND HISTOLOGICAL STUDY OF A CASE OF PAGET'S DISEASE OF THE BONES WITH MULTIPLE SARCOMA FORMATION

<h3>PART I. BY L. S. FOSTER</h3> Complete reports of bone changes of a rarefying nature, with marked evidence of overgrowth and deformity, corresponding exactly with the classic description of the disease known as osteitis deformans, are exceedingly rare. The late Sir James Paget, in his graphic, masterly and original study, was the first to isolate this type from the general group of bone diseases, claiming for it a clinical and a pathological recognition as a distinct, morbid process, and, in the<i>Medico Chirurgical Transactions</i>for the year 1877, gave the histories of five cases. Five years later he had gathered together twenty-three cases and outlined a clear and concise clinical picture, to which subsequent observers have made few additions of importance. ``The disease is one beginning in advanced life, usually affecting many bones, most frequently the long bones of the lower extremity, the clavicle and the vault

ART. XVII.??? Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Published by the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. Volume the Sixty-second. 8vo

ART. XVII.??? Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Published by the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. Volume the Sixty-second. 8vo

The Pathology of Tetanus and Hydrophobia

The following are extracts from a very interesting and important paper by Dr. Coates in Vol. lxi. of the “Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.” They certainly show that if microscopic investigation is so fruitful in such “functional” diseases, we need not despair of yet demonstrating under the microscope the lesions of convolutional structure in acute mania or melancholia.

The Pathology of Tetanus and Hydrophobia

The following are extracts from a very interesting and important paper by Dr. Coates in Vol. lxi. of the “Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.” They certainly show that if microscopic investigation is so fruitful in such “functional” diseases, we need not despair of yet demonstrating under the microscope the lesions of convolutional structure in acute mania or melancholia.

Instinct

Moving in a circle IN your last week's number a letter appeared with the initials N. Y., in which it was stated that it is believed in North America that a lost man always strays in a circle towards the left. I may mention that whilst walking in a woody and hilly part of the New Forest, I found, to my great astonishment, that I had described a complete circle, and it was towards the left. My father also tells me that he has been informed (although under what circumstances he does not recollect) that the same idea obtains in Australia. It has been suggested that the reason of this fact (if fact it is) is, that the right side of the body is stronger than the left; in confirmation of the truth of this explanation, it is worthy of notice that Dr. Wm. Ogle (in a paper on Dextral Pre-eminence, Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. liv.) finds that men are right-legged as well as right-handed, although the rule has not so universal an application. One of the points adduced by him in evidence is that bootmakers generally find the right foot larger than the left.

General Index to the First Fifty-Three Volumes of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

General Index to the First Fifty-Three Volumes of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Obituary notices of fellows deceased

Dr. Benjamin Guy Babington was born in 1794. He was the son of Dr. William Babington, who, in his time, held a foremost place as a popular and successful London physician. Educated at the Charter House, he subsequently went through the usual course of study at Haileybury College then required of young men destined for the Indian Civil Service; he went out to the Madras Presidency as a member of that service in 1812. After remaining seven years in India, he was compelled by ill health to return home, and then determined to leave the Indian Service and adopt his father’s profession. With this view he entered at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and took the degree of M. B. in 1825, and that of M. D. in 1830, In the meantime he commenced practice in London, and in 1831 was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians. For the prosecution of his medical studies in London he had chosen Guy’s Hospital, where Ins father was physician, and he was himself appointed assistant physician to that Institution in 1837, and promoted to be one of the physicians in 1840. Dr. Babington was much esteemed as a clinical teacher, and was the author of papers on different professional subjects, published in the Guy’s Hospital Reports, and elsewhere; but he also engaged in researches of more general scientific interest, and among them his observations on the blood, published in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions' of 1830, deserve especial mention, inasmuch as he there showed that the liquid part of the circulating blood, or “liquor sanguinis” (a name proposed by him to distinguish it from the serum, and very generally adopted since) really contains or yields the coagulable matter, or fibrin, which solidifies in the process of coagulation. This, no doubt, was merely a confirmation by simple but well-devised experiments of the doctrine held by Hewson and his contemporaries, and accepted by most British physiologists; but the confirmation was needful and well timed on account of the erroneous views then prevailing on the continent on the authority of Prevost and Dumas. At a later time, namely in 1859, Dr. Babington communicated to the Royal Society a series of observations on the effect of various salts dissolved m water in retarding or otherwise altering the rate of spontaneous evaporation, and an abstract stating the nature and results of the experiments was published in the ‘Proceedings’ for 1859.

Supplement to a Paper Entitled Further Observations on the Structure and Treatment of Uterine Polypi, Published in the XLIV Volume of the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.’

Supplement to a Paper Entitled Further Observations on the Structure and Treatment of Uterine Polypi, Published in the XLIV Volume of the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.’

Supplement to a Paper, Entitled an Analysis of 162 Cases of Ovariotomy, Which Have Occurred in Great Britain, Published in Volume XXXIV of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Supplement to a Paper, Entitled an Analysis of 162 Cases of Ovariotomy, Which Have Occurred in Great Britain, Published in Volume XXXIV of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Supplement to a Paper on the Use of the Speculum in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Uterine Diseases, Published in the Thirty-Third Volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Supplement to a Paper on the Use of the Speculum in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Uterine Diseases, Published in the Thirty-Third Volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Sequel to a Case of Albuminous and Fatty Urine, Published in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions’ for 1850, with Some Account of Two other Cases of So-Called Chylous Urine

Sequel to a Case of Albuminous and Fatty Urine, Published in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions’ for 1850, with Some Account of Two other Cases of So-Called Chylous Urine

Supplement to a Paper on Fibro-Calcareous Tumours, and Polypi of the Uterus. Published in Volume XIX of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions

Supplement to a Paper on Fibro-Calcareous Tumours, and Polypi of the Uterus. Published in Volume XIX of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions